Deadly Inheritance (38 page)

‘One thing is not clear to me,’ he said. ‘The nursemaid was a member of your family’s household but you want me to open my investigations in the village. Surely I need to start with the people she worked with?’ For it was almost certainly someone in the household who had got the girl pregnant.

The Colonel took his gold fob watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted the time. ‘As I think I told you, all the necessary enquiries have been conducted in the house. I may not have mentioned, though, that my brother, the Earl, is not in agreement with me that the matter of Polly’s death should be taken further.’

Brilliant, thought Thomas sourly, a family feud! He almost refused the assignment there and then.

‘In addition,’ the Colonel continued, ‘there is to be a fête at the house in a couple of days to celebrate my mother’s birthday. Until that’s over, nobody will have time to answer questions. It will, therefore, be best for you to begin your enquiries in Hinton Parva; I am sure there will be information to be unearthed. Polly came from the nearby orphanage and spent such time off as she had in the village. It will probably be best if you provide some other reason why you are there than that you have been asked to make enquiries on my behalf.’

That might well be, but Thomas was certain that the Mountstanton household would yield more important answers. He sat considering matters while the Colonel returned his watch to its pocket and sat patiently watching him.

‘What if you do not like what I discover? There will be nothing official about my investigation; you could well decide to ignore my findings.’

The Colonel’s gaze remained steady. ‘I want justice for Polly. If you can establish how she died, I shall do everything I can to see that the law swings into action.’

This was the soldier speaking. Thomas, though, had a niggling feeling that there was something this man was not telling him; that if he said ‘yes’, he would be stepping into a situation beyond his control. But the temptation to accept this chance was too great.

‘If you really mean what you say, sir, then I will take the case on.’

Colonel Stanhope stood up with an air of relief. ‘Good man. Now, you will need directions on how to get down to Hinton Parva. You are on your own when you arrive but I will contact you after you have had an opportunity to conduct some enquiries.’ He retrieved an envelope from an inside pocket and handed it to Thomas. ‘Here are the details, some expenses and an advance on your fee.’

This man had been very confident he would be willing to do what he asked. He looked again at the decisive set of the Colonel’s shoulders and did not know whether to be reassured or wary. He put the envelope on a table.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I will go down to Hinton Parva this afternoon.’ He opened the door to show his visitor out.

The Colonel, though, stayed where he was. ‘Miss Grandison, the American woman who found Polly’s body, is a person of sense. She also is dissatisfied with the coroner’s verdict. Her current mobility is limited; she walks with a stick, owing to her ankle injury. So if you come across her in Hinton Parva, she should be instantly recognisable.’ He paused for a moment. ‘She is unusual, has a lively mind and is not afraid to speak it. On my return to Mountstanton, I shall tell her that you are to investigate the matter. If you do meet up, you may find it valuable to discuss any findings you have made with her.’

Thomas hid how startled he was. In his experience, gentlemen, especially military gentlemen, did not regard women as worthy partners in this sort of investigation. Miss Grandison must be a remarkable female.

That had all taken place three days ago. Since then much had happened. He had managed to extract several useful pieces of information from certain villagers and the landlord had been most helpful. Yesterday, while the fête had taken place, the village had been deserted, so Thomas had walked through the wood to Mountstanton. He had inspected the slope the nursemaid had fallen down, then slipped into the celebrations. Nobody had challenged him but the size and majesty of the house had made him realise the complexity of his assignment. He had returned to the pub and a productive few hours with Sam Fry.

Now he shifted the box he was carrying from one arm to the other and took another look at the escarpment where Polly had met her death. He tried to imagine what Miss Grandison had seen from here.

The Colonel had been right that he would have no trouble in recognising the woman from America. What he had not told Thomas was how attractive she was. Not a beauty, certainly, but with very fine grey eyes, a creamy complexion and a lively expression. As he’d confronted her outside the village shop, he’d admired the perky little tricorne hat that rested on the rich chestnut hair. Altogether, Miss Grandison presented a most pleasing picture. Yet the Colonel had chosen to describe her as a woman of sense!

Thomas’s initial pleasure in meeting her rapidly vanished at her cold response to his greeting. The Colonel could not have alerted her to his presence in Hinton Parva. So he’d withdrawn and hoped that by the time they next met, she would know exactly who he was and why he was there. But her reception of him that morning at the big house had not been any warmer.

He looked down the precipitous slope. How would the haughty Miss Grandison have looked plunging down the hill, her long legs tumbling over and over before landing with a huge splash in the river? Thomas chided himself; he was here to give himself another chance to work out what had happened to the nursemaid, Polly, as requested, not to daydream about a woman who had made it plain she had no time for an ex-detective of police.

Thomas glanced again down the treacherous slope to the river. Unless you stood right at the edge of the little plateau, he reckoned there was no danger of falling. Miss Grandison, if he understood aright, had not fallen from here, she had decided to climb down. Studying what she had taken on, Thomas could not help feeling a certain respect for a woman who could set out so dauntlessly, or should that be recklessly?

He placed his burden, wrapped in a piece of chenille fabric, onto the soft turf, sat beside it and turned his attention back to the nursemaid. She could surely not have fallen from here by accident. He had already inspected the clear spot further back in the wood that he’d learned in Hinton Parva was known as ‘lovers’ lawn’. The trees and undergrowth that gave it shelter also provided perfect cover for eavesdroppers, enabling them to spy without danger of being spotted.

Is that what Mr Snell had been in the habit of doing? The man had been known as the village busybody, always sticking his nose into other people’s business. He appeared to have resented his unpopularity, constantly trying to repay slights with malevolence.

Thomas reviewed what he knew about Snell’s death the night before the inquest. The doctor had apparently claimed he recognised pinpoints of blood in the dead man’s eyes, an unmistakeable indication that he had been smothered – in other words, unlawfully killed. But after that, nothing seemed to have happened. Sam Fry had told Thomas that the doctor had later said he’d made a mistake. The light in the bedroom had not been good. When the body had been transferred into the local morgue, he’d found no bloody pinpricks in the eyes.

‘I reckon he was right sorry he’d come out with something like that. Should have kept any such opinion to hisself,’ Sam had said yesterday afternoon, refilling their ale glasses.

Had this, wondered Thomas, been another case of privilege circumventing due processes of law? Or had the doctor got carried away with the drama of the situation? In his mind’s eye he could see the lad running in with the news that Mr Snell was dead and the doctor bustling over, perhaps already half convinced he was going to find something strange. Had he, in fact, ever seen those ‘pin pricks of blood’ in the eyes of anyone who had been smothered? Had it been a case of a pillow lying on the floor beside the bed that suggested such a matter to him?

He’d questioned Sam.

‘No one cares,’ Sam had said. ‘No one liked that long-nosed good-for-nothing, who never bought no round for no one. We was all heartily glad he died.’

Had anyone sorted out his possessions? Thomas asked nonchalantly. And what of his nearest kin?

‘Nah,’ Sam had spat onto the floor. ‘No one’s come forward yet. House is locked up. Constable has the key.’

Thomas had tidied away the information in the back of his mind.

Then had come his summons to Mountstanton House.

Now the Earl’s death had thrown his embryonic theories as to what had happened to the nursemaid up into the air. It was, perhaps, natural that the Colonel was not thinking straight enough after his brother’s death to connect it with the previous one, but Thomas was certain there had to be a connection. Just as he was certain that the Earl had not taken his own life; if ever a death scene had been staged, it was that one. Someone had killed him.

Had that person also killed Polly and Snell? If so, why?

Thomas stood up again, and tried to imagine exactly what had happened on this sunny spot.

The edge of the escarpment did not look a suitable spot for meeting anyone. He was certain that Polly had had an assignation with someone but that it would surely have been at lover’s lawn. The post-mortem had detected a blow to the head and the coroner had decided it had been inflicted by one of the stones on the slope as she had crashed to her death. Thomas could think of other possibilities.

Until last night’s summons, Thomas had been moving towards the theory that the Earl was responsible for both the girl’s condition and her death, and probably for the death of Snell as well, if Miss Grandison’s report of what Miss Ranner had seen on the night of his death could be believed. There was, though, a remarkable lack of evidence. And it was evidence that Thomas needed; without that, theories could never be transformed into arrests. Thomas had not been relishing the necessity of informing the Colonel how important it was that he talked to the household staff. Staff always knew exactly what was going on with their masters and mistresses, especially when it involved one of themselves. Now his theory was out of the window.

Which was why, late this afternoon, he had broken the law.

Armed with the note of authority given to him by the Colonel, Thomas’s day had been spent questioning villagers. More than anything, this was the source of his frustration. These were not streetwise cockneys and it wasn’t as if he was still trying to obtain information regarding the dead nursemaid. No, it had been merely a few enquiries into what people had seen during the Mountstanton fête. With them all concerned about the shocking news of the Earl’s death, you would have thought questioning them would have been a piece of cake.

Instead, he’d met with blank stares and replies of such extreme stupidity, he knew some misplaced sense of loyalty to the big house had gripped everyone he spoke to. His usual ability to charm witnesses into talking had failed. Perhaps he had been foolish to imagine it would work here. He was used to urban localities where rivalries were rife and he could manipulate witnesses to spill the dirt on others; he was not used to societies that could bind together with such blind loyalty. It was as if the Stanhopes owned them.

He looked again at the item sitting on the grass beside him. His next step was clear. Thomas got to his feet and resumed walking towards the Mountstanton estate.

The butler was not exactly frosty but he made Thomas feel he should have applied to the back door. ‘Colonel Stanhope is expecting me,’ Thomas said.

‘Colonel Charles is engaged,’ the butler said. ‘He has asked not to be disturbed.’

‘Is Miss Grandison available?’

‘Will you wait here whilst I enquire?’ The butler eyed the chenille-wrapped burden Thomas was carrying, but disappeared without comment.

Well used to the Mountstanton hall by now, Thomas ignored its various uncomfortable chairs and waited by the long table at the back, which seemed to offer some sort of game. While he waited, he amused himself studying the markings along its length.

Before he could work out their import, there came the tap of a stick and Miss Grandison’s voice. ‘Mr Jackman?’

He turned.

Dressed in the cream skirt and shirt she had worn that morning, the American woman’s expression was reserved. Once again Thomas was faced with the feeling that she did not trust him. Was it just that she was a foreigner and did not understand the English? Or had she some reason for not giving him the same confidence as the Colonel seemed to offer?

‘You have something to report, I am sure.’

He saw her take note of what he carried. ‘The Colonel is with lawyers; they were summoned from London this morning. He does not expect to be available for some time. Please, come with me.’

He followed her along a corridor and into a room with little of the faded glory that seemed to be the style of the house he had seen so far. Its aura of tobacco and lack of flimflams made him feel almost comfortable.

Thomas unwrapped and set down his burden, then looked straight at the woman. ‘You don’t trust me, do you, Miss Grandison?’

He expected her to be taken aback at the directness of his approach. Instead she answered, ‘I have learned to wait before trusting people I know nothing about, Mr Jackman. Is that hatbox you are carrying Polly’s? If so, are you about to tell me where you found it and what it contains?’

He had wanted it to be the Colonel he confronted with this evidence. Once again, he wondered what the relationship was between this suspicious woman and the Colonel. She seemed to have his confidence, but from the way he’d described her there seemed no chance of what Thomas thought of as a normal relationship a man would have with a woman.

The box sat on a table between them. ‘I found it in Mr Snell’s house. It stuck out; not something that belonged, if you know what I mean. So I opened it and found this …’ He took off the lid, removed a note and held it out to her.

Miss Grandison made no move to take it from him. ‘What were you doing in Mr Snell’s house?’

‘Ah, well, I heard it had just been left, see? Waiting for someone to claim the contents, so my landlord said. Didn’t sound as though Constable Roberts had searched the place so I reckoned there was a good chance of unfinished business there. Maybe evidence of some sort.’