Kitabı oku: «A Fatal Secret», sayfa 4
Chapter 9
Unaware of the housekeeper’s angst, Trudy and Clement made their way through a sudden spell of welcome sunshine towards a tall, mellowing red-brick wall that Clement guessed might provide the shelter for the kitchen gardens.
Passing through a small archway, upon which climbed a splendid clematis that was just beginning to leaf, he caught sight, off to the left, of the square walls and grey-slated roof of a smaller house. It looked very much like a miniature replica of the Hall itself, and catching sight of it too, Trudy frowned at it thoughtfully.
Seeing her notice it, Clement smiled. ‘The dower house, no doubt,’ he said.
Trudy frowned. ‘What’s a dower house?’
‘In the old days, the lord of the manor’s wife ruled the household,’ Clement explained. ‘But when their eldest son married, the new lady of the manor and the mother-in-law didn’t always hit it off. So it became a tradition, when the old lord of the manor died, that his widow – or dowager – would move out into an establishment of her own. Usually, like the case here’ – he nodded towards the house – ‘into a smaller version of the big house itself. She’d take her own staff and maids and what have you with her, and still have a home of her own where she could continue to rule the roost, leaving her daughter-in-law – the new lady of the manor – in possession of the main residence.’
‘Oh,’ Trudy said. Then couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ll bet that wasn’t always done with much grace,’ she muttered, making her friend laugh.
‘I don’t suppose it was,’ Clement agreed.
They stepped through into the high-walled kitchen garden and looked around with pleasure. It reminded Trudy a bit of her dad’s allotment, only on a much larger and more ornamental scale.
A tall, rather shambling man, with longish brown hair and a weather-beaten face was slowly and carefully training some pear tree saplings to grow along a south-facing wall. He glanced at them with vague curiosity as they stepped through the arch, but it was an older man, almost certainly the head gardener, who approached them first.
He’d been checking under some old galvanised tin tubs to see how the forced rhubarb was getting on, and now he rubbed his hands against the thighs of his not particularly clean trousers as he welcomed them. He had a shock of thick white hair and thick white bushy eyebrows over pale-blue eyes, and was already acquiring a tan, even so early in the season. It had the effect of making the crow’s feet wrinkles at the corners of his eyes appear whiter than they should.
‘Hello, sir, er… madam,’ he said, clearly not sure how to address either one of them. ‘Was you wantin’ someone from the house?’ Clearly strangers in the gardens were not a common occurrence.
‘Not really,’ Clement said, introducing himself and his companion. ‘We’re here because Mr Martin de Lacey has asked us to look into the circumstances surrounding Eddie Proctor’s accident.’
Instantly, the old man’s face fell. ‘Ar, that was a bad business, that was. Mr de Lacey is getting workmen in to fill up the old well.’
Clement nodded. ‘Perhaps that’s a good thing. With the boy’s father continuing to work here and all. Do you know Mr Proctor well, Mr… er…?’
‘Oh, Cricklade sir, Leonard Cricklade. I’m the head gardener here. But that old well came under the jurisdiction, strictly speaking, of the estate manager…’
Clement held his hands up quickly. ‘Oh, we’re not here to apportion blame, or cast any stones, Mr Cricklade. I was the coroner at the boy’s inquest, and I’m satisfied that the organisers of the event made it clear that the children were to stay within these walls.’ As he spoke, he glanced around at the large, walled-in garden with pleasure. ‘I’ve now talked to several of the children who were here that morning, and none of them were aware that Eddie had wandered off.’
‘No doubt he’d still be alive now if he’d stayed put,’ the old man agreed heavily, and joined Clement in glancing around at his domain.
Among the compost heaps, bean poles, various sheds and rows of well-tended vegetables and odd flowerbeds the coroner could well see that any amount of small eggs could have been hidden in this haven.
‘Did you notice the boy leave the garden that morning? And if you did, was he with anyone?’ Trudy asked hopefully, but the old man quickly shook his head.
‘No, weren’t working that day, see, seeing as it was Easter Sunday and all. Me and the missus were in chapel. Methodists, see. We had gone into Oxford.’
‘Of course,’ Trudy murmured. ‘So it was only the organisers of the hunt who were here. None of the family came to watch, for instance?’ she probed delicately.
‘Don’t think so. Well, Miss Emily and Master George would have been here, like, searching for the eggs along with the rest of the village kiddies. But none of the adults from up at the Hall, I shouldn’t think. Mr de Lacey, he don’t mind doing his bit for the village – letting the fete committee have run of the lower paddock and such. But he’s not much of a one for interferin’ like. He says he’d only get under people’s feet.’
Clement hid a smile. He could well understand why Martin de Lacey would prefer to avoid bucolic village festivities in favour of a drink at his club.
‘What about those in the dower house?’ Trudy asked. ‘Are there any de Laceys currently living there now? Might they have seen anything do you suppose?’
‘Mr Oliver de Lacey and his mother live there. Have done many years since. No, they wouldn’t have been present. Mr Oliver is a bachelor still, and so a’course don’t have no kiddies of his own. His mother is a widow – she was married to Mr Clive, the younger brother of Mr Martin de Lacey’s father. I think she was probably in town anyway. She prefers to spend holidays and such in London with friends and her own family.’
‘Oh I see,’ Trudy said. Well, so much for any potential witnesses within the de Lacey family.
‘We will be talking to the members of the WI and the other organisers involved in the Easter egg hunt soon,’ Clement said smoothly. ‘But can you think of anyone else who might have been here at the time? Maybe one of your gardener’s boys for instance,’ Clement said, nodding towards the man expertly training the pear trees. Although he was nearing his forties, no doubt the head gardener thought of him as one of his ‘boys’.
‘Who? Lallie? Oh no, sir. None of the lads were working. They had time off because of the holiday see, like me. Mr de Lacey is good like that. Besides, Lallie doesn’t like fuss and rumpus. He’s a bit simple-like, sir,’ he confessed, lowering his voice a little, lest the man hear them. ‘Had a bad war, see. Doesn’t like loud noises and lots of people. Mind you, he’s fond of young’uns sir, and wouldn’t hurt a fly, he wouldn’t,’ he added anxiously, lest the coroner get the wrong idea.
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ Clement reassured him mildly. ‘I suppose he knew the boy though?’
‘O yerse, sir, we all did, sir, and right fond of him we were too,’ the head gardener said sadly. ‘Being such a particular friend of Miss Emily and all, he was always about, the two of ’em running wild. Mind you, they didn’t do no damage. We often saw them about the place, playing hide-and-seek and cops and robbers and whatnot. And helping themselves to the fruit and all, when they come into season,’ he added, with a wry smile. ‘Young Eddie was rather fond of the golden raspberries, as I recall. I used to pretend to try and catch ’em out, but always made enough noise so they heard me coming and took off, gigglin’ like.’ Suddenly his face fell as he realised that he wouldn’t have to do that ever again.
‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Cricklade,’ Clement said quickly, before the old man could dwell on it. Then, as a seeming afterthought, he added, ‘The family’s housekeeper…?’
‘Mrs Roper, sir?’
‘Yes. She seems rather, er, protective of the family?’ He offered the opening gambit gingerly. In his opinion, servants either liked to gossip about each other, or shut up like clams. But he was betting that the housekeeper’s prickly personality and obvious sense of entitlement hadn’t won her any favour with the rest of the staff.
The old man grinned wryly. ‘Oh yes, sir, she be that. Of course, her and the old Lady, Mrs Vivienne – Mr de Lacey’s mother – were like this,’ he said, holding up his hands and entwining two fingers together. ‘So you can understand it, I ’spect.’
‘Oh I see. It sounds as if she’s been here some years?’
‘Oh yes, sir. Not that she’s a villager, mind. Born and raised in Brighton she was,’ the old man said, shaking his head and making the seaside town sound as if it were on a level standing with Sodom or Gomorrah. ‘But she met a lad from the village here when he was billeted near Hove during the war, and he married her and brought her back here to live. The old lady took a shine to her and so she went into service like. At first, it was supposed to be just while her Wilf was off fighting. But he didn’t come back from the war, o’course, like a lot of our brave lads didn’t, and so she sort of took to devoting herself to her mistress, like, as the ladies sometimes do. Yerse, real devoted to Mrs Vivienne, she was.’
Clement nodded. Yes, that explained quite a lot.
‘Well, we shall probably see you around from time to time, Mr Cricklade. If, in the meantime, you can think of anything you think we should know, just say so,’ Clement adjured him heartily.
The old man, however, looked slightly puzzled at this. ‘Like what, sir?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Well. Did Eddie ever look worried or scared that you can recall? Did he ever confide in you about anything that troubled him? Did anything you saw him doing strike you as odd? Did you ever see him talking to strangers?’
‘Oh right you are, sir. But I can tell you now, there was nothing like that. He was just a happy, normal little kiddie. And as for strangers…’ The old man shrugged graphically. ‘Round here, everyone knows everyone, if you see what I mean, sir. And like as not, everyone knows everyone’s business before you even know it yourself.’
Clement, who’d also grown up in a small village, did.
‘Mind you,’ the old man said, then hesitated when both Trudy and Clement looked at him keenly.
‘Yes?’ Clement urged.
‘Well, it might mean nothing, sir,’ the old man began, clearly reluctant to start what he’d finished. He began to shuffle his feet and looked uncomfortable, glancing up at the big house, then away again.
‘It’s all right, the squire has given us carte blanche to ask anything we want,’ Clement said.
The old man nodded. He might not have understood the fancy French-sounding words, but he got the gist of it all right. He sighed heavily.
‘Ar, well… See, sir, it’s on account of something sort of odd the boy said to me once.’
‘When was this exactly?’ Clement asked sharply.
‘Oh, a week or so before Easter, I reckon it must have been. I caught him tearing across the kitchen garden, almost trampling some strawberry plants. Told him to keep off. There was no harm in him, sir, but he could run a bit wild and be careless like, like all kiddies when they’re playing “chase” and such.’
‘I’m sure he was a good lad,’ Clement said, trying to keep a check on his impatience. ‘But what was it he said that made you worry?’
‘Well, not to say I worried, as such,’ the gardener said cautiously. ‘I just didn’t understand what he meant, sir. He asked me if all grown-ups were rich.’
Clement blinked. ‘Well, that sounds pretty normal to me. I suppose to most children, grown-ups always seem to have more money than they do!’
‘Yes, sir, that’s more or less what I told him, an’ all.’ The old man grinned. ‘But then he looked up at me, all serious like, and said something like, “Yes, but are they usually mad when you find out?” Well, sir, that sort of stumped me a bit,’ the old gardener admitted.
‘So what did you say?’ Clement asked, intrigued.
‘I asked him if someone was mad at him, and he shrugged, and said he thought they might be.’
‘Did he say who?’
‘No, sir, he didn’t. At that point, young Miss Emily, who he was playing chase with, ran up and “tagged” him and the pair went haring off. ’Course, at the time, I just forgot about it.’ The old man scratched his nose and looked uneasily at the coroner. ‘But now… well, it just makes me wonder a bit, what he could have meant, like.’
Clement nodded. He could well see how it might. A young boy hints that he’s got on the wrong side of somebody, and a week later, he’s found dead at the bottom of a well. He would wonder a bit too.
‘Well, I’m sure you have nothing to reproach yourself for, Mr Cricklade,’ he said heartily. ‘Children often say things that don’t amount to much.’
‘Thank ’ee, sir,’ the old man said, feeling at least better for having got things off his chest.
They took their leave of the old man, who set off to check his new potatoes for black fly, and Trudy looked at the coroner sharply.
‘Do you really think the poor lad had made an enemy of somebody?’ she asked.
‘It certainly sounds possible,’ Clement agreed. ‘But whether or not anybody will actually admit to having had cross words with him is another matter.’
‘It’s beginning to feel more and more as if the accident might not have been such an accident after all, doesn’t it?’ she mused tentatively.
Clement nodded. ‘It does, rather, doesn’t it?’ he agreed gravely.
‘Something tells me this investigation is going to be difficult though,’ she said dryly.
Clement paused to light his pipe, took a few puffs, and then shrugged. ‘Well, so what if it is? It’s nice to be out and about in the springtime, isn’t it, instead of cooped up in our respective offices.’
A blackbird, busy finding nesting material, chose that moment to burst into song, and with a smile, Trudy had to agree with him. Anything that got her out from under the watchful, disapproving eye of DI Jennings was all right in her book.
‘So, where next?’ she asked more cheerfully.
Clement nodded towards the roof of the dower house. ‘Well, why not call in at the dower house and see if anybody there was more observant than our Mr Cricklade?’
Chapter 10
At the dower house they were again out of luck. Neither of the residents, it seemed, were at home.
This time, at Trudy’s suggestion, they had gone around to the back and to the kitchen entrance, which meant that a maid admitted them to the house. She appeared to be a village girl born and bred, still feeling happy to have her first job with ‘the family’.
Perhaps her relative inexperience led her to rashly inviting them into the kitchen, where the cook – a middle-aged, comfortably padded woman – looked on them with less enthusiasm.
But the coroner soon had her eating out of his hand, and within a few minutes, both he and Trudy were seated at the cook’s well-scrubbed kitchen table, eating wonderful, still slightly warm scones with home-made plum jam, and sipping from large mugs of tea.
Mrs Jones, the cook, had nothing but sympathy for the Proctors.
‘That poor little lad,’ she said, seeming pleased that her jam was going down well with her handsome, silver-haired visitor. ‘To think of him falling down that well. It don’t bear thinking about.’ She shuddered theatrically, and gave a mournful sigh. ‘Poor Miss Emily was distraught, I heard Mr Oliver say the other day. And I don’t wonder at it.’
‘I don’t suppose you saw anything odd that morning, Mrs Jones, did you?’ Trudy asked, surreptitiously licking her sticky fingers and hoping that nobody else had noticed. Was it only her who couldn’t seem to eat jam and scones without making a mess of it?
‘No, lovey, I wasn’t here,’ the cook said quickly. ‘On account of Mrs Sylvia being in London with her aunt and uncle, and Mr Oliver insisting I take the Easter weekend off, like.’
‘They sound like thoughtful employers,’ Trudy encouraged gently.
‘Oh they are. Mrs Sylvia’s no trouble, and lives real quiet here. Mind you, I suppose she feels it a little bit. Being here at Mr Martin’s grace and favour as it were.’
The cook said this blandly enough, but Clement knew when bait was being cast under his nose, and smoothly reached out for another scone. ‘Hope you don’t mind, but these are really delicious!’
The cook flushed with pleasure, and he said casually, ‘I suppose Mrs Sylvia is regarded as being a bit of a poor relation then? Not a very enviable role to have to play, I’ve always thought,’ he said mildly.
‘Well, she has her husband’s war pension,’ the cook said judiciously, ‘and her son, Mr Oliver, he’s very well thought of in the government. A very clever man, he is,’ she said, with obvious pride. ‘One of them dons at Oxford. And he has an important job in London, as an Adviser.’
She said the last word with an obvious capital letter, and a slightly hushed tone of reverence.
‘Ahh,’ Clement said, matching her hushed tone with a conspiratorial smile of his own. ‘Well, things don’t sound too bad for them then. I suppose the house belongs to the head of the family though?’ he added, glancing around casually.
‘Oh yes. But the old lady, Vivienne – her what’s been dead for the past ten years or so – she insisted Clive have this house when he brought his bride home. And when he died in the war, there was never no question that Mrs Sylvia and Oliver would continue to live on here. Mind you, recently… well, that’s nothing and least said, soonest mended,’ she suddenly veered off, as if realising that she was on the verge of becoming truly indiscreet.
And Trudy, not wanting her to start feeling uncomfortable, quickly steered the conversation back to the matter in hand.
‘It must have come as a terrible shock when you heard about poor Eddie,’ she said. ‘I take it you know the Proctors well?’
‘Oh yes. Well, as well as I know all the farmworkers,’ she qualified quickly. ‘You see them around, like, and have a nice chat. And come harvest time, when it’s all hands on deck, me and Mrs Verney – she’s cook up at the Hall – we get our heads together and bake up a storm for harvest festival, and all the workers and their families come to the service and attend the picnic when the gathering’s all done.’
‘Were you surprised to hear about the accident?’ Clement asked curiously. ‘I mean, was Eddie the sort of boy you might expect to do something dangerous?’
‘I dunno about that, sir,’ the cook said uncertainly. ‘I’d have said Eddie was a clever boy, rather than a tearaway, like. But then, kiddies do some silly things, don’t they. But oh, his poor mother…’
For the next ten minutes they made small talk, but nothing of use was learned, and eventually the young maid, who’d been listening silent but wide-eyed throughout it all, showed them back to the door.
‘You know, sir, if you don’t mind my saying,’ she said tentatively, when she’d opened the kitchen door for them, and had stood to one side for them to pass, ‘I couldn’t come to think how Eddie fell in that well either. He was friends with my little brother, sir, and he always struck me as a lad with a good head on his shoulders.’
But after this promising opening, they learned little of use from her. It wasn’t until they’d all but begun to walk away, that they learned one little titbit of family gossip that, though interesting from a purely prurient point of view, probably wouldn’t prove to be relevant.
The coroner had just said that he hoped their visit hadn’t disrupted their morning routine, and that he was afraid that some of his questions, especially those concerning the set-up at the dower house, might have upset the cook. ‘I rather thought, at one point, that Mrs Jones had been about to say something about the family, before changing her mind. I only hope we didn’t come across as being too nosy about family affairs,’ Clement finished cannily.
‘Oh don’t be frettin’ yourself about that, sir,’ the maid said with a smile. ‘Cook be fond enough of Sylvia, ma’am, but she don’t like to think that she and Mr Oliver might be running into difficulties with Mr Martin.’
‘Oh?’ Clement said encouragingly.
The maid shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s on account of the American lady, sir,’ she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder as she did so. ‘Cook’s worried, I can tell. She thinks Mr Martin might ask Mr Oliver to leave. But I don’t believe it’ll ever come to that, sir. Mr Martin might be on the outs with his cousin, but he won’t chuck Mrs Sylvia out onto the streets,’ she said judiciously, shaking her head. ‘It’ll never happen, sir, mark my words. The village wouldn’t like it. They remember Mr Clive with too much affection for that to happen. They won’t stand for his widow being treated shabbily, no matter how much he and Mr Oliver argue. And Mr Martin, he always does what’s expected of him, sir.’
Trudy and Clement exchanged baffled looks. ‘Mr Martin and his cousin Oliver have begun arguing have they?’ Clement asked casually. ‘Well, well, even the best of families will quarrel,’ he agreed blandly. ‘And over a lady you say? Well, again, these things do happen.’
The maid gave a slightly cunning smile, which suddenly belied her tender years. ‘The American lady is rich they say, sir,’ she said archly.
Clement blinked at this blatant bit of cynicism, but then had to smile. Trust the village grapevine not to mince matters.
‘And both… ah, Mr Martin and Mr Oliver have shown an interest in this lady, I take it?’ he fished carefully.
‘Yes, sir. She lives in the city, sir. One of these American ladies who come over to study at the university they say,’ she added a shade darkly, clearly having her suspicions about academic females.
‘And all this has happened just recently?’
‘Within the last six months or so, sir,’ she confirmed easily. ‘Anyways, I best get back to Cook. You can see yourself out, sir, can’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ Clement agreed. ‘Much obliged, miss.’
The maid smiled, and stepped back inside.
Trudy waited until the door was shut behind them, and they had started to walk away, before glancing across at her friend. ‘Rather interested in the de Laceys’ domestic life, aren’t you?’
Clement shrugged, unwilling to be drawn.
‘Well, I can’t see what their tangled love lives have to do with Eddie Proctor’s death,’ she said, then flushed a little, wishing that she hadn’t sounded quite so prim.
But the coroner didn’t seem to notice. Instead he paused to open the garden gate to let her through, and then looked out across the meadow opposite, where several large horse chestnut trees were just beginning to form their distinctive white-and-pink ‘candles’.
‘You never know what might prove relevant and what won’t,’ he advised her. ‘When you’re groping about in the dark, any fact has to be worth uncovering.’
And with that, Trudy had to be content.
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