01 - Murder at Ashgrove House (32 page)

‘William assumed straightaway that I had shot Lady Belvedere,’ said
Edith. ‘That’s why he thought up that silly story about the poacher, to try and
put you off the scent. The first opportunity he had to talk to me alone he
asked me why I had done it and I said I had to. I meant tell Henry, of course,
but he thought that I was confessing to the murder.’ 

‘This is all very well,’ said Deacon. ‘It explains why Lord Belvedere may
in time have come to hate his wife, but I still don’t see what drove him to
murder her this
weekend.’           

‘I doubt he would have done,’ said Edith, ‘if it hadn’t been for the
photograph.’

‘And Cedric and me,’ Rose said quietly.

‘Yes,’ agreed Edith, shooting her a quick glance, ‘that too.’

‘Photograph?’ Deacon sounded confused.

‘Yes,’ Edith said. ‘But before I explain, I think I’d better go back to
the Saturday morning. Despite what you may have thought at the time, William, I
did heed your words. I wondered if I was being very selfish after all. It was
obvious to everyone, I should imagine, that Henry and Marjorie were not close,
but Henry seemed reasonably content immersed in his own little world of books.
I wondered what would be gained by telling him the truth. To tell him in one
breath that he had fathered a son that he had never known even existed, and
then in the next breath to tell him that he would never lay eyes on his son
because he had died on the battlefield, seemed cruel beyond belief.’

‘And yet you argued your case with me,’ reminded Rose, ‘even if we were
talking at cross purposes.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Edith. ’It was when I was describing to you Marjorie’s
privileged background,  that she’d had everything she could possibly want,
and yet she had not been satisfied. She had thought nothing of trampling on me
to get what she wanted. The more I spoke about her, the angrier I became and I
realised that I simply couldn’t just let her get away with it, I couldn’t. So I
arranged to meet Henry on the croquet lawn once you had concluded your game,
and I told him everything. I don’t propose to go into details, to tell you what
we said to one another after all that time. Suffice to say that he was very
shocked and sad, not to say angry; indeed there was much emotion on both
sides.’ Edith broke off, a glazed expression on her face as if she was back
there on the croquet lawn remembering their conversation.

‘And then you decided to show him the photograph of Robert,’ said Rose,
‘the one you carry around with you everywhere and showed me on the Friday.’

‘Yes.’ Edith seemed to falter, and Deacon wondered for a moment whether
she would continue.

‘She’d damaged it, hadn’t she?’ Rose asked suddenly. ‘Lady Belvedere had
somehow got hold of the photograph and done something awful to it. I think you
knew it was a possibility. I remember you’d been showing it to me when the
countess appeared unexpectedly; you quickly snatched it back and stuffed it
into your bag. But you hadn’t been quick enough, had you? Lady Belvedere saw
you do it and must have guessed who the photograph was of.’

‘I shouldn’t have put my bag down, I shouldn’t because she must have
found it.’ Edith’s voice was rising dangerously. ‘She could have just taken it
out of my bag and got rid of it. I’d have been none the wiser. I’d have
probably thought I’d dropped it somewhere. But that wasn’t enough for her, she
wanted to hurt me for threatening to upset the life she’d built for herself.
What she probably hadn’t reckoned on was that I would only discover the fate of
the photograph when I took it out to show Henry. She’d cut it up into fifty or
so little pieces and stuffed them back into my bag so I would know it was her.
I was distraught. It was the last photograph I had of Robert, taken a couple of
days before he went off to war. She must have known it was irreplaceable, and
I’m afraid I rather lost control. I screamed at Henry, told him exactly what I
thought about the woman he had married, as I tried desperately to try and piece
it together so that he would at least have an idea of what his son had looked
like.’

‘And you told him about Cedric and me,’ Rose said, her voice hardly above
a whisper.

‘Yes. I told him that Marjorie was going to ruin Cedric’s life as she had
ruined his. I told him that his son had the possibility of happiness but
Marjorie would do everything in her power to prevent a relationship from
developing between you, that she’d prefer for her son to be in a loveless
marriage so long as it brought wealth with it. Henry didn’t say anything, he
didn’t need to. He just looked down at the ruined photograph and studied it for
a moment before turning very pale and walking away. I didn’t even try and stop
him from going; I think a part of me was glad that he was at last sharing a
little of the pain that I’d endured. But I should have gone after him; I think
I knew even then that he had decided to stop her.’

‘I suppose the idea of shooting his wife came to him when you showed
everyone your duelling pistols that evening, Sir William,’ said Deacon. ‘He’d
just found out that his wife had arranged to go on a walk with Miss Simpson the
following morning, presumably to persuade her to leave, and he decided to act
sooner than later. It was not a spur of the moment thing, of course. He had the
whole night to think it through. But even so, I think he was shocked by what
he’d done as soon as he had pulled the trigger. He certainly wasn’t thinking
straight when he put back the gun because he hadn’t even wiped off his
fingerprints. It explains why he seemed surprised to hear that there were no
fingerprints on the gun when we interviewed him. He wasn’t to know after all
that someone else had seen fit to wipe them off.’ Deacon paused to give Sir
William a meaningful glance.   

‘I’m sorry if I frightened you, my dear,’ Edith said to Rose. ‘I didn’t
mean to, I just wanted to know if you had seen something that would implicate
poor Henry. I so wanted him to get away with it, you see.’

‘Harold!’

Edith turned to face her husband. Except for the two of them, the house
seemed unnaturally silent as if they were the only ones there, when Edith knew
for a fact that Rose was gathering her things together in preparation for her
own departure, Sir William was in his study, Lady Withers was in the drawing
room with Lavinia and Cedric, and umpteen servants were milling around like
busy ants behind closed doors ensuring that, whatever happened in the nature of
catastrophes, Ashgrove, as a country house, would continue to run smoothly.

‘What are you doing here, Harold?’ Edith was poised on the bottom step of
the stairs, her husband having just come into the hall. ‘I can’t come home, I
can’t. When you know what’s happened, and that it was all my fault, you won’t
want me to either.’

‘I know what’s happened, Edith,’ replied her husband, gently. ‘William
telephoned me and told me everything. I’ve come to take you home. Then I’ll
make the necessary arrangements so that you can divorce me.’

‘Oh, must I? Yes, I suppose I must.’

‘It’s what you want, isn’t it. I’ve always known that you only married me
because of Robert. I hoped you’d come to love me. I loved him like my own son,
Edith, truly I did. But when he died a part of you seemed to die with him. I
wanted so much for us to share our grief, but I didn’t know how to and you
seemed to shut me out as if it was your own personal sorrow. I felt that I was
intruding or being insensitive if I showed any sign of weakness. But I longed
to cry for him as much as you did, truly I did.’

‘Oh, Harold,’ Edith leapt forward and clasped his hands in hers. 
 

‘I knew Lord Belvedere was Robert’s natural father. Your mother hinted as
much to me and then I saw the likeness when I looked in the society pages,
between Cedric and Robert. I knew you never stopped loving him, I knew I was a
poor substitute.’

‘You’re wrong, Harold, you were never that. I never realised until just
now how very much more of a man you are than he was. I stopped loving him years
ago, I realise that now, I just couldn’t forget about him until he knew about
Robert.’

 ‘Then …’

‘I want to go home, Harold. But I don’t want a divorce. I want to be your
wife, but this time I want it to be real. I want to live in the now, I’m tired
of living in the past.’

‘Oh, Edith,’ And, with that, her husband took her in his arms, much to
the surprise and delight of Lady Withers, who had just come out of the drawing
room with the express intention of ascertaining once and for all from Edith her
true relations with Sir William.  

Half an hour later Rose descended the stairs. Edith and her husband were
long departed and she was hesitating, weighing up the necessity of going in
search of her hostess to thank her for her stay, against coming face to face
with Lavinia and Cedric, who must surely harbour feelings of resentment towards
her for the part she had played, admittedly unwittingly, in the tragedy that
had unfolded. She wondered, given the very unusual circumstances, whether it
wouldn’t be best for all those concerned if she just left without saying
anything and then sent a note. As she was considering this option, which was
becoming more attractive by the minute, the drawing room door opened and Cedric
came out.

‘Rose! Surely you weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye?’

‘Oh, Cedric, I didn’t know what I should do. I know you must hate me,
what with my telling the police that you had overheard my argument with your
mother and then your father only did what he did because –.’

‘Rose, I don’t blame you at all. In fact I admire you enormously for
being prepared to tell the truth, no matter what. Lavinia, I’m afraid, doesn’t
feel quite the same as I do, but she’ll come round.’ He moved forward and took
her hand. ‘I know this is totally the wrong time to say anything. We must let
the dust settle and there’s likely to be some frightful publicity concerning
all that’s happened, although that inspector chap was jolly decent. He told me that
he’ll do what he can to prevent some of the more sensational aspects of this
case from getting into the newspapers. But I just want you to know, Rose, that
I meant everything I said. This doesn’t change a thing as far as I’m concerned.
No, please don’t say anything now, just tell me I have reason to hope, that I
–.’ The remainder of Cedric’s sentence was cut short due to Rose throwing
herself into his arms, at which point they surrendered to a passionate embrace.

‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to, Stafford, I really don’t,’ said
Lady Withers, emerging from the drawing room with her butler in tow. ‘First
Edith and now Cedric and Rose. In my day such public displays of affection were
considered vulgar. I do hope you won’t get any ideas about Mrs Palmer,
Stafford. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.’

‘No, indeed not, m’lady,’ replied Stafford, for once abandoning his
impassive air, and instead looking visibly shocked.