Crowned and Dangerous (A Royal Spyness Mystery) (16 page)

A little farther and the woodland ended in a large kitchen garden and outbuildings.

“We probably shouldn’t go any closer,” Darcy said. “This has been an exercise in futility, hasn’t it? Apart from that one footprint, there is no indication that my father came back this way in a drunken stagger.”

“What are all those outbuildings?” I asked.

“Gardener’s cottage, sheds, stables. All that sort of stuff.”

“Plenty of places for someone to hide,” I said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Just an observation. If someone did want to get in unobserved and kill Roach, he could easily have done so. We know that Mrs. McNalley saw a ghost.”

“He could just as easily have walked back to the road, let himself out of the main gate and not really have risked being observed,” Darcy said. “In our day there would have been a pack of servants. Gardeners and grooms would have been around, and of course we had dogs.”

“Dogs, of course,” I said. “Everyone has dogs, don’t they? Except this American. He couldn’t have, or they would have sounded the alarm at a stranger. Does your father no longer have any dogs either?”

“He does. We’re down to one very old Labrador, Blackie. But unfortunately we can’t ask the dog if my father staggered out drunk that night and came back with blood on his clothes.”

“You could check his clothes yourself,” I said. “It’s hard to get bloodstains completely out.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily have got any blood on his clothing,” Darcy said. “One clean blow. The skull is stove in and the man pitches forward. He drops the club and flees.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Maybe because he hears someone coming. Maybe because he is horrified with what he has just done.”

“Then why not take the club with you when you flee? Bury it. Throw it in a pond. Burn it.”

“I agree,” he said. “It makes little sense. We should go back.”

“It’s a pity we can’t get into the castle, now we’re here.” I stared up at the great gray shape looming above us. “I’d dearly like to see the scene of the crime for myself.”

“We can’t while that man’s valet is still in residence.” Darcy shook his head.

“We could keep watch to see if he ever goes out.”

“And we don’t know there aren’t any Garda stationed in the castle still,” Darcy said.

“It’s your house. You should know how to creep around without being seen,” I said. “I bet you did as a child.” Now that we were this close, I was itching to see for myself. “Why don’t we give it a try?”

Darcy looked wary. “All right,” he said.

We had taken two steps out of the woods and across the kitchen garden when a voice yelled, “Hey, you. What are you doing here?”

T
UESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
4

A
FRIGHT
AT
K
ILHENNY
C
ASTLE
.

I wasn’t sure whether to run or to freeze. If it was a policeman I certainly didn’t want to look guilty, and running away would certainly convey that impression. Then a man stepped out from behind the nearest outbuilding. He was youngish, skinny, pale and wearing a dark suit. He had black hair slicked down and parted in the middle and a neat little line of a mustache.

“It’s him,” Darcy whispered. “The manservant. Great chance to question him.”

The man strode toward us, waving a fist in a menacing manner. “What are you doing? This is private property.” This speech was marred only by his tripping over a clod of earth and almost pitching forward onto his face. He regained his feet, flushing angrily. “If you’re reporters, you’d better beat it before I call the cops. There’s one stationed at the front door, you know.”

We pretended not to have noticed his undignified stumble.

“We’re not reporters,” Darcy said. “I’m Darcy O’Mara. This used to be my family home until recently. I only wanted to show it to my friend from London.”

“O’Mara?” The man turned up his lip. “The killer’s kid? I’m surprised you have the nerve to be hanging around here.”

“Do you happen to be Mr. Roach’s valet?” I asked, because I could sense that Darcy might explode. “Mickey, is it?”

“That’s right. Mickey Riley.”

“Well, Mr. Riley, we are here because Mr. O’Mara believes in his father’s innocence and is naturally doing everything he can to exonerate him,” I said.

The American frowned and it flashed into my head that the word “exonerate” was outside the scope of his vocabulary.

“You’re wasting your time, fella,” he said. “Your old man is as guilty as hell. Like I told the cops. Couldn’t have been anyone else, could it? He was the only one who knew how to sneak into the castle without knocking at the front door. He and Mr. Roach had had a doozy of a run-in that afternoon. He was hopping mad. He went home, drank enough to get up his courage and then came back to finish off my boss. That’s the only way it could have happened.”

“Do you know what this row was about?” Darcy asked.

“Your dad and Mr. Roach had been mad at each other ever since that business with the horse dropping dead. My boss blamed your pa for killing one of his best horses. Your pa held a grudge for being fired. Thought he’d been wrongly dismissed and kept saying he had nothing to do with the doping. But again the question was, if he didn’t do it, who did? Who else had the opportunity to get close to the horse right before the race, huh? And why was the syringe found in your father’s drawer?”

“And on that particular afternoon before Mr. Roach died did you overhear anything of what they were fighting about?” Darcy pressed the subject.

“I stayed well away. My boss wasn’t the easiest guy at the best of times. When he was mad, it was best to make myself scarce.”

“So you heard nothing at all? Nothing to give me a clue?”

“Ask your old man yourself,” he said insolently.

“On the night of the murder you told the police that you heard nothing,” I said. “You didn’t hear any signs of a struggle?”

He glared at me. “Who are you, a reporter?”

“No, I’m an investigator, working for a top-notch firm in London,” I said, trying to sound brisk, efficient and top-notch. “Lord Kilhenny has many friends in high places who are rallying to his aid.”

Did I detect a flicker of alarm on his face?

“So would you like to answer my question? Why did you hear nothing? You were still up and awake.”

He smirked then. I had taken rather a dislike to him from the first. This was now confirmed. “Because I was down in the kitchen. I went into the library where he was working to see if he wanted anything before I went to bed, and I found him lying there.”

“That must have been a shock for you,” Darcy said.

“Sure was. All that blood. I thought the killer might still be in the building and I’d be next.”

“You didn’t hear any footsteps running or a door slamming, as you would have done if someone had to get away in a hurry?” I asked.

He shook his head. “How many times do I have to tell you that I heard nothing?”

“If you heard nothing of a struggle, presumably you would not have heard anyone coming into the castle, or even knocking at the front door and being admitted by Mr. Roach,” I suggested.

“That’s ridiculous,” he snapped. “Mr. Roach never answered the front door himself. And visitors had to telephone the house from the front gate before they were admitted. And for that matter, he had no visitors. He was a private kind of guy. Kept himself to himself and no one from the States knew he was over here.”

We didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

“So what will you do now?” I asked. “Were you Mr. Roach’s valet for long?”

“He hired me when he was coming to Ireland,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to find myself another job. I might just stay on in Ireland. There seem to be more high-class people with money and big houses than there are in the States these days.”

I thought he’d need to refine his speech and manners somewhat if he wanted to be hired by Irish aristocrats, but I kept this opinion to myself. Instead I asked, “So how long are you expected to stay on at the castle? Until the end of the investigation?”

“Nobody’s actually told me,” he said. “That inspector guy said I should stick around for now, just to make sure the place is secure and nothing gets touched. Then I’ll have to give evidence at the trial. But I hope they get this thing over in a hurry. Staying in this place alone gives me the creeps.”

“Of course, there could be another reason why you’ve been asked to stay on,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“That you are also a suspect,” I said.

I really did notice the alarm in his eyes this time. “Me? How can I be a suspect? I found the guy lying there.”

“So you say,” I said. His eyes were darting nervously now. I was rather enjoying this. “But it’s only your word, isn’t it? You could easily have killed Mr. Roach yourself and then tried to put the blame on Lord Kilhenny. To frame Lord Kilhenny.”

“Why would I want to kill the guy?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. Why would you?” I asked sweetly. “Maybe something will emerge when the police in America check into your background.”

“They can’t pin nothing on me,” he said hastily. “I’ve led a blameless life, kid.”

“Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?” I said.

“You’d better beat it before I yell for the cops,” he said, giving me a hate-filled stare.

“Come on, Darcy,” I said. “I think we’ve learned all we need to for now.” I gave Mickey Riley a curt little nod, then turned on my heel and headed back for the forest.

“You were brilliant,” Darcy said when we were out of the man’s hearing. “You should have been a lawyer.”

“Sometimes I manage to channel my great-grandmother,” I said, giving him a pleased little grin. “But it was interesting, wasn’t it? I had him truly rattled. And the way he speaks, he’d certainly not find it easy to get a job in service with a family in Ireland. Can you imagine my sister-in-law, Fig, hiring someone like him? She becomes hysterical over Queenie. Do you really think that valets in America are so uncouth?”

“He may be a good actor and able to adopt the correctly subservient attitude when needed,” Darcy said. “We’re seeing him as he really is. Perhaps Mr. Roach never did.”

“I’d love to know if he was employed before this as a valet.” I turned back to Darcy as we pushed between tall bushes. “Can you see the Rockefellers hiring him? How can we find out whether the police in America are checking into his background?”

“I have my connections,” Darcy said. “When we go to Dublin there is usually someone at the embassy who is secretly placed there by the FBI. And if not, I can pass that request along through a chap that I know in London.” He paused, looking back. “But presumably the detectives here will have ruled him out as a suspect before they arrested my father.”

“Because his prints aren’t on the club and they could find no motive,” I said with a sigh.

“And because my father more or less confessed,” Darcy said.

“We need to talk to your father,” I said. “Find out about that row in the afternoon.”

“Do you think I haven’t tried talking to him?” Darcy snapped.
“He either shuts up like a clam or flies off the handle. One can’t have a normal conversation with him.”

We had been walking fast and reached the little gate in the wall. I looked across at the brilliant green fields as we emerged. In the distance I spotted horses, unsaddled now, but running on their own, just for the joy of it. The stables next, I thought. The strong sunlight made me blink. I held up my hand to shield my eyes and another thought came to me. “Darcy, do you know if it was raining on the day that Mr. Roach was killed, or the days before it?”

Darcy frowned. “Why would I know that? And why is it important? Are you suggesting muddy prints in the house?”

“No, I’m thinking about that archeological dig in the field across from the gate. If they were working, they might have noticed whether there were any visitors at the castle that day or the days before.”

“But Roach was killed late at night,” Darcy said. “They’d have gone home long before that hour, even if they were working.”

“But it would be good to know if Mr. Roach had visitors, wouldn’t it? His man claimed he had none. And who knows, there might have been someone loitering around the gate, snooping to find a way in . . . casing the joint, as the Americans would say.”

This made Darcy grin. “I never thought I would hear the words ‘casing the joint’ coming from your lips,” he said. “And speaking of your lips. They look particularly inviting this morning.” And he kissed me.