Design for Murder (17 page)

Tim nodded. Then, “She seems to have taken against her
husband, doesn’t she? In church this morning you could almost hear the wind whistling through the gap between the two of them.”

“Why don’t you go over and talk to Sir Robert?” I found myself suggesting. “It’s awful the way everyone is avoiding
him. You might be able to cheer him up a bit.”

“Think so?”

“Besides, it’s an opportunity to get to know Sebastian. And
you’ll have to be on closer terms with him, won’t you, now
that he’s the new heir?”

“True,” he said. “Are you coming with me?”

I shook my head. Actually, I had decided that I’d better go and confront Ralph and Grace. So far I’d only been awarded a freezing nod, as at the inquest, and I reckoned it was time to heal the breach.

My opportunity came a moment later when the little knot
of people with whom the Ebborns had been chatting, a couple
of tenant farmers and their wives, broke up. I went across to waylay them, and came straight to the point.

“Look, I know that you’re blaming me for telling the police
about Sebastian, but I
had
to, you must see that.”

“You promised that you’d leave it to Ralph,” said
Grace, tight-lipped with resentment.

“Yes, and I meant to at the time—even though it went
against my conscience. But when I got talking to Neil Grant
and he asked me about Sebastian ... well, I’d have been
withholding information from the police if I hadn’t admitted what I knew.”

“You’ve become very thick with that detective inspector,”
Ralph said.

“Neil Grant,” I pointed out, trying to keep my temper, “is
someone I’ve known ever since the time I first came to live in Steeple Haslop. You’re not suggesting, for heaven’s sake, that
the police should be treated as The Enemy, and ostracised?”

Ralph made a bitter face at me. “All that your interference has achieved, Tracy, is to stir up a lot of unnecessary trouble
for Sebastian. The police have been badgering him with end
less questions and checking up on his movements. I can tell
you that he’s damned annoyed about it, and he holds you entirely to blame.”

“Oh? So you told him that the information came from me,
did you?” “

“Naturally I did. Sebastian will be my employer one day—
and it could be any day now, considering the precarious state
of Sir Robert’s health. I just couldn’t afford to have him
thinking that I’d gone sneaking behind his back talking about
him to the police.”

Even if I granted that Ralph had a point, this was a murder
enquiry, dammit. I’d only done what I had to do, and it was
too late for regrets.

“Why did you tell me,” I asked him, injecting challenge
into my voice, “that Sebastian had given you a completely
satisfactory explanation for being in the district last Wednesday morning?”

Ralph gave me an odd glance. “Because he did, Tracy.”

“The police don’t agree,” I said.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” he demanded
sharply.

I sighed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t really be saying this, but Neil
Grant told me that Sebastian isn’t automatically cleared by
the explanation he gave them.”

Ralph was staring at me in horror, Grace in plain bewilder
ment.

“Are you telling me,” he spluttered, “that the police
seriously think that Sebastian”—he dropped his voice to an almost inaudible murmur—“killed Oliver?”

“Not at all, but they’re keeping an open mind. I gather that
his alibi isn’t completely watertight.” I paused a moment,
then asked, “What
was
the explanation he gave you, Ralph?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he replied sourly. “But I’m surprised
that Inspector Grant didn’t, since you seem to be so com
pletely in the man’s confidence.”

To my relief, I saw that Tim was coming over, weaving his
way through the little clusters of people standing around with
their sherry glasses and buffet snacks. He was looking pleased
about something, I decided, and I wondered what it was.
After a couple of minutes of strained conversation with Ralph
and Grace, he gave them a good-natured smile and deftly
steered me away.

“Well,” I asked him, “how did you get on with Sir Robert?”

“It all worked out rather nicely, Tracy. Without any
prompting from me the question of a long-term lease on the
vineyard came up, and the old boy isn’t at all opposed to my
ideas. Even more to the point, neither is Sebastian.”

“I’m glad for you, Tim.”

It had been my suggestion that Tim should cement rela
tions with Sebastian, and the outcome could hardly have been
more favourable. But would Sebastian Medway ever be in a
position to implement any promises he might make to Tim or anyone else concerning the future of the Haslop Hall estate? I
wondered if the police had checked on his whereabouts on the night of Ursula’s death.

“You don’t
sound
very glad,” Tim commented, and gave
me a measuring stare. “What were the solemn looks between
you and the Ebborns in aid of?”

“You’re imagining things,” I said lightly.

“Tracy, Tracy, who are you trying to fool?”

The less important, non-family guests were beginning to
depart. As Tim and I went to take our leave of the Medways,
I was aware of something unexpected in Sebastian’s attitude
to me. I’d dreaded an angry, challenging glare, but instead he
seemed to avoid meeting my eyes. I became aware, with
something of a shock, that Sebastian Medway was half afraid
of me.

* * * *

“I would have suggested that we have some lunch to
gether,” said Tim. “But after all those nibbly bits they laid
on ...”

“Count me out,” I said hastily. “I’m full.”

We were standing beside Tim’s car. Not to add to the inevitable crush on the circle of gravel outside the Hall, I’d left my
Fiesta over by the Coach House. People passing nodded
goodbye to us, their glances registering the fact that we were together.

“About this evening, then,” Tim persisted. “Shall I see you?”

“Do you fancy another ride?” I asked him after a flick of
thought. I wouldn’t be committing myself to too much, this
way, and there would be less chance of another prickly situation developing between us.

“I’d like that, Tracy. Her ladyship wasn’t very gracious, but she did give us permission.”

“And it’s perfectly true that the horses need to be exer
cised,” I added.

“So we’ve talked ourselves into it. What time do you suggest?”

“Would six o’clock be too early? I’ll drop in on my way to
the studio now and soften up Billy Moon a bit.”

With his car door open, Tim paused and looked at me.

“Why should Billy Moon need to be softened up?”

“I don’t know why.” Rashly, against my better judgment, I
went on, “For some reason he seems to be down on you,
Tim.”

“Oh? What’s the old chap been saying about me?”

“Nothing, really. It’s just the impression I got.”

Tim laughed. “Well, you tell him that he couldn’t hope to
meet a nicer bloke than Timothy Baxter, not in a month of
Sundays.”

I was about to make a flip retort, but I had a feeling that
Tim wasn’t really amused.

Everything was quiet when I reached the stables. The
horses would all be out in the paddocks. I wandered into the
tack room, hoping to find Billy there. It was also his den,
where he would sit puffing his pipe in reflective moments. I was out of luck, though.

As always, like every square inch of the territory under
Billy Moon’s command, the little room was spotless, the floor well-swept, each piece of tack hung in its appointed place, the wooden saddle-horse scrubbed, the saddles themselves placed
neatly on their racks. Smiling to myself, I took a ball-point and a scrap of paper from my shoulderbag to leave Billy a
note.

There was a high, old-fashioned counting-house desk which had probably been relegated here at some long-ago time when
the estate offices were modernised. Under its sloping lid, I
knew, was a meticulously-kept stable log book written up in Billy’s spidery script. On the match-boarding wall above this,
fixed with drawing pins, was a calendar from a feed firm, a
faded picture postcard of Blackpool Tower, a poster concern
ing some horse trials at Cirencester, and further along ...

The wave of shock passed right through me, setting my
pulse throbbing. Pinned at each corner with perfect precision
was a familiar coloured picture of three horses taking a hur
dle at Cheltenham races. The cover of last month’s
Cotswold Illustrated.

I stepped closer, but there was no mistake. The picture had been carefully trimmed, with the magazine’s title cut away. I started to lever out the drawing pins with my fingernails, gave
up, searched and found a penknife with a broken handle, and
used that. When I had the square of art paper off the wall I
held it in my hands and stared at it hard, back and front, as if
it might of itself somehow reveal a secret.

I heard a footstep outside, and swung round.

“What you a’doing, miss?” demanded Billy Moon from the
doorway, sounding truculent.

I held up the picture. “What’s this, Billy? Where did you
get it?”

He shuffled forward a foot or two, but not very close. “I
ain’t done nothing wrong, miss, and it’s no good you trying to
make out that I have.”

“No, I’m sure you haven’t, Billy. Only ... please just tell
me where it came from.”

“I found it, didn’t I?”

“Found it? Where?”

“It were chucked away,” he grunted.

“Yes, but where? Was it the whole magazine you found, or
just this one page?”

“All cut about it were, and no good to anyone. You ain’t
got no cause to make an almighty fuss about it, Miss Yorke.”

I wanted to shake the information out of him. Instead, I
said mildly, “I’m not blaming you for anything, Billy. I just
want you to tell me where you found the magazine. It’s very
important for me to know.”

He gave me a stubborn, bitter look. “In the stable. Behind one of the mangers.”

“Show me, please.”

Grumbling to himself, Billy led the way into the big stable,
which was used to house all four of the horses now kept. We
walked along to the end stall, and he pointed sullenly at the manger.

“It were there, miss, stuffed right down behind. It had been throwed out, anyone could tell that. All the pages were cut
about, and ...”

“Where’s the rest of the magazine?” I demanded excitedly.

Billy glowered at me, as if he thought that I was off my rocker. “It’s gone now, I s’pose.”

“Gone where?”

“With the rubbish, a’course. What would I want with keep
ing it for?”

“In the dustbins, you mean? The same ones I use for the
studio?”

“I allus use them bins,” he said, now on the defensive about this new aspect. “Nobody ain’t never told me not to.”

I was already half out of the door. As I ran across the
courtyard, I heard Billy call after me, “It ain’t no good you
looking, miss. Them bins was emptied yesterday. We’re done
on a Tuesday round here.”

I still went to look, though. The two bins were indeed empty, except for a baked-bean tin and a newspaper that
Billy must have thrown in since the refuse collection. He
came across and stood beside me, perversely satisfied.

“I told you, miss, didn’t I? Why don’t you lissen?”

My mind raced frantically.

“When exactly was it that you found the copy of
Cotswold
Illustrated?”
I asked.

Billy’s lined face creased into even more wrinkles.

“Monday, I reckon ... yes, Monday art’noon. I noticed
the manger pulled out a bit from the wall ... that there
Prince is a proper messy feeder, always jerking things about.
It were when I went to shove it back that I spotted the maga
zine.”

“Who could have put it there, Billy?”

“How should I know?”

“Well then—who might have come in here?”

He scratched his ear. “Anyone, I s’pose. There’s only her
ladyship and Mr. Sebastian who do any riding these days,
’cepting for yourself, miss. But neither of them was here on
Monday, ’cause of that there inquest. I didn’t see no sign of
anyone all day, just you on your way up to the studio.”

There was nothing more to be got out of him, that was
clear.

I said, “Well, thank you, Billy—thank you very much. I’ll keep the picture, if you don’t mind. And please don’t say any
thing about this to anyone.”

“Ain’t nothing to say,” he groused, half to himself. “All this blessed hullabaloo over some old magazine nobody wanted. I
only kept the picture ’cause one of they jockeys was the
grandson of a bloke I used to know. But if you want to take it
away from me, Miss Yorke, I can’t stop you.”

“I’ll get you another one, Billy,” I promised him soothingly.
“In fact, you can have the cover picture from my own copy.
How’s that?”