Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery (31 page)

‘Yes, Mrs Norris.'

‘It is possible we may have an overnight guest.'

Mr Grumidge's face remained impassive, but Florence was not misled. She was certain that he was preparing himself for a major eruption, and that he and Molly would be sure to talk between themselves, given the personal nature of their relationship. Discreet they might be, but the indications had been there for some time that they would marry. She sat at her desk, her thoughts contorted by anxiety amounting to dread. There was some indefinable connection with the sense of oppression that had haunted her off and on since the death of Lillian Stodmarsh. She felt that the pages in some black book were still to be turned, that something which had been resting was stirring, yawning itself awake …

‘The first place I look I find you,' said Ned, closing the door behind him. His grin flashed before his eyes narrowed. ‘That was some scene you missed. Talk about savage rage – a mauling by a tiger would have been sweet nothing compared to the way Regina lashed out at Miss Jones – but I have to say the girl held her own when she could get a word in. The outcome is, she's staying the night and we just have to hope she isn't murdered in her bed.'

‘Oh, Ned!' Florence barely managed a smile as she stood up. ‘Don't tempt fate, as Mrs McDonald is wont to say. Where is Miss Jones now?'

‘I just returned her to the little sitting room. Will you escort her to her quarters while I put Grumidge and Mrs McDonald in the picture?'

‘Of course.'

‘Thanks, Florie, dear!' Ned was about to open the door when he clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘My godfathers! I forgot all about phoning Lamorna. Too late now, I'll just have to ring her first thing in the morning and then take Granny Tressler over to the Blakes after picking her up at the station. She won't fuss about coming here first; she's not that sort.'

‘I understood that Sir Winthrop and Lady Blake are coming here for tea tomorrow.' Florence straightened her belt.

‘That's off!' Ned's grin was back full force. ‘Regina's final venting of spleen included telling me to have Grumidge uninvite them. Silly of her, because there'll be no keeping Miss Jones under wraps – it would have been much more sensible to feign delight at their discovering each other after all these lost years and thereby reduce the situation to a nine days' wonder.'

As Florence crossed the hall to the sitting room, she remembered encouraging the late Lord Stodmarsh to believe that such would be the case with the ornamental hermit. For a moment she pictured the bearded, hoary-locked, robed figure huddled in his hut while the rain hammered upon the roof and tree branches gyrated in the wind. She had never seen him close up in her walks through the wood, although she would have welcomed the chance to do so and ask him how he was faring.

Jeanie, who took him his midday and evening meals, might, human nature being what it was, have attempted to break the rule of not speaking to him; if so she had hugged failure or success to herself. She was a girl who liked to feel important, and the unusual element to these sorties elevated her, at least in her own eyes, to a position of mystery tinged with danger. Annie continued to say she would die before going anywhere near the hut and Florence suspected she was not alone in Dovecote Hatch in allotting him eerie powers drawn of superstition. Would Sylvia Jones be viewed as uncannily emerging from the grave by those prone to a shiver down the spine, or simply as a juicy piece of gossip by one and all?

She found Miss Jones seated on the edge of a chair, hands gripped, and face tightened by whatever she was feeling. ‘If you'll please follow me,' she said, ‘I'll take you to your room.' She led her upstairs to a bedroom papered with rosebuds on a silvery white background and furnished to the taste of a young girl, the firelight from the hearth reflected in flickers of apricot on the polished wood. On the bench under the window was the suitcase brought from London. Florence looked towards it. ‘Would you like me to send one of the maids to unpack for you?' The answer was as expected.

‘No,' said Miss Jones quickly, ‘it will be such bliss to be alone. Oh,' she caught herself, ‘that does sound rude and I don't want you to rush away; you've been so nice – just as I expected when you brought me supper. Ned, he told me to call him that, said you're one of the dearest people in the world.'

‘He's a very caring young gentleman.'

Miss Jones nodded. ‘It was awfully good of him to go to bat for me the way he did. At one point I thought that woman – my grandmother – would strike him. She's every bit as horrid as my father told me she was. He was a blunt man, rough around the edges, with little education apart from what he got from books.'

‘That's not a bad way to learn.' Florence smiled.

Again Miss Jones nodded. ‘He loved my mother and I don't think her feelings for him were a silly infatuation arising from a desperate need to escape. I feel I know her from what he told me about her. He was a great dad.' She broke off as if needing to do so, her eyes roving the room. ‘This is all so pretty.'

‘The furniture was in the first Lady Stodmarsh's bedroom when she was growing up and she brought it with her when she married. The wallpaper is a replica of what she'd had.'

‘Perhaps she imagined having a daughter.'

‘Very likely.' Florence was about to ask if there was anything else that could be provided for Miss Jones's comfort when the girl's voice exploded fiercely.

‘Those pearls! Ned said she always wears them! They belonged to my mother, a gift from her grandparents on her seventeenth birthday – a few months before she ran off with my father. She meant to take them with her and sell them – they're worth a lot – but when it came to it they left in too much of a hurry. She later wrote and begged for them to be sent to her but that woman wrote back a blistering refusal.' She paused to draw breath. ‘If you don't believe me, think about the sapphire clasp – it's in the shape of an S for Sylvia.'

‘Of course I believe you,' said Florence, and meant it. ‘Did you ask Lady Stodmarsh for them just now?'

Miss Jones laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound. ‘I think if I had she'd have flushed them down the nearest toilet. It was obvious that even her eagerness to be rid of me did not counter her spite. I was very much aware of that possibility when I decided to come …' Her voice trailed away.

‘You need sleep,' said Florence gently.

Fifteen minutes later, having talked with an animated Mrs McDonald as briefly as possible, Florence went to her own bedroom, undressed and got into her nightgown. With everything replaying itself in her mind, she did not expect to fall asleep for some time after getting into bed. In fact, she soon dozed off, only to awaken a couple of hours later, at half an hour past midnight by her clock, and got up to fill a glass of water from the carafe on the chest of drawers by her bed. While drinking it she wandered over to the window and stared out into the night. The rain had ceased and the light from a near full moon separated the darkness into blurred but distinct shapes: the fountains in the sunken rose gardens, the garden seating, and the summer house etched against the shimmer of the lake. She caught her breath. Something moved. A figure detached itself from the water's edge and crossed the lawn to disappear into the woods. It took a moment for Florence's common sense to assert itself. Other members of the household had glimpsed the hermit gliding about at night. It had to be him. She finished the glass of water and went back to bed.

George Bird had also woken from a restless sleep to stand staring out of his bedroom window. Doing so relieved to a small degree the feeling of being boxed in, helplessly tied up in knots, at times seeming not to be able to get enough air in his lungs. If he only knew where Jim was, that he was safe for this one moment – that he was asleep, briefly forgetful that he was on the run, a hunted man. It comforted George a little that he wasn't the only one who believed Jim innocent of murdering that old lady. That girl Toffee had made it clear her faith hadn't wavered an eyelash and she'd do anything to help him; which couldn't be said of the lad's parents, Sally and Arthur. They were all over the place in their thinking. One minute he wouldn't hurt a fly, and the next, they'd always worried what getting in with a bunch of layabouts with loose morals would do to him. George was about to turn from the window when he saw someone – he was unable to tell if it was a man or a woman – open the gate leading to the footpath through the Mullings woods and instantly be absorbed into the trees. Could it be Jim? His heart thudded, then slowed as he remembered the detective who had visited him saying, meaningfully, that Constable Trout or another policeman would be patrolling the area at all hours in case the young man decided to try and hide out in Dovecote Hatch.

Florence started up in bed again at around two in the morning, for no accountable reason other than that she must have had a bad dream. She sank back again into sleep, but woke feeling unrested to start the day. Five minutes after she had entered the kitchen to have a cup of tea with Mrs McDonald, and had barely started on the subject of Sylvia Jones, Ned flung into the room, his hair spiking upwards as if he'd spent the night grabbing it by the roots, anxiety written all over his face.

‘Have either of you seen Rouser?'

‘No,' said both women. His panic spread to Florence.

‘Wasn't he in the study when you came down?'

Ned shook his head vehemently. ‘No. And he never strays from there until I fetch him in the morning a little after five. Grandfather trained him to stay, even if the door was left open, but last night I closed it. I remember distinctly. When it's raining I think it has to be cozier for him shut.'

‘Well, then,' said Mrs McDonald comfortably, ‘someone must have come along, Mr Ned, and opened it after you went to bed, maybe looking to see if you was still in there. How about this granddaughter of Lady Stodmarsh wanting a word of advice as to how to comport herself in a tricky situation?'

Ned took another grab at his hair. ‘I'll ask her and everyone else, of course, if they could accidentally have let him out, but there's still the question of why he's not in the house. I've searched every inch.'

‘Including the cellars?' Florence asked.

‘And the attics. They were my last hope, and when I went up there I did find the door ajar, but no sign of the old fellow.'

Florence wrapped her hands around her teacup, drawing upon its warmth. A goose was walking over her grave. ‘Either the person who opened the study door, or somebody else, must afterwards have left the house for a while.'

‘Why on earth?' Ned jeered. ‘To take a pleasing stroll around the garden in the rain?'

‘We all know, Mr Ned,' Mrs McDonald eyed him bracingly, ‘that people, even the reasonable ones, take odd notions into their heads betimes. I suppose you've been out calling him? Well, of course you have, silly question!'

‘I woke around midnight,' said Florence slowly, ‘and from my window I saw a figure by the lake; it then crossed a stretch of lawn to the woods. I think it likely I would have noticed the additional shape of a dog, if there'd been one near it. I roused again a couple of hours later – I assumed from a dream, but maybe I'd heard something … his bark. Ned, he has to be trapped, caught, somewhere.'

‘We don't have snares in the woods. We've never had any trouble with poachers.'

‘The hermit's hut!' exclaimed Mrs McDonald triumphantly.

‘I thought of that straight off. With all the rain and wind the door could have swung open. It wasn't when I checked, but I tapped, raised the latch and tiptoed in, not wanting to frighten the old geezer out of his wits, but there was only him huddled down under the blankets.'

‘I won't tell you not to worry, Ned; I know how much that dog means to you.' Florence's throat tightened. ‘I'll ask Mr Grumidge to set up a search party.'

‘I'd rather take him out with me on our own, have him search one side of the wood and I the other. A well-meaning throng blundering about won't do us any good. Fortunately I have bags of time before setting out in the car to meet Granny Tressler at the railway station. Her train gets in at one.'

He went off in search of Grumidge, leaving Florence and Mrs McDonald looking at each other with troubled eyes.

‘I don't like it,' said the cook, arms folded, face set. ‘That dog always comes first thing when called by Mr Ned, just as he did for His Lordship. I particularly don't like it when two strange happenings come one on top of another – that girl arriving out of the blue last night and now this. Mark my words, Mrs Norris, my Scottish blood tells me that there'll be a third occurrence before the day's out, to set us wondering what dark forces have taken hold at Mullings.'

‘W
hat did I tell Mrs Norris? And here we are! Disaster strikes again!' exclaimed Mrs McDonald at ten o'clock that morning. Jeanie had just fallen down the back stairs after being sent up to fetch Lady Stodmarsh's breakfast tray, which Annie had taken up an hour earlier. Every piece of rare and valuable china, including the coffee pot, lay scattered on the passage floor. Whether that was worse or less significant than a quickly swelling twisted ankle was debatable in Mrs McDonald's mind. Her kind heart went out to the girl as she helped her on to a kitchen chair and removed her left shoe. They were painful things, sprains, but she'd be right as rain soon enough if she didn't act silly and try to stand on it too quickly. The big worry was the one Jeanie voiced herself.

‘She'll have a right carry-on about the breakage. She's given others the sack for less, so what are my chances of holding on to my job? And it's not fair, it isn't!'

‘Well,' Mrs McDonald mulled this over and took the optimistic view, ‘it may be better on this day than many another. You know me, never wanting to speak ill of the woman, her being who she is, but my thinking is she'll be in such a vicious mood about that granddaughter of hers showing up to make a liar of her, she won't have it in her to go on much of a rampage about an accident of the sort that happens every day – although, thank the good Lord, not in this house!'