The Stately Home Murder (20 page)

Charles Purvis had in his hand a stout sheet of white card on which he had been laboring for a tidy effect. On it had been printed as neatly as possible
ARMORY
2/6d
EXTRA
.

“Very nice,” said Hackle, who was a great admirer of the Earl.

“It's not the same as a printed notice, of course,” murmured Purvis, standing back to see the effect, “but there isn't time to have it done properly by Wednesday.”

Hackle jerked his shoulder towards the top of the armory stairs. “Reckon they'll let us in there again b'Wednesday?”

“His Lordship does,” Charles Purvis looked round. “Now to find something to put the board on.”

“What we want,” said Bert, “is a proper stand.” By rights Bert Hackle shouldn't have been in the great hall at all in his gardening boots, but as there had been Hackles in Ornum village almost as long as there had been Cremonds in Ornum House—though not so well-documented—he was privileged in his own right. He creaked across the floor looking for something suitable. “If we was to lean it up against this we'd be all right.”

“Not if Mr. Feathers saw us,” retorted Purvis smartly. “That's his best piece of ormolu on malachite, that is.”

Hackle, whose interest in minerals was confined to the rocks in the rockery, tried again. “What about that box thing?”

That box thing was satinwood inlaid with ivory and contained the ceremonial trowel with which his Lordship the eleventh had cut the first turf for the first railway line to link Luston and Berebury. (It had been a singularly happy occasion as his Lordship, being the owner of all the suitable land in between these two places, had been able to name his own price. And had.)

“Much better,” said Purvis. “Now, if you'll just heave that table a bit nearer the doorway.”

Standing on the table and propped against the satinwood box the notice was now eminently readable.

Mr. Robert Hamilton did not accord with Inspector Sloan's conception of the common man.

The county archivist was exceedingly spry, erudite, and helpful.

Inspector Sloan, being in the position of having a force too meager to be worth deploying, had taken it with him to the muniments room. Insofar as the murder of Osborne Meredith had a focal point it was in this part of the house.

“Ah, Inspector …” Mr. Hamilton looked up. “Come in. I don't think we can say you'll disturb anything any more than it's been disturbed already.”

“No. Have you had any visitors here, sir, so far?”

“Yes, indeed, Inspector. A Miss Gertrude Cremond came along to see if she could help, a Mrs. Laura Cremond, who thought something of hers might be in here, and the butler.”

“Dillow?”

“Is that his name? He left me something to eat in the library, but I asked him to bring it here instead.”

“Not William Murton?” Sloan described the missing man. “You haven't seen him?”

Hamilton shook his head, while Sloan glanced round the room.

“Someone,” observed Mr. Hamilton profoundly, “was wanting to impede research here.”

“Yes.”

“It'll take a week or more to go through”—Robert Hamilton waved a hand at the chaotic papers—“and restore even the semblance of order—quite apart from finding whatever it is I'm supposed to be looking for in here.” He cocked his head alertly. “You can't give me even a small clue as to what that can be?”

Sloan shook his head. “All we know is that someone stirred them up and that someone tried to get in here last night after we'd sealed the door.”

“Ah, well there's no wilful damage that I can see, and that's something—for there's as pretty a collection of documents here as you could hope to find. Nor theft, I should say at a quick guess.”

“No.”

“Someone ignorant,” added Mr. Hamilton. “Someone plain ignorant.”

“A woman,” said Sloan. “We have reason to believe it was a woman.”

“Ah,” said the archivist, “that explains it. They seemed to be aiming at mayhem.”

“I think,” said Sloan slowly, “that they were aiming at making it difficult for anyone to prove that the Earl of Ornum isn't the Earl.”

“Yes,” said the archivist unexpectedly. “The poor fellow wrote me about that a week or so back.”

“He did?” Sloan sat up.

“He was mistaken, of course,” declared Mr. Hamilton. “I can assure you, Inspector, the succession is perfectly sound. Perfectly.”

“But Mr. Meredith thought …”

“He made a common mistake. He was misled by a case of
mort d'ancestor
in the family. Tricky, of course.”

“You mean …”

“And he was also a wee bit confused about socage.”

Sloan was aware of Crosby's head coming up like a pointer.

“Socage,” repeated Sloan carefully.

“That's right, Inspector. Common socage. Meredith was all right in his facts, but a bit out in his inferences. He was,” said the utterly professional Robert Hamilton, “an amateur. A good amateur, mind you, I will say that, but not a trained man.”

“He hadn't told anyone he had been mistaken,” said Sloan, trying to assimilate the news and place it in the pattern of the crime.

“Now, Inspector”—Hamilton smiled faintly—“there's not many people in a hurry to do that, is there?”

“True,” agreed Sloan. Better though, perhaps, to admit a mistake and keep your skull intact. “This socage, Mr. Hamilton …”

“The tenure of land other than by knight-service.”

Why was it, thought Sloan, that no one would explain things to him in words that he understood?

“Knight-service?” he echoed wearily.

“That's right,” said the amiable Mr. Hamilton. “Estates like these came directly from the crown in the beginning in return for services rendered … usually men at arms in times of war.”

That explained the armory if not the gun room.

“You see, Inspector, in theory all land belongs to the King or Queen as the case may be.”

“Not still?” said Sloan, thinking of his roses, and his neat semidetached house in suburban Berebury.

“Yes.” The archivist chuckled. “I daresay you're of an age to have done your own knight-service yourself, Inspector.”

Sloan hadn't thought of it in that light before, but …

“Not quite the same thing,” admitted Hamilton, “but not all that far away. That's where the Earldom came in. Men who brought their armies with them to the King's wars. They were made Earls—”

“The rest,” interrupted the unconscionable Constable Crosby triumphantly, “were churls.”

It was not often that Charles Purvis was caught on the wrong foot. He was a naturally competent man, unobtrusively given to attending to detail. Even the distraction of admiring the adorable Lady Eleanor from afar did not normally cause his work to suffer.

But, as it was subsequently agreed, a murder in the house was enough to put any man off his stroke, to drive less important matters out of mind.

So it was that when a coach drew up at the front door of Ornum House at exactly three o'clock he was all prepared to send it away. True, it was not quite the same as the sort of coach that usually came to the house on open days. It was infinitely more luxurious; and it did not proclaim the fact in letters a foot high.

Charles Purvis saw the coach from the great hall and as Dillow for once did not seem to be about he went himself to the door.

“I'm very sorry,” he began firmly, “but the house is not open today …”

“Mr. Purvis?”

Charles Purvis found his hand being crushed in a vice-like grip.

“I'm Fortescue, Mr. Purvis. Cromwell T. Fortescue. You wrote me …”

“I did?” Purvis blinked.

“You sure did. You wrote me, Mr. Purvis, to say we might see the Earl's pictures today. We're the Young Masters Art Society.”

Hot on the wheels of this coach came another one.

Nothing like as luxurious as the first, it had been commandeered by Superintendent Leeyes to convey as many of his force as he could drum up to Ornum House to assist Inspector Sloan in the hunt for William Murton.

It took their concerted efforts, directed by Inspector Sloan and aided by Police Constables Crosby and Bloggs, about an hour to find him.

In the
oubliette
.

Dead.

16

“He can't be,” bellowed Superintendent Leeyes.

“He is, sir. I'm very sorry …”

“I should think so, Sloan. You haven't heard the last of this. If Bloggs hadn't lost him …”

Sloan forbore to point out that Constable Bloggs had been watching William Murton for a totally different reason.

“And, Sloan, if you had got on to him quicker then this wouldn't have happened …”

“No, sir. Dr. Dabbe says that's not so. He thinks he was killed as soon as he got to the house.”

“Just after Bloggs lost him,” pointed out Leeyes inexorably.

“It means, sir, that someone was ready for him.”

“I know that, Sloan. You don't have to tell me.”

“No, sir.”

“Ready and waiting,” snapped Leeyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“With”—on a rising note—“three able-bodied policemen actually in the house at the time.”

“Yes, sir.” It was no good explaining that Ornum wasn't a house but a
House
, that it wasn't a two up and two down jerry-builder's delight. Or that medieval dungeons were soundproofed as a careless in-built extra.

“That doesn't make it look any better on paper either,” grumbled Leeyes.

“No, sir.” Nothing could make that poor distorted face look any better now either, Sloan knew that. William Murton, half gentleman, half painter, father but not husband, nephew but never heir, penniless but never properly penurious, had gone to another world where presumably all things were wholly good or wholly bad.

“And who killed him, Sloan? Tell me that.”

Sloan backtracked. “Up until this afternoon, sir, we had four suspects for the murder of Mr. Osborne Meredith. William Murton was one of them.”

“We are not, I hope,” remarked Leeyes coldly, “playing elimination games.”

“No, sir. Leaving out Murton …”

“Suicides don't strangle themselves as a rule.”

“Quite so, sir”—hastily. “As you say, leaving out Murton we would have had three suspects for the first murder.”

Sloan wasn't a bardolator—wouldn't even have known the meaning of the word—but he had once been to see a performance of
Macbeth
. It had been the insouciant irony of the cast list that he had remembered, could quote to this day:

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldier, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.

Give or take a soldier or two he reckoned they'd got the lot at Ornum today.

First and Second Murderers, there had been in the play?

Was there going to prove to have been a First Murderer for Osborne Meredith and a Second Murderer for William Murton?

Doubtful.

Or a First and Second Murderer for each as in the play?

A husband and wife? That most committing of all partnerships at law. My wife and I are one and I am he, the books said. With Miles and Laura Cremond it would be the other way round. There was no doubt there who wore the kilt.

Three suspects were two too many for Superintendent Leeyes and he said so.

“Can't you do better than that, Sloan?”

“Not at the moment, sir. Miss Gertrude Cremond, Mr. and Mrs. Miles Cremond, and Dillow could all have committed the first murder.”

“And which did?”

“I don't know, sir. Of course, the second murder puts a different complexion on things.…”

As soon as the word was out of his mouth Sloan wished he had chosen another one instead.

Any word but complexion.

William Murton's had been hideous. A mottled reddish-blue with swollen tongue protuberant between discolored lips.

Dr. Dabbe, recalled at great speed from Berebury, had been terse.

“Strangulation,” he had said at his first glance. “Not more than two hours ago at the outside. Something thin pulled over his head from behind and then tightened. I don't know what. I'll have to tell you later.”

Sloan didn't know what either. The instrument of death had disappeared between swollen, engorged folds of skin. He hadn't realized the frightening vulnerability of the human neck. That a large and powerful young man like William Murton could be done to death with a quick twist of something thin round the throat seemed all wrong.

After luncheon.

Everyone in the house had dispersed after luncheon. Sloan had established that easily enough.

Then what?

Enter First Murderer for Second Murder?

“And why kill him anyway?” The Superintendent's question came charging into his train of thought.

“I don't know …” began Sloan—and stopped.

He did know.

Something at the back of his mind told him.

It teased his subconscious. Still nominally listening to Superintendent Leeyes, he flipped back the pages of his notebook. Somewhere this morning—it couldn't only have been this morning surely—it seemed aeons ago—William Murton had said something to him which …

He found the place in his notebook.

“I don't,” William Murton had said, and he, Sloan, had written down, “earn my keep like Cousin Gertrude cleaning chandeliers for dear life. I'm a sponger.”

How did William Murton, who was supposed not to have come up to Ornum House at all on Friday, know that Cousin Gertrude had been cleaning a chandelier all day? Something must have put it into his mind.

Not just “a chandelier,” of course, but the great hall chandelier.

That same great hall where towards evening the ancient and ageing Lady Alice Cremond had seen what she fondly took to be the ghost of her long departed ancestor, Judge Cremond.