Chapter Thirteen #2
‘I’m merely pointing out the dangers of flinging accusations about.
You might not agree with JB’s decision to keep the news from you, but imagine how terrible things would be by now if you’d all had an extra two days to stew on it.
You’ve just proved my point, haven’t you? We’d all have turned on each other.’
She glared but relented. ‘So who was it?’
Lady Hardcastle shrugged. ‘That, Patience dear, is at the heart of the matter. Who, indeed?’
‘Well, it’s not me. And you insist it’s not you. So that doesn’t leave many possibilities.’
‘Very few indeed. So think back to Friday afternoon. We estimate Everett was killed sometime around three in the afternoon in the long gallery and then his body was moved to a box room on the second floor. Can you remember where everyone was on Friday afternoon?’
Patience thought for a moment. ‘No. I remember Florence, Lily and I overhearing Clarice and Edgar’s row. Then . . . I’m not sure. Did I talk to Dotty? Probably – that’s mostly what I do at these weekends. I might have had a nap then, so I’m afraid I didn’t see anyone else.’
‘No sign of Bridgewater?’
‘Gran? You’re not suggesting—’
‘We’re not suggesting anything,’ I said. ‘We just need to know where everyone was.’
Patience looked at JB. ‘I thought he was playing snooker with you and Bobby.’
JB shook his head. ‘Just Bobby. I was with Wilson and Lady Hardcastle in the long gallery, then Wilson and I went to the library. I don’t know where Lady Hardcastle went when she left us and I didn’t see Gran or Bobby until later.’
‘No, I’m sorry, I just can’t believe it’s Gran.’
‘Very well,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And who did you see yesterday afternoon around four o’clock?’
‘Is that when Bobby was killed?’
Lady Hardcastle nodded.
‘I saw you two as I came out of the sitting room but then went straight up for another nap. I didn’t see anyone else. Sorry.’
We didn’t have a chance to respond – at that moment, Bridgewater and Dotty walked in.
‘Good morning, darling,’ said Dotty. ‘How are you?’
‘I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet,’ said Patience. ‘I just can’t believe he’s gone.’
Dotty put her arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s terrible. Terrible. But if there’s anything Gran or I can do, you have only to say.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll miss him,’ said Bridgewater. ‘We had our differences, of course we did. Who in business doesn’t? But he was a good egg.’
Patience gave a half smile. ‘That’s certainly how everyone thought of him.’
‘Honest and loyal,’ said Bridgewater with an emphatic nod.
‘Do either of you remember who you saw yesterday afternoon at about four?’ asked Patience. ‘They’re trying to get a picture of where everyone was.’
Again both Dotty and Bridgewater told us exactly what we thought we already knew. They did the same when Patience asked them about Friday. None of us mentioned the fact that Everett had been murdered and, for some reason, the Bridgewaters didn’t question it.
I feared it was going to be a long, unproductive day.
We left the dining room just as Lily, Wilson and Clarice arrived for breakfast. I wondered about stopping to talk to them but we had twenty-four hours or so before Vickerman arrived with the boat, so I knew we still had plenty of time.
I also secretly thought we actually didn’t stand much chance of working it out anyway – so what, really, was the point?
We umm’d and ahh’d in the hall for a few moments while we tried to decide whether to settle in the library or the sitting room. We eventually plumped for the sitting room, imagining it would provide a more intimate setting should we need to get some serious interrogation going.
Again, though, I seriously doubted that any amount of questioning, serious or otherwise, was going to get us anywhere.
Excluding the two of us, there were only nine other people on the island, and two of those – the Crawfords – could probably be excluded simply on the grounds that they had other criminal enterprises to keep them busy, without the added complication of murder.
Yet despite the paucity of suspects, we were still no nearer to finding the culprit.
Well, I was, anyway. Lady Hardcastle, as was her habit, was playing her cards close to her ample chest so I had no idea how near she might be.
We rang for Crawford and asked for a large pot of coffee and some biscuits when he arrived, then stood together looking south across the English Channel. There was a ship’s compass on the windowsill.
‘Where’s the nearest land?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been meaning to look it up since we got here.’
She glanced at the compass. ‘Due south it would be the northern coast of Brittany, I think. Look south-eastish and it’s Guernsey, then the Cherbourg peninsula.’
‘Nowhere exotic, then.’
‘It depends how exotic one finds northern France or the Channel Islands. If France didn’t jut out like that it would be Spain. And then Morocco.’
‘That’s more like it,’ I said. ‘I’ll imagine myself looking towards Morocco. Do you remember chasing that gunrunner through the souk at Tangier?’
‘Oh, I do. I’m not completely sure I remember why we became involved, though, to be honest.’
‘Don’t you? The French and Spanish authorities were so busy arguing between themselves about who should take responsibility that nothing was getting done. You lost your patience with them and stepped in.’
‘That certainly does sound like me. What larks, eh?’
‘What larks indeed.’
Our coffee arrived and we sat in matching wingback chairs, carefully angled so that we could see anyone walking past the door.
Our first customers were, as I’d hoped, Wilson and Lily.
‘What ho, you two,’ called Lady Hardcastle.
They stopped and peered in.
‘Oh, hello,’ said Wilson. ‘We were looking for somewhere comfortable to sit. Do you mind if we join you?’
‘Not at all, dear. I’ll be honest: that’s why I hailed you.’
They came in and Wilson drew two more chairs over to our little table.
Lily grinned as she sat down. ‘Sick of your own company?’
‘You have no idea,’ I said. ‘She’s such a bore.’
Lily laughed. ‘Hardly. You’re both utterly fascinating.’
‘No, really,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘I’m crushingly dull. Whereas you two . . . An antiquities dealer and a photographer? What could be more fascinating than that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Wilson. ‘I’m not much more than an agent. A go-between. I do very little dealing, I merely find interesting objects and put buyers and sellers together.’
‘An antiquities hunter, then,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Well, when you put it like that, I’m as glamorous and exciting as they come.’
‘I’m not going to protest,’ said Lily. ‘I mean, I myself am as dreary as the next girl, but my job . . . well. I think being a photographer is absolutely the utterest utter.’
‘And rightly so,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Now, then, I wonder if you can help us with a little something. You know of some of our exploits, so obviously you must suspect that we’re trying to fathom out what’s been going on here.
You’re both observant young people with excellent memories.
I wonder if you have any memory of seeing anyone at about four o’clock yesterday afternoon? ’
Wilson looked at her shrewdly. ‘Is that when you think Sidwell-Plant was murdered?’
‘There or thereabouts, yes. We’re trying to get a picture of where everyone was.’
‘I’m afraid that’s about the time Lily and I were taking our long walk around the island. There was no one else about. Sorry.’
‘No, dear, don’t worry, that’s what I thought. I just wondered if you’d encountered anyone on your way out or your way back, that’s all.’
‘No one but Mr and Mrs Crawford in the kitchen,’ said Lily. ‘Actually, no, that’s not quite right. We only saw Peggy on the way out, but they were both there when we came back.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember the time?’ I asked.
Lily shook her head. ‘No, sorry. Oh, no, wait. There’s a big clock on the kitchen wall. I remember noticing it as we came back in. It was just coming up to ten minutes to five. By then everyone was in the library.’
‘Except Sidwell-Plant, obviously,’ added Wilson. ‘And Dotty – she came in a little later.’
‘With the terrible news,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Yes.’
At JB’s insistence, Monday’s lunch was an informal, come-as-you-please affair not unlike breakfast. There was a large tureen of stew alongside a warming dish piled high with mashed potato and we were expected to help ourselves.
When Lady Hardcastle and I arrived, JB and the Bridgewaters were quietly discussing Dotty’s plans for spring planting in the gardens. At least, JB and Dotty were discussing it – Bridgewater, without a joke to tell or an audience to listen to it, was just staring at his now-empty plate.
He brightened as we entered. ‘Afternoon, ladies. Come to save me from gardening talk?’
‘I’m always happy to provide an alternative if people are talking about plants,’ I said. ‘They’re a mystery to me.’
‘And to me. I’m perfectly at home with the intricacies of the Companies Act but I can’t tell a petunia from a begonia and I’ll be damned if I know a loamy soil from a lime tree.’
I smiled. ‘My feelings exactly. Herself tries to teach me but it goes in one ear and out the other. When she and the gardener get together they might as well be speaking Mandarin. Except that I understand Mandarin.’
‘Ha! Well, sit yourself down and we can leave these two to their hardy perennials.’
As it turned out, we weren’t able to talk for long before JB and Dotty took themselves off to inspect Dotty’s proposed site for a kitchen garden, and Bridgewater, with feigned reluctance, followed.
We sat alone for a short while with our stew.
‘This is remarkably tasty,’ I said. ‘I’ve had many a bland stew in my time, but Peggy definitely has a way with herbs and seasoning. I’m not sure I would have served it with mash, but it’s not unpleasant.’
‘JB’s always been a fan of the mashed potato, don’t forget. I often wondered if it was an American thing or a McIntyre thing.’
‘I’m certainly not going to ask. I think he’d much rather we were solving the murders than examining his culinary preferences.’
‘Hmm,’ she said as she took another forkful of stew.
I gave her a quizzical look. ‘Hmm?’
‘Yes, hmm. I can’t help but keep coming back to the notion that JB is an extremely likely candidate for the role of murderer in this weekend’s performance.’
‘A great candidate,’ I said, ‘but one who is excluded from the running by the fact that he had no opportunity to kill Everett. There are minutes here and there when we don’t know his whereabouts, but he had no time to kill him and move the body.’
‘No, I know. But that’s at the core of it all, isn’t it? No one who had the strength to move Everett also had the opportunity to kill him.’
‘In that case, there’s something very wrong with our knowledge or our assumptions.’
She thought for a moment. ‘That has to be it. Either we don’t know what we think we know or our thinking has led us astray.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s exactly what I just said, only wordier.’
‘Indeed it is, dear. But sometimes one has to say these things out loud for oneself.’
Patience appeared at the door. ‘Hello, ladies. What’s for lunch?’
‘Beef stew and mashed potato,’ I said.
‘No dumplings?’
‘Sadly not. Will you join us?’
‘I might give it a miss, thank you.’ Nevertheless she came in. ‘Are you any nearer to finding out who stabbed Robert?’
Lady Hardcastle took a sip of water. ‘No, dear. But then again, yes.’
‘You’ll forgive me for pointing out that that makes no sense.’
‘Nothing makes sense any more, dear, but I accept the criticism. What I think I meant was that we’re no nearer, but that our frustration is leading us to challenge what we think we know. And that might lead us to the answers that have thus far eluded us.’
‘I see. Well, good luck. I shan’t miss Robert, but I didn’t wish him dead. Well, not often, anyway. His killer needs to be brought to justice.’
‘We shall do our utmost.’