Chapter Fourteen #2
‘Interesting,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Could you tell which way they were heading?’
‘Towards the Bridgewaters’ room. A pair of men’s shoes went in the same direction a short while later. Then the soft shoes hurried back the way they’d come a few minutes after that.’
‘But not the other man’s shoes?’
‘No.’
‘This could be very important,’ I said. ‘Who wears soft-soled shoes?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Clarice. ‘No one. The ladies all have small heels, the men all have normal men’s heels, and when he goes out, Wilson wears hobnailed boots.’
‘So if we can find some soft shoes,’ I said, ‘we might find our killer.’
We stayed a while to chat with Clarice and eventually left her chuckling over one of Lady Hardcastle’s filthier jokes.
I looked up and down the corridor. ‘What now?’
‘Now I think we ought to do something we should have done much sooner: we need to walk through the scenes of the crimes. Let’s see if we can put ourselves into the mind of the thief-cum-killer. It might jog something.’
And so we did.
We started by walking between the Bridgewaters’ original room and the Sidwell-Plants’ as though we were stealing jewellery.
It was easy to move between them without being seen, as long as no one else was in their room, and we knew that everyone else was downstairs in the library or visiting the cloakroom off the hall.
‘How do we get back to the gathering?’ I asked.
‘If we walk downstairs we might be spotted. Anyone looking out through the library door would see us, and we’d bump into any number of people on their way to and from the WC.
No one said, “Oh, and I saw So-and-so coming downstairs before the recital.”’
‘Perhaps we could hide out somewhere here?’
‘No, we’d not want to be seen near the scene of the crime.’
‘Upstairs in one of the empty rooms, then? That might give us the idea for where to stash the body when we kill Everett.’
‘That seems like the best option. Shall we take a look?’
We went upstairs to the second floor.
The last time we’d visited, JB had just led us straight to the box room without giving us a chance to look round, so now we took our time and explored the second floor properly.
It was quite a bit more spacious than I’d imagined and, as well as additional guest rooms, another two of which were being used for storage, there was a large, modern bathroom.
There were no rooms on the north side of the floor – the side that would be looking back to the Devonshire shore if it had windows – and the wall was adorned with luxurious linenfold panelling reflecting the Tudor origins of the building.
‘This is rather swish,’ said Lady Hardcastle as she ran her hands over the wood. ‘I wonder if it’s original.’
‘You never know with JB,’ I said. ‘He’ll have paid a fortune for it, either way. It’s sort of a shame he didn’t put some windows in, though. We’re above the dining room and drawing room so the view of the coast should be good from here.’
She nodded. ‘True, but this is beautiful. The shame is that more people don’t get to see it.’ She nodded towards a door at the end of the corridor. ‘Where does that go, I wonder? Another room?’
‘I can think of a way to find out.’
We tried the door but found it locked.
‘Blast,’ she said. ‘Lockpicks?’
Lady Hardcastle had given me a pretty brooch for my birthday several years before which concealed small picklocks. This meant I was usually never without this essential tool, but the sartorial requirements of a country house weekend had left me temporarily ill-equipped.
‘Not with me, sorry. With all these stupid changes of outfit I’ve left the brooch on one of my other dresses.’
‘Not to worry – we can come back later. But I think it’s safe to say that the thief could have come up here after pinching the trinkets and then slipped back down to join us in the drawing room for Everett and Clarice’s performance.’
‘Agreed. They could have stashed the swag up here, but there are so many hiding places I doubt we’d ever find it.’
‘They might have retrieved it, anyway,’ she said. ‘Let’s move on to the murders for now, though. Everett’s body ended up on this floor so let’s work backwards.’ She led the way back to the box room where the body had been found. ‘He hauls Everett up the stairs and along the corridor to here.’
‘How does he know this would be a good hiding place? You wouldn’t heave an eleven-stone body up a flight of stairs on the off chance you might find somewhere to stash it,’ I said.
‘Good point. An earlier scouting trip?’
‘Seems reasonable. Either that or he was also the jewel thief and knew all about what was up here from his previous exploits.’
We made our way down the stairs.
I looked across from the foot of the stairs to the side door of the long gallery.
‘It’s easy enough to get the body out of there and up the stairs without being noticed as long as no one comes out of their room.
It’s a gamble, but you’d only be in view for a few moments before you rounded the curve of the stairs. ’
We went into the long gallery and over to the spot on the rug where we’d seen the bloodstain.
Lady Hardcastle checked her watch. ‘It happened about this time of day so it would have been a little gloomy in here, just as it is now, but it’s still perfectly possible to see what’s going on. It wasn’t an ambush – the killer would have been in plain sight.’
‘True, but everyone here knows everyone else and thought they were all friends. Everett wouldn’t have been on his guard that day any more than Sidwell-Plant was yesterday. You wouldn’t expect to have to fear a fellow guest.’
‘You’re right, of course. Even if someone were larking about with the narwhal tusk, one wouldn’t have anticipated that their next move would be to ram it into one’s chest.’
‘So, what do we think? The killer was in here and Everett came in to see what was going on? A quick chat, a bit of larking about with the tusk and then . . . wallop?’
‘I’m not sure it matters. If it were the other way round with the killer coming in and finding Everett examining the exhibits, it could still result in murder.’
‘It wasn’t like Thursday evening, though, when everyone was safely on the ground floor and sneaking up here might be easy.
’ I pointed out the end door of the gallery to the corridor beyond.
‘With people in and out of their bedrooms taking naps and whatnot, getting in here and hanging about would have been quite a risk.’
‘And why would the killer hang about here in particular? How did he know his victim would come to this place at that time?’
‘He wouldn’t unless they’d arranged it.’
‘Arranged it. Yes.’ She led the way out of the end door and along the passageway to the Bridgewaters’ old room. ‘And what about Sidwell-Plant? What was he doing in here?’
‘Another arrangement?’ I said.
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. But how? It can’t have been a verbal invitation – one’s immediate response would be, “Why can’t we just talk here, old chap? Why do we need a secret assignation?” So there must have been notes. It would be most helpful if we could find them.’
‘Would you keep a note from a friend asking you to meet in the long gallery, or would you throw it away?’
‘I wouldn’t much care what I did with it, to be honest. I’d not save it for my diary, but I’d not be desperate to get rid of it, either. The putative notes could be in the bin or they could be in their rooms somewhere.’
‘Or on their bodies,’ I said. ‘Patience would have spoken up by now if there was a note from the killer among Sidwell-Plant’s effects.’
Lady Hardcastle grinned and gripped my arm. ‘You little marvel. To the outside storeroom, tiny servant, with all possible dispatch.’
We weathered Peggy’s concerns about our going out without coats and reassured her we’d only be a few minutes. She didn’t seem entirely convinced but we didn’t hang about for long enough for her to argue.
Once inside the storeroom we flicked on the electric light and went straight to the tarpaulin-covered bodies. It was remarkably cold in the room and the chill had slowed putrefaction so that examining them wasn’t quite as unpleasant as it might have been in summer.
‘We should have searched their pockets before, you know,’ I said as I crouched to rifle through them.
‘There are a lot of things we should have done, dear. I for one have been so focused on trying to talk to potential killers and witnesses that I completely forgot that the victims themselves might be able to tell us something.’
There was a folded piece of paper in the right hip pocket of Sidwell-Plant’s jacket, and I pulled it out and handed it to Lady Hardcastle as I continued my search. The other pockets held only the usual odds and ends a gentleman might carry with him.
I moved on to Everett.
Once again his pockets were full of the nonsense a gentleman apparently needs to have about him all day, and it wasn’t until I reached the inside pocket on the left-hand side that I found another folded piece of paper, which I also passed to Lady Hardcastle.
I found nothing else of note and stood. With a frown, she handed both notes back to me.
The first was written in block capitals in blue ink.
Meet me in the long gallery at 3 O’Clock – There is something we must discuss. GB
The second was in the same hand and the same ink on a sheet of the same Guardians Rock notepaper.
My Room. 4PM. We Need To Talk. GB
I read both again. ‘That’s rather damning.’
Lady Hardcastle didn’t seem quite as excited as I might have expected. ‘Yes. It is, rather. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Well, don’t you think it’s rather too damning?
Imagine yourself in the role of murderer.
You have written a note arranging a meeting with your intended victim and, to your great relief, they turn up and allow you to kill them without too much fuss.
Everything up to this point has been planned with at least moderate care, but at the last you entirely forget to check their pockets for the incriminating note.
Twice. Overlooking it the first time might be understandable in the heat of the moment.
But surely when you went over the events in your mind you’d be cursing yourself for a fool for forgetting something so fundamental, and you’d take care to search your second victim. ’
‘When you put it like that,’ I said, ‘it seems a good deal more contrived. So someone is trying to fit Bridgewater?’
‘I’m not able to say for sure, but I’m not going to rule it out for now. I think we need to get back to my room so I can ponder. Also, I’m bloody freezing, but don’t tell Peggy.’