16 An Axe And An Urn
T ess was surprised to find herself disappointed that Edward had left already. Why had he come all the way to Corland, which was not on the way to or from anywhere, only to leave again almost at once? He seemed to have told everyone about Tom already, so perhaps that was his sole purpose, and now he had gone home again. She felt oddly bereft.
She was one of the last to enter the drawing room before dinner, sidling into an unexpectedly full and noisy room.
“Tess! Dear girl, where have you been all this time?” The familiar face of the earl’s brother loomed out of the crowd.
“Oh, here and there, Uncle George.”
“And betrothed, I hear,” he said, with an arch look. “I wish you joy, my dear.”
“Thank you, uncle, but it will be a lengthy engagement, I fear, since Mama will not give her permission.”
“You must bring your young man to meet us all. I am sure once your mama is assured that you have chosen wisely, she will not withhold her consent. But my goodness, what a summer it has been for betrothals. Walter is to marry Winnie Strong — did you know that? And Bertram is engaged to Bea Franklyn.”
“Bertram? Bea Franklyn? And Walter and Winnie? No, I did not know that! I am all astonishment, uncle.”
“So were we, to be frank,” he said in a lowered voice. “You young people, you seem to make up your minds to it all in a rush.”
“I thought you and Aunt Jane had a very quick courtship,” Tess said. “Five weeks, was it not?”
He looked a trifle abashed. “Oh well… yes, that is true. Sometimes, one knows one’s own mind. So tell me about this young man of yours — Mr Frith, is it not? He has an estate near Durham, I understand?”
Tess said what she could about Ulric, but when Uncle George asked her what in particular attracted her to him, she was hard pressed to answer. The truth — that he was a gentleman, but one who was so uninterested in her that she could do as she pleased — was not an idea she wished to put into words. Uncle George was sweet to pretend that this was a normal betrothal based on mutual affection, but he must know perfectly well how things stood.
Happily, Aunt Jane soon interrupted them to introduce a friend of hers who was staying for a while, a Miss Hannah Snellgrove, so Uncle George drifted away, leaving the three ladies to make laboured conversation. Tess was not much minded for the usual inane chatter of the drawing room when her head was so full of her own problems, and Miss Snellgrove seemed not to have much conversation, either. Fortunately, Aunt Jane was perfectly capable of talking for three, and moreover soon took her friend away to meet the Edgertons, who could at least be relied upon to dredge up suitable drawing room chatter.
Tess retreated to a poorly-lit corner where she could skulk and not be called upon to talk. If she had had Edward there… but he was gone, and there was no one else who knew all her secrets and to whom she could unburden herself. She watched the milling crowd in the drawing room in a detached way, almost as if she were the audience watching a play on the stage. She had nothing in common with these people. Tom, with his shy smile and his clever hands turning plain wood into beautiful objects, that was where her heart lay. And Edward, too, understood her. At least he could give her a tolerable game of chess. But her own kin? No. Almost she felt she must be a changeling, she was so different from them.
At last they went through to the dining room, Miss Snellgrove on Uncle Charles’ arm, as the guest of honour. The earl looked at the lady rather strangely, Tess thought, almost as if… no, surely not. Lord Rennington was long married, and would not be so crass as to display open admiration for another woman, would he? It was true that Miss Snellgrove was rather pretty, and many men would be delighted to strike up a flirtation with her, but not the earl, she would have said.
But when they were all seated, Tess found herself next to her cousin Kent, who grinned and said, “Father seems to like this one better than the others.”
“You refer to Miss Snellgrove? What others?”
“Aunt Jane has been inviting likely candidates for weeks now, but this is the first really pretty one. Oh, did you not know? Candidates to be the next Countess of Rennington.”
“But what about Aunt Caroline?” Tess squeaked.
“It was her idea,” Kent said. “Now that we know that your perfidious father was never ordained and Father’s marriage was never legal, he needs to get more sons. Legal ones, that is. Mother is too old for that, so she has stepped aside to allow him to choose a second wife. This one might just catch his fancy, do you not think?”
Tess was too shocked to answer. Poor Aunt Caroline! Cast aside after thirty years of marriage, to be replaced by someone younger, able to bear sons. She had said nothing about it when Tess had seen her at Harfield.
For a while, everyone concentrated on the food, but once the soup was removed with a shoulder of lamb and ribs of beef, and all the dishes had been passed around, conversation began again. Tess noticed Miss Snellgrove talking animatedly to the earl, while he said very little, shaking his head occasionally.
“What do you suppose they are talking about?” she whispered to Kent. “Whatever it is, she seems more enthusiastic about the subject than Uncle Charles.”
Kent grinned, and called the butler over. “What topic is it that has so animated Miss Snellgrove, Simpson?”
“Essays on morality, sir,” Simpson said in an undertone.
Tess felt her eyebrows rise. “Can it be that the very pretty Miss Snellgrove is a bluestocking?”
Kent laughed. “How amusing! Do keep an eye on Father. Another five minutes of philosophising on morality and his eyes will glaze over. So what should we talk about, cousin? You will not have much to say about your betrothed, I dare say, and although I should like to know where you were when you were supposed to be in Helmsley, I doubt you will tell me.”
“Are you quite sure I was not at Helmsley? When you called at my friend’s house, I might have been indisposed or out at the modiste’s.”
He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Any half-trained servant knows how to deal with an enquiry for a young lady who is indisposed or out shopping. I should have been told very calmly that Miss Nicholson was not at home. But instead, the whole house was thrown into a spin, so I knew at once that you had gone scampering off on one of your mad starts. Miss Bullock is stout of heart, and would not tell me where you truly were, although she went the colour of beetroot when I mentioned Pickering. Where your house is, is it not so, cousin? But you need not worry, I have told no one your little secret. Whatever mischief you were up to, you need not fear that I would betray you.”
On her other side, Eustace leaned towards her. “But I might, now that I too know your little secret, cousin.” He grinned wolfishly.
“I had rather you did not mention Pickering. After all, most of us have secrets we would rather not have revealed, is it not so, cousin?” She smiled at Eustace benignly, and was pleased to see the tiniest frown mar his forehead. That would give him something to think about! She could reveal a thing or two about a certain young lady from a certain house in Pickering, if she chose.
Eustace recovered quickly. “I am only teasing you, cousin. Family secrets stay within the family, is it not so, Kent? I value loyalty above all things.”
Kent looked uncomfortable, and turned away to attend to Emily Atherton on his other side, but Eustace laughed and reached for a dish. “Some more fritters, cousin? They are quite delicious, are they not? Or may I pass something else to you?”
“The fish, if you please,” she said.
As he attended to her request, she glanced at the earl at the foot of the table. Miss Snellgrove was still talking with great enthusiasm, one hand waving a piece of bread for emphasis. The earl’s eyes had glazed over.
It was not until the ladies withdrew, leaving the gentlemen to their port, that the true horror of Miss Snellgrove became apparent. Several of the ladies brought out embroidery to work on, but when Penelope Atherton admired her sister’s work and said, “Is it not exquisite, Miss Snellgrove? Emily has such a talent for delicate stitchery, do you not agree?” she sniffed disdainfully.
“It is well done, I suppose, although I have no time for such a pointless occupation. Practical needlework — that I concede is necessary, but ornamental work serves no purpose, and ruins a female’s eyesight for no good reason.”
“You think, then, that a woman should confine her needlework to the mending of shifts and the darning of stockings?” Penelope said.
“If she can find no better occupation, yes.”
Mrs Edgerton looked up with a gentle smile. “What would you regard as a better occupation, Miss Snellgrove?”
“Why reading, of course.”
“There are journals on the table over there,” Olivia put in helpfully. “May I fetch one for you?”
“Journals! Repositories of frivolity and trivia, to corrupt the mind,” she said scornfully.
“Perhaps we might have a little music,” Lady Alice said quickly. “Miss Snellgrove, would you care to—?”
“I do not play! Music can uplift the spirits, if played by a true proficient, but schoolgirl performances are a dull affair, to be endured rather than enjoyed. I have never wanted to add myself to the number of those who play but a little, and that little not well.”
“I am not so nice in my requirements,” Lady Alice said with asperity. “We have a number of ladies here whose performances give me great pleasure. Mrs Edgerton, would you oblige the company? We have so missed your spirited playing. And Miss Snellgrove, perhaps you may care to find a book to read in the library. We have a number of volumes suitable for persons of a serious disposition, not at all frivolous. Olivia will show you the way.”
As soon as they had left, Aunt Jane burst out, “I am so sorry, everyone! What a crashing bore she is. I should never have inflicted her on you if I had known. It is no wonder she is still a spinster at her age. She would drive any rational man to distraction.”
“She would certainly drive Charles to distraction,” Lady Alice said. “He is no intellectual, that much is certain. He is an outdoors sort of man, happy to ride to hounds, to shoot and fish, to play cricket on the lawn with the children. He never picks up a book beyond the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer.”
“Riding…” Aunt Jane said. “Yes, that gives me an idea.”
Just then, Mrs Edgerton began to play a lively tune, and conversation lapsed. Tess took the opportunity to creep out of the room and scurry away. She would find her favourite hiding place where she could be peaceful, free of foolish chatter, and wonder how soon Tom would be released from prison.
***
F or two whole days, Tess sat in the former schoolroom with Captain Edgerton, while Mrs Edgerton placidly sewed or read a book as chaperon. The lawyer, Mr Willerton-Forbes was there occasionally, too, and Harold stood guard outside the door, ready to rush in the instant she summoned him. On a shelf sat the axe, a disheartening reminder of their purpose.
The captain wanted to know every little detail that Tess could remember about her father — who his friends were, where he went, even trivia like where he got his clothes and his food preferences.
“So long as there was a decent claret on the table, he never minded what he ate,” she said.
“I know someone like that,” Mrs Edgerton said archly, with a glance at her husband.
“There is nothing wrong with an appreciation of good wine,” said Mr Willerton-Forbes, and they all laughed, even Tess.
By the second day, she found herself drawn almost against her will into a kind of camaraderie with the captain and his friends. He said nothing to distress her, made no accusations against her and was even generous towards Tom, and it was clear that his only objective was to find her father’s murderer.
Since he already knew a great deal about the Pickering house, she found herself telling him everything she knew about the gold bars, explaining how she used to sneak into her father’s study when he was away from home and root around in his papers. It was thus that she discovered the safe, and without much difficulty the key, and saw the pile of gold bars inside.
“How many, would you say?” the captain said, lifting his pencil from the notebook where he was recording interesting details.
“Not so many as at Pickering, I should say, although I did not count them.”
“So he continued to add to his collection after that point. How did you think he acquired such a treasure trove?”
“Not from saving his pennies, that much is certain!” she said, laughing.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know to a nicety what he was paid as chaplain, and what Mama's portion was.” When the captain looked at her quizzically, she shrugged and said, “I used to look around Uncle Charles’s study, too. I never got into his safe, but he had a drawer labelled ‘Important papers’ , so I looked in there.”
The captain laughed. “If only everyone were so helpful as to label drawers in that manner. It would make snooping so much easier. So how do you think your father made all that money that became gold bars?”
She frowned a little, for it was a question that bothered her, if she were honest. But she gave the explanation she had settled on years ago. “He used to win at cards a great deal, especially when he played piquet against Grandfather late at night — five or ten or even twenty pounds, so that would add up, would it not?”
“Even small amounts would add up, over time,” the captain said. “If he made five pounds in a night, and repeated the feat every week, say, then… let me see, the late earl died ten years ago, so over twenty years… hmm, that would be five thousand pounds. Assuming he did not spend his winnings.”
“He never spent a penny of his own money if he could help it, and if it were ten pounds, three times a week…?”
“Hmm. Thirty thousand. Even so, it seems a great deal just from cards. Is there any other way you can think of that he might have accumulated so much money?”
“His businesses in Pickering?”
“A chandlery and an ironmongery. We will look into them, of course, but it seems unlikely that they would be quite so profitable, and if he had any other businesses, we have yet to hear of them.”
“A haberdashery,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “There was talk of a haberdashery.”
“So there was. But that could not have been so profitable, either. Let us be generous and suppose he made twenty thousand from cards, over the years. That still leaves twenty thousand to account for.”
“Perhaps he was involved with the smugglers,” Tess said, laughing.
“Is there smuggling here, so far from the coast?” Captain Edgerton said, blandly, but Tess had a feeling he knew more than he was saying.
“There is smuggling everywhere,” she said. “The goods may come in at the coast, but they get distributed far beyond that.”
Captain Edgerton nodded, and scribbled away in his notebook, and Tess hoped she had deflected him from further enquiry. She did not know precisely how her father had acquired so much money, but he could not have come by it honestly, on that point she was certain.
When he looked up from his writing, he said, “Tell me about Shapman’s confession.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“He never talked about it to you? It was not, perhaps, your suggestion?”
“ No! I would never have—! And I know he did not do it, so why would I—? No! But I think it was my letter that set him off. When I heard you were at Pickering, looking into my father’s affairs there, I panicked a bit, in case you found my fortune.” She lifted one shoulder with a sigh. “Well, you found it anyway, but I wrote to Tom and said I wished there were some way to stop your investigations, and Tom took me at my word. But I had no idea of any confession beforehand. I was shocked when I heard.”
“But you must have talked to him about the murder. You walked into Birchall regularly, I understand, so—?”
“What does that have to say to anything?” she said sharply.
Captain Edgerton smiled. “I mean no censure, I assure you. What you do or who you see is not my concern. I am only interested in Shapman’s confession, for I have to tell you, it was very convincing, and it puzzles me how he got all that information. I wondered if perhaps he had discussed with you how the murder might have been done.”
“Oh… I am not sure… there was only one time…” She frowned, trying to recall the occasion. “He said it must have been a madman, someone who just broke in through the window in the scullery with the broken latch, then wandered about here and there, picking up the axe on the stairs and entering my father’s room by sheer chance. But I said it could not be so.”
“Yes?” the captain said encouragingly, when she paused.
“I thought it was all planned.”
“What makes you think so?”
She paused, wondering just how wise it was to answer that question truthfully. Reticence was as natural to her as breathing, but she could not see the harm in it and perhaps it might be the vital clue that allowed the captain to solve the murder. She glanced at the axe on its shelf, a silent nudge to her conscience. “Because of the axe,” she said slowly. “The axe was hidden.”
“Was it?”
“Nobody saw it,” she said. “Eustace said he put it in the display, but nobody saw it because it was hidden, ready for the murderer to use.”
“Where was it hidden?” the captain said.
“In one of the urns, of course,” she said scornfully. “Where else?”
“I could think of scores of places where it might be hidden,” the captain said.
“No, it was in one of the urns.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I do not think so, I know so. I saw it there.”
The captain uttered an exclamation of surprise, and dropped his pencil. Even Mr Willerton-Forbes raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
“Miss Nicholson, you could not possibly have seen the axe in the urn. It must be taller than you are.”
She smiled at him. “Not from alongside it. From above. There is an alcove that overlooks the stairs, and when the sun is at just the right height, the light from the glass ceiling shines directly into the urn. I could see the axe inside it.”
“Show me! Show me at once!” Captain Edgerton cried, jumping up and grabbing the axe. “Pettigrew, will you be so good as to take the axe down to the stairs and put it in the urn? Now, Miss Nicholson, show me your alcove.”
The alcove was a small rounded balcony overlooking the great hall, made with a carved stone balustrade. It was set to one side of one of the bedroom corridors, its great attraction being a curtain that hid anyone lurking there from those passing by in the corridor.
“When we were little, we were allowed to sit here to watch guests arriving for a ball,” she said. “Everyone used to gather in the great hall before going in to dinner or through to the gallery to dance. We could peer through the balusters and admire the gowns and jewels. Nowadays, I believe I am the only one who remembers its existence. It is an excellent place to hide if one does not wish to be found.”
“And it has a splendid view of the stairs,” the captain said.
Down below, Mr Willerton-Forbes waited with the axe, with Mrs Edgerton.
The captain leaned over the balustrade and called down, “Put it in the urn, Pettigrew.”
As he moved to do so, Tess cried out, “No! Not that one! The other one, Mr Willerton-Forbes.”
“But that is the one that Shapman said he used.”
“Well, he made it up, did he not?” Tess said, laughing. “It is only possible to see into the nearest urn, Captain, not the one at the other side of the half-landing.”
“Of course,” the captain said slowly. “And there is no balcony on that side. Very well, this urn, Pettigrew if you will.”
When he did so, the captain leaned over the balustrade. “No, I still see nothing.”
“The handle is too dark. It is the metal blade that shows up,” she said. “Mr Willerton-Forbes, can you place the axe so that the blade is on the side furthest from us?”
“Ah! Now I see it,” the captain said. “Excellent.”
“It shows up much better when the sun is directly on it,” Tess said. “Oh! I have just thought of another reason why Tom could not have done what he claimed. Those urns are fitted with a platform about halfway up so that a vase of flowers may be placed inside without damaging the urn itself with water. Without that, the axe would slip right to the bottom and be out of reach. Tom would not have known that.”
“Who would have known it?”
“The family, and the older servants. I cannot recall that flowers have been put in there for years — not since my grandfather’s day.”
“How very interesting,” the captain said, with a flash of gleaming teeth. “I shall make enquiries, but this does account for why Shapman knew about the axe being in the urn and yet chose the wrong urn. I suppose you did not happen to see who put the axe in there, Miss Nicholson?”
“If I had, I should have told you all this a very long time ago, Captain Edgerton, because whoever it was, he must have murdered my father.”