02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (26 page)

And yet
she had come back to Dareswick. Why
had
she come back? Had she known
when she set off that there was a possibility that she would come back, that
she would not see through what she was determined to do? And had it been her
decision or had the decision to return been forced on her? It seemed most
likely that she had been depending on someone else and that person had let her
down.

It was
no use dwelling for the time being on who that other person could be, Rose
decided. What she must do instead was ascertain the other factors that had
persuaded Josephine to take flight when she did. Well, that shouldn’t be too
difficult for Josephine had spent most of the day with her, one way or another.

Rose
was roused from her contemplations by the clatter of cues on the billiard
table. The game and match were over and Cedric was patting Hallam on the back
and congratulating him. Rose wondered idly whether Cedric had let the boy win.
Hallam then said that he had some letters to write and left to go to his room.

‘I say,
Rose,’ Cedric said, coming over to her. ‘Hallam going off to write letters has
reminded me that I’ve got some to do as well. I was going to put them off until
tomorrow but I’d rather get them over and done with now, I think. But I have no
intention of leaving you by yourself. I expect the library’s still locked,
don’t you, and even if it isn’t I don’t think either of us would much fancy
using it after what’s happened. I think there’s a little sitting room that
Hallam’s mother used to use sometimes to sew in and do embroidery. Perhaps we
could find that and you can finish reading your magazine while I write my
letters.’ He smiled and drew her towards him, holding her hands in his. Rose
felt a tingle run up her spine. If only there had not been these murders, if
only….

‘More
to the point,’ Cedric was continuing, ‘are you having any luck, Sherlock, in
solving these murders? I looked up once or twice during our game of billiards to
catch your eye and make sure you weren’t getting too bored just sitting there.
But you didn’t see me at all. You were deep in thought and then you accosted
poor old Crabtree. I could tell you had your detective hat on and wondered if
you had decided who the murderer was and were going to make a pronouncement or
something there and then.’

‘You
may mock me,’ said Rose, laughing despite everything, ‘but I admit I was
thinking about it all, you know, turning it all over in my mind and trying to
make some sense out of some of it. I think I may be getting somewhere with the
mystery of the disappearing Josephine element but I have a way to go. So, yes,
I’ll carry on trying to do that while you write your ever so important letters.
Lead on Watson.’

The
moment of frivolity, however, was soon over as they walked out of the room,
along the corridor and into the hall. Death seemed to hang in the air here,
heavy and sombre. Rose cast a glance at the closed library door and thought of
the horror that had taken place behind it. She remembered too the distraught,
broken figure of the man she had left to repent and face his demons. They
couldn’t go on pretending it was some sort of game. It was far too serious and
tragic for all that. She owed it to Lord Sneddon to find his murderer. She
looked up at Cedric and saw that he too had been affected by the atmosphere for
he had gone pale and there was no trace of a smile on his face.

He led
the way off the hall and they walked in silence down a short corridor that Rose
had not noticed before. Cedric was going to write letters and she was going to
try and think. Letters.... letters seemed to have featured a great deal this
weekend, she thought. First, Josephine had been waiting desperately for a
letter that had never arrived, and then Isabella had been blackmailed by
letters that she must have heartily wished she had never written. Passionate
letters, if one went by the extract that Sneddon had read aloud in the library.
It seemed an age ago now and yet, unbelievably, it was only yesterday. She
remembered how distraught Isabella had been on hearing such words spoken by a
person whose sole purpose had been to embarrass her and ensure that she did his
bidding. How had the extract gone again? Now that she was trying so hard to,
she could not for the life of her remember the words. And yet something was
niggling at the back of her mind. She had a feeling that something had not sounded
quite right when the passage had been read aloud. It had been almost right, but
not quite.

‘Miss
Simpson, Lord Belvedere.’ Inspector Deacon had looked startled, springing up
from his chair as soon as Rose and Cedric had burst into the study in a
somewhat ungainly fashion, failing even to knock. In his surprise, Lane had dropped
his notebook and Rose, without hesitating had snatched it from the floor and
thrust it back into his hands.

‘Sergeant
Lane, you jotted down a bit from one of Isabella’s letters to Claude Lambert,
didn’t you?  It was the same bit that I overheard Lord Sneddon reading out to
Isabella in the library. Can you find it for me, please?’

The
sergeant glanced at Deacon and, receiving a nod, thumbed through a few pages of
his notebook until he came across what he was seeking. There then followed an
uncomfortable pause with Lane turning crimson and refusing to open his mouth. It
was evident to all present that he did not relish the prospect of reading out
the words in question. Rose gave a sigh of impatience and snatched the book
from him.

‘“My
darling Claude. I cannot wait until I am in your arms and your lips are on
mine, to feel…”’ read Rose, much to the amusement of Cedric. ‘Yes, I was right.
It’s overdone. It doesn’t sound real. You agree with me, Cedric, don’t you? It
doesn’t read quite right, does it? It sounds too contrived, as if it was
made-up somehow, more how a person might imagine a love letter should read. I’m
not making myself clear I know and you all probably think I’m being jolly silly
and pedantic. But I’m sure I’m right. What’s more, it seems to me to be missing
a word.

‘I am
not quite sure I follow,’ said Deacon, looking confused but also, to Rose’s
relief, interested.

‘I
think it should read: “My darling Claude. I cannot wait until I am in your arms
again
and your lips are on mine, to feel ....” It’s missing the word
“again”. Oh, don’t you see?’ she asked, looking at their blank faces with
exasperation. ‘Otherwise it implies that Isabella has never laid in Claude
Lambert’s arms before.’

‘She
may have written the letter hurriedly and missed out the word by mistake,’
suggested Deacon, looking disappointed as if he had been expecting more. ‘I
don’t think the omission of the word “again” proves anything one way or the
other. What are you
suggesting? That there never was a love affair?’ he
said, looking sceptical. ‘Are you proposing that these letters are just the
result of a girl’s overactive imagination?’

‘No,’
said Rose, slowly. ‘I think there was a love affair but that there is more to
it than meets the eye. I don’t think the situation is quite as simple and
straightforward as it seems.’

The
inspector frowned but said nothing. Sergeant Lane averted his gaze to his
shoes, which he suddenly seemed to find interesting, and Cedric gave her a
small, sympathetic smile.

She
could tell that they all thought she was making something out of nothing, that
she was seeing things where there was nothing to see. She didn’t really blame
them. There were more pieces of the puzzle to get, she knew, before she could
rearrange them and try and piece them together. But she was on to something,
she was sure. It was all beginning to come together, whatever they might think.
And then she would show them that her instincts had been right all along. She
shivered. It would be nice to be proved right, but she was apprehensive as to
how it would all end.

‘You
think I made rather a fool of myself in front of the policemen, don’t you?’

‘No…
not exactly,’ replied Cedric, choosing his words carefully. They were aimlessly
wandering the grounds again, not sure what else to do given the circumstances.

‘Oh, I
know I sounded ridiculous. Why, what I was saying even sounded ridiculous to
me, but I know I’m right. Now I’ve just got to figure out what to do now.’

‘You’ve
always said that you think Josephine holds the key. We’ve got to find out what
made her run off to London when she did.’

‘We
know that the missing letter contributed to her departure, but what else I
wonder. I’ve been thinking over the talk I had with her in the garden yesterday
morning, just after I had overheard Lord Sneddon blackmailing Isabella in the
library. She was preoccupied about something then, I’m sure of it. She didn’t
really give me her full attention until I told her what I had overheard.’

‘Wait a
minute, Rose. Are you telling me that you told Josephine about Sneddon
blackmailing her sister into marrying him?’

‘Yes, I
….’

‘Then
she knew about the blackmail business before Sneddon was killed?’

‘Yes,
she made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. She said she’d sort it out. That’s
why I didn’t tell you about it. I wanted to of course but I –.’

‘Oh, my
God, Rose, do you know what this means?’ Cedric put his head in his hands.

‘Yes,
it gives her a very strong motive for killing Lord Sneddon, I know. But I’m
sure she didn’t do it, at least I hope she didn’t. I so very much want her not
to be guilty.’

‘Do the
police know?’

‘No, I
haven’t told them. I know I should have but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to
do so.’

‘Well,
that’s something, I suppose. I say, Rose, you don’t think she could have done
it, do you? I mean to protect Isabella and all that?’

‘I did
wonder. You know it was all rather odd come to think about it.’

‘What
was?’

‘Well,’
said Rose, ‘she never once asked why Lord Sneddon was blackmailing Isabella
into marrying him.’

‘She
must have realised it was for her money. Sneddon was jolly hard up, you know.’

‘Yes,
but Josephine wasn’t to know that, was she? It wasn’t something Sneddon liked
to broadcast, was it?’

‘I
suppose not,’ said Cedric, pondering. ‘She may have thought Sneddon wanted to
marry her sister because she’s considered quite a beauty, although I have to
admit I’ve never seen it myself. I’ve always found her rather trying which has
probably clouded my judgement on her looks. But she does come from a good
family. That sort of thing would matter to a fellow like Sneddon.’

Rose
could not help smiling. Dear Cedric. Thank goodness that neither of those
attributes mattered so very much to him, considering that she was somewhat
lacking in both departments. For a moment she thought of Isabella’s strong,
almost fierce, beauty and her own rather pleasant plainness.

‘Even
so, Cedric, it seems to me a little odd, that’s all. Oh, I know what you’re
going to say,’ she added, catching his eye, ‘that I am finding everything a bit
strange. But even so, surely it would have been the first thing she would have
asked. It’s funny, you know, she seemed more interested in Isabella’s letters
to that Claude Lambert chap. She was visibly shocked by that. She had to sit
herself down on a bench.’

‘I’m
not surprised, particularly if you told her some of the rot Isabella had
written.’

‘Yes, I
did, and now I remember that Josephine said that she’d had suspicions about
there being some sort of romance between her sister and this man, but that she
had hoped they would prove unfounded. She was jolly upset by it all, you know.
Why, she was even shaking at one point.’

‘Well,
the baron would have kicked up a right stink about it if he’d found out. He’d
probably have disowned Isabella. Josephine was right to feel alarmed. If those
letters were to fall into the wrong hands, why, all hell would have broken loose.’

‘If the
letters were to fall into the wrong hands… yes. You know, Cedric, perhaps
that’s the key to everything, the fear that the letters would fall into the
wrong hands.’

‘So
that’s it, then,’ said Cedric, ‘nothing else?’

‘No, I
don’t think so.’

‘It
still doesn’t explain why Josephine saw the need to forsake friends and family
and dash off to London in the middle of the night, does it?’

‘No, it
doesn’t, but I can’t think of anything else. The rest of the day until my
bumping into Lord Sneddon in the library later that night was rather
uneventful.’ Rose caught the look on Cedric’s face. ‘In the best possible way,
of course,’ she added. ‘It was wonderful just wandering leisurely around the
village. Absolutely divine. I wish the whole weekend could have been like that.
It was nice Sneddon not being there to put a dampener on everything. And I know
it sounds rather rotten but it made things less fraught and more relaxing
Isabella being absent from the excursion. If she had been there, there would
have been some tension, particularly between her and Hallam.’

‘Yes,
put like that, yesterday does sound rather uneventful as far as anything happening
to spur Josephine to drop everything and rush off to London.’

‘I
doubt whether she even got the chance to confront Sneddon about the blackmail
business when he came back. He didn’t return until the very last minute, if you
remember? He only just made it back in time for dinner.’

‘So
nothing else happened that you can think of?’

‘No…Oh,
I wonder … but no, that was nothing. Or perhaps it was. Now that I come to
think about it, perhaps something did happen, only I didn’t realise the
significance of it at the time. Or perhaps I’m just reading more into all this
than there was.’

‘I wish
to goodness I knew what you were talking about. Tell me exactly what happened
and then we’ll be able to decide if it was significant or not.’ Cedric was
looking at her keenly.

‘Well, Josephine
decided to arrange some flowers in a vase.’