02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (28 page)

‘Did
you find any?’ asked Isabella, as soon as Josephine entered her bedroom later
that night.

‘My
Veronal? Yes, here it is.’

‘Will
you be a dear and mix some in my glass of water for me while I take my necklace
off. These jewels are very fine, but really this necklace is so jolly heavy.’

‘I
can’t think why you decided to wear it in the first place. Here at Dareswick, I
mean. It’s not as if you have anyone to impress here, is it? Or have you set
your sights on Cedric now Hugh is out of the way?’

Isabella
stopped fiddling with the clip of her necklace and turned to look at Josephine.
There was an uncomfortable silence where neither girl said anything.

‘And
you brought my cocoa too? It was sweet of you to bring it up to me. And you
have brought a cup for yourself, I see. I didn’t think you liked it, found it
too bitter. Well, are you wanting us to sit down and have a nice sisterly
little chat? I really do need to sleep you know, I’ve hardly slept a wink these
last couple of nights, what with everything.’

‘The
cocoa is not for me, it’s for Rose.’

‘For
Rose? Are you taking it to her now? Oh, do be a dear and pass me my hairbrush,
will you? I think it’s over there on my dressing table somewhere.’

‘I’m
not your servant, Isabella.’ Even so, Josephine still went over to the dressing
table in search of the hairbrush. ‘It isn’t here, you know. I say, Isabella, do
you really need all these creams and potions?’

‘It
must be in one of the dressing table drawers, then. Yes, the top right hand
one, I think. Do have a look.’

A few
moments elapsed as Josephine rummaged through the contents of the drawer until
she had located the elusive hairbrush.

‘We are
very different, you and I, aren’t we?’ said Isabella, as Josephine passed her
the hairbrush. ‘In character as well as looks, I mean. No one would take us for
sisters, would they? You know, Josephine, I have always been rather frightened
of you.’

‘Have
you?’ Josephine said, slowly. ‘Funny, I’ve always been rather frightened of
you
.
Especially after …’ her hand went up to her face.

‘Don’t!’
Isabella exclaimed. ‘Don’t be so beastly as to remind me.’

‘I’m
sorry, I didn’t mean to. It’s just that I am frightened, Isabella, as much
for
you as
of
you.’

‘How
strange. You see, sister dear, I feel exactly the same way about you. Everyone
thinks you are so kind, and good and reliable. They don’t see what I see. Then
they’d realise that you’re nothing like that at all.’

‘Oh,
Isabella.’ Josephine sat down on Isabella’s bed and suddenly burst into tears,
‘what am I to do; what am I to do?’ She hid her head in her hands and sobbed.
Isabella watched on, unmoved.

‘Ah,
Mrs Hodges,’ said Josephine, coming out of Isabella’s bedroom a few minutes
later. ‘Would you mind taking this cocoa along to Miss Simpson? I promised I’d
bring her a cup. But I’m suddenly feeling jolly tired and she is sure to want
me to stay for a bit of a chat, and I’m afraid I’m really not up to it. I feel
quite done in.’

‘Of
course, Miss Josephine.’

‘Oh,
and there’s just one other thing.’

‘Yes,
miss.’

‘Miss
Isabella is frightfully tired. Understandably she hasn’t been sleeping well,
what with what happened to Lord Sneddon and everything. I’ve given her some of
my Veronal for her to use. I’d appreciate it if you’d make sure that she isn’t
disturbed tomorrow morning. I want her to have a bit of a lie in. I think it
will do her the world of good, I really do.’

‘Where
is everyone?’ asked Rose of Crabtree when she came down to breakfast the
following morning. ‘Am I the first one down? I know it’s frightfully early but
I just couldn’t sleep.’

‘The
master’s taken a stroll outside, miss. He often does first thing in the
morning, believes it sets him up for the day, and the young gentlemen are still
in bed. Miss Josephine’s gone for a walk by the lake and Miss Isabella’s
sleeping in this morning. Her sister asked that she not be disturbed on account
of her not sleeping well lately.’

‘Miss
Josephine said that?’

‘Yes,
miss, she told Mrs Hodges yesterday, last thing.’

‘I see.
And she’s gone for a walk alone by the lake, you say?’

‘Yes,
miss. Beg pardon, miss, but the police inspector’s just arrived with the
sergeant. I need to see to them.’

‘Yes,
of course, I need to talk to them myself in a minute.’

It
occurred to Rose that she should really eat something. Goodness knew when
anyone would feel like eating when she told the police what she believed to be
true. But her appetite had quite deserted her. She was worried about Josephine,
she realised. Why had she gone for a walk by the lake? Was it possible that…

‘Inspector
Deacon.’ She was so relieved to see him, it was all she could do not to throw
herself in his arms. ‘Please, it’s Josephine, she’s gone for a walk by the
lake.’

‘Good
morning, Miss Simpson. And that worries you why?’

‘I
think she may be going to throw herself in. Please, you have to stop her. We
might be too late as it is.’ She found that she was clinging onto his sleeve in
her desperation.

‘Quick,
Lane, take a couple of the constables with you. And when you get her, if she’s
in a fit state for questioning, I want her brought into the study. Miss
Atherton is going to be answering questions this time, whether she likes it or
not.’

‘I’m
sure she will,’ said Rose, ‘now that she knows it’s all over.’

‘Are
you telling me that you know what happened and why it happened, Miss Simpson?’
Deacon asked, leading the way to the study.

‘Yes, I
suppose I am. But first you must tell me about the man in the newspaper
article, the one who has been murdered. Do you know who he was?’

‘Yes,
and you were right, you see he was –.’

‘Claude
Lambert,’ said Rose, hurriedly. ‘I’m right. Aren’t I?’

‘You
are indeed, Claude Lambert, erstwhile lover of Miss Isabella Atherton.’

‘Oh,
no, Inspector, you’re quite wrong there. You see, he was never in love with
Isabella Atherton. No, he was in love with her sister, Josephine. Don’t you
see? He was the man she was planning to elope with.’

‘No, I
don’t see at all,’ protested Deacon. ‘This Claude Lambert chap must have been
in love with Isabella Atherton at some point in time, otherwise why would she
have sent him those letters, the ones that Sneddon used to blackmail her with? Surely
you’re not telling me they were forgeries? Or are you telling me they were written
by Josephine Atherton not her sister? All this time has Isabella been trying to
protect her sister?’

‘No,
I’m not trying to tell you anything of the sort, Inspector. You see, I said
Claude Lambert was not in love with Isabella. I did not say she was not in love
with him, or at least thought herself to be.’

‘I’m
afraid you’re totally confusing me, Miss Simpson. You are going to have to
explain yourself further,’ Deacon said, sounding somewhat exasperated. ‘I can’t
for the life of me understand what you’re saying, I …’ He broke off abruptly as
the study door burst open. ‘What on earth –.’

‘Sir.’
Lane was standing there, his hair dishevelled and a look of disbelief on his
face. ‘Sir, she’s dead.’

‘Josephine?’
Rose cried out, in distress. ‘So we were too late. I should have known, I
shouldn’t –.’

‘No,
miss, not Josephine Atherton. She’s fine. We encountered her just now, just
outside the house. She was on her way back from the lake. No, it’s the other
one. Isabella Atherton. Her maid’s just found her in her bedroom. It looks like
she’s been poisoned.’

‘Heaven
help us, not another murder!’ exclaimed the inspector, putting his head in his
hands.

‘No,’
answered Rose, as Josephine Atherton was led into the room. ‘It wasn’t murder,
Inspector. I think you will find it was suicide. She knew, you see, that I’d
worked out the truth by something I said last night. She realised the game was
up and took the only way out.’

‘Are
you telling me, Miss Simpson, that Isabella Atherton murdered two people?’

‘No I’m
not, Inspector. Because, in fact, she murdered three people. She murdered
Claude Lambert too. Don’t you see? That’s what started it all.’ Rose looked
over at Josephine. The girl was pale and looked as if she was about to faint.
Sergeant Lane was obviously of the same opinion and hastily pulled up a chair
for her to sit in.

‘You
realised what she had done, didn’t you?’ Rose asked gently.

‘Yes.
Not at first of course, I was just as much in the dark as the rest of you. It
was only after…’ She broke off to gulp back a generous measure of brandy which
the diligent sergeant had also seen fit to pour her. Rose was pleased to see some
colour returning to her cheeks.

‘Suppose,’
said Deacon, ‘that, between the two of you, you tell us the whole story. Miss Atherton
looks rather done in, so suppose you start, Miss Simpson, and then you just
chip in, Miss Atherton, as you feel able.’

‘Well,’
said Rose. ‘I suppose it all started when Josephine met Claude Lambert at her
sister’s. He was giving Isabella French lessons. I am assuming there was an
instant attraction?’

‘Yes,’
agreed Josephine, ‘I liked him enormously when I met him but didn’t think
anything of it. Then, purely by chance, we happened to bump into each other a
week or two later when I was next in London for the day. We went to a little
tea shop he knew and talked and talked for hours. I rather think he missed a
couple of his lessons. After that we corresponded frequently and met up in
London whenever we could, on the pretext of my going to visit Isabella.’

‘And
you kept your relationship secret,’ prompted Rose.

‘Yes. I
knew Father would never accept Claude as a prospective husband. He doesn’t like
foreigners very much I’m afraid, and besides Claude was virtually penniless,
eking out a meagre living giving French lessons to the wealthy. Father would
have thought him totally beneath us, little more than a servant. He really
wouldn’t have viewed it as being any different to my eloping with Brimshaw.’

‘And
then Lord Sneddon came to stay at Dareswick,’ said Rose.

‘Yes. I
thought it rather a blessing at first. You see I pretended to everyone that I
was rather flattered by his attentions to me. I didn’t think he really meant
anything by them. But it was all jolly handy in helping disguise the fact that
I was actually in love with someone else. So I just played along. Hugh had such
a very bad reputation with women that it never occurred to me for a moment that
he might actually fall in love with me, or that I would hurt his feelings or
pride so when I rejected his advances.’

‘But he
did fall in love with you, didn’t he? And, when he realised that his love for
you was unrequited, he sought solace with your maid.’

‘Yes,’
said Josephine, sadly. ‘I will never forgive myself for what happened to her,
not as long as I live. If only I had known what he would do and to what lengths
she would go to escape the shame.’

‘You
weren’t to know, you mustn’t blame yourself,’ said Rose, with feeling. ‘Everyone
thought that he had got tired of you, not the other way around, didn’t they?’

‘Yes,
you see I wasn’t really his usual type. Not nearly pretty enough for one thing.
It also meant that everyone left me alone for a bit to lick my wounds, so to
speak. They didn’t regard it as so very odd if I withdrew a bit from everyone.
Which meant that I had all the time I needed to plan my escape with Claude so
that we could be together. I knew I’d have to run away from Dareswick, never to
return. Father would have disowned me for sure, I knew that. I would be saying
goodbye to my family forever.’

‘This
is all very well,’ said Deacon, who had remained silent up to now during the
exchange between the two women. ‘But what I’d really like to know, is how
Isabella and the letters come in to all this.’

‘I’m
coming to that,’ said Rose. ‘The main thing is that Josephine and Claude had made
plans to elope, to have taken effect in a few days’ time, I would imagine. It
explains why you were so preoccupied, Josephine, on Friday, and why you were
sad about the idea of not being here to see the bulbs come into flower.’

‘Yes,
yes,’ said Deacon, impatiently. ‘But how does Isabella, and Sneddon for that
matter, come into all this. What’s the significance of the letters Sneddon used
to blackmail your sister? Did Isabella write them to Claude Lambert, or didn’t
she?’

‘Yes,
she did. Correct me if I’m wrong, Josephine, but I think your sister became
rather fixated on Claude Lambert, more so perhaps because her feelings weren’t
reciprocated. She was a beautiful and rich young woman. I am sure she was used to
getting her own way and having men fall at her feet. I think she viewed Claude
Lambert as something of a challenge.’

‘Yes,
Claude told me one of his students had become rather obsessed with him and was
bombarding him with love letters. At first he laughed it off. I think he saw it
as just a bit embarrassing to begin with, you know, what with Isabella being my
sister and all that, although of course I didn’t know that at the time because
he didn’t tell me that the letters were hers. But then I noticed a change in
him. He seemed worried, and when I pressed him he said that the letters had
started to get rather menacing and threatening. You can imagine the sort of
thing. If she couldn’t have him then nobody else would. He said he thought the girl
was not quite right in the head. But he vehemently refused to show me the
letters, no matter how hard I pleaded with him to do so, and he absolutely
refused to go to the police about them. I realise now that he wanted to protect
me from the truth.’

‘Somehow,’
said Rose, ‘Lord Sneddon managed to get hold of the letters. I assume through
the services of that Ricketts fellow of his. The irony was he didn’t know their
true value. He thought they were evidence of a love affair that would be
damaging to a young woman’s reputation if it became common knowledge. The truth
was far more sinister. They were evidence of a decline into a fanatic obsession
which led to murder.

‘When I
overheard the conversation between Lord Sneddon and Isabella in the library, I
thought Isabella did not want him to read her letters to Claude out of
embarrassment. But later I was struck by two things. One, that she was prepared
to go through with the marriage if he promised to return every last letter to
her; and second, when she produced them, that she insisted on throwing the
letters onto the fire when Inspector Deacon advised that he would be keeping
them as evidence. It was obvious then that there was something in them that she
did not want known. I think she must have written in one or two of them her
intention to kill your Claude, Josephine. The letters were too incriminating to
remain to be read by anyone, because that is exactly what she did.’ Rose
shuddered. ‘Although you didn’t know Isabella had written the letters to
Claude, I think you had a suspicion that she might be the author, didn’t you,
Josephine, which is why you looked relieved on Friday night when Isabella turned
up with Lord Sneddon. You thought initially that she must be in love with him
and so couldn’t have written the letters to Claude.’

‘But I
knew something was wrong as soon as I saw them at dinner together and then
later when I went to Isabella’s room to find out what she was playing at. It
was obvious she wasn’t in love with Hugh. But it was still a shock to me the
following morning when you told me about Hugh blackmailing Isabella over the
letters. I realised then that she had written them after all, and that made me
frightened. You see, I’ve always been a little afraid of Isabella. There was
always something a little not quite right about her, even when we were
children. She has always had these awful uncontrollable fits of violence.’

‘She
gave you that scar on your face, didn’t she, not Hallam? I’ve noticed your hand
often flies up to it when you’re worried, or when you are anxious about
Isabella.’

‘Yes. I
told you it was a sibling squabble that got out of hand. Because I said Hallam
was always telling me that it didn’t look so very awful you understandably
assumed that he had given me the scar, not Isabella. And so I just agreed and
played along. You see, I have always felt a little ashamed that Isabella could
have done such a thing. Everyone assumed that it was an accident. But it
wasn’t, it was quite deliberate.’

‘But
you gave yourself away later in the conversation,’ said Rose. ‘I didn’t realise
it at the time, only later when I replayed our conversation in my mind. That
was when I went for a lie down yesterday evening. You said: “We were both only
young children when it happened,
she
didn’t mean anything by it.”’

‘But
whatever made you decide to run off to London in the middle of the night?’
asked Deacon. ‘What made you think that that man in the article could be
Lambert?’

‘Two
things really,’ answered Josephine. ‘One, as I have explained, finding out that
Isabella was the author of those awful letters to Claude and knowing that she
would stop at nothing if she could not get her way. But secondly because Claude
hadn’t written to me. He wrote to me frequently and, of course, I was awaiting
news from him as to when the arrangements were in place for us to elope. I
hadn’t received a letter from him for quite some time despite my writing to him
every day begging him to tell me what was wrong. And all the time he was dead,
oh…’ Josephine broke down in tears. It was the probably the first time, thought
Rose, that she had let herself grieve properly.

‘You
have been worried all this time about Isabella, haven’t you?’ said Rose. ‘You
didn’t know whether you should hate her and give her up to the police, or
whether as her older sister your first duty was to protect her.’

‘Yes,
and I loved her, you see.’ Josephine said, mopping her eyes with a
handkerchief. ‘Oh, of course, I knew she was dangerous and had to be stopped. I
just couldn’t bring myself to be the one to give her up. I could never have
lived with myself. And besides, you see, I wasn’t absolutely sure she was the
murderer until I found out Hugh had been murdered. Even then I thought it might
have been his servant until he too was killed. I thought he might have had an
argument with Hugh or something.’

‘So you
originally thought Lord Sneddon or Ricketts had killed Lambert?’ asked Deacon.
‘Because he, or more likely his servant, had stolen Isabella’s letters from
him, I assume?’

‘Yes, I
returned from London ready to confront Hugh. You can imagine what a shock it
was for me to find out that he had been murdered. I didn’t know quite what to
think. I wanted it so much not to have been Isabella. But I suppose even then I
thought it likely that she had murdered them both. I was relieved when I found
out Crabtree and Mrs Hodges suspected Hugh’s manservant.’

‘But
you were determined not to give her away, even though your sudden departure to
London looked jolly suspicious,’ said Rose.

‘I just
wanted some time by myself to try and work everything out and decide what to do.’

‘What I
can’t quite understand,’ said Deacon, ‘is why your sister considered it
necessary to kill Sneddon. From what you’ve said, Miss Simpson, it doesn’t look
as if Sneddon read more than one or two of the earlier letters. They may have
been a bit over the top, contrived, I think you said, but relatively harmless
in that she hadn’t resorted to threats in them. And it appears he never had any
serious intention or interest in reading them. Besides he returned them to her.
So why did she see the need to kill him?’