A Corpse in Shining Armour (23 page)

‘So did anyone go for the axe?’ I said.

‘Didn’t have time. While they were all standing there, the door to her ladyship’s room opened and out came a man.’

‘Good heavens!’

‘He gave his lordship a piece of his mind, Polly said, for all the world as if he owned the house. Asked him what he was doing,
kicking up such a row. His lordship didn’t say anything, but his face turned the colour of beetroot. Then he went down a step,
drew his arm right back and hit the other man in the chops so hard he fell back and banged his head on her ladyship’s door.’

‘Was he knocked out?’

‘No. Polly said he should have been, after a hit like that, but he stood up, blood all over his face, and hit his lordship
back even harder. His lordship wasn’t expecting it, so he fell all the way downstairs. This other man followed him, stood
over him and threatened he’d tell everybody.’

‘Tell them what?’

‘Polly says she can remember it word for word. Everybody else had gone quiet, see, after all the noise and shouting. They
couldn’t believe what was happening.’

‘So what did this other man say?’

‘“If you dare do anything like this again, I’ll make sure all the world knows.”’

‘Knows about the way he treated his wife, did he mean?’

‘I suppose so.’

But I knew that as a threat it did not make sense. There were other husbands, high and low, who treated their wives worse
and still held up their heads in the world. Given that Lady Brinkburn was harbouring a man in her room, if the story were
true, plenty of people would have said that Lord Brinkburn was within his rights, and the law courts would agree with them.
If the story were true. In spite of the circumstantial detail, I found it hard to imagine quiet, fastidious Lady Brinkburn
doing any such thing.

‘So what did Lord Brinkburn do then?’

‘He called the other man a filthy adulterous f…’

‘Fornicator, I dare say.’

‘…then he walked off into another room and slammed the door. Early next morning, he had his carriage called before it got
light and went off.’

‘Just like that, without saying or doing anything else?’

‘That’s what Polly said.’

That didn’t make sense either. The mildest husband in the world would hardly take himself off from his own house, leaving
an adulterer in possession of the field, and nothing I’d heard suggested Lord Brinkburn was pacific in temperament. I began
to doubt Mrs Todd’s story more and more.

‘What about the other man?’

‘Oh, he stayed.’

‘Went back into Lady Brinkburn’s room?’

‘Yes, only Polly says he didn’t stay long and he didn’t spend the night there. Not that time, anyway.’

‘So she saw him in the house at other times?’

‘Oh yes. He’s there all the time. He lives there.’

‘What! Who is he?’

She shrugged. ‘His name’s Carmichael. Polly says he looks after Lady Brinkburn’s books.’

Mr Whiteley arrived promptly at ten o’clock next morning. He came on foot through the woods, a powdering of dust on the toes
of his highly polished shoes, a briar rose leaf sticking to the shoulder of his black jacket. His complexion was greyish,
like a man who had been ill or worried for some time. I’d sent Tabby to the village with a message to Mrs Todd saying she
needn’t come to clean that morning. At some time, I’d need to speak to Mrs Todd about the story of Lady Brinkburn and her
librarian, but it would have to wait. I invited Mr Whiteley into the main room of the cottage and asked him to sit down, indicating
the most comfortable chair. He chose one of the less comfortable ones and sat, knees together, elbows at his sides and gloved
hands on his thighs, as if trying not to take up too much room.

‘We’ve received some sad news, Miss Lane. Lord Brinkburn is dead.’

I offered formal commiserations, not mentioning that I’d known some time before the news had reached him.

‘I understand that there is some problem with the cottage,’ he said

I’d taken the chair opposite him.

‘There’s no problem with the cottage. The problem is with the evidence you gave at Handy’s inquest.’

He said nothing for a long time. His eyes were fixed on mine, but I’m not sure he was seeing me. There was a downward slant
to his eyelids that gave him a look of weariness. Gradually, his whole body seemed to give in to that weariness, shoulders
relaxing, hands falling to his sides. He gave a long sigh, like the breath going out of a dying animal.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said. ‘Did Mr Lomax suggest it to you?’

He gave the faintest of nods.

‘You couldn’t have seen Simon Handy outside the old dairy just after eight o’clock on Sunday evening,’ I said. ‘He was somewhere
else entirely then, and I can prove it. And you didn’t leave the old dairy unlocked with the crates of armour inside. You’re
careful with keys, and the padlock on that door had been freshly oiled to make sure it worked. Why did Mr Lomax persuade you
to tell lies at the inquest? ’

‘Who are you? Why are you asking me questions?’

There was no anger in his voice, just wistfulness, as if hoping it would all go away.

‘I’m working for Mr Lomax too,’ I said, telling myself that it was true, more or less. ‘He thinks I might be able to help
the family. Goodness knows, it needs help, but I can’t do it if people are lying to me.’

‘I’ve never told a lie in my life before,’ he said. ‘Not since I was a boy, at any rate, and then I was no good at it and
got a whipping.’

His formal voice was slipping, a countryman’s accent coming through.

‘You’ve improved then,’ I said. ‘The coroner didn’t doubt you, but of course he had no reason to. You were the loyal family
steward, doing his best in a bad business.’

‘I am loyal,’ he said. ‘That’s what I am–loyal.’

‘I don’t doubt it, but if you…’

But he was determined to make me understand. He leaned forward in his chair and went on talking in a quiet but intense voice.

‘When Lord Brinkburn made me his steward, I thought it was the proudest day of my life. That was thirty years ago, before
he married. My father had been one of the tenant farmers on the estate, and Lord Brinkburn bought the hall to have a place
nearer London.

‘It wasn’t easy, even back then, but I kept things together through the bad times, and he appreciated that, I’m sure he did,
even if he never said so.’

I thought back to what Disraeli had told me about the family finances.

‘Were the bad times because Lord Brinkburn was short of money?’

He nodded.

‘There were debts. Some people reckoned he’d over-reached himself, buying the estate. But then he made a good marriage, so
we thought we were all nicely settled.’

He said
good marriage
entirely without irony, though he must have known better than most people how it had turned out, and went on like a man pleading
his own defence.

‘I’ve been a good steward all these years. There isn’t a penny piece in the rents or a teaspoon in the kitchen or a bushel
of corn in the barn I couldn’t account for. But how’s a man supposed to be loyal when he doesn’t know who he’s supposed to
be loyal to? Can you tell me that?’

‘The business of Stephen and Miles, you mean?’

‘I’ve got used to Master Stephen, with his lordship being abroad so much. How could I look ahead, not knowing whether it’s
going to be Master Stephen or Master Miles?’

‘But it must be Stephen now, mustn’t it?’ I said. ‘He became Lord Brinkburn the moment his father died. Will that mean things
are easier for the staff?’

He took a long time to decide whether to reply.

‘It might, if we knew it was going to stay that way. I’ve nothing against either of them. It’s setting one of them against
the other that’s doing the damage.’

‘Lady Brinkburn, you mean?’

‘I’m not saying a word against her ladyship.’

But the way he dropped his eyes said it for him.

‘Did one of the sons come down to break the news to Lady Brinkburn?’ I said.

‘No. Mr Lomax sent his head clerk down.’

Which told me two things: Stephen was still elusive, and serious events were keeping the family lawyer in London.

‘It must be difficult for a household when the husband and wife are at odds,’ I said.

‘It’s never been the other way, with them. When they were off on honeymoon, all the staff were looking forward to the happy
couple coming back. When we got word they were on their way down from the north we had the arch and the “Welcome Home” banner
all ready to go up over the drive, the gardeners had the greenhouses so full of flowers and fruit they were bursting with
them, the maids and kitchen staff all had new dresses, nearly mad with curiosity to see what the new mistress was like. We
might as well not have bothered.’

‘They didn’t come?’

‘Oh, they came all right. Only his lordship sent word on ahead that there was to be no arch, no banner, nobody but me out
on the steps to welcome them. It was raining when they got here, and nearly dark. He didn’t even get out of the coach. I had
to go and hand her ladyship down myself, with nobody to introduce us. As soon as she and her maid and the luggage were out,
the coach was off again.’

I imagined a young woman in the damp dusk, outside a house she’d never seen before, a staff of strangers who’d probably been
watching from the windows as her husband deposited her there with less ceremony than he’d leave a dog.

‘And it’s been like that all along,’ Mr Whiteley said. ‘He didn’t even come home when Mr Stephen was born. Now and again he’d
visit us, but never for more than a week or ten days at most.’

I thought that on at least one of those occasions, he must have visited his wife’s bed or there’d have been no Miles.

‘Were they reconciled at all?’

‘Not that we saw. After the first few times, she’d shut herself up in her rooms.’

‘And the last time?’

‘I suppose somebody’s been talking.’

‘You could hardly expect otherwise,’ I said.

Perhaps I should have asked him outright:
Do you believe Lady Brinkburn is committing adultery with her librarian?
I think I held back partly from respect for him and his perplexed loyalty, but more because he was not the proper person
to ask. Only two people would know for certain, and if I needed an answer it should come from one of them.

‘How did Handy’s body get into the crate?’ I said.

Relief flickered in his eyes at the question I hadn’t asked.

‘I don’t know, and that’s the honest truth.’

‘You told the inquest you weren’t there on the Monday morning when the carter came to take the crates away. Was that true?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you wouldn’t have noticed then that there was an extra crate. You said you glanced through the window at them on Sunday
night, after you’d sent Handy packing. But Handy wasn’t there. Are you still claiming you looked through the window at the
crates?’

‘I did, yes, just to check.’

‘And the door was padlocked?’

‘Yes.’

‘You said everything seemed to be in order. Was that true?’

‘It was only a quick glance.’

He’d said that he was no good at lies. It was true. I could tell he was keeping something back.

‘So were there the right number of crates then–no extra one?’

He hesitated.

‘I’m not sure. I told you, I only glanced.’

‘So you can’t be sure?’

‘No.’

‘Could anybody have put an extra crate in there without your knowing about it? You’re a careful steward. You keep an eye on
things.’

He said nothing.

‘And what about the padlock on the door?’ I said. ‘Who keeps the key to it?’

‘The keys to the outhouses hang on a hook just inside the scullery door.’

No hesitation this time. He was glad to have a question he could answer easily.

‘So anybody in the household could have known about the key and used it?’

‘Anybody, yes.’

‘But it would have made a noise, wouldn’t it? The door opening, a crate being carried in. Wouldn’t somebody have heard?’

‘We all go to bed quite early. Her ladyship doesn’t keep us up.’

‘So you’re saying it would’ve had to be brought in after most people were in bed?’

‘I’m not saying anything. I don’t know.’

There was stubbornness as well as distress in his voice. I got up and opened the window on the garden. A bumblebee blundered
in. Mr Whiteley’s eyes followed it.

‘I suppose Simon Handy knew in advance that the armour was going up to London,’ I said.

‘Yes, I doubt he cared about it, though. It all had to be carried down and cleaned and dusted, but he didn’t do a hand’s turn
to help. He never did. Thought it was beneath him, I expect.’

Now he thought we’d moved away from a dangerous area, Mr Whiteley was more willing to talk.

‘So he was idle?’ I said.

‘Bone idle. I never saw him put his hand to anything useful all the weeks he was here. He told me he was a valet. I said there
was no gentleman in residence to valet for, so he’d better make himself useful in other ways. He never did.’

‘And yet he was complaining of being given too much work to do,’ I said.

‘What!’

Mr Whiteley’s mouth fell open. I quoted Violet’s words without letting him know they came from her.

‘He said he was being asked to do too much and it wasn’t fair on a man.’

‘That’s nonsense. I’ve never known a man do less.’

His indignation was genuine, his cheeks flushed.

‘So what do you think he meant?’ I said.

‘Goodness knows.’

‘Could he have been working for somebody else?’

‘I doubt it. It’s true he’d be away for days on end, but I can’t see that one doing honest work anywhere. Besides, there’s
not much call for valets round here.’

‘It occurred to me that somebody might be paying him to report on what was happening at the hall,’ I said.

I watched as he turned it over in his mind. He didn’t hurry to deny it.

‘Why do you think that?’ he said at last. ‘Something I found out in London.’