Peril at Somner House (13 page)

The sergeant looked past me to the street. “Ye cycled all that way from Somner House, miss?”

“Why, yes.” I blushed. “I know I shouldn't really have come without Mr. Fernald's permission, but could I see Mr. Lissot for just a minute? It'll be your secret and mine. I won't breathe a word of it, I promise.”

“I ain't suppose to let anyone see him.”

“But Mr. Fernald won't find out. Please. I've ridden all this way and I'll be quick.”

Still unsure, he flicked through his stack of keys before leading me down a deserted corridor. I noticed the old paint peeling off the walls and shivered. If Fernald came back early…

There were only four cells, each with a door and small alcove bearing bars. Cold, dismal, and spartan, each with a bed and a chair.

Josh was glad, if somewhat bemused, to see me.

“Daphne.” A slight smile crept to his bloodless lips as he rose, a shadow of the man I'd met at Somner, now gaunt-faced, unshaven, the artistic light driven from his eyes.

“Do come in; I'd offer you a seat if I could.” He directed this comment to the young sergeant who quickly rushed off to retrieve a seat for me.

“Just a few minutes,” he warned upon return, closing and locking the door behind him.

“Aren't you afraid to be alone with a murderer?” Laughing, Josh perched himself on the edge of his slat bed.

“Murderer? I don't believe you did it, Mr. Lissot. That's why I'm here.”

His sad eyes studied the ceiling and a scowl furrowed his brow. “Did she send you? Did Kate send you?”

“No…I am here of my own volition. It may sound preposterous, but I have very good reason to suspect you've been framed for the murder of Max Trevalyan.”

A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “But I hit him! Whacked him jolly hard, too, when he put his hand to Kate's throat. He fell, slumped to the ground, blood oozing from his head. Needless to say, it wasn't a pretty sight.”

“But did you check his pulse?”

His tone sounded weary when he answered. “Yes. We did that. He was still breathing, shallowly, where we left him but—”

“Alive,”
I emphasized. “Just suppose for a moment that someone
else
stumbled upon that path, intentionally or otherwise. Just suppose for a moment this someone else delivered the fatal blow.” I paused, thinking hard. “You mentioned his head was bleeding, but according to Mr. Fernald, his smashed
face
rendered him almost unrecognizable. Is that how you and Kate left him?”

“Sweet Thomas, no! At least, I don't think so.” He stopped to reflect. “It was dark…can't say. Did leave an awful mess up at the house. We had to clean the path when we dragged him out.”

“Through the terrace door…the
creaky
terrace door.”

He frowned, puzzled.

“Hugo heard the door open three times,” I explained, but he still seemed puzzled.

I asked if he and Kate went out through that door only
once. Slowly comprehending my meaning, Mr. Lissot endeavored his best to recall. “Three times,
three
times,” he kept saying to himself. “I remember Kate opened it the first time, dreading the noise, careful though she was as we pulled the body through, and yes! I remember Max's shoe dragging on the surface. No! It got stuck in the door…yes, I remember now. It got stuck, fell off actually, and we had a devil of a time shoving his foot back in…but that's only
twice
that we had to open the door. We didn't enter back in that way. Not the terrace door. Kate was too scared of the noise arousing suspicion.”

“Exactly!” I smiled.

A contemplative silence emerged between us and the faintest hope lingered in the air. “I know Kate has pleaded with you to retract your confession and she is right. You were
protecting
her…you had to strike him…you thought you'd killed him but you didn't.”

“I didn't,” he said, and frowned, still disbelieving the possibility of another chance. “But if it wasn't me, then
who
did it?”

I smiled again, coy, radiant with my small success. “When we find the person who opened the door the third time, the person who tried very hard to incriminate you by circumstance, then we'll know.”

Sir Marcus was quick to extinguish my triumph.

“You'll have a devil of a time convincing our friendly hunchback to own up to the fact. And more of a devil convincing that dolt Fernald to pay any heed to it.”

“A dolt?” I queried, half amused. “I see you've enjoyed a leisurely breakfast.” I indicated with my hand to where the Major and everyone else dallied outside on the open terrace.

The day was fine and sunny. Still a little cool, but windless and thus perfect for a terrace affair. I spied Jackson raking leaves a few meters away and wondered if he decided to do the task in order to eavesdrop.

Who was I to judge him if that was the case? He had more reason than I, merely a curious guest. His daughter and grandson were heavily involved in the Trevalyan business.
I want more for me girl,
he'd said, clipped and curt. Had that ambition led him to search out Max Trevalyan that night and “do him in,” as he would put it?

But Jackson had no reason to do so if he believed in the power of the will Max had signed. It was a useless scrap of
paper in the end, and his daughter had preferred the offered annuity from Rod. This showed a shrewdness to her character I found fascinating and sensible. Complex layers existed beneath Rachael Eastley's cool façade, I was certain of it.

Inspired by such reflections, I began to compose a short story in my mind. “The Mysterious Widow.” No…“The Noble Widow.” She arrives in a new neighborhood much like Helen in
Wildfell Hall
and she bears the secret of her nobility and an air of mystery all her own. However, both make her a subject of interest and speculation in the little town.

“Well, well, here you two are hiding!”

Slipping through the terrace door, Angela's smirk had a knowing quality to it. “Lover's nook, is it?”

“It's nothing,” Sir Marcus sighed. “Daphne and I are kindred spirits. Speaking of which, are we still doing the painting day?”

“Oh, yes. Kate
loves
the idea. And”—she glanced chidingly at us both—“the Major and his comrades are joining us, so I've come to rouse you both from your self-imposed and, I scarcely need add, selfish isolation.”

“Has Mr. Fernald left yet?” I heard myself echo.

“Horrible man.” Angela shivered. “Yes. He left just now with that Eastley woman.”

So Mrs. Eastley had spent the night at Somner. I wondered if she'd stayed up to enjoy a lengthy sojourn with the Major?

I told myself I didn't care.

But I did.

Angela set about preparing a place in the sun where several easels and stools and all the accompanying paraphernalia littered a section of Jackson's newly mowed lawn.

Despite the merriment of the occasion, I did not feel in the
mood to paint. I felt like writing my story, yet I carried myself to an easel and worked diligently on my tower, using the tips and pointers given by Kate.

“It's quite impressive,” remarked Peter Davis.

“Thank you,” I said, leaning across to inspect his work.

“My fledging attempt is atrocious.” He shook his head, and I laughingly sympathized with him, studying his madcap sketch of what vaguely resembled some kind of distorted garden.

“It's meant to be the forest where Max and I crashed,” he said, smiling. Then his face took on a more serious note. “A tribute…to old times.”

We were a little apart from the others and I nodded understandingly. “The great war affected so many lives. They were all torn asunder, as the expression goes. I only wish I had been more a part of it. I would've liked to fight alongside the men.”

“Why didn't you, Miss du Maurier?”

“My parents. Literally penned me in. Probably a good thing, considering my impetuosity would have led me to do something rash resulting in my demise, or worse.”

Mr. Davis appeared to follow my line of thought. “Yes…there are things worse than death.”

His comment inspired the strokes of my paintbrush. I painted the essence of Roderick's gloomy tower, its beating heart, bleak and forbidding.

“Interesting…”

I'd recognize that slow mocking drawl anywhere.

“Major Browning.” I dipped my head in a civil form of greeting. “I trust among your
many
talents, you can paint, too.”

“No,” he admitted with affability, showing his atrocious attempt at a portrait painting.

Mr. Davis and I chuckled.

“We're all not born to be as talented as Lady Trevalyan.”

I followed Mr. Davis's admiring gaze to where Kate stood, adorned in her amber satin artist's cape, gorgeous and as radiant as the piece of art she fashioned.

“It's a portrait of your sister,” the Major announced, “and look how delighted Angela is.”

Angela, to my intense horror, was posing for the portrait, reclining and flaunting herself upon the grass, one shoulder exposed and the remainder of her chest draped in a loose, scarlet shawl.

I flushed with embarrassment. She looked little better than a low-class trollop or a dancing girl, her lips and cheeks dusted a theatrical rouge. I reminded myself that she
was
an actress to avoid an unsightly sisterly remonstration.

Major Browning must have noticed my blanched face. He suggested we take a walk. At any other time, I would have found an excuse, but as Elizabeth Bennet experienced when Mr. Darcy asked her to dance, I simply couldn't think of one.

To walk away seemed the most prudent course of action. Feigning ignorance at the offer of his arm, I knotted my hands behind my back as we strolled toward the pergola. I spoke of the weather and mentioned Sir Marcus's painting and the Major obliged by making the customary replies.

“I feel sometimes you slot me into one of your melodramas,” he murmured as we approached the stairs leading up to the pergola.

I marched to a seat, lifting a jagged brow. “To talk by rule is sometimes best.”

He paused to reflect. “I've read that quote somewhere before.”

“Have you? I'm impressed. It's from Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice.
”

He opted to lean against the post rather than take a seat beside me. “Austen's your favorite author then?”

“No. I prefer the darker Brontës.
The Tenant of Wildfell
or
Wuthering Heights.
”

“You're a pessimist,” he mused. “A
romantic
pessimist.”

“I beg to differ. I am not in the least romantic.”

“All writers are romantics.”

His keen gaze drifted over my person. I colored under the intensity. The man possessed a magnetism and he knew how to use it.

“Mrs. Eastley is charming, is she not?”

“Charming?” the Major goaded, sitting down, cupping his chin in his hands as he studied me in languid repose. “Yes, she is a charming mother…a mother protecting the interests of her child.”

My eyes met his candid expression. “Perhaps…perhaps she's afraid…afraid her son might fall with a sudden accident like his father if she contests the will. I thought her merely noble but it's
sense
directing her…sense and fear.”

“My sentiments exactly,” said the Major as I drew in a quick breath. He grinned. “What else have you deduced, Inspector du Maurier?”

His playful voice failed to lure me out of my silent reflections.

“I see you and Sir Marcus have become very friendly.”

“Very,”
I agreed.

He cleared his voice and did I imagine it, or did momentary distaste flicker in those dark eyes? “You intend to marry him?”

Now I was the one to suffer shock. Marry Sir Marcus!

“The notion hasn't occurred to you? You astonish me.”

I replied at length. “I feel as if you're making a running commentary on my love life. I would appreciate if you would desist.”

He bowed, his lips tugging in amusement. “Your sister, on the other hand—”

“Oh, please, don't speak of her,” I implored, and perhaps the desperate note appealed to his sense of honor. He did not press me on the subject, but instead made move to return.

When we rejoined the party, they were in the process of packing up the equipment. I went back to my easel. Mr. Davis had started to attend to my brushes, washing and drying them and laying them back in the container.

“Forgive me, Miss du Maurier,” he said, “but I thought you'd finished.”

“Yes, I have. Thank you…it was kind of you.”

He smiled. “The last thing anybody wants to do is clean up. Painting's such a messy business.” He half grinned at the blue streak running down his sleeve. “And what's worse, I'm a dismal failure!”

“Can't be as bad as Bella's,” Angela laughed as she and Kate led the others back to the house. She certainly had assumed an aristocratic and haughty confidence.

Mr. Davis offered to carry my easel, and together we crossed the green. “Your sister's an actress? Is she a very good friend of Kate's?”

“Yes, very. They've known each other since the war. When did you first meet Max, Mr. Davis?”

“At school.” He chuckled at some distant memory. “We were inseparable, much to our detriment and our parent's distress.”

Having learned something of Max Trevalyan's character, I well understood this inference. Two boys, embarking on adventures, often led to trouble. I pictured the school expellings, lectures, times of enforced distance, and unauthorized reconciliations.

“My father and Max's parents both passed away during the war,” Mr. Davis went on. “They were vastly relieved we both had an occupation by then.”

A shadow crossed his face, transporting him to a faraway place. Perhaps to the good old times, those school summer days, training and relaxing at the club between missions, and now…his best friend dead under highly suspicious circumstances.

He did not, I found out over a subsequent pot of tea, attribute any blame to Kate, as he casually referred to Max's less than desirable qualities. And she, in turn, regarded Mr. Davis as something of a savior.

“Dear Peter,” I overheard her sighing to the Major, her hand resting over her heart, “he's shielded me from so many bad moments. The three of us had many laughs, too,” she added gaily.

But the gaiety rang false. Her feelings seemed to remain with Josh Lissot, no longer in residence at Somner playing the charlatan. Did she feel love or guilt? Guilt because he suffered the crime of protecting her? Or love beyond the playful affair?

Time would prove the decider. For now, she appeared concerned only with helping Josh escape the hangman's noose.

Angela, for one, rejoiced in their separation. “It's just what Kate needs,” she told me. “Time and distance from all men.”

After tea, the Major and his lieutenants took their leave, and I strolled out to the front of the house to bid them fare
well. His fingers lingered over mine in parting and I shook them free. He'd return. All too soon for my liking.

 

“You won't believe it,” Sir Marcus relayed to me later. “The Major's agreed to assist our Katie girl.”

I feigned a tepid interest, though I was desperate to learn more.

“He's off to see Fernald now, I wager. Let's see what becomes of it, shall we?”

 

I went to the library that afternoon.

So lost in my loving exploration of the upper shelves, I failed to note the presence of someone else in the room.

“Are you interested in history books, Daphne?”

Roderick adorned the armchair by the window, his sleeve cuff emerging from the large book he held.

“Forgive me for disturbing you.” I swallowed and hastened to the door.

“Why leave?”

Words failed and the question floated above us unanswered, like a swirling summer's leaf.

“Don't go,” he urged, this time leaving the security of his chair.

I faltered as hearing those resonant tones from Roderick seemed as out of place as I felt.

“We have many books at Somner…I trust one of them tempts you?”

I raised my eyes upward, along his tall, masculine frame. I realized a smile tempered his lips.

“The tower tempts me, in fact…I should like to see it again,” I blurted, searching for something to say.

After I quickly took my leave, I called myself a complete idiot. I was no blubbering female. What uneased me about him? He was not a dashing, heroic lord, but a mystery I couldn't quite decipher. Could his mystery conceal a murderer?