The Mystery at Underwood House (An Angela Marchmont Mystery) (19 page)

It was almost seven o’clock when they drew up at the house.

‘
Everyone will be dressing for dinner,’ said Angela. ‘I had better do so too or I shall be late. William, be ready for my call. I don’t know quite what is going to happen, but I should like you to be there when it does.’

She hurried upstairs and made a hasty toilet, throwing on her evening gown and adding, as an afterthought, a crimson velvet evening jacket with wide, draped sleeves. She smoothed her hair in front of the looking-glass, smiling as she thought how horrified Marthe would be at the perfunctory nature of her preparations, then returned downstairs to the drawing-room.

She was not quite the last to arrive. John and Susan were absent, but Louisa, Stella, Ursula, Guy and Donald were all dressed and making desultory conversation. Louisa gave her a significant look. She was obviously dying to ask where Angela had been but could not without throwing discretion to the winds. Guy had no such qualms, however.

‘
Why, it’s our Angela, returned from her mysterious outing. Where on earth have you been, Mrs. Marchmont? We quite missed you. We have all spent the last two hours listening to Miss Euphrosyne and her theories on the nature of Art. I stifled my yawns as best I could but I believe at least one escaped through my left ear while I was holding my mouth shut.’

‘
Hush!’ scolded Louisa. ‘She may come in at any moment and hear you.’

‘
I’m afraid I was called away on urgent business,’ said Angela. She took a deep breath and went on boldly, ‘It appears that Mr. Faulkner, the solicitor, has been murdered.’

There were gasps of dismay and everyone began to ask questions at once. As soon as she was given the opportunity, Angela recounted briefly the events of the past two hours. Rather than reveal her part in the discovery of the body, she gave them to understand that she had been summoned to Mr. Faulkner’s house by the police.

‘
But why should anyone want to murder Mr. Faulkner?’ said Louisa.

‘
I can think of lots of reasons,’ said Donald. ‘As a solicitor he must have been privy to many secrets. Perhaps somebody wanted to close his mouth forever.’

‘
Of course somebody wanted to close his mouth,’ said Ursula in a high, clear voice.

Everybody fell silent. Angela was instantly on the alert.

‘
What do you mean?’ asked Louisa.

Ursula turned to her.

‘
You know exactly what I mean, Louisa,’ she said. ‘He knew far too much about this family and its dark history, and so he had to be silenced.’

‘
There you go again,’ broke in Donald impatiently, ‘dropping hints about who knows what. Why can’t you just say what you mean?’

Ursula rose and walked over to the young man with deliberate steps. She stood before him and looked into his eyes.

‘
You of all people ask me why I do not speak up?’ she said.

‘
Yes,’ exclaimed Donald. ‘I am sick of all this mystery. People keep dying and I should like to know why. You say you know something, Aunt Ursula, so why don’t you just tell us what it is and stop all this beating about the bush?’

Something that might have been a short bark of laughter escaped Ursula’s lips.

‘
Very well, then,’ she said. ‘I accept your challenge. Let it be said out loud for once. Absurd and dramatic as it may sound, we have a murderer among us. Tell me, Donald, why did you do it? Was he threatening to tell everybody your secret?’

Donald took a moment or two to realize that she was addressing him directly.

‘
What are you talking about?’ he said, after a pause.

‘
Did he want money? He was a venal old fool. Perhaps that was his undoing.’

Angela remembered the smell of fresh paint in Mr. Faulkner’s house, and the new furniture.

‘
Are you accusing me of murder?’ said Donald, as Ursula’s meaning dawned upon him. ‘Have you gone quite mad?’

‘
I am not mad, no,’ she replied. ‘But perhaps you are. I have heard it said that most people who kill are mentally unhinged.’

‘
Mentally unhinged?’ repeated Donald, going quite red in the face. ‘Why, I am as sane as anybody here. If anybody is unhinged it is you.’

‘
Where were you this afternoon, Don?’ asked Stella suddenly. ‘I was looking for you because I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t find you anywhere in the house.’

Ursula looked triumphantly towards Donald as though to say, ‘You see? I am not the only person to have noticed.’

‘
Why—why—’ Donald stuttered. ‘I was—I don’t know. I can’t remember. Probably out in the grounds somewhere. Does it matter?’ This attack from two fronts seemed to have quite overwhelmed him.

‘
It matters to me,’ said Stella, so quietly that her words were almost inaudible.

‘
Of course Donald didn’t kill anybody,’ said Louisa. ‘Ursula, what on earth makes you think he did? What could he possibly have to gain from it?’

‘
Isn’t it obvious?’ replied Ursula. ‘He did it for the money that Philip left him.’

‘
What money?’ demanded Donald. ‘Grandfather didn’t leave me anything as far as I know.’

‘
Oh, don’t pretend,’ snapped his aunt. ‘The time for pretending is past, now. Philip told me all about it when he was still alive.’

‘
He
told
you?’ said a voice in astonishment. It was John Haynes, who had entered the room unnoticed. He stepped forward. ‘What did he tell you, exactly?’

‘
About the secret provision in his will, of course. Didn’t anyone think it odd that he should leave his children only a life interest in half their inheritance, and that the money should revert to his solicitor after their deaths? Whoever heard of such a thing? Why, it’s quite absurd. But what nobody except myself knew was that Mr. Faulkner had secretly agreed to hold the money in trust for another person—and that that person was Donald Haynes.’

‘
Nonsense!’ said John. ‘What in heaven’s name gave you that idea?’

‘
I told you, I heard it from Philip. He said that he wanted to leave some money to his daughter Christina’s illegitimate child without anybody else finding out.’

‘
What?’ cried John, Louisa and Donald all at once.

‘
Don’t try to claim that you didn’t know,’ said Ursula. ‘You adopted Donald after Christina died. I remember it well, John—you brought him home one day and said that his mother was dead and that the two of you would bring him up as your own child. I admit I had no suspicion of the connection until Philip told me about the provision in his will. He did not name the person in question but I guessed whom he meant at once. As a matter of fact, I wondered that it had never occurred to me before.’

‘
But why should he tell
you
all this?’ asked Louisa.

‘
Philip and I were fond of each other,’ replied Ursula. ‘He was very misunderstood, especially by his family, but I found him amusing at times. Occasionally he told me things that he had not told anybody else. This was one of them.’

‘
Now, Ursula,’ began John, ‘you have got hold of quite the wrong end of the stick.’

‘
Has she?’ demanded Donald suddenly. He looked very pale, and there was a queer sort of smile on his face. ‘Are you quite sure of that, Father? But of course, you’re not really my father, are you? And Mother’s not my mother. We all knew that, but we all went on, year after year, pretending it didn’t matter.’

‘
Donald,’ said Louisa in distress, ‘of course it doesn’t matter. We love you as our own child. You
are
our own child.’

‘
No I’m not!’ he said fiercely. ‘I am nobody. You heard what Aunt Ursula said. I am the bastard son of a disgraced woman.’

‘
Look here!’ said Guy. ‘You mustn’t say that!’

Donald rounded on him.

‘
Shut up!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you think I know what you have been doing over these past few weeks, making love to Stella and trying to win her for yourself? Don’t try and pretend to be my friend when what you really want is to take what is mine.’ He drew himself up. ‘Very well—so now Aunt Ursula has kindly told us all who my real mother is, perhaps the other thing is true too. Should I confess to it now and save the bother of a trial?’

‘
Don’t talk like that, Donald,’ said his mother. ‘Ursula has got it all wrong. Of course we know you didn’t do it.’

‘
Do
you know it?’ he said. ‘Do
I
know it, in fact? Aunt Ursula believes me guilty, and so does Stella. So perhaps I did do it. Perhaps I lost my senses and killed all those people—my aunts and uncle and Mr. Faulkner—while in a sort of brainstorm that I have since forgotten about.’

Stella was gazing at him with a distraught expression.

‘
No!’ she cried. ‘I won’t believe it. I
can’t
believe it.’

‘
And yet you wanted to know where I was this afternoon,’ he replied. ‘It’s perfectly obvious you don’t trust me. I realize now why you have been avoiding me all these weeks: you think I did it. You think I put poison in Aunt Philippa’s coffee, and pushed Aunt Winifred over the balustrade, and drowned Uncle Edward in the lake.’

He paused.

‘
Did
you do it?’ whispered Stella into the silence. Her eyes pleaded with him to say no.

‘
Oh, what’s the use?’ he cried, throwing up his hands, then turned and ran out of the room.

‘
Donald!’ cried Stella, jumping up and running after him.

John turned to Ursula.

‘
You interfering old hag,’ he said angrily. ‘Look what you have done. You have turned everything upside-down and driven Donald away with your ridiculous tale.’

Ursula drew herself up.

‘
It is not a ridiculous tale,’ she said. ‘I have kept quiet up to now for Louisa’s sake, since she has always been kind to me, but this evening was the last straw. I cannot go on countenancing this murderous orgy.’

John snorted.

‘
You’re mad,’ he said.

‘
Do you deny that the deaths were deliberate? Do you suppose that Mr. Faulkner stuck that knife into himself?’

‘
No, of course I don’t, but that’s—now just you listen here—’

‘
He’s gone!’ cried Stella, bursting back into the room. ‘He ran out of the house and wouldn’t come back when I called after him. I’m so dreadfully afraid he’s going to do something stupid.’ She looked appealingly at Guy. ‘Please, Guy, you must go after him and bring him back.’

Guy stood up.

‘
I’m not sure I’m the person he wants to see at the moment, old girl,’ he said. ‘But I shall try. Did you see which way he went?’

‘
I think he headed down towards the lake,’ she replied.

‘
All right, then,’ he said. ‘I shall catch him and bring him back if I possibly can.’ He took hold of her hand briefly. ‘Never despair!’ he said with a smile, and hurried out.

Despite the time of year the sky outside was lowering with the approaching storm. Angela thought of the last time she had taken that deserted path, and the fear she had felt as she tried to escape the unseen pursuer behind her. She rose and went into the hall, where she found William hovering.

‘
There’s been a bit of a blow-up,’ she said. ‘No doubt you saw Donald leave the house in a hurry just now. Guy has gone after him.’

‘
Then he’s going to need my help,’ said William firmly.

‘
I know I can rely on you. Do you have the thing I gave you?’

The young man looked around carefully, put his hand into his inside pocket and drew out the handle of a revolver.

‘
Good,’ said Angela. ‘It’s only small but it will do the job, and you might need it, so be sure and keep it with you at all times.’

‘
I will,’ he promised.

‘
In the meantime I shall go into the attic and retrieve that box of papers. I only hope it’s not too dark up there.’

He nodded and without further ado left the house, his jaw set in determination.

Angela returned to the drawing-room, and was about to excuse herself from dinner by pleading a headache, when Louisa announced that the meal would be delayed until Donald could be found. Angela withdrew again and hurried up the stairs. She found the door to the attic just as William had described it, and opened it slowly, wishing she had a torch. It was not as dark as she had expected, however, as a faint glow from some unknown source lit her way as she ascended.

As she reached the top a stair creaked loudly under her foot and she thought she heard a sudden rustle. She paused. Was it a rat? Or something else? Never mind—there was no time to worry about that now. The important thing was to get hold of those papers, as she had the feeling that all the proof she needed would be contained in that wooden box. She hoped its owner had not been up here in the last hour or two and seen the broken lock.

Angela moved forward cautiously. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim, flickering light now and she looked around for an old writing-desk. It was unlikely to be too far away, she reasoned, since the owner of the box presumably came up here regularly to put documents in it or take them out, and so would want to keep it nearby in order to be able to reach it easily. For some minutes she gazed about her fruitlessly, her eyes lighting on old bedsteads, chairs, tables and lamp-shades. A moth-eaten stag’s head glared dourly at her from its undignified position next to a pile of chamber-pots, and everywhere she looked were trunks spilling over with the accumulated stuff of decades. William had been right when he described the attic as an Aladdin’s cave. How many of these things would ever see the light of day again? Her gaze fell on a painting of some forget-me-nots in a vase, prettily done, and she wondered whether it had once belonged to Christina. Or had she even painted it herself?

At last Angela spotted what she was looking for: an old roll-top bureau, just off to her left. On top of it was a box with an inlaid lid, which looked just big enough to hold a few papers. She went over to it and shook her head as she saw the broken lock and splintered wood. It was obvious that it had been forced. Now it would be impossible to pretend, should the necessity arise, that it had been broken by accident. Well, it couldn’t be helped—and did it matter, anyway? Things had gone too far to take a step back now.

She lifted the lid of the box. The first thing that met her eye was the photograph that had been stolen from her in London. She put it to one side and picked up the top one from the small sheaf of documents in the box. It was a letter, written through in a close, crabbed hand. She could just make out what it said, and she read it in increasing astonishment.

My dear boy
(it said)
,

By now you ought to have grown quite accustomed to receiving these peculiar letters from beyond the grave, so I make no further apology for disturbing your peace—if indeed it is disturbed; the youth of today are quite hardened to the unpleasantnesses of life, I find. Mr. Faulkner made no comment when I gave him his original instructions, but his eyebrows rose at least an inch, and I could see he looked askance upon such unusual proceedings. How could I explain to him that it made an old man happy to think that, once he was dead and gone, he could still communicate in some way with his favourite, and yet unacknowledged grandchild?

So, then, if that old goat of a solicitor has indeed done as I instructed him, you will be reading this some time in early May. Spring was always your mother’s favourite time of year, as you will no doubt remember—not just because May was her birth month, but also because, as she told me, she loved to run outside and feel the fresh air upon her face, breathe in the scent of the newly-blooming flowers and give thanks for the joys of the new season.

I beg your pardon—I had to pause for a few moments after writing the above. I had not thought that her death could still affect me so after all these years. Believe me, I still rue the terrible sequence of events that tore Christina so cruelly from her home here at Underwood House. Why, I have asked myself continually, was I not there to prevent her from being sent away in disgrace by the very mother, brothers and sisters who should have protected her against the dangers of the world? My dear boy, as I have repeated to you many times before, had I had the slightest idea of what they were planning, I should never in a thousand years have taken that trip to Manchester to visit my old friend who was gravely ill, thus allowing them to spirit her away in my absence. Time after time I tried to find her over the next eight years, but there was a conspiracy of silence against me. Try as I might, I was unable to discover her whereabouts, until it was too late and they told me she was dead.

But enough of the past. We are concerned only with the present, and I write once again to remind you of your pledge to me. Were I still in the land of the living, I should be able to help you attain our purpose of visiting retribution on my ungrateful children for the harm they did to my sweet, innocent daughter—but as things stand, I fear the burden will fall on you alone. Be not afraid, however: I trust you implicitly. I know you will avenge Christina’s memory as only her true son could. I urge you to make them suffer as she did, and to ensure that their sins are returned tenfold upon their own heads. Remember also that by stripping their families of their inheritance you are regaining what is rightfully yours, and take it as a mark of my faith in you when I say that nobody could deserve his birthright more than you do.

Very well, then. I leave you to do your duty to your late mother and to me, the father who loved her. Do not let anybody turn you aside from your purpose, and remember the rewards that will be yours if you succeed.

I wish you all success in your endeavours.

Yours affectionately,

Philip

The letter left Angela quite breathless, and she stared at it blankly for a moment or two. Her hand was reaching out automatically to take the next document from the box when her attention was arrested by a noise to her right. Unconsciously she thrust the first letter into her pocket and raised her head, listening carefully. There it was again. It sounded like nothing so much as someone trying to shift position inaudibly.

Angela sighed.

‘
Very well, then,’ she thought. ‘It’s about time someone smoked you out.’

There was an old wardrobe standing in a corner of the attic. The dim light seemed to issue from behind it. Angela picked her way round it and peered towards the source of the light, which turned out to be a burning candle. There, crouching on a makeshift bed with its back to her, was a figure.

‘
Hallo, Robin,’ she said.