The Shadow at Greystone Chase (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 10) (10 page)

‘Oh, yes!’ said Angela, relieved. ‘We did go and see it. My son has just come into his inheritance, and I am trying to encourage him to put some of it into property. He’s a good boy, but rather young to have the charge of so much money, and so I thought an estate would be just the thing to teach him some responsibility.’

This was quite patently nonsense, but the colonel seemed not to have noticed.

‘I dare say,’ he said. ‘Did you like the place?’

Angela spoke in praise of its beauty, and he nodded.

‘Not a bad old house,’ he said. ‘I used to visit often before the whole scandal came out. But after Evelyn died it all rather came to an end.’

He looked sad.

‘I believe you liked her very much,’ said Angela gently.

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘Delightful woman. Don’t mind saying I should have liked to marry her, as a matter of fact. Should have been honoured, but somehow I never dared speak up, and then she married de Lisle and it was all too late after that. He took her to France shortly after their marriage, and then I was posted to Africa, although I made sure she knew that she could always rely on my friendship. They came back here during the war when their house was destroyed, and I’d returned by then too, so I began to visit again. Between you and me I could see she was unhappy in marriage, but it wasn’t my place to say anything, so I didn’t.’

‘Why was she unhappy?’ said Angela.

‘Why, that husband of hers, of course. Something of a tyrant. Never liked him myself. He was descended from the French kings—or that’s what he said. He set great store by it, and treated his house as his own kingdom, of which he was absolute ruler. Everyone crept around the house for fear of him and what he might do if he was crossed. A fearsome temper, he had.’

‘Dear me,’ said Angela.

‘Yes,’ said Colonel Dempster. ‘I don’t say a man oughtn’t to be in charge in his own house, but there’s such a thing as taking it too far. The family had to be careful not to seem to want anything too much, because if he suspected it at all he’d make damned sure they didn’t get it, just so they didn’t all start getting too above themselves.’

‘Goodness!’ said Angela. ‘That sounds rather mean-spirited.’

‘Yes. It was just like him. I remember when Evelyn’s mother was in her final illness and Evelyn wanted to go and see her, he wouldn’t allow it. Said he couldn’t spare her. Of course, in those days a woman didn’t go against her husband’s wishes, and so she was forced to stay at home and never got to say goodbye to her mother.’

‘How very sad,’ said Angela.

‘Wholly unnecessary,’ said the colonel with a snort.

‘If she was unhappy in marriage, then I suppose she had to look elsewhere for happiness,’ said Angela tentatively. ‘What a shame she was let down by her sons, too—or at least, her younger one. What about the elder one, Godfrey? We met him yesterday and he seemed rather a serious sort.’

‘He is,’ said the colonel. ‘I can’t say I know Godfrey very well. Not an easy chap to read. One of these brooding, secretive, jealous types, you know. One can never tell what he’s thinking. Expect he had a hard time of it from his father. As the eldest he was always destined to take over the estates and the business when Roger died, of course, and Roger was a hard taskmaster. Godfrey quickly learnt to keep his thoughts to himself if he wanted to stay in his father’s good books. Yes,’ he went on ruminatively. ‘I’ve often thought there’s a lot happening beneath the surface with Godfrey.’

‘Did he and his mother get along well?’ said Angela.

‘As far as I know,’ said the colonel. ‘But her real favourite was Edgar, who broke her heart in the end.’

‘If he was her favourite, then his arrest for murder must have come as an awful shock to her. Did she believe he did it?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ said Colonel Dempster. ‘Nobody did, to start with. Wasn’t the type, you see.’

‘No?’ said Angela.

‘That’s not to say he was an angel—he certainly wasn’t that. Something of a rapscallion as a boy, I gather. His mother almost tore her hair out over some of his antics, but he was one of those types who could always charm his way out of trouble. There were one or two minor scrapes at Cambridge, but nothing too serious—certainly nothing to indicate how he’d turn out. Marriage ought to have settled him, but it didn’t, it seems. I’ve often wondered whether perhaps the war had something to do with it. I’ve seen it often enough myself. The number of times I’ve heard about a chap who went off to the Front and came back a different man—well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’

He coughed.

‘I understand they found evidence that he’d done it,’ said Angela.

‘So they did,’ said the colonel, ‘but even then his mother refused to believe it of him. I saw her shortly after it all happened and she was almost in despair, poor woman. Was sure someone had faked it to throw suspicion onto him, she said. Roger had told her to say as little as possible to the police, as he thought it would only harm Edgar’s chances, but she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t allow her to defend her son. When I saw her again next she wouldn’t speak about it at all—at the time I thought it was out of obedience to Roger, but now I think there must have been some other reason. She was Edgar’s mother, after all, and why should she keep quiet if she knew he was innocent?’

‘Do you think she had found something out that confirmed his guilt?’

‘Yes,’ said the colonel. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. The police had evidence that Selina’s body had been hidden in his room, and although that looked suspicious enough, it doesn’t mean he did it. After all, anyone can hide a body in a cupboard. No, I think somebody must have seen something else, and kept it from the police so as not to make things worse.’

‘I see,’ said Angela. ‘Presumably it was Roger who saw whatever it was, then, since he was the one who urged his wife to keep quiet.’

‘Might have been,’ said the colonel. ‘Or perhaps it was someone else who then told Roger about it.’

‘But who?’

‘I don’t know. It might have been anyone. A servant, even. They used to sneak about the place quietly enough, and I shouldn’t have been surprised if they’d come upon Edgar doing something suspicious and told Roger, who kept it from Evelyn for her own protection at first.’

‘But you think he told her about it later? Why?’

‘Perhaps to stop her making a fool of herself, since she only knew half the story. Or perhaps to prevent her from accidentally drawing the attention of the police to whatever it was. Who knows?’ said the colonel. He tapped his nose again. ‘If you ask me, there’s more to the case than meets the eye. Still, no matter, as there’s no doubt they got the right man.’

‘I dare say they did,’ murmured Angela. She was reflecting. From what the colonel had just said, it appeared that she was not the only person to have concluded that there must be some evidence which proved beyond all doubt that Valencourt had murdered Selina. And that conclusion certainly seemed to explain the behaviour of the household at the time. If somebody did indeed have further proof of his guilt—what that might be she did not know—then it was entirely possible that he or she had kept the information from the police. After all, it was not to be supposed that his family had wished to see Valencourt hanged, while Mrs. Smith, the housekeeper, had said the servants liked him too, and had not wanted to believe him a murderer. Perhaps whoever it was had confessed what they had seen to Roger, who had then taken steps to ensure that nobody would ever hear about it.

‘Ah, it’s Mrs. Poynter,’ said Colonel Dempster, and Angela glanced up to see the elegant-looking woman she had seen the other day on the cliff top. She was walking her little dog, and she waved to the colonel as she passed a few yards away, although she evidently had no intention of stopping to talk. ‘A very pleasant lady, she is,’ he went on, ‘even if some of the old dears around here are a little catty about her. In a small place like this people tend to gossip, of course. I don’t believe a word of it, myself. All right, old girl, go and scamper about in the waves if you must, but don’t come howling to me if you get cold and soggy.’

It took a second for Angela to realize that this last remark was directed at his spaniel. The dog ambled off and the colonel bade Angela a cheery goodbye, leaving her to wonder what Mrs. Poynter was supposed to have done.

A
S HE HAD promised, Freddy returned shortly after midday, and insisted on their going out of the hotel for lunch, so they could have a nice, long chin-wag about the case without any old hens flapping their ears at them, as he disrespectfully put it. Once they were seated in a quiet little eating-place on the High Street, Freddy ordered a large plate of chops for himself and dug in with some energy.

‘All this wandering around in the fresh air is giving me quite an appetite,’ he remarked. ‘I wonder it hasn’t had the same effect on you. Goodness knows, you look like you need it. You’re too thin. Look here, have one of my chops. I’ll never manage all these.’

Angela declined politely and prodded at her own food without enthusiasm.

‘Tell me what you’ve found out,’ she said.

‘Jolly fellow, this sergeant,’ said Freddy. ‘I caught him on a quiet day so he was only too happy to chat. I told him I was looking into the case on behalf of the family—which I am, in a way. I said there was some suggestion that Valencourt hadn’t committed the murder and what did he think? Of course he said there was no doubt of it, but he didn’t mind giving me the facts he had.’ He dug in his pocket and brought out a dog-eared notebook, which he put on the table. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I wrote a lot of it down.’

Angela pulled the notebook towards her and peered at it curiously, but Freddy’s handwriting was indecipherable, so she pushed it back.

‘So,’ Freddy went on. ‘They were odd people, these de Lisles. Kept themselves very much to themselves. It was all because of Roger, it seems. He had terribly fixed ideas about his family’s importance and didn’t want to sully the name by mixing too much with others. I gather they owned half of Northern France at one time, but things got a bit ticklish during the war and they ended up here, with Roger ruling over his foreign court like a petty despot. He was a stiff one, all right. Even when his daughter-in-law had been found strangled and it looked as though his son was about to be arrested, he still looked down his nose at the police as though they were serfs who’d come in through the front door by mistake and trodden something nasty through the house. Evelyn de Lisle wasn’t much help, either: she was evidently pretty cowed by her husband and resigned to his having the upper hand in all things. My tame sergeant said that had it not been for the fact that he caught her crying on the day Valencourt was arrested, he’d have thought she was as cold as her husband.’

‘But we know she wasn’t,’ said Angela.

‘No,’ agreed Freddy. He glanced at the notebook. ‘At any rate, these are the events of that day as told to me. As far as I can tell, it was a normal Sunday like any other. All the family were at home, including Valencourt, who had been on leave for a few days and was preparing to return to duty on the Tuesday. The only guests were Henry Lacey—who was there so often that he was practically a permanent resident—and his friend, Oliver Harrington, who was convalescing after receiving a shrapnel wound to the leg, and had come to visit at Lacey’s invitation. According to this Harrington fellow, he spent most of the weekend feeling out of place and unwelcome, since the de Lisles were pretty frosty as a rule. He’d only come at all because Lacey was an old school pal of his and they hadn’t seen one another for years.

‘It appears that Selina had taken her husband’s return as an opportunity to make something of a nuisance of herself. The servants obviously didn’t like to say too much, but the police understood from what they
did
say that she was a capricious sort at the best of times, and throughout the weekend in question had been behaving in a most high-handed manner and ordering everyone around as though she owned the place.’

‘Really?’ said Angela. ‘I can’t imagine Roger putting up with that sort of thing. By all accounts he liked to rule the roost himself.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t notice it,’ said Freddy. ‘Anyway, as I said, not much happened until the Sunday afternoon, when Valencourt and Selina had a quarrel. They were overheard by Godfrey and Victorine, who couldn’t say what it was about, since apparently it wasn’t a raised-voice sort of row but more of a cross-look-and-pointed-remark thing.’

‘I wonder whether they were eavesdropping, in that case,’ said Angela. ‘It seems a bit odd to overhear an argument without hearing at least some of what was said.’

‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ agreed Freddy. ‘Anyway, this all happened at half-past four or so. Shortly after that, Selina came into the drawing-room in an obvious huff, complained to Victorine that she was feeling unwell, and said she was going upstairs to lie down. According to Valencourt, he followed her shortly afterwards and begged her pardon, and they made it up. He then went outside to the stables, where he was seen by one of the grooms, and spent some time with the horses. At five o’clock, Evelyn de Lisle sent her maid up to Selina’s room to see if she wanted anything. The maid reported that Selina was feeling better, but was a little tired, and had decided to rest a while. Nothing more was seen or heard of her until a quarter past six, when another servant came to tell Evelyn that Selina was still indisposed and would spend the rest of the evening in her room, and that she did not wish to be disturbed. Valencourt said he knocked on his wife’s door at about seven o’clock as he went up to dress for dinner, and again when he went up to bed, but there was no reply and the door was locked on both occasions, so he assumed she was asleep.’