The Shadow at Greystone Chase (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 10) (6 page)

The newcomer to whom she referred was a gentleman of stiff moustache and upright bearing, who had evidently expanded outwards in recent years, for it appeared that some violence had been employed to force the buttons of his tweed suit through the button-holes. He was still a fine man, however, and it quickly became clear that he had at least two female admirers in the shape of Mrs. Hudd and Miss Atkinson, for the former seemed to soften a little in his presence, while the latter sat up and somehow became less self-effacing. Colonel Dempster was introduced to Mrs. Wells, who declared herself charmed with the area. At that, the colonel puffed up in satisfaction, putting an alarming strain on his middle button. He was a local man himself, he said—lived just a short distance away in a modest little cottage close to the sea—quite enough for him and Betsy (here he indicated a black spaniel which had flopped at his feet when he sat down)—was always happy to see his friends Mrs. Hudd and Miss Atkinson—and how long was Mrs. Wells thinking of staying?

Angela said what was proper, but was a little vexed that the colonel had arrived just as she had been about to find out something about the subject of most interest to her. She was wondering how to turn the conversation back in that direction, when Miss Atkinson said, most conveniently:

‘We have just been telling Mrs. Wells about the dreadful events at Greystone Chase, colonel. I believe you knew the family.’

Colonel Dempster coughed and gave something that might have been a little shudder.

‘I did indeed,’ he said. ‘Terrible thing, it was. Terrible. Never thought I should see such wickedness in a fellow officer. Never should have thought it of him. A bad apple, he was. A very bad apple.’

He shook his head and subsided into silence.

‘I was telling you of Miss Lacey,’ said Miss Atkinson. ‘She was a local girl who married the younger son of the family. I am very much afraid to say that he killed her in a fit of rage.’

‘The blackguard strangled her!’ roared the colonel suddenly. ‘No way to treat a woman. He brought shame upon his family.’

‘What can one expect of the French?’ said Mrs. Hudd, who had no personal connection with the matter but did not intend to let that prevent her from pronouncing judgment.

‘They weren’t wholly French,’ said the colonel. Mrs. de Lisle was an Englishwoman through and through. I knew her when she was a girl. I called her Evelyn and she called me Bertie. Delightful woman, delightful. She died of a broken heart after it all happened.’

Miss Atkinson nodded soberly.

‘I am afraid she did,’ she said. ‘Of course, they didn’t call it that, but it all comes down to the same thing in the end.’

‘Will you have tea, colonel?’ said Mrs. Hudd, who liked to return the attention of the company to herself at regular intervals.

There was some little bustle as tea was arranged, then Angela returned to the original subject.

‘I seem to remember hearing something about the case, once,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there some doubt as to the guilt of Mr. de Lisle?’

‘None at all, as far as I know,’ said the colonel. ‘He killed her and then shoved her body in a cupboard as though it were a pair of old shoes. The evidence was quite clear. They found the fellow guilty, but he escaped and went on the run for years, and only reappeared a few months ago when it turned out he’d killed someone else too. You probably read about it in the newspapers.’

‘I think I did,’ said Angela vaguely.

‘So you see, he was most definitely the murderous sort,’ said the colonel. ‘There’s no doubt he did it. He’s dead now, of course.’

‘I suppose the family must have left Greystone Chase after it all happened,’ said Angela.

‘No,’ said Mrs. Hudd, thankful for an opportunity to take part in the conversation once again. ‘They are still here. One sees Mrs. de Lisle in particular out and about in the town.’

‘Another Mrs. de Lisle?’ said Angela. ‘How many are there?’

‘Only one,’ said the colonel. ‘Wife of the eldest son, Godfrey. There’s only the two of them left. He and she.’

‘Now, she is most definitely French,’ said Mrs. Hudd. ‘We have exchanged greetings and she has a quite pronounced accent.’

‘Yes, she is,’ conceded the colonel. ‘A good lady, by all accounts.’

He spoke of her with some reserve. It occurred to Angela that he did not admire Victorine de Lisle, and she remembered what Mr. Gilverson had said about her being plain. The conversation had now turned to other matters and Angela took the opportunity to reflect on her good fortune. She had come to Denborough with the intention of picking up local gossip without looking too suspicious, and had thought that a hotel might be a good place to start, but she had never dreamed that she would be so successful so soon. To have been introduced to Colonel Dempster, who had actually known the de Lisles personally at the time of the murder, was a stroke of luck indeed. It seemed almost too much of a coincidence, but Angela supposed that in a small place such as Denborough it was only to be expected that many of the residents knew or had known the de Lisles. She resolved to make the colonel’s closer acquaintance if she could. Perhaps he could give her more information than she had had so far, for at present there was nothing at all to suggest that a mistake had been made, or that Edgar Valencourt had not murdered his wife.

T
HE NEXT MORNING dawned fine, although to judge from the movement of the grass on the cliff top, there was still a brisk breeze blowing. Angela looked out of her bedroom window and gave a little shiver.

‘Blessed are we who bring with us warm underthings,’ she remarked to Marthe.

‘I do not understand why anyone should want to go to the English seaside at this time of year,’ said Marthe, who was tidying up the dressing-table. ‘Why do all these elderly ladies insist on coming here to take walks in the freezing cold in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening? And then they complain about the stiffness in their bones and seem surprised that they can no longer bend down. It makes no sense. Me, I think they are mad. It is much pleasanter and warmer on the Continent.’

‘I dare say it is,’ said Angela. ‘But then they would have to speak to the natives and eat the food, and that might kill them. Or at the very least scare them into fits.’

‘It would be pleasanter for you too,
madame
,’ said Marthe, who did not approve of this latest adventure. ‘You should not be here.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Angela, ‘but I promised I’d do it, so onward I must go.’

‘But what kind of person would hold you to your word?’ said Marthe. ‘This solicitor ought not to have written to you in the first place. It was an inelegant thing to do.’

‘Inelegant?’ said Angela, amused.

‘Yes,’ said Marthe. ‘It is not kind to put a lady in such a position, and nobody will think the worse of you if you change your mind. Write to him and tell him you no longer wish to do it. You will never hear from him again, and you can leave this place and forget everything.’

Since Angela had been trying for months to forget everything with little success, this was hardly useful advice. She made no comment, however, but merely said:

‘I gave my word and I mean to keep it. I dare say I won’t find anything out, but nobody will be able to say that I didn’t try.’

Marthe saw that her mistress’s mind was made up, and shook her head sadly.

‘It pains me to see you so restless,
madame
,’ she said. ‘You travel here and you travel there, and never do you stop.’

‘I like it,’ said Angela. ‘One gets terribly bored staying in the same place all the time.’

As a matter of fact, she had begun to toy with the idea of returning to America within the next few months. During her time in England she had neglected her business rather, and although she trusted absolutely the man she had left in charge, she felt that she had been gone too long and had forgotten too much. Now she had received a letter from someone who had expressed an interest in buying the company, and the thought tempted her more than she had expected. After so many years of hard work it would be pleasant to hand everything over to someone else, she thought. She could return to the States and negotiate the thing personally. Perhaps she would even stay a while. There she would be anonymous once more—no longer the notorious Mrs. Marchmont who had been tried for murder, but plain old Mrs. Marchmont who could walk down the street without feeling that everybody was staring and whispering as she passed. America had been her home for fifteen years and lately she had found herself missing the place—its free-and-easiness; its lack of pretence; the belief, shared by all, that anyone might be successful if only they worked hard enough. Such a contrast to the formality and stuffiness of England, where family and connections counted for everything. Of course, now there was Barbara to consider she could not simply move back without a second thought, but perhaps Barbara would like to come with her. There were many excellent colleges there, and perhaps the place would be more suited to her daughter’s temperament and independent nature. Still, that was a matter for the future. For now she had other things to think about and a murder to investigate.

‘I think I had better put on a warm scarf,’ she said to Marthe. ‘The green one will do.’

‘What are you going to do this morning?’ said Marthe.

‘I am going to attempt to charm an elderly gentleman,’ said Angela. ‘If I can find him, that is.’

Putting on her scarf and hat, she left her room and went down in the rickety old lift to the hotel lobby. From there she emerged onto the Crescent, which overlooked a large patch of green on the cliff top. One or two people were walking their dogs there, but Colonel Dempster was not among them, so Angela set forth towards the edge of the cliff, where a steep flight of steps descended onto the beach. She paused at the top and looked about her. The place was certainly very fine when the sun was shining and the wind had dropped, although the stubbornly stiff breeze and the large clouds that blew frequently across the sun prevented the day from being really warm.

‘Morning,’ said a voice beside her, and Angela looked round to see a woman of late middle age who had stopped likewise to admire the view from the top of the cliff. She was pushing a wheel-chair in which sat another woman, as far as Angela could judge from the number of scarves, shawls and blankets that enveloped her.

‘Good morning,’ replied Angela politely.

‘That do you, Jemmy?’ said the woman, bending over the chair.

The patient uttered a sound which might have indicated assent, and lifted a hand weakly to point at something. Her other hand lay useless in her lap.

‘No, I don’t think that’s the same boat as yesterday,’ said her companion. ‘The other one had a red stripe and a white sail, don’t you remember? This one here’s got a brown sail.’

The woman in the wheel-chair gave what looked like a nod of the head, and slumped further down into her seat.

‘A fit to the brain,’ explained the first woman to Angela. ‘A stroke, they called it.’

‘Is she your patient?’ said Angela.

The woman shook her head.

‘My sister,’ she said. ‘Took ill a month ago, she did. The doctors shake their heads but she’s not ready to go yet.’

‘And are you nursing her? That must be hard work.’

‘Not me,’ said the woman cheerfully. ‘She’s in one of these fancy nursing-homes. Ever so nice, it is. I joke to them that when she’s gone I wouldn’t mind her bed.’

She seemed unduly good-humoured for someone whose sister was so gravely ill, and must have realized this, for she went on:

‘Don’t think me unfeeling, dear. Jemmy’s had a good life, all things considered. She was always a simple one—sickly too, as a child. She’s done well to get to the age she has. When she fell sick she wanted to come back here to Denborough, where she was brought up, so I thought to myself, why not? She’d been away long enough. They’re all dead now, and this used to be her home, after all. She’s being well cared for where she is, and I visit her, and take her out, and she’s as happy as she can be.’

Here the patient shifted and coughed at something, and they looked up to see a rather striking-looking woman passing, a little dog sniffing at her heels. She was perhaps a little older than Angela, and dressed soberly in the English manner, but there was a smartness about her, and something slightly exotic that did not quite fit the place. She smiled pleasantly at the little group as she passed. Jemmy made a sound, and her sister said:

‘Very well, then, we’ll go that way. Not too far, mind, or I’ll have to push you a long way uphill on the way back.’

She turned the chair with some difficulty and, with a friendly salute to Angela, continued on her way along the cliff path. Angela watched her go, then descended the steps onto the beach. Down below the cliffs gave some shelter from the wind, and Angela felt warm enough to remove her scarf. She had no idea at what time the colonel walked his dog, but he had the weather-beaten appearance of a man who spent much of his time in the open air, and so she expected he would be found frequently out and about. From her brief encounter with him the day before she judged him to be the sort who liked the company of ladies, and she hoped he would be amenable to making the acquaintance of another. She wanted to talk to him and learn more about the de Lisles. In particular she wanted to know why, if the family had not cared whether their younger son were found guilty of murder or not, Evelyn de Lisle should have died of a broken heart shortly afterwards. The two facts did not seem to fit.