The Murder at Mandeville Hall: The Casebook of Barnaby Adair: Volume 7 Read online

  Carradale wrinkled his nose. “That’s theoretically possible, but as Miss Johnson was an unmarried young lady of unblemished reputation hoping to attract a reasonable offer, and she didn’t strike me as a silly twit, I would class her walking alone late at night in an unfamiliar garden filled with high hedges and dark shadows as highly improbable.”

  Stokes grunted and rose. “So, tell me—you found her body on Tuesday morning. Why wasn’t the Yard informed then?”

  “Ah—you have the local magistrate, Sir Godfrey Stonewall, to thank for that.” Carradale paused, then added, “And, of course, Scotland Yard’s still-lingering unsavory reputation.”

  “That’s been more imagined than real for the past decade.”

  “Even so. Adverse reputations can take decades to redeem, especially within the ton.”

  Stokes merely humphed, then caught the rustle of skirts briskly nearing. He turned as a tall lady—only an inch or so shorter than Stokes himself—appeared framed in the archway through the hedge. Her eyes landed on Stokes, and she walked forward, inclining her head politely if with reserve, then she looked at Carradale.

  Carradale had straightened. “Inspector Stokes—this is Miss Whittaker. She’s a distant cousin of Miss Johnson and arrived on the morning we found Glynis dead.”

  “Indeed.” Miss Whittaker’s gaze was measuring as it lingered on Stokes’s face. “Circumstances being what they are, I cannot say that I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Inspector, but Lord Carradale has assured me I should be glad that you’re here. I was sent by my family to fetch Glynis home from this event, but to my sorrow, I arrived too late.”

  “Miss Whittaker came upon the scene just after I had discovered Miss Johnson’s body.”

  “I had arrived in the village the evening before and decided to wait until morning to speak with Glynis. I now regret I didn’t come straight on to Mandeville Hall—had I done so, Glynis would not be dead.”

  “I see.” Stokes had been doing some assessing of his own. Over the years, he’d learned to read the subtle cues carried in the way members of the ton and higher gentry interacted with each other; he wondered if Carradale had made a conscious decision to move closer to Miss Whittaker, or if she knew how revealing it was that she’d accepted Carradale’s nearness without so much as a batted lash. Hmm. However, all he said was, “If you were among the first to find Miss Johnson’s body, I’ll need to speak with you at length.”

  “I was also among the first to view Mrs. Cleary’s body,” the formidable Miss Whittaker stated. “After Glynis’s death, Mr. Mandeville—Percy—kindly offered me houseroom. Given Glynis’s chaperon is presently still sedated and cannot be moved, I accepted his offer and have been residing at the Hall since.” She glanced at Carradale, then looked back at Stokes. “Lord Carradale and I have essentially joined forces to ensure my cousin’s death—and now that of Mrs. Cleary as well—are properly investigated and the murderer brought to justice. If the matter had been left to the magistrate, all would have been swept under the proverbial rug as a mere inconvenience.”

  Stokes blinked. “I see.” He had to wonder how any magistrate had thought to get away with such a response with a lady of Miss Whittaker’s caliber involved.

  The sound of a carriage coming quickly up the drive reached them.

  Stokes felt a modicum of relief. It occurred to him that Miss Whittaker and Penelope Adair would get on famously; they seemed cut from a similar cloth. “With luck, that will be the Adairs.” He glanced at Carradale.

  “His lordship explained that Mr. Adair and his wife often assist you in cases such as this.” Miss Whittaker turned and led the way out of the shrubbery.

  When Stokes looked at Carradale, the man merely shrugged and waved for Stokes to precede him.

  Stokes did; once beyond the archway, with the silent but industrious Philpott bringing up the rear, he and Carradale fell in on either side of Miss Whittaker as she determinedly strode for the forecourt.

  The light traveling carriage had barely halted and was still rocking on its springs when the door opened and Barnaby Adair stepped down. He saw Stokes approaching, noted his companions, and raised a hand in greeting. With his other hand, Adair gripped his wife’s gloved hand and assisted her to the gravel.

  Penelope retrieved her fingers from her husband’s clasp, shook out her skirts, and looked around with interest—not to say blatant curiosity. And not a little relief. Delivered at close to noon, Stokes’s note advising them of a case with which he would be glad of their assistance if they could spare the time had arrived at a fortuitous moment. The house party she and Barnaby had felt pressured to attend had turned out to be even more political than they’d feared; a legitimate excuse to cut short their attendance had come as a godsend, one they’d fallen on with alacrity. That the house party had also been in Hampshire, just north of Andover and not at all far away, had been the cream on their cake.

  On top of that, as she was expecting their second child but was thankfully not yet showing, Penelope was keen to have something with which to occupy her mind—to keep said mind away from dwelling on her occasionally queasy stomach.

  She had great hopes that this investigation would prove an effective distraction.

  After a quick survey of the house—an older place with Gothic pretensions—she followed Barnaby’s lead and focused on the people accompanying Stokes and Constable Philpott across the lawn. She narrowed her gaze on the gentleman. “Isn’t that Carradale? The friend of Hartley Galbraith—his erstwhile landlord? And you know him as well, and of course, I’ve seen him in passing in town.”

  Barnaby nodded. “That is, indeed, Carradale. I think his estate is nearby—somewhere in Hampshire, at least—but I have no idea who the lady is.”

  Penelope put on her best smile. “She appears to be leading the men. How intriguing.”

  Barnaby humphed as the trio reached the forecourt; gravel crunched as they approached.

  The lady halted at a polite distance; Stokes and Carradale flanked her. A full head taller than Penelope, the lady possessed a statuesque figure, while her severely cut and otherwise unremarkable morning gown—in a shade of plum that Penelope herself was fond of—suggested that the lady hailed from the upper gentry rather than the aristocracy. However, the excellent fabric and styling plus the simple yet finely wrought gold chain about the lady’s throat declared that, regardless of her social status, her family was relatively well heeled.

  Stokes nodded to Barnaby and Penelope, and Carradale inclined his head to them both. Stokes waited for the noise of the carriage rolling off around the house to fade, then made the introductions. He concluded with “As Carradale found the first body and was joined within minutes by Miss Whittaker—who had been sent by the victim’s family to fetch her home from this event—and Miss Whittaker was also among the first to view the second body, I suggested that we wait for you to join us before Carradale and Miss Whittaker give us a rundown of events as they know them.”

  “An excellent idea.” Penelope turned bright eyes on Carradale and the interesting Miss Whittaker. “You might begin, Miss Whittaker, by telling us why your family wished your cousin to come home.”

  Miss Whittaker blinked, but after a moment’s hesitation obliged, explaining that her family, with her grandfather as its head, had deemed the event unsuitable for her distant cousin, Miss Glynis Johnson. “It was felt that this was not an event an unmarried lady, chaperoned or not, should attend.” Without further prompting, Miss Whittaker outlined the timing of her arrival in the nearby village and her subsequent call at Mandeville Hall the following morning. “I expected to be able to collect Glynis and her chaperon, Mrs. Macomber, and depart—Glynis wouldn’t have argued with me—but instead…” She paused, then glanced at Carradale.

  He shifted, then said, “I think it better if I start on the Monday evening.” Succinctly, he described what he knew of events during the gathering in the drawing room, including his thought that Glynis Johnson might have claimed
his escort for a stroll on the terrace in order to make a point with some other gentleman present, although he had no idea in which gentleman her interest lay or exactly what her point might have been. He also mentioned the gold chain about her throat and that a pendant of some sort had weighed it down, yet Miss Johnson had kept whatever she wore on the chain concealed.

  The details of the following morning, when he’d found the body, were quickly told, and then, between them, he and Miss Whittaker related the salient points of that day, including the discovery that the chain and whatever had been on it appeared to have been ripped away, almost certainly by the murderer. Also, that a Mrs. Rosamund Cleary had reported seeing a gentleman leaving the shrubbery at about the time Miss Johnson had been killed, but that Mrs. Cleary hadn’t seen the man well enough to identify him. Consequently, despite the magistrate’s attempts to blame some fictitious passing gypsy, there was every reason to believe that the murderer was one of the gentleman presently residing at the house—specifically, the gentleman Mrs. Cleary saw.

  “How many gentlemen are there on our suspect list?” Penelope asked.

  Carradale mentally counted, then replied, “If you include all the gentlemen who were sleeping under the Hall’s roof, there are ten.”

  Stokes nodded. “No doubt we’ll shorten that list soon enough.” He glanced at Philpott, who had been scribbling throughout. “Let’s get the names of all the guests from Mr. Mandeville later.” Stokes frowned, then glanced at Carradale and Miss Whittaker. “When you mentioned your host, both of you specified a Percy Mandeville. Are there more Mr. Mandevilles present?”

  “Just one other—Edward Mandeville, Percy’s cousin.” Carradale lightly grimaced. “He’s older and, as you’ll discover, pompous and arrogant. He apparently took it upon himself to attend to ensure nothing of a scandalous nature occurred to blot the family escutcheon.”

  “Ah.” Barnaby nodded in understanding. “I take it that, in the past, Percy Mandeville’s house parties have been…racy if not outright licentious.” He glanced at Miss Whittaker. “That explains your family’s aversion to having Miss Johnson attend.”

  Miss Whittaker nodded. “That was what we had heard and feared.”

  “To give Percy his due, while in the past these yearly parties of his were on the licentious side, this year, while I’m sure several affairs are being conducted under the Hall’s roof, the tone of the event has been much more sedate.” Carradale shrugged. “I put it down to the guests having attained a degree of wisdom, but perhaps Percy inviting two unmarried young ladies and their chaperons also contributed to the more acceptable tone. None of those here are of the ilk to seduce or act in a way that would shock innocent young ladies.”

  “How…interesting.” Penelope had to wonder what had caused Percy Mandeville to change his spots, so to speak. And possibly Carradale, too, although in his case, while any experienced lady with eyes would instantly place him in the too-dangerous-to-know class, she understood that when it came to his liaisons, he had always been rigidly discreet. A rake he might be, but an aloof and distant one, a gentleman who kept his private life private.

  “Very well. So that’s the first murder in brief.” Barnaby arched his brows at Carradale and Miss Whittaker. “Now tell us about the second.”

  Miss Whittaker drew in a deeper breath and embarked on a clear and concise recitation of events, covering Mrs. Cleary’s strange turn in the corridor in the evening, followed by her retiring early, then Miss Whittaker waking to a maid’s scream and discovering Mrs. Cleary smothered in her bed. Between them, she and Carradale described the evidence that supported that conclusion, then Carradale swiftly sketched the details of their subsequent encounter with the magistrate and Sir Godfrey’s agreement to call in Scotland Yard.

  Carradale concluded by outlining the present state of play, namely that both bodies had been preserved as well as possible pending the Yard’s advice—Stokes broke in to inform them that Pemberton had traveled down with him and was conducting his examination as they spoke—that they’d locked up the second murder scene for what that might be worth, and that Sir Godfrey had at least had sense enough to decree that all the guests had to remain at the Hall until Stokes gave them leave to depart.

  Barnaby frowned. “When is the house party due to end?”

  “Saturday morning,” Carradale replied.

  Barnaby grimaced. “It’s already Thursday afternoon.” He met Carradale’s eyes. “I suspect we’d better learn who’s on the guest list now rather than later.”

  Penelope saw understanding dawn in Carradale’s eyes. He thought, then grimaced as well. “Leaving aside the ladies, in addition to the two Mandevilles, we have Mr. Henry Wynne, the Earl of Dorset’s nephew, the Honorable Mr. Guy Walker, Mr. Robert Fletcher, heir to Viscount Margate, Viscount Hammond, Mr. William Coke, Colonel Walter Humphries, and Captain Freddy Collins.”

  Barnaby sighed and looked at Stokes. “Finding our killer just turned urgent. You might be able to persuade some of the guests that they need to remain here until we’ve identified the murderer, but your chances of holding the likes of Wynne, Walker, and Fletcher, much less Coke and even Humphries, are slim to none.”

  Stokes pulled a face. After a moment, he looked at the house. “Let’s cross that Rubicon when we come to it. But if we are going to be pressed for time, I suggest that now we have some inkling of what happened, we’d better make a start.”

  Penelope settled her spectacles on the bridge of her nose. “Before we march in and start asking questions, are we all agreed that, based on what we currently know, our working hypothesis is that Miss Johnson was strangled by one of the gentlemen staying at the Hall, that he ripped the chain and whatever pendant she was concealing from about her neck, left her lying on the grass in the shrubbery, and returned to the house via the front door—along the way being glimpsed by Mrs. Cleary, but as a gentleman she couldn’t identify. The next evening, Mrs. Cleary’s turn in the corridor led the murderer to assume that she had recognized or would recognize him, and subsequently, he silenced her by smothering her in her bed.” Penelope looked around the faces of their small group. “Is that it?”

  The others took a moment to think through her words, then nodded or murmured agreement.

  “Excellent!” Penelope turned to the porch and the open front door. “Now we know where we stand, I suggest we forge on.”

  She led the way up the steps, unsurprised that Miss Whittaker quickly caught up with her and kept pace. They walked together over the threshold and into the cool dimness of the front hall and found the butler waiting.

  “What is it, Carnaby?” Carradale asked as, with Barnaby and Stokes, he joined Penelope and Miss Whittaker.

  The butler—Carnaby—swiftly studied their faces, then settled on Stokes. “Inspector?”

  Stokes nodded. “I’m Inspector Stokes of Scotland Yard, here to investigate the deaths of Miss Glynis Johnson and Mrs. Rosamund Cleary.”

  “Indeed, sir. And I wish to assure you that the staff hold themselves ready to render whatever assistance we may.” Carnaby drew himself up. “However, if we might beg a small indulgence, time is getting on, and we have a houseful of guests to feed—is it at all possible to put off any questioning of the staff until later?”

  Stokes thought, then replied, “Given the hour, I can’t see us getting around to interviewing the staff until tomorrow. If any member of the staff has information pertaining to the murders that they feel should be brought to our attention immediately, they can give that information to Constable Morgan, who I believe is currently in the servants’ hall.”

  Obviously relieved, Carnaby nodded. “Indeed, sir, he is. I’ll instruct the staff to inform him of any urgent matter.” Carnaby stepped back and gestured to a closed set of double doors. “The company are waiting in the drawing room, along with the magistrate, Sir Godfrey Stonewall. If you’re ready—”

  “Stokes! Before you get caught up…” Pemberton, the police surgeon, came lumbering up from the rea
r of the front hall. He dipped his head to Barnaby and Penelope. “Adair. Mrs. Adair.”

  “What can you tell us?” Stokes asked. “Anything to make my life easier?”

  “Well, I can confirm that you’re dealing with two murders—one by strangulation, the other by smothering. No doubt about either, and both likely committed by a man…” Pemberton’s gaze had passed to Miss Whittaker. After a moment, he faintly grimaced and amended, “Or a very strong woman. Height is also necessary—whoever strangled Miss Johnson was at least several inches taller than she.”

  Penelope glanced at Miss Whittaker. “How tall was Miss Johnson?”

  Miss Whittaker dryly replied, “She was of average height.”

  Pemberton nodded. “Just so.” He immediately returned his gaze to Stokes’s face. “Neither lady was interfered with in any way. Whoever killed them simply wanted them dead.”

  “Could the two murders have been committed by the same man?” Barnaby asked.

  “Yes, and I would hope that was the case, or else you have two murderers under one roof.” Pemberton focused on Stokes. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Yes. According to Carradale, earlier in the evening, Miss Johnson had been wearing a chain and pendant that someone—possibly the murderer—subsequently ripped off. Any idea when the chain was taken?”

  Pemberton nodded at Carradale. “Indeed—well spotted. And yes”—the surgeon returned his gaze to Stokes—“comparing the marks left by the chain to the bruises about her throat, I would say the chain was wrenched off at or very soon after the time of death.”

  Stokes and Barnaby both nodded.

  Miss Whittaker spoke. “Doctor, I’m a relative of Miss Johnson. Might I ask whether I can now make arrangements to have her body returned to our family?”

  Penelope listened with half an ear as Pemberton, Stokes, and Miss Whittaker discussed and agreed on the release of Miss Johnson’s body. As Stokes bluntly said, “Given the time that’s elapsed since death and Pemberton’s undoubted expertise, I’m confident we’ve got all we’re likely to get from the dead.”