A Corpse in Shining Armour (22 page)

‘I’m afraid Lomax is rather preoccupied.’

His voice was grave.

‘Why? What’s happening to Miles?’

My mind went to the intelligent policeman and the probability that Miles knew something about Handy’s death. Was the family
lawyer coming to warn him of imminent arrest?

‘Lomax has some sad news to deliver,’ Disraeli said. ‘He asked me to come here with him because I know our hostess. A ballroom
is not the ideal place for passing on such news, but we can hardly have a son dancing the night away when his father’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes, at the asylum this afternoon. The message was brought to Lomax’s chambers this evening.’

We watched as Lomax skirted a chattering group and came alongside Miles, who didn’t seem to have noticed him till that moment
and looked surprised. Lomax said something and put a hand on Miles’s shoulder. The young man’s face turned pale and he hung
his head. After a few more words they began walking towards the door together. People were looking at them now, aware of something
wrong.

‘What about Stephen?’ I said. ‘Does he know?’

‘We can’t find him. Lomax is hoping Miles might have some idea where he’s gone.’

‘Unlikely.’

The death of the of old lord had raised the stakes. Now Stephen was the new Lord Brinkburn. Anything the younger brother might
do to overturn that would have to be done decisively, with even more eyes on him than in this crowded place.

‘I’ll go back to Buckinghamshire first thing tomorrow,’ I said.

Disraeli looked surprised.

‘I thought you wanted to speak to Lomax.’

‘I do. But whatever the answer is, it’s there, not here.’

Somehow, in a way I still couldn’t fathom, the answer lay in a twenty-three-year-old journal in a green-shaded library. I
didn’t tell Disraeli about that. There was too much to explain. Miles and Lomax had vanished through the doorway into the
hall.

‘I must go,’ Disraeli said. ‘Lomax came in my carriage.’

‘Is somebody telling Lady Brinkburn?’

‘Lomax thinks that should be Stephen’s duty, if they can find him. If not, Lomax or Miles will have to tell her. You’ll excuse
me, Miss Lane. Let me know what’s happening. And good luck.’

He gave a quick bow, as if we’d just finished the waltz together, and walked away through the now subdued dancers. I supposed
my friends were expecting me in the supper room, but I’d lost my appetite. After waiting ten minutes or so for Disraeli to
get clear away, I walked out of the ballroom and past the heraldic banners into a summer night still humming with music from
half a dozen wide-open doorways.

Early the following morning the
North Star
from Paddington whirled me back to the bank of the Thames.

By mid-morning I was walking from the Dumb Bell to the village, planning to collect Tabby from Mrs Todd’s. I walked fast,
still gripped by the urgency of the night before. Very soon the news of Lord Brinkburn’s death would be brought to his widow,
if it hadn’t arrived already. Lady Brinkburn could hardly be expected to grieve deeply, but the decencies would have to be
observed and it might be more difficult to find out what I needed from a household in mourning.

I found Mrs Todd in her garden, picking gooseberries. When I asked after Tabby she sniffed and told me she was at Violet’s.

‘She’s been round there most of the time you were away. With respect, you should watch out or Violet will be getting her into
bad ways.’

I didn’t tell her that Tabby was in bad ways already.

When I got there, Tabby was with Violet in the weed patch in front of her cottage, the baby kicking and gurgling on a blanket
in the sun.

‘Violet’s been showing me a lot of things that belonged to Mr Handy,’ Tabby said, without greeting or preamble.

‘What sort of things?’

‘Writing and stuff.’

‘Would you show me?’ I said to Violet.

She gathered up the baby and we all went inside, to a fug of boiled cabbage smell and the ever-circling flies. While Tabby
tucked the baby in its crib, Violet opened a door in the cupboard part of the dresser and brought out a bundle loosely wrapped
in clean sacking. I hoped for letters, even another journal, but when she put it on the table and undid the sacking, it turned
out to be an assemblage of oddments: pieces torn from newspapers, prints, a few loose leaves of paper with handwriting on
them. Violet and Tabby watched hungrily as I turned them over.

‘What do they say?’ Violet asked.

Like Tabby, she’d never been taught to read. If she’d hoped for any messages of tenderness from Handy, she’d have been as
disappointed as I was. There were receipts from stagecoach companies in Italy, France and England for places booked, cheap
prints of views in various Italian cities, paragraphs from English-language newspapers in foreign towns listing eminent arrivals
of the week, with Lord Brinkburn’s name underlined in black ink, a programme for a performance of
Don Giovanni
in Venice given five years before, receipted food and drink bills from various hostelries–all the detritus of a travelling
life. Four pages on better quality paper, its deckled edges slick and grey from much fingering, turned out to be prints of
erotic drawings, showing women in a Turkish bathhouse. Those, at any rate, Violet could understand, though she didn’t seem
embarrassed by them.

‘His lordship liked pictures,’ she said.

‘When did Handy leave all these things with you?’

‘He had some every time he came back. He said he wanted to remember things.’

There were only half a dozen notes consisting of two or three sentences at most, all in the same black handwriting, the words
sprawling across the page. They were the kind of notes a man might give his servant to deliver, fixing appointments or offering
conventional thanks for hospitality. Presumably the people who received them had scanned them and given them back to Handy.
One, dated three years before, read:
Sir, The bearer of this, one Handy, is a thorough rogue but may be trusted for our present purposes
. It seemed sad that this motley collection was all Handy had to show for a lifetime of travelling and service.

I was bundling them up so that Violet could put them away when a smaller piece of paper slithered out from between two of
the erotic drawings. Both the thick, greyish paper and the drawing on it set this scrap apart from the rest. This was a sketch,
in charcoal, of a boy perhaps twelve years old, with a round face and untidy dark hair. The artist had caught a malicious
look in his eyes and a twist of his mouth that seemed at odds with the round face and childish posture, hunched on a rock
with his knees drawn up. A few pine trees were sketched in behind him. If you looked closely at the boy’s hairline, there
was a patch that might have been the edge of a birthmark or, equally probably, a smudge of charcoal.

‘Is this Handy?’ I said to Violet.

‘Yes. Somebody drew him when he was a boy.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t know. He never said.’

But I knew the moment I saw it. The observant, nervy quality of the sketch was so like Lady Brinkburn’s work in her honeymoon
journal that it might have come from its pages. Only the texture of the paper was different. It looked as if it had been torn
from one of the small pads that artists carry with them to jot down impressions. Lady Brinkburn had drawn Handy as a boy and
must have liked him enough to give him the picture–unless he’d stolen it, of course. So when and why had she come to hate
him?

I asked Violet if I might borrow the drawing. She was reluctant at first, but relented after I promised to take good care
of it. Finally Tabby and I said goodbye to her and set off for the village shop to place an order for some provisions.

‘I want you to go to the hall for me,’ I said to Tabby. ‘The steward there is Mr Whiteley. Go to the back door, say Miss Lane
presents her compliments to Mr Whiteley and would be grateful for a word with him tomorrow about the cottage. Have you got
that?’

She repeated it, word perfect.

‘Then you wait there until somebody brings you out his reply,’ I said.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I just found him and asked him?’

‘Yes, it would be easier, but it’s not how things are done.’

From her expression, she accepted it, but grudgingly.

‘Were Violet’s old things any use then?’ she said.

‘Possibly. You did well to find out about them, at any rate.’

She grinned.

‘I’ve found out something else as well.’

‘From Violet?’

‘Nah, from Polly. It’s about her ladyship.’

‘Have you found out about her old maid Suzy?’

‘Oh, she died years ago. Something else.’

I opened my mouth to ask what, then remembered that we were standing in the middle of the village street with probably half
a dozen people watching from gardens and porches.

‘Good, you can tell me when you get back from the hall.’

I watched her walking briskly along the road under the hot sun, then turned back to the woodland path and made my way to the
cottage. Everything seemed as we’d left it, with no trace of intruders. After the hurry of travelling and London it was blissful
to be back with the sound and smell of the river. I sat watching the swans, planning the conversation I’d have with Mr Whiteley.
It would have nothing to do with the cottage and, if my suspicions were right, he wouldn’t expect it to be.

Tabby was back sooner than expected, while I was still sitting on the river bank, dabbling my toes in the water. She came
bouncing through the hollyhocks, humming with news, like a honeybee coming back to the hive loaded and dusted with pollen.

‘Did Mr Whiteley send a message?’ I said.

She nodded, and delivered it in a mock-pompous voice.

‘Mr Whiteley sends his compliments to Miss Lane and will do himself the honour of calling on her at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

So the steward preferred to have his conversation with me at the cottage rather than the hall where we might be overheard.
That was no surprise.

‘Were they busy at the hall?’ I said, wondering if a messenger from London had arrived.

‘Not particularly, no. I heard one of the maids saying they must draw the curtains because his lordship was dead, but they
didn’t seem that bothered. Oh, and there’s another message for you.’

She felt in her pocket and produced a folded square of paper, good quality and delicately scented. It was addressed to me
in Lady Brinkburn’s hand, but with less than her usual neatness. The writing inside looked equally hasty.

Miss Lane,

Would you do me the kindness of coming to tea tomorrow? I shall send for you. Please don’t bother to reply.

Sophia Brinkburn

‘Did Mr Whiteley give you this?’ I said.

‘Nah, a lady. I think it might have been her ladyship. She came running across the grass to give it me.’

That sounded wildly unlikely.

‘What did she look like?’

‘She was wearing a green dress with white lace. She was quite old, more than forty probably, and her hair had a bit of grey
in it, but more brown. She spoke in a deep sort of voice, like this.’

The last two words were a passable imitation of Lady Brinkburn’s soft and low voice and the description fitted. From the description
of her dress, she’d been in no hurry to change into widow’s weeds.

‘And she came running across the lawn to you?’

‘Well, more walking fast, I suppose. But she was hurrying and panting.’

‘Did she say anything to you?’

‘She asked was I your maid.’

‘How would she know that?’

‘They kept me waiting at the back door long enough for the whole house to know it. I thought they might give me a cup of tea
at least, but no. Any rate, I said yes, I was your maid. And she said would I give you this note and be sure I put it in your
hands and nobody else’s.’

The urgency, and the abrupt tone of the note, suggested more than a wish to take tea with me.

With the air of a job well done, Tabby sat down beside me on the bank, peeled off her stockings and dabbled her toes beside
mine.

‘So, do you want to know what Polly told me about her ladyship?’

‘Yes. But how does Mrs Todd come to know anything about her?’

‘She helps with the cleaning up at the hall when they’re short-handed. She was there the autumn before last, when the lordship
and the ladyship had this quarrel. Everybody heard it, Polly said. They couldn’t help hearing it, even if they didn’t want
to, though I don’t think they tried very hard not to.’

‘This was when Lord Brinkburn came on his usual visit, I suppose.’

‘S’pose so. Polly says her ladyship doesn’t like him being there and shuts herself in her room.’

That fitted with what I knew, so was at least some support for whatever story Tabby had heard.

‘Anyway, one night his lordship got roaring drunk,’ Tabby went on. ‘Polly says he always drank a lot, but usually he could
take it like a gentleman; only that night he had toothache and he drank a lot of brandy for the pain, so what with the brandy
and the toothache he was rampaging up and down the corridors, roaring like a bull.’

‘Did Polly see this for herself?’

‘Yes. She’d been told to stay over in the servants’ attic that night, because of being needed to help with breakfast in the
morning. She said she was terrified, most of them were. Anyway, after this has been going on for a while, he takes it into
his head that he wants to see his wife.’

‘Poor woman.’ I imagined her shut in her room, hearing the roaring and stamping going on. ‘Were either of the sons at home?’

‘No. Polly said some of the men servants were trying to calm him down, only it made him worse. One of them tried to stop him
going up the stairs to her room and he punched him in the face. Then he started rattling the door handle and shouting at her
to come out. When she wouldn’t, he told one of the servants to get an axe and break the door down.’

Tabby looked at me, biting her lower lip, face full of excitement. You could see how much she and Mrs Todd had enjoyed the
story. Something in her expression said that the best part was still to come.