Deadly Inheritance (50 page)

‘As we have discovered. Miss Ranner, now I have to approach a most delicate matter and I do hope that you will forgive me.’ Ursula put down her cup and leaned towards her hostess.

‘Miss Grandison, please, let me know what it is that concerns you,’ Miss Ranner said earnestly.

‘We have spoken at some length to Mr Gray because it seemed that he might well have information that could be of use in the investigation. Now I have come to you for the same reason.’

‘Miss Grandison, if I can be of help in any way in this matter, you have only to ask.’

‘Thank you.’ But just as Ursula was about to put her question, Ellie came in and asked if her mistress would like more tea to be made.

Miss Ranner waved her away. ‘Please, Ellie, not now. Leave us alone until I ring.’ With a look of curiosity, the girl disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Mr Gray informed us that he learned from you that Polly’s father had been the previous Earl, that is, the fifth Earl. Is that so?’

‘Oh, dear! I did tell Mr Gray that information was to go no further. I only told him because he had conceived the notion that he himself had fathered Polly. I had to tell him it was no such thing. Mary was quite definite and the dates would not have matched, him going away and all.’ Miss Ranner seemed very agitated.

‘Did Polly tell you she was with child?’

Miss Ranner looked down at her hands, tightly held in her lap. ‘She fainted one day. She said it was only because she had run too hard through the wood. Miss Grandison, I may be a spinster but my dear mama had so many babies that I have an intimate acquaintanceship with the early signs of a delicate condition.’

‘And I am sure you were very concerned for Polly’s future.’

‘Oh, my dear Miss Grandison, of course! It seemed to be a case of her mother all over again.’

Ursula grew very cold. ‘You feared she was with child by the Earl?’

‘Oh, no! The Earl was not like his father. There has never been the slightest breath of anything like that. That was not what I meant; it was the fact that Polly had succumbed to the, well, I suppose one could call it the urgings of her body.’

‘Did she tell you who she had been involved with?’ Ursula held her breath.

Miss Ranner shook her head. ‘I assumed it to have been one of the servants, though Polly had always said she would never take up with anyone like that. But if it was someone with a higher standing, then I told Polly they should take responsibility for her and the child.’

‘The Earl did not seem to have taken much responsibility for Mary,’ Ursula said.

‘He never knew, Miss Grandison. By the time Mary was aware of her delicate condition, he and the Countess had gone abroad. He wished to visit his cousins in New Zealand. They were away for nearly a year. By the time they returned, poor Mary had had Polly and passed away. Before she departed this life, she made me swear I would never tell her daughter her parentage. She thought it would be too difficult a burden.’ Miss Ranner stopped and thought for a moment, ‘I think she was right. A girl like Polly, well, you would never know what she would do.’

Ursula wondered if she should tell Miss Ranner that Polly had been told who her father was and that the information may well have led to her death. Mr Jackman might be certain Mr Warburton had not killed her but she was not convinced.

Miss Ranner continued, ‘After all, you heard Mrs Sutton say how bitter young Mr Russell is.’ She suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth for an instant. ‘Oh dear, Miss Grandison, I didn’t mean anything by that. It was just that from things Mrs Sutton said from time to time, it seemed Mr Russell thought he was owed more out of life.’ She wrung her hands together. ‘His mother, Lady Frances, was such a special person.’

‘What happened, Miss Ranner?’ Ursula remembered the Colonel and his tale of a father over-eager to exercise a
droit du seigneur
and a scandal only just averted. ‘I ask not through a taste for gossip but because it could be very important.’

‘Important? Why? I don’t understand.’

‘I am not at liberty to explain but please be assured that I speak the truth when I say that the details could mean a great deal.’

Miss Ranner passed a hand over her eyes. ‘All my life I have been educated not to gossip and particularly not to gossip about one’s betters.’

‘Never think that just because someone has a title or a large house or some great reputation that they are better than you, Miss Ranner. From what I have seen here, you are of sterling quality and should bow to no one.’

Her hostess gave a shaky laugh. ‘Dear Miss Grandison, what are you saying?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Well, both of them have passed on now, though, of course, the Dowager is still with us.’ She looked hard at Ursula. ‘If you are sure it is of such importance, then I will tell you.’

She looked down at her knitted fingers. When she raised her gaze, she was completely composed. ‘The Earl and the Countess had been married some three or four years. No children as yet and perhaps he was worried by that. He and Lady Frances met on the hunting field. She was a bruising rider to hounds, reckless as anything. She came off at a high hedge and lost consciousness. She and the Earl were the only ones foolish enough to try jumping that obstacle. He gathered her up and, well, I suppose it was what the poets like to talk of as love at first sight. Some called her beautiful and some ugly. She had come out several years earlier but somehow failed to find a husband, perhaps she was too selective.’

Ursula had a sudden picture of a strong-willed girl with out-of-the-ordinary looks suddenly meeting the love of her life and throwing every rule book out of the window.

‘I don’t know how long it took before the gossip started. I think he was as reckless as she. Then, suddenly, she was marrying the clergyman of a local parish and he had been given an advancement that took them into the Midlands. We saw no more of Lady Frances until seven or eight years ago. The reverend had died, the rectory had to be passed to the next incumbent and the present Viscount Broome, brother to Lady Frances, supplied her with a house.’

‘The fifth Earl must have still been alive, was he not?’

Miss Ranner nodded.

‘And at last discretion was observed,’ said Ursula, thinking that the Dowager may well have had something to say in that. She must surely have been aware of what had transpired.

‘It was as Mrs Sutton described.’

‘Did gossip not start up again regarding Mr Max Russell? Now that I know the facts, I can see that there is a strong likeness to the Earl.’ Except that Mr Russell had a presence the Earl had never managed to achieve.

‘He was invited to Mountstanton. Only occasionally, you understand, when there were other folk around, just what might be expected, given Lady Frances’s standing. Had there been a complete ignoring of the Russells, then gossip may well have been active.’

‘You spoke earlier as though Mr Russell was aware of his parentage.’

‘Oh, yes. Betty – Mrs Sutton – is a close friend and she has told me Lady Frances informed him of the truth many years ago.’

Ursula shook her head. What a terrible story! And the fifth Earl was a man supposedly held in high esteem and great fondness by all who knew him. How extraordinary it was that neither of his sons seemed to have taken after him. She remembered Mr Russell’s easy charm and wondered if the fifth Earl had wanted to acknowledge him as at least one son who had inherited his own charisma. And how had the Dowager borne it? No wonder she had lashed out so strongly against Mr Warburton the previous night.

Then she thought about Helen and Belle’s mother, for whom faithlessness had seemed a way of life. She wondered how long she would have remained with her own Papa had typhoid not claimed them both.

‘Thank you, Miss Ranner, for telling me this.’

‘Is it important, Miss Grandison?’

Ursula looked down at the gloves she had lain in her lap and stroked their grey suede. ‘At this moment I cannot tell. But, yes, it could be of great importance.’

Miss Ranner looked pleased and relieved. After a moment she said, ‘And how is your knitting going, Miss Grandison?’

Ursula explained she was half way through the wrap she was making from Miss Ranner’s pattern but all the time she wanted to say goodbye. She needed to find Mr Jackman, to tell him how she thought she could now put together all the pieces surrounding the Earl’s death.

Charles Stanhope stood in his brother’s study, looked at his two investigators, and tried to take in what they had told him.

He was deathly tired. He kept telling himself he had suffered far worse hardship on campaign than he had here at home over the past forty-eight hours, but the heartbreak of his brother’s death kept sweeping over him. It made the shock of Polly’s demise a fleabite in comparison.

He had meant coming home after resigning his commission to be no more than a dutiful interlude before moving on to the next stage of his life. He had had it all planned. Now, almost literally, the grand design had been blown into useless pieces.

‘Please, sit down.’ He waved at a couple of none-too-comfortable chairs and waited until both Miss Grandison and Thomas Jackman were seated. ‘Now, let me see if I have this straight.’ He leant against a side table weighted with piles of Richard’s papers. ‘You are saying that Max Russell is one of my father’s illegitimate offspring, that he comes up here on Mama’s birthday fête filled with animosity towards my brother, helps himself to a shotgun, meets him in the belvedere and kills him, making it look like a suicide. Is that it?’ He couldn’t help the incredulous note in his voice.

Until now, he had considered Miss Grandison as a woman of more than usual intelligence. And courage! What other woman would have climbed down that treacherous slope in the way she had for a dog! Or, for that matter, ridden out on a loathsome night through the dark and rain to help a foolish girl when there were others she could have called on? How quickly he had become used to her presence, her frankness, her wit, her ability to think the way he did about matters such as Polly’s death. He caught her sometimes at the dinner table surveying the diners as though they belonged in some zoological park. Then she would catch his eye and smile almost as though they were conspirators.

Now, though, it seemed she had let her imagination run away with her. Could she really believe the theory she had outlined?

‘Sir,’ said Thomas Jackman, ‘I have to point out that Mr Russell’s horse, an unmistakeable animal, blond as I understand …’

‘A palomino’ interjected Miss Grandison.

‘Was seen in the early evening tethered at the trees not far from the bottom of the slope leading up to the belvedere.’

This hadn’t been mentioned before. It rocked Charles, made him realise this theory might not be as ridiculous as he’d first thought.

‘When did you discover this, Jackman?’

‘This morning, sir. While Miss Grandison was visiting Miss Ranner, I talked with Sam, the barman at the Lamb and Lion. He said if I wanted to know more about who was at the fête, I should talk to Mr Russell because his horse was seen below the slope leading up to the west wing. I asked who had produced this information; he said a customer had mentioned it, someone, I gathered, who wouldn’t want to be identified. From what Sam didn’t say as much as what he did, I reckon that poaching is amongst this fellow’s activities.’

Charles had a good idea of who the fellow was. Luke Southover scratched a living lending a hand to any farmer needing unskilled help, and poached regularly, filling the pot for his ever-growing family. Luke was sharp and sly. He knew everything going on in the neighbourhood. If he said he’d seen Max’s horse, then the report could be relied upon.

‘So I asked who this Mr Russell was,’ Jackman continued.

‘And what were you told?’

‘That he was a gent, lived a little way outside Hinton Parva and was known to visit up at the big house. Nothing about his being any sort of relation,’ Jackman added hurriedly. ‘I obtained his directions and walked back toward the house Miss Grandison was visiting, to inform her that I was intending to call on the said Mr Russell, when … ‘

‘When I emerged from Miss Ranner’s and was able to tell him what I had learned from both her and Mrs Sutton,’ finished Ursula.

Charles looked at her in bemusement.

She fixed him with a steady gaze. ‘How do you view Mr Russell, Colonel?’

How indeed? With an effort Charles brought himself back to the matter in hand. It was a question he would have difficulty in answering but answer it he must. ‘Max Russell and his mother moved into The Beeches, which is a mile or so the other side of the village, some seven years ago. Lady Frances, Max’s mother, was the sister of Viscount Broome, whose estate borders Mountstanton to the east.’

‘We are aware of that, Colonel,’ Miss Grandison broke in with a note of impatience. ‘Please, may I ask if you were aware that Mr Russell is your half-brother?’

‘I was away with my regiment when the Russells arrived. I came home on leave about a couple of years later and met Max for the first time out shooting with my father and Richard. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow. Then my brother broke the news. He … he … apparently he considered that Max’s birth was not his fault and that it should not be held against him.’ He swallowed hard.

‘But you could not see it that way?’ Miss Grandison asked gently.

He looked down at his shoes. ‘I could not help seeing the presence in the neighbourhood of his mother and himself as an insult to my mother. Richard said that my mother had left her card with Lady Frances and that was all she intended doing.’ He paused then said, with a certain amount of difficulty, ‘It was obvious, though, that my father derived great pleasure from Max’s company.’

‘Did he visit Lady Frances?’

‘No. I believe he did not. By then his physical condition was deteriorating and he rode little. But I know Max came over and played chess with him.’ When Charles had told Richard how inappropriate he considered this practice, his brother said that it gave pleasure to their father, and his life, at that stage, did not offer many pleasures. Richard had always had an uneasy relationship with both their parents. As had Charles. But Richard was always attempting to live up to his father’s expectations. Charles dealt with their differences by removing himself from the family circle. But for Miss Grandison to suggest that Max could have shot Richard was truly shocking.