Death Is in the Air (5 page)

“I can think of a few,” Pauline murmured.

“Hush!” Sheila said curtly. “Do not speak ill of the dead. Go into the kitchen, all of you, and make some coffee for Lady Elizabeth and me. And bring a plate of those broken biscuits.” She looked apologetically at Elizabeth. “Sorry they’re in pieces, but I get them off-ration, and they taste the same as if they were whole.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth assured her. “But don’t worry on my account. A cup of tea will be enough for me.”

The girls disappeared into the kitchen and, judging from the whisperings going on, were discussing the untimely death of their unfortunate colleague. Elizabeth would have given a week’s sugar ration to overhear what they were talking about.

Sheila chose that moment, however, to speculate on the whereabouts of the German pilot, and Elizabeth had to content herself with the prospect of questioning the girls later.

After sampling some of the mushy, stale pieces of broken biscuits, she swallowed down her tea too fast to be genteel, then quickly made her excuses to Sheila, who seemed unflatteringly relieved to let her go.

Thick white clouds scudded across the sky, promising a squall from the ocean as Elizabeth picked her way across the fields to where Kitty sat perched on a wagon. The land girl’s attempts to urge the weary-looking horse to pull her alongside the sheaves of corn were met with stubborn resistance. The other two girls waited impatiently, ready to toss the corn into the cart with long, unwieldy pitchforks.

In spite of Maisie’s frail appearance, she seemed to have no trouble lifting a sheaf of corn with the clumsy implement. Elizabeth was quite sure she herself could never have managed it, nor did she have any desire to attempt it. She tapped Maisie on the shoulder and
noticed that the girl started quite violently as she dropped the pitchfork.

“Sorry, your ladyship,” she muttered. “I didn’t see you coming.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Elizabeth said, giving her an encouraging smile. “I was just wondering if I could have a quick word with you.”

“If you’re going to ask her about Amelia,” Pauline said shortly, “she doesn’t know anything we don’t know.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t,” Elizabeth glanced at Pauline’s sullen face, “but I didn’t want to interrupt all of you at once.”

The horse, apparently tired of all the screeching and jerking of his reins, took a few reluctant steps forward. Pauline heaved her sheaf into the wagon, and Elizabeth seized the opportunity to draw Maisie aside.

“I just wanted to ask you how well you knew Amelia,” she said, ignoring Pauline’s baleful glances in their direction.

Maisie seemed as if she wanted to run away and hide. “Not very well,” she said, her voice trembling on a sob. “She wasn’t as friendly as the rest of us. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, m’m, but Amelia didn’t really belong with us, if you know what I mean. She was always bragging about her big fancy house and cars, and how she went horse-riding and had ballet lessons and everything.”

“I see.” Elizabeth glanced over at Pauline, but she had moved on to the next sheaf and was out of earshot. “What about the rest of the girls? How did they feel about Amelia?”

Maisie’s gaze flicked to Pauline for a second. “They didn’t like her neither. Especially Pauline. Amelia stole her boyfriend from the army camp. Pauline had it in for her after that.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.

As if reading her thoughts, Maisie added hurriedly,
“She wouldn’t have killed her, though, m’m. Honest. I mean, she couldn’t have, could she. Pauline went to bed the same time as the rest of us. We sleep in the same room, and our floor creaks something terrible. I would have heard if she’d got out of bed.”

Elizabeth patted the frightened girl’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Maisie. I’m not accusing anyone. Do you know who Amelia was meeting last night?”

Maisie clutched the pitchfork to her chest as if for support. “It was probably Pauline’s old boyfriend, Jeff Thomas, m’m. He’s a lieutenant out at the army camp in Beerstowe.” She pinched her lips together, as if afraid of what she’d said.

“Don’t worry,” Elizabeth said, feeling sorry for the girl. “You’re not doing anything wrong. I appreciate you telling me all this. It could be extremely helpful in finding out who murdered that poor girl.” She paused, watching an array of conflicting emotions chase across Maisie’s thin face. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

Maisie swallowed a few times, then said in a rush, “I don’t want to get no one in trouble, Lady Elizabeth, but I don’t want you to go blaming Jeff, neither. He’s a nice lad, that Jeff, and he wouldn’t hurt no one. If you ask me, it’s Maurice you should be talking to, that’s who.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Maurice? What makes you say that?”

Maisie sent a hunted look in the direction of the farmhouse. “He was always hanging around Amelia. Fancied her, he did. Amelia wouldn’t have none of it, though. Told him to shove off. She told us she was afraid of him, and Amelia was never afraid of no one except him.”

Feeling greatly disturbed, Elizabeth thanked the girl and watched her hurry off to join the others. Try as she might, she could not picture Maurice Macclesby in the role of murderer. True, he could be somewhat unsettling to be around. With his pronounced limp and vacant
stare, not to mention the scruffy chin thanks to his inept and apparently infrequent efforts to shave, he was not a comfortable person to be around. Still, she would never have considered him violent.

She tackled Pauline next who, unlike Maisie, was obviously bursting to tell her what she knew. “That Amelia was nothing but a greedy, two-faced snob,” she announced, stabbing the ground with her pitchfork for emphasis. “I always said something bad would happen to her one day. Though I never thought she’d be done in. Especially by someone like Maurice.”

Startled, Elizabeth fastened her gaze on the young woman’s face. “Does everyone think Maurice killed Amelia?”

Pauline shrugged. “I don’t know about everyone else. The milkman reckons it was that German pilot. All I know is that Maurice was really soppy about Amelia, and she couldn’t stand him near her. She told him that more than once, but he never took no notice. Kept following her around, staring at her in that funny way of his like she was a film star or something. Mind you, she was really pretty, I suppose, in a prissy kind of way. All that blond hair and blue eyes. She didn’t half fancy herself, I tell you.”

Elizabeth closely watched Pauline’s expression when she said quietly, “I understand you were a friend of Amelia’s boyfriend, Lieutenant Jeff Thomas?”

Pauline flinched visibly. “I was. Not anymore. Good riddance to him, that’s what I say. If he wants to be taken in by all that talk, then he’s not worth caring about.”

“Amelia had gone out to meet him last night, I understand.”

“I don’t know who she went out with. The rest of us went to bed. I have to get my sleep to do this kind of work.”

“And you didn’t hear her come back?”

Pauline shook her head. “She never came back. Her bed wasn’t slept in.”

“You didn’t hear anyone talking outside the house late last night?”

“Never heard a thing.” Pauline sent her a sly look. “Why? Did someone see her come back? Was it Maurice? I knew it. I bet he waited for her in the dark then went for her. Wonder what her father will say to all this.”

Maurice again. Elizabeth frowned. “Do you know Amelia’s father?”

“No, ’course not. He’s some big fancy attorney in London. Got pots of money. That’s if Amelia was telling the truth. Though I wouldn’t put it past her to make it all up. Never did like her. She was too full of herself, that girl.”

“Well, thank you for your help.” Elizabeth had noticed Kitty climbing down from the wagon and wanted to speak to the girl before she disappeared.

“Kitty doesn’t know anything, neither,” Pauline said, following Elizabeth’s gaze. “We all went to sleep at the same time last night and woke up this morning, and none of us heard anything nor saw anything.”

“Nevertheless,” Elizabeth said quietly, “I’d like to have a word with her.”

In that respect at least, Pauline was right. Kitty had nothing to add to the information Elizabeth had already been given. Kitty was as uncomplimentary about the murdered girl as her companions and just as certain that Maurice had been responsible.

Having satisfied herself that she would learn no more from them, Elizabeth trudged back to the farmhouse. She was now faced with the unpleasant task of questioning Maurice and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Much against her principles, she couldn’t help hoping that it was the German pilot, after all, who had brutally attacked the young girl and left her broken body in the woods. He at least had some excuse. Something told her,
however, that there was much more to this murder than a simple case of someone desperate to evade capture. Much as she hated to admit it, her instincts pointed in the direction of Sheila’s unfortunate son. If he was indeed the killer, it would very likely break Sheila’s heart.

CHAPTER
5

“Madam will be entertaining a guest in the dining room for dinner tonight,” Violet told Martin, in the vague hope that he would contribute something useful to the occasion.

Martin looked up from his seat at the kitchen table. “Not before time. We haven’t had any guests in the dining room for years.”

“Not since the master and his wife have been gone.” Violet took down a crystal glass from the cupboard above the gas stove. “It will be nice to use the good china again.”

“It will be most satisfying to see madam seated in her rightful position at the dining room table.” Martin reached for the newspaper and folded it neatly. “I do not feel comfortable when she sits with us here in the kitchen. Her father would be most displeased.”

Violet finished polishing the glass before answering
him. “I’m afraid he’d be displeased about a good many things. Thank Gawd he’s in his grave and can’t see what’s going on in this house.”

“Ah, but that’s just it.” Martin began rising to his feet. It was a long and tedious process, irritating to watch. Violet turned her back on him, but even so, she had seen the performance so many times she could picture it in her mind.

Slap.
That was Martin’s hands hitting the table, palms down. The chair creaked when its feet scraped across the floor. It creaked again when his backside rose a few inches then plopped back on the seat.

Violet waited, counting the three groans that accompanied his attempts to push himself upright. Finally, when she heard the air rush out of his lungs in a heavy sigh, she knew he was on his feet and resting heavily on his hands. One more groan and he would be mobile again.

“That’s just what?” she demanded, wondering why she bothered. Martin’s comments were at best meaningless, and at worst maddeningly mysterious.

“I beg your pardon?”

Violet turned to find him peering at her over the top of his glasses. Both she and Lizzie had long ago given up explaining to the silly old fool that he’d see a lot better if he’d just look through the lenses instead of over them. As it was, for all the good they did him perched on the end of his nose like that, he might just as well put them on a cow. “You said ‘that’s just it.’”

“I did?” Martin’s white eyebrows met over the bridge of his specs. “What was I talking about?”

“How the blazes should I know?” Violet flapped her cloth at him. “I never know what you’re talking about, do I. You’re always muttering about something or other that doesn’t make any sense.”

Martin drew himself up as straight as his bowed shoulders would allow. “I might not make any sense to you, Violet, but I make perfect sense to myself.”

He was probably right at that
, Violet thought grimly. “Well, we have to get the dining room table set for dinner. See if you can find Polly and tell her I’ll need her help tonight. She can stay late for a change. With all this talk of murder, I forgot to tell her about it when I saw her.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Her concern was well founded.

Martin clutched his chest in the region of his heart and staggered. “Murder? Where? Here? No! When? Who? Who?
Who
?”

“For Gawd’s sake, Martin, stop hooting like a bloody owl. It wasn’t anyone we know, so you can just forget about it.”

“Forget about it?” Martin ran a hand over his sparse wisps of hair. “Forget we have a murderer running around? We could all be slaughtered in our beds. Where is madam? It’s not safe for her to be running around on her own like this. In my day young women were chaperoned everywhere.”

“In my day, too.” Deciding that he’d survived the shock, she took down another glass from the cupboard. “But things change, Martin, and we have to change with them.”

“Not me,” Martin declared stoutly. “I’m too old to change.”

“If you ask me, you’re too bloody old to breathe,” Violet said crisply. “But that doesn’t stop you trying. Now get on with you and see if you can find Polly.”

“Very well, but it wouldn’t hurt you to say please once in a while.”

“Please.” She watched him shuffle toward the door an inch at a time.

He was almost there when he paused and slowly edged his body around to face her again. “Was it one of those blasted Americans?”

She blinked. “What?”

“The person who was prematurely deprived of his life.”

Irritated by his annoying habit of talking like a dictionary, Violet’s voice rose a notch. “No, it wasn’t. So stop worrying about it.”

“Violet, I shall worry about it if I so wish. I demand to know who is the unfortunate victim of this abominable crime.”

Giving up, Violet shrugged. “It was one of them land girls, that’s who. Someone found her body in the woods. Mind you, the way some of them run around flaunting themselves, it’s no wonder one of them came to a bad end.”

“Oh, my, oh, my.” Martin shook his head so hard his specs slid off. More by luck than judgement, he caught them before they fell to the floor and stuck them back on his nose. “Well, at least it didn’t happen here at the manor. I did wonder if perhaps the master had a hand in it.”

“A hand in what?”

“The murder.” Martin swayed forward on his feet and touched his lips with a withered finger. “He doesn’t like them, you know.”

Violet crossed her arms and tipped her head to one side. “The master’s dead, Martin. Killed by a bomb in London. Blown to bloomin’ bits, you might say. They buried what was left of him in the churchyard. You were there. Even if he had risen from the dead, he’d be walking around without a head, so you wouldn’t be able to bloody recognize him if you saw him.”

Martin turned pale. “I say! Steady on, Violet. That’s a ghastly thing to say about the master. He hasn’t lost his head at all. I saw him this morning, walking along the great hall, and his head was right where it should be.”

“Well, it’s too bad yours isn’t,” Violet snapped, having reached the end of her patience. “Now, are you going to stop all this silly blabbering about ghosts and
find Polly for me, or do I have to find her myself?”

Martin sniffed. “There’s no need to take that tone of voice with me. I’m quite capable of finding the wretched girl. Though what good it will do I can’t imagine. She spends more time gazing at herself in mirrors than taking care of her duties.”

And that, Violet thought as she watched Martin shuffle out the door, was the most intelligent thing he’d said that morning.

Elizabeth crossed the barnyard and headed for the stables. Since Maurice wasn’t in the fields, he was probably mucking out the stalls. There was no sign of him there, however, and she wondered if he’d gone back to the house for an early dinner. She was on her way back there when she spotted him over in the paddock, sitting on the top fence with his back to her.

The long grass muffled her footsteps as she approached. Not wanting to startle him, she called him by name, but he gave no sign of having heard her. Even when she reached his side and gently touched his arm, he remained as still as a rock.

After a moment she opened the gate and walked inside the large fenced area, where several carthorses grazed while they waited for their turn in the fields. Ignoring them, she paused in front of Maurice. He sat staring in the direction of the woods, his gaunt features calm with his usual blank expression.

“Maurice?” Elizabeth waved a hand in front of him. “I’d like to talk to you. I want you to tell me about Amelia.” She watched him closely, but not a flicker of emotion touched his pallid face. His hands, however, clenched in tight fists, and she knew that he’d been told the sad news.

She tried again. “I know Amelia was a special friend. I’m so very sorry. It must hurt a lot.”

The passive mask remained unbroken.

“Maurice, I know you don’t want to talk about it. But
people are gossiping, and we have to find out the truth, or innocent people could get hurt very badly. You might be able to help me if you can tell me what you know.”

She stared into his empty eyes, searching for a sign that he understood. She’d seen him so often talking to the horses, cows, and pigs, whispering in their ears, gentling them with his large, clumsy hands. Once she had found him crouched over a wounded bird, tears coursing down his face as he tried to pick up the poor thing. Nothing in the world could convince her that this gentle, caring person could attack an innocent young woman and hack open her head. He just wasn’t capable of such violence.

“I’ll find out who did it, Maurice,” she said quietly. “I’ll find him and I promise you I’ll see he’s punished.”

She turned to go, but not before she’d seen a single tear squeeze out of the boy’s eye and roll slowly, unheeded, down his cheek. Disturbed by the image, she made her way back to the house.

Sheila greeted her at the door, her face flushed and agitated. “Did you find out anything?” she demanded before Elizabeth could speak. “I saw you talking to Maurice. What did he say? He’s upset by all this. He liked Amelia. He doesn’t understand what happened.”

“I believe he understands more than you think,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I just wanted to warn you that P.C. Dalrymple might want to question Maurice. I think you should prepare him for that.”

Apprehension burned in Sheila’s eyes. “I’ll do the best I can. I can’t believe the police would go bothering my son. He doesn’t know anything about it.”

“They have to follow procedures,” Elizabeth said, echoing George Dalrymple’s favorite comment.

“Everyone knows that Nazi pilot killed poor Amelia. If George had an ounce of sense in that thick noggin of his, he’d be out looking for him in the woods, instead of upsetting everyone out here. What did the girls tell you, anyhow? Nothing, I bet. Nobody knows anything.”
Sheila appeared to make a great effort to calm her angry torrent of words. “Begging your pardon, m’m, but it makes me cross when the police don’t do their job right.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll do their best,” Elizabeth said cheerfully.

A shout from across the yard turned her head. Maisie stood a few yards away, waving a spade in the air. “I found it, Mrs. Macclesby. All nice and clean. Thank you!”

Sheila stared at Maisie as the girl tramped across the yard, carrying the spade over her shoulder. “I never know what these modern girls are going on about half the time,” she muttered.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, “I’ll be leaving you alone now to get on with your work.”

“Thank you, Lady Elizabeth.” For the first time that day Sheila Macclesby managed a weak smile. “I appreciate you bringing the sad news to me.”

“And I appreciate you allowing me to talk to the land girls.” Elizabeth turned away, then paused. “You were right, of course. They knew nothing.”

“I knew they didn’t, m’m. It’s like I said. It was that Nazi pilot. Everyone knows that.”

Not everyone,
Elizabeth thought as she made her way back to her motorcycle. The land girls were all convinced Maurice had killed Amelia. Not one of them had seemed particularly sad about it. In fact, so far Maurice was the only one who had shed a genuine tear over the young woman’s death.

Elizabeth climbed aboard her motorcycle and bounced on the kick start. The engine fired, and she rumbled out of the farmyard and onto the road, turning over in her mind what she had learned that day.

Much as the land girls disliked the deceased woman, she didn’t think any of them were responsible for her murder. Pauline seemed to have the sole motive, but according to the other two girls, she hadn’t left her bed
that night. That left Maurice and the German pilot with a motive for murder. There was one other person, however, who could have been responsible for Amelia’s death—Lieutenant Jeff Thomas.