Murder at Newstead Abbey (9 page)

“Do you still plan to rope him into the Whig camp, Luten?” Byron asked.

“Deep pockets?”

“Pretty well to grass, I believe. The lady mentioned five figures per annum.”

“I’ll have a chat with him, feel him out.”

“I notice she made a point of letting us know the blunt came from her side of the family,” Prance said with a sniff. “Ah well, money’s no indication of real breeding. We must be charitable and assume such gabbing passes for conversation in Jamaica. But she would make a very poor Whig hostess,
n’est-ce pas?"

Coffen had the last word. “I notice they make themselves free on your island, Byron. He knew the very spot you mentioned, where the girl was buried. Still, I don’t see that meek fellow shooting anyone, and it don’t seem like a lady’s handiwork. Take it up and down and all around, my money’s still on Vulch.”

After lunch Corinne and Mrs. Ballard retired to the fireside to write invitations from the list Byron provided while Prance sketched a hasty design on each card. He was never one to sit cooped up all day, however. He would do a few cards and work on his gothic novel that evening, but during the day he wanted to be out and doing. He always preferred riding his own docile mount to a borrowed one, and in the cold and windy weather of December, he really preferred driving in his well-sprung chaise. Having already given Nottingham an opportunity to admire his new jacket, he set his mind on the other town nearby, Mansfield.

“Who will provide music for your soiree, Byron?” he asked. “I believe you mentioned some group at Mansfield?”

“There’s a quartet there who usually play for local parties. Nothing fancy. Just a piano player, a cellist and a couple of fiddlers. I must get in touch with them soon. They’ll be busy around the Christmas season.”

“Let me do that for you,” Prance offered. “Just tell me where to find them, and what terms I should offer.”

They were discussing this when the Richardsons were shown in again. Lady Richardson, wearing an entirely new ensemble in shades of rose and teal, had come in person to deliver the mauve shawls on her way home from Nottingham. “I hope you’re not disappointed in them,” she said to Corinne. “As I said, you’d do better with Madame Blanchett, in Mansfield. I paid the bill for you, to save you a trip back to Mrs. Addams. No hurry to repay me, milady. Whenever it’s convenient.”

This behavior by a new acquaintance would have been considered extremely encroaching in London, but Corinne knew things were different in the country. It was kind of her to do this errand. She thanked Lady Richardson and repaid her.

When the transaction was completed, Lady Richardson turned her attention to the others. “Well, we believe we have solved the little mystery of the body found on your island, Lord Byron. William had a look at the remains this morning and it turns out it
is
our Nessie. We mean to give her a decent burial in our family plot as she has no family.”

Coffen said to Sir William, “How did you know the body was her?”

His wife answered for him with a dismissing wave of her hand. “The size, the hair, the timing. It seems the body has lain in that grave for four or five years, just about the time Nessie left us.”

“When was that, exactly?” he persisted. “Was it four years ago or five?”

Sir William said, “Just over four years ago. We left London the middle of November and arrived here on the seventeenth. The last time we saw her was on the thirteenth. The doctor couldn’t put an exact time on when Nessie was killed, of course, but he says it was about that time. It’s reasonable that she should return to us after all. Who else would she go to when she was in trouble? She had no family, poor girl.” He shook his head mournfully.

“No family in England, you mean?” Coffen liked to get all the facts straight.

“None in England, no.”

Lady Richardson added, “And none who cared about her in Jamaica either, that we know of. That is why we want her buried in our family plot. Her mama, an orphan, went to Jamaica with the family as a young girl of all work. She died years ago and her papa-- Well, we never knew who he was. Some servant on one of the estates, I expect. They weren’t married. Nessie was born on the estate. She took her mama’s name of Landers. It was a hard life for a girl. Of course when I trained her up as my dresser and companion, things improved for her. No, Mr. Pattle, she had no one except us.”

“And we failed to protect her,” said Sir William with a sad shake of his head. His hound dog eyes expressed infinite sadness. It occurred to Corinne that he might have had a secret passion for the girl. Odd that he remembered the exact date when he had last seen her. On the other hand, Lady Richardson also spoke fondly of her.

After a suitable pause for mourning the dead servant, Corinne said to Sir William, “You mentioned she was in trouble, was she enceinte?”

Again, it was Lady Richardson who answered. “No, she wasn’t in the family way when she left us at least. William just meant when she ran into trouble with the fellow she took off with. I feel very badly,” she said, shaking her head and setting the feathers on her bonnet swaying. She seemed excited, upset but not grief-stricken, like her husband. “She was so close to safety. If only she had written, we could have sent the carriage for her.”

“It wasn’t right. We shouldn’t have left her unprotected,” Sir William said.

“Pretty hard to find one runaway maid in all of London, William,” his wife said, rather tartly.

Coffen frowned and rubbed his ear. “If the fellow she hared off with was going to kill her, it’s odd he’d come here to do it. It’s a long way from London. He’d have had a better chance of getting away with it in a big city where no one knew her.”

Lady Richardson nodded. “Yes, I thought it odd too,” she said. “William thinks she ran away from her beau, and in a fit of pique he went after her. He’d know where she was headed, followed her here, caught up with her and killed her when she refused to go back with him. Not necessarily killed her on the island, but he looked around for a safe spot to be rid of the body and hit on Byron’s island.”

“Pity,” Coffen said. “She almost made it back to you safety. She would have passed Newstead on her way from London to Redley Hall. P’raps that’s why she was buried here, because she was killed at Newstead.”

Everyone but Coffen was aware of the tension creeping into the room. Byron, especially, felt it in the quick, questioning glances turned his way, and the equally swift averting of the heads. With the history of insanity in his family and his own foolish behavior on the island, it was only natural that suspicion should turn to him. Someone, either Luten or Sir William, cleared his throat in that unconscious way that denotes embarrassment. No one spoke.

Coffen noticed the stretching silence first, then he noticed the quick, angry looks Prance was shooting at him, and soon realized what had made everyone uncomfortable. “I’m not saying Byron did it!” he exclaimed. “I meant the fellow who was chasing her, the one she ran off with. No discredit to you that it happened here, Byron,”

“We don’t know where it happened,” Prance pointed out. “It could have happened at Redley Hall, as far as that goes.”

“True, but she wasn’t buried at Redley Hall, and why would he haul a dead body around any more than he had to?” Coffen asked. “It’d be a pretty gruesome business.”

After a brief silence, Corinne said, “I wonder what happened to her clothes.”

Lady Richardson had a suggestion to explain that. “He knew we would recognize them, if the body ever came to light. I daresay he burned them. There’d be no hope of finding them after all this time.”

“What would she have been wearing, though?” Coffen asked.

Lady Richardson gave a snort. “Good gracious, how can you expect us to remember after all this time? She had more than one outfit. We don’t even know for certain the season when she was killed.”

Byron was relieved to see suspicion turning away from himself. “I never did think it was Minnie Vulch,” he said. “Too small, for one thing, and the hair too light.”

“I never knew Minnie Vulch,” said Sir William.

“Well, you certainly knew Nessie Landers,” his wife said, almost angrily, “and if you say the body is hers, then I daresay it is.” Corinne noticed the sharp tone, and began to suspect that there had indeed been something between Nessie and Sir William. Lady Richardson twitched her shoulders and continued. “But Nessie is only half the reason we came. Ask him, William.”

Sir William eased his finger under his collar and said, “I was wondering if I might have a look through your archives, Lord Byron.”

Byron looked surprised, but didn’t object. Lady Richardson rushed on to explain this request. “It’s not idle curiosity, milord. You mustn’t think we’re nosy. Sir William is writing up a history of my family, the Redleys, of Redley Hall. Our son, little Willie, will want to have it when he grows up. We Redleys might not have a title, but we were an important family for all that. My family lived here for two hundred years and were well acquainted with your ancestors, Byron. Joshua, that’s my grandfather, a younger son who went away to Jamaica to make his fortune, was a good friend to the baron who was at the abbey then. They exchanged letters. William thought it would be interesting to see what Joshua wrote to your grandpapa, or uncle, or whoever it was living here. He would likely have written about establishing the sugar plantation. That will form an exciting part of the book.”

“Surely the place to research that would be Jamaica,” Prance said.

“Oh we brought boxes of papers home with us,” she said. “That will be the basis of the Jamaica chapters. But friends put things in letters that they don’t keep in their record books. Little intimate family details, that is the sort of thing we’re looking for. Amusing anecdotes, you know.”

“I have no objection,” Byron said, “but it will take a deal of searching. There are cupboards full of boxes and letters and journals. They’ve not been disturbed for years, unless the mice have got at them. What would be the dates you’re looking for?”

“From around the middle of the last century up until you inherited,” she answered. “The family kept up the correspondence. In fact, your uncle, the Wicked Baron, used to say he was coming to visit, but he never came.”

“At your convenience, milord,” Sir William said. “I have plenty of research to be getting on with at Redley Hall. Like yourself, we have cupboards full of papers.”

Prance said, “If I happen to come across anything when I’m looking through the archives for my novel, I shall let you know, Sir William.”

“You haven’t begun your research yet? Shame on you, Sir Reginald,” Lady Richardson chided.

Sir William said. “That’s very kind of you, Prance.”

Wine was served and the conversation became more general. “I hear someone took a shot at you in your spinney, Byron,” Lady Richardson said with an arch look. “What have you been up to, eh?”

“That story is already making the rounds, is it?” Byron replied, with an expression that suggested boredom. “At least I am cast in the role of victim, rather than my more usual one of villain. No doubt some heinous behavior on my part will be trumped up to account for it. In fact, a poacher was shooting in the spinney and put a hole through my hat.
C’est tout.”

“Oh, is
that
all?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Only a near fatal accident. A good thing your head wasn’t in the hat at the time.”

Prance said, “Actually that was only one of two attempts thus far. Someone fired off a shot in the Monks’ Avenue last night. Coffen here was the actual target, but we think he might have been mistaken for Byron.”

She looked from Coffen to Byron. “Why do you think that? They’re not much alike.”

Byron smiled. “What my friend is too nice to say is that Coffen was limping. He hurt his knee a while back and the cold weather bothers it.”

“So you really think someone is after you?” she asked, her eyes opened wide in excitement. “Whoever could it be?”

“Nemesis, no doubt,” he replied blandly.

“A poacher,” Coffen said. “They usually go out at night.” He didn’t want this chatterbox mentioning Vulch’s name in public.

“But surely not so close to the house?”

“Not usually, but one of them did last night. In his cups, very likely.”

“What are you going to do about it, Byron?” she asked.

“Hire a new gamekeeper,” he replied. Even Prance, who knew him well, couldn’t tell whether he was serious, but he suspected that Byron had taken the lady in dislike, and no wonder. What a managing, meddling hussy she was.

“Well I must say you take an attempt on your life very lightly,” she said. “But then you’re used to all manner of brigand and shipwreck and I don’t know what all, to judge by your delightful poem. To say nothing of your work with the Berkeley Brigade. We read all about your escapades I assure you. Ah, for a life of action! Sir William and I rusticate from one end of the year to the other.”

“Why don’t you go to London for the season?” Byron suggested.

She rolled her eyes again. “This husband of mine won’t leave the estate. He thinks the cows will dry up if he isn’t home to keep an eye on them. But at least we have company for the next few weeks. When will it be convenient for you to take dinner at Redley Hall?”

A date was set for the middle of the next week, and the guests soon left.

Byron grimaced and said, “Well, let’s get it over with. How many of you think I shot Nessie Landers? Hands up, now. Don’t be shy. You won’t want to stay with a murderer.”

Luten said gruffly, “Don’t be foolish, Byron. No one suspects you.” The others made sounds of agreement.

“That’s not what I was getting at at all,” Coffen said, angry at being misunderstood. “What I can’t understand is why whoever did kill her went to all the bother of rowing across the lake and digging the hole to bury her. It must have taken an age for one thing. He risked the chance of someone catching him at it. And did he bring a shovel with him when he went chasing after Nessie, planning to bury her?”

“I daresay a Newstead shovel may be an accessory after the fact. He might have found one in the garden shed,” Byron said.