Murders Most Foul Page 6

  Paul was unimpressed by Clara’s eagerness to have him love her and to take the place of his mother. There was only ten years between them, and he treated her with a cold politeness that verged on insolence.

  Looking out of the window, Archie sighed. At least his lovely Clara had no reason for concern as, frowning, she turned and asked him: ‘I wonder what they want; perhaps a donation to one of their charities.’

  If only it had been that simple. Had Archie been permitted to see beyond that lovely face framed in dark curls, and into the brain with its thoughts that surged like dark waters beneath, he would have seen another version. A strange, terrified woman he had never met and would hardly have recognised.

  That other Clara, born Ethel Wyner, was the child of a millworker and an office clerk whose goal in life was to gain the lower rungs of the local social ladder. He worked himself into heart failure trying to make a fortune. Her mother had kept her good looks (Clara’s sole inheritance) and took as her second husband a man who was the exact opposite of her first. Jabez Bodvale was a great strong brute of a man, manager of the site labourers on the new railway line.

  The marriage was very soon a disaster for both Clara and her mother. Bodvale had no intentions of being faithful, marrying Honor believing that her late husband was a toff and she might have come into a bit of money he was eager to lay hands on. Sentimental only when drunk, he tried to win sympathy for the misfortunes of his early life, but she wasn’t interested, never listened. He soon realised she was a disappointment and he sought other women of his own kind.

  But the main target of his lewd desires was her little twelve-year-old daughter, Clara. Her mother never knew, nor would have believed, much less understood, what was going on in that bedroom when he went to kiss his ‘wee girl’, as he called her, goodnight and tell her a story. And Clara had no means of finding the right words to confide in her mother any detail of his secret midnight visits. Sometimes she was too disgusted to think about them in the bright light of day. But mostly she was too terrified, for he had sworn that if she ever breathed a word, he would kill not only her but her mother too.

  ‘Both of you, don’t forget that!’

  But as she matured into womanhood and showed signs of becoming a great beauty, Jabez was obsessed by her. When her mother Honor died of cancer, Clara was fourteen, trapped in the house with him, living a nightmare with this great brute whose only sign of tenderness was to swear that she must never leave him. Every bit of her was his alone and he swore that he loved her above all living things on God’s earth. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to keep her at his side for ever.

  There was no escape. She ran away several times but he followed her, dragged her back to her prison and locked her in. Then one day the police arrived, two uniformed constables, like the ones crossing the lawn beyond the windows of Lumbleigh Green at that moment. Bodvale was one of a notorious gang of robbers, long sought by the police. One of them had been taken and promptly turned Queen’s evidence.

  He was going to jail. It was a miracle for Clara. Her prayers answered, her wildest dreams come true. The policemen come to take Bodvale prisoner were transformed into angels of mercy.

  She was free at last. Oh, how her heart rejoiced, she could have danced for joy! She even laughed at his last words as, handcuffed, he struggled and swore and tried to get back to her.

  ‘You’re not free of me, lass. You’re mine, always have been and always will be. Never forget that. I’ll find you. As long as we both live, I’ll track you down. No one else will have you. I’ll kill you first.’

  Clara didn’t mind, didn’t believe for a moment that could happen. She was safe at last. He was going to be transported away to the colonies. Vast oceans, continents between them. And then one day she read that during a fire in the prison, cells had been opened and he had escaped. Her dream of freedom was over; her nightmares and his last words haunting her, she lived in dread from that day forward.

  She had left Inverness and headed south to Glasgow. Taking a new name and always with a good singing voice combined with outstanding good looks, it had taken little effort to get a job entertaining gentlemen in dubious clubs.

  One day her fortune smiled on her. In a Glasgow vaudeville theatre, Archie saw her on stage singing and flashing her lovely legs, and all Archie knew was that he was a wealthy man who could afford beautiful things – lovely possessions made him feel protected, his money building a barrier between him and his unfortunate past.

  And Clara was a beautiful possession, like that precious Chinese vase bought at auction, to add to the collection he was surrounding himself with. And he wanted her there among them, to admire every day. Perhaps slightly flawed inside, but no one would ever notice, he least of all. Infatuated, he didn’t really want to know about the life she had reinvented for herself and passed on to him. He never knew about Bodvale. Clara hoped that he was dead long ago, but she could not be certain. She still expected him to appear like he did sometimes in occasional but terrifying nightmares.

  Archie she believed provided security; she would be safe married to him, a rock to lean on. Although she did not love him, trembling she remembered the huge gross beast, strong and mighty, and sex with any man after Bodvale was bearable. Bodvale could have crushed her husband between his two hands.

  But there was one flaw in this domestic bliss, so perfect on the surface: Paul Lumbleigh, for Archie had insisted that in the lack of an heir, his stepson should have his name. Now everyone, it seemed, loved Clara, except Paul who had so far resisted all her attempts to win him over. All she ever received was a look of cold hostility. Hatred, actually, if she had allowed herself to consider such emotion.

  She knew his hatred ran deep, and although Archie tried to pretend otherwise, her shrewd guess was Paul hated both of them. And with good reason, when she had become Archie’s latest mistress while his own mother lay dying in the insane asylum. He had reason for bitterness, when they had been counting the days to Alice’s demise and as far as he was concerned, had murdered her.

  Clara told herself that everyone had secrets. Even Archie, she knew, had quite a few – boredom had led her to indulge her insatiable curiosity and find out about his past business negotiations, his foes and friends and his long-term mistress Mavis, who had a nice house in the New Town, which, Clara concluded, was also a high-class brothel. Although there was no possibility Archie could find out about her safely buried past, knowing about Mavis gave her a sense of power, a trump card to play if her security was threatened and the rock on which she leant threatened to crumble …

  She cradled her secret. Nobody ever told it all, but she sometimes yearned for a friend to confide in. A girl like her lady’s maid, gently smiling Lizzie Laurie from her own class, who did her hair so well, who would understand and not condemn.

  And in the kitchen, too, there was disquiet and anxiety. For Betty the kitchen maid, who no one ever noticed except Mrs Brown to slap her and issue orders, always nervous and expecting the worst from life, the sight of two policemen advancing so purposefully towards the house made her feel all trembly and faint.

  Her voice a frightened whisper, she asked Mrs Brown: ‘What do they want?’

  The grim reply: ‘You’ll soon find out,’ had her reeling away from the window sick with terror. She had been found out.

  For Betty was a thief; in the sight of God she had broken the commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal’. Maybe it was too elaborate a term for helping herself to a bit of leftover salmon, or some nice food from the pantry after Mrs Brown went home. After all, it was for her ailing mother to help out their meagre diet, and she told herself it would never be missed – it was going off and would be thrown out next day. But the housekeeper had an eagle eye. Her last foray, a nice piece of lamb and a few sausages, had been only last week. Had Mrs Brown told on her and were the police here to arrest her?

  What was the punishment for stealing food – was it transportation? Betty leant against the kitchen sink for
support. She was going to be sick. However, she was surprised and so relieved when, a little later, the two policemen showed little interest in her beyond asking her name and how long she had been at Lumbleigh Green.

  It was Ida they were interested in.

  Was she a friend of hers?

  No.

  Had she any reason to believe Ida would take her own life?

  Definitely no, was the answer. She didn’t add that Ida, only interested in men, never exchanged a word with her if it could be avoided. To Ida, as to everyone else under this roof, she was invisible.

  Later, interviewed by Gosse, he dismissed her, saying that he might need to have a look at her room later. That threw her into a flutter of panic, destroying the brief consolation that she wasn’t the one he was looking for, because Betty sometimes kept a secret hoard of stolen food in her room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Murder investigations were normally in the charge of detective inspectors, but Stan Wade, at a wedding in Inverness, had the misfortune to fall and break a leg.

  Drunk as usual, was the cynical observation among the constables. McIvor had informed Gosse that he was to take over Wade’s duties until other arrangements could be made, depending on how long Wade was expected to be absent. And Gosse was aware that for an inspector this was likely to be for some time, since a broken leg was an impossible impediment to all the footwork needed.

  Expressing the usual comments of concern about his senior officer, Gosse was, in truth, delighted at this unexpected temporary promotion. He and DC Faro headed through the ornate gates of Lumbleigh Green and across the bordered lawns where steps guarded by two stone lions led up to the handsome front door, opened after a short interval by Mrs Brown.

  They showed their cards, which the housekeeper eyed narrowly, then, in the manner expected of her, told them to wait in the hall while she would enquire if the master was at home to receive them.

  This was Faro’s first occasion to set foot inside the mansion, its splendours related in awed whispers from Lizzie. Expecting a kind of Ali Baba’s cave of wondrous luxuries, he was a little disappointed in the reality. He had not been in many big Edinburgh mansions and found this one quite extraordinary. A lot of large rather ugly china vases and ornaments, chosen for size to fill empty spaces, rather than for quality, were overlooked by walls of gloomy pictures. In the absence of ancestral portraits, they were of horses, dogs and dark, forbidding Highland landscapes.

  At his side, Gosse scowled. He did not care to be kept waiting and signalling to Faro he marched boldly in the direction of the door in which he had seen a maid disappear.

  ‘Might as well save time and start with the kitchen, see what the servants have to say. You can interview Lumbleigh.’

  Faro was somewhat taken aback by this move but Gosse was well aware that, in the class they were dealing with, Lumbleigh would be unable to recall having exchanged more than half a dozen words with this Ida, who had had the audacity to commit suicide. That was bad enough, but to be murdered and thereby involve a grand house in an exclusive area of Edinburgh and a highly respected family in sordid police enquiries was beyond the pale.

  Lumbleigh made these objections, addressed from behind the mahogany desk, clear from the outset. The tiger skin rug on the floor eyed Faro more kindly than its owner.

  Faro took out his notebook. ‘I have to ask you, sir, if you were at home on Friday evening.’

  ‘Am I hearing you correctly, Constable? Are you having the temerity to ask me for an alibi for a maid’s disappearance?’

  ‘This is a purely routine matter, sir,’ Faro said politely. Himself a mere constable, it was up to DS Gosse to further enlighten Lumbleigh that this was not merely suicide but murder, as he continued:

  ‘This is outrageous, Constable, an intrusion into my private affairs.’ And shaking a fist in the direction of Faro’s face, he added: ‘Let me tell you, I have some influence in this city and I shall complain to my Member of Parliament …’

  Archie Lumbleigh continued to express his anger in no uncertain terms at the idea that all the occupants under his roof were to be interviewed, their movements over the weekend queried and pried into. His face grew redder and redder, his grievances accompanied by the thumping of his fists on the table. At last, realising that the young constable standing there, notebook in hand, was quite unmoved by this tirade, with a snort of exasperation he sat back in the armchair.

  ‘I was at home all evening and my wife will confirm that,’ he said coldly. Breathing a sigh of relief that his visit to Mavis had been during the afternoon, he added: ‘I won’t waste your time and mine by mincing words with you, Constable. The unfortunate girl was a servant here. Of course I did not know her. We are not on intimate terms with employees, they are expected to serve and not be seen.’

  Archie had heard approvingly of servants in Balmoral Castle ducking out of sight as Her Majesty approached. An excellent idea and one he was keen to imitate.

  The door opened to admit Gosse, who, bearing a fragrance of tobacco smoke, introduced himself rather grandly to Archie.

  ‘Detective sergeant, did you say?’ Was Lumbleigh Green not worthy of the attentions of a chief inspector? And Archie looked him over, a glance that suggested Gosse might have been something he picked up on his boot while walking in the garden.

  Gosse explained the circumstances of Detective Inspector Wade’s non-appearance, that he was at present in hospital with a broken leg.

  ‘Indeed, I am sorry to hear that.’ But Archie’s expression told a different story. ‘I will have to take this matter up with my friend who is the chief constable, and I am also on excellent terms with the Lord Lieutenant.’ He paused: ‘Well, man, get on with it.’

  Gosse’s face was a study. Not only had he received a mere shrug on arrival instead of an expected handshake, but neither was the offer of a chair forthcoming. Seething inwardly he took his place at Faro’s side and said:

  ‘It’s about this young woman who went missing, sir.’

  The presence of uniformed policemen in his study still made Archie uneasy but at least the interview promised to be brief if boring. And all the fault of that damned lady’s maid of Clara’s, having instigated a missing persons enquiry the police had been forced to follow up.

  ‘Well, get on with it,’ he repeated shortly.

  ‘This young woman, Ida Watts, was believed to have committed suicide, but we now have reason to suspect foul play.’

  ‘Foul play … you mean … murder?’ Archie gulped.

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s about it.’

  Archie sat back in his comfortable chair. Suicide was bad enough, a shadow on his house’s reputation. But murder! His groan, mistaken by sensitive folk for sympathy and shock, was altogether different. In his mind’s eye he was already seeing the news-sheet’s large black letters ‘Murder at Lumbleigh Green’.

  ‘This is intolerable, intolerable.’

  Clara Lumbleigh, curiosity aroused, had entered the room during her husband’s outburst of indignation, and her presence briefly acknowledged, now lingered by the window with her back to them, intently studying the garden. She gasped.

  ‘How dreadful – dreadful!’ And she exchanged a tearful look with her husband. ‘She came with good references. That was all we knew about her—’

  ‘And was all that was required to know about her,’ Archie interrupted impatiently. ‘Servants are here to obey orders and wait upon us; further communication or details of their personal backgrounds are of no possible interest to us.’ Servant girls were normally recruited from the workhouse – always eager to get rid of another orphan, they were apt to exaggerate when a reference was demanded. Ida Watts, he was to learn with regret, had been taken on by Mrs Brown in an emergency and had stayed.

  Archie was furious at the kind of publicity he could expect when this sordid story hit the newspapers’ readers, always eager to throw aspersions on their betters, those they envied – the decent well-off members of Edinburgh society
who had earned the right to elegant homes. Lumbleigh Green, so cherished, would be for ever tarnished. Suicide was bad enough, but to have been brutally murdered meant problems employing local girls, cautioned by gloomy parents against setting foot in that ‘murder house’.

  Later, moaning to Clara, Archie was hurt by her reaction. He thought that as his wife she should support his views, appreciate their predicament, and all her sympathy should lie with the disturbance to her husband’s comfortable existence rather than with a maid whose unfortunate end had caused everyone such inconvenience.

  As for that damned Lizzie Laurie. Only Clara’s tears stopped Archie dismissing her on the spot as he said angrily:

  ‘I cannot help you. What do I know of this girl? I do not talk to the maids but I expect she wore a white cap and apron, a dark dress.’ His shrug was an expansive gesture. ‘All maids look alike to me.’

  Gosse hoped for more success with Mrs Lumbleigh. He addressed her politely, and turning reluctantly from her intense study of the garden, she said wearily: ‘I gave her instructions as we have no butler, but that was the limit of our communications.’ As she spoke she looked at her husband and as if for his approval she added: ‘I’m afraid I would never recognise her either, without her uniform.’

  At least, Faro noted, she wore an expression of concern.

  Gosse was bidding good day to Archie with a civility he was far from feeling. He nodded to Faro and headed to the kitchen, their entrance to be greeted by an outraged housekeeper. How had he dared to interrupt the master? But Gosse cut her off by saying that time was short and as the enquiry concerned servants, he had every right to do so.