Manor House 04 - Dig Deep for Murder (5 page)

"It's quite all right, Mrs. Stewart," Elizabeth said gently. "We really don't have time to stop for tea."

"Betty. Please call me Betty, your ladyship. It's an honor to have you in my house. Indeed it is."

"Mrs. Stewart," George said loudly, "I'm afraid I might have some bad news—"

Elizabeth held up her hand. "Let me handle this, George." She turned to the woman, who was now watching the constable through half-closed eyes. "Betty, is your husband home?"

Betty's eyelids snapped up. "Reggie? What's he got to do with this? Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"Is he home?" Elizabeth persisted.

Betty's chin came up in an expression of pure defiance. "No, he's not, Lady Elizabeth. Reggie left last week to join the Army. I haven't heard from him since." She didn't say the words, but her tone clearly indicated that her husband's lack of communication did not bother her in the least.

"I see," Elizabeth murmured. "Exactly when did you last see your husband?"

"Er . . . if you don't mind, I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions." George stepped forward. "Lady Elizabeth, this is police business. It has to be conducted by an official member of the constabulary."

Elizabeth gave in. "Very well, George. Get on with it."

"Yes, m'm. Thank you, m'm." George touched his forehead with his fingers, then turned back to Betty. "Mrs. Stewart, exactly when did you last see your husband?"

Betty rubbed her chin, and Elizabeth couldn't help noticing the tremor in her fingers. "It was a week ago last Saturday, that's when. He stormed out of the house and
said he was going to join up. I tried to tell him he was too fat, and with his coughing all the time, they wouldn't take him, but they must have done, because he didn't come back. I don't know where he is now. He could be at the army camp in Beerstowe, I suppose."

"Mrs. Stewart." George cleared his throat. "I regret to inform you that Lady Elizabeth has discovered the body of a man buried on the property of the Manor House. We have reason to believe that the man is your husband, Reggie Stewart."

Betty stared at him, unblinking, for several seconds. The eerie silence was broken by the shrill bark of a dog somewhere in the house. Betty seemed to snap out of her trance. "Caesar! Shut up, do!" She glanced at Elizabeth. "Sorry, your ladyship. Strangers make him nervous. He doesn't like being shut up inside a room."

Earl, who had been quiet all this time, apparently was thinking the same thing that was on Elizabeth's mind. His voice rang with disbelief. "Excuse me, ma'am, but you did understand what the constable just said?"

"Yes, I did." Betty Stewart sounded completely unemotional.

"I have some of the victim's effects outside," George said, backing away. "I need you to identify them."

"All right." Betty waited until George had disappeared, then waved a hand at the comfortable couch. "I'm sorry, Lady Elizabeth, I don't know where my manners have gone. Please, sit down. You, too, Major."

Elizabeth sank onto the couch, while Earl waited for Betty to sit before choosing a deep armchair.

"I'm so sorry," Elizabeth said quietly. "This must all come as such a shock to you."

Betty looked down at her hands, still twisting the cord around her fingers. "Yes it is. That's if it
is
Reggie." She looked up. "Though you'd know him, I suppose, wouldn't you, Lady Elizabeth? You met him when we moved in here."

Thankfully, Elizabeth was spared from answering by
the return of the constable. He carried the bloodied coat and scarf over his arm, and Betty's gaze seemed riveted on them as he laid them on the arm of her chair. "Are these your husband's clothes?" he asked, stepping back.

Elizabeth held her breath as the other woman fingered the material of the coat, then let it drop. "Yes, they are," she said, her voice flat and lifeless.

George stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew a creased photograph. "This is your dog?"

Betty glanced at the photograph and nodded.

"And I believe this belonged to your husband." George held out his hand, the gold watch dangling from his fingers.

Betty gazed at the gleaming wristband for a long moment, then took the watch from him. For the first time a tear squeezed out of her eye. "Thank you, Constable."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Stewart."

She nodded, apparently overcome, though her voice was quite steady when she spoke again. "How did he die, Constable?"

"His head was bashed in," George said, with his usual total lack of tact. "That's why no one could recognize him. His face were a real mess, I can tell you."

"I think we've taken up enough of your time." Elizabeth rose to her feet and gave George a dark, meaningful glance.

"Quite, quite." George reached for the coat and scarf. "I have to take these in for evidence," he explained, as Betty seemed inclined to cling to them.

She released her hold on the clothes and got unsteadily to her feet. "Thank you for coming," she murmured.

"Will you be all right?" Elizabeth asked. "This isn't a good time to be alone."

"I'll manage." She managed a weary smile. "Thank you, Lady Elizabeth. It was kind of you to come."

Elizabeth studied the wan face. "I really don't like to leave you alone." It worried her that Betty showed so little emotion. She was very much afraid that when the truth
finally penetrated, the poor woman could become hysterical.

"I prefer to be alone right now, your ladyship. But thank you, anyway."

"Very well, then. But if you should change your mind, please don't hesitate to send for me." She was about to head for the door when a soft thud caught her attention. The sound had come from the kitchen, where the door stood slightly ajar.

Betty must have noticed her glance over there, as she said quickly, "The dog. Always jumping on the furniture." She raised her voice. "Caesar! Lie down!"

A remarkably well-behaved dog, Elizabeth thought as she walked to the door. It clearly had access to the parlor, yet it hadn't bothered to investigate the visitors.

Outside, under a cloudless sky, she breathed in the perfumed air wafting from the night stocks that lined the pathway. The smell inside that house had been oppressive. Obviously Betty Stewart didn't believe in opening windows.

"Took that rather well, she did," George said, as the three of them stood by the jeep. "That was a big relief. I doubt my missus would be so calm if someone told her I were dead."

"I'm sure she would be devastated," Elizabeth murmured. "Then again, war does strange things to people. We see news accounts of all these young men injured and dying in the fields and on the beaches, women and children perishing in the ruins of their bombed houses, pilots shot down and horribly burned in their planes, and somehow, a man dying from a beating seems almost mundane."

She glanced up at Earl, whose face seemed unusually grave. "Have we really become so hardened—so accustomed to violent death—that we have no compassion or respect for life anymore?"

"Gawd, I hope not," George muttered.

"Not you, Elizabeth," Earl said softly. "Never you."

Cheered by his words, she paid little heed for once to
the fact that he'd dropped her formal title—something he'd promised not to do in public. It didn't seem to matter right then. All that mattered in that moment was the sound of her name in that romantic American drawl that always stirred her blood. It was enough to chase away the demons of that dreadful evening, and give her hope that tomorrow would be a better day.

Earl didn't have much to say on the way back to the manor, and she was content to sit by his side with the fresh sea breeze cooling her face as they soared up the hill.

"Thank you for taking me down to the village," she said, when he pulled up in front of the mansion. "I really don't like riding my motorcycle in the dark."

"Anytime I'm free. All you have to do is ask."

She wished she could see his face more clearly. The shadows obscured his eyes, making it difficult to judge his thoughts. "Goodnight, Earl," she said quietly. "Please take care of yourself."

"Always." Thoroughly unsettling her, he reached for her hand in the dark and pressed it to his lips. "Goodnight, Elizabeth."

She scrambled out of the jeep before careless words could spill from her lips—words that might reveal her hopeless feelings. She heard the roar of the jeep's engine behind her as it took off toward the courtyard, but she resisted the temptation to watch it disappear.

Instead, she hurried past the steps leading to the front door and made her way past the greenhouses to the kitchen door. Although a brand-new lock had been installed at the outbreak of war, in response to the threat of an enemy invasion, it was rarely used. It was just too inconvenient for the tradesmen when they called. The milkman, for instance, put the milk directly in the pantry during the summer, so that it would stay cool.

The door opened on well-oiled hinges, and only the faint glow from the grate of the coal-fired water heater lit the kitchen. As she stepped inside, Elizabeth thought she
saw a movement on the opposite side of the spacious room—a flutter of skirts, a shadow moving swiftly in front of the door that led to the hallway.

Chills shivered down her back as she peered across the room in cold disbelief. Polly's voice drummed in her ears.
I seen them, Lady Elizabeth. Three of them. Children they were. They flitted across the great hall by the east wing
.

Ghosts. No, she didn't believe in ghosts. The back of her neck prickled as the door opened, and the shadow slipped through. She especially didn't believe, she assured herself, in ghosts who had to open a door to pass through it. It would seem that whoever had invaded her kitchen this late at night was solid flesh and blood. The question was, who was it?

CHAPTER

4

"You must have come home really late last night," Violet said the next day, her voice accusing as she carried the pot of steaming porridge from the stove to the kitchen table.

Seated in her usual chair facing the window, Elizabeth watched her housekeeper serve dollops of the gray, sticky mess into her bowl. "I'm getting awfully tired of eating porridge," she murmured.

"I'm getting awfully tired of cooking it." Violet dumped the rest of the mixture into Martin's bowl.

He sat there, staring gloomily at it for several seconds before saying, "This looks like wallpaper paste."

"In that case, either eat it or spread it over the flipping wall." Violet dropped the pot into the sink with a clang that jarred Elizabeth's teeth. "You can't be that hungry, anyway, seeing as how you polished off the rest of the pork pie last night."

Martin lifted his chin and peered at her over the top of his spectacles. "I most certainly did not. I don't care for pork pie. Never have."

"You ate it for dinner the other night."

"I tolerate it when there's nothing else. If I were to pilfer from the pantry, I'd much rather have a wedge of good aged cheddar."

"So that's where the cheese went! I blinking knew it was you."

Martin sniffed. "I haven't had a decent piece of cheese in months. That stuff you buy at the grocer's tastes like rubber. It sticks my teeth together. I have a devil of a job getting them out of my mouth."

"There's a war on," Violet reminded him. "It's all they have." She glanced at Elizabeth. "Must have been you that had the pork pie, then. I thought you might have had something to eat in the village."

"I didn't eat supper at all last night," Elizabeth admitted. "Which is why I'd like something better than porridge for my breakfast."

Violet stared at her in dismay. "You didn't eat supper? You shouldn't go to bed on an empty stomach. It's bad for you."

"I wasn't hungry." Elizabeth toyed with her spoon for a moment. There were things she had to tell them both, but she was reluctant to do so until they had finished eating.

"Where were you going in such a hurry, anyway?" Violet demanded. "I had a dreadful headache last night, so I went to bed early. Never heard you come in, I didn't."

"I was . . . visiting one of my tenants." Elizabeth watched Martin sprinkle sugar on his porridge. There was a time, she thought wistfully, when one wouldn't dream of putting anything but brown sugar on porridge. Of course, there was also a time when porridge was just the appetizer to breakfast, not the entire meal.

As if reading her thoughts, Violet said briskly, "Well, if you didn't have supper last night, you'd better have
your egg this morning, instead of waiting until Sunday."

"Never mind. I'll fill up on toast."

"So who did you visit, then? Not someone really sick, I hope." Violet's expression changed. "Someone's husband died overseas?"

Elizabeth sighed. She might have known she couldn't avoid the subject for long. "Actually, someone's husband did die. Though not overseas. Our new tenant, Reginald Stewart, was found dead last night."

Violet paused in the act of placing the tea kettle on the stove. "The coalman? Go on! He just delivered our coal a week or two ago. What did he die of, then? He wasn't that old, was he?"

"Early forties, I believe." Elizabeth stirred milk into her porridge. "We're not really sure how he died. It was . . . hard to tell."

Something in her voice must have given her away, for Violet's brown eyes narrowed. "He didn't die in bed, then."

Elizabeth glanced at Martin, who seemed absorbed with his breakfast. "No, he didn't. Polly . . . sort of . . . dug him up in our Victory Gardens."

Violet smacked the kettle down with such force that the lid fell off and clattered on the floor. "Someone buried him in the vegetable plot? Who would do such a thing?"

"Well, I rather think that's what the police would like to know."

"That will give the potatoes a unique flavor," Martin said, with morbid relish.

Violet rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Trust him to think of his stomach first."

"He's right," Elizabeth said glumly. "We'll have to close down that plot."

"Why? It's not like anyone's going to know, is it? I mean, he couldn't have been there that long, could he? Poor old John Rickett hasn't been dead that long, and he'd have known if there was a dead body in his vegetables, I would think."