On his feet, Turton had folded his lanky body over the table, filling in the giant chart as if his life depended on it. No one had remarked aloud that Harriet had been gone a long time, but Barrington looked at the clock with something like resentment on his face, as if Harriet had abandoned her post. I looked at it for another reason: I was anxious about her. More anxious as each moment passed.
But here she was, smiling as I reached out a hand to take hers. We did not need to speak: I knew from the expression on her face that she had news she did not want to share with anyone else. She did not apologize to anyone, but simply joined Turton, reading statements and underlining, as he had done, anything that drew her eye. The chart-filling gathered pace.
As the clock ticked towards luncheon, Barrington made one more attempt to make Turton change his mind. How could the household and guests manage without some sort of collective worship?
Quickly suppressed mischief gleamed in Harriet’s eyes. Her face was entirely serious when she said, ‘In some households I have known, the master of the house would read the service to everyone. In others, the butler would read it to the servants, leaving the master to address the family and their guests.’
Perhaps Barrington didn’t hear, intentionally or not, but Turton certainly did. Harriet had made a friend for life.
‘Barrington,’ I asked, ‘how would you like us to react when your guests question us at luncheon, as they assuredly will?’
He blinked, as if I had asked him to discuss Darwin’s latest theory. ‘Question us? By Jove, so they might! Do you think we should eat in the breakfast room? Harriet?’
‘I might have to excuse myself altogether,’ she said in that slow way she had when she was hatching a plan that would worry me. ‘If I am the only one not in attendance, that might look strange … people might draw the wrong conclusions. So – assuming you approve of my idea – I would indeed prefer our little cabal to eat apart from the others. That way my absence will go unremarked.’
‘Absence? What are you planning?’ I asked, torn between amusement and panic.
‘I am going to clean the guests’ bed chambers,’ she said sweetly. ‘I have arranged to borrow a maid’s uniform and cap—’
‘A maid! My dear Cousin!’ Barrington veritably exuded horror at the very notion. ‘In one of those dreadful dresses and hideous caps!’
She did not grace his crass comment about his own servants’ uniform with a reply, simply inclining her head.
‘Would you be alone?’ I asked her urgently.
‘To tell the truth I would like a footman or two within call.’
‘Two – lest one of them …’
‘I trust no one – but I wonder if the killer was not a servant but a guest here.’
Barrington sat down fast enough to hurt his back. ‘I cannot believe … What in heaven’s name gave you that idea?’
She touched her lips, looking meaningfully at the door. ‘And I would be much happier if none of this conversation were repeated. I believe it would put someone’s life at risk.’
Barrington surprised me. ‘You’re tall enough, Matthew. All that livery. The white wigs – God knows why we haven’t dispensed with them. You will be one of the footmen. Who else?’
Nonplussed, I scratched as if a wig were already irritating my scalp. ‘How could I find livery without anyone knowing?’
By now with an almost amused smile on her face, Harriet looked me up and down. ‘Mason? Or, if he’s too busy with his usual duties, Billy. And perhaps you, Mr Turton, could lurk? Could you be sketching some of the sculptures in the corridors?’
He nodded with great passion, but looked enquiringly at my cousin.
I nodded. ‘This would mean that you, Barrington, would have to maintain the fiction that all four of us are busy here. No, don’t tell anyone yourself. And – dare I say this? – I think you should lock yourself in. Or would that look too particular?’
He smiled, making the scars pull and twist. ‘I shall snarl at the footman on duty that I have one of my heads, and that you are taking the air. No one disturbs me when I have one of my heads.’
But something did – immediately. A knock on the door announced Mason, his face grey. ‘Might I have a word, sir?’
‘Better be serious if you’re interrupting – by Jove, it is serious, isn’t it?’
Mason nodded. ‘Sir … sir, it’s—’
‘Spit it out, man!’
‘Harrison has just come running up to the house. Says he’s found a body.’
Barrington paled. Could he even speak?
‘Whose, Mason?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know yet. Harrison says he wouldn’t touch it. Now he wants to know what he should do.’
‘Tell him to leave it where it is. In fact, tell him to stay where he is so he can take the Colonel and me. Yes, Turton, what is it?’
‘I could come? Bring my sketch pad?’
‘Really? Why?’
‘So the police, when they get here, can see exactly what we found.’
‘Brilliant idea, Turton. If you’re sure you’re up to it? And if my cousin agrees?’
‘Sound idea. Sound idea. But it may not be pretty, mind. Harriet—’
‘Would you prefer it, Cousin Barrington, if I postponed my plans and broke the news to her ladyship? But her alone, if you please, and I will ask her to keep mum. It will be hard for her – she will have to maintain appearances during luncheon without you to support her.’
‘I’m sure she will manage perfectly well without me.’
Oh, dear. I exchanged a swift glance with Harriet.
‘And I will ask Mrs Simpkiss and the other servants to say nothing. You’ve told no one, Mr Mason?’
‘I came straight here, ma’am. But you know what below-stairs is like – the tiniest bit of gossip spreads like wildfire.’
She nodded with grim amusement. ‘I do indeed! There’ll be half a dozen corpses before you can say knife. I’ll come down with you now. I’ll speak to Lady Hortensia immediately after that, Cousin.’
By now, Mason was scarlet. ‘Ma’am, I’m very sorry ma’am. I had no right – I meant not offence.’
‘And no offence taken. You simply spoke the truth. But we waste time.’ She led the way from the room.
Harrison greeted me with obvious relief: ‘I was just seeing if we could find a way through to the village, Mr Rowsley – and then I saw him.’ He had already organized two pairs of waders and spirited from nowhere another pair for Turton.
We set off as quickly as Barrington could cover the uneven ground. At last he waved us on. ‘Time is of the essence! Go ahead. Bloody hip!’
Harrison hesitated. ‘He won’t be going nowhere, sir. And you’re the gaffer—’
The effort Barrington made to become once more a leader of men was painfully obvious as he tried in vain to straighten his shoulders. I would have offered him my arm, but that would have been to humiliate him.
I think Harrison saw and understood. ‘Mighty treacherous after the flood, sir. You need to watch your step, Mr Rowsley,’ he added after I’d feigned a slip. ‘More haste, less speed, as they say.’
Mason had said that anyone trying to flee from the house might slip in hidden obstructions and drown. It looked as if the man in the water had done just that. Where he had fallen was a tangle of roots still half covered with toffee-coloured water. As we removed our hats and stood in silence it occurred to me that that explanation might just be too pat.
I gestured to the others to stay back. ‘We can’t save his life now, can we? So let us all use our eyes. Is there anything suspicious – even unusual – that catches our eye?’
‘Your prints are clear enough, Harrison.’ Barrington pointed. ‘You can even see where you stopped walking and started running towards the body. And you certainly ran back.’ A shift in the light as a cloud scudded from the face of the sun brought a sharp ejaculation. ‘By Jove! Bend down a little. Over there. More footmarks. One man by the look of it.’
Turton nodded.
‘Good man. Can you sketch them? And maybe …?’ He eyed the corpse.
Turton was already at work. Heavens, he had talent. We hardly had to wait two minutes before he had given a good impression of what we could see: a big man, with dark hair, who was wearing a frock coat and boots. Not a wet-weather outfit, not a walking over wet terrain outfit. More of an indoor servant’s outfit – no, surely not.
‘Where were you when you saw him?’ Barrington asked Harrison, who pointed in the direction we had come, where the grass had clearly been disturbed by our feet.
‘I could just see his legs, sir – damn and blast!’ He turned to the bushes and vomited.
Staying where he was, Turton occupied himself with sketching the corpse in situ. He pointed to a detail he had registered: a big bruise on the back of the victim’s neck. No need to speak.
Barrington had already unscrewed the cap of his hip-flask when, still ashen, the gardener re-joined us. ‘Here. You need this.’
Harrison took a sip.
‘Deep breaths. Another swig. That’s the ticket. If someone lends me their arm, I’ll look. Seen enough dead bodies in my time.’ He turned to me.
I was ready to oblige. But I stopped short and pointed. There was only one set of footprints. ‘How can a man have walked here on his own and managed to hit his own head so hard that he fell and died?
Barrington turned to me agape.
‘Look. You can see all the mess we’ve made in the mud. You can see where Harrison stopped in his tracks. But I can see neither tracks approaching nor tracks leaving the corpse.’
‘Act of God?’ Turton offered, his dark humour all the more shocking for the clarity with which he delivered it.
Barrington was far from amused. Eyes narrowed he peered at the stream. ‘Waders,’ he said. ‘Like ours. Someone sees the man. Doesn’t like him. Picks up a rock – plenty of them to choose from – and creeps up behind and thumps him.’
It sounded a very plausible theory.
Harrison, like a schoolboy, raised his hand. ‘But why should anyone stand still and wait to be hit? You don’t turn your back on a stranger.’
I nodded. ‘Perhaps if we can recognize the victim it might clarify the issue – though I must say I think the notion of waders or boots is very sound, Barrington.’
‘Hmph. Very well. Very well, Matthew – into battle!’
We picked our way gingerly through the mud. Yes, I might not have noticed at first, but Turton was right about the bruise. As to what caused it, Barrington could have been right about that, too. Had it been a vicious enough blow to stun him so that he fell and the water did the rest?
If Barrington was to stay upright, I had to turn the body. It was hard work: the clothes were heavy with water, the body offering nothing but resistance. One last heave.
‘My God!’ Barrington gasped. ‘What the hell is he doing here?’
I had not liked Biddlestone, but the water had not been kind to him.
Barrington turned. ‘Harrison. After yesterday I know you can run like a deer. Can you leg it back to the house and get a hand cart and some strong men? Good man! Turton, are you sure? Drawing him?’
The young man nodded. ‘Why fear a corpse? His soul has already left,’ he said, plying his pencil with a will. If only the poor devil’s tongue could be as free as his hand.
As for Barrington’s question, none of us had come up with an answer – and the only reasons I could think of put the butler in a very suspicious light.
Less than an hour later, with Biddlestone’s body now stowed near to the Gräfin’s in the cellar, Barrington had joined what he called his corpse detail in the servants’ hall and was ordering coffee and brandy for them all. ‘Well done, Harrison. Excellent work. Now we need you to do one more thing. Move heaven and earth to get to the village. Pick your own team to go with you. Plenty of tall strong men around to choose from. Get the village constable here at all costs!’ From one of the men there was a muffled snort, hastily turned into a cough. ‘And Dr Highworth too,’ Barrington continued smoothly, as if he had not heard and did not endorse the obvious doubts about the constable’s ability to deal with the situation. ‘Take them to the spot first. Then they come here. Now, I wonder if Cook can find any food for you stretcher-bearers. Harrison – we’ll keep some back for you and your men. Turton, Rowsley – sit yourselves down too.’
Which was how I came to see a woman in a print dress and a very ugly cap wink at me from the doorway.