‘Said nothing! How can the policemen have said nothing?’ I demanded, as the four of us adjourned to the Room for tea and coffee. Harriet and Beatrice had decided that although Florrie was acting as her ladyship’s maid, she was not yet her properly appointed lady’s maid and would not expect temporary admission to the Room. ‘They simply left without telling us what her ladyship had revealed? I cannot believe it!’ I strode about the room in frustration. At last I realized how childish I must appear, pacing in such a tiny space, to the imminent risk of a pile of books and a pretty work-box, and put my energy to better use by handing round the cups. For penance I sat in the least comfortable chair.
Harriet smiled. ‘It is not impossible that a conversation with Elias might reveal something, Mr Rowsley. What a shame that Mr Baines does not open the pub on Sunday evenings …’
‘A shame indeed,’ I agreed. ‘But some of the team practise in the nets on Monday evenings – I might just drift down. Meanwhile, some of you will have seen me break the rule and talk to George. When we were surveying the House for rain damage, we found a locked room.’
Harriet nodded. ‘The one near his lordship’s accommodation. A room adjoining one he always insists is allocated to one of his friends.’
‘Does he indeed? I know – as I am sure you all do – that his lordship keeps pornographic books in his dressing room. I am – let us say, I am just being nosy. Unless any of you has a key that I don’t, I will ask George to remove the lock so we can see what lies within.’
Bowman’s eyes widened to their fullest extent. ‘Mr Rowsley, consider what you are doing!’
‘I should imagine Mr Rowsley will find a water leak to justify the exercise,’ Harriet said. ‘I could even create the leak: I could make sure a maid leaves a bucket unemptied, couldn’t I?’
I shook my head. ‘If anyone is going to get into trouble, it will be me. Yes to the water leak, no to anyone else being involved in the subterfuge.’
‘The lie!’ Bowman exploded. ‘I will have no part of this!’
‘I quite understand, Mr Bowman. And in any other circumstances I would not dream of anything so low. I will keep it as undetectable as possible, entering not through the corridor but through the door to the adjoining room. And George will repair any damage immediately. I just wish I had a key and didn’t have to ask him.’
Harriet got up, walking swiftly to her bedroom. She returned with a wooden box, perhaps twelve inches by six, and four deep. She set it on the table, before unclasping the bunch of household keys from her chatelaine. ‘This,’ she said, flourishing one of the bunch, ‘unlocks about half the chambers, this the other half. Let us see if there is anything in here that is similar in size and shape to them: it might save a great deal of trouble.’ Picking up yesterday’s newspaper, she spread it on the table and upended the box.
We searched with as much glee as if we were children, even Bowman joining in with a will. At last we had a choice of three possibilities.
Bowman smiled slowly. ‘Only because I wish to exclude George from the proceedings, I assure you, I suggest you test these this evening, Rowsley, when her ladyship is taking sherry. It being such a fine evening, I will encourage her to take it in the red drawing room, with its fine views across the county. And then it will be but as a step for her to adjourn to the dining room. She is accustomed,’ he said, in an aside to me, ‘to eat there occasionally even when his lordship is not at home. I shall forget to ask her if she would rather be served there or in her own suite. I suppose a dish or two the aroma of which lingers would not be impossible, Mrs Arden? The sort of thing one would not wish to awaken to the next morning?’
‘Fish? And she does like a curry of meat and vegetables.’
‘Excellent! In fact, Mrs Arden, I really enjoy your curries myself. Might it be possible …?’
Mrs Arden patted his hand indulgently. ‘Of course it might.’ But I could see from the expression on her face that she was busily tearing up all her plans and working out how much of the evening’s menu she might salvage.
By chance Harriet turned towards me, her fine eyes full of laughter. Though we both averted our gaze immediately, I did not believe that no one had seen the bolt of love between us.
And I did not care a jot.
I did care that I must not invite Harriet to accompany me on my expedition. I suspect from her wistful expression – the one she wore when I talked about my cricket exploits – that she would have liked to participate. She did offer, in the presence of the others, to walk up and down the corridor in question to warn me of anyone’s approach, but Bowman was very much against the idea.
‘Would you usually be on duty at such a time? Walking in the Family corridor? Well, then, Mrs Faulkner, it will simply draw attention to our conspiracy if you did today. No, you and Mrs Arden must maintain a convincing pretence of normal Sabbath behaviour. You might even sit in the evening sun on that seat of yours by the herb garden, might you not, and read? Off you go. And Mrs Arden, given the change in the menu, you might wish to be seen in the kitchen. Very well, Mr Rowsley, give me fifteen minutes. It may take me that long to ensconce her ladyship in the red drawing room. If I am not back in that period, I think it might be safe for you to take an idle stroll.’ Having disposed of his cast like a theatre producer, he turned back to me and clasped my hand. ‘Godspeed, Matthew.’
After all the latent drama, my adventure was very banal. The door opening on to the corridor swung open sweetly in response to the key Bowman had picked out. It locked equally sweetly behind me. My candles – I could hide them in a pocket, unlike the lantern I would have preferred – would have lit up, had there not been a small window affording enough light, a plain dressing room, equipped with all the appropriate furniture. The cupboards were all locked, but the tiny keys remained in the locks, and it was the work of moments to scan their shelves. Most were completely bare. For some reason a pile of sheets lay loosely folded on one. Some, equally empty, seemed shorter from back to front than the others, but I searched in vain for a reason. There were no pornographic books, nothing to suggest why anyone should wish to lock the room. The drawers? Yes, they were firmly locked, with no key in evidence, and the cupboard ones were the wrong shape. There was a slightly musty smell, although the window swung open easily enough when I tried it. Mystified, I made sure I had left no sign of my visit behind me, and slipped out of the room. If I looked hesitant I would only occasion remark, so I strode along as if I owned the place – not meeting anyone, of course.
I wanted to return to my house to change for supper – the light summer suit which Mr Bowman recommended for weather like this. Perhaps guilt took my footsteps the backstairs route, which naturally led me to the Room and – when there was no response to my light tap – to the servants’ hall and the kitchen. Mrs Arden was sitting at her ease by the open door, perhaps to escape the strong smell of spices. She turned when she heard my footsteps.
‘Ah, Mr Rowsley, could you do me the most enormous favour? I find I’ve forgotten to bring in any coriander, and the maid always picks parsley by mistake. Mrs Faulkner knows exactly where it is.’ With a huge twinkle in her eye she pointed to the figure seated by the herb-garden gate.
‘It seems as if we may not need George after all,’ I concluded. Tim appeared bearing two tureens of curry; I waited while he fetched the rice and condiments.
Bowman shook his head. ‘If you have already sent for him, find him some other urgent job, I beg you – one that will not arouse any suspicions on his part, of course. Mrs Faulkner, surely you can feign a check of the linen room and discover that some sheets are missing?’
‘Of course. But would that be sufficient for me to demand admission to a locked room as part of my search?’
‘If you attached the key Mr Rowsley used to your chatelaine, then no one would know it was not usually there, would they?’ Mrs Arden asked. ‘And none of the maids or footmen would dare question you. Unless they already knew something we don’t.’
‘What a good idea! And then, perhaps, quite by chance, of course, I might notice something wrong with the shelves? Or is that a step too far?’
‘Let us see if the errant sheets offer us any reason to worry,’ Bowman said.
‘And let us see if you have any keys in that wonderful collection that might open some of the locked drawers,’ I added.
‘Very well. I will add them to the chatelaine too – hiding them in plain sight. And if they work, I will open the drawers, locking them again afterwards, of course.’
Bowman seemed inclined to argue, but raised a forkful of our supper to his lips. He smiled beatifically. ‘Mrs Arden, we are eating like kings! Or rather, of course, like nabobs!’
The table cleared, Harriet produced her key-box again, and we scrabbled amongst its contents like children fighting for pennies. Eventually we selected a fair sample. Then a bell rang: Mr Bowman’s.
‘Heavens, is that the time? I should be serving her ladyship’s dessert.’ He almost sprinted from the room.
‘Clearly that pick-me-up you devised this morning, Beatrice, has amazing properties,’ Harriet observed. ‘Young Thatcher said he looked like death warmed up.’ She mimicked, but not unkindly, his accent, remarkably similar to Florrie’s. ‘And now look at him, dashing round like a two-year-old.’
Her friend smiled. ‘Perhaps I should accept his invitation to be his partner at the Harvest Home dance.’
‘He’s already asked you?’
‘No, but he will soon. He does every year. And this year I might just call his bluff and agree.’
I could not help it: my eyes sought out Harriet’s. Would she and I be going together? I tried to frame a question out loud. ‘Does the estate host one big affair, or does each tenant farmer have his own?’
‘Both. There is a lot of dancing, and quite a number of weddings three months later, if truth be told,’ Mrs Arden said. ‘Poor Mr Pounceman. He blames that demon drink that Florrie’s given up.’
‘And poor Mr Pounceman for another reason,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you: Mr Pounceman—’
‘Has mumps!’ they concluded my sentence as one, giggling like girls. ‘Oh, we probably knew before Dr Page did,’ Mrs Arden added. ‘There are no secrets in a village.’
‘In that case,’ I said, suddenly serious, ‘the villagers probably have as good an idea as anyone what has happened to his lordship.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ she agreed. ‘But there’s a difference between asking, Matthew, and letting someone tell you. We three – we four! – are too closely allied to the Family for anyone to make a laughing matter of his lordship’s habits, to our faces at least. Behind our backs, now, that’s another matter.’
‘Would they laugh if they thought his lordship was anything worse than a wild and silly young man finally escaping his mother’s grasp?’ Harriet asked. ‘I think not.’
I stared. ‘Is he anything worse?’
‘Who knows? But if the button that you found did come off his dress suit, then it might have been he you heard arguing in the shrubbery. And who was he arguing with? A young woman. I can think of two young women who suffered something at male hands. You are sent away on a crazy errand. I too am despatched on a feeble excuse. Maggie flees. He departs post-haste. Her ladyship departs to a spa – to a poor hotel, according to Hortense, not the sort of place where she would be accustomed to stay. And now,’ she added, in a very sombre voice, ‘he has disappeared from the face of the earth.’
‘With Luke,’ Beatrice added.
I took a deep breath. ‘Harriet. Beatrice. I do not think we should mention this theory to Mr Bowman yet. He has loyalties to the Family I cannot match. That we should even think such a thing would upset him, very deeply. He might even … who knows. If there is evidence to be found, let us present it to him. Otherwise, for the sake of our friendship, let us keep quiet.’
The women stared, then, seeming to have reached a silent agreement, nodded in concert. ‘Very well,’ Beatrice said. ‘We must all be each other’s eyes and ears. But discretion must be our watchword.’
‘Absolute discretion,’ Harriet agreed. ‘Now, he will be back within minutes: he must interrupt us in an entirely innocent conversation.’
‘The Harvest Home dance, perhaps,’ Beatrice said.
As Harriet had predicted, Bowman returned from his duties without knocking – and why should he knock? He was the senior man in the House.
He inhaled deeply. ‘I am afraid that the curry which was designed to make her ladyship reluctant to eat in her chamber has left its lingering fumes to bother you, Mrs Faulkner. May I open a window?’ He leant with his arms on the sill for several moments. When he turned back to us he was smiling, almost coyly. ‘It is such a beautiful evening, I do not see why my colleagues and I should not walk with you part of the way back to your house, Matthew. Her ladyship is unlikely to need my services much longer once I have served her tea.’
‘I will have the tray prepared this instant,’ Mrs Arden declared.
Our dawdling stroll took us towards the shrubbery, where I was able to point out the spot where I found the button. Then, as if by magic, the talk became more casual, then lapsed al-together. Somehow four together became two groups of two. We were never quite out of sight of each other in the bright moonlight, never quite out of earshot, so there was mutual chaperonage. But it was not until we had reached my front door and said our goodnights that Beatrice and Samuel caught up with us. They were now a respectable distance apart, and absorbed Harriet into their company as if she had never left it. It was only then that I remembered I had left Esau in the main stables and had to chase after them. I was subject to a great deal of mocking banter, but it gave all four of us a few more minutes of happiness.
Esau seemed pleased to see me, but clearly did not know what to make of my singing – I think it might have been Mozart – on our journey home.