The pattern of the evening diverged somewhat from the previous one. After a perfectly delicious dinner prepared by Mrs Remington and served by Jamieson, the family retired to the drawing room, where they were joined by Imogen and Miss Billington, and Roly produced a wind-up racing game which required four participants at a time to frantically rotate a handle in order to make small mechanical horses move along a metal course. The competition was enlivened by placing bets in spent matchsticks, a supply of which had been stored in a little wooden box, along with the game. Imogen was inclined to become overexcited when her horse did well, and plunged into depths of despair after failing to mark up a win, but Fran was amused to see that the other Edgertons, even Lady Louisa herself, were prone to yelling encouragement at the painted tin mounts, coupled with insults at those who failed to work their handles fast enough. Only Miss Billington remained completely calm, taking victory or defeat with equanimity.
Eventually it was decreed to be Imogen’s bedtime and Miss Billington led her away, not without protest on Imogen’s side and reassurance on Miss Billington’s that the game was being put away and all the excitement was consequently over. Lady Louisa also retired to her room, saying that she wanted to finish a book she was reading.
‘Goodness,’ said Hen, collapsing on to a sofa after putting the racing game back into one of the sideboards. ‘Will you play for us, Eddie, or is someone going to get some gramophone records out? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m exhausted after all that. I thought my arm would drop off during that last race.’
‘I’ll play if you want me to,’ Eddie said, glancing around to receive general affirmation before he stood up and went across to the piano. ‘Any requests, boy and girls?’
‘“I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate”,’ Mellie called out. ‘And make it good and lively.’
Eddie obliged them with one tune after another, some suggested by his listeners, some produced of his own volition. No one suggested dancing. After the frenetic atmosphere of the racing game, it was very pleasant to lean back against the cushions and be entertained. Fran let the music wash over her. It was true, she reflected, that Eddie really did have talent. He ran his fingers across the keys, bringing out the best in the instrument as he launched into ‘If I Had You’, one of the big hits of the previous year. Fran had not asked for the song, but he sung it as if to her, looking directly at her as he crooned, ‘If I had you by my side …’ It was nice to be flirted with once in a while, she thought. Though, of course, Eddie was not really flirting with her, just showing her what he could have done for a much wider audience, if ever he had put his mind to it.
By the time Fran joined the family at the breakfast table next morning, Eddie had already set out for Winchester. Roly was, as usual, reading out snippets from the newspapers to Hen, and Mellie had yet to appear.
It was just after eight thirty when Jamieson appeared at Roly’s elbow. ‘Excuse me, Mr Edgerton, but there’s a gentleman asking for you on the telephone. A Mr Dod, sir.’
Fran glanced up from her poached egg and then back down at her plate. There was more than one Mr Dod in the world after all. Roly carefully refolded his paper and placed it to one side of his plate, while setting his napkin at the other and simultaneously getting up from the table.
‘I was wondering,’ Fran said, once Roly had left the room, ‘whether it would be possible to speak with Miss Billington this morning?’
‘Of course you can,’ said Hen. ‘In fact, this would be the perfect morning, because Imogen goes for her riding lesson at ten, isn’t that right, Mellie?’
Mellie, who had just entered the room, nodded, before asking, ‘Where’s Roly?’
‘Called to the telephone. Pass the milk please, Roly has been hogging it down at that end.’
‘I thought I ought to speak with Imogen too, later on,’ Fran said.
‘Oh, I’m sure there won’t be any point in doing that,’ laughed Mellie. ‘Imogen can’t be trusted anyway. She’s a dreadful fibber.’
‘I’d prefer to call it imagination,’ Hen said, deliberately not catching her sister-in-law’s eye. ‘And if Fran wants to speak with Imogen, we really must not attempt to dissuade her.’ Turning to Fran, she said, ‘Suppose we tell Billie to come to the library at ten and then get her to buzz Imogen along as soon as she’s back from riding?’
‘Thank you.’ Fran sensed a slight frost in the atmosphere. Mellie was nominally the lady of the house but Hen had lived there much longer. She wondered whether Mellie was really happy to leave the running of everything to her mother-in-law, still less stand contradicted by her husband’s sister.
Roly reappeared a few moments later, announcing cheerfully, ‘That was your friend Mr Dod, Fran. Apparently he is in the area visiting growers and someone has told him about our Woolbrook Pippins. He’s keen to pop down for a chat, so I’ve arranged to meet him at the orchards this morning and invited him to stay for lunch.’
‘Our Woolbrook Pippins? Why on earth is he interested in those?’ asked Mellie.
‘Because his father is the head of a big wholesale fruit and vegetable concern, my darling. Dod and Sons may give us a far better price than we are getting locally.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘And it will be nice for Fran to see her friend,’ said Hen.
‘Indeed.’ Roly had eased back into his place at the head of the table. ‘Mellie, be a dear and ring the bell for some fresh toast. This has gone cold.’
Fran didn’t know what to say. It was really very naughty of Tom to engineer a visit like this when the whole object of coming down here had been to prevent any potentially suspicious meetings at all. Then again, perhaps he genuinely did have business with the Edgertons and it was not as if they would be alone together. Having a well-chaperoned lunch in the company of mutual acquaintances hardly constituted suspicious behaviour. Aloud, she said, ‘Please pardon my ignorance, but what are Woolbrook Pippins?’
‘They are a variety of apple, native to Devon.’ Roly smiled. ‘The productive orchards came as part of the estate. We also grow pears here and Tom Putt apples. The Tom Putts go for cider making, but the Woolbrook Pippins are eaters.’
‘I must let Mrs Remington know that we will be one extra for lunch,’ Mellie said. ‘Does Mr Dod have any particular preferences, do you know?’
‘Not that I know of.’ Fran felt her colour rising for no particular reason. ‘I don’t really know him all that well.’
‘Oh.’ Mellie sounded surprised, almost put out. ‘We were given to understand that you and Mr Dod were old friends.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we were Mellie,’ said Hen, who seemed determined to correct her sister-in-law that morning. ‘Didn’t you and Mr Dod meet through your sleuthing?’ she asked Fran.
‘No, we met through the Robert Barnaby Society.’
‘What in the world is that?’ asked Mellie.
Fran explained, feeling more foolish with every word, for Mellie’s social life would never have encompassed joining ‘a book club’, as she thereafter referred to it, where one might presumably bump into all sorts of people of the kind who might not be welcomed at the Lord Lieutenant’s Ball. Nor was Mellie the sort of woman who would see the point in discussing children’s literature, once one had reached the age of twelve or thirteen.
Fran was quite relieved to excuse herself from the table and go out on to the terrace for a breath of fresh air. The garden soon restored her equilibrium. It really is lovely here, she thought. Far too nice a spot for anyone to commit a murder.
After a short stroll, she returned to the library, where Miss Billington joined her soon after ten, having handed Imogen over to the visiting riding instructor for her lesson.
‘Thank you for seeing me,’ said Fran. ‘I realize that this must be one of the few times you have to yourself.’
‘Mr Edgerton asked us all to put ourselves at your disposal. He also asked for our discretion. Not, of course, that I would ever discuss any family matters with an outsider, unless I had been specifically asked to do so, as is the case with yourself.’
‘Don’t you find it rather lonely here?’ Fran asked. ‘It’s quite an isolated property, isn’t it?’
‘When I first joined the family, they made it clear that I would be welcome to join them in the evenings, but I declined. After spending the day with Miss Imogen, I am perfectly content to read or embroider. Of course, when Miss Roche was here, we sometimes used to sit together in the evenings. We had both spent some time in France, so we had that in common.’
‘You must miss her company?’
‘Not especially. In the summertime, in particular, there are usually so many people about the place that it is quite a relief to have an hour or two to oneself at the end of the day.’
‘But having a friend in the household …’ Fran pursued.
‘Miss Roche was a pleasant enough companion, but I would not have said there was a close friendship between us.’
‘You haven’t stayed in touch then?’
‘Oh, no.’
Fran decided to try a different tack. ‘I’ve been trying to piece together the events of the day when old Mr Edgerton died. Can you tell me what you remember about the day?’
Miss Billington pursed her lips. ‘What sort of things do you wish me to remember?’
‘Well … who was there, what people did, where they went, that kind of thing.’
‘The usual family were in residence of course, and old Mr Edgerton’s son, Mr Charles, and his wife were staying, as were two of his granddaughters, Miss Helena and Miss Cecilia. It was a nice, sunny day, so most of us went down to the beach. Two friends of the family, the Miss Trenchards, turned up at some stage and the Baddeley children had also come over to join the party. It was a very ordinary sort of day.’ The governess paused, looking to Fran for a sign that she should continue.
‘Did you spend the whole day on the beach?’
‘Most of it. A picnic was brought down from the house.’
‘But not everyone spent the entire time on the beach?’
‘No. Mr Charles and his wife went up to the house for lunch with Her Ladyship. Some people went off to play tennis. I’m afraid I can’t be specific about who and when. I would have been watching the children, you see. Imogen was my main concern of course, but I kept an eye on the Baddeleys and young Miss Cecilia as well.’
‘Someone has suggested that there was a bit of an upset over a game and Imogen went off on her own?’
‘That’s quite right. I’d almost forgotten, but yes, she did. There was some silly quarrel about a game, I think. Imogen flew off the handle, as I’m afraid she is rather prone to do, and then ran off.’
‘Can you remember what time it would have been when this happened?’
‘Not really. Only that it was some time after lunch.’
‘And you went after her?’
‘Yes, I intended to bring her back and have her apologize for making such an exhibition of herself.’
‘And how long did it take to find her?’
‘I didn’t find her. As I’m sure you know by now, there is only one path leading right down to the shore and I initially followed her back along that path, towards the garden. I caught a couple of glimpses of her some way ahead of me, but though I called her name she didn’t answer. Once the shore path reaches the garden it initially branches off in three directions and from then onwards the garden becomes a positive maze of different paths, twisting here and there between the shrubs and trees, with no end of hiding places along each route. I continued to search for a while, but I couldn’t find the child, so eventually I gave it up for a bad job and went back to the beach.’
‘And was Imogen there?’
‘She was not. I didn’t see her again until much later. When we went back up to the house for tea – that would have been at about four o’clock, or perhaps rather later – Imogen was already there. I scolded her, as you can imagine, but it fell on deaf ears.’
‘You weren’t worried when you couldn’t find her?’
‘Oh no. It wasn’t the first time she’d run off and it probably won’t be the last. She’s a rather tempestuous child. It’s not as if she is likely to come to any harm. She has been playing in the gardens and the woods for years. She wouldn’t go near the edge of the cliff, or anything like that.’
‘Unlike old Mr Edgerton,’ Fran said. When Miss Billington failed to reply, Fran said, ‘Can I ask you frankly, Miss Billington – do you believe Mr Edgerton fell to his death by accident?’
‘I assume my answer will go no further?’
‘Please feel that you can speak freely.’
‘No, Mrs Black, I do not. The idea that a wheeled chair, carrying a fairly hefty man, could defy the laws of physics by propelling itself uphill until it went over the edge has seemed preposterous to me from the first.’
‘So what do you think happened?’
‘I think it is fairly obvious that Mr Edgerton pushed himself over the edge on purpose. I believe he realized that his mind was going and that he did not want to be a burden to his family. Naturally the family don’t want it generally known, because suicide is still considered a sin by many, is wrong in the eyes of the law and inevitably brings disgrace.’
‘What did his nurse think?’
‘She probably thought the same. We never discussed it in so many words.’
‘But she thought that Mr Edgerton was still capable of pushing himself up the incline?’
‘I believe she said so, when the police asked her. The police made some enquiries, you know, immediately after it had happened.’
‘It’s curious that no one saw anything at all.’
‘I don’t believe there was anything suspicious in that,’ Miss Billington said.
It occurred to Fran that, just like other members of the household, the governess had evidently given the matter some consideration.
‘You see,’ Miss Billington continued, ‘none of the household staff would be in the family’s part of the house at that time of day. The gardeners wouldn’t have been up in the woods, because there is no arboricultural work to speak of in the summer months, and the family were all out and about, except for Her Ladyship, who was apparently lying down in her room.’
‘I suppose,’ Fran said, ‘that in those circumstances anyone might have slipped into the house, taken whatever they fancied and made off without being seen?’
‘Goodness, what a fearful thought!’ exclaimed Miss Billington. ‘But I don’t think that’s very likely. You see, Mr Jamieson would be in his pantry at that time of day, so he could see anyone coming down the front drive.’
Fran did not bother to point out that burglars seldom approached via the front entrance. Instead, she asked, ‘Surely with it being Monica’s afternoon off, someone would usually have gone to check on Mr Edgerton?’
‘The servants wouldn’t generally go in unless someone rang for them, I suppose. Old Mr Edgerton was known to have a nap most afternoons, so no one would have been particularly expecting him to ring. And I believe there was some sort of mix-up between the staff as to who ought to take him a cup of tea at four o’clock.’
‘Yes,’ said Fran. ‘According to what I have been told, two of the maids each thought the other had taken his tea to him, so neither of them actually did.’
Miss Billington sniffed. ‘I imagine Jamieson had something to say to the pair of them when that came out in the wash.’
‘Tell me,’ Fran said. ‘Do you know anything of the Sidmouth affair?’
Miss Billington stiffened in her chair. ‘I most certainly do not. Will there be anything else, Mrs Black?’
‘No, thank you, Miss Billington. Thank you very much for your time.’