Wednesday
A handful of telegrams arrived last night, too late for Dev to deal with their contents unless he wanted to roust people out of bed. He debated doing just that, burned by Waring’s disappearance, but thought the better of it.
The inquest was scheduled for tomorrow, the funeral Friday. Everyone had agreed to stay at the hall until the end of the week, save for Lady Adelaide. Dev had given permission for her to leave along with Beckett, and he sensed her absence as soon as he woke up.
How very odd. He couldn’t explain it, but there was a Lady Adelaide-shaped hole in the household.
He stretched. The bed was comfortable at least, despite the utilitarian nature of his room. The shared bathroom was empty, so Dev performed the necessary ablutions and was in the middle of pulling up his pants when a furious knocking made him pull them up faster.
It was Bob, red-faced and panting from climbing up the stairs. Judging from the napkin still tied around his neck, he’d presumably been enjoying an early breakfast in the kitchen. “Guv! Come quick! It’s Miss Barlow!”
Dev skipped his necktie and shrugged into his jacket. “What about her?”
“She’s dead, sir. Fell down a set of back stairs. One of the maids just found her and is shrieking her head off.”
Dev hadn’t heard anything, but the water had been running. Still, he wondered if he was losing his senses. He had the wits to put on his socks and shoes, however.
But if Juliet Barlow was in fact dead, there really was no rush or requirement of footwear.
There were numerous staircases in a house this old and disjointed, but the body was on the first-floor landing that led directly up to the schoolroom. Bob hadn’t made a mistake; the woman had tumbled two flights of stairs. Judging from the angle of her head, she’d broken her neck doing so.
The position of the body was a far cry from the photograph the Cirencester police supplied him of Pamela Fernald, who lay neatly on the brick conservatory floor as if she was resting, her skirts spread out. Artificial, like a stage set death. Dev wondered when he saw it if someone rearranged her body to appear to ladylike advantage. The murderer? Mrs. Lewis claimed she wasn’t responsible for the peaceful presentation.
No one had done the same for Juliet. Her robe was open, her nightgown hiked up over her thighs. There was a strong scent of gin and the usual aromas accompanying death.
“Where is John Fernald? He shouldn’t see this.” No one should, really.
“His grandmother is with him. Went right up. Not this way, obviously. She was in the kitchen with the housekeeper when the maid found the body.”
Dev glanced below. Along with a leather slipper that matched the one still on Juliet’s left foot, Trim and Mrs. Lewis were at the base of the stairs, presumably acting as guards so the other servants wouldn’t come out into the hallway to gawk. Their faces were as gray as their hair.
“Lady Fernald’s up early.” Some women in posh houses didn’t even know where their kitchens were. An exaggeration, perhaps, but then Dev remembered Evelyn Fernald and Mrs. Lewis had a cooperative relationship.
“They were talking about food for the funeral from what I overheard. I guess there will be another one.”
“It appears so. Do you smell alcohol?”
“Gin, guv. Unmistakable. She must have been drunk and fell.”
Dev was less sure. He bent over the body, took an unpleasant deep breath, and lightly touched the edge of her robe, then a few other places. Mindful of the butler and housekeeper, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Unless she did it herself, the gin was spilled on her clothes. See? Streaked and spotted. The patches are slightly damp. We’re being made to think this is an accident.”
Bob’s mouth dropped open. “Blimey.”
“Indeed. Go round another way and see if there’s any obstruction on the stairs up to the schoolroom—or string, a wire screwed into the wall, loose carpet, something. Take your time.”
Bob did as he was bid. Dev called down to Trim. “Please call the Cirencester station and tell them we have another body on our hands.” Dev could hear the grumbling of his local colleagues now. It was devilish early for death. But then there was never a perfect time.
“Surely Miss Barlow just took a fall,” Trim said, shocked.
“We can’t rule anything out yet,” Dev replied. “Mrs. Lewis, when my sergeant comes back, he’ll take your place. I appreciate you’ve kept people away, but I imagine you need to get back into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.”
“I do, though how anyone could be hungry in this house after all the to-do, I don’t know.”
“Was Miss Barlow friendly with the staff?”
Mrs. Lewis shook her head. “Not really. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she put on airs. She was Lady Fernald’s—Pamela’s—cousin, you know. Thought she was too good for the rest of us. Mr. Trim said—” She stopped.
“What did Mr. Trim say?”
“You’d better hear it from him.”
“And I will. But you’re right here.”
The housekeeper gave him a look that told him he’d won. “That she was all over the master at dinner last night. Pawing him and whispering nonsense. Overstepping. Everyone noticed—by that, I mean the footmen. If they did with all they had to pay attention to, I’m sure the guests did too. Poor Sir Hugh. He’s so vulnerable right now.”
So vulnerable he might accept the attentions of his late wife’s pallid double? Did someone decide to kill Juliet Barlow to “save” him? His concerned friends? His mother? His aunt? One of the twins, jealous? A loyal servant?
Or was it a simple fall, as Mr. Trim said? Perhaps a drunken Juliet spilled liquor on herself and then took an unwise stroll down the stairs.
The lab would soon determine if she had, in fact, imbibed too much—or any—alcohol. The incontrovertible fact, however, was that she was dead.
“Does anyone besides the staff use these stairs?”
“Not usually. They go right up to the nursery on the top floor—the schoolroom now, I should say. Master John has his own bedroom down the hall now, and there’s another set of stairs to that. When Miss Barlow came, Nanny Joyce retired, and not a minute too soon. She was ancient even when she took care of Sir Hugh. The stairs were too much for her at the end, and we hardly ever saw her down here.”
“Where is she now?”
“Oh, she’s passed, Inspector Hunter. Two years ago. Sir Hugh gave her a cottage on the estate, and I found her in bed one morning when I went to bring her my applesauce. Awfully fond of it, she was. She had very few teeth left, you see, and it was easy for her to eat. ”
If the toothless nursemaid knew anything about Michael Ainsley and his disappearance all those years ago—doubtful, according to Mrs. Lewis—she took the knowledge to her grave.
“How is the list coming along, Mrs. Lewis?”
“We’ve put our heads together, and Mr. Trim wrote things up. He was going to give it to you this morning.”
“I appreciate all your help. I know how busy you both are.”
The housekeeper’s cheeks pinked. “We know our duty.”
Dev heard Bob’s deliberate footsteps above, and eventually the man was on a step above the body. “Not a thing, guv. Carpet’s tacked down, no toys or objects anywhere, no sign that anyone put a barrier across the stairs. Those slipper soles look worn. She must have just slid.”
“Or was pushed.” He heard Mrs. Lewis’s gasp below and cursed himself. He turned to the woman. “Please keep that to yourself. Foul play can’t be ruled out, I’m afraid.”
“I won’t breathe a word. The girls are already frightened to death with bodies everywhere, and it’s impossible to get proper help, even with the good wages Sir Hugh provides. I’m not going to add to the hysteria.”
“Good woman. Ah, here’s Mr. Trim.”
“They’re on their way, sir.”
“Thank you. Bob, if you’ll stay with the body and keep anyone away, I’d like a look at Miss Barlow’s rooms.”
“I stuck my head in once I was up there. Lady Fernald must have taken the boy away from there.”
“Good. Mrs. Lewis, you might want to make a big pot of your delicious coffee. It will take some of the sting away when the police get here. Wake them up properly.” Dev checked his watch. It wasn’t quite seven o’clock, and the weight of the day lay heavy on his shoulders.
He too found another way to get upstairs, grateful he passed no one. By rights, he should have notified Sir Hugh, but he presumed his mother or the butler had already done that. The element of surprise was always useful in police work; Dev liked to gauge people’s reactions to bad news. Though he imagined that by the time he got downstairs again, the whole house would be reverberating with Juliet Barlow’s death.
He entered the schoolroom. It was as neat as a pin, books lined up like soldiers on the shelves, sharpened pencils in a glass jar on the long study table. The door leading to Miss Barlow’s rooms was open. He passed through a small sitting room, also neat, its quality-but-aging furniture probably castoffs from other rooms in the house. There was no sign of a bottle or a glass on any of the tables.
The little kitchen, hardly bigger than a broom closet, was spotless. Nothing was in the sink or dish drainer. A quick check in the cupboards did not reveal a stash of gin or any kind of booze. But when Dev got to the bedroom, the smell of gin was strong. The bed was rumpled and damp from it, and an empty bottle rested on the side table. There was no glass.
There was no glass. Was Miss Barlow the kind of woman who drank gin from the bottle? Dev didn’t think so.
She put on airs, according to Mrs. Lewis, which definitely would not include swigging alcohol straight from a bottle. But of course, Juliet had been in her own room, out from under the critical eyes of the rest of the inhabitants of Fernald Hall. What she did up here was her business.
Now it was Dev’s.