Then, added to all these circumstances and relating to them I know not how, is the strange business of the burglary. A burglary in which everything seems to have happened backwards and quite contrary to the way it should: the window being broken from within rather than without; valuable silver not being taken, and jewels appearing in the house rather than disappearing from it.
Do you not find all these little facts intriguing, Eliza? I certainly do. But I cannot believe that a magistrate who has a whole parish to manage with all its overseers and its vagrants and its disputes – I cannot believe that such a one will find them interesting at all. It does seem most regrettable, does it not, that a woman – who is unqualified to make public such details – should be, by her leisure and habitual attention to trivial matters, best placed to observe them?
Having got so far, Dido laid down her pen and looked out of her bedchamber window at the streets of Richmond and the distant meadows, above which dark grey and purple clouds were gathering. She was now quite sure that she ought to continue with her enquiries; however, she could not help but wonder what Mr Lomax would think of her decision – and hope that he might never know about it. If she could retain his regard only by changing her character entirely and ceasing to care about justice, then she must forfeit it – or else deceive him and appear to be what she was not.
This thought made her so dissatisfied and restless, and yet so very anxious to complete her business that, despite the clouds being more threatening than ever, she determined on setting out immediately. Walking, thinking, acting – even in a shower of rain – were all much to be preferred to sitting still in her chamber regretting. She put on her spencer and hurried down the stairs. But in the hall she was delayed, first by choosing an umbrella from among several in the hall stand – and then by the housemaid bringing in the morning’s post.
There were two letters for her: one thick one from Eliza which could be saved until her return and enjoyed at leisure, and another whose sender she could not guess at. It was very neatly sealed and addressed in a black, businesslike hand which she did not recognise.
But, when she had broken the seal, she found that it was addressed from Messrs. Fossick and Bell, Land Agents, and was a reply to her request for Mr Henderson’s new address: a request which she had all but forgotten sending. However, though she might, before receiving the note, have ceased to think about the question, her attention was immediately fixed by the extraordinary reply.
The letter was short, almost to the point of incivility.
Madam, it read, we have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 12th inst. We regret that we can be of no assistance in providing a forwarding address for your acquaintance Mr Henderson as no such tenant has ever rented Knaresborough House, Richmond. We have consulted our records and can assure you that, before the present family took up residence, the dwelling had been unoccupied for almost a twelve month. You have clearly been mistaken as to the address. Frederick Bell.
* * *
Dido’s surprise was so great that she was obliged to read the message through several times before she could comprehend it. She leant upon the newel post, and closed her eyes in thought for a moment or two: then read the letter yet again.
There was no chance that she had misunderstood: no way but one of interpreting the words.
There had been no such tenant at Knaresborough House. Mr Henderson with his powdered hair and his bonneted daughters and his evening parties: the man that Miss Prentice had observed so closely did not exist.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
By the time Dido approached the gates of Knaresborough House there was a storm brewing and, although it was no more than an hour after midday, it was as dark as if it were evening. A few large drops of rain had begun to fall on the hot, thirsty dust of the street.
The house stood stark against the lowering sky, its windows blank. It had already the look of a deserted place and, hurrying up the sweep, her mind full of the letter’s shocking information, Dido could not help but feel a thrill of anticipation at what she might find within: as if the storm and the letter had transformed a commonplace house, in which she had dined and visited, into the mansion of a romance. The notion that Mr Henderson had lived here – and yet had not lived here, was intriguing. It made a very strong appeal to her sense of the strange and mysterious.
The maid who answered her long ringing at the bell was the same girl who had once shown them to the wrong room. She was hot and breathless with a smudge of soot upon her cheek and certainly had nothing of romance or mystery about her. She was sorry to have kept Dido waiting and hoped she would excuse them ‘all being very hard at it putting the kitchen to rights’.
Dido smiled at the girl as she walked into the entrance hall. ‘You are Sarah, are you not?’
‘Yes, Madam…I mean yes, miss.’
‘Well, Sarah, would you be so kind as to answer a question or two before you return to your duties?’
‘Yes, miss,’ said the girl, pushing closed the front door and turning back, hands folded over her stained apron. Then her eyes slid anxiously towards the kitchen. ‘But I must be about my work soon…’
‘Oh, I shall not keep you long. I just wondered – did you serve in this house when the last tenant, Mr Henderson, lived here?’
‘No miss. I come when Mrs Lansdale took the place. We all did.’
‘Oh.’ Dido was disappointed – and suspicious. She studied the girl’s round, grimy face and her pale, rapidly blinking eyes. She seemed honest. Her cheeks were flushed, but that was no doubt caused by the heat of the kitchen. ‘Are you sure? Is there no one here that was a part of Mr Henderson’s household.’
‘No miss…I mean, yes miss. I mean I’m sure. Because, pardon my saying it, it’s what’s made everything a muddle here. With everyone being new, you see and not knowing what to do. My Ma says it’s always the way in a house where folk are for ever coming and going.’
Dido smiled. ‘Yes, of course. It must be very trying for you. And I am sure you manage as well as anyone could. But the butler, Fraser, he was here in Mr Henderson’s time, was he not?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I see.’ Dido lapsed into thought. It really was remarkably convenient for Mr Henderson that no one should remain here to remember his mysterious presence…
‘Will that be all, miss?’ asked Sarah, casting another anxious look in the direction of the kitchen and her unfinished tasks.
‘There is just one other thing. On the night that Mrs Lansdale died, Miss Prentice – she lives in the house opposite the gate, you know – she believes that she saw Mr Henderson coming here to pay a visit – at about eight o’clock. Do you know if that is so, Sarah?’
The girl frowned and shook her head. ‘No miss, I don’t. Because I was gone home then. We all were. Only Mr Fraser was here. With the family all being out he had said we could go after dinner…’
‘But did Fraser say nothing about a visit? Did he not mention it the next day?’
She thought hard. ‘No, miss, I don’t think he did. But everything was in an uproar next day of course, what with the poor lady being dead and everything.’
‘I see.’ Dido shook her head in despair.
But Sarah was thinking again. ‘Perhaps,’ she began slowly, ‘perhaps Mr Fraser was expecting to see Mr Henderson that day.’
‘Why do you say so?’
‘Well, because of the letter, miss. You see, when I went to get the letters from the post office that morning – I mean the morning before Mrs Lansdale died – there was one directed to Mr Henderson and I said to Mr Fraser what should I do with it. And he said to give it to him because he expected he would be seeing Mr Henderson soon and would deliver it to him.’