One thing was certain. Jack Hayward knew more about the murder than anybody else alive except the murderer. He knew, or he had been told, where to find the body. He might have even known the person who told him. He knew what the injuries were. He had probably heard some of the bullying as the doctor was persuaded to sign the false death certificate.
Johnny came back to where he had started. He could only think of two reasons for flight. One, that Jack was an honest man who did not wish to have to compromise his employer with the police. The other, that Richard Candlesby had bundled him off as fast as he could in case he told the truth. Had the son killed the father? Johnny didn’t know. As he took the first sip of his beer he reflected bitterly that words like needle and haystack were totally inadequate. Grain of sand, Johnny thought, grain of sand in the bloody Sahara Desert, all three and a half million square miles of it. He took another, larger draught.
Charles Dymoke drew two chairs up to the window in the dining room, looking out over the park to the lake and its island. Powerscourt could hear a burrowing, scratching sound inside the wall to his left. The mice or the rats were continuing their lifelong assault on the fabric of the house.
‘I thought there was something you ought to know, Lord P-p-powerscourt,’ said Charles, going slightly red in the face as he struggled with his stammer. ‘A lawyer from London came to see Richard yesterday. Shifty sort of chap if you ask me. I caught his name as he came in. Mark Sowerby, of Hopkins P-p-pettigrew amp; Green, Solicitors of B-b-bedford Square.’
‘He’s not the normal family solicitor then?’ said Powerscourt.
‘No, no,’ said Charles, ‘they come from Lincoln and they’re all about as old as the cathedral.’
‘Did he come of his own accord? Or was he invited?’
‘I think he was invited. Something was said about him working for my father. How can I p-put it? If your house was full of a terrible smell, Sowerby looked like the man who would come to fix it.’
‘I see,’ said Powerscourt, watching a herd of deer trotting peacefully towards the clump of trees beside the lake. ‘I wonder what he came for.’
‘There’s something else I should tell you. I’ve been speaking to some of the servants. The night my father died, they say, somebody was heard coming back into the house about midnight, or a little earlier.’
‘Were they indeed?’ said Powerscourt. ‘How interesting. I don’t suppose anybody knows who it was?’
‘Afraid not, my lord. Could have been anybody.’
‘They didn’t hear any other noises as well? Horses’ hooves, that kind of thing?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ said Charles, wondering if he had discovered his true profession at last as a detective. Maybe Powerscourt could give him lessons. ‘One last thing,’ he went on, ‘I nearly forgot. Jack Hayward, the groom who found the b-b-body, left in the dark when nobody could see him. A neighbour said hello to him about four in the afternoon; next morning the house was b-b-boarded up.’
‘Well done, young man,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do the village people speak to you then? They wouldn’t speak to me at all.’
‘Some of them do,’ said Charles. ‘Would you like me to see what I can find out down there?’
‘Yes please,’ said Powerscourt. ‘That would be most helpful. I’m very grateful. And I tell you something else, Charles. I would like to talk to the servants here. Where would be the best place to do that? Would they feel most at ease talking to me in their own quarters here, or up at the hotel?’
‘Here, I should think. I’ll let you know when my b-b-brothers are away again, shall I?’
‘Please do,’ said Powerscourt. ‘That could be very useful. And there’s the steward, Mr Savage. Could he come to see me at the hotel in the morning? I wouldn’t want him put in a compromising position by being seen talking to me up here.’
As Charles walked him back down towards the stables Powerscourt was delighted with one small success. He had his very own spy in the enemy ranks, a human equivalent of the wooden horse that might yet lead to the destruction of his opponents.
Lady Lucy stared in despair at the letter. It was covered with the smallest handwriting she had ever seen. She knew from the notepaper headed Church House, Ashby Puerorum, that it must have come from her aunt but for the present she had no idea what it said. A spider’s hand would have been more legible. Eventually she borrowed a magnifying glass from the hotel staff and began, very slowly, to decipher the message. The first few lines seemed to be full of the conventional pleasantries welcoming her to Lincolnshire and hoping the family were well. In the third paragraph Lady Lucy came across a word that she thought was luncheon. Before the intervention of the full stop she discerned the word tomorrow. For a moment she was filled with panic. Then she read on. ‘I hope you will not find the dietary requirements here too restrictive. A long period of experimentation has convinced me that conventional menus are wasteful and unhealthy, leading to distemper, bile and progressive decay of the body tissue.’
Francis is going to love this, said Lady Lucy to herself. He had always taken a perverse delight in eccentrics of every sort. She saw a word underlined several times. After multiple adjustments of the glass she discovered that the word was beetroot. God in heaven. ‘I find that beetroot’, Lady Lucy read on, ‘is admirably suited to be the mainstay of any sensible eating regimen. My staff have successfully grown some of the little-known varieties, Bull’s Blood, Boltardy and Cheltenham Green Top. I have given over most of my garden to beetroot cultivation. Out of season I have devised a system of storage in the ample cellars beneath my house. It can be soup or broth – beetroot and potato pie is very nourishing as is fried beetroot with hardboiled eggs. My own particular favourite is beetroot fritters served with toast and horseradish puree.’
Well, thought Lady Lucy, lunch is certainly going to be interesting. There was more. ‘I am afraid I am also unconventional in the question of sweet courses. The usual offerings of today, heavy in sugar and flour and custard and lashings of unhealthy cream, will soon lead to the extinction of the nation’s manhood and moral fibre, washed away in a sea of suet, and guarantee our defeat in the forthcoming war with Germany.’ Maybe beetroot provides prophetic powers when taken in enormous quantities, Lady Lucy said to herself. Maybe it rots the brain. ‘In earlier times,’ the old lady continued, ‘I fortified myself in the final course with berries, blackberries, bilberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, redcurrants, all grown and preserved in my gardens and greenhouses. As the decades passed,’ how long has all this been going on, Lady Lucy muttered to herself, ‘I found the tastes of these fruits growing pale on my palate. I am sure they were healthy – indeed one of the teachers at the school next door claimed I could have survived a voyage to the South Seas on such a diet – but I had grown weary. Rhubarb, a food as delicious as beetroot, and with just as many culinary possibilities, has replaced them on my table. Again, I am self-sufficient in the supply of the produce.’ Lady Lucy thought that the gardener or gardeners of Church House must have a pretty tedious existence.
There was one final blast in the penultimate paragraph. Lady Lucy was ready for anything now. ‘Just one last admonition. I trust you will not be bringing any children or pets with you. You will, no doubt, be familiar with the old saying that children should be seen but not heard. My own view is that they should be neither seen nor heard in any properly run household. My own – how I regret ever having had them – were largely reared by the staff in the domestic outbuildings and only allowed in the main house for a spell of fifteen minutes a week on Sunday afternoons.’ Perhaps the children had turned into monsters, locked away in the bedrooms above the stables, fed on a diet of rhubarb and beetroot, grown crabby and dyspeptic before their time. Perhaps they had run away. Or asked for more. Probably not that, she told herself.