The Missing Diamond Murder Page 10

  ‘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.’

  FIFTEEN

  Fran had intended to see Imogen next, her interest in what the gir
l had to say considerably heightened by the news that she had spent a substantial part of the crucial afternoon unsupervised. However, she was not destined to interview Imogen that morning, because no sooner had Miss Billington left the room than Hen came in, wanting her to come upstairs and try on the Pierrot costume.

  Fifteen minutes later, Hen was shaking her head critically as Fran stood before the full-length mirror in her bedroom. ‘It isn’t really you, is it? We’ll have to find something else. Not to worry. We’ve a whole hamper of stuff up in the attic, from when we had a big pash for amateur theatricals. Let’s go up and see what we can find.’

  It was the first time Fran had been up to the third floor. Hen led the way up the narrow attic stairs and then through a couple of windowless rooms lit by bare bulbs which dangled from the ceiling, leaving pools of shadow around the periphery of each space. It occurred to Fran that you might very easily be able to hide a small precious stone up here, though of course Mr Edgerton himself had not been able to manage the stairs. She was about to ask Hen how thoroughly the attics had been searched for the missing gem when Hen emitted a cry of triumph and flung open a wicker hamper, which was easily big enough for a grown man to have concealed himself inside.

  ‘Here it is. Oh, look at this’ – she held up an elaborately sequinned frock – ‘you could have a card pinned to your dress with a big X painted on it and go as the Flapper Election. Oh, and here is the phantom monk’s hooded robe. That would be far too long for you as it was made for Eddie … I suppose we could get Jane to turn it up, but it’s not exactly glam, is it?’

  Henrietta continued to root through the hamper, holding up an assortment of suggested costumes, each less desirable than the last, while Fran wondered what on earth she was going to get talked into.

  ‘Has anyone searched for the diamond up here?’ Fran asked at one point, but Hen only said vaguely that ‘of course, we searched the whole house’ before returning her attention to the contents of the trunk and eventually deciding that a medieval red velvet robe with matching beaded skull cap would be just the thing with which to transform Fran into Juliet.

  ‘Oh no, I can’t possibly be Juliet, I’m far too old,’ Fran protested.

  ‘Nonsense. No woman is ever too old to play Juliet. I’m sure you will look absolutely lovely. Come on, let’s take this downstairs and you can try it on.’

  By the time the costume had been pronounced ‘just the thing’ by Henrietta, and Fran had resumed her sensible tweed skirt and pale green jumper, washed her hands and brushed her hair, she found that Roly and Tom were already waiting in the drawing room.

  ‘What a nice surprise to find you here,’ Tom said. ‘I thought you might have been back home by now.’

  ‘Fran only arrived a couple of days ago,’ said Mellie. ‘She’s hardly had time to talk to everyone yet.’

  Fran, doing her best not to catch Tom’s eye over his blatant fib, said, ‘The truth is that everyone has made me so welcome here, and provided such interesting diversions, that I haven’t got on as fast as I probably should.’

  ‘Fran is a delightful house guest and we are in no hurry to see her leave,’ Roly put in gallantly.

  Having gathered her wits, Fran turned directly to Tom and said, ‘I had no idea that your business interests brought you all the way down here.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got an increasing number of connections down here in the south-west. Yesterday I was with the grower of some of the best cauliflowers I’ve ever seen over at Budleigh Salterton.’

  ‘Budleigh Salterton? Isn’t that near Sidmouth?’ Fran enquired and was gratified to note the way Mellie shot her husband a swift glance. She had the strongest suspicion that ‘you know what’ was in some way related to ‘the Sidmouth affair’.

  ‘Do you know Sidmouth?’ Hen – apparently unruffled – asked Fran.

  ‘Only that it is said to be very nice there. A friend of my mother’s often used to go there for the summer, I believe.’

  Roly turned to Tom. ‘Devon soil is excellent for all manner of things. Though of course our high rainfall produces wonderful grazing for dairy farming.’

  ‘Now, Roly,’ his wife chided. ‘No business over luncheon, if you please.’

  ‘Hardly business, my sweet. I was really commenting on that perennial conversation filler, the weather.’

  Everyone laughed politely and Jamieson temporarily curtailed conversation of any sort by banging the gong which was a summons to the dining room.

  ‘Are you married, Mr Dod?’ asked Mellie when they were all seated at the table and Jamieson was padding around, offering Russian salad to accompany the smoked fish.

  ‘I am. My wife and I have one boy, William, who will be eleven this summer.’

  ‘An only child?’ said Mellie. ‘I have always feared that an only child might want for playmates.’

  ‘William is away at school, so he hardly wants for company.’

  ‘Not everyone wants a great tribe of brothers and sisters,’ Henrietta said firmly. ‘I’ve often thought there would be definite advantages to not having any brothers at all.’ She put her tongue out at Roly, who laughed and then turned to ask Tom if he had been following the news from Australia.

  ‘Ponsford and Bradman are piling on the runs it seems,’ Roly remarked. ‘It doesn’t auger well for the summer test matches.’

  ‘Oh, I think they’ll find England a very different kettle of fish to Tasmania,’ Tom said cheerfully.

  The diversion into cricket provided a helpful distraction and lunch proceeded without any further potentially awkward observations regarding family life. When the treacle tart was almost totally consumed, Roly said, ‘I hope you won’t feel the need to rush away, Mr Dod, for I’m sure you would enjoy seeing the gardens. Under normal circumstances a member of the family would be glad to show you round, but my mother, the architect of the whole affair, is away at a charity luncheon, I have an appointment with my estate manager and I believe my wife has made some arrangements to call on one of her sisters. That only leaves Henrietta and Fran.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t possibly,’ said Hen. ‘I simply have to write some letters in time to catch the post. Fran, would you mind very much taking charge of Mr Dod until teatime – you did say you could stay for tea, didn’t you, Mr Dod? That still leaves you plenty of daylight to get back to your hotel?’

  To Fran, the unavailability of the entire Edgerton clan felt somewhat contrived and she experienced a quick pang of anxiety, for surely a span of several hours alone with Tom was exactly the kind of thing she had come here to avoid? At the same time, she could not help but welcome the opportunity to talk the mystery over with him, so she said, ‘Well, as it looks as if I am the only person available, then of course I would be delighted to act as guide, though I’m afraid I don’t know anything much about the gardens except the little I’ve gained from walks with Eddie.’

  ‘Which would be little enough,’ said Henrietta. ‘As Eddie probably talked nonsense, the whole time he was taking you around.’

  ‘I will just have to run upstairs and get my jacket,’ Fran said.

  She met Tom again in the hall a few minutes later, where Roly seemed well pleased to hand him over, though he said, ‘Wish I could come with you, old chap. Much more fun than listening to McAllister banging on about a tenant’s leaking roof and the price of cattle, but there we are, duty calls and all that.’

  ‘We’ll go out via the terrace,’ Fran said, leading the way. ‘And then I can show you where old Mr Edgerton went over the cliff,’ she added when she was sure that Roly was out of earshot.

  As they followed the route to the cliff edge, which Eddie had shown her on their first walk together, Fran quickly explained the circumstances of the old man’s death and the subsequent discovery regarding the loss of the diamond.

  ‘Do you think the Edgertons suspected foul play from the first?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Maybe not. The death was unexpected and I think everyone was initially shocked and assumed that it must have
been an accident, even though the old man’s general condition argued against it.’

  ‘And later on, when they began to suspect, they didn’t want to involve the police, in case it turned out to be one of the family?’

  ‘I think it goes deeper than that. Mellie, in particular, is very sensitive to the idea of scandal. Her world is based on knowing everyone who is worth knowing in the immediate locality. If the other families in their circle dropped them, there would be no socializing at all. The Edgertons too, although they pretend not to give a fig about being new money, are actually quite conscious of it. I dare say that Henrietta and Eddie hope to make good marriages among the local nobs and snobs, the way Roly has. They don’t want to end up being in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. Even coming under suspicion could be really damaging and a whiff of suicide and insanity can damage your chances of finding a partner almost as much. Mellie as good as said something of the sort the other day.’

  ‘It’s pretty difficult to believe in an accident,’ Tom commented a few moments later, having reached the point where the path bent to the east, but old Mr Edgerton’s wheelchair had gone due south.

  ‘I agree. I’ve narrowed down the time he must have gone over the edge to about two hours. Jamieson saw him asleep in the library at around two p.m. and there appears to have been someone on the terrace from about four p.m.’

  ‘Can we believe Jamieson?’

  ‘There were also people having lunch at the table on the terrace: Lady Louisa, her brother-in-law Charles Edgerton and his wife, Dolly. They would have seen Mr Edgerton, if he had gone out that way – and because it’s the only level route to the cliff path, he must have gone that way, whether under his own steam, or being pushed along by a third party.’

  ‘If lunch is generally served at one, they wouldn’t finish until one thirty or one forty-five at the earliest,’ Tom mused. ‘What time did they leave the terrace?’

  ‘That’s a bit vague. Charles and Dolly walked back down to the beach and Lady Louisa went up to lie down, as she’d developed a headache, but at a rough guess, they probably left not much earlier than two.’