“Well, though I say so myself, I make an excellent gooseberry jam,” she said gravely, “and my apple tart is regarded as the finest in the parish.”
He chuckled, and said, “You see? A sense of humour is far better than fearsome accomplishments. Miss Strong, it is still too early for the family to be up and about, so this would be a good time for me to prowl round the castle and get my bearings. Would you be so good as to show me around, since you seem to know the place very well? Not the basement, for the servants will be scurrying about down there, and I should not like to get in the way, but the principal apartments.”
“I cannot show you all the tower rooms,” she said. “Lord Rennington’s study is his private sanctum, and I have never been inside it. The Dowager Countess has one of the two off the gallery, and the other is the armoury and contains the most dangerous weaponry, so it is kept locked.”
“I shall get Simpson to unlock it for me later.”
With her father and uncle trailing behind, they descended to the great hall, and thence to the library, dining room, drawing room, parlour, music room and long gallery. Several of the rooms featured suits of armour, arranged with appropriate weaponry, but it was impossible to tell if any of them had once featured an axe. The captain then returned to the great hall, spending a considerable time minutely examining the various pikes, muskets, swords and axes displayed on the walls there. There were no gaps to indicate a missing axe, however, and the Strongs could tell him nothing about them, so eventually he led the way back to the nursery.
The captain had ordered breakfast to be served there, and although Winnie had already eaten, she was not averse to a little more tea and toast, while Sir Hubert and Uncle Albert tucked in with relish.
As she sipped her tea, Captain Edgerton said, “I am trying to fix the earl’s family in my mind, but it is a little confusing. There are five children, is that correct?”
“Lord and Lady Rennington have six children, three sons and three daughters. Walter is twenty-nine, and Eustace is twenty-seven, both unmarried. Josie is twenty-six and Izzy is twenty-four, both married. They are Lady Woodridge and Lady Farramont now. Kent is twenty-two and Olivia is eighteen. Unmarried.”
“And waiting for Grandmama to expire. Yes, I see. Eustace is the one I was missing. I knew of the two married daughters, and I met the other three at dinner last night.”
“Yes, you would not have seen Eustace. He inherited an estate from a neighbour, about twelve miles from here, so he no longer lives at the castle.”
When all had eaten their fill, the captain said, “Shall we walk around the upper floor? And perhaps I might examine the roomwhere Mr Nicholson was found? If the Lady Alice permits, of course.”
From the nursery, in one direction all the rooms were unused, kept as guest chambers, so they set off in the other direction, past one empty room and then to the room usually occupied by Walter. Now, however, the door stood open, and it was busy with men with brushes, smelling strongly of paint.
“Redecorating,” the captain murmured. “I wonder when this was started.”
An enquiry elicited the information that work had begun before Mr Nicholson’s demise.
“I have misled you, Captain,” Winnie said, frowning. “I marked Walter on the plan as being in this room, but he must have been in one of the guest rooms. No wonder he was the first to reach Lady Alice.”
“No matter,” the captain said easily. “This is why I like to walk around, to see for myself. Shall we move on? Now this corner is where Lord and Lady Rennington have their apartments, and this one is Mr Kent Atherton. Then an empty room?”
“That was where Josie and Izzy slept before they married.”
“Ah. The Lady Josephine and the Lady Isabella?”
“Isabel. Then Tess and Olivia. The Lady Olivia and Miss Teresa Nicholson. And this… this is the suite occupied by Lady Alice and…”
“The late Mr Arthur Nicholson,” the captain put in smoothly. “Miss Strong, may I prevail upon you to discover if her ladyship is within, and when it may be convenient for us to examine the bedroom? I do not need to see her ladyship at present, but I must see the place where the death occurred.”
“Of course.”
Winnie knocked quietly on the door, then pushed it open. As she hesitated on the threshold, a head popped out from behindan open wardrobe door, the frown immediately replaced by a smile. Winnie recognised Malling, Lady Alice’s maid.
“Ah, Miss Strong. Come to pay your respects, have you? She’ll be right glad to see you.”
“How is your mistress, Malling?”
The maid pulled a rueful face. “Very low, madam, very low indeed. They were as close as two people could well be, and her ladyship depended on Mr Nicholson for so much. Come in, and I’ll tell her you’re here.”
She ushered Winnie into the room, dominated by a vast canopied bed, before disappearing through a far door to the adjoining tower room. Winnie averted her eyes from the bed with a shudder. This, surely, was where the dreadful event had taken place. Yet there was nothing to indicate it. Everything was clean, the rug beside the bed spotless, the floorboards surrounding it polished to a high shine. The bed itself looked ready to receive its occupant. It was oddly disconcerting.
Malling was back in moments, and showed Winnie through into the tower room beyond. Winnie had expected a dressing room, but in fact it was arranged as a cosy sitting room, the round walls giving the space an unusual intimacy. Lady Alice and Lady Rennington sat side by side on a sofa, both in unrelieved black, holding hands.
“Miss Strong, my lady,” Malling said.
“Winnie! How kind of you to call,” Lady Alice said, holding out one hand in roughly the direction of the door, her eyes gazing unseeingly in the same direction.
“Lady Alice. Lady Rennington.” Winnie made her curtsy, then crossed the short space between them to take Lady Alice’s hand, and kneel at her feet. “Oh, Lady Alice, I am so very sorry. This is so—”
