“A lady?” Walter said sharply. “Then you are seriously thinking… you propose that Aunt Alice murdered her own husband? I confess, I wondered myself after finding her here covered in blood, but she is blind, after all. How could she do it? And she is the daughter of an earl, may I remind you.”
“Rank is no bar to wickedness, my lord,” Captain Edgerton said, looking him steadily in the eye.
“In general, yes, but in the particular… Aunt Alice would not hurt so much as a fly. Anyone who knows her would tell you as much.”
“Which is precisely why I have been engaged to investigate this murder,” the captain said calmly. “Knowing none of you, I can therefore make no assumptions. In fact, Imust notmake assumptions. I did so on my last commission, and two innocent men almost died because of it, so I no longer say ofanyonethat he or she could not possibly have done the deed. The Lady Alice Nicholson was discovered beside the freshly murdered body of her husband, covered in his blood and with the axe which almost certainly killed him in her hand, so she must be at the very top of my list of potential murderers. No one will be more pleased than I to prove her innocence, I assure you, but at the moment, that proof evades me.”
5: The Man On The Stairs
Captain Michael Edgerton sat in the old nursery facing Sandy across the scarred table that served as their interview desk.
“Who is next, Sandy?” Michael said.
“It should be Mr Eustace Atherton, the middle son, but he’s away somewhere, and he doesnae even live here.”
“He has gone to Doncaster, a long-standing engagement, but one wonders why he thought it appropriate to abandon his family with a murderer on the loose. He knows about the weapons, too, so he might have told us where the axe came from. There are suits of armour all over the place, have you noticed? And all sporting a suitably ferocious pike or sword or mace — or axe. Well, skip Mr Eustace for now.”
“Mr Kent Atherton, Captain. Who will smile and tell us he knows nothing, saw nothing and the chaplain was a saint.”
Michael chuckled. “True, but it has to be done. Ring the bell, will you, and let us see what Mr Kent has to say.”
“If he can be found and hasnae gone off shooting pheasant.”
Michael winced. “In June, Sandy? Hardly.”
“I cannae get my head round the proper seasons for shooting things. In Canongate, we thought ourselves lucky to have meat on the table at all.”
Mr Kent Atherton arrived within five minutes, looking inappropriately excited. “At last! I thought you would never get to me. How are you getting on, Captain? Found the murderer yet, have you?”
“It is early days, sir,” Michael said.
Kent was a slender, dark-haired man of twenty-two, not above average height, with a cheerful countenance featuring a perpetual smile. Despite the seriousness of the subject, he chuckled. “He got in through the scullery window, it would seem. But Shapman has fixed it, and changed all the locks, so he will not be coming back, will he? A pity, for I should very much like to see you defend us from attack with that businesslike sword, Captain. Seen some action, has it?”
“The night of the murder, sir…”
“Ah, straight to the point,” Kent said with another chuckle.
“You were asleep in this room on the plan… is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Please describe what happened, sir, and what you did. Be as precise as you can.”
“I heard Aunt Alice screaming fit to burst. Just screaming and screaming, continuously. I put on some clothes… a nightgown and robe, and lit a candle, then stuck my head out of the door to see if I could see what was going on.”
“You did not rush towards the screams?”
“Not at first. I thought most likely it was a fire, so I was expecting smoke… maybe flames. But there was nothing like that. Then Father’s door opened, he saw me and we set off to Aunt Alice’s room. She was still screaming… the whole house must have been awake by this time. Someone was coming up the main stairs, and we saw Walter… Lord Birtwell go into AuntAlice’s room ahead of us. You know what we found there. It was… horrible.” For the first time, the smile slipped. “I cannot bear to think of it. Please do not ask me to describe it.”
“We have a full description from the coroner’s report, sir. There is no need for you to say any more about it. However, there is just one point on which I would like your opinion. There were feathers strewn about from a torn pillow. Were they all settled on the bed or were any floating in the air?”
“You want to know how recent the murder was, of course. There were some still floating in the air, but Aunt Alice may have disturbed them. She was covered in blood, so she must have touched Uncle Arthur.”
“Thank you, sir. What happened after that?”
“The girls appeared… my sister Olivia and my cousin Tess. Walter pushed them out of the room and set footmen to guard the door. There were several footmen who had come down from the attics.”
“So apart from the footmen from the attics, and various members of the family from the bedroom floor, who else was there?”
