Miss Winifred Strong was watching from her bedroom window for her father and Uncle Alfred to return to Birchall House. As soon as she saw their horses plodding wearily up the drive, she ran lightly down the stairs and had the front door open even before Maynard got there.
“Well, Papa? Who is it? Who has died?”
Sir Hubert gave a little smile. “The chaplain. Nicholson.”
Mr Nicholson! Thank God it was not… anyone else. She was very sorry for it, naturally, and desperately sad for poor Lady Alice, for whatever would she do without her husband? But at least another person was quite safe.
“Mr Nicholson… oh. Then… a sudden illness? An apoplexy? His heart? Although he seemed fit enough.”
“Would that it were so simple. Come into my book room, Winnie. And you, Alfred. You need a drink… at least, I do, and I’m sure you must. Such a sight as we have seen! No, Maynard, we can see to ourselves. Tell Lady Strong that we are returned, will you?”
“What will you have, Papa?” Winnie said, crossing to the table where the decanters stood ready.
“Brandy. A large one, and the same for your uncle.”
Winnie’s eyebrows rose, but she swiftly poured the drinks and handed them round.
“What a day!” Sir Hubert said, downing half his glass in one gulp. “Winnie, I shall tell you all, because there will be no possibility of keeping it quiet, but you must not make idle chatter of it. Not that you are at all an idle chatterer, but youknow what I mean. No talking about it in front of the servants, and if anyone calls on your mother, do not mention it unless they do.”
“Papa, this is serious indeed. You are alarming me! What on earth happened to poor Mr Nicholson?”
“He was murdered in the middle of the night by a man with an axe.”
Whatever Winnie’s fears had conjured up, this was far, far worse. She sat down suddenly on the nearest chair, her head spinning.Murdered!And with an axe!
“But who would do such a thing? And why? And will he murder anyone else?”
Uncle Alfred said calmly, “Well! That is a possibility we had not considered. We should have, of course. What is your opinion, Hubert?”
Sir Hubert frowned. “It seems unlikely to me. The axe was left behind, after all, and whoever wielded it has disappeared.”
“Yet such a frenzied attack is surely the work of a deranged mind,” Uncle Alfred said.
“All the more likely, then, that his lust for blood has been sated for the moment,” Sir Hubert said. “One such murder is fantastic enough, without anticipating a whole series of such events. Until we know the reason for this murder, we cannot speculate on whether there will be a repetition. So long as all the doors are locked at night, the residents of Corland Castle should be safe enough.”
“That did not protect them last night,” Uncle Alfred said in subdued tones.
Silently, Winnie refilled the glasses, and as her mother came in just then with her younger sister Lily and was told what had happened, more interesting elements of the discussion had to be left to another time. At that moment, Winnie wished with all her heart that she had been born a boy, for then she wouldhave lingered over the port with the gentlemen after dinner, and heard all the details that she craved.
However, when dinner came and went, she had not been in the drawing room with Mama and Lily for long when Maynard came in.
“Beg pardon, my lady, but the master wishes to know if you can spare Miss Strong for a few minutes. He’d like to see her in the dining room.”
“Oh… of course, for I have Miss Lily to bear me company. Run along, Winnie.”
With eager steps, Winnie ran along. It was not that she had any ghoulish interest in poor Mr Nicholson’s terrible death, for she had heard all she wanted to about that. Rather, she had a great interest in the earl’s family, with whose estate their own more modest park abutted, so that the two sets of children had grown up together. When Walter, Eustace and Josie, the three eldest of the earl’s offspring, had roamed free, they had as often as not found their way to the boundary with Birchall House, while Winnie, Hebe and Mabel were as much on Corland ground as their own. And both sets had regarded the Strongs’ tree house, so close to the boundary that branches reached across it, as common territory.
And what Winnie wanted to hear more than anything just then was how Walter was taking the news that the chaplain had been murdered. Walter… all her thoughts at that moment were with Walter, as they so often were. Not that she could ever tell anyone that. It was her Great Big Secret, never to be spoken of. Only Mama knew of it, and she had promised never to tell.
Papa and Uncle Alfred still sat at the dining table, a glass of port apiece, the decanter unstoppered. They rose as she entered.
“Ah, Winnie, there you are. Come and sit down, my dear,” her father said, holding the chair next to his own for her. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“I should like to try the port, if I may,” she said, and the two men laughed. Uncle Alfred poured a small amount into a glass for her, and she sipped it cautiously. It was rather pleasant, strong but not fierce, as brandy was.
“Now, Winnie,” her father said as he resumed his seat, “your uncle reminds me how useful you have been to him in the matter of taking notes and writing them up in a fair hand, and so we thought to ask if you would do the same for us in this affair at the castle.”
“Of course, Papa, if I can. What would you wish me to do?”
