Captain Michael Edgerton leaned back in his chair. “Well, Luce? What did you make of Mr Bertram Atherton?”
His wife smiled as she gathered up the used wine glasses. “He seems an inoffensive young man.”
“Yes, but they all seem inoffensive,” Michael said. “Everyone is affable, the chaplain was a saint and no one has a bad word to say about him, yet someone chopped him up with an axe.”
“Michael, please!” Luce protested. “I do not need to be reminded of the gruesome nature of the murder.”
“But that is what makes the matter so intriguing,” Michael said. “If you were to murder someone, Luce, how would you do it, do you think?”
“Oh, poison. A few drops of something unpleasant in the brandy decanter… or that flask of whisky Sandy keeps in his pocket, if he were to be my target. A final drink before bed, and… poof. How about you? A duel?”
“No, no, no. The idea is to kill someone without being detected, and not have to flee the country at once. Poison isquite ingenious, because you could arrange to be far away at the time, and it might even be passed off as a natural death. My own choice would be to shoot my target. I would wait until there was a big party out with guns and by picking the moment, no one would notice a thing. The birds would fly up, there would be a volley of shots and my man would be found flat on his back, stone dead. Poof. Sandy? How would you kill a man?”
“Drowning,” the Scotsman said. “A rock to the back of the head, hold him under water, and then let the body float downstream. Ye’d never know he didn’t just fall in.”
“Remind me to keep on the right side of both of you,” Michael said soberly. “But that is the point — none of us would consider breaking into a building full of people at dead of night, going up two flights of stairs, picking up an axe that just happened to be left lying around on the way and then slaughtering a man sleeping in his bed. One could be discovered at any moment. It is just not practical.”
“Yet it happened,” Luce said softly.
“Precisely. But why? Why kill the chaplain at all, but if you must do it, why kill him in that reckless way? It makes no sense.”
“Unless the murderer had no other choice,” Sandy said. “If ye cannae shoot or drown or poison a man, but ye know exactly where he’ll be… and ye have a legitimate reason to be in his room…”
“You mean his wife, I suppose,” Michael said. “The adoring wife who was so devoted to her husband, yet was discovered beside his bed covered in his blood and with an axe in her hand. Theblindwife, who cannot shoot or stab or use poison against him. Yet I dislike that idea. It is possible, but not probable, in my view.”
“Then who else?” Luce said. “Anyone in the castle could have done it just as easily, but why such a violent method, especiallywith the difficulty of disposing of blood-stained clothing? As you discovered, Michael.”
Michael chuckled. “Yes, I thought it would be easy enough — wear an old shirt to do the deed, roll it into a ball and hide it somewhere, then stuff it into the kitchen fire when no one is looking.”
“Which smothered the fire and nearly got the kitchen boy turned off without a reference, until you confessed that it was your doing,” she said, smiling at him.
“And it was difficult enough to get to the fire without being spotted,” he said. “I had to try it, just to see how easy it would be.”
“Only to find that it is not easy at all,” Luce said. “And that is precisely my point, there are far easier ways to kill the chaplain. Anyone who lived in the castle could simply put rat poison in the decanter of brandy he kept for his own use in his study. A gentleman with access to a gun could hide behind a bush as he rode on the moors. It had to be someone who had no other option — an outsider who crept into the castle and picked up the axe as a handy weapon.”
Michael sighed. “You are right, of course. I am also inclined to think that Nicholson was not blackmailing the heir regarding the disinheritance. He seemed to be genuinely shocked by the revelation — they all did. So let us begin again. Lady Alice remains our principal suspect, purely because she was discovered beside the body. But who else? Someone from outside the castle, but who? One of the labourers in Corland village? How likely is that? And beyond the handful of cottages here, it is miles to the next habitation — four miles to Birchall, and fully twelve to Mr Eustace’s house at Welwood-on-the-hill.”
“With a fast horse—” Sandy began.
“From Birchall, one would not even need to ride,” Luce said. “The road takes a wide sweep, but there is a good, clear path,no more than a mile, or a mile and a quarter, from the castle, cutting across Sir Hubert Strong’s estate. Was there a full moon that night?”
Michael calculated. “Near enough. A path… interesting.”
“Peachy discovered it. She is an indefatigable walker, and is not content to confine herself to the gardens, as I am. It was very tiresome when she was my governess, I assure you, but happily I no longer have to tramp miles every day.”
“Where is Miss Peach, by the way? I have not seen her for days.”
“She has been ingratiating herself with Mrs Dewar and the Miss Dewars at the Birchall rectory. The ladies have any number of good works in hand for the parish involving sewing or knitting and suchlike. Peachy sits and sews and listens to all the gossip. She is insatiably curious, you know, and she finds that trading a very little bit of castle gossip — nothing too secret, naturally — elicits a great deal of village gossip. She has discovered that Mr Nicholson was not particularly well liked at Birchall, but she has not yet found out why.”
“Ah! Interesting,” Michael said. “And if the village is only a mile or so on foot from the castle… who lives at Birchall? Apart from Mr George Atherton and his family.”
“Sir Hubert Strong is the principal inhabitant, at Birchall House, which is the nearest residence to the castle. Westwick Heights, where the Athertons live, is further away, up the hill on the western side. Then there are the Franklyns at Highwood Place, but that is some three miles outside the village, out on the moors. There is the rectory and any number of shops and tradesmen of one sort or another.”
Michael fetched the map, and unrolled it. Silence fell in the old nursery, as they all pored over it.
***
Winnie enjoyed summer, when the days were enlivened by a round of family visits. The first to arrive was her father’s sister, Aunt Minna, whose York home had seen Winnie’s first tentative steps into a larger society when she was seventeen. It was Aunt Minna who had chaperoned her at the York assemblies and hosted the evening parties for eligible suitors. Nothing had come of those two modest seasons, but Winnie retained a great fondness for her aunt and her large, rambunctious family.
