Page 54 of Marble Hall Murders

‘No. We entered her room together. Mrs Crace was lying in bed, clearly in a bad way. She was barely conscious and breathing with difficulty. Mrs Rodwell – the housekeeper – called Dr Lambert. He was her personal physician and lived nearby. He set off immediately, but unfortunately she died before he arrived. He was the one who examined her and pronounced the cause of death: a heart attack. We’d all been expecting it, so it was hardly a surprise.’

‘Was there an autopsy?’

‘There didn’t need to be! I can assure you, Susan, there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, none at all, and I really think you should have a word with Eliot if he is going to suggest otherwise.’

‘Could I talk to Dr Lambert?’ It hadn’t escaped me that, despite the English pronunciation, Miriam’s doctor and Margaret Chalfont’s lawyer had the same name.

‘I really don’t think that would be a good idea.’ Frederick stood up, using the edge of the table for support. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I do get the feeling that you’ve been talking to me under false pretences,’ he suggested. ‘You said that Eliot was writing a work of fiction, but everything you have asked seems to be an unpleasant distortion of the truth. Miriam Crace made millions of people very happy. When I was alone in the orphanage, it was her work that gave me hope I might one day have a future, that the Little People would come and rescue me. You really should think very carefully before you allow Eliot to bring a wrecking ball to everything she created.’

‘That’s not what he’s doing,’ I said, also getting to my feet. ‘His book is set in 1955 in France. It’s a detective story.’

‘Then why have you been asking me all these questions?’ He leaned towards me, his hands balled into fists, resting his weight on the table. ‘If you don’t mind, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to speak to you any more. Do finish your tea. There won’t be any bill. But please don’t upset the ladies with more questions – and when you’ve finished, I really think you should leave.’

Dr Lambert

Who was I to believe? I had been given two completely different versions of the same story: ‘Hansel and Gretel’ vs ‘Cinderella’, if you like. For Eliot Crace, Miriam Crace had been the wicked witch, desperate to feed the children to the flames. For Frederick Turner, she had been the fairy godmother who had waved the wand so that hewouldgo to the ball. What did that make Marble Hall? A prison or a palace? I had a two-and-a-half-hour journey back to London and I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to start it until I had a clearer idea of what had really been going on all those years ago.

It was always possible that both of them might be right – speaking their own truth, as we’re meant to say these days. Frederick had admitted that he’d been educated separately from the other children and no matter how pleasantly he’d described it, he’d been sent to sleep in the attic. To what extent had he really been part of the family? Miriam Crace had adopted him, but he had never called her ‘Mother’ – and now he was reduced to managing the house where he had once lived, limping around, glad-handing the tourists.

As for Eliot, he’d given me a version of events as seen by a twelve-year-old, and having visited Marble Hall, I understood how easy it would have been to be unhappy there. The dark corridors, the claustrophobia, the isolation, even the taxidermy … I wouldn’t have wished it on any child of mine. It was also true that his parents had abandoned him at the first opportunity. The rapid exodus from Wiltshire, with Kenneth Rivers left behind to die on his own, certainly supported Eliot’s recollections.

What I needed was a third perspective from someone who had witnessed events without being involved in them. An outsider. And luckily, Frederick had given me the name of just the man. Dr Lambert had been Miriam Crace’s personal physician. Presumably he knew the family well. Frederick had also let slip that he lived nearby. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him.

I took out my phone and tapped four words into the search engine: LAMBERT, MIRIAM CRACE and DEATH. Nothing has done more damage to modern detective fiction than the invention of the internet. Forget Sherlock Holmes and his ratiocination or Hercule Poirot’s little grey cells. We have all the information in the world at our fingertips and there’s no longer any need for deduction. Sure enough, within seconds I had found what I was looking for in theWiltshire Times.

WORLD-FAMOUS AUTHOR FOUND DEAD AT HER DEVIZES HOME

Speaking from his surgery in Urchfont, Dr John Lambert described what had happened. ‘I was called to herhome at six o’clock in the morning, when she was discovered by the housekeeper. I had known Mrs Crace for many years and was aware of the fact that she had been suffering from heart disease, but still it was a great shock. My own children had been brought up on her books. Sadly, there was nothing I could do for her. She had passed away peacefully in her sleep.’

Urchfont was less than five miles away from Marble Hall. It was a beautiful place, a Wiltshire village bathed in the afternoon sunshine, centred on a handsome church and a duck pond that might have been purposely designed for jigsaw puzzles and chocolate boxes long before they were invented. I cruised along the high street in my MG with the roof down, looking for that more traditional search engine: the village pub. It was called The Lamb Inn and although it was past three o’clock, there were still drinkers sitting outside. I parked and went in.

A young man barely out of his teens stood behind the bar. I went over to him. ‘Can you help me? I’m looking for Dr Lambert. John Lambert. It’s stupid of me. My phone has gone down and I’ve lost his address.’

The barman looked at me blankly. ‘Mum!’ he called, never taking his eyes off me.

An older woman bustled in from a back room. ‘Yes?’

‘Do you know a Dr Lambert?’ I asked. ‘I’m trying to find his house.’

She looked me up and down. ‘You don’t look ill.’

‘I’m not. He’s a family friend.’

‘Well, I don’t know where he lives.’

‘He’s at Pynsent House, on the green.’ The voice came from the other side of the room. A man in a flat cap, playing dominoes, had taken pity on me. ‘That’s two minutes from here. He’s not a doctor any more, though.’

‘She says she’s not ill,’ the man playing against him said.

‘I know. I heard her.’ The first man scowled. ‘He doesn’t need to work,’ he went on. ‘Him and his wife. They’re doing all right for themselves.’

Around the pub, a few heads nodded in agreement. I got the sense that Dr Lambert and his wife weren’t the most popular members of the community. Even the barman’s mother seemed to have taken against him.

The village green was triangular, with three roads leading off. Pynsent House was a handsome brick building with three chimneys and a thatched roof, partly concealed by shrubbery. There was a classic car parked in the street outside, a Jaguar convertible with dark green panel work and gleaming chrome. It really was a museum piece and although it was an unworthy thought, I wondered how Dr Lambert had managed to afford it. Somehow it didn’t quite fit with the image of a retired country doctor. There wasn’t anywhere to park on the green, so I drove round the corner and found a spot nearby. Then I walked back and rang the bell.

The door was opened by a man in his seventies. He was still in good shape, but his thinning hair, drooping moustache and weathered skin gave away his age. If that was his car, he had spent too many hours with the roof down and the wind rushing into his face. He was wearing a cardigan, despite the warmth of the afternoon. He examined me with the sort oflook he might have reserved for a door-to-door salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness.

‘Yes?’

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