Page 9 of A Ruse of Shadows
The drive couldn’t compare with that at Stern Hollow—what could? For one thing, with the grounds as flat as a cricket pitch, there was no topographical variety. For another, the house became visible after only a minute or two. And in five more minutes, they were pulling up to the front door.
To be fair, the approachwasnice—the lane swerved just so, to give the visitor a glimpse of the small man-made lake behind the house, with its picturesque jetty and a blue rowboat tied to a post.
The house itself, however, made Mrs. Watson shake her head. Elizabethan timbers, Gothic turrets, Palladian columns, and an Italianate belvedere—was there a single notable feature from the last few centuries of manor construction that Garwood Hall had failed to reference?
She leaned closer to Miss Charlotte. “My dear, I take it you approve?”
For this occasion, Mrs. Watson was Miss Charlotte’s mother. Or rather, she was Mr. Yardley’s mother, Mr. Yardley being the role Miss Charlotte had taken on for the day.
From behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, Owen Yardley’s blue eyes twinkled. “I have no complaints about an architectural buffet, Mother.”
The dutiful “son” descended first and held out his hand for Mrs. Watson. Other than his portly build, there was little else to make him stand out in a crowd. Besides the reddish hair and beard, that is.
“Oh, you men. You are all the same—blind to such glaring defects.”
“I will admit that the house is a bit of a mishmash, stylistically, but it grows on one. It most certainly does,” Mr. Elstree hastened to reassure them. “And it is perfect for a busy man of business in need of a haven away from the cities: easy access on bank holidays, no tenants to deal with, very little wear and tear, and plumbing as advanced as any in the finest town houses.”
In other words, this was not a great house, with its attendant land, myriad outbuildings, and equally burdensome responsibilities, but merely a holiday lodge of recent fabrication that boasted certain modern amenities.
Mrs. Watson anticipated a similar hodgepodge inside: medieval weaponry next to Renaissance marble statues, maybe, and Louis XIV chairs backed by Japanese print screens. But on that front, she was pleasantly surprised. The interior decoration was thematically unified by an abundance of floral patterns, from almost imperceptible Egyptian lotus motifs on the wallpapers, to ornate swirling vines on the curtains and upholstery.
Although she did chortle a little to herself at the acreage of ancestral portraits on the walls, likely acquired at auctions and meant to make prospective tenants forget that they were not, in fact, visiting the manorial home of a landowning family that had earned its first royal patent before the Wars of the Roses.
The tour wended through the public rooms and then proceeded upstairs. Mrs. Watson tensed as Mr. Elstree showed them into the master’s apartment: It was in this bedroom that Victor Meadows had been found slain on Christmas morning, 1871. But here the décor carried on its botanical cheerfulness. Even the bed, which was said to have been blood-soaked, did not exude any sinister airs. It appeared to be simply another bedstead, solidly built, the top mattress so far above the floor that a step stool had been put in place to help with the ascent.
Mrs. Watson couldn’t help herself—she went to the adjoiningdoor. It opened easily—too easily, almost—to reveal the mistress’s bedroom on the other side, bathed in daylight.
On that fateful Christmas Day, the housemaid who came around every morning to sweep out grates and lay new fires had found Victor Meadows’s door locked. When she returned some time later, the door remained locked.
Perplexed, she’d knocked at the mistress’s apartment. Mrs. Meadows, in her dressing gown, was writing her to-do list for the day. The maid described the problem. Mrs. Meadows approached the adjoining door, only to find that it, too, had been barred from the other side.
Do you feel a draught?said Mrs. Meadows to the maid.
Icy cold air was rushing into the mistress’s room from underneath the adjoining door. Mrs. Meadows, who until then had only tried the door, now knocked and called to her husband.
Receiving no answer, they were puzzled but not alarmed. Perhaps Mr. Meadows had locked the adjoining door by mistake the night before. And it was possible he had gone for a long walk and locked the apartment door behind him when he’d left.
Mrs. Meadows instructed the maid to go on with her duties. She herself descended and spoke to the housekeeper. The housekeeper had been up early but had not seen the master come down.
At this point Mrs. Meadows’s brother-in-law, Mr. Ephraim Meadows, arrived for breakfast. Upon learning of the problem, he, too, knocked on his brother’s door. When he likewise received no response, he ventured outside and saw that one of the bedroom’s windows was wide open.
Mrs. Watson let go of the door handle still in her grip and glanced toward the windows. Her “son” stood before one.
“Sterling view, is it not?” said Mr. Elstree. “You will find the foliage very pleasing in autumn, too, my good sir.”
Mrs. Watson joined them at the windows. Instead of the scenery, Miss Charlotte seemed more interested in the architrave that ran beneath the windows. Or was “he” examining the paths on the lawnbelow, leading toward the front of the house in one direction and the jetty in the other?
The paths had been clear on that Christmas Eve, but snow had fallen overnight. Footprints on the paths would have been lost after the snow finally melted. Marks left below the window itself would have been trampled on Christmas morning by the entire household, which gathered to watch the gardener climb up into the open window.
“The panorama is impeccable,” said Owen Yardley. His voice was higher than Sherrinford Holmes’s. In fact, he was at least two inches taller than that other character in Miss Charlotte’s repertoire—those shoe lifts were working as advertised. “A remarkably agreeable place, Garwood Hall.”
It should have been an excellent opening for Mr. Elstree to sing more of the house’s praises. But the estate agent probably heard something in Owen Yardley’s tone, for his smile dimmed.
“My mother and I were both highly enthused about Garwood Hall,” continued Owen Yardley. “It is conveniently located and reasonably priced. We were willing to sign the lease if the property itself was halfway decent.
“On the train today we were talking about our prospects—how likely we were to find the estate in reasonable repair. Alas, a fellow passenger overheard our conversation and hastened to tell us that a former owner had been brutally murdered in this very house, in his own bed.”
All eyes darted to the bed. The bed curtains, ample yards of blue damask, fluttered with an influx of summer air. It was a handsome bed, dignified in every way.
