Page 28 of The Meriwell Legacy
Carradale thought before shaking his head. “No. Nothing at all. As far as I saw, everyone behaved entirely normally.” He met Stokes’s gaze. “It was a good group—a felicitous choice of guests. Everyone seemed to be getting on, and there was no hint of any tensions. Mandeville—Percy, that is—and I commented on the ease of the company on Monday evening, during what was effectively a soirée, held in the drawing room.”
“So when did Monday’s death occur, and who died?”
Carradale’s expression turned grim. “The first to die was a Miss Glynis Johnson. Sometime after the company retired—so more correctly in the early hours of Tuesday—she was strangled just inside the shrubbery. At about that time, another guest, a Mrs. Rosamund Cleary, was taking the air on the terrace. She saw a gentleman leave the shrubbery and make for the house. The light was poor, and she couldn’t see who it was, but she was certain the man was a gentleman and that he headed for the front door, which at that hour was still unlocked.”
Stokes closed his eyes and stifled a groan. “Don’t tell me—this Mrs. Cleary is the other lady now dead.”
He opened his eyes to see Carradale nod.
“A maid found Mrs. Cleary dead in her bed on Wednesday morning. There was a pillow tucked down beside the bed. Those of us who’ve seen Mrs. Cleary and examined the pillowcase believe the pillow was used to smother her while she slept. She might well have taken laudanum to help her sleep, but it was clear she’d thrashed in the bed before she…died.”
The last word was said with both sorrow and distaste. And not a little underlying anger.
Stokes eyed Carradale. “Did you know Mrs. Cleary well?”
Carradale’s gaze snapped to his, then his lips twisted. “Not in the way you’re thinking. But I had been acquainted with her for…it must be nine years. Ever since her husband died and she started moving in the same circles I did.”
Stokes registered Carradale’s use of the past tense and wondered, but the point was unlikely to be relevant to the investigation. He glanced at the hedges beyond the end of the long front terrace. “Is that the shrubbery over there?”
Carradale looked over his shoulder. “Yes. It’s extensive.”
“You said Miss Johnson’s body was found just inside—who found it?”
“I did.” Carradale turned back and met Stokes’s gaze. “I’d ridden over after breakfast to join the company for the day. I left my horse with the stableman, Hughes, and was walking up to the house—I always take the path through the shrubbery, as it avoids having to go through the kitchen and disturbing the staff.”
Stokes nodded his understanding. He debated, then said, “You’re going to have to go through everything for Adair and Penelope—I can’t imagine they won’t turn up in the next half hour or so. Given that, instead of you telling and me hearing all twice, while the light’s still good, I’ll take a look at where you found Miss Johnson’s body.”
Carradale waved down the steps. “The fastest route is via the forecourt, along the front of the terrace, then across the lawn.”
On reaching the gravel of the forecourt, Stokes glanced at the front door, then fell in beside Carradale, matching his long strides. “Am I correct in thinking we’re retracing the route that the gentleman who was glimpsed leaving the shrubbery would have taken?”
“Going by what Rosa said, had he been a member of the house party, then yes. He would have come this way.” As they rounded the corner of the house, Carradale pointed along the terrace that continued down that side. “From the shrubbery entrance, I normally make for the steps and the side door there”—he was pointing to steps leading up to a door set between windows midway down the terrace—“but that door gives onto the library and, late at night, would likely have been locked.”
“That suggests the gentleman knew the ways of the house well enough to make for the front door.”
Carradale waggled his head. “In case guests want to walk at night, Percy makes a point of mentioning that the front door is the last to be locked and that very late. Any of the guests would have known.”
Stokes humphed.
Carradale led him to an archway cut in the thick, high hedges that, it seemed, enclosed quite a large section of the garden. “There are five discrete gardens within the shrubbery. The hedged paths link them—like corridors between rooms.”
Halting just inside the archway, Stokes saw what Carradale meant. The grass there was lush underfoot, rendering the “corridor” one with green walls and floor and blue sky for a ceiling. Noting an area three yards on where the grass was still partially flattened, Stokes pointed. “She was there?”
“Yes.” Carradale’s tone held the taut undercurrent of anger again. He walked to the spot and looked down. “Just there.” Then he looked further and waved beyond the end of the walk. “I passed through three of the five gardens to reach here. The other two gardens are on the other side of the entrance.”
Stokes crouched and examined where the body had lain—it was just possible to make out—then he raised his head and scanned the area. “This seems an odd place to meet—so close to the entrance. Perhaps Miss Johnson and the gentleman had been walking together in one of the gardens and had started back toward the house when some argument blew up.”
Carradale shrugged. “Either that or she came out expecting to meet someone, but ran into the murderer instead.”
“Then whoever she was supposed to meet should have found her, or at least mentioned the aborted meeting the next day.” Stokes looked up at Carradale and arched his brows. “What if she merely went for a walk in the night air and the murderer ran into her as she was heading back—possibly having followed and lain in wait?”
Carradale wrinkled his nose. “That’s theoretically possible, but as Miss Johnson was an unmarried young lady of unblemished reputation hoping to attract a reasonable offer, and she didn’t strike me as a silly twit, I would class her walking alone late at night in an unfamiliar garden filled with high hedges and dark shadows as highly improbable.”
Stokes grunted and rose. “So, tell me—you found her body on Tuesday morning. Why wasn’t the Yard informed then?”
“Ah—you have the local magistrate, Sir Godfrey Stonewall, to thank for that.” Carradale paused, then added, “And, of course, Scotland Yard’s still-lingering unsavory reputation.”
“That’s been more imagined than real for the past decade.”
