Page 29 of The Meriwell Legacy
“Even so. Adverse reputations can take decades to redeem, especially within the ton.”
Stokes merely humphed, then caught the rustle of skirts briskly nearing. He turned as a tall lady—only an inch or so shorter than Stokes himself—appeared framed in the archway through the hedge. Her eyes landed on Stokes, and she walked forward, inclining her head politely if with reserve, then she looked at Carradale.
Carradale had straightened. “Inspector Stokes—this is Miss Whittaker. She’s a distant cousin of Miss Johnson and arrived on the morning we found Glynis dead.”
“Indeed.” Miss Whittaker’s gaze was measuring as it lingered on Stokes’s face. “Circumstances being what they are, I cannot say that I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Inspector, but Lord Carradale has assured me I should be glad that you’re here. I was sent by my family to fetch Glynis home from this event, but to my sorrow, I arrived too late.”
“Miss Whittaker came upon the scene just after I had discovered Miss Johnson’s body.”
“I had arrived in the village the evening before and decided to wait until morning to speak with Glynis. I now regret I didn’t come straight on to Mandeville Hall—had I done so, Glynis would not be dead.”
“I see.” Stokes had been doing some assessing of his own. Over the years, he’d learned to read the subtle cues carried in the way members of the ton and higher gentry interacted with each other; he wondered if Carradale had made a conscious decision to move closer to Miss Whittaker, or if she knew how revealing it was that she’d accepted Carradale’s nearness without so much as a batted lash.Hmm.However, all he said was, “If you were among the first to find Miss Johnson’s body, I’ll need to speak with you at length.”
“I was also among the first to view Mrs. Cleary’s body,” the formidable Miss Whittaker stated. “After Glynis’s death, Mr. Mandeville—Percy—kindly offered me houseroom. Given Glynis’s chaperon is presently still sedated and cannot be moved, I accepted his offer and have been residing at the Hall since.” She glanced at Carradale, then looked back at Stokes. “Lord Carradale and I have essentially joined forces to ensure my cousin’s death—and now that of Mrs. Cleary as well—are properly investigated and the murderer brought to justice. If the matter had been left to the magistrate, all would have been swept under the proverbial rug as a mere inconvenience.”
Stokes blinked. “I see.” He had to wonder how any magistrate had thought to get away with such a response with a lady of Miss Whittaker’s caliber involved.
The sound of a carriage coming quickly up the drive reached them.
Stokes felt a modicum of relief. It occurred to him that Miss Whittaker and Penelope Adair would get on famously; they seemed cut from a similar cloth. “With luck, that will be the Adairs.” He glanced at Carradale.
“His lordship explained that Mr. Adair and his wife often assist you in cases such as this.” Miss Whittaker turned and led the way out of the shrubbery.
When Stokes looked at Carradale, the man merely shrugged and waved for Stokes to precede him.
Stokes did; once beyond the archway, with the silent but industrious Philpott bringing up the rear, he and Carradale fell in on either side of Miss Whittaker as she determinedly strode for the forecourt.
The light traveling carriage had barely halted and was still rocking on its springs when the door opened and Barnaby Adair stepped down. He saw Stokes approaching, noted his companions, and raised a hand in greeting. With his other hand, Adair gripped his wife’s gloved hand and assisted her to the gravel.
Penelope retrieved her fingers from her husband’s clasp, shook out her skirts, and looked around with interest—not to say blatant curiosity. And not a little relief. Delivered at close to noon, Stokes’s note advising them of a case with which he would be glad of their assistance if they could spare the time had arrived at a fortuitous moment. The house party she and Barnaby had felt pressured to attend had turned out to be even more political than they’d feared; a legitimate excuse to cut short their attendance had come as a godsend, one they’d fallen on with alacrity. That the house party had also been in Hampshire, just north of Andover and not at all far away, had been the cream on their cake.
On top of that, as she was expecting their second child but was thankfully not yet showing, Penelope was keen to have something with which to occupy her mind—to keep said mind away from dwelling on her occasionally queasy stomach.
She had great hopes that this investigation would prove an effective distraction.
After a quick survey of the house—an older place with Gothic pretensions—she followed Barnaby’s lead and focused on the people accompanying Stokes and Constable Philpott across the lawn. She narrowed her gaze on the gentleman. “Isn’t that Carradale? The friend of Hartley Galbraith—his erstwhile landlord? And you know him as well, and of course, I’ve seen him in passing in town.”
Barnaby nodded. “That is, indeed, Carradale. I think his estate is nearby—somewhere in Hampshire, at least—but I have no idea who the lady is.”
Penelope put on her best smile. “She appears to be leading the men. How intriguing.”
Barnaby humphed as the trio reached the forecourt; gravel crunched as they approached.
The lady halted at a polite distance; Stokes and Carradale flanked her. A full head taller than Penelope, the lady possessed a statuesque figure, while her severely cut and otherwise unremarkable morning gown—in a shade of plum that Penelope herself was fond of—suggested that the lady hailed from the upper gentry rather than the aristocracy. However, the excellent fabric and styling plus the simple yet finely wrought gold chain about the lady’s throat declared that, regardless of her social status, her family was relatively well heeled.
Stokes nodded to Barnaby and Penelope, and Carradale inclined his head to them both. Stokes waited for the noise of the carriage rolling off around the house to fade, then made the introductions. He concluded with “As Carradale found the first body and was joined within minutes by Miss Whittaker—who had been sent by the victim’s family to fetch her home from this event—and Miss Whittaker was also among the first to view the second body, I suggested that we wait for you to join us before Carradale and Miss Whittaker give us a rundown of events as they know them.”
“An excellent idea.” Penelope turned bright eyes on Carradale and the interesting Miss Whittaker. “You might begin, Miss Whittaker, by telling us why your family wished your cousin to come home.”
Miss Whittaker blinked, but after a moment’s hesitation obliged, explaining that her family, with her grandfather as its head, had deemed the event unsuitable for her distant cousin, Miss Glynis Johnson. “It was felt that this was not an event an unmarried lady, chaperoned or not, should attend.” Without further prompting, Miss Whittaker outlined the timing of her arrival in the nearby village and her subsequent call at Mandeville Hall the following morning. “I expected to be able to collect Glynis and her chaperon, Mrs. Macomber, and depart—Glynis wouldn’t have argued with me—but instead…” She paused, then glanced at Carradale.
He shifted, then said, “I think it better if I start on the Monday evening.” Succinctly, he described what he knew of events during the gathering in the drawing room, including his thought that Glynis Johnson might have claimed his escort for a stroll on the terrace in order to make a point with some other gentleman present, although he had no idea in which gentleman her interest lay or exactly what her point might have been. He also mentioned the gold chain about her throat and that a pendant of some sort had weighed it down, yet Miss Johnson had kept whatever she wore on the chain concealed.
The details of the following morning, when he’d found the body, were quickly told, and then, between them, he and Miss Whittaker related the salient points of that day, including the discovery that the chain and whatever had been on it appeared to have been ripped away, almost certainly by the murderer. Also, that a Mrs. Rosamund Cleary had reported seeing a gentleman leaving the shrubbery at about the time Miss Johnson had been killed, but that Mrs. Cleary hadn’t seen the man well enough to identify him. Consequently, despite the magistrate’s attempts to blame some fictitious passing gypsy, there was every reason to believe that the murderer was one of the gentleman presently residing at the house—specifically, the gentleman Mrs. Cleary saw.
“How many gentlemen are there on our suspect list?” Penelope asked.
Carradale mentally counted, then replied, “If you include all the gentlemen who were sleeping under the Hall’s roof, there are ten.”
