Murder at Mallowan Manor Read online

  ‘OK,’ said Libby, and stood up. ‘Thank you, Coolidge.’

  ‘Tea will be at four in the drawing room.’ The butler stood and bowed.

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Libby, escaping down the corridor. ‘Never in all my born years!’

  ‘Did you mean that?’ said Fran, catching her up. ‘About playing a part?’

  ‘Oh, it stands out a mile,’ said Libby. ‘If I didn’t think Dame Amanda was seriously worried I’d suspect her for setting up the whole thing as a joke.’

  ‘I suppose she isn’t?’ said Fran.

  Libby stopped outside the library. ‘But Andrew put her on to us after she’d told him the whole story. She didn’t know about us before then.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Fran opened the library door and walked in.

  A tall, thin man whirled round from in front of one of the bookshelves, a book open in his hands.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Fran, coming to a halt so that Libby crashed into her. ‘Who are you?’

  The man, stooping slightly, peered short-sightedly. ‘I’m sorry, but I think I should be asking the questions.’ He pulled himself up straighter, but passed a nervous hand over sparse greying hair. ‘This is my mother’s house.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Fran smoothly, ‘we are her guests.’

  The man stared at them a little longer, obviously waiting for them to introduce themselves. Libby and Fran remained silent.

  ‘Ah, Mr Dorian.’ Coolidge had appeared silently behind them. ‘I didn’t know you’d arrived.’

  ‘Mr Dorian’ looked startled. ‘Er – yes. My wife went straight up.’

  ‘Did she?’ Libby thought she heard a slight emphasis on Coolidge’s words. What it indicated she didn’t know, but it looked as though the two men didn’t like each other.

  ‘We’ll get out of the way,’ said Fran, grasping her by the elbow. ‘We’ll see you at tea in the drawing room.’

  Coolidge stepped aside and let them past, bowing slightly. They heard the library door close gently behind him.

  ‘Well, so that’s the son,’ said Libby as they crossed the hall to the staircase. ‘Unpleasant specimen.’

  ‘And Coolidge doesn’t like him. Or his wife.’ Fran was looking thoughtful.

  ‘Well, he certainly doesn’t like Mr Dorian, but I don’t see how you could tell about the wife.’

  ‘He disapproved of her going straight up to her bedroom without him knowing. I guess he doesn’t like them letting themselves in.’

  ‘Really? But if he’s Dame Amanda’s son …’

  ‘And she suspects a member of her family of working against her. QED, Coolidge doesn’t like them.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Libby turned this over in her mind as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. ‘And they’re up here with us. Which room do you think would be theirs?’

  ‘The one between the nephew’s and Dame Amanda’s,’ said Fran. ‘It isn’t the best furnished room in the house, from what I remember from earlier.’

  ‘No. So do they feel slighted?’

  ‘Probably. And it looked as though Mr Dorian didn’t know about us being here.’

  ‘I wonder if Dorian’s his first name or his second? I can’t remember who Dame Amanda married, can you? And she’s kept her maiden name.’

  Fran opened the door of the room where she’d found her case earlier. ‘He doesn’t look anything like her, does he?’

  Libby followed her into the room. ‘He’s not even nice.’

  ‘No.’ Fran sat on the bed and bounced. ‘Come on, then, what do we think so far?’

  ‘We think either her son or daughter – or possibly her nephew – started the haunting rumours, and someone, the nephew presumably, has been making haunting noises. As we said, either to scare her off, or to stop the sale.’

  ‘Scare her off so the family can live here without her,’ said Fran.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To find the mythical treasure?’

  ‘In which case, there must be a mention of it somewhere,’ said Libby. ‘They couldn’t have invented that if they’re going to all this trouble.’

  ‘And the daughter doesn’t want to sell,’ Fran reminded her, ‘so it must be the nephew and the son between them.’

  ‘So now all we’ve got to do is get them to admit it,’ said Libby. ‘At teatime, do you think?’

  ‘I thought in the library in the morning,’ said Fran with a grin. ‘A la Poirot.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Libby. ‘Then we can sit up all night to catch the ghost.’

  ‘I doubt if it will make an appearance tonight with so many people here,’ said Fran. ‘But I must admit to a certain amount of curiosity about the drawing room fireplace. Perhaps if the fake ghost stands down, I might get a chance at the real one.’

  ‘The real one?’ echoed Libby. ‘You think there is a real one?’

  ‘I told you, there’s something about that fireplace. Just a pity there’s no evidence on the outside of the building.’

  ‘I wonder if the prof has turned anything up?’ said Libby, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. ‘Shall I ask?’

  ‘I think he would have called if he had found something,’ said Fran, ‘but give it a try.’

  Libby called.

  ‘Libby,’ said Professor Andrew Wylie. ‘I was just about to call you.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Libby. ‘Is there a real story?’

  ‘The usual one about a Cavalier having left treasure for his family, of course, but you can’t have a mid-seventeenth-century house without one of those. Otherwise, nothing historical until you come to the last century.’

  ‘The twentieth?’

  ‘Yes, Libby.’ Professor Andrew sounded amused. ‘The last one.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘The only thing of any note is that the house appears to have been used as some kind of top secret centre. Nobody knew what went on there until just after Bletchley Park dropped the secrecy, but it still isn’t fully known.’

  ‘So no maids looking for lost children, then?’

  ‘Is that the ghost story? No, no maids. But there were rumours of hidden deaths. As far as I can make out, it was a training base, or possibly an interrogation centre. It’s near enough to the coast to be valuable as either.’

  ‘So rumours might have been deliberately started, do you think? To cover up what they were really up to? We’ve been told that people in the village say they don’t know anything.’

  ‘Could be, but this recent rumour looks to have sprung up fully formed only a month or so ago. There are a gaggle of desiccated academics trying to find out more as we speak.’

  ‘What we were just saying here,’ said Libby, ‘was that there must be a mention of some kind of treasure somewhere, or whoever’s doing this wouldn’t have bothered. You’ve found nothing like that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the professor. ‘I’ll let you know if I do.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fran after Libby had relayed the conversation. ‘No further forward, are we?’

  ‘We could start up a conversation about the house’s wartime history at tea,’ said Libby. ‘See who reacts?’

  ‘But that can’t have anything to do with the treasure,’ said Fran.

  Libby was silent for a moment, before springing up from the bed.

  ‘Oh, come on, we’re going round in circles. I’m going to unpack. I just wish I’d brought my laptop.’

  Fran smiled. ‘Look.’ She reached into her large canvas bag. ‘See what I’ve got.’

  Libby gasped. ‘It’s a tablet!’

  ‘Yes. It was Sophie’s, and she got the latest model so she gave this one to me.’

  ‘That’s a very good step-daughter you’ve got there,’ said Libby, stroking the screen admiringly.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Fran, ‘so I can look some of the stuff up myself. Or you can.’

  ‘No, you do it.’ Libby backed away. ‘I can’t even use a smartphone, let alone a tablet. I’ll go and unpack while you have a look.�
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  Ten minutes later, Fran followed her knock into Libby’s room.

  ‘I looked up the information we found on Dame Amanda the other day, and then had a look for Mr Dorian.’

  ‘Is he in the entry we found for her?’ Libby turned from the dressing table, where she had been trying to tame her Brillo pad hair.

  ‘No.’ Fran frowned. ‘And there’s no mention of a husband, either.’ She looked up. ‘Do you think we’re being had after all?’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Libby. ‘The only thing is, the prof has found out about the rumour, too –’

  ‘She could have started it herself,’ interrupted Fran. ‘Only too easy.’

  ‘But she sounded quite angry about it downstairs.’

  ‘She’s an award-winning actress and a Dame of the British Empire,’ said Fran. ‘I expect she could convince us of anything if she put her mind to it.’

  Libby shrugged. ‘Oh, well. We’re here now. Let’s just enjoy a taste of the old-fashioned high life and see what happens.’

  Downstairs in the drawing room, they found six people arranged in various attitudes around the room. Libby’s theatrical sense immediately told her the arrangement was staged.

  Dame Amanda sat in a high-backed chair beside the fireplace. Leaning on the high mantelpiece was the man Dorian, and at either end of a blue damask Knole sofa sat two women, one a discontented blonde with a distressingly short skirt, the other brown-haired, stocky, in trousers. A large, bushy-haired man with a beard sprawled in another armchair, and upright on a straight-backed chair sat a thin man with rimless spectacles.

  ‘Ah, Libby, Fran!’ Dame Amanda beamed and waved a regal hand. ‘Let me introduce everyone. My son, Dorian, I believe you’ve already met.’

  Dorian straightened up, nodded and grunted. Libby bestowed a gracious smile on him, and Fran inclined her head.

  ‘And this is Dorian’s wife Lana …’ Dame Amanda indicated the blonde, who lifted a weary hand, ‘and this is my daughter, Clemency.’ The brown-haired woman smiled, and Libby decided she was the only one of the company so far whom she liked. Apart from Dame Amanda herself, of course.

  ‘My nephew Gerry, and our friend and solicitor, John English.’

  ‘Hiya,’ said the bushy-haired man.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said the solicitor, politely standing up.

  Libby cast a shrewd look at her hostess.

  ‘And did they all come from central casting?’ she asked.

  Everyone fell silent, until Dame Amanda burst out laughing.

  ‘You can’t blame me, darling! Yes, I put them all where they are now, but believe me, they are all real.’ She bent a disapproving gaze on her daughter-in-law. ‘Too real.’

  Libby raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Fran moved forward to a second sofa and sat down.

  ‘Now, tea. Coolidge will bring it in a moment.’ Dame Amanda turned to Fran. ‘Are you settled in?’

  ‘Yes thank you, very comfortably,’ said Fran.

  ‘And Libby?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Did I tell you I knew Libby when I was young?’ Dame Amanda turned to her family. ‘Such a delight to know she’s only a few miles away now.’

  ‘Then why do you want to sell up?’ asked Dorian.

  ‘I didn’t say I wanted to move away from the area,’ said his mother. ‘Just that this house is too big.’

  ‘And haunted,’ said Clemency.

  ‘I’m quite sure it isn’t.’ Dame Amanda looked at Fran and looked away again quickly. ‘And I want to get to the bottom of that.’

  ‘I don’t if it stops people buying it,’ said Gerry.

  Dorian, Lana, and Clemency broke into remonstrations. Lana even sat up straight in her corner of the Knole sofa and uncrossed her legs. John English looked down his nose disapprovingly.

  The door opened and Coolidge appeared pushing a tea trolley. The noise stopped.

  ‘Thank you, Coolidge,’ said Dame Amanda. The butler bowed slightly and left the room without saying a word. Dorian’s eyes followed him.

  ‘When did you hear about the supposed haunting?’ Libby broke into the silence as Dame Amanda poured tea.

  ‘About a month ago,’ said Clemency. ‘So disappointing. Mother wanted to move to a smaller house, and I – er – I was going to – um – travel.’

  ‘Going off to find herself,’ scoffed Dorian. ‘India, for God’s sake.’

  Clemency’s colour was heightened. ‘I just wanted to travel. I’ve never been able to before.’

  ‘On your mother’s money.’ Lana regarded her nails.

  Clemency sent her mother an appealing look.

  ‘Why not?’ said Dame Amanda. ‘You would get some too.’

  Lana and Dorian exchanged glances. Libby nudged Fran.

  ‘Don’t you want to leave the house?’ Fran asked gently.

  ‘It’s a lovely house.’ Dorian, two spots of colour high on his thin cheekbones, waved a vague hand. ‘History, you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Libby. ‘Dating back to the civil wars, of course.’

  ‘Civil wars?’ Lana opened her eyes wide. ‘There was only one, you know.’

  John English cleared his throat. ‘Strictly speaking, there were three.’

  Libby beamed at him. ‘And then of course, the military establishment during the war.’

  All eyes turned towards her.

  ‘What do you know about that?’ asked Gerry at last.

  ‘Not a lot. I just wondered if that was where the story about the ghostly maid came from. You know, to keep people away.’

  Apart from Dame Amanda, the company now avoided each other’s eyes. Libby frowned.

  ‘So,’ said Fran, ‘what was going on here? You obviously know.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Dame Amanda, looking round her relatives in wonder. ‘What do you all know that I don’t?’

  Once more John English cleared his throat. ‘Something in the deeds which I discovered when we received your instruction to sell, Dame Amanda.’

  Libby and Fran exchanged triumphant grins.

  ‘And when were you prepared to tell me?’ The dame suddenly looked inches taller, her tone icy.

  John English looked at the fireplace and sniffed. ‘I told Dorian.’

  ‘And why did you not tell me?’ Dame Amanda turned to her son, who looked acutely uncomfortable.

  ‘I – er – didn’t want to upset you,’ he mumbled.

  ‘As John won’t tell me what he’s found, Libby, Fran, tell me what you know.’ Dame Amanda stood up and dominated the company.

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Libby. ‘All we’ve found out was that this house was some kind of government or military institution during the last war. There was some kind of rumour going around then, but nobody seemed to know much about it. The most recent rumour started just when you said it did, and seems to be – again as you said – an attempt either to remove you from the house or to prevent the sale, and probably both.’

  Dame Amanda subjected each of her relatives to a piercing glare. ‘So now tell me which of you is doing this?’

  Predictably, all four of them protested their innocence.

  ‘I want you to sell, Ma.’ Clemency said, glaring at her brother. ‘I don’t know why they don’t.’

  Dame Amanda sat down again and sighed. ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ she said. ‘I shall leave all my money to a cats’ home.’

  Nobody took any notice of this. Picking Dorian as the weak reed in the party, Libby turned again to him.

  ‘So when did you first hear about this treasure, Dorian?’

  The silence that followed this question was electric. Libby fancied she could see the sparks emanating from each member of the family. John English alone sat unmoved.

  ‘Well?’ Dame Amanda turned to her son.

  His face gradually turning an unlovely puce, Dorian stammered an answer. ‘It – there’s – er – there’s always been a rumour ...’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Dor,’ said C
lemency. ‘You know perfectly well.’ She turned to Libby and Fran. ‘In the churchyard, old Sir Charles –’

  ‘We know about that,’ interrupted Fran. ‘So does Dame Amanda. Why has it suddenly become important?’

  Lana suddenly turned on her.

  ‘What business is it of yours, anyway? How dare you come here asking questions?’ Her over-made-up eyes narrowed and her head poked forward like an agitated chicken’s.

  ‘I asked them.’ Dame Amanda’s voice cut across the atmosphere and reached straight to the back of the gallery, thought Libby. Her family turned to her in astonishment.

  ‘Libby and Fran,’ she explained, ‘are investigators.’ The family shifted uncomfortably in their seats. ‘And Fran –’

  Fran held up a hand. ‘I’m particularly interested in the Second World War. Libby’s expertise is more the civil wars, and especially the Battle of Maidstone.’

  Now the family looked shell shocked.

  ‘Battle of –?’ echoed Clemency.

  ‘Little known, but bloody,’ said Libby. ‘In June 1648. Many of the Royalists were ordinary gentleman farmers, a ragbag of an army, and of course they were defeated. They fought on Penenden Heath and through the streets of Maidstone.’

  ‘So why –?’ Dorian turned to his mother, whose brain, by no means slowed by age, had grasped Libby and Fran’s diversionary tactics.

  ‘Because if there’s any truth in this rumour of buried treasure – and I don’t think there is – then Libby is our best bet to tell us where it is.’

  ‘And Fran – World War Two?’ Clemency asked.

  ‘We already knew from what Coolidge found out in the village that this house was used by the military in the war. Fran may be able to tell us more about that.’

  ‘But not about the haunting.’ Gerry suddenly spoke up from the depths of his chair.

  Fran turned to look him full in the face. ‘You never know,’ she said.

  Gerry held her gaze for a moment before sinking back into a torpor.

  Libby got up and put her now-cold cup of tea on the trolley. ‘I think we should leave you to your family, now, Abby.’

  Dame Amanda smiled and patted her hand. ‘Perhaps so. I’ll speak to you later.’

  As Fran and Libby left the room by the back staircase doorway, they heard Lana say, ‘What did she call you? Abby?’