Marsh. “Are you offering a challenge, Inspector Marsh?”
“I prefer to think of it as a wager. A gentleman’s wager, if you like. With no money passing hands. I’ll wager that you will not solve this case by the time of afternoon tea.”
“And that you will?”
“Oh,” said Marsh, smiling, “I fully expect to solve it long before then.”
“Oh yes?”
“Oh yes.”
The Great Man studied him for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “I accept.” He stepped forward holding out his hand. Marsh rose from the bed and took it.
The Great Man dropped Marsh’s hand, took a look around the room, and then drew himself up. “I must go,” he announced, and then he did, stalking out the door.
Marsh looked over at me. He smiled wryly. “Silly of me. But your employer has rather a way of getting under one’s skin.”
“Yeah.”
Marsh reached into his pants pocket, eased out a watch, glanced at its face. He nodded, slipped it back. He turned to Sergeant Meadows. “Grab that lantern, will you, Meadows, and take a look at the tunnel. Follow all the stairways. Determine into which rooms they lead. Discreetly, of course.”
Beneath his heavy brow Sergeant Meadows glanced at me. He looked back at Marsh. For the first time he spoke. “And you, sir?”
“Oh, I’ll muddle along on my own for a while.” Marsh turned to me. “Unless you’d care to come along?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I told him.
Talking to the Great Man, Inspector Marsh had seemed very sure of himself. And he seemed sure of himself for the next few hours, but I noticed that we were moving pretty quickly through the house.
First we went to the room of Carson, the Earl’s valet. Carson was in bed, wearing a white nightshirt, but he was willing to talk. He looked worse than he had yesterday. His face was paler and his eyes were more dull. The trembling of his hands was more intense.
Marsh sat in the chair, I stood leaning against the wall. Marsh asked Carson pretty much the same questions I’d asked yesterday and Carson gave pretty much the same answers.
Then Marsh said, “I understand that Lord and Lady Purleigh made a visit to the Earl’s room on Friday night.”
“Yes, sir,” said Carson. “They did, sir.” His shaking hands moved vaguely along his chest.
“Were you present at the time?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have any idea what the three of them discussed?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“How did you know, Carson, that Lord and Lady Purleigh came to visit the Earl?”
“I saw them, sir. Passing by in the hallway. I was in my room, sir, and generally I keep my door open.”
“Do you indeed. At all times?’
“Until I’m ready to sleep, sir. In case the Earl calls for me. Usually, around twelve, I go in to check on him, sir.” He frowned, took a ragged breath. “ Went in to check on him, sir. Before I went to sleep.”
Marsh nodded. “You could hear the Earl calling, all the way from his bedroom?”
“Yes, sir. There was nothing wrong with the Earl’s voice, sir.”
He made a feeble smile.
“You could hear him when the doors were shut? His doors?”
“No, sir. During the day, sir, we left all the doors open, my door and the Earl’s. Except when he took his nap, sir, before tea. I always shut his bedroom door then. It helped him to sleep.”
“So your door was open yesterday afternoon, before you brought him his tea.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did anyone pass by?”
“No, sir. No one, sir.”
In the same conversational voice he’d been using all along, Marsh asked him, “You know the kitchen maid, Darleen?
Carson blinked. “Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever seen Darleen pass by your room?
“No, sir.” He blinked again. “Why should I, sir?”
“I’ve heard that this Darleen made an occasional visit to the Earl’s room. Late at night.”
Carson shook his head. “Oh no, sir. Why should she, sir? Oh.” Carson opened his eyes wide. “Excuse me, sir. I tell a lie. Once, several months past, sir-I was ill, sir, my stomach, and I couldn’t perform my duties. And I believe it was young Darleen, sir, from the kitchen, who helped the Earl then.”
Marsh nodded. “Tell me, Carson. How long have you known of the secret passageway in the Earl’s room?”
Carson’s hand jumped and he frowned, puzzled. “Secret passageway, sir?”
“Come now, Carson. It’s been there for years. Centuries, I expect. You must have known.”
Carson shook his head. “But I didn’t sir, I swear.” He tried to rise up from the bed, gasped out a small cough, and he lay back down. His hands moved along his chest. “A secret passageway, sir? In the Earl’s room? Where, sir?”
Marsh smiled. “Carson, do you know the penalties for perjury?”
Carson’s eyes were frantic. “Sir, I swear to you, I know nothing of a secret passageway. Nothing, sir. I swear it!”
Marsh stared at him for a moment. Then he stood up, reached into his pocket, took out his watch, glanced at it, slid it back into his pocket. He turned to me. “We’re for the kitchen, I think.”
The Morning Post
Maplewhite, Devon
August 19
Dear Evangeline,
More boulders. Many more of them. Large boulders.
And no genteel rolling down the hillside for this pack; no. All at once they coughed from the clouds and smashed to earth at precisely that piece of it upon which I, wide-eyed and well intentioned, happened to be dawdling. I still lie here, flattened, beneath them.
Mr Beaumont is the largest of these.
An arresting image, don’t you think? Me lying flattened beneath Mr Beaumont?
If such a position ever actually befell me-somewhere outside the chaste confines of metaphor-I should be far from the only woman at Maplewhite who had, shall we say, enjoyed it.
It appears that I’ve been mistaken about Mr Beaumont. In several ways.
Last night, you’ll recall, I was about to go slinking through the dark silent halls of Maplewhite, in the hope of learning something-
Which I did; and, Evy, you won’t believe me-
You recall the first ghost, the one I promised to explain but never did, really? It transpires that that ghost was no ghost at all. He was Lord Purleigh’s father, the Earl of Axminster.
I do not invent. Apparently, whenever the whim took him, the late Earl would don a wig and an artificial beard and go bounding through the rooms of astonished paid companions, giggling obscenities and waving that organ which Mrs Applewhite once characterized as “the progenerative member”. (Member of what? I remember you asking her; you were so heartless, Evy.)
Today the entire episode strikes me as more pathetic than terrifying. I honestly feel rather sorry for the old man. How very sad to advertise one’s needs, and one’s means, to total strangers. How very sad, really, to feel compelled to do so.
My aplomb of today, however, may in some way be a result of the Earl’s recent death. He won’t, ever again,
