“Well…”
“Above suspicion?”
That was not a term Sloan had been taught to use.
“Trusted to the hilt, then,” suggested Leeyes, who in his youth had been grounded in heroic fiction.
“No…”
“Been with them all their lives?” The Superintendent was rapidly running out of phrases associated with family servants.
“No, sir. Oddly enough, not. The cook has. Started as a tweeny at twelve and worked her way up, but the housekeeper has only been there a couple of years and the butler rather less. About eighteen months. The other girl—I don’t know what you’d call her…”
“I’d call her maid-of-all work,” said Leeyes promptly.
“She’s been with them about three years. That’s the indoor staff. Outside there are two men and a boy looking after the Park and gardens. One of them—Albert Hackle—comes in on open days to show off the dungeons.”
“Perhaps,” said Leeyes, “there’ll be someone in them soon.”
Sloan said sedately that he would see what he could do and rang off.
What he wanted to do next was to find the parts of the house where Osborne Meredith had spent his working time. The Library and the Muniments Room.
Stepping away from the telephone, he met Lord Henry. He asked the young man to lead him to the rooms.
He wished he had gone there sooner.
The Library was apparently in perfect order.
The Muniments Room looked as if it had been hit by a tornado.
9
« ^ »
Detective Inspector Sloan didn’t step very far into the Muniments Room.
Just far enough to see that the disarray was not that left by an exceptionally untidy scholar.
It was not.
From where he stood he could see that it had been carefully calculated. Sheets of manuscripts lay disarranged on the floor, documents of every sort were strewn all over the place. A great chest lay open, its contents distributed far and wide.
“Phew!” whistled Lord Henry over Sloan’s shoulder.
“Don’t come any farther, my lord,” warned Sloan. “I’ll need to take a proper look round the room first.”
“It’s a bit of a mess.”
“Quite so.”
Typical English understatement, that was. Sloan’s gaze swept the room and noted that the disturbance had every appearance of being systematic. It looked as if every drawer had been opened, every deed unrolled. Long scrolls of paper covered all the surfaces, and, sprinkled over everything like some monstrous oversize confetti, were dozens and dozens of filing cards.
“Poor Ossy,” murmured Lord Henry quietly. “I hope he didn’t see this. A more orderly man didn’t exist.”
“Those filing cards…”
“All the deeds, documents, and depositions,” said Lord Henry, “recorded and cross-referenced. It took him years.”
Sloan nodded. “The room was never locked?”
“No. This part of the house isn’t ever shown to the public.” Lord Henry was still looking at the room as best he could round the police inspector. “That’s a funny thing, though.”
“What is, my lord?”
“The room isn’t kept locked, but the document chests always were.”
Together they peered at the iron-banded chests. Keys were clearly visibly from where they stood, still in the locks.
“Who had the keys to them?” asked Sloan automatically.
“Just my father and Ossy.”
“I see.” Sloan made a mental note about that. The contents of the deceased’s pockets would be recorded by the police in due course. Just at the moment they were inviolate behind a portion of armour called a tasset.
Lord Henry frowned. “Ossy would never have left them open like that—or even with the keys in. They’re much too important for that.”
“He might not have had the choice,” Sloan reminded him.
“No, of course not. I was forgetting.” Lord Henry’s gaze rested on the dishevelled room. “There’s another extraordinary thing, Inspector, isn’t there?”
“What, my lord?”
“All this confusion…”
“But no actual damage.”
This was quite true. Disorder reigned supreme, but none of the papers appeared to be torn or defaced.
“Just as if someone only wanted a muddle,” said his Lordship perceptively.
“These documents must have value,” began Sloan. “It stands to reason…”
“To an antiquarian perhaps, Inspector. But not an intrinsic value like the pictures or the books or the china.”
Sloan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “If there was anything missing…”
Lord Henry said carefully, “Then only Ossy would be able to tell you.”
“And he can’t do that now.”
“No.” The younger man paused. “Moreover, Inspector, if he were here to tell us, it would take him a very long time indeed to put this room to rights—even though we may think nothing’s been damaged. Months. Years, perhaps.”
Sloan could see that for himself.
“Presumably,” he said, going on from there in his mind and thinking aloud, “this room would otherwise have told us something useful.”
“But what?” asked Lord Henry, surveying the muddled muniments from the door.
Sloan decided that their message—if any—would have to wait for the time being.
He turned his scrutiny to the floor. There was no blood immediately visible. Mr. Osborne Meredith did not appear to have been killed here. And whoever had created this disturbance had been careful not to stand on any of the papers.
Or had they?
Sloan dropped to his knees and looked along at ground level. There was an imprint of sorts on one piece of paper.
A heel mark.
A heel mark so small and square that it must have come from a woman’s shoe.
Detective Constable Crosby was asking Charles Purvis the Earl’s name.
He did not know it, but this—like matrimony—was not something to be taken in hand lightly.
“It’s for the Coroner,” he began. “I need to know the full name of the occupant of the premises in which the deceased is presumed to have met his death.”
“The full name?” said Charles Purvis dubiously.
“The full name.”
“Henry,” said the Steward. “The eldest son is always called Henry.”
Crosby wrote that down.
“Augustus.” After the Duke of Cumberland—or was it the Roman General?
