But Inspector Wilbred didn’t care about any of their protests.
He stood in the middle of the great hall, dressed in a dark navy blue suit that was shiny at the cuffs and elbows and along the edges of his lapels. His hands were shoved in his pockets which made his square coat tails flap backwards and his sleeves ruffle up in a concertina along his arms. The double doors were open and they could see a black coach waiting on the gravel outside. Inspector Wilbred was flanked by two serious-looking policemen, and he could not hide a slight smile on his face as he saw Adelia appear along with Theodore and Doctor Netherfield. Percy had just been shouting at Inspector Wilbred. As Adelia and the others entered, he was turning around and heading to the stairs, but Felicia was already coming down them.
And not of her own free will.
She was in the grip of a matron from the police station, one of the solid and terrifying civilian women who were employed by the force for female-related duties, and a further policeman had hold of her other arm. She was being half-dragged, half-carried down the stairs. Percy stopped, and spun around to face the Inspector.
“How dare you?” he hollered. “Let go of her this minute!”
“I am only doing my job,” the Inspector replied in an infuriatingly mild tone.
“Why do you appear to be arresting my wife? What is going on here?”
“I am, indeed, as you so astutely observe, arresting your wife. Lady Buckshaw has demonstrated herself to be guilty of the crimes of murder – twice – though I will concede she is likely to be unable to account for her actions. Such a sad case, don’t you think? Doctor Netherfield, isn’t it?”
Doctor Netherfield said, “I can assure you that Lady Buckshaw is entirely innocent and indeed incapable of having performed the dreadful deeds you claim. Entirely! On what basis do you make these baseless and insulting accusations?”
The Inspector walked slowly over to Felicia where she sagged between the matron and the policeman. She was sobbing, and as he got closer, she raised her head and screeched at him in an unearthly way. A chill went down Adelia’s spine. Percy leaped forward and inserted himself in front of his wife.
“You, sir, may keep your distance!”
“Indeed so, for I should not want to risk my life,” Inspector Wilbred replied. “You know, I was suspicious when I first encountered the poor lady in her fit of hysteria – do you remember? She all but confessed to the crime, but I put it to one side, thinking it was merely her feminine emotions overwhelming her. It was when the presence of Doctor Netherfield was reported to me that our focus really began to fall on Lady Buckshaw in true earnest. Until then, we were happy to consider that both deaths were the work of one of your servants and that was a matter for you to look into unless you invited us to investigate further, and that your wife was simply mad in the usual sort of way.”
“And when you considering it was one of the servants, you were content to drop the case, because servants are worth less? This is not the middle ages,” Theodore spat out, making Adelia proud of him. “They are not vassals.”
Inspector Wilbred shrugged. “Because we do find that when we interfere too much in a rich man’s household, we make enemies and very rarely get any information that is useful. My time is limited and my resources also; I assigned the policeman to remain here, of course. We were hardly washing our hands of the affair. But I hardly expected to make much progress in the case, and I didn’t much care one way or the other.”
Adelia gasped at the sheer brazenness of the man. The ideas that he expressed were hardly unusual but most people did not speak them out loud. It showed his lack of breeding. The middle classes, she thought, really were awful. And she ought to know, having come from the upper end of the middling sort herself.
Inspector Wilbred grinned at her gasp and carried on with his smug and self-important explanation. “I had asked the policeman to watch everyone in the household. After all, although my feeling had been that the culprit was a fellow servant, I am too experienced a policeman to rule anyone out – no! Not one person was excluded from my enquiry but I took pains to ensure that you did not know that every single one of you was under observation. With a particular eye, of course, upon this lady here.”
Percy could not contain himself. He said, “Of course we knew your lackeys were watching us all.”
Wilbred dismissed it with the merest shrug. “And so when the good doctor here arrived, I was informed immediately. A mad woman in the house! Not just hysterical at the finding of a body, but consistently mad enough to warrant outside help! Ah, suddenly things became clear to me. The first murder was a strange one, inexplicable, of apparently no motive or purpose. Who would do such a thing? A mad person!” He cackled to himself.
No one cackled with him.
Theodore began to say, “But you didn’t even believe that the house steward’s death was a murder at all...”
Inspector Wilbred ignored him. “And the second murder was quite clearly an attempt on the poor afflicted woman’s husband’s life. Who else wants a man dead but his own wife? Isn’t it almost always the case?”
“You speak the most vile things and I am sick, sick to my stomach. Get out!” Percy roared. He stepped towards the inspector. The policeman to one side of Felicia let go of her and grabbed hold of Percy. Percy tried to wrestle him off and the policeman pulled out his truncheon.
Percy stopped.
Inspector Wilbred dropped his voice and it took on
