Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [104]
In the end, it was anger that brought me back to my feet. I was sure that the person who’d killed my father was also the murderer of Mrs Beedle. I was under the same roof with him, breathing the same air that he breathed, quite possibly had breathed in this very room. Wasn’t that what I’d wanted all along? I put my own clothes on reluctantly, wondering what fingers had pawed them. After a while I went downstairs. It was after five o’clock and the routine of the day had started in the kitchen and scullery but the servants’ voices were hushed with the knowledge of the body lying upstairs.
The only idea in my mind was to speak to Daniel. I walked round the outside of the wall of the kitchen garden, on to a pathway that I’d sometimes taken with the children to the Greek Pavilion on its hillock in the park. It was a fine morning, the sky blue and cloudless. The musicians had been playing until late so I hardly expected to find anybody awake at that hour, but when I came up the last spiral of path somebody was sitting on a bench, looking out at the view over the heath. He turned when he heard my steps on the gravel.
‘Oh, Daniel.’
‘Child?’
He was still wearing his evening clothes. I ran to him and poured out the story as if I really were the child he called me.
‘She spoke to me, Daniel. It couldn’t have been much more than half an hour before it happened. She must have gone straight upstairs after that and … I think whoever did it may have been in my room.’
At some point in the story he must have taken my hand and kept hold of it.
‘Have you any idea what it was she wanted to tell you?’
‘Something to do with Mr Brighton, I’m sure. Beyond that, no idea at all.’
‘And she didn’t mention any names?’
‘No.’
He said nothing for a long time, holding my hand and looking out at the view.
‘Haven’t you slept?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘I wish I’d come to find you last night, Liberty. If I’d had the slightest idea what had happened, I should have. God knows I wanted to, but it seemed an intrusion.’
‘Why?’
‘Yesterday evening, when you came down the stairs, you were so beautiful, I hardly recognised you – no, that’s not complimentary, is it? I mean, you were by far the most beautiful of the ladies there. That young fop who took you into dinner was clearly entranced and …’
‘Daniel, that’s nonsense.’
‘When I looked for you after dinner, you weren’t there. Then rumour began to get round that somebody had died and I couldn’t help worrying. You’ll say that’s nonsense too, I suppose.’
‘But you must have soon found out it wasn’t me?’
‘Yes. The word spread that our host’s elderly motherin-law had died suddenly of a heart seizure. I’m sorry, but I felt like playing a jig when I heard. Not that the bereaved son-in-law would have cared if I had.’
‘You talked to Sir Herbert?’
‘Yes. I asked him whether, in the circumstances, he wished us to continue to play.’
‘What did he say?’
‘At risk of offending your ears, I shall quote him verbatim: “Damn your eyes, sir, it’s only my mother-inlaw. I’m paying you, and if I say so, you’ll go on fiddling until hell freezes over.”’
‘I’m sure he knows something about it. Whoever killed her must have been a member of his household or one of his guests.’
Daniel went quiet again.
‘Well, mustn’t he?’ I said.
‘I understand that they brought in additional staff for the occasion.’
‘That’s true, yes. But why should some jobbing waiter want to kill her?’
‘Liberty, there is something it is only fair you should know. I don’t think for one moment that it has anything to do with her death, but …’
He looked embarrassed and miserable.
‘What?’
‘My dear, please don’t jump to conclusions, but the fact is, Blackstone is here.’
I stared at him.
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘We think he must have contrived to have himself employed among the extra waiters. He collapsed while serving dinner last night.’
I thought of the black legs sprawling