Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [90]
I must needs find Rosie Ketch.
Another who gained from Isobel's misfortune was Lord Harold Trowbridge. But he had vacated Scargrave a week before the maid's death. That he might have done this expressly to distance himself from that event, seemed entirely of a piece with his cunning. Having wooed the maid—perhaps in London, when he first attempted to purchase Crosswinds, prior to Isobel's marriage—had Trowbridge convinced her to dispatch the Earl with the poison native to her country, then left once his object—Crosswinds—was secured? It was as nothing for such a man to send the maid a few words torn from a business letter written to him by Fitzroy Payne, then return by cover of darkness to Scargrave Close, walk to the field at dawn, drop Isobel's handkerchief, slit the maid's throat, and hie back to London with no one the wiser.
—Unless he were avowedly elsewhere, in the company of others, at the self-same moment. I must discover his movements on the day of Marguerite's death. And that meant a visit to his brother the Duke of Wilborough's London residence. How to effect it? For that august family was unknown to this one, a fact Madame Delahoussaye underlined to me more than once when it appeared Lord Harold would remain at Scargrave through Christmas. She found it passing strange that he had deserted his brother the Duke for Isobel Payne in such a season, but knowing little of either Trowbridge or Wilborough, had assumed their relations were not close. But Lord Harold clearly acted from expediency, in forcing the acquaintance; and in more extreme circumstances, I should not be encumbered with greater delicacy. To Wilborough House on any pretext, therefore, I must go, the better to discover his whereabouts on the day of Marguerite's murder.
And what of the others? Madame Delahoussaye I ruled out, as unlikely to benefit in any way from the murder of the Earl, the hanging of her niece, or the similar execution of the peer she had hoped would marry her daughter. But of Fanny—could such silliness as possessed the girl hide a malevolent purpose? I could not forget her early morning walk to the paddock, she who did not ride; nor her furtive entry into the shed, nor the bag of coins she had left there. Anonymous philanthropy, I felt, was not in Fanny's nature; if she parted with her pence, it was only under duress. Someone had blackmailed Miss Delahoussaye, for reasons I could not divine; and that it might as well be the maid, was urged by the choice of the shed for her depositbox. Had Fanny grown tired of demands for money, and ended the affair with Marguerite's life?
Why, then, go to such lengths to throw guilt upon her cousin and the newly-titled Earl? Avarice and ambition might counsel it. Someone should be guilty of the murder; and that it should not be herself or someone she loved—Lieutenant Hearst—but rather the man she did not want to marry, made perfect sense. With Fitzroy out of the way, George Hearst might inherit, and with the proper persuasion, could turn his brother into a titled man of wealth. Fanny intimated as much, only a few days ago; such calculation is natural in one so ruled by self-interest.
But why drop Isobel's handkerchief at the spot? For the satisfaction of having no rival at Scargrave? I should leave that question for later.
Two people yet remained to me—Lieutenant Tom Hearst and his batman, Jack Lewis. That I thought the Lieutenant's lighter character the least likely to be bent to darker purpose, I will not deny; and that a sensibility on my part influenced my views,