Murder at Mansfield Park - Lynn Shepherd [68]
Mary looked at him, but her gaze was steadier than the beatings of her heart. ‘You do not mince matters, do you, Mr Maddox?’
Maddox spread his hands. ‘I did warn you I would be candid, Miss Crawford. In my experience, there is little to be gained by evading the truth. Not in cases of murder, at any rate.’
Mary took a deep breath. ‘Very well. Let us say that the—the—natural process—had commenced, but I do not believe it had advanced more than one or two days.’
‘Indeed? And why should you say that? There are those in the household, I am told, who believe that she must have lain there above a fortnight. Nay, sixteen full days, if my own computations are correct.’
Mary shook her head. ‘That is quite impossible,’ she said quickly. ‘As you are already so well informed, Mr Maddox, you must also know that the work on the channel did not commence until after Miss Price was missed from the house.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, with a look that confirmed that it was, indeed, exactly as she had surmised, and she was so much vexed at this manner of proceeding as to be betrayed into uncharacteristic carelessness. ‘And even were that not the case—’
She stopped at once, suddenly conscious of where her words were tending.
‘Do go on, Miss Crawford,’ he said. ‘I am all agog.’
Mary wished it unsaid with all her heart; he had provoked her into imprudence, and she had allowed herself to be taken in. She was mortified by her own lack of caution, but there was no help for it now. If Maddox was at all aware of what was passing in her mind, he gave no outward sign, and sat quietly in his chair, exercising his excellent teeth upon his thumb-nails.
‘You were saying, Miss Crawford?’ he asked quietly.
Mary lifted her chin, and held his gaze.’ ‘If Miss Price had been lying in the open air, during a period of inclement weather, for more than two weeks, the body would have been in a quite different state from the one in which we found it. Is that plain enough?’
Maddox took out a gold snuff-box, tapped it, and let the snuff drop through his fingers, then shut it, and twirled it round with the fore-finger of his right hand. Mary watched with rising irritation, perfectly aware that this was precisely the response he hoped to induce.
‘And you base this assertion on personal experience?’
Mary swallowed. ‘Yes. I have been unfortunate enough to have seen such a corpse once before. It is not an event I wish to recall.’
Maddox leaned back in his chair. ‘No doubt. But it might assist me to know a little more of the circumstances.’
‘Really, Mr Maddox,’ she said angrily, ‘it can have no possible relevance here.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Humour me a little, Miss Crawford.’
She saw at once that opposition to a man of Maddox’s stamp would be of little use, and might indeed prove perilous; she did not want this man as her enemy.
‘As you wish,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘My brother owns a small house in Enfield. After our parents died we lived for some years with our uncle near Bedford-square, while a housekeeper took care of the Enfield house. However, when our uncle died we were obliged in due course to leave London, and made arrangements to return to Enfield, as a temporary expedient until we might find some where more commodious. The housekeeper wrote to say she would expect us, and my brother came to fetch me and convey me to the house. It was—quite dreadful. Thieves had broken into the property, and taken every thing of any value. The doors were broken open, and some of the windows shattered. We found the young woman lying dead in the parlour, covered in blood. She had been beaten to death, and her skull crushed. Henry believes that she must have surprised the villains in their heinous crime.’
‘Henry?’
‘My brother. He is at present at Sir Robert Ferrars’s estate in Hertford-shire. He left here some days before Miss Price’s disappearance.’
‘You hear from him regularly?’
Mary frowned.