Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [71]
“Maybe Miss Bryce-Cuddlestone knows something,” said Daisy.
“She won’t speak to me.”
“Worth a try. Better than doing nothing.”
Rose paced up and down and then looked out of the window. “It’s a fine, crisp day. I could suggest a walk. Would you take a message to her? If she is agreeable, I will meet her in the hall, in, say, half an hour?”
Rose did not have much hope that Margaret would accept the invitation, but to her surprise Daisy came back and said Margaret had agreed.
Kerridge had summoned Harry. “Not much good,” he said.
“His lordship was in a fine taking, threatening to have my job.” “Does he admit to having syphilis and possessing arsenic?” “Not him. ‘Prove it, you common little runt’ were his last words to me.”
“Get a search-warrant.”
“I’m trying,” said Kerridge bitterly. “Fve had orders to release all the guests. I sent a constable to check Dr. Perriman’s surgery. No sign of a break-in. How did you do it?”
“I had information from someone.”
“You went there yesterday with Lady Rose. Town’s still talking about it. Lady Rose and that maid of hers were singing like street balladeers.”
“Just a bit of fun.”
“Just a bit of distraction while you got up to God knows what. If only something would break. Fve more or less been ordered to get out and forget it. The press have given up and gone, so the pressure’s off.”
“And it’s back to hushing the whole thing up?”
“That’s it. At least Lord Hedley hasn’t stopped repairing the village houses.”
“Not yet,” said Harry cynically. “I wonder what he’ll do when we’re all gone.”
Rose and Margaret walked in the castle gardens, which were situated to the left of the castle, on the other side from where the tradesmen’s entrance was situated.
They had talked generally of fads and fashions, with Daisy and the footman, John, following at a discreet distance behind.
A small pale disk of a sun shone down on the rose garden. Frost still lay on the earth in the shadowy patches which the sun did not reach. Rose half-turned and gave a prearranged signal to Daisy to keep well back and then said in a low voice, “Have you any idea, Miss Bryce-Cuddlestone, who could have committed murder?”
“I don’t think it was murder, Lady Rose. I think Mary was a silly girl who just took too much arsenic.”
“Then why did your maid end up in the moat?”
“Why should I know?”
“Miss Bryce-Cuddlestone—may I call you Margaret?”
“No.”
“Well, then, when you slept with Lord Hedley, did you know he had syphilis?”
“You little bitch! You nasty, snooping little bitch.”
“I would like to help. Why? Why did you allow such a man favours?”
“Favours. How old-fashioned.” Margaret began to cry, great gulping sobs. Rose put an arm round her and led her to a marble bench. A marble statue of Niobe, shedding marble tears, stared down at them from behind the bench.
Daisy pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to Margaret. She waited patiently until Margaret had gulped and sobbed herself into silence.
“I couldn’t bear the idea of another season,” said Margaret, in such a low voice that Rose had to bend her head to hear her. “My mother jeers at me a lot. She still fancies herself as a beauty. She is furious with me for already turning down proposals.
“Hedley was fun, not like those dreadful young men. He courted me. He told me that Lady Hedley had a terminal illness and was not expected to live long. He said we would be married and I would be a marchioness and outrank my mother. I slept with him one night, that was all.
“Then Lady Hedley came to my room. She told me about the syphilis. I commiserated with her on her terminal illness, thinking it had turned her brain, but she laughed and said that she was fit and healthy and that her husband should really stop sleeping with virgins because he thought it would cure his illness. I hated him then. I wanted him dead.
“I told her I would expose him, but she laughed. Laughed! She said all I would do would be to broadcast that I was no longer a virgin and that my parents would get to hear of it.”
“What did Dr. Perriman say?” asked