Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery Part 7

"Which direction?"

"Well ... in the other direction from me. There are many paths. Why-?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Gaunt. You must be wondering why I'm asking these sorts of questions." He drew a cleansing breath. "I'm afraid someone has died. Lord Morborne."

Ellen responded with sharp breath.

"And it appears not to have been natural causes," Tom continued. "I found him-"

He stopped, fascinated to see the rolling pin slip from her grasp along the fabric of her ap.r.o.n, hit the floor with a nasty crack, and clatter along the tiles in a crazy progress towards his feet.

"I found him ..." He adjusted his crutch and stooped to retrieve the thing as it rolled by his foot. "... in the Labyrinth, and I wondered if perhaps on your way here you had seen-"

"An accident?" Ellen's voice came to his ears as a croak, as if the words strained her voice.

Tom raised his head sharply and stared at her. A shadow had crossed her features. She seemed to struggle to maintain her composure.

"No, Mrs. Gaunt," he replied cautiously. "Not an accident. Not an accident at all."

CHAPTER NINE.

Tom couldn't help but pause in his worried thoughts to consider the comic spectacle of an individual tearing around the Labyrinth at top speed. Hector-he was certain it was Hector, though he was yet too distant to be absolutely sure-appeared as a disembodied head-and-shoulders going back and forth and back and forth, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther, rather like a marble on a marble run. So concentrated was Lord Fairhaven on reaching the centre, he didn't appear to notice Tom as he struggled back up the slope nor hear him as he pushed-with some discomfort-his way through the breach in the hedge. By the time Tom climbed to his feet within the Labyrinth, Hector had rounded the final arc and was on the straight path to the Labyrinth's heart. Tom hurried to catch him up, returned again to worry. Had someone been lurking behind one of the locked doors while he talked with Ellen Gaunt? They opened to Egges...o...b..'s estate offices, she explained when he knocked on one of them and received no response; the former butler's pantry and footmen's room, she a.s.sumed, though this was her and her husband's first stay at Egges...o...b.. as staff.

Or had the damp leaf left by the wall been nothing more than the souvenir of someone removing her shoes and tiptoeing up the stairs at the end of the pa.s.sage in stocking feet? Where did these stairs lead? To a corridor that linked to the great hall, Ellen answered, one of several sets connecting the disparate worlds of servant and master in an earlier age.

Tom stepped into the Labyrinth centre, his eyes flicking from the Madonna to a swathe of fluffy white brilliant against the shadow along the ground-Hector's terry-cloth robe open and flared like a cape as Hector himself bent over Oliver's body, in a pose almost of supplication but for the busy movements of his arms. At first, Tom's mind refused to countenance what he was witnessing, and when it did, he snapped unthinkingly: "Lord Fairhaven!"

The effect was to spur Hector into a final flurry of furtive motions before he scrambled off his knees and gathered his robe together. Damp-haired, he appeared to be a man who had recently stepped out of the shower. Naked, almost hairless, calves showed below the hem of the robe, but he was wearing a pair of crimson bedroom slippers.

"Ah, Vicar, where did you spring from?" Hector turned, gripping the folds of his robe around him like a vestal but not before Tom glimpsed purple bruising along the top of his chest. The man's breath came hard and fast; the sun caught the planes of his broad face and high forehead, flaring them the red of embarra.s.sment, though his eyes regarded him coolly.

"It looked like you were-" Tom began indignantly, noting that the robe's belt was missing before Hector interrupted him: "I was looking for Oliver's mobile, his iPhone. To call the police. I forgot to bring mine when I dashed from the house. Awful business this!"

"And did you find it?"

"What?"

"His mobile?"

"No ... no. I ... odd he didn't have it. He would check the b.l.o.o.d.y thing every five minutes, it would seem. Oh, good, here's Jane and James now. Did you ring through?" He shouted over the rows of hedge towards the two figures advancing into the Labyrinth. "I seem to have forgotten my mobile."

"Yes, Hector, I said I would," Jane called back. "Apparently a police constable lives in the village. He'll be along shortly."

"Widger. He's a bit dim," Hector muttered not unhappily, running a hand through his crimped, damp hair. "You were up early, Vicar," he added. The conversational gambit seemed absurd with the enormity of the horror sprawled at their feet.

"Yes, well, I ..." Caught off guard, Tom groped for an excuse. "I couldn't sleep."

"The ankle? Thunder and lightning woke me at some point. It appears we didn't get any rain, though."

Lord Fairhaven eyed the landscape vaguely. Tom looked again at Oliver's corpse, flinched, then looked away. "I'm so very sorry for your loss," he said to Hector, aware the words were anodyne, but unable to conjure a suitable phrasing. The last twenty-four hours had suggested little love lost between the brothers-in-law.

Hector regarded him uncertainly, his fleshy lower lip pushed forwards. A quick, hard smile followed. "Thank you, Vicar. It will be a great shock to my wife. No, she doesn't know," he added when Tom opened his mouth to interject. "I thought it best not to wake her until ... until we were certain."

Of what? Tom thought. Did Lord Fairhaven think neither he nor Jane could ascertain the absence of life in a man's body?

Jamie reached the other side of the hedge in advance of his wife. He looked like he had been ripped from slumber, his fair hair shambolic, his normally bright blue eyes opaque. "This is absolutely shocking. Jane's given me the details." He turned to his wife and took her hand as she stepped up beside him. "Where's Olly been all night? Apparently his bed's not been slept in."

"I thought I'd look in his room," Jane explained.

"He's wearing what he wore yesterday," Tom added, noting again the embroidered s.h.i.+rt.

"Perhaps he spent the night at the Pilgrims Inn," Hector offered.

"So he wouldn't have to look at you across the breakfast table, I daresay."

"Jamie!" Jane's tone was cautionary.

"I'm sorry, Hector, I've been knocked for six. But you will allow the two of you have been at each other for days."

Hector's face was thunder. "Are you suggesting I had something to do with this, this ...?" He gestured impatiently to the body.

"Of course not. Really, Hector, I am sorry. I was asleep two minutes ago."

"... the last time I saw Oliver was when he went off to the village with the others last night. I fully expected to see him at breakfast, along with the rest of my wife's b.l.o.o.d.y family. I don't mean you, James. Or Jane," Lord Fairhaven hastened to add. "Someone's come down off the moor or in from the village and done this, of course. Mrs. Gaunt said there'd been an intruder the other day, didn't she. There you go then."

"If it were this intruder, Hector, he would have to be insane, don't you think?" Jamie craned his head in an effort to see over the hedge. "Otherwise, why would he kill Olly?"

"Then ... he wasn't a stranger, at least to Oliver. You can't say Oliver didn't put people off, can you?" Hector shot Jamie a quelling glance. Jamie opened his mouth to respond, then winced. Tom noticed Jane squeeze her husband's hand.

"Didn't Mrs. Gaunt talk to the police about the intruder?" she interjected.

"I don't think so." Hector frowned.

"But there was a policeman here. We pa.s.sed one when we were driving up from the Gatehouse, didn't we, Jamie, when we arrived on Thursday? He gave us a little salute. This PC from the village perhaps? I'd meant to ask you, Hector, but forgot."

"Oh, it was just someone from the local constabulary wondering about a police presence at next week's nomination meeting, nothing dire." Hector shrugged and tightened his robe around his chest. "If Mrs. Gaunt did report anything to the authorities, I'm sure Gaunt would have told me."

"Look, is there anything one can do?" Jamie looked beseechingly at Tom.

Tom shook his head. "There's nothing any of us can do. Not in these circ.u.mstances. I might suggest that I stay behind and meet with PC Widger as I was the one who found Lord Morborne's body."

"And the rest of us go?" Jamie grimaced.

"I think that's a good idea." Hector glanced at his apparel as if seeing it for the first time. "Thank you, Vicar. I do need to change into something decent. And," he added, his lips forming an unhappy slit, "I do need to tell Georgie."

"Yes, Tom's right. Let's go, Jamie. There really shouldn't be a crowd." Jane cast Tom a meaningful glance. "We might be making things more difficult for the authorities if we stand around ... contaminating the scene."

"Say a prayer for my cousin, will you, Tom?" Jamie added, his face very pale.

"Of course."

Tom glanced at his wrist where a watch would be if he had thought to put it on earlier. Really, the police response time was rather slow. Apparently being a peer of the realm b.u.t.tered no parsnips with the local constabulary, which, on the other hand, was perhaps a good thing: We're all as one in the great democracy of poor service.

It had to be well more than an hour since he had risen that morning, before five thirty, twenty minutes since Hector, Jane, and Jamie had returned to the house. He had had sufficient time to pray for Oliver and for all who would be affected by this tragedy before his mind moved, as minds do, to matters more mundane: For instance, he was not, he thought now, going to be able to make a swift and gracious exit from Egges...o...b.. anytime soon. There would be police questions, an investigation; likely no one would be allowed to leave the estate for some little time. (What a good thing he and Miranda had packed for a week.) So much for spending his birthday in Gravesend with his mothers. And he would find himself yet more in the company of the alluring and troubling Lady Lucinda fforde-Beckett. Could she possibly be the woman the back of whose head he thought he glimpsed in this very centre of the Labyrinth? She wasn't in his bed when he woke up. A sordid and outrageous notion emerged into his consciousness: She had perpetrated this appalling act. Had she not run her half brother to ground at Egges...o...b.. with a festering grievance? Was this its awful climax? Lord knows, he had witnessed her efficient pa.s.sion in another arena.

It was too fanciful, too horrible. He couldn't possibly have slept with a murderer. Besides, a woman couldn't strangle a man. Oh, surely. He glanced again at Oliver's lifeless body. He was not a big man, but he had to be taller than Lucinda by five inches and heavier by four stone. He was more than fifteen years older than his half sister, though, and despite this parachuting lark didn't appear exceptionally fit. A bit of pale podge escaped from his midsection where his s.h.i.+rt had lifted free of his trousers. His forearms showed no generous sinew. Lucinda was a fit la.s.s. Lord, yes, she was fit. Tom pushed certain riotous images from his mind and concentrated on the mechanics of strangulation. The woman would have to be strong, the man weak. The woman focused, prepared, aided by the benefit of surprise. The man dulled by drink or drugs, distracted, utterly surprised. The bench-the bench would lend leverage. You could crouch on the bench in the shadow and pounce on your taller, heavier victim. That might give you the edge.

It appeared Oliver had not gone down without some struggle. There looked to be a little scratching along the bottom of the neck that was visible, as if Oliver had tried to pull the ligature away. (And there was a mark on his face, but that, Tom realised, was the consequence of last evening's rocketing champagne cork.) Perhaps a woman couldn't have done this.

Tom was pulled from these thoughts by the soft thud of someone approaching along the drive at a fast run. He looked up to see a figure burst past a stand of trees and tear towards Egges...o...b.. Hall, a blur of black and white. The police, at last.

"Over here!" he shouted and waved at the figure. "Over here!"

"b.l.o.o.d.y car wouldn't start!" The constable's voice came as a loud gasp as he nearly collapsed at the border of the hedge. He was capless, his tie loose, his white s.h.i.+rt above his duty belt even from Tom's distance looking like it had been pulled from the laundry hamper. His wrist wore a large thick ring. "How do I get in?"

"Through the gate, over to the left," Tom called, gesturing.

The constable found his way in, made the first turn down one green avenue, then made the switchback to the next one. He stopped in the middle. "Will I ever get to where you are?"

"Keep going a few more feet, you'll come to a straight bit, then take the first left after that and you'll be opposite me."

"I can't get over this hedge." He looked blankly at Tom when he reached the destination. He looked very young, almost beardless, and not so much dim, as Lord Fairhaven had said, as green and clearly anxious.

"If you really want to come into the centre, you're going to have to go all around all the rows."

"How long's that going to take?"

"A while."

"I could push through, I suppose." He regarded the hedge doubtfully.

"Best not. Your superiors might not think it a good idea. And Lord Fairhaven is rather keen on his hedges staying all tidy and trim. Listen, Police Constable Widger-it is Widger, isn't it?-why don't I stand here and you stand there and I'll give you the basics and you jot them down in your notebook. I think that's part of the usual procedure. There's probably been more people here at the centre of the Labyrinth this morning than is going to make your superiors happy. What have you been told so far?"

"That someone was found dead in the Egges...o...b.. Labyrinth."

"Have you a notebook?"

"But I'm to see there are no signs of life." PC Widger fumbled in the pocket of his trousers.

"I can a.s.sure you there are no signs of life."

"Are you sure?" PC Widger stood on tiptoe and leaned in for a better view. He wasn't as tall as Jamie Allan. Doubt played on his face. "I can't see a body."

"There is a body. Really."

"Well, if you say so. I've never seen a dead body. Here, can you hold this?" He pa.s.sed a spool of blue-and-white police caution tape over the hedge, a.s.sessing it as he did so. "Blimey, there's not enough tape to go around this great thing!"

"I think you only need to cordon off the entrance. There's only one way in and out of the Labyrinth." Not completely true, Tom thought, but never mind now.

"That entrance?" PC Widger pointed to the opening to the Labyrinth's heart near where Tom stood.

"No, the one you came through, with the gate. That should be sufficient. Not ..."

"Not?"

"Nothing." He wanted to say, Not that Egges...o...b.. Labyrinth early on a Sunday morning is Oxford Circus on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. There really wasn't anyone to keep out.

"Actually, they showed us a dead body at the morgue one day, as part of our training like. I've just never seen one, you know, in this sort of situation ..."

"New, are you?"

He nodded. "I live with my girlfriend in the village-well, with her mum and dad, so it's ..." He made a face, pulled a biro from his pocket and licked the tip, settling his features into a grave expression. "Now, um, let's see."

Tom noted the uncertain look in the man's eyes. Gently, he said, "You'll want to know, for instance, who the deceased is."

"Yes, that's right. Can you tell me who the deceased is, sir?"

"Yes, I can. His name is Oliver fforde-Beckett-double f and it's lowercase for some reason. Beckett is uppercase. Two t's. Hyphenated." He watched PC Widger scribble, hesitate, cross something out, and scribble some more. "He's the Marquess of Morborne."

PC Widger mouthed the t.i.tle as he wrote. He looked up from his pad, his long face an exclamation mark. "Not Mad Morborne?"

"Well-"

"Who puts on all those big concerts and owns Icarus-the famous club in London-and all?"

"Apparently. It's not something I follow, I'm afraid."

"Blimey!" PC Widger regarded him goggle-eyed.

"And you'll want to know who I am."

"Right. And who might you be, sir?"

"I'm Tom Christmas. I'm the vicar of St. Nicholas Church in Thornford Regis."

A smile twitched at the corners of PC Widger's mouth. "You're Father-!"

"I'm not. You can call me Tom or you can call me Mr. Christmas or you can call me Vicar Tom."

"I see. And you found the dead man, did you, Father ... Vicar, sir?"