Murder at Melrose Court: A 1920s Country House Murder (Heathcliff Lennox)

  Murder at Melrose Court

  KAREN MENUHIN

  First edition December 2018

  ISBN: 9781790745425

  For Krov

  my Darling SK

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘I must inform you, sir, that a body has been discovered on the front doorstep,’ Greggs announced from the doorway.

  My concentration was entirely taken up tying a Bibio. Only this morning I’d received a small box of precious seal fur for the precise purpose of creating this seemingly simple fly. The black fluff had required delicate teasing along waxed thread wound around the shaft of the hook, followed by a splash of red. I replaced the long-nosed pliers next to the screwdrivers, grips and whatnot on my workbench, and fumbled for the magnifying glass. All appeared well.

  I was vaguely aware of Greggs hovering behind me and creating an annoying distraction – he knew how tricky tying off was.

  ‘I’m busy,’ I told him, eyes fixed on the vice holding the lure, scissors poised in one hand, thread held taut in the other.

  ‘Major Lennox, sir,’ Greggs persevered. ‘It is rather urgent.’

  I snipped, then straightened up, the fly complete, and stood back to better survey my work. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I do not know, sir, he is in no condition to furnish a name.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Greggs?’ I looked at him sharply, wondering if he’d started early. ‘Didn’t you ask him?’

  ‘The person on the doorstep is dead, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Dead, sir.’

  Greggs had been my personal batman and butler throughout the four years of the Great War; we both knew more than we wanted to about death, and it seemed to me that he was unlikely to be mistaken in this matter. I left the gunroom briskly and made my way through the hall. Greggs tried to reach the door first – he failed. I yanked it sharply open and walked out into the fresh winter’s day. It was crisp and cold with a brisk breeze; sunshine fell upon the body of a large fat man lying on his back across the worn stone flags of my portico.

  Greggs was right; the man looked very dead.

  ‘Did you check?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sir – back’s been playing up.’ Greggs motioned vaguely behind him.

  ‘Your paunch is more of an impediment than your spine, Greggs.’

  ‘As you say, sir.’

  ‘Well, best have a look – just in case.’ I squatted on my haunches to feel for a pulse – there was nothing. I stood up, and we both looked down.

  ‘I was going fishing in the lake today.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to change my plans now.’

  ‘Perhaps so, sir.’

  ‘What do you make of him?’

  ‘Looks a bit shocked, sir.’

  Greggs was right: the man’s bulging eyes and raised eyebrows had the distinct semblance of surprise about them.

  ‘You’d better call Doctor Fletcher,’ I told him as he retreated indoors to the telephone, ‘and don’t let the operator listen in or the whole village will descend on us.’

  I must confess I was somewhat surprised myself – it isn’t every day that one encounters death on the doorstep. I rubbed my chin and eyed the fellow more closely – who the devil was he? Certainly no one I knew. He was quite distinctive, with a face and figure that would stick in the mind. Bald, with a boxer’s nose, cauliflower ears, three or four chins, plump cheeks, froth in the dribble around his gaping mouth – sufficient evidence that the man had breathed his last; but why had he chosen to do it here?

  I couldn’t see any sign of injury although the body needed to be rolled over to be sure, and I wasn’t about to undertake that mammoth task alone.

  The door opened; Greggs returned puffing with exertion.

  ‘Sorry for the delay, sir, I notified the doctor and the police,’ he said, with some pride in his show of initiative. I couldn’t help but smile: Greggs could be an old woman with nitpicking tendencies and over-fond of Irish whiskey, but he was a game old soldier.

  ‘Good man,’ I replied. ‘Where’s Mr Fogg?’

  ‘Probably hiding under your desk, sir.’

  ‘Did he alert you to the body?’

  ‘He did, sir.’

  ‘Always was useless with anything dead.’ I glanced at Greggs. It was my observation that all butlers dressed pretty much the same: black tailcoat, white shirt, stiff collar, black dickie and black waistcoat, which showed up crumbs. ‘Cook been baking, has she?’

  That flustered him, he brushed off specks of biscuit, muttering under his breath.

  ‘Make sure you save some for my tea, and you’d better supply a plate for the Old Bill when they arrive – keep them sweet.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Shall I bring a cushion?

  ‘What the devil for?’

  ‘Put under his head?’

  ‘He’s dead, Greggs. What’s the point?’

  ‘Show of respect, sir?’

  ‘He may not be in the least bit respectable.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ Greggs sighed, as though I were being unreasonable.

  I opened my mouth to protest but he carried on.

  ‘They asked who he was.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The police, they wanted to know who was dead,’ Greggs said with a hint of expectation. ‘You could … examine his garments, sir?’

  ‘Surely they can do that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ I bent over the body. His clothes were of the cheap sort: brown coat, greyish shirt, string vest showing between straining buttons, brown suit, brown tie, brown shoes (muddied and scuffed); no hat, nor gloves, no rings nor watch. I flipped through the man’s pockets – nothing at all, not even a wallet … except I thought I heard a rustle of paper somewhere inside the coat lining. I felt around and found a hidden slit in the seam and pushed my fingers down to discover a single sheet of folded paper.

  I read out the neatly formed copperplate lettering: ‘Countess Sophia Androvich Zerevki Polyakov.’ I regarded it, frowning. ‘Definitely not his name.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Hmm. You’d better go and call them back - tell them we don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Greggs went off into the warmth, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  It seemed bad form to leave the fellow alone even if he were dead, so not having much else to do I took a walk around him. In doing so, the change of light cast a shadow over his face and revealed a faint indent around his forehead. I looked more closely – he had been wearing a hat not too long ago; the skin showed a faint abrasion where it had rubbed.

  I scanned the length of the curving drive up to where the wrought iron gates stood open between high stone walls. No sign of a hat, nor any sign of how its owner had got here. No car parked in the grounds, no motorbike or bicycle, no tyre tracks in the recently raked gravel, the man had simply walked in - I should keep the damn gates shut.

  It was possible the hat had fallen off further back, so I strolled up to see if it were lying along the drive. It wasn’t, nor was it out in the lane, or under the trees lining the drive, or in the overgrown garden, so I went back to stand under the porch to keep the corpse company.

  The police station lay on the other side of the village of Ashton Steeple, just under four miles from The Manor. The Cotswolds country lanes were narrow and winding, so at best they would be another twenty minutes. A sigh of exasperation escaped me as my mind continued to turn over. What was this all about …? And that name – Countess Sophia Andr
ovich Zerevki Polyakov?

  My box of cheroots was in a pocket of my tweed jacket; I dug about and pulled one out, lit it with my silver Dunhill and blew smoke into the air as the police arrived with an irritating jangling of alarm bell. The Chief Inspector lowered himself carefully from a highly polished blue Crossley motor car, followed by a sprightly sergeant. The driver, a constable with a round face under a large helmet, remained in the vehicle. He peered out at me, keeping his hand on the rope attached to the brass bell on the car’s roof – presumably in the hope of ringing it again.

  ‘Good day to you, Major Lennox,’ Chief Inspector Rawlins said, tugging his coat over his crumpled suit to button up against the cold.

  ‘Inspector Rawlins.’ I nodded politely in greeting. I was surprised to see he was still in service – the last I’d seen of him was before the War, and he was verging on the decrepit then.

  We wasted no more time in pleasantries. His rheumy eyes turned from me to the fat man forming a mound at my feet. He and the sergeant stood in silent observation for a moment, closely watched by the bobby in the car.

  ‘Take a look at him, Walker,’ the Inspector ordered.

  Sergeant Walker snapped into action; he removed his helmet by lifting the strap to tip it forward, and placed it carefully on the stone flags, then tugged up his uniform trousers to preserve the sharply pressed creases, and knelt by the body to examine the neck, chest, face, hands and wrists of the deceased.

  ‘Dead, sir,’ Walker declared, turning towards his boss, long face frowning in earnest. ‘An’ I can’t see nothin’ that killed ’im. No blood nor nowt.’

  ‘Any identity on him?’ the Inspector asked, watching the sergeant closely.

  Walker rummaged around in the clothing, turning pockets inside out, and even looking under the tie.

  ‘No. Not on ’is person, but we might find somethin’ if we turn ’im over.’

  ‘Easier said than done, my boy, but I’m sure you’ll manage.’ The Inspector straightened up, coughed with a loud wheeze of the chest, then turned to me. ‘He was visiting you, then?’

  ‘No, he was not,’ I stated quite clearly to remove any doubt about the matter.

  ‘So what was he doing here?’ the Inspector demanded.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  He stared up at me from under beetle brows; which was irritating, so I stared back.

  ‘I think someone killed him, Major Lennox.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Inspector. He’s had a heart attack by the looks of him. You must have seen enough examples.’

  ‘Ah, but you may be tryin’ to devise a subterfuge.’ Rawlins stepped forward and looked me straight in the eye from a very short distance.

  ‘Damn poor subterfuge to leave him on my own doorstep,’ I snapped back.

  ‘Did you kill ’im?’

  ‘No, I did not. Nobody did. He keeled over of his own accord, just look at him!’

  Rawlins and Walker both duly turned to stare at the body, which was looking more blue around the gills as time ticked by. I think even they realised that no murder had been done.

  Inspector Rawlins took a deep breath, coughed, and tried a different tack. ‘You livin’ ’ere now, Major Lennox?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Where do you think I’m living?’

  ‘Thought you might of gone off to London after your father died. This ’ouse is big for just one man, and it needs a fair bit of work doin’, don’t it?’

  I looked up at my family home, an old, mellow-bricked Queen Anne house; dusty, draughty, cluttered, and with an air of genteel decay about it.

  ‘What does the state of my house have to do with finding a body on the doorstep?’

  ‘’E might of fallen off the roof, or a ladder. Maybe ’e was fixin’ something for you, an’ it was dangerous, an’ you don’t want to admit it.’ He leaned forward and wagged a finger under my nose. ‘That’s negligence, that is!’

  ‘Considering the size of the man, he was hardly likely to be up a ladder.’

  ‘Everyone knows you like shootin’ things, Major Lennox.’ Sergeant Walker had picked up his helmet and was holding it under his arm and joined in the interrogation.

  ‘It is patently obvious that he was not shot,’ I pointed out. ‘And I shoot pheasant and game, not people.’

  ‘If ’e was tryin’ ’is hand at burglerin’, you might ’ave tried to scare ’im off,’ Walker added.

  ‘Good thinking, lad,’ Rawlins added in support, ‘and he could have been trying to break in up a ladder.’

  ‘Greggs!’ I jerked open the front door and started shouting for Greggs to come and tell them how he’d found the body, when we were interrupted by a red Riley Eleven driven at speed through the gateway. It drew up in a spray of gravel and Doctor Cyril Fletcher jumped out, nattily dressed as usual in tweeds and plus fours, sporting a trim moustache and carrying a leather medical case. He raised his hat to the policemen, then came to shake my hand, grinning with affection.

  ‘Well, well, Lennox. A body! Pheasant is more your style, isn’t it? – what have you been doing?’ Cyril Fletcher joshed.

  ‘I did not shoot him, Cyril. Will you please inform the constabulary that this man has not been shot.’

  ‘Ha! They giving you a hard time, old chap?’ He turned to the Inspector. ‘No blood, Rawlins, he can’t have been shot.’

  ‘He must have fallen,’ Rawlins retorted.

  ‘No, there would still be blood, from his nose or ears most likely,’ the Doctor told him as he stooped to examine the whale-like corpse. He stood up. ‘Need to roll him over.’

  We looked at each other; the Inspector coughed meaningfully.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ I conceded, and bent to put my arms under the fat man’s shoulders. ‘Get the torso, Sergeant. Cyril, turn the legs.’

  We heaved, pushing hard, rocking him to gain momentum, and finally rolled him onto his stomach with a thud as he slumped face down onto the stone flags; then we stood back breathing heavily. No blood, no knife, no nasty wound – nothing to see other than the creases in the damp coat and some snags in the trousers.

  ‘Not a thing,’ I said.

  ‘Ay, don’t look like much.’ Sergeant Walker straightened up, looking disappointed about the absence of evidence of dramatic death.

  ‘Best check him over, my lad, just to be sure,’ the Inspector ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Walker replied with a note of despondency. A grey cloud slid across the sun as the sergeant examined the body and again failed to find anything significant.

  Greggs emerged with a tray of tea and biscuits, which managed to entice the bobby out of the vehicle, although he was shooed back in again by Inspector Rawlins.

  ‘He’s looking after the car. It’s new,’ he imparted. ‘We’re modernising the police force. Very important work we have now, making sure those Germans don’t come back.’ He looked slowly around the property as if to check that we hadn't been invaded recently.

  Cyril Fletcher raised his eyebrows as we exchanged glances.

  ‘Take him to the mortuary, Inspector, I’ll have a better look at him there,’ Fletcher ordered. ‘Heart attack looks the most likely culprit, so I doubt there’s anything here for you gentleman to concern yourselves with.’

  The Doctor replaced his cup and saucer on the tray and turned to follow me into the house as Greggs held the door open.

  ‘Apart from the lack of any identification,’ Chief Inspector Rawlins intoned.

  We turned around to regard the policeman.

  ‘There was that paper, sir,’ Greggs reminded me in his helpful fashion.

  ‘Ah yes – one moment.’ I dug out the folded sheet of paper from my inside pocket and handed it over. ‘I found this.’

  ‘This could be an important clue! You should have given this to me when I arrived, Major Lennox.’ The Chief Inspector wagged his finger at me in an annoying fashion.

  ‘My apologies, Inspector, I forgot about it.’

  ‘I hope you’re not hiding anything
, sir. It does seem strange that this man has died on your doorstep and you not knowing him. Or so you say.’

  ‘I can assure you, Inspector, I have no idea whatsoever who this man is,’ I replied with feeling.

  The Inspector read out the name on the paper, stumbling over the foreign words. ‘Countess Sophia Androvich Zerevki Polyakov ...’ He stared up at me. ‘And you don’t know who she is either?’

  ‘No, I do not.’ Except that I did, and the day suddenly seemed a lot more complicated than when it had started.

  Chapter 2

  Mr Fogg was indeed under my desk in the library. I enticed him out with a dog biscuit from the top drawer.

  ‘Silly mutt.’ I stroked his head affectionately. Fogg by name, fog by nature. He was a golden cocker spaniel of very little brain, and hated dead bodies of any description. He gazed back with liquid brown eyes, wagging his stump of a tail and his backside in excitement as I passed him another treat. The police had gone, the Manor and grounds were peaceful again and our little household was much the happier for it.

  Mr Fogg had been Father’s gift to me just before he died. The day the armistice was signed, I walked into our Royal Flying Corps quarters in France, ordered Greggs to pack and follow, and then flew back to this house in my old Sopwith Camel. Pa was pretty much on his last legs; Ma had died years earlier, so there had been no loving wife to care for him. I did my best, but the old man expired before spring arrived in 1919. Fogg had been handed over at our last Christmas together, a runtish puppy with a sweet nature, and had ever since been my constant companion.

  A sigh escaped me as I glanced at the pile of papers on my desk – mostly unpaid bills. I swept them aside, reached for the decanter and poured myself a shot of whisky. No fishing today nor tomorrow because it was set to snow.

  I stared absently at my books, ranged randomly along shelves built long ago. Besides the gunroom, the library was my favourite: cluttered, cosy and filled with mismatched furniture according to the taste of Lennox men down the generations. Damn it, what was that corpse all about? And the name of the Russian countess on the hidden paper?