‘Is it?’ Flora looked startled. It was not an idea that had ever come into her head before.
‘Though,’ Dido admitted as she began to walk about the room, ‘on the present occasion, I do not know that I can deduce much beyond the fact that Mrs Lansdale was a rather vain woman.’
‘Why do you say so?’
‘What other purpose is there in a red light but to flatter a woman’s face? And,’ she said, turning to the open pianoforte, ‘I see that she was a musical lady. And on the evening that she died she had been playing – or listening to…’ She took the sheet of music from the stand, ‘…Robin Adair.’
‘Oh no! You are quite wrong, you know,’ said Flora, following her across the room. ‘I have never in my whole life known such a very unmusical woman. She never played herself, and she quite hated to hear anyone else play.’
‘Did she? That is strange. But perhaps that is why there is no other music here. And yet,’ Dido added thoughtfully, ‘it seems someone has been playing: for here is the instrument open and the music set ready upon the stand…’
She picked up the sheet of music and studied it more closely. It was the usual kind of thing – to be found on music stands everywhere: paper bought from the stationers with the lines already ruled, but with notes and words filled in afterwards by hand. In this case certainly by a woman’s hand… Yes, most certainly a woman’s hand. The notes were drawn very neat and black and clear and the words were written in a pretty, flowing hand which put a great many twists and turns upon the letters – particularly upon the Ss and the Ws.
She put it down and crossed to the hearth, where her eye was caught by a mark upon the back of a chair. She touched it and found it to be sticky. She put her fingers to her nose and smelt pomade and powder.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I would guess one thing about Mr Lansdale. I would guess that he puts powder in his hair.’
‘Indeed he does not!’ cried Flora, shocked at the suggestion. ‘Such a nasty, old-fashioned habit! My dear cousin, no gentleman under forty puts powder in his hair now!’
‘Well then, if you are quite sure, I think we may say that, on the evening of his aunt’s death, Mr Lansdale was visited by an ageing and unfashionable man…Or rather,’ she said, looking across at the chair on the opposite side of the hearth, and seeing a similar stain, ‘by two ageing and unfashionable men – one of whom was considerably taller than the other.’
‘Dido, now I am sure that you are making things up! How can you possibly know how tall the gentlemen were?’
‘By the places at which their heads rested upon the chairs. Look. Do you not see that one of the powder stains is much higher than the other?’
‘Oh yes! Why it is true, you are clever!’
‘Thank you.’ Dido turned aside knowing that she ought not to take so very much pleasure in the compliment.
As she turned, her eye fell upon the mantel shelf. There was a white and gold china shepherdess, thinly coated in dust, and a very fine pair of branching silver candlesticks – and, propped behind one of the candlesticks, there was a little bit of pasteboard. With a quick glance at the door to be sure they were not overlooked, she picked it up and read what was written on it…
She stared. Read it again. And then again a third time as if she could not quite believe what she had seen.
‘Flora,’ she said. ‘Mrs Midgely claims that she is unacquainted with the Lansdales – is that not so?’
‘Yes.’
‘She says she does not know them at all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then she is lying.’ She held out the piece of pasteboard. ‘Look, here is her calling card.’
Flora’s little mouth dropped open in surprise. But before she could speak, there was a sound of heavy footsteps behind them.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said a very deep voice. The two women turned rather guiltily and saw, standing in the doorway, precisely the kind of manservant Dido had expected to find in this house: a very tall man – not many inches short of six feet in height – with a high-domed, bald head, an air of extreme dignity and a voice so low that it seemed to echo somewhere deep inside her.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘there has been a mistake. Young Sarah should not have brought you into this room.’
‘Oh!’ cried Dido cheerfully. ‘Do not worry about us. We are quite comfortable here.’
‘I am very glad to hear it, miss.’ The man regarded her with solemn disapproval. ‘But it is not Mr Lansdale’s wish that this room should be used. If you will just step across into the breakfast room…’ he said.
And there was nothing for it but to put aside all thoughts and suspicions of Mrs Midgely for the moment and follow the manservant across the entrance hall into a smaller, sunnier apartment where they were soon joined by Mr Lansdale – and Miss Neville, the lady who had been Mrs Lansdale’s companion.
Henry Lansdale, she discovered, was a very handsome young man indeed. And as charming as Flora had made him out to be. He had lively blue eyes, a fine bearing, and a pleasant, unreserved manner. During the first ten minutes of the visit he behaved exactly as he ought upon receiving a visit of condolence. He ran through an account of his aunt’s death; explaining that she had retired to bed early on her last evening. She had been tired, he said, but they had had no reason to think she was at all in danger – until the housemaid discovered her dead in her bed next morning.
He expressed all the proper sentiments as he told this melancholy tale and spoke with very becoming simplicity – and great feeling. But Dido noted that he was not easy; he paced from the hearth to the window and was anxious and restless to a degree for which grief alone could not account.
As he talked, Miss Neville sewed and smiled.
Flora had explained to Dido that Clara Neville was a cousin of the Lansdales who had been living with her mother in Richmond in ‘very reduced circumstances’ before her grand relations came to Knaresborough House and she was invited to join them as a companion. She was a tall, bony woman of perhaps five or six and forty who could not, even in her youth, have been thought pretty – having rather more forehead and less chin than is usually considered desirable.
The smile which occupied her mouth was at odds with the deep lines of discontent and ill-humour on her brow. And, since her mouth was small and her brow wide, the discontent and ill-humour rather got the better of it.
Her speeches too were a mixture of perfunctory pleasantry and irrepressible discontent. She lamented the death of her cousin loudly, but Dido could not help but suppose that the loss of her own comfortable position was the saddest part of the business, from her, ‘I suppose I shall have to return to mother soon,’ following on almost immediately.
After a while there was a pause in the conversation and Dido took the opportunity to politely regret the death of the dog – watching Mr Lansdale closely for any sign of consciousness or guilt, as she spoke.
But he only seemed as puzzled as she was herself. ‘That,’ he said turning from the window at which he was standing, ‘is a very strange business indeed. I cannot account for it at all.’ He began to pace about the room once more.
‘Oh dear!’ cried Flora. ‘I am very sorry! We have raised a subject which distresses you.’
‘No,’ he said in a softened tone, ‘my dear Mrs Beaumont, please do not be uneasy on that score.’ He sat down beside her. ‘The subject does not distress me,’ he said very gently. ‘It merely puzzles me. I cannot get it out of my head. You see, I know the creature was alive at seven on the evening that my aunt died.’