You’ll be here a stone’s throw away. It’s the best thing that could have happened. I’ve always been scared that one day you would go away.”
I told her about the find in the shrubbery. She was decidedly sobered and I saw some of the joy go out of her face.
“A gun from the gunroom!” she cried.
“What on earth does that mean?”
“No one knows.”
“It would seem that someone from St. Aubyn’s fired that shot.”
“Someone could have got in and taken the gun.”
“It would seem to be someone who knew the place pretty well.”
“There are a lot of people who do.”
“And why bury it? Why not put it back?”
“It’s a mystery. Oh, I do wish this wretched business was over.
“It won’t be until they find who killed that man.” She was looking at me with anxiety in her eyes. I wanted to shout at her: It wasn’t Crispin. He was in the house all the time. People don’t kill their brothers-in-law just because they don’t like them.
I could see the thoughts chasing themselves round and, round in Aunt Sophie’s mind. Why had Crispin chosen this? time to ask me to marry him?
It was the day of the inquest. Crispin and I had not officially announced our engagement. We decided that it was not yet the time to do so, and Aunt Sophie had agreed with that.
Suspicion hung over Harper’s Green, the discovery in the grounds of St. Aubyn’s, having made headline news in the newspapers, was being discussed everywhere. I could imagine that all sorts of bizarre conclusions were being arrived at. We were all very uneasy.
I went to the office in the morning. James was very thoughtful.
“This is a horrible business,” he said.
“I can’t bear to see the sightseers round the place. They are all trying to get a look at the shrubbery. I wish they could find the murderer and have done with it.”
“There’ll be even more publicity when they do,” I reminded him.
“And there’ll be a trial.”
“I do hope no one here is involved,” he said uneasily. “Poor Mrs. Marchmont! This must be a trial for her.” “She keeps to the house,” I remarked.
“And it certainly is very upsetting for her.” “She will have to go to the inquest, of course-and poor Harry Gentry, too. And the servants-some of them, in any case. I wonder what effect this will have on the estate!
“What effect should it have?”
“I was thinking, if they never find the murderer, it’s going to make for a lot of uneasiness. I often thought of getting my own place. It would be small to start with. My own farm, I mean … a place to manage all of my own. There’s nothing like being one’s own master.”
“I suppose not.”
“One could rent at first and perhaps in time buy.” He was looking at me expectantly.
“At the moment,” I said, ‘you are doing very well here. Oh, I do wonder what will happen at the inquest. “
“I wish they hadn’t found that gun buried in the shrubbery.”
“I was hoping it was someone not known to us,” I said.
“Someone from his past.”
“Which must have been a shady one. Yes, that would have been a very good solution.”
I don’t know how I got through that day. I left as early as I could.
Aunt Sophie was waiting for the verdict as eagerly as I was. I was sure that Crispin, knowing my anxiety, would come immediately to The Rowans.
He did.
“The verdict,” he told us, ‘is murder, of course. Murder by some person or persons unknown. “
“What else could it be?” said Aunt Sophie.
“What now?” I asked.
“The police will be as busy as ever,” said Crispin.
“We all had rather a gruelling time on the stand. Poor Tamarisk was most upset. Harry Gentry stood up to it all very well. He had, of course, threatened Marchmont and fired his gun though into the air. And it had been witnessed by several people. But, of course, the gun which fired the fatal shot was not his. Marchmont was revealed as a very unpleasant type, but that doesn’t give anyone a right to murder him. We haven’t heard the last of this. The matter of the gun caused a great stir of interest. It appears to level it down to someone in the neighbourhood.
They asked me
A Ghost from the Past
We were in late September and there was to be a dinner party at St. Aubyn’s at which Crispin and I would announce our engagement.
“It is what my mother will want,” said Crispin.
“There has always been a certain amount of formality in the family.”
People were still talking of the murder. Far from stemming interest in that morbid subject, the inquest had increased it.
“Some person or persons unknown.” There was something sinister about the very phrase.
In the shops and every household the question was: “Who killed Gaston Marchmont?”
Suspicion rested on one or two people: Crispin was one of those, so were Tamarisk and Harry Gentry, though more than one clung to the belief that it was someone from Gaston’s past. After all, why should not someone have got into the house, taken the gun and not had an opportunity of putting it back? There was a certain plausibility in the theory.
Meanwhile there was the dinner-party and there would be another piece of news to startle the community.
Mrs. St. Aubyn joined us for dinner. Her health had improved so much since the arrival of Gaston that she had ceased to be the invalid she had been before. He had flattered her so blatantly, telling her she had the appearance of a young girl, that she had begun to behave like one. She had made a habit of dining at table with the family and she could not slip back into invalidism so soon after his departure. I thought to myself: He has done some good, then. She must have been the only person who mourned him, for there was no doubt that she was genuinely saddened by his death.
Guests at the party were the Hetheringtons and friends in the neighbourhood, including the doctor and his wife, and from Devizes a lawyer who represented the family. Aunt Sophie, of course, was present.
Crispin sat at the head of the table and I was on his right hand. Mrs. St. Aubyn sat at the other end and, although she looked very sad, she was very different from the invalid who had taken most of her meals in her own room. Tamarisk, also, was present. She had changed a great deal; she had lost that careless manner of the past and was no longer the light-hearted girl.
The ghost of Gaston Marchmont seemed to hover over us all, and although a great effort was made not to refer to past events and to be as we all had been before, that was not possible.
The meal was over when Crispin rose and, taking my hand, said simply:
“I have an announcement to make. Frederica Miss Hammond-and I have decided to marry.”
Congratulations ensued, and we drank the champagne which the butler had brought up from the cellars.
I could have been very happy but for that hovering ghost. I wondered if it would ever leave us in peace.
Later in the drawing-room I found Tamarisk beside me.
“I did not need the formal announcement,” she said.
“I knew, of course, what was in the air.”
“Was it so obvious?”
“Quite. Particularly since you went to the office. He arranged that, of course.”
“It was good of him.”
“Good! He was thinking of himself,” she said.
“Tamarisk, how are you?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’m miserable. Sometimes I’m ashamed. Then I’m afraid. Then I’m glad glad that he’s gone and yet in a way he is still here. He always will be until they find out who killed him. I wish oh, how I wish I had never seen him.”