The Glade Manor Murder (Pollard & Toye Investigations Book 17) Read online

  THE GLADE MANOR MURDER

  Pollard & Toye Investigations

  Book Seventeen

  Elizabeth Lemarchand

  To F.K.M.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  ALSO IN THE POLLARD & TOYE INVESTIGATIONS SERIES

  Chapter 1

  Walter Ripley, senior partner of Swan, Ripley & Cornhill, solicitors of Brinkleigh in Northshire, began to collect up the passport and papers on his desk and gave his client a brisk professional smile.

  ‘So, Mr Ash,’ he concluded, ‘now that we’ve got your identity confirmed we can get on with the business of the money and personal effects your great-aunt Mrs Clara Firth left you.’ He broke off to ask over the intercom for Mrs Firth’s suitcase to be brought in.

  Stephen Ash sat facing him across the desk, lounging back in his chair with legs crossed. He was a thickset man in his early 60’s, suntanned with dark hair dusted with grey and beginning to recede a little. In contrast to Walter Ripley’s impeccable dark suit he sported well-worn casuals over a crumpled white sweater.

  ‘Where did you get the gen?’ he asked, a slight nasal twang in his voice.

  ‘Oh, from a number of sources,’ Walter Ripley replied, searching in a drawer. ‘Your birth certificate to start with. School and war records.’ He extracted a labelled key, glanced at it and put it down on his blotter. ‘The Australian immigration authorities. People you worked for when you first went out... Thanks, Paul. Put it down here, will you?’

  The young man who had brought in a small old-fashioned green portmanteau deposited it by the desk and withdrew. As the door closed behind him, Mr Ripley shot a keen glance at Stephen Ash. He held out a silver box of cigarettes.

  ‘You don’t? Sensible man. Nor do I. Well now, to recap briefly, this firm drew up a Will for Mrs Firth in 1947. As you know, she lived over at Cranforth, and her Bank there, the Northern Counties, dealt with any investment or tax matters for her. Mr Swan, the bank manager, remembers that she struck him as a cagey type, anxious that her affairs should not leak out at Cranforth. That perhaps is why she asked us, and not the local solicitor, Mr Hargreaves, to draw up her will. It was very simple, leaving you, her great nephew, everything she died possessed of, and appointing this firm as her executors. The Will was lodged with us. Nothing was heard from her until 1970 when she wrote to say that she had sold her house and was going into a Cranforth nursing home. We had her file out and wrote to ask for your address which she had given in her Will as the same as her own.’

  Stephen Ash’s eyebrows rose sardonically.

  ‘Well,’ Walter Ripley pursued, ‘we wrote at once for your present address and got no answer, nor one to a follow-up letter. So in the end I went over to see her and find out if she was in touch with you. I found her perfectly compos mentis — remarkably spry for 89 — but couldn’t budge her an inch. She said you had never bothered to send her a line since you left England, and she had given instructions in a letter which the matron of the nursing home had been told to let this firm have at her death. In it she stated that enquiries as to your whereabouts were to be put once, and once only, in the leading Australian papers. If there was no response everything she left was to go to the Salvation Army.’

  Stephen Ash guffawed. ‘Well, anyway, I’ve beaten the Salvation Army to it. I must say it’s staggering that she gave me the chance of scooping the pool. She was my father’s aunt and married a bloke who manufactured buttons and whatever, and made a pile. They had no kids, and he died sometime in the early 1930s leaving her the lot. She’d always disapproved of my parents’ marriage and we hardly ever saw her. Dad had a go at touching her for my school fees but only got a dusty answer. Both my parents were killed in a car smash just before the war. I let her know about the funeral and she came along, but cleared off afterwards without speaking to me. I was just eighteen, and with no other known relatives, so the obvious thing was to join up for the duration.’

  Walter Ripley, nearing retirement, regarded his client with interest through thick-rimmed spectacles. ‘Did you tell Mrs Firth that you had enlisted?’

  ‘Nope. No bloody business of hers. Surprisingly I went through the whole show without a scratch, and knew that the one thing I wanted was to get clear of the mess-up of post-war Europe. Australia seemed to fit the bill, so I collected my gratuity and the bit Dad had left me and a few personal papers and pushed off. Somehow family quarrels seemed a bit petty after the sort of things I’d seen, so I wrote her a few lines and gave her the address of a bank in Sydney. No answer. I thought she might be dead. Anyway, she just faded out of my mind as time went on.’

  ‘How did you make out when you got to Australia?’ the solicitor asked.

  ‘If life had gone on without the war I’d have trained as an architect. I’d always fancied something in that line,’ Stephen Ash replied. ‘Too late to start training by the time I got out there, though. I got myself a job with a building firm and worked my way up as time went on. I own a small bit of property by now. Saleable stuff, even if there isn’t all that much of it.’

  ‘Are you going back?’

  ‘Not now, seeing I’ve come in for a bit from Aunt Firth. About £30,000 clear you said, didn’t you?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘I fancy buying an old cottage in a cheap property area, and doing it up myself. Cut out labour costs that way.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Ash, if we can be of any help to you over the purchase of such a property?’ Mr Ripley suggested, his professional instincts aroused.

  ‘Thanks a lot, but it’s too bloody cold up north here after Sydney and it’s only November. I’m going for something further south.’

  ‘Quite. The West Country or somewhere on the coast, well away from the affluent south-east, perhaps?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Stephen Ash jerked back his head. ‘God, talk about a chance in a thousand! That I saw your advert, I mean. I don’t spend much time on the papers, but just happened to pick up one in the departure lounge of Melbourne airport while I was waiting for my flight back to Sydney to be called, and my eye chanced to hit my own name. It was like getting the hell of an electric shock...’

  ‘Incredible luck,’ Walter Ripley agreed. ‘Now, about the money. We decided to allow a period of three months to elapse. Old newspapers do turn up. Wrapped round fish and chips, for instance. Meanwhile we lodged the cash after Mrs Firth’s estate was wound up in the local branch of the Northern Counties Bank. The manager’s a very decent chap and glad to give you any assistance you want. Shall I give him a ring and see if he could see you this morning?’

  ‘Sure. I want to get a move on. I’ll have to go back to Sydney briefly to settle my affairs before house-hunting here.’

  ‘There’s just one other matter before you go,’ Walter Ripley said a few minutes later as he replaced the receiver. ‘Miss Firth sold most of her possessions before going into the nursing home but kept a few personal belongings. Books and photographs, for instance, and a packet of letters and papers. They’re in this case for you to have a look at in case there’s anything of family interest that you’d like to keep.’

  He hoisted the portmanteau on to his desk, unlocked it and threw back the lid.

  Stephen Ash looked unenthusiastically at the neatly packed contents.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’d better take it back to my pub and have a look through the
stuff, I suppose. I’ll drop it in on my way to the bank, and come back here this afternoon to settle up with you people. Thanks a lot for all you’ve done for me, Mr Ripley, and I mean that.’

  The business at the bank took longer than he had expected. He recognised know-how when he encountered it and took the manager’s advice on the most profitable temporary disposal of his legacy until his plans for the future were more settled. When this was agreed there was barely time to get to Swan, Ripley & Cornhill, and settle his account with them before the office closed. He debated foregoing the payment he had made in advance for dinner, bed and breakfast, and catching the last train to London, but decided against the idea. Even if you had just come into thirty thou’ there was no point in chucking cash away for no sensible reason.

  Alyswin Hotel where he had booked in for a night was small, uninspired and redolent of past meals. He had a quick drink at the bar, collected his key and went up to his room. He dumped Clara Firth’s portmanteau on the bed, pulled up one of the two hard-backed chairs provided and began operations by tipping out its entire contents in a confused heap.

  Actually, he decided, there were a few possibilities among the junk. A silver-backed dressing table set, for instance, and a small carriage clock. Oddments of clothing such as embroidered nightdresses went into the wastepaper basket: the chambermaid could be told to help herself to any pickings she fancied. A bible and prayer book went the same way, but an unexpected little cache of old-fashioned jewellery including a diamond ring was carefully transferred to his own suitcase. It was not until he had almost arrived at the bottom of the portmanteau that he came on a packet of letters tied up with faded pink ribbon. He stared at the pale old-fashioned handwriting of the topmost envelope. Old love letters? Or just one old girl blathering to another? Perhaps he had better just glance through them...

  There was nothing of the remotest interest in the first half-dozen. It was not until he had deciphered the first couple of pages of the next letter that he came upon a piece of news quite casually conveyed that immobilised him...

  He was still staring at the faded handwriting on the creased and folded sheet of writing paper when there was a knock on the door. A young waitress enquired with a nervous giggle if the gentleman was taking dinner.

  Chapter 2

  Glade Manor, home of the Morley family since the early nineteenth century, stood on a wooded hillside overlooking the valley of the little river Weaving about three miles west of the village of Buckford. Lower down the slope a branch of the drive led off on the right to the small attractive Dower House of mid-Victorian date. Since the death of John Morley’s elderly widowed mother some years previously it had been occupied by his son and daughter-in-law, Richard and Gail Morley.

  The Weaving was the southern boundary of the Glade Manor estate. On its far side with a gate on to the Buckford road was Hob’s Cottage, vacant since the death of its owner some months previously. With its small neglected garden it already had a derelict appearance. Stepping stones in the Weaving, submerged after a rainy spell, suggested a former link between Manor and cottage.

  Gail Morley, perusing The Times on an evening early in March by her sitting-room fire, caught the distant but unmistakable sound of her husband’s car. Gyp, a black-and-white cocker spaniel asleep on the hearthrug, raised his head, giving a small excited whimper and beginning to scramble to his feet. Tyres scrunched on gravel. A car door slammed and seconds later came the sound of a latch key in the lock of the front door.

  ‘Oy!’ Gail called.

  Richard Morley appeared at the door, a tall fair young man in his late twenties.

  ‘Stow it, old boy,’ he adjured the leaping yelping cocker. ‘I’m back.’

  He stopped to kiss his wife, and pulled another chair up to the fire.

  ‘What kept you so late?’ Gail asked, manoeuvring a drinks trolley closer.

  ‘Hugh Mandeville brought that 1576 Decameron down himself. He’s an interesting bloke. About the mid-fifties, I’d say. Money written all over him in block capitals, but surprisingly well-read and knows quite a bit about books. Their material make-up especially.’

  Since the beginning of the century the Morleys had built up a select and successful enterprise for the restoration of valuable books. The small works occupied premises in Buckford, and the firm’s clientele included eminent bibliophiles and institutions. John Morley, now in his 60s, was progressively passing more of the management on to his son Richard.

  Richard picked up a bottle and looked enquiringly at Gail.

  ‘Dry martini, please darling,’ she said. ‘Do go on. What sort of job is it going to be?’

  ‘Hefty and time consuming. Basically it’s a superb edition but in a ghastly state. Mandeville found it under a lot of junk in a cupboard under the stairs at Gatherton Castle.’

  ‘How come, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Old Lord Mandeville died last autumn at 97, apparently having refused to have anything at Gatherton touched for about twenty years. His only son — our chap’s father — was killed in the Normandy landings, and his widow seems to have been persona non grata with the old boy. Our chap seems to have been more or less ignored by his grandfather and devoted his energies to money-making in the City. He married money, too, apparently, and the idea is to clean up Gatherton and live in it. There’s a little Mandeville at Eton.’

  ‘A good thing that there’s plenty of lolly,’ Gail said, holding out her glass to be refilled. ‘It sounds as though the Decameron restoration job’s going to be pretty expensive.’

  ‘Mandeville remarked that we must have something on account and wrote out a cheque for a thousand, unasked.’

  ‘Lumme,’ Gail commented.

  ‘You’d better come over and have a look at the thing tomorrow before we start on the job. If you can get away in Nanky’s absence. You got her on to the train at Brading this afternoon, I take it?’

  ‘Yes. The funeral’s on Thursday morning which leaves her tomorrow for sorting and packing her half-sister’s belongings. Not that there can be many since the poor old dear’s been living in an alms-house for years. Then Nanky catches an afternoon train back on Thursday, getting in at 6.20.’

  ‘The obvious thing is for me to meet her. I’ll go straight from the Works.’

  ‘OK. The daily women up at the Manor are putting in a bit of extra time while Nanky’s away, so Rose can cope all right.’

  Nanky, officially Miss Emily Gover, was an integral part of the Glade Manor set-up. John Morley was still unmarried at the time of his demobilisation in 1945, and returned immediately to deal with the arrears of business that had accumulated since his elderly partner’s death a year earlier. It was during a visit to London that he chanced to meet Fenella. An orphan from an early age, she had been brought up by a spinster aunt recently deceased, and on demobilisation had taken a temporary job at Harridges while attempting to plan her future. John Morley, going into the store on impulse to make a purchase, almost unbelievably found himself falling in love with her at first sight. Her response had been hesitant, but she eventually accepted him and they were married by special licence in London. His reappearance at Glade Manor with a bride was the sensation of the year in the neighbourhood. Fenella’s shy charm and responsiveness to the welcome she received resulted in her rapid acceptance by John Morley’s circle, and she was quickly received into its life.

  Time slipped by, and only one thing marred the happiness at Glade Manor: Fenella remained childless. Finally, after five years of unproductive medical advice, she and John decided to take the step of adopting a baby boy, and in due course a suitable candidate was found. His parents, members of the professional class, had been killed in a car crash. The Morleys named him Adrian, and after careful investigation Emily Gover was installed as his nanny.

  With the not uncommon irony of fate 18 months later Fenella became pregnant, and in due course Richard joined Adrian in the nursery. When the time came for him to follow the latter to a preparatory school, Nanky
stayed on at the insistence of John and Fenella as part of the Morley household. A small flatlet was made for her, and she organised the activities of daily women from the village and fulfilled her lifelong ambition of becoming a first-rate cook. It was not until Adrian was in his last year at Oxford that the tranquil regime of Glade Manor was abruptly shattered. Fenella had a sudden fatal heart attack.

  During the trauma of the period that followed Nanky was a tower of strength to the family and particularly to John Morley. Three years later she discreetly added her persuasion to that of Adrian and Richard over his marriage to Rose Ingram, herself a widow, who had been Fenella’s closest friend. The success of this step was due in no small measure to Nanky’s tact.

  Time passed. Adrian did brilliantly at Oxford and embarked on an academic career. Richard joined his father in the family firm in the nearby village of Buckford which handled the restoration of antique and valuable books. He married Gail Lethbridge, who had been one of his contemporaries at Cambridge where both had read history.

  Richard and Gail sat on by the fire over their drinks in contented relaxation, casually discussing other topics.

  ‘Must you go up to Town on Friday?’ he asked presently.

  ‘Yes, I think so. The searches I ought to be doing are piling up, I want to be as free as possible when Adrian’s down over Easter.’

  She and Richard had met at Cambridge where both were reading history. Gail had developed a keen interest in genealogy, and subsequently done some useful research in this field. She was Secretary of the Southshire Historical Society which had a surprising number of overseas members, particularly in the USA. The latter were enthusiastic about tracing British forbears and Gail had frequent requests to carry out searches into family history at St Catherine’s House Kingsway.

  After a time Richard stretched and yawned.

  ‘Let’s go and eat,’ he said. ‘I’m ravenous. With Mandeville coming I only had time to nip out to the pub for a couple of sandwiches and a beer.’