David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘And the clothes? Have they gone?’

‘As far as we know, they’re still here. He didn’t have very much in the way of clothes, William. Most of them looked to have been inherited from his brothers, there were plenty of elder brothers.’

‘And he was last seen after supper yesterday evening, ‘said Powerscourt, ‘and his disappearance was only spotted after breakfast this morning, am I right, Charlie?

‘You are, my lord. We eat our meals together in the servants’ quarters in the basement. Cook was always trying to get William to have second helpings. He was thin, you see, and she thought he needed fattening up.’

‘If William wanted to go out, did he have to tell you where he was going, when he would be back, that sort of thing?’

‘All the servants could go where they wanted in their free time. Sometimes they told me if they could find me. I’d gone out myself yesterday evening so maybe William tried to tell me but wasn’t able to do so.’

‘Were there any visitors expected? Did anybody see any strangers in the grounds or approaching the house?’

‘Inspector Cooper asked that one too, my lord. I don’t think so. Inspector Cooper did say that the Hall was so full of doors and staircases that you could get a whole football team in and out and nobody would notice.’

Powerscourt sat down on William’s bed and tried to imagine that he was sixteen years old and obsessed with ocean liners. What would William have done? Where would he have gone? Did it have to do with the murder?

‘Forgive me for asking, my lord,’ said Charlie Healey, ‘but is William’s disappearance very important? To your investigation, I mean. It’s not every day after all that Norfolk sees all these policemen arriving on the case, closely followed by a top investigator from London. I presume it must have to do with the earlier murder.’

‘This interest does have to do with the earlier murder, Charlie,’ said Powerscourt, ‘you’re quite right. Can I tell you the reason in confidence?’

Charlie Healey nodded. He was an avid reader of mystery and detective stories in his leisure time, and was particularly devoted to The Moonstone and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

‘My role in this case,’ Powerscourt was checking the space behind the pillow in William Stebbings’ bed in case it contained buried treasure, ‘is to secure the acquittal of Cosmo Colville, the man you apprehended in the state bedroom with a gun in his hand. Now – forgive me this horrible thought, but I can assure you it is the same thought that has led Inspector Cooper and his men here on their search mission in the grounds – if young William has been murdered, one assumption must be that it is because of what he saw at the time of the murder. Maybe he didn’t realize how important it was since most of the people were strangers to him. Murderers often kill a second time because somebody has seen them committing the first murder or has some piece of information which links them to the killing. Are you with me so far, Charlie?’

‘Clear as a bell, my lord.’

‘Now then, this is the crucial point. If this is murder, and it is linked to the earlier one at the wedding, there is one person who couldn’t possibly have done it.’

‘Cosmo Colville,’ said Charlie with an air of triumph.

‘And,’ said Powerscourt, ‘if Cosmo didn’t commit the second one, he’s unlikely to have committed the first one either.’

‘I can see why everybody has rushed up here,’ said Charlie.

‘Could I ask you a favour, Charlie? Again it must be in the strictest confidence.’

Charlie nodded once more. Really, he said to himself, I’m quite enjoying this. It’s as good as a detective story.

‘Let’s suppose,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that in one of the families involved in this case, there has been a tremendous row. Doors slamming, people stomping out of houses, real physical violence not far away. I can ask all of the people involved what the row was about and they will all tell me the row was private. Family matter. None of your business – you can imagine the sort of thing.’

Charlie Healey was trying to work out which family Powerscourt was referring to. He thought it must be a Colville but which particular Colville family he did not know. Maybe the row had engulfed them all.

‘There are other people in the house who must know what the row was about, the servants. But they’re not going to betray their employers. They’d lose their job if it became known. Is there a way round it, Charlie?’

Charlie stared out of the little window at the gathering gloom engulfing the garden. ‘That’s very tricky, sir, trying to talk to the servants. It’d be hard for you to get into the house without somebody telling the Master or the Mistress you were there and then they’d throw you out. Offering money has the same disadvantages. The only way you might do it, my lord, is to catch them away from the house altogether in a pub or a cafe, for example, if they have a regular place they go to. Most people in service like going to the pub every now and then. It gets them out of the house. I’m sorry, sir, if that’s not very helpful.’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘It’s very helpful, Charlie. I have a friend, you see, who works with me on all my cases. He’s an expert in persuading people to talk, usually in the King’s Head or the Coach and Horses after he has poured giant’s helpings of beer or whisky down them. I hadn’t thought of him until now.’

They made their way downstairs to the drawing room once more. Inspector Cooper was telling Mrs Nash that he hoped to return in the morning. He assured them that word would be sent to all the surrounding towns and villages about William Stebbings. Willoughby Nash, the strain showing in the lines on his face, said that his party would also carry on in the morning where they had left off that evening. The invisible figure of a sixteen-year-old boy, always polite, keen to learn about his position, fascinated by great sailing ships, hovered, about the room. Powerscourt wondered if the old adage was true, that the longer it took to find a missing person, the more likely it was that they were dead.

He had only one suggestion for Inspector Cooper the following morning before he set out for London: to contact William’s school, and more specifically, his friends in his last year or two. Might he have gone off on some adventure with one of his old school friends? It was, he told the Inspector and Mrs Nash, a long shot, but it was the best he could do. He left Pugh’s address as well as his own with Georgina Nash. Could she please send on any news to both of them once it came? Shaking hands with Inspector Cooper at the front door, Powerscourt thought the young man’s eyes were full of foreboding. Maybe he thought William Stebbings was dead.

At two o’clock the following afternoon Powerscourt presented himself at the reception desk of Whites Hotel, one of London’s most discreet establishments, nestling in the streets between St James’s Square and Piccadilly. Other establishments in the capital trumpeted their services across the sides of the buses or in the pages of the newspapers and the magazines that the rich and fashionable read. Whites, if asked, would have regarded that as rather vulgar. Whites was where Lady Lucy’s mother stayed when the Powerscourts were out of town and she needed a hotel in London. Unlike other hotels, White’s did not send out regular bulletins to the press about who was staying in its elegant rooms. Anything that happened once you had crossed the threshold was private. The regular clients – and there were considerable numbers of those – behaved in White’s as they would have done when they were in their own homes. The cynics pointed out that the code of White’s Hotel made it the perfect place for the conduct of illicit affairs. Once you were safely ensconced within its walls and within its bedrooms, you were safe from exposure and scandal.