Lynn Shepherd - Murder at Mansfield Park

Maddox took a pinch of snuff, and held his companion’s gaze for a moment. "May I ask what you have been doing, in the intervening period?"

Henry threw himself once again into his chair, and Maddox took note that, consciously or not, Crawford had elected a posture that obviated any need for him to meet his questioner’s eye, unless he actively wished to do so.

"I have been searching for her," he said, with a frown. "I spent two fruitless days scouring London, before resorting to the dispatch of messengers to Bath and Brighton, and any other place of pleasure that might have offered her similar novelty or enlargement of society. She did not lack money, and could have taken the best house in town, wherever she lighted upon. Nor would she have seen any necessity for the slightest discretion or subterfuge. I calculated that this fact alone would assist me in finding her. But it was hopeless. I could discover nothing."

"And you conducted these enquiries where, exactly?"

"From our lodgings in Portman-square."

"So I take it you come directly from London?"

Henry hesitated, and flushed slightly. "No. Not directly. I come from my house at Enfield."

Maddox looked at him more closely; this was an interesting development indeed. "Now that, sir, if you will forgive me, strikes me as rather odd. Capricious even."

"I do not see why," retorted Henry, sharply."I had decided to return to Mansfield, and Enfield is in the way from London."

"Quite so," said Maddox, with a smile. "I do not dispute your geography, Mr Crawford. But I do ask myself why a gentleman in your position — a man of means, with horses and grooms at his disposal, and the power to command the finest accommodations in the country — should voluntarily, nay almost wilfully, elect to lodge in a house that, as far as I am aware, is barely larger than the room in which we sit, and has not been inhabited for years. Not, indeed, since the regrettable death of poor Mrs Tranter."

Henry started up, and stared at his companion. "How do you come to know of that?"

Maddox’s countenance retained its expression of impenetrable calmness. "You will not be surprised to hear that your delightful sister asked me exactly the same question, Mr Crawford. But it was a brutal and notorious crime, was it not? And not so very far from London.You would surely expect a man in my line of work to have heard tell of such an incident. The gang was never apprehended, I collect."

Henry shook his head. "No, they were not."

Maddox turned to stir the fire. "I gather your sister finds the house so retentive of abhorrent memories that she will not set foot in it.You, by contrast, elect to stay under that very roof, when you might have had your pick of lodgings without stirring a finger."

He turned to face Crawford once more, but received no reply.

"But perhaps I am unjust," he continued. "Perhaps you found yourself in the immediate neighbourhood just as twilight descended. Perhaps it was easier to put up for the night there, than search for more suitable quarters after dark. And, after all, I have no doubt that you stayed not a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. You must have been in such haste to be gone that you left with the light the following morning. Am I right?"

Henry shook his head, his eyes cast down.

"At noon, then? Surely no later than three?"

Henry drained his glass. "I left the next day."

Both men were silent.

"There was no particular reason for this otherwise unaccountable delay?" said Maddox at last.

"No reason I am prepared to divulge to you, Mr Maddox. I do not choose to enlarge upon my private concerns. All I am willing to confirm is that I stayed two nights on the road at Enfield. That is all."

"No matter, Mr Crawford. I am happy to take the word of your grooms and coachman. Unless, of course, you came on horseback?"

He had not needed to ask the question to obtain the answer; and it had not exercised any great intellectual faculty to do so: his companion was in riding-dress, and the hem of his great-coat was six inches deep in mud. The facts were not in dispute; he only wished to see how Crawford addressed them, and on this occasion it was with some self-possession.

"To use your own phrase, Mr Maddox," he replied, with a scornful lift of the brow, "I would expect a man in your line of work to have taken notice of my boots."

Maddox inclined his head. "Quite so, Mr Crawford, quite so." Had he known it, he had just had a glimpse of another Henry Crawford, the witty and charming Henry Crawford who had succeeded in persuading one of the country’s foremost heiresses to elope with him. Maddox smiled, but never had his smile been more artificial, nor his eyes more cold than when he next spoke.

"You were, I believe, examined by the constables after the death of your housekeeper."

It took a moment for the full implications of the question to be felt.

"You are well informed, sir," Henry said at last, in a purposely even tone. "And that being the case, you will also know that they were more than satisfied with the information I was able to impart. After all, what possible reason could I have had for committing such a repugnant crime?"

"None at all, I grant. Though the present case is somewhat different, is it not? You would, I contend, have every possible reason to murder Mrs Crawford.You will now take full possession of a very considerable fortune, without the concomitant inconvenience of a demanding, and from what I hear, rather unpleasant wife."

Henry flushed a deep red. "I will not allow you, or any man, to insult her. Not before my face. I loved her, sir."

"Perhaps you did; perhaps you did not. That does not materially alter the facts. Nor does it explain why you tarried two days in an empty house when you claim you were desperate to find her."

"I have already addressed this. I told you — it is none of your concern. And besides, I hardly knew what reception I might expect when I did arrive. I was not certain how the family would receive the news."

Maddox adopted an indulgent tone. "Come, come, Mr Crawford, you are disingenuous. I am sure you knew perfectly well how the Bertrams would view such a marriage. To see Miss Price’s fortune pass out of the family, and in such a fashion! So shortly before the union that had been planned for so long, and was so near consummation! Mrs Norris may not, I own, be a fair sample of the whole family," he continued, as Henry shifted uncomfortably in his chair, "but did you really imagine Sir Thomas would embrace you with rapture, and congratulate himself on the acquisition of such a nephew? But we digress. Let us return for a moment to the unfortunate Mrs Tranter."

Henry leapt to his feet and paced to the farther end of the room, before turning to face Maddox. " Must you continually harp on that string? It has nothing whatever to do with what happened to Fanny. It is nothing but an unlucky coincidence."

"That may, indeed, be one explanation. But there are some noteworthy similarities between the two cases, I think you will find. Not least the extreme and unnecessary violence with which each attack was perpetrated."

"True or not, that has nothing whatever to do with me. What possible reason could I have had for murdering the unlucky creature? She was a mere servant, nothing more."

"There, I am afraid, we disagree. Hetty Tranter was far more than a mere servant , at least as far as you were concerned. Indeed, it is quite alarming how often the women you seduce meet their deaths in such a cruel and brutal fashion."

Crawford turned away. "I do not know to what you refer."

"Come, Mr Crawford, we are both men of the world. This Hetty Tranter was your mistress. Oh, there is little point in denying it — your countenance has already betrayed you. Indeed, you may have papered over your debaucheries by calling her your "housekeeper", but the real truth is that you had installed this girl in the Enfield house for your own sordid convenience. At a discreet distance from town, far from the prying eyes of your loftier acquaintances, and the rather juster remonstrances of your sister. She is still in ignorance of this particular aspect of the affair, is she not?"