Page 55 of Murder at Hambledon Hall
“Perhaps we don’t have to. There may be another way to get answers. Those candlesticks wouldn’t have fit in the cavity below Faine’s floor. So where were they hidden?”
I smiled as I followed his train of thought. “Perhaps they’re still in their hiding place.”
While the vicarage was off-limits with both the housekeeper and Reverend Pritchard inside, the church was most likely empty.
It wasn’t, but the parishioner there left soon after our arrival when she’d finished praying. Once she was out of sight, Harry closed the door. We would hear it opening again if someone arrived.
We then set about looking for hiding spots for items the size of the candlesticks. There weren’t many places in the nave or altar. Harry headed into the sacristy, but I had another thought. Finding the candlesticks would be a very important piece of evidence, but we both suspected they’d already been sold on or melted down, along with the rest of the silver spoons. But there was another piece of evidence that could prove Reverend Pritchard was a thief, and we were in the right place to find it.
I entered the parish office while Harry checked the sacristy and vestry. Low bookshelves weighed down by thick volumes of registers didn’t interest me as much as the filing cabinet crammed with correspondence and other paperwork.
It took a few minutes, but I eventually found a letter in a slim folder dedicated entirely to Reverend Pritchard. It was addressed to Pritchard from the bishop of the London diocese, stating that he was being moved to a different one. A second letter from the bishop of the Diocese of Oxford welcomed Pritchard. While neither letter stated the specific reason he was moved to Morcombe, the second one did express the need for urgency due to what the bishop called Pritchard’s ‘problem’ at his former parish.
The parish church where he was located before Morcombe was mentioned as St. Michael’s in Marylebone. I knew of it. Indeed, I’d walked past it more than once the day before. It was located near the guesthouse where Esmond Shepherd had stayed a few days before his death.
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Ishowed the letters to Harry before we left the church. He’d not had any luck finding the stolen candlesticks, but my discovery meant we hadn’t wasted our time. The letters provided a possible connection between Shepherd and the vicar that we’d not previously known.
I said as much as we walked through the churchyard. “I think we’re wrong about the reason Shepherd went to Marylebone. He didn’t go to speak to Miss Crippen, the former nanny. I think he went to St. Michael’s to find out more about Reverend Pritchard, his partner in crime. Perhaps he wanted something to use against the vicar if he tried to extricate himself from their thieving enterprise.”
It made sense that the vicar was a necessary third member of the scheme. If Shepherd was the brains behind it, and Faine was the fence, they needed a third man whose presence in the dining and drawing rooms wouldn’t raise suspicions, someone who could slip in and out with silverware hidden inside his coat. Someone trusted in the community, who could be blackmailed because of his problematic past.
“What did Pritchard say when you originally questioned him about Shepherd?” Harry asked.
I thought back to my earlier conversation with the vicar, shortly after we’d met over the dead body. “He said Shepherd wasn’t a churchgoer, and that he’d only met him once.”
Harry lifted a hand to wave. I turned to see Reverend Pritchard watching us through the vicarage window. I waved, too. The vicar didn’t wave back.
“There’s one more question the letters from the two bishops raise,” I said as we continued toward the railway station. “Reverend Pritchard came from St. Michael’s church in Marylebone. Miss Crippen, the former nanny, is from the same area. It’s possible she knew the vicar. What if she knew the reason he left?”
“And informed her lover, Esmond Shepherd?” Harry finished. “Shepherd blackmails Pritchard, so Pritchard kills him to avoid paying.” Harry’s bright eyes told me what he thought of the theory. He liked it a great deal.
As did I. We needed to confirm our theory with Miss Crippen.
“It’s Saturday,” I pointed out. “Mr. Crippen won’t be at work today, and he only goes to the chophouse after work. We’ll have to wait until Monday afternoon to follow him home.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Harry said.
“What am I forgetting?”
“That you have an assistant who plans ahead. I thought knowing where Crippen lived might prove useful, so after I escorted you home yesterday, I returned to the chophouse. When Crippen left, I followed. He lives in a flat above a bookshop on Marylebone High Street.”
“Excellent! But I do have one quibble.”
“Oh?”
“You’re not my assistant. We’re equal partners.”
Harry’s gaze softened. “I like the sound of that.”
“Just as long as you don’t expect a raise with the promotion. I’m afraid you get nothing out of it this time.”
“On the contrary. I get a lot of pleasure out of this arrangement.” He took my hand, stopping me. “Cleo?—”
The distant whistle of a locomotive interrupted him. I let go of his hand and picked up my skirts. “Come on, Harry! If we miss this train we’ll have to wait an hour for the next one.”
The walk to Mr. Crippens’flat took us past the very church where Reverend Pritchard had worked up until six months ago. We decided to enter and see what we could glean from the new vicar. Unlike Pritchard, he was not out of sight in the vicarage writing his sermon for the following day.
