Page 76 of Murder at Hambledon Hall
“Do you mean she may have confessed to Esmond on her deathbed that Susannah was his mother and the previous earl his father?”
“She may have confessed to more people than Esmond. Somebody studied the photograph in the cottage, most likely to look for a resemblance between Esmond and the fifth Lord Kershaw.”
“Yes, but they studied it well after Mabel Shepherd died, going by the dust disturbance.” Harmony flicked her cloth over the already cleaned desk in the corner of the room. “If Mabel confessed on her deathbed, that’s a delay of three or four weeks. Why wait?”
She had a point.
“And,” she went on, “why would someone kill Esmond over this? The parish record of his baptism states the Shepherds are his parents. There’s no proof that the fifth earl is his father. Without proof, there’s no motive.”
“I have a theory about that. Esmond went to St. Michael’s here in London after looking through the Morcombe parish records. I wasn’t sure why at first, but now I wonder if it’s because his baptism was registered twice. Firstly, here in London where he was born in the family’s townhouse, away from the prying eyes of the village. Then mere days later back in Morcombe. The first registration could have his legitimate parents’ names, and the latter one could have the false names and was carried out purely for the sake of appearances. It’s easier to obscure the truth in the busy London parish than the quiet Morcombe one where everyone knows everybody else’s business.”
Harmony nodded along to my theory. “So I should have checked the 1855 records yesterday, not 1834.”
“You can go back this afternoon.”
She moved into the en suite bathroom, only to stop in the doorway. “There’s one large hole in your theory, Cleo.”
“What?”
“The motive. Yes, it’s a scandal, but it’s the previous earl’s scandal, not the current one’s.”
“Perhaps the current Lord Kershaw didn’t want his parents’ memories to be mired in scandal. He may want to maintain the facade that his parents were happily married.” Even as I said it, I realized I lacked a crucial piece of information to support that theory. I didn’t know if his parents were married at that time. If they were, then it was quite possible he didn’t want the world to know his father had an affair with the gamekeeper’s daughter. If they weren’t, the scandal was rather a mild one as scandals go.
I spentthe rest of the day in a state of restlessness while I waited for Harmony to revisit St. Michael’s church after her shift finished. I’d made up my mind to call on Harry and ask if he needed assistance with any of his cases, but before I left the hotel, Flossy waylaid me.
“Cleo, will you please, please come shopping with Janet and me. Neither her aunt nor her mother wants to go. They say they’ve had enough of shopping and everything for the wedding is purchased.”
“Then why do you want to go?”
She looked at me as though I’d said something stupid. “Why not?” She clasped my hand. “Please, Cleo. It’s Janet’s last day in London, and we have nothing to do until afternoon tea and our mothers won’t let us out without a chaperone.”
Since I needed to do something to fill my time, I agreed. With a little clap of her hands, Flossy went off to fetch Janet while I asked Peter to organize one of the hotel carriages to collect us at the front door.
Fifteen minutes later, we set off in the rain. An hour later, in the men’s department at Harrods, I began to regret my decision. Shopping wasn’t my favorite activity, particularly when I wasn’t the one choosing things. Added to which, Flossy and Janet were like bees flitting from flower to flower. Janet wanted to buy a gift for her fiancé, but she couldn’t decide between a walking stick, a monocle, or a gold cigar cutter. When she dismissed them all and moved on to the tiepins, I decided to step in for the sake of my sanity.
“Tell me about your fiancé,” I said. “How old is he?”
“Seven years older than me,” she said, touching a silk handkerchief display on the glass-topped counter.
“Then I don’t think a monocle or walking stick are a good idea.”
“But they make a man look so distinguished.”
Flossy agreed with me. “They make him lookold.”
“I suppose,” Janet said.
“Does he smoke a lot of cigars?” I asked.
Janet bit her lower lip as she bent to study the tiepins beneath the glass countertop again. “I don’t know. He doesn’t smoke around me.”
At least we were narrowing down our options. “What are his hobbies?”
Janet straightened. “Politics?”
“You don’t know?”
“His family are quite political, so I assume he is, too. Yes, he must be. I think he plans on becoming quite the force in one of the political parties one day.”
