Page 10 of A Ruse of Shadows
Mr. Elstree must have taken heart from how pretty and peaceful everything looked, even in the face of a direct reference to the murder. “I would have told you about the murder myself, Mr. Yardley, had you expressed a serious interest. I still think, sir, that you should not let one instance of isolated misfortune deter you from considering this lovely house for your future residence.”
“But my son is about to win the hand of a wonderful young lady!”exclaimed Mrs. Watson. “He himself can perhaps overlook this tragic incident. What about her? I don’t think we can hide it from her.”
“But we’ve had any number of ladies live and thrive in this house, ma’am. Of the four sets of tenants since the tragic incident, except for an old brigadier general who lived by himself, all the others were families with ladies and children. They all left letters of recommendation for Garwood Hall as a delightful and salutary place to live—I shall be happy to show them to you. And while these tenants have been, without any exception, wonderful people, they were also quite ordinary—truly no superhuman courage is required to live here.”
As if to underscore his words, a sparrow landed on the window ledge, looked around for a bit, and flew away—a messenger of unimpeachable normalcy, surely, if one were at all inclined toward omens and metaphors.
Mrs. Watson grew more optimistic: She hadn’t been certain that the estate agent would know much about the murder, but it appeared that he’d had to routinely defend the place against whispers of infelicity. Perhaps he’d educated himself on the subject.
Owen Yardley obviously came to the same conclusion. “I’m relieved to hear that the instance of singular unhappiness has proved the exception rather than the rule. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about what happened to the people involved in the ill-fated incident, would you, Mr. Elstree?”
“I’ve made inquiries,” answered Mr. Elstree, both proudly and unwillingly. He no doubt viewed the murder as history as ancient as the signing of the Magna Carta, only far less relevant. “I accepted this post eight years ago. It quickly became obvious that I would need to be able to answer questions about the Christmas Eve Murder. I decided I might as well learn from those who knew the most. But by that time the only member of the family I could locate was Mrs. Harcourt, the two Meadows gentlemen’s sister. And she told me that her widowed sister-in-law lived for some time in Manchester with her young sister, after the murder, but later moved away without notice. Mr. Ephraim Meadows likely emigrated to Australia.”
“Likely?”
“That was what Mrs. Harcourt said—she told me that she hadn’t heard from him in years and could only assume he had gone abroad.”
“So she wasn’t close to this brother?”
“Half brother—she and Mr. Victor Meadows were full siblings, while Mr. Ephraim Meadows was born to old Mr. Meadows’s first wife. And no, they weren’t close. I daresay Mr. Victor Meadows didn’t much care for this half brother either. In his will, he bequeathed all of fifty pounds to Mr. Ephraim Meadows.”
Mr. Elstree lowered his voice. “I know that’s no pittance. But for a man with houses in the city and in the country, not to mention a number of factories, to leave a final parting gift of fifty pounds to his only brother? That was more than an insult—that was a slap in the face, if you asked me.”
And then, perhaps realizing that no one had asked him to pass so decisive a judgment, the estate agent reddened and cleared his throat.
“I’m sure Mr. Ephraim Meadows is living an exemplary life in the Antipodes, a burden to no one and a credit to himself.”
Four
The tour of the house continued.
Mr. Elstree made sure to point out that after the murder, the master’s and the mistress’s apartments had been stripped and refurnished entirely. Miss Charlotte asked several times to ascertain that the rest of the house hadnotbeen substantially altered or refitted, except for new wallpapers put up ahead of its sale to a family of nabobs who still had not returned from the Subcontinent.
The staff at the time of the murder had since scattered and Mr. Elstree didn’t know their current whereabouts, with one notable exception: The gardener who had discovered Victor Meadows’s body had left domestic service and now owned a newsagent’s shop three railway stops away, in the direction farther away from London.
Which deterred the ladies not at all from heading there as soon as they were finished with Garwood Hall.
Mr. Elstree had mentioned that Danny Stow, the former gardener turned newsagent, had married a woman who made locally famous pies. As the train pulled into the station, a mouthwatering aroma of hot water crust pies cooking to a bubbling finish wafted in through the windows.
Danny Stow handled the rush of customers with aplomb and sent them back to the train laden with not just pies but newspapers, magazines, and small packs of homemade boiled sweets.
The Yardley “mother and son” waited until the train had departed the station. Danny Stow, now a man in his mid-thirties, wiped his brow with a sleeve, took out a broom, and swept up the detritus from around his shop. Then he washed his hands with water from a pitcher.
“Mr. Stow? One each of the missus’s marvelous pies, please,” said Owen Yardley.
Danny Stow showed little surprise at being addressed by name by a stranger. He only said, “Indeed, sir. Excellent choices. The missus recommends them one and all.”
His straw-colored hair was thinning and his otherwise lean build beginning to pad out in the middle—nothing yet, compared to Owen Yardley’s proud girth. But he had a boyish face, and it was easy for Mrs. Watson to imagine him as a much younger man, climbing up that ladder, self-conscious under the gaze of the entire Meadows household, apprehensive yet anticipating not at all the bloodbath that he would find.
According to the police report, the ladder from the garden had been slightly short, and Danny Stow had pulled on the ivy on the exterior wall and hung by his fingernails in order to get up to the open window. And once he was inside the chamber, he’d taken a look, turned around, and called to the crowd below,There’s—there’s blood next to the bed!
But where is my brother?Ephraim Meadows had shouted back. Mrs. Meadows, still unaware of her new widowhood, swayed and murmured,No, surely not. Surelynot!
I—I think the master might be under the—the covers, had been Danny Stow’s halting answer.
Urged to pull back the covers, he had disappeared from the window. When he reappeared, he had been unable to speak for a minute, and then said,I’ll open the door. You’d best come see yourselves!
The crowd, rushing back in, had found him standing outside the now-open door of the master’s bedroom, trembling, after having pulled back the bedcover to reveal Victor Meadows with his throat cut.
