Page 95 of Murder Most Haunted
Chapter61
‘Of course, the journal entry is the clue.’
They were all, except Rona, inside Rendell’s room, where Midge had pulled at the curtains to let the daylight drip across the floor. Despite the clutter of his possessions, the room still felt empty and soulless.
‘Of course...’ murmured Noah, tapping his nose, although Midge suspected he had no idea what she was talking about. It was a feeling she was more than familiar with in her limited dealings with the younger generation.
To focus his attention, Midge prodded at Noah with her cane, pushing him back past the austere bookcase to stand in the doorway, half inside the room and half out, his toes over the threshold on the wooden floorboards.
Noah swatted back at the stick and scowled at her. ‘Yes?’
‘Martha Cook, housekeeper of Atherton Hall, met me on arrival and escorted me through the servants’ entrance, avoiding the main corridors...’ prompted Midge, reading from the journal.
Silence. The others stared at her with blank expressions.
With a sigh, she continued, ‘The hands of the grandmother clock read between half past three and a quarter to four as I stood in the doorway of Lord Atherton’s room, the interior of which was like a furnace despite no fire being lit. A pair of coal-black eyes stared back at me from the bed, holding me rigid at the door. I was shocked at the sight of the master of the estate.’
Midge stopped to look expectantly at Noah. When all he did was scratch his head, Midge prodded him again, wondering if thetightness of trousers could actually restrict the blood flow to his brain. ‘Well? Imagine that you are Dr Rawlings, stepping into the room... What can you see?’
‘The bed, and the side of the ugly old grandmother clock next to the fireplace,’ snapped Noah, pointing at the knotted teak timepiece. ‘Oh... wait.’ He dropped his hand and nodded at Midge. ‘I get it now.’
‘Perhaps you can let the rest of us buggers know, then,’ said Harold, craning his neck to see around Noah. ‘When you’ve finished playing charades.’
Noah pointed across the room at the bookcase. ‘The fireplace and the clock face. You can’t see them from the doorway. You would need to be standing over by the bookcase to see the hands on the clock. But the doctor reads the time and notes that the fire isn’t lit.’
‘Is that it?’ said Bridie, much to Midge’s annoyance. ‘Maybe the doctor was invoking a bit of poetic licence.’
‘He seemed remarkably precise in all of his other entries,’ replied Midge, setting her shoulders in a way that suggested that that was very much that. Undoubtedly, there was a new confidence to Midge that was obvious to everyone. Here and now, talking about objects and facts as opposed to the enforced social chit-chat, she had hit her stride. She matched every gaze and spoke with an uncharacteristic animation.
‘Or maybe he’d had a few too many nightcaps before he was called out,’ said Harold, who had started flicking through one of the newspapers on the bed. Unsurprisingly, noted Midge, it was the tabloid full of the big bosoms. ‘They’re all self-medicators, those doctors.’
‘Oh, do shut up, Harold,’ said Midge, surprising everyone, not least herself.
‘Midge!’ rebuked Bridie, struggling to find a seat amongst the muddle of clothes. ‘But yes, do shut up, Harold, and stop pawing at that newspaper, it’s quite unsavoury.’
A thought suddenly occurred to Midge. ‘How did you take the pictures of Rona? I mean, where did you take them from, to be able to see inside her room like that?’
Harold waved a hand at the panelled wall. ‘Rendell told me about a servants’ corridor, hidden behind the panels and those what do you call it, curtain thingies...’
‘Draperies,’ corrected Midge, unable to help herself.
‘Yeah, those things,’ nodded Harold, closing the newspaper and failing to notice the ink now on his fingers. ‘The corridor runs directly past Rona’s room. I drilled a little hole in the wall.’
‘Good grief.’ Bridie stared at him in disgust.
‘Exactly,’ said Midge. ‘Now, if the Athertons or the servants wanted to keep the doctor’s visit a secret, they would have brought him in that way,’ she continued. ‘He says in the journal he came in the servants’ entrance. Maybe there was a door from a servants’ corridor that led directly here, into Charles Atherton’s bedroom.’
The others stood in silence, digesting what she had said.
‘Which means that the doctor’s diary entry is probably in fact correct, and he did step out facing the clock and the fireplace.’ She shuffled over to the wall of bookcases. ‘Somewhere about... here.’
‘Where?’ asked Bridie, frowning. ‘It’s just a bookcase.’
‘There must be an operating lever or something,’ said Midge, slightly put out by the underwhelming reaction. ‘Well, look around,’ she said, raising her arms.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Noah. ‘You and Harold have already searched the room.’
Midge nodded. ‘But we weren’t looking for that. And it will be disguised.’
