Page 55 of The Meriwell Legacy
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Barnaby surveyed the footmen, grooms, gardeners, and assorted boys Carnaby had assembled in the servants’ hall. It had taken more than fifteen minutes to gather all the male staff, but at last, they were all there, standing around the long table; from beside Stokes at the table’s head with Percy on Stokes’s other side, Barnaby listened as Stokes outlined the thrust of their questions—whether any gentleman of the house party had been seen going upstairs to the master suite during the day.
Stokes detailed the critical time periods during which gentlemen would have been free to slip upstairs. He concluded by running his gaze around the faces about the table. “So—did any of you see any of the gentlemen upstairs during those hours?”
Barnaby stirred. “Or even heading up the stairs.”
Carnaby and the footmen exchanged glances. As one, the footmen shook their heads, and Carnaby looked at Stokes. “No sir. But we’re rarely upstairs during those hours—only if called, and I don’t remember anyone ringing. Also…” Carnaby paused, then offered, “In the matter of tracing gentlemen visiting upstairs, I should point out that there are three staircases the guests might use to access their rooms, and we only monitor the front hall and the main staircase.”
Barnaby shot Stokes a look, which Stokes met. Both were recalling the secondary stairs they’d used earlier; apparently, there were more and doubtless several servants’ stairways as well.
Stokes returned his gaze to the assembled men. “Thinking back to those hours I mentioned and where you were during those times, did you notice any gentleman walking alone, either through the house, back to the house, leaving the house, or returning to the rest of the guests on the croquet lawn?”
Although the outdoor staff had been scattered here and there, weeding beds, digging a drainage ditch, and in the shrubbery, no one had seen any gentleman on his own. But even that came with a caveat. The head gardener pointed out that they’d all been busy and not looking about, keeping watch. Gentlemen may have come and gone, and they wouldn’t necessarily have noticed.
Stokes acknowledged that with outward good grace, but Barnaby could read his underlying frustration. Time was running out, and every lead they’d pursued had led to a dead end. Although Stokes tried several more questions regarding the movement of the male guests, there was clearly no pertinent knowledge to be extracted.
Finally accepting that, Stokes glanced at the clock. Barnaby followed his gaze—they still had more than half an hour before their meeting under the oak.
Doubtless fired by a dogged desire to have something positive to report, Stokes switched tacks. “Considering Mrs. Cleary, the second lady who was killed, is there anything—anything out of the ordinary at all—that any of you noticed about her?”
A pause ensued, then one of the older footmen volunteered, “I was in the conservatory corridor—the one that runs past the billiard room—on the evening before the lady died. I was there—close—when she came over faint.”
Along with Stokes, Barnaby looked as encouraging as he could, and the footman went on, “I noticed it particular because she stared straight ahead, as though she’d seen a ghost right there in the middle of the corridor.” He glanced at his mates. “T’tell the truth, it gave me quite a turn—the way she stared—but then the other ladies gathered around, and she seemed to come out of it all right.”
Carnaby put in, “I’d sent Mark to put the billiard room to rights given the gentlemen were leaving and heading back to the drawing room.”
Barnaby studied the footman’s face; he didn’t look to be the fanciful sort. A picture of what might have happened in the corridor took shape in Barnaby’s brain. “The gentlemen came out of the billiard room ahead of Mrs. Cleary and the other ladies—correct?” When Carnaby and Mark nodded, Barnaby went on, “Could Mrs. Cleary have been staring at one of the gentlemen walking away down the corridor ahead of her?”
Mark blinked, then frowned. “Aye,” he allowed, “she could’ve been.” He grimaced. “If that was so, whoever he was, just the sight of him gave her a nasty turn. Went white as a sheet, she did.”
Stokes leaned forward. “Do you have any idea which gentleman it might have been? The one she reacted to?”
Mark shook his head. “No, sir. I was looking at her, not at the gentlemen. They were all together, walking in twos and threes up the corridor.”
Barnaby said, “At the moment in time when Mrs. Cleary reacted and you looked at her, had all the gentlemen left the billiard room?”
Mark looked at Barnaby and didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir. They were all out. I was standing directly opposite the billiard room door, my back to the wall, waiting for the ladies to pass so I could go in.”
Percy, who, after instructing Carnaby to gather the male staff, had kept mum, cleared his throat and said, “I led the gentlemen out of the billiard room. I and those around me—Carradale and others—were at the head of the pack, as it were. We didn’t notice the ladies, and we’d no idea anything had happened until we heard later, in the drawing room.”
Stokes stared at Percy for a moment, as if juggling the positions of people in the corridor, then turned Barnaby’s way; Barnaby was waiting to catch his gaze and tip his head toward the door.
Stokes looked at Carnaby and the assembled men. “I believe that’s all we need for the moment. Thank you for your assistance.” Stokes cocked a brow at Barnaby.
“Let’s go.” Barnaby led the way out of the servants’ hall, but instead of heading for the front of the house, he turned toward the rear, eventually halting in the small foyer by the back stairs and the rear door.
“What?” Stokes said as he halted.
Barnaby turned to Percy as he joined them. “I’m not sure I have this right, but bear with me. From the rear end of the terrace, Rosa saw a gentleman leaving the shrubbery. You assumed the man she saw was you, but what if it wasn’t? Let’s say it was another gentleman—specifically the man who murdered Glynis. Am I correct in thinking that from where Rosa stood at the end of the terrace, her view of any man leaving the shrubbery and walking toward the front of the house would have been more or less from the back? At an angle, true, yet mostly from the back? That essentially, she saw the man walking away from her?”
Percy frowned. “I hadn’t really thought of it, but if Rosa was standing at theendof the terrace, then yes—if anyone came out of the shrubbery heading directly for the front of the house, unless they turned and looked squarely at the house or looked back toward where Rosa stood, she could only have seen their back.”
Barnaby met Stokes’s eyes. “We’ve just heard that Rosa nearly fainted at the sight of the gentlemen leaving the billiard room—where she again saw men from the back.”
Stokes’s eyes narrowed. “She recognized him—and he must have realized she had.”
Grimly, Barnaby nodded. “That’s why Rosa Cleary died.”
