Death in the aviary, p.28
Death in the Aviary, page 28
Charlotte dutifully obliged. “‘Heskins had checked for signs of life and confirmed that my brother was dead. It was indeed a bullet wound and Charles had been shot.’”
Mrs C waited. “Sometimes it is what we are not told, the things that are not said, that are important. It is those little usual parts of life we take for granted, that are missed out or overlooked in a recount of a dramatic incident simply because we just expect them to be there. We assume everyone knows that is how it is. For instance, he has two arms. Two legs. Nobody says that, but it is the case.” Her eyes remained on Charlotte. “Tell me, which part of a visit or social occasion do you most enjoy?”
Charlotte was slightly surprised by the question. “Well, the dressing, I suppose. The clothes.”
“And the dressing gong would not have happened yet. That occurs usually at seven, but the visit to His Lordship interrupted that.”
“Correct,” Heskins agreed.
“However, at this time in an evening, with the whole family gathered together alongside various members of staff to pay a visit to His Lordship on New Year’s Eve, tell me, would Charles Ravenswick have only been wearing a shirt? Would he have just been in his shirt sleeves?”
“Good heavens, no.” Heskins looked appalled at the idea. “Of course not.”
“Of course not,” Mrs C repeated. “There is no conceivable way he would have done that. Of course he wouldn’t. Like all the gentlemen of the family in the lift at that time, he would have been wearing a jacket. That’s correct, isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s correct.” Edward interrupted, increasingly irritated at the idea this was even being discussed. “We maintain standards here.”
Mrs C stood gravely in front of the congregation. “From your evidence Mr Heskins, it is clear Charles Ravenswick was shot in the back. You bent him over and his jacket…?”
“As I bent him forward it pulled up over his back and I could clearly see his shirt and the blood. Immediately! Just as I said. I saw the blood on the shirt straightaway. It was obvious.”
“You then returned him to his seated position.”
“Yes!”
“And Lady Ravenswick confirmed that.” Mrs C recounted the evidence again. “My son, Charles, was slumped in the corner. There was blood on his shirt.” Mrs C leaned towards them. “He was slumped in the lift with his back against the wall and wearing a jacket. So there was no conceivable way Lady Ravenswick could have seen that there was blood on his shirt when the lift arrived before the door was opened. Her hysterics are mistimed. She has gone too early with her reaction. The only possible reason there can be for that, is she knew it was her son who was going to be shot. Because she planned it in advance.”
Lady Ravenswick’s lips faltered but she did not speak.
“See blood,” Charlotte whispered and looked at Mary who would not meet her gaze. “She couldn’t have seen it.”
“And I think if we look at the small display of guns here, we can see one of them is missing.” Mrs C nodded towards a case of pistols on the far wall. Clearly one was missing.
“All present and correct,” Charlotte murmured.
“What’s that, dear?” Mrs C frowned.
“Oh, just something someone said in the smoking room. It’s not important.”
Mrs C continued regardless. “You see, Celeste had said they were arguing. She says it’s always the same thing they argue about. We know from her previous entries, that’s the books. Bligh’s fake books. Lady Ravenswick can only know in advance that her son would be shot if she’d sent someone in there to do it. Their elaborate scheme was devised to divert blame onto everyone.” Mrs C looked around the astonished faces.
“And if you’re still in any doubt at all, another clue you left us, Mary, was power, wasn’t it? That didn’t mean power within the family or control. You meant the electricity. That part didn’t add up to you either, did it? They couldn’t possibly know there’d be a power cut at that exact moment when they intended to shoot him. Because there wasn’t. In your attempt to dispose of Miss Blood –”
“Mother?” Edward said in disbelief.
Lady Ravenswick didn’t answer.
“Oh yes. You didn’t think Miss Blood would survive so there was no need to disguise what you were able to do from up here in your little tower.” Mrs C held out her arm to the control panel with various buttons. “You can stop the lift and restart it. You can turn out the light.”
“We know that. We all know that,” Edward said. “But it doesn’t mean she did. There are often power cuts here. This is nonsense.”
“Celeste’s diary…” Charlotte said vaguely.
“Oh, you mean this.” Mrs C reached in her bag and, like a magician, pulled out the diary. “Stole it from Bligh.”
“What?” Charlotte had a look of mindless astonishment on her face.
“Never mind that now, girl.” She held the diary out towards her. “If there’s something in there…”
Charlotte took it and leafed through to the end. “On New Year’s Eve, she was writing in her diary. She called for cocoa. There were five hours to go and she hadn’t had her cocoa.”
Edward sighed and lit a cigarette.
“Mr Bartram, you’d just fed the birds and were clearing away. You told me that you feed them at six thirty. From what I saw, that takes about ten to fifteen minutes. It’s then ten minutes back to the house. What time were you at the lift?”
“Seven o’clock. Heskins said I was to be there at seven.”
“So you all met at the lift at seven. Got in the lift. Then the power cut happened. Correct?”
No one answered.
“Celeste’s cocoa meanwhile has been forgotten. It’s not been delivered. That’s right, isn’t it? She doesn’t want it sitting there getting cold. So, she set about getting it herself. She rang for the cocoa.” Charlotte looked around them. “Mr Heskins?”
He looked up.
“What sort of servants’ bells do you have here? The old bell and string mechanism?”
“No.” His voice broke. He looked at Lady Ravenswick.
“No, you don’t do you. Tell us what it is, Mr Heskins.”
“It’s an indicator board.”
“Powered by? Electricity?”
He nodded.
“Now, the cocoa isn’t delivered to her room. She says she goes out down the hallway to pick it up. But why would someone do that? No one would go all the way up from the kitchens with the cocoa just to leave it down the hall. Why would someone leave it sitting there when it’s just as easy to take it to her room? Because there is no one, is there, Mr Heskins? The girl sees no one. No one took it up.”
“No.”
“No person took it up. She says she will ‘have to trog down the hallway to fetch it myself from the hatch!’ So it’s delivered via the…” She left a pause for him to fill.
“Dumb waiter.”
“That’s right. It took me a while to realise why the girl had to go out down the hallway to get it after it was delivered. And please, just for the sake of completeness, Mr Heskins, the dumb waiter is powered by what?”
“Electricity.”
“Electricity. That’s right. So we know at seven o’clock, when they’d been told to be at the lift, the girl can see to write in her diary, she’s able to ring for a drink via the electric servants’ bell and it is then delivered via the dumb waiter powered by electricity. At no point does she say there was a power cut. Because… there wasn’t one.”
“Good.” Mrs C nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Lady Ravenswick…” Mrs C continued. “I return to my earlier assertion. You can, and you did, stop the lift. There was no power cut.”
The faces were dumbfounded watching. Mrs C was relishing her moment and gearing up for the final pronouncement.
“Yes, this was your little conspiracy, wasn’t it? You had to get rid of Charles Ravenswick as he was standing in the way of your plan for the survival of Ravenswick Abbey. Without which the family faced certain disaster. There would be a new heir – Edward, who cared little for the books and was only interested in the finer things in life and, of course, Rachel. Oh, the second son would be much easier to control.” Mrs C paused and stared intently at the stern-eyed woman. “Lady Ravenswick, you sacrificed your son for the survival of the Ravenswicks. For the survival of the Abbey. You set up the party, gathered everyone in that lift, then sent your assassin to shoot Charles Ravenswick in the back, in a darkness of your creation. When the lift finally made it to the top, of course you already knew he’d been shot, because you were the one who arranged it in a way that would perfectly disguise the identity of the killer. They would all be caught in a conspiracy they had no idea they were party to and one they would never be able to leave. All for the sake of the Ravenswicks.”
The room stalled, every face along the line bewildered.
“Your loyalty was put to the ultimate test, wasn’t it, Nicodemus Bligh? Would you kill a man for the survival of the family, to ensure your work and, more importantly, what you’d done, was not exposed?”
He was silent.
“I think we have our answer,” Mrs C said quietly.
For those assembled, watching a drama they had unwittingly been part of, their hatred seemed easier to shift onto Bligh than any other person. He was a man built for loathing.
He fidgeted uneasily in his seat, his eyes fixed on Lady Ravenswick.
“Your Ladyship,” he whispered. There was a desperate, almost pleading look to him now. “They will hang me.”
She remained as unmoved as ever.
“They will hang you,” he added.
“No!” It wasn’t Lady Ravenswick’s voice. It was Mary’s. “Mother. I never meant…”
Lady Ravenswick turned to Mary. “And yet you did. Your foolish little game, your silly notes and clever trail of breadcrumbs. It has led them straight to me. And now I will be punished and this family will fall. You will fall.” She straightened and fixed her eyes ahead.
Mary’s eyes glistened with tears and she looked in savage anger to Mrs C. “You… you…” The girl stumbled and wiped her sleeve across her face before shouting, “For a detective writer, you really don’t know the rules of the game, do you?”
A baffled expression passed over Mrs C. Charlotte looked down at the diary and the folder. They’d been her guidebooks so far. Mrs C’s reasoning was faultless.
“How do you mean?” Mrs C said slowly.
The girl leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “You have chosen the clues that fit your theory. But it doesn’t work if you do it that way round. There were more! It’s not right. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work! You have to use all the clues.”
“Mary.” Edward’s voice was faltering. “If you know who did this, you have to say now. The family is depending on you. This… this buffoon of a woman is going to hang our mother. Speak, for God’s sake. Who did it?”
The girl let her head fall. In a weak voice she simply said, “I don’t know.”
Edward’s face reduced to anger. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You’ve been leading this bloody woman up our garden path with your silly clues and now she’s here, at the door, ready to bring down the axe. For God’s sake, Mary, grow up! Now! You have to say.”
She lifted her head defiantly. “I said, I don’t know. I saw things. I left the clues because I wanted this woman, this so-called journalist –” she stared at Charlotte “– to find out who killed my uncle. This wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
Edward laughed bitterly. “So you were groping around in the dark and just setting it all out there without any idea who was going to get hurt.”
Charlotte’s mind stumbled. Mary was right. Mrs C had cherry-picked the clues. There was more. They had been arguing about the same thing they always did. Celeste had said so in her diary. She’d been out and about, spying on her family again. But who had been arguing? A nagging idea was growing. Something was there. She’d seen it.
“It doesn’t work,” she mumbled. “Something’s wrong.”
They looked at her in confusion.
“He couldn’t have done it,” Charlotte said, almost disbelieving herself.
“What do you mean?” Concern entered Mrs C’s face now.
Charlotte looked up at her. “I don’t think Bligh could have done it.”
“What?” Mrs C looked wounded. “Why? Lady Ravenswick knew her son was going to be shot. She stopped the lift and turned out the lights for it to happen.”
“Bligh wasn’t there.”
They all stared at her, one of them through killer’s eyes.
“Of course he was!” Rachel said.
“I mean before. Before the lift. You weren’t there Mr Bligh, were you?”
“So what?” Rachel shrugged.
“Because he wasn’t there when they were arguing.”
Rachel still looked unimpressed.
Bligh didn’t speak but there was a silent relief in his frightened look.
“Celeste went to fetch a new diary and you told her off for stealing one of your notebooks, didn’t you?”
He nodded once.
“Heskins went to get you.”
She looked at the tight-lipped butler.
“In fact –” Charlotte frowned “– Heskins went to get all the staff that were in the lift. It was the staff party, apparently. But this was only a handful… a random selection that seemed to have no thought to it. Where was Mrs Thornycroft, Nanny Austin, even Nurse Sidmouth? I used to wait weeks for the staff party. The planning was endless.” Charlotte paused. “But Mr Jeffers didn’t even have time to get changed. This wasn’t a pre-arranged, organised party. This was a hurried gathering of people. We’re told there was something to discuss about the will. Yet, the solicitor who drafted that had been days before. If you have an invalided, sick man and you’re organising a party for the staff and family around him, you’d organise it more than half an hour before hand. Quite the opposite of being a carefully planned out crime, you hadn’t planned this at all, had you?”
The room was silent.
The next noise was the distant cry of a bird.
Something snagged in Charlotte’s memory. She closed her eyes and threw her mind back to that first moment with the ravens. Their black beaks were wide, that strange, unnerving creaking sound had lifted from them and formed into words. It was such an unbelievable moment, hearing a bird speak, that she hadn’t landed on the words themselves until now. She heard them again as one said, “Shot in the dark.”
“What did you say?” Elizabeth asked.
Charlotte opened her eyes to see Mrs C leaning closer.
“Are you alright, dear? This is your drugs, Bligh. You’ll pay for this.” Mrs C gave him a piercing look. She held Charlotte’s hand. “Duckie?”
“The ravens said, ‘shot in the dark.’” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Was this something else that didn’t make sense to you, Mary?”
The girl didn’t answer.
Charlotte started flicking through the folder, her fingers frantic. “Mr Jeffers.”
The gardener looked suddenly scared.
“Now then,” Bartram cut in. “He ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“This is time for the truth. Mr Heskins?”
“You’re just scatter-gunning blame, now.” Edward slumped back into his chair.
“Mr Heskins, where did you find Jeffers when you went to tell him to come to the house?”
Mr Heskins reluctantly spoke. “He’d been mending a wall. A large tree had come down.”
“Is that right, Mr Jeffers?” Charlotte asked.
Jeffers looked around helplessly. “Aye. Happens a lot. Wind comes over the moors. Had to make it safe. I ain’t lying,” he said, panicked.
“I know. I know.” Charlotte looked at him kindly. “Mr Bartram, you thought Jeffers was out shooting rabbits for the ravens. That’s what you told me, isn’t it?”
Bartram nodded.
“Why?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Why did you tell me that?”
The man folded his thick arms. “Because it’s the truth. I don’t tell lies. Not for anyone.”
“And yet, it wasn’t true. He was mending the wall.”
They all watched her with suspicion.
“You thought he was shooting rabbits. Why? He hadn’t told you that.”
“I… I…” Bartram was clearly struggling to remember. “I heard his gun.”
“Mary.” Charlotte shifted her sights again.
The girl jolted.
“You said…” Charlotte riffled through the file. “At the inquest, it was completely black in that lift when the power went.”
The girl gave one nod. “It was. Everyone here knows that.”
“You also carved, Bang! Bang!”
“Yes.” She nodded her head at speed as if willing Charlotte on. “Yes, I did!”
“Edward Ravenswick.”
The man sighed. “Are you just going to go through my entire family and staff in turn accusing them of murder?”
“It usually works,” Mrs C said sagely.
Charlotte looked down at the file. “You told the court that Charles shouted, ‘No!’ There was a bang. Something dropped to the floor which made a thud on the carpet. This was followed by a much louder, heavier sound of something else falling to the floor.”
She paused and looked up.
“The lights were out.”
“Yes, dear,” Mrs C said slowly. “Lady Ravenswick had full control of the power to the lift.”
“If the lights were out and it was completely black, ask yourself one thing. How did Charles Ravenswick see that someone was about to shoot him in the back? Why did he shout ‘No!’? He wouldn’t have been able to see that someone was holding out a gun.”
“So, you’re saying he shot himself in the back?” Elizabeth leaned back dismissively.
“No.” Charlotte paused, letting the thoughts settle. “I’m saying we need to look at what we know. All that we know.” She counted them off on her fingers. “One, Bartram thinks Jeffers is shooting rabbits. Two, Charles Ravenswick sees the person about to shoot him in the back. He shouts ‘No!’ even though it’s pitch black and no one can see anything. Three, Lady Ravenswick sees blood on his shirt even though Charles Ravenswick was shot in the back and was slumped with his back to the wall when the lift arrived.”
