Death of a Recluse (Riley Rochester Investigates Book 6) Read online

  ‘It’s a terrible disadvantage to me,’ Riley conceded, amused as always by Salter’s forthright expression of his views. He liked nothing more than to make snide comments about Riley’s personal circumstances, but Riley knew that he secretly enjoyed being on the periphery of his life. Mrs Salter’s stock was still in the ascendency since she and Salter had been invited to Riley’s wedding.

  ‘Still an’ all, if you ask me, detecting is less dangerous than a lot of other occupations I could name. I’ve been doing this job for longer than you have, sir, and no lasting harm has come to me yet. It helps to have a thick skull, of course. But that aside, criminals are more likely to kill one another than to attack us detectives. We arrive on the scene after the fisticuffs have stopped and tempers have had a chance to cool. When wiser heads prevail the perpetrators of the violence in question have had the good sense to scarper.’

  ‘Thank you for the benefit of your insight, Salter.’ Riley moved away from the edge of the pavement to avoid being soaked by the spray thrown up from the wheels of a passing carriage. ‘I haven’t decided yet what I intend to do, and I rely upon you to keep what I have told you to yourself. When I reach my decision, you’ll be the first to know.’

  Salter grunted. ‘Fair enough, sir.’

  Their conversation was conducted during as brisk a walk as the conditions permitted along the length of Eaton Square, skirting the gardens partially concealed by a layer of half-melted sleet. They turned right into Belgrave Place, and another righthand turn brought them to the terrace of exclusive houses that lined one side of Chester Square. Four stories high, the houses boasted elaborate balconies that spanned the width of the first floor, the entirety of which would be taken up by the drawing room, Riley knew. There were steps down from the pavement to the kitchens, and the attics would house the servants. The property owned by the late Sir Theodore was rendered obvious by the sight of Peterson’s stolid form, standing guard at the front door in his constable’s uniform, melting sleet dripping from his helmet.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ he said, saluting Riley. ‘Harper’s inside, keeping the guests together in one room pending your arrival. Didn’t think you’d want them roaming all over the house, messing things up.’

  ‘Quite right, Peterson.’ Riley paused. ‘What guests?’

  ‘All I know is that the deceased gentleman had invited some people to stay for a few days,’ Peterson replied, with an infinitesimal shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘In a right state, so they are. One of them found the body, you see.’

  ‘Hmm. Sounds like Sir Theo was getting over his reclusive tendencies,’ Riley remarked. ‘Has Doctor Maynard been summoned?’

  ‘Yes, sir. A message was sent but he ain’t here yet.’

  ‘Right, thank you, Peterson. Come in and stand inside the door. There’s no need for you to get soaked.’

  ‘Much appreciated, sir,’ Peterson replied with feeling, opening the door in question and allowing Riley and Salter to walk through it ahead of him.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Is that more police arriving, Trent?’ an imperious female voice coming from the first floor demanded when Allen’s butler glided into the hall and offered to take Riley’s hat and coat. ‘Tell them to use the tradesmen’s entrance. Really, standards have got to the wall, and no one remembers their place anymore.’

  Trent, for whom this haughty instruction was presumably intended, showed no reaction whatsoever.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said instead. ‘I presume you are from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘We are. I am Inspector Rochester and this is Sergeant Salter.’

  ‘My apologies, my lord. I am Trent. I should have recognised you at once.’

  ‘We regret the circumstances that brought us to your door.’ Riley suspected that Trent was likely to be suffering more than anyone else beneath this roof, given that he was one of the few people who’d had daily contact with the reclusive victim. Be that as it may, he was required to carry on as though nothing untoward had happened, because butlers had their dignity and set great stock by the standards that the domineering voice had just referred to.

  ‘Your condolences are appreciated, my lord.’ Trent inclined his head and his composure slipped for a brief moment. That, Riley knew, was the only reaction the butler would allow himself. ‘Everyone below stairs is devastated and shocked.’

  ‘I have no doubt. I shall need to speak with you all individually, Trent. I understand your master had house guests.’

  Trent’s venerable expression underwent fractional alteration, implying disapproval of his master’s sociable bent. ‘That is correct, my lord. They arrived yesterday and were engaged to remain until Friday, although my master predicted that one or all of them might leave before then. Alas, he did not anticipate that he himself would be the one doing the leaving.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘He was never strong, but I did not anticipate that his heart would fail him at such a comparatively young age.’

  Riley sent the butler a sharp look. ‘You imagine he died of natural causes?’

  Trent’s composure left him, and he looked totally shocked. ‘I had naturally assumed so. I cannot see who…But then again.’ He swallowed. ‘I am mightily relieved that it is you who has come, Lord Riley.’

  ‘Trent.’ That strident voice again. ‘Who is it? What do they want? Send them away. This is a house in mourning. Has no one any respect?’

  ‘My master’s aunt,’ Trent said, this time permitting a small amount of distaste to show in his expression.

  ‘My constable will keep the visitors confined to the drawing room until I am ready to talk to them,’ Riley informed Trent calmly. ‘In the meantime, I should like to view Sir Theodore’s body for myself.’

  ‘He is in the library, my lord. Nothing has been touched. Once he was discovered, I took it upon myself to lock the door.’ He produced the key from his pocket and held it in the air.

  Riley frowned. ‘Even though you thought he had died of natural causes?’

  ‘I did not want…It is not my place to give orders. Mrs Allen, you understand, has a most forthright character.’

  Salter chuckled. ‘That much is already obvious.’

  ‘I just didn’t want anyone touching the master. He deserves dignity, not…’ Whatever Trent had been about to say, he thought better of it. ‘Please be so good as to follow me, gentlemen.’

  He led them down the corridor to a room at the end of it and unlocked the door. It proved to be a well-stock library with floor to ceiling bookshelves and full-length windows looking out over the rear garden. A large desk was positioned in such a way as to benefit from the maximum amount of light filtering through those windows. Its surface was covered with untidily scattered books and papers. More books covered much of the floor space. It looked as though the place had been ransacked.

  ‘Was Sir Theodore always so disorganised?’ Salter asked.

  ‘My master never allowed anyone to touch a thing in here. He had a system, could lay his hand on anything he needed.’ Trent’s voice choked up. ‘If the maids tried to dust, he could never find anything for weeks afterwards, and so they were banned from setting foot in the library.’

  Sir Theodore sat behind the desk, his torso slumped across it, head resting on one side. His lifeless eyes were wide open and stared accusingly up at them.

  ‘The last thing those eyes saw was the face of his killer,’ Riley muttered. ‘Was it you who discovered your master?’

  ‘No, my lord. It was a young lady.’

  It was the first thing Trent had said that shocked Riley. ‘A lady?’

  ‘A close friend of Sir Theodore’s, my lord.’ Trent stood rigidly to attention, hands clasped behind his back, and studied the rug beneath his feet.

  ‘Merely a friend?’ Salter asked.

  ‘It is not for me to speculate upon the nature of Sir Theodore’s friendships,’ Trent replied stiffly.

  ‘Now look here…’

  Salter’s words trailed off when
Riley held up a restraining hand. ‘Is the young lady still in the house, Trent?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, and she is suffering from shock, as you can imagine. Everyone who was here last night is still in residence.’

  ‘Your master is dressed in his evening clothes,’ Riley remarked. ‘He’s been here all night, dead, and was only discovered this morning?’

  Trent winced. ‘Sir Theodore was in the habit of closing himself in here after dinner, always with instructions not to be disturbed. None of us would have dared to intrude. Sir Theodore lost himself in his intellectual pursuits and was oblivious to the rest of the world. He got very angry if he was forced to return to reality before he was ready to embrace the mundane.’

  ‘Even when he was supposed to be entertaining?’ Salter asked, frowning.

  ‘I really cannot say. It’s the first time in ten years that he has entertained.’

  ‘His valet didn’t miss him?’ Riley asked.

  ‘He did not keep one, my lord. I attended to his wardrobe, but he never required me to wait up for him. He insisted that he was perfectly capable of undressing himself. And before you ask, I did not attend him this morning, either. Since he spent half the night, sometimes all night, in this room, he was accustomed to sleeping late. I would never go in until he rang for me.’

  But the as yet unnamed young female guest had no qualms in searching him out this morning, Riley thought.

  ‘How many other servants are there?’ he asked.

  ‘Just myself, a cook and two maids. Two of the female guests brought their personal maids with them, and they are below stairs as we speak.’

  Riley raised a brow. ‘Not many permanent servants for an establishment of this size.’

  ‘Sir Theodore lived alone and did not entertain. Besides, he enjoyed his privacy and his needs were simple. We managed very well.’

  ‘You are the only male servant?’

  ‘Apart from the man who comes to attend to the garden once a week. Yes, I am.’

  ‘Sir Theodore kept no horses?’

  ‘He seldom left the house, so had no need for them.’

  ‘Thank you, Trent,’ Riley said, collecting himself from momentary reflection. ‘Leave us here for now. When Doctor Maynard arrives, please send him through.’

  Trent acknowledged Riley’s instructions with in an inclination of his head and left the room, closing the door silently behind him.

  ‘No obvious cause of death,’ Salter muttered. ‘No blood, neither. Perhaps it was natural causes.’

  ‘Not so sure about that. Sir Theodore might not have been strong, but to die after reconciling himself with his relations and inviting them beneath his roof…’ Riley shook his head. ‘Too much of a coincidence for my liking.’ He picked up the almost empty brandy snifter from the desk and held it to his nose. ‘Almonds,’ he said on a long sigh. ‘The aroma is cloaked by the smell of the brandy, but it’s still just about discernible.’

  ‘Cyanide,’ Salter breathed. ‘He was poisoned.’

  ‘First indications appear to point in that direction.’

  ‘Most likely a woman then. Poison is their preferred method of doing away with inconvenient relatives.’ Salter screwed up his nose. ‘I’ll wager that old harridan who wanted us to use the tradesman’s entrance is the culprit.’

  ‘Endlessly amusing though your prejudices are, Jack, perhaps we should gather some evidence before I permit you to slap the cuffs on the lady.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Salter replied cheerfully. ‘But I’ll remind you that I got it right before even speaking to the woman once we do prove her guilt.’

  Riley refrained from remarking that Salter had already pointed the finger of blame in two other directions. Regardless of his tendency to jump to conclusions, Riley knew that Salter was one of the most meticulous detectives at Scotland Yard, and was never inclined to invent evidence to fit his theories.

  ‘He looks too young to be a recluse,’ Salter remarked, peering at the dead man’s face.

  ‘Are recluses required to reach a certain age before adopting that mantle?’

  ‘Dunno, but I expected a much older chap. This one can’t have been above forty.’

  ‘I don’t think he was even that old. No more than thirty-five or six as I recall.’

  ‘He certainly didn’t want for comfort,’ Salter said, glancing with envy around the opulent room, magnificent despite its disorder.

  ‘And paid a heavy price for it.’

  ‘You think this is about his wealth, sir?’

  Riley pursed his lips. ‘Isn’t it usually in cases such as this?’

  The two detectives barely had an opportunity to speculate upon motive before the door opened and Doctor Maynard’s damp head and open, friendly smile appeared around it.

  ‘I say, Lord Riley, filthy weather for dying.’ Maynard sounded inappropriately cheerful. When not acting on behalf of the police, Maynard was a professor at King’s College Hospital, training the next generation of pathologists. Unsurprisingly, being confronted with cadavers did not unduly disturb him. ‘Good morning to you, Sergeant.’

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  Riley shook the doctor’s hand. ‘Our victims seldom worry about our convenience,’ he said in a droll tone.

  ‘Well, quite. Now what do we have here?’

  ‘Sir Theodore’s butler thinks it was natural causes, but I suspect you might disagree,’ Riley said.

  Riley and Salter stood back, giving Maynard room to conduct his initial examination of Sir Theodore’s body. He scowled, then following Riley’s earlier example he picked up the brandy glass and sniffed at it.

  ‘Cyanide,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I thought as much. Nasty way to go.’

  ‘How long would it have taken?’ Riley asked.

  ‘A few minutes, and he would have been conscious throughout.’

  ‘They why didn’t he ring for help?’ Salter asked. ‘Clearly he didn’t, because he hasn’t moved from his chair.’

  ‘He would have been in considerable pain, poor chap, and probably incapable of movement. But he would have known good and well what was happening to him.’ Maynard scratched his head. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t smell something off about the drink, but he seems to have downed the lot.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the brandy have masked the smell?’ Riley asked. ‘We can smell its lingering effect now that the glass is empty, but—’

  ‘Possibly. We shall never know.’ Maynard’s face turned sour. ‘Unless the murderer was in the room with him, somehow forced him to drink and didn’t allow him to summon help. But that would be pretty cold-blooded. Wanting someone dead is one thing. Watching them die in agony is another entirely.’

  ‘We will leave you to finish your examination. Please don’t have the body removed until our photographer has done his work. Oh, and have the goodness to test the remains in the glass, just so that we have formal evidence as to the cause of death.’

  ‘Of course.’ Maynard shook Riley’s hand. ‘A nasty business, this one,’ he said. ‘I hope you catch whoever did it.’

  ‘I shall do my level best.’

  Riley and Salter left the room and found their two detective constables dripping water over the hall tiles.

  ‘Ah, there you are. Take yourselves off to the kitchens, get dry and interview the servants. A cook, two maids and two visiting ladies’ maids. Anything unusual, you know the drill. Trent,’ he added to the butler, who had just admitted the photographer to the library. ‘Once your master’s body has been removed, please lock that door again. I don’t want anyone going into that room until I give them leave.’

  ‘I understand, my lord.’

  ‘One more thing, Trent. Please tell me whom we can expect to see upstairs and what relation, if any, they were to Sir Theodore.’

  ‘His aunt, Mrs Mabel Allen—the lady whose voice you have already heard several times—and her son Arthur. Lady Allen now, I suppose,’ Trent conceded with an indignant twitch of his lips. ‘Mrs Celeste Marshall, Sir
Theodore’s maternal aunt, and her son, George. Mr Harry Bradshaw, a recent acquaintance and brother of the young lady who found Sir Theodore, Miss Cassandra Bradshaw.’

  ‘Thank you, Trent,’ Riley said, waiting for Salter to stop scribbling furiously in his notebook, as he jotted down all the names and their relationships with the victim. ‘That is most helpful. I shall need a room in which to interview each of them individually.’

  ‘Would the morning room suffice, my lord?’ Trent opened the door behind Riley. The room itself was small and rather cold, with windows looking out over the street. ‘I shall have the fire lit.’

  ‘Thank you. It will do nicely.’ Riley squared his shoulders. ‘Right, Salter, shall we?’

  The two detectives climbed the staircase and paused outside the closed double doors to the drawing room, where Harper stood guard, looking impressive with his bulky form filling out his uniform.

  ‘Anything we should know about, Harper?’

  ‘Nothing much, m’lord, iffing you ignore the fact that Mrs Allen’s voice is enough to give a man a thumping headache. Goes right through you, so it does.’ Harper rolled his eyes and adopted a hard done by expression. ‘She ain’t hardly shut up once, I tell you, and keeps complaining about being kept waiting. Weeping and wailing one minute, she is, blaming everyone in the room for her nephew’s death the next. Everyone bar herself, that is. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s the one what did it.’

  ‘You and Sergeant Salter are in agreement in that respect, Harper.’

  ‘Wish it had been my turn to stand outside in the rain,’ Harper said, with a mournful expression. ‘Even that would have been preferable.’

  Riley expressed his sympathy, then nodded to Harper, who thrust the door open, interrupting the loquacious Mrs Allen in mid-rant.

  ‘You must be the police, at last,’ she said, sending Riley an imperious look. ‘Don’t you know how to knock?’

  Riley ignored the woman as he strode into the room. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Detective Inspector Rochester from Scotland Yard. This is Sergeant Salter. I apologise for keeping you waiting.’