The Lady Detective

Ashcombe House stood beyond iron gates that hung open beneath the weight of the storm. Its windows rose in dark ranks above a sweep of flooded lawn. At the far end of the house, a long glass structure leaned against the main building like a glittering shipwreck. Lightning showed the conservatory’s roof in sharp fragments, each pane silvered by rain.

A man came running from the entrance, holding a lantern beneath his coat.

“Lady Beatrice?” he called.

“Yes.”

“I am Mr. Finch, Sir Lionel’s secretary. You must come inside.”

He reached for her valise. Beatrice did not release it.

“Is Sir Lionel here?”

Mr. Finch hesitated. The lantern swung, throwing his face into alternating light and shadow. He was a narrow man in his thirties, with hair carefully parted and spectacles spotted with rain.

“He is in the house.”

“That was not my question.”

His mouth tightened. “He is in the conservatory.”

The driver muttered something about the road and began turning the motorcar. Beatrice glanced back. Water poured across the lane behind them, swallowing the wheel tracks almost as soon as they appeared.

“Do not leave,” she called.

The driver lifted a hand without looking at her. “If the bridge goes, my lady, I shall not be leaving by choice.”

Mr. Finch led her up the steps. The front door stood open, but no warmth met them. The hall smelled of wet wool, coal smoke, and flowers bruised beneath too much water. Somewhere above, a bell rang once and stopped.

“Where is Lady Quince?” Beatrice asked.

“Her ladyship is in the drawing room.”

“And the rest of the household?”

“Most are assembled there.”

“Most?”

Mr. Finch looked toward the dark corridor leading to the rear of the house. “I have not accounted for everyone.”

That answer, and the manner in which he gave it, made Beatrice pause.

“Mr. Finch, your note - ”

“I did not write it.”

“I know. It bears Sir Lionel’s hand.”

“He sent it?”

“I presume so.”

“He did not send it through me.”

“That is why I am here.”

A crash sounded from the rear of the house. Glass, followed by the sudden beating of something against a door.

Mr. Finch went white.

“The conservatory,” he said.

He ran. Beatrice followed, lifting her skirts above the wet tiles. The corridor narrowed as it turned, ending in a pair of tall doors with panes of rippled glass. Beyond them, a pale green light trembled among palms and hanging baskets.

Mr. Finch seized the handle. It would not turn.

“Locked,” he whispered.

“From which side?”

He tried again, harder. The door rattled in its frame. On the other side came a faint scrape, then silence.

“Fetch the gardener,” Beatrice said.

“He is in the west wing.”

“Then fetch someone with a key.”

“I have the key.”

He produced a ring from his pocket. His fingers shook as he tried one brass key after another.

“Stand aside.”

“I am attempting to - ”

“Stand aside, Mr. Finch.”

He did so. Beatrice examined the lock. It was an old mortice lock, polished by years of use. The keyhole was empty. She pressed her ear to the glass.

At first she heard only rain striking the roof. Then, beneath it, a slow drip. A second. A third.

“Is there another entrance?” she asked.

“At the garden end. It is bolted from within.”

“Then we shall try it.”

The conservatory extended along the back of the house, and the corridor leading to its outer door was half flooded. Water crept beneath the skirting boards, carrying dead leaves and a single white petal. Beatrice held the lantern high while Mr. Finch splashed ahead. The glass walls trembled in the wind. Exotic leaves slapped against the panes, and somewhere overhead a broken shutter banged with maddening regularity.

At the garden door, Mr. Finch pulled at the handle. It held fast.

“Bolted,” he said.

“Look through the glass.”

He wiped it with his sleeve. Beyond the door, the garden had become a black lake. A stone path disappeared beneath the water. The bolt was visible across the inner face of the door.

Beatrice returned to the first entrance.

“Break the glass,” she said.

Mr. Finch stared at her. “Sir Lionel would never permit - ”

“Sir Lionel may object when he is alive. At present, his permission is unlikely to be forthcoming.”

A tall footman arrived with a poker. He was followed by a woman in a dark silk dress, her silver hair pinned severely beneath a lace cap.

“What is happening?” she demanded.

“Lady Quince?” Beatrice asked.

“I am Lady Quince. Who are you?”

“Lady Beatrice Vale. Your husband summoned me.”

At that, Lady Quince’s face altered, though only for an instant. “My husband is not in the conservatory.”

“Mr. Finch says he is.”

“Mr. Finch says many things when he is frightened.”

The secretary turned on her. “You know perfectly well - ”

“Break the door,” Beatrice said.

The footman raised the poker. The first blow cracked the glass but did not shatter it. The second sent a web of fractures across the pane. On the third, the glass fell inward in glittering pieces.

A gust of wet, green air swept into the corridor. The lantern flame bent nearly flat.

Beatrice stepped through the broken pane, careful to place her feet between the shards. The conservatory was vast, crowded with palms, ferns, and tiered stands of orchids. Rain came through a torn section of roof, striking the tiled floor in bright splashes. A table lay overturned near the center. Beside it, an orchid pot had shattered, spilling black earth and white roots across the tiles.

Sir Lionel Quince lay on his back beside it.

His evening coat was open. One hand rested upon his chest; the other was curled tightly around a small brass object. His face had gone the grey colour of candle wax. A dark stain spread beneath his collar.

Lady Quince made a low sound behind Beatrice.

“Do not come farther,” Beatrice said.

The woman stopped.

Mr. Finch entered next, then recoiled. “Good God.”

Beatrice knelt, though she did not touch the body. The wound was narrow and deep beneath the left ribs. There was no weapon in sight. The broken orchid pot lay near Sir Lionel’s right hand, but the fragments bore no visible blood.

“Send for the police,” she said.

“The telephone is dead,” Mr. Finch answered.

“Then send a man on horseback.”

“The roads - ”

“Are flooded. I am aware of that. Find a horse, a motorcar, a boat, or a very determined farmer.”

Lady Quince gripped the doorframe. “Who could have done this?”

Beatrice looked across the conservatory. The storm pressed against every pane. Leaves stirred without wind. Water ran in silver threads down the glass.

“Everyone who was in the house,” she said.

The answer drew a sharp breath from Mr. Finch.

“You cannot suspect us all,” he said.

“I can until I know more.”

She rose and examined the room. The main door stood open now, its broken pane glittering at her feet. The garden door remained shut. Beyond the plants, a narrow service door was set into the wall, its painted surface scarred and swollen with damp.

“Where does that lead?”

“To the potting shed,” said Mr. Finch.

“Is it locked?”

He did not answer.

Beatrice crossed the tiles. Her shoes slipped slightly on the water. She steadied herself against a marble pedestal and looked down.

There, near the base of the pedestal, was a line of mud. Not the broad smear left by a boot, but a thin crescent, as though something wet had been dragged across the floor. It ran from the service door toward the body and ended beneath Sir Lionel’s shoulder.

She looked at the door. Its key was in the lock.

“Open it.”

Mr. Finch came forward reluctantly. He turned the key. The door opened three inches, then stopped.

“Something is behind it.”

The footman pushed. A stack of wooden trays shifted with a groan, and the door opened wide enough to reveal a narrow passage choked with gardening tools. At the far end, darkness led toward the rear grounds.

Beatrice’s gaze returned to Sir Lionel’s hand.

“Give me the lantern.”

Mr. Finch obeyed.

She crouched beside the dead man and studied the brass object between his fingers. It was not a key, as she had first thought, but a small clasp shaped like a crescent moon. A thread of blue silk clung to one jagged edge.

“His hand is closed around it,” Mr. Finch said. “He must have seized it from the murderer.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then it is evidence.”

“Everything here is evidence.”

He swallowed. “Lady Beatrice, you were invited to protect Sir Lionel.”

“I was invited because he believed there was danger in this house.”

“He was already dead when you arrived.”

“That does not make the danger less real.”

A distant thunderclap shook the roof. One of the orchids swayed above them, its white blossoms trembling.

Beatrice turned toward the entrance. The shattered pane through which she had come framed the flooded corridor. The door itself had been locked. The garden door was bolted from within. The service passage was obstructed but not sealed.

“Who has a key to this conservatory?” she asked.

“Sir Lionel, myself, Lady Quince, and the head gardener,” said Mr. Finch.

“Where is the gardener?”

“No one knows.”

“And the household?”

“Lady Quince, Miss Quince, Dr. Harrow, Mr. Vale - Sir Lionel’s nephew - and two servants. They are in the drawing room.”

“Then we shall speak to them.”

Mr. Finch glanced at the body. “Now?”

“Before anyone has time to improve an alibi.”

She took one step toward the door, then stopped.

“Mr. Finch.”

“Yes?”

“What did Sir Lionel fear?”

The secretary’s face became very still. Through his spectacles, his eyes flicked toward the brass clasp in the dead man’s hand.

“He feared,” he said carefully, “that someone had discovered the conservatory could be entered without using either door.”

Beatrice looked again at the dark service passage.

“Could it?”

Mr. Finch said nothing.

Behind them, Lady Quince gave a small cry. Beatrice turned. The woman was staring at the garden door.

The bolt had not moved.

Yet a single wet footprint marked the tile on its inner side.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,486 words in the full book.