Page 143 of Marble Hall Murders

‘Yes. I can go to the kitchen—’

‘I think we can manage without coffee, if you don’t mind, Mr Crace,’ Blakeney said, not hiding his distaste. The way Jonathan had spoken, he could have been addressing a waiter or a servant. He closed the door as Frederick reluctantly took his place at the table, keeping as far away from everyone else as he could. Wardlaw and Blakeney sat next to each other. I took a place opposite Julia.

‘Why is she here?’ Roland asked, his voice utterly flat and unfriendly. He meant me.

‘I know it’s unorthodox,’ Blakeney replied. ‘But it was Ms Ryeland who asked for this meeting. Given that she wasworking with Eliot and was unfairly accused of his murder, I felt she had a right to a hearing.’

I expected Wardlaw to show her disapproval but Blakeney must have had a word with her because for once she kept her thoughts to herself.

‘Forgive me.’ Jonathan Crace didn’t sound remotely apologetic. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve made us come all this way simply to listen to this woman complain about the way she was treated?’

‘No, sir.’ Blakeney looked as angry as I felt. ‘There’s rather more to it than that.’

‘Does she know who killed Eliot?’

‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I do,’ I said. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I looked him straight in the eye.

‘So why don’t you tell us?’

‘Eliot was killed by the same person who murdered Miriam Crace.’

Jonathan swallowed, as if he had accidentally eaten something unpleasant. ‘My mother was not murdered,’ he said. ‘Dr Lambert lives down the road, he’ll tell you—’

‘He’ll tell us what you paid him to say twenty years ago,’ I interrupted. ‘That she died of mitral stenosis. But you know that’s not true. She was poisoned.’

‘I think you should be very careful what you say, Ms Ryeland.’

‘What? Or you’ll threaten me with those very expensive lawyers you’re always going on about? I think we’ve gone past that, Jonathan. And you can call me Susan, by the way.’ I was already on the edge of losing my temper. He had a way of making ‘Ms’ sound like an insult.

‘Well, I wish to place it on record that I never paid Dr Lambert a single penny—’

‘You need to be aware that Dr Lambert has made a statement in which he contradicts you, Mr Crace,’ Blakeney said, and I loved the deliberately cold and officious tone of his voice. ‘As a result of our inquiries, we have interviewed him under caution and he has admitted receiving a quite considerable sum of money from the estate to say that your mother died of natural causes, even though this was clearly not the case. You will be aware that we have requested an exhumation, which will be taking place later this month.’

Jonathan took the knock and tried to pretend it hadn’t hurt him. ‘That wasn’t me,’ he insisted. ‘If it happened, I knew nothing about it.’

‘I’m afraid he’s given a very different version of events, sir. He also has documentary evidence. The money was paid to him in the form of a cheque and it’s your name on the dotted line.’

I must admit it was delightful watching Jonathan squirm. A lot of the colour had left his face. ‘I was protecting my mother’s legacy,’ he said at length. ‘I did nothing wrong.’

‘That is not the case, sir. You were perverting the cause of justice—’

‘It was twenty years ago.’

‘But it was still a crime and it may well be that charges will be brought against you.’

‘How was I to know?’ Jonathan insisted. For a moment, he sounded almost tearful. ‘Her heart could have stopped at any time.’ He regained his composure. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’ he demanded.

‘If you’ll let me speak, I’ll tell you,’ I said.

‘All right.’ Jonathan slumped in his chair. ‘Get on with it, then.’

‘Do you have to be so rude?’ I wanted to ask him. ‘What have you ever done in your entire, miserable life that entitles you to talk to me like that?’

But I didn’t. Instead, I began.

‘You might like to know that your mother was almost certainly poisoned by arsenic,’ I said. ‘Her husband, Kenneth, had a lifelong interest in taxidermy. He was a taxidermist himself, but he also bought animals that had been killed and stuffed years before. You may not be aware of this, but taxidermists once used arsenic-based insecticidal soaps to clean the insides of dead animals. They say that if you pick up a specimen that’s more than fifty years old, you should always wear a mask and gloves. You can quite easily kill yourself and that is, in fact, what nearly happened: Kenneth became seriously ill. Dr Lambert described treating him for lesions and warts, which are both symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and he prescribed something called dimercaprol, which I’ve looked up on Google and it turns out it’s the classic cure. Speaking personally, I think taxidermy is disgusting, but the point is that anyone could have sneaked into Kenneth’s workshop and scratched enough arsenic out of a stuffed owl and a couple of hedgehogs to kill everyone in the building.’

‘Why am I here?’ Julia asked. ‘Why do I have to listen to this?’