Betrayal at Blackcrest Read online

  “Majorca?”

  “You said she hated the south of France.”

  “So I did.”

  “More coffee, Miss Lane?”

  “No. I must be going. I … I suppose I can find a room in town? I may as well stay in Hawkestown for a few days. I’ve closed up the flat in London, and I have no job to go back to.” This sounded properly sad and dejected. “I … I want to be nearby so you can contact me the minute your man has any news.”

  He started to make some reply, but at that moment the door flew open and a woman came rushing into the room. At first I thought it was Jessie come to claim her revenge, and I gave a little start. The woman who hurried across the room was only slightly less alarming than the vindictive cook would have been. She was short and rotund, with a chubby face dominated by the liveliest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her cheeks were vividly flushed, her small lips were pursed with alarm, and her whole demeanor was that of one come to announce the house afire. Her apparel was not to be believed.

  “Yes, Andy?” Derek Hawke asked calmly.

  “The ginger kitten! It’s run off again. I think it’s in the cellars. Someone’s left the cellar door open again—I know it was Jessie! She’s been sneaking up bottles of wine again. You’ve got to do something about that, Derek. After all, that wine is pure vintage. Stephen brought it from France before the Great War—” She paused, her wide eyes suddenly blank, as though she’d lost track of what she was saying.

  “The kitten? Yes! I went to their room, and it’s frightfully cold, Derek. That’s why I’m wearing this coat—” A huge, slightly tattered fur coat covered her short body. Beneath it I caught glimpses of a smock, psychedelic in effect, hot pink and orange, purple and red. A scarf of violent blue silk was tied loosely around short, fluffy black curls that were surely silver by nature. “What were you saying?” she demanded in an angry tone, staring at her nephew with petulant impatience. “You know my time is valuable, Derek, and really, these interviews—”

  “Not a thing, Andy,” Derek Hawke said mildly.

  “Then why—oh, yes. The kittens’ room—I call them all kittens,” this to me, “although most of them are quite grown. It’s freezing. The heating has gone out, and you know how cold it gets down there. The poor things will have to chop their water. You must do something about that, Derek. Someone has to show some responsibility around here. Yes, and the cellars? Did you say something about the cellars?”

  “The ginger kitten,” her nephew suggested.

  “He’s such a frisky little thing. I think it’s psychological. He’s the only ginger in the bunch, and all the rest are black and brown and white. One marmalade, although she’s far too hateful and mean to have any feelings of inferiority. The dear has run off, Derek. I saw him running down the hall, and then he just vanished. That’s when I discovered the cellar door. I don’t know what Jessie can be thinking of. She does it on the sly, of course, and we have no proof yet, but—”

  Derek Hawke sighed tolerantly. His aunt wrapped the tattered fur about her and tapped her foot. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

  “Well, are you going to send Morris to search, or do you intend to let the kitten die? I know, Derek, that you don’t particularly care for them, but that’s no excuse for criminal neglect. He wouldn’t last a day down there—”

  “Relax, Andy. We haven’t lost a kitten yet.”

  “No thanks to you, I’m sure,” she said frostily.

  Derek Hawke rose with a gesture of resignation and summoned Morris. The butler listened with a martyred expression while Hawke gave him instructions to search for the missing kitten. As he left the room, Morris glanced at the old woman and shook his head. Andrea Hawke drew herself up regally, tossing the skirt of the coat as though it were a part of the coronation robes.

  “Morris is getting a bit uppity,” she remarked casually. “Don’t you feel, Derek? I may be forgetful at times, but I don’t intend to tolerate insolence from anyone. Now, that’s done. Morris will find the kitten. He may as well earn his wages some way—and Neil can see about the heating. He’s so clever with things like that. Speak to him, Derek. I want the heat turned on down there immediately.”

  “I won’t have that boy inside the house,” Derek Hawke replied.

  “Nonsense. He’s a perfect dear—so attractive, though he could use a haircut. You must get over this class thing, dear. Just because he’s the gardener’s son doesn’t mean he can’t fix our heating. One can’t draw so fine a line with servants nowadays, though of course there was a day when I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking outside help to come inside. One must change with the changing times, and I certainly won’t have you messing around with the heating unit. All that gas, and your cigars—I can visualize the horror. Tell Neil to attend to it at once, dear. Now, I will take the young lady and show her her room. Selfish of you not to have told me she’d arrived. I’ve been waiting for three days—”

  “Andy, this isn’t—”

  “What’s your name, dear?” Andrea Hawke asked, ignoring her nephew.

  “Deborah Lane.”

  “Lane? A lovely name. I knew some Lanes once. Such a dear family they were. The father died of calcium deposits—have you ever heard of such a thing? Do you type?”

  “Type?”

  “I suppose you modern girls prefer those electrical machines, don’t you? Well, I don’t have one. They terrify me. You won’t need to know shorthand, of course, but I do hope you can read my handwriting. Honora says it looks like someone’s dipped a chicken’s foot in ink and turned it loose on paper. Cruel thing for a child to say, but I’m afraid there is a bit of truth in it. I do hope you’ll work out. At least you don’t have bumps. The employment agency sent me a girl a few years ago who had the most ghastly bumps. She picked them at her desk. Of course, I had to let her go. Most unsanitary for the kittens.”

  “Andy,” Derek Hawke said firmly, “Miss Lane is not from the employment agency. You seem to be confused—”

  “Don’t be absurd, Derek. You’re the one who’s confusing things with all this talk about calcium deposits.”

  “Miss Lane is not from the employment agency,” he repeated.

  “I distinctly told you a week ago I needed a girl to help me type up the completed chapters of my memoirs. The publishers simply refuse to look at anything not typed. I know I told you to contact the employment people because I jotted it down on my pad right under the message about beets. ‘Tell Jessie no beets on menu,’ ‘no’ underlined. ‘Tell Derek to send for temp sec.’ I can see it now. I must have told you, because she’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Not for that purpose,” he said, his voice determined.

  “She’s just told us she’s a marvelous typist, dear. If it’s a question of salary, I won’t split hairs. After all, it is my money, even if you do yell every time I send a donation to H.F.U.M.”

  “H.F.U.M.?” I said, unable to restrain myself.

  “Home for unwed mothers. It’s a class thing, again, but one must do something to help. Now, Miss Lane, what did you have in mind for wages? I’ll be reasonable about it, of course, but I don’t intend to be robbed. Shall we say—”

  “Andy,” Derek Hawke said loudly, “Miss Lane is not a secretary.”

  Andrea Hawke stared at her nephew with reproach. “You don’t have to shout, dear, I’m sure. None of us are wearing hearing aids. What will the servants think if we don’t set a good example? Miss Lane,” she said firmly, turning to me, “do you type?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I replied.

  “There,” Andrea Hawke said, throwing her nephew a look of triumph. “The fact that you’re my nephew and heir does entitle you to certain liberties, Derek, but they hardly extend to calling me a liar in my own house. I won’t ask for an apology now. I haven’t the time. Miss Lane can begin her duties immediately.”

  Derek Hawke walked over to his aunt and placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. He bent down so that his face was level with hers. When he spok
e, his voice was level and controlled, but it was filled with irritation nevertheless.

  “Miss Lane is an actress, Miss Lane came from London to see me on a personal matter. Miss Lane is not, repeat, not a secretary, and she was not sent from the employment agency.”

  Andrea Hawke looked stunned, then distressed.

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place, Derek? No wonder I can’t keep track of things around here. Did you send for a girl?”

  “You never asked me to send for one.”

  “Miss Lane,” she said, “I must apologize. You must think I’m mad. Most people do, as a matter of fact. Not certifiably, of course, or Derek would have already carted me away to the bin and seized the money. As it is, he’ll have to wait. Well—” She sighed, holding her hands out in a gesture of resignation. “Now what shall we do? I suppose I’ll have to wait weeks for Derek to remember to send for a girl, and then she’ll probably have bumps again. You do type, Miss Lane?”

  “Miss Lane is not interested in a job,” Hawke said quickly.

  “Let her speak for herself, Derek.”

  Her voice was a charming lilt, but it carried unmistakable authority. She made an outrageous figure as she stood there with the tattered fur coat half-covering the violently colored smock. I had been stunned at first, but now the eccentric clothes did not seem to matter. She was fluttery and forgetful, and her conduct probably caused deep grievances in the household, but she was in command, and she knew it. Andrea Hawke had the money, therefore the power, and no one would push her around, not even her nephew.

  “I once worked as a secretary to a taxidermist,” I said, truthfully enough. I held the job for three weeks at the age of nineteen until the atmosphere of the place drove me away.

  “A taxidermist! I’m against them. Definitely. Dreadful, dreadful state when poor beasts—” She paused, looked at me with a twinkle in her blue eyes, then smiled. “It must have been stuffy work,” she said, her voice dry.

  “Quite,” I said, appreciative. Andrea Hawke wasn’t as slow on the uptake as I had first assumed.

  “You don’t believe in it, do you?” she asked.

  “Definitely not. Dreadful business.”

  “Would you like to work for a slightly befuddled old lady? I have quite a few cats, but they’re all alive and kicking—”

  “Aunt Andrea,” Hawke protested, his voice menacing, “I must insist—”

  Andrea Hawke turned to me with a charming smile. “Derek is against the whole idea of my writing these memoirs,” she said, as though speaking of a naughty child. “He’s afraid I’ll tell all the family secrets. He’s so right! Scandal sells—look at those disgusting books my other nephew writes—and there are some delicious scandals to reveal. Did I ever tell you about the countess who stayed here in 1804 and left with a suitcase full of silver—and the coachman my great-great-grandmother on Daddy’s side had just trained? All the first part of the book is devoted to those randy days before I was born. Randy? Is that a proper word to use?”

  “It’ll do nicely,” I said.

  “Miss Lane,” Derek Hawke said. He looked at me with a grim expression.

  He had frowned when I mentioned my abilities at the typewriter, and he had grown increasingly more grim after my reference to the job with the taxidermist. He guessed my plan, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t trust me. That was just too bad. I couldn’t afford to let an opportunity like this go by. I had intended to stay in Hawkestown and find out as much as I could there. The opportunity to stay at Blackcrest itself was not to be missed, even if Derek Hawke was suspicious of my motives. I looked at him with wide eyes and gave him my most beseeching smile.

  “To be perfectly frank, I could use the job,” I said. “And I would be on hand in case there were any developments—”

  “Developments?” Andrea Hawke said.

  Her nephew went pale. He gave me a frantic signal. I knew I had won the first round. He did not want his aunt to know what had happened and would do anything to keep the information from her, even if it meant he must let me take the job. The room was silent. Derek Hawke was fuming, very much in control of himself and determined to hide it from his aunt, yet fuming. He tapped his fingers on the yellow tablecloth. His eyes were burning as they held mine.

  “Developments?” Andrea Hawke repeated, impatient now. She didn’t miss much, despite her absent-minded chatter and apparently fuzzy comprehension. Behind that frivolous facade Andrea Hawke was as hard as nails, I thought. Her nephew was wary of her, and I felt sure he had good reason to be.

  “I think Miss Lane might be ideally suited for the job,” he said. This was spoken very slowly, and his eyes never left mine.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, dear,” she exclaimed, thoroughly delighted now. “She’ll be able to help me with my vocabulary, too, Derek. What a divine idea this was!” She took my hand in hers and pulled me toward the door. “Now, don’t forget to speak to Neil about the heating unit, and you must remind me to have a long talk with Jessie about the wine. Come, Miss Lane. You’re going to be delighted with the room I’ve chosen for you. I do hope you like cats.”

  “I adore them,” I lied.

  Derek Hawke seemed about to say something more. He restrained himself. He was standing silently by the table when we left the room.

  7

  Andrea Hawke was laughing to herself as we left the room. I was reminded of a mischievous child who has just won a squabble. I figured that Andrea Hawke won most of the arguments she participated in. Her method of defeating her foe might be startling, but I had no doubt she was always ultimately the victor. In her own fuzzy way she was a dynamic creature. I would never make the mistake of underestimating her.

  She hurried down the hall, the fur coat flapping dustily, flashes of bright psychedelic color swirling about her knees. We turned a corner and began moving down a long corridor. One side was solid wall covered with dark oak paneling, and the other was made up of a row of windows that looked out over the gardens. The windowpanes were dirty, and there were no curtains. A few of the panes were broken. I was surprised to see cobwebs stretched silkily across the top corners of several. The odor of dust, decay, and mildew was overwhelming.

  “Blackcrest is so large,” Andrea Hawke said chattily as we sailed along the corridor, “it’s impossible to keep order—the girls are terribly fussy. Betty and Agnes, you know, just two, one for up, one for down, and then there’s Morris. They complain constantly, but they manage to keep the bedrooms and the main rooms downstairs in shape. All the rest of the house is shambles, just shambles, sheets over the furniture and dust an inch thick on the chandeliers. But we’ve held on—taxes are abominable. Thieves in the government. Why should I pay for planes and missiles? Don’t you agree?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “We’ve held on. Remarkable, in this day and age. I would die before I’d open the place to tourists. So many of our best families—for half a crown they think they can litter the place with orange peels and paper cups and stick wads of chewing gum on William Morris paper. Not in my house, thank you!”

  “It’s a fascinating place,” I told her rather breathlessly. We were practically running down the corridor.

  “Naturally. The tales these walls could tell! You’ll learn a lot when you type up the memoirs, of course. I do adore your hair, child. It’s the color of sunset over the desert. Now we turn here. Watch your step. Do you like towers?”

  “I’ve never been in one.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Not even in London? All that talk about the little princes. Rot! He didn’t do it. Not with those eyes—”

  “I adored Olivier,” I said.

  Andrea Hawke stopped abruptly, so abruptly that I almost ran into her. She whirled around to face me. There was a curious twinkle in her blue eyes. A strange little smile played on her bright pink lips.

  “You are sharp, aren’t you?” she said. “Not many people are able to follow me. They say I’m scatterbrained—”r />
  “Not at all,” I replied soberly. “Towers, the little princes, Sir Laurence as Richard the Third. It’s a matter of mental reflex, wouldn’t you say? I suppose most people are rather slow—”

  “Remarkable,” she said, “absolutely remarkable. You and I are going to get along famously. Why didn’t Derek want you to work for me? I would think he’d be delighted to have a gorgeous creature like you about the place.”

  “I don’t think he trusts me,” I replied.

  “Oh, well, he doesn’t trust anyone. Ever since—but that’s in the past, yet one would think—”

  I waited, curious to learn what had happened to cause Derek Hawke to be so wary of everyone. Andrea merely shook her head, privately reflecting on the incident and clearly not intending to discuss it with me at the moment. I curbed an impulse to question her about it. It would not be wise to be too pressing just yet. I was going to stay at Blackcrest, and there would be plenty of time to uncover all the family secrets. I expected Betty to be a great help.

  “Towers? Yes, I was going to tell you about the tower. It’s mine. I mean, of course all of Blackcrest is mine, naturally, and will be until Derek takes over, but the tower is particularly mine. The cats, you understand. Betty and Agnes won’t abide them, and Jessie would toss a grand fit if one of them pranced into the kitchen. I have to keep them away, and the tower is ideal. It’s a ruin, but cozy. I think you’ll like your room.”

  “In the tower?” I asked.

  “Yes, over the cats and the study. I have the master bedroom. It’s Regency and rather dull, but I have to stay there. I couldn’t sleep in the tower. People would think me peculiar.”

  I remained discreetly silent on this point.

  “But I spend most of my time there,” she continued. “Come, I’ll show you.”

  We walked down a dark, narrow little hall and came to a flight of flimsy wooden stairs that led down to what I assumed was the basement. I felt drafts of cold air swirling up to meet us as we descended. I understood the fur coat now. We reached the concrete floor. I could barely see the damp walls with pipes running along them. We seemed to be in a vast subterranean dungeon.