The Murder at Mandeville Hall by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2018-08-15T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

I n order to move things along as quickly as possible—and as they had no grounds whatever to imagine the murderer was one of the staff—Stokes, Barnaby, and Penelope elected to speak with the staff as a group in the servants’ hall.

The staff duly gathered around the long deal table that ran the length of the room, sitting in what were no doubt their customary places, although Carnaby and Mrs. Carnaby forsook their positions at the table’s head, leaving those for the investigators.

At Stokes’s direction, they started at the beginning, with the arrival of the guests and, subsequently, the guests being shown to their rooms. Stokes and Barnaby questioned, while Penelope used the answers to draw up a rough sketch of the first floor and the position of the various wings and bedrooms. “So Miss Johnson followed Mrs. Macomber upstairs. Where, exactly, is Mrs. Macomber’s room?”

Seated at Penelope’s elbow, Mrs. Carnaby peered at the sketch. “At the start of the wing where we put the unmarried ladies and the matrons without husbands attending, ma’am. Close to the main stairs on the west side of the corridor”—she pointed—“just there.”

“Good.” Penelope scribbled that down. “And the unmarried gentlemen?”

“In the west wing, ma’am,” Mrs. Carnaby said. “It’s the long corridor leading to the master’s room.”

“I see.” Penelope wielded her pencil. “Here?”

“More or less, ma’am.” Carnaby added, “From the master’s suite, what we call the family wing runs north.”

“Are there any gentlemen with rooms there?” Stokes asked.

“Two,” Carnaby replied. “Mr. Edward has one of the rooms toward the north end, and Mr. Alaric—Lord Carradale—now he’s staying, has the room one door up from the west wing corridor.”

They quickly filled in where the other unmarried gentlemen’s rooms were situated; the married couples had been accommodated in yet another wing.

“And Mrs. Cleary’s room?” Penelope asked.

“Just there, ma’am.” Mrs. Carnaby tapped a spot toward the end of the ladies’ wing. “She’d come before and liked that room, so we gave it to her again.”

Barnaby glanced at the sketch; the gentlemen’s rooms were on the opposite side of the house from the shrubbery, while the ladies’ rooms lay more or less at the midpoint of the house. Two of the married couples’ rooms overlooked the lawn before the shrubbery entrance, but the chances of anyone having glanced out at just the right moment to see the murderer cross the lawn were slim, and neither of the couples had mentioned any such sighting.

“Those of you who work in the stables.” Stokes looked down the table. “What can you tell me about the times Lord Carradale came and went on Monday and, again, on Tuesday?”

It transpired that Carradale’s gray gelding, Sultan, was a favorite among the stable staff; the stableman, Percy’s groom, and the stable boy all verified the times Alaric had arrived at and had ridden away from the Hall.

With Morgan taking notes, Stokes turned his attention to Carnaby and the footmen who had been circulating among the guests at Monday evening’s soirée. As they’d hoped, the staff

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