I left Evan to his loitering and returned to the servants’ hall, where the unaccountably sour face of Mrs McLelland had been replaced by three faces I’d only previously seen to say hello to. If anyone was likely to be able to give the whisper on the goings-on both above and below stairs, it was going to be these three. Nellie Perrin was Lady Lavinia’s lady’s maid and Dan Chanley was Lord Riddlethorpe’s valet, while Arnold Simkin had served as valet to Uncle Algy since both of them were young men.
‘Aha,’ said Mr Simkin as I approached. ‘Here comes the woman herself. Sit yourself down, my lovely, and tell us your news. Miss Perrin, see if you can’t scare another cup out of that pot.’
I raised an enquiring eyebrow as I sat in the indicated chair.
‘Now then, Miss Armstrong,’ continued Mr Simkin affably, ‘what’s this we’ve been hearing about you and your mistress investigating the accident?’
He was a small, dapper man with a neatly trimmed, snow-white moustache. He had a twinkle in his eye that suggested he might very well be just as much trouble as his employer.
‘That rather depends,’ I said, taking the cup of tea from Miss Perrin’s waiting hand, ‘upon what you’ve heard.’
‘Aha,’ he said, slapping the table. ‘I told you she was a shrewd one. Not giving anything away, this one.’
I smiled, and raised my eyebrow once more in Miss Perrin’s direction.
‘Take no notice of him, my dear,’ she said. ‘He said nothing of the sort.’
‘Thought it, though. Thought it,’ said Mr Simkin. ‘Knew she was cunning.’
Miss Perrin sighed. I judged she was closer to my own age, but something about her slightly motherly manner made her seem older.
‘There’s been a rumour going about the place,’ she said, ‘that the accident wasn’t an accident. One of the footmen overheard his lordship telling Mr Waterford that Morgan had said the motor car had been interfered with.’
I smiled again. ‘There’s nothing quite so good as a first-hand account,’ I said. ‘But in this case, your Chinese whispers are correct. I was with Morgan in the stables when he found that the brakes had been tampered with.’
‘Brakes, eh? So someone killed Mr Dawkins on purpose, like?’
‘That’s certainly a possibility.’
‘You don’t mess about with the brakes on a vehicle unless you intend someone harm,’ said Mr Chanley, finally breaking his silence. ‘Someone had it in for Mr Dawkins, make no mistake. His lordship is distraught. Hardly sleeping.’
‘Back to my original question, m’dear,’ said Mr Simkin. ‘Are you and your mistress investigating?’
My mission below stairs had been to observe the servants while maintaining the illusion that I was some crazed work addict who couldn’t sit still and relax while she was away from home. But I’d already decided that these three were the key to finding out what was going on, so it was worth letting them in on the act.
‘You heard correctly, Mr Simkin. The police were satisfied that it was an accident – I got the feeling that the inspector rather felt it was by way of divine retribution upon the idle rich for their foolishness. But when it became clear that skulduggery was involved, Lady Hardcastle decided that we might serve our host by poking under a few rocks and seeing what scuttled out.’
‘And that’s why you’re working down here all of a sudden?’ said Miss Perrin. ‘I did wonder.’
‘Mr Spinney suggested it,’ I said. ‘He thought it might help. If I were working with the staff, I’d be free to come and go about the house, and no one would think anything of it.’
‘That silly old fool?’ she said. ‘You should have just come straight to us. We’d have told you what’s what. Wouldn’t we?’
‘Aye,’ said Mr Chanley. ‘It’s a bad business, indeed. It needs sorting out.’
I looked round as one of the scullery maids scurried through bearing a basket of vegetables. It didn’t seem to be a terribly private place to be having our conversation, but I could think of nowhere else that wouldn’t cause even more gossip and speculation were we to be found out.
‘What do you know of the motor racing team?’ I asked. ‘Is it just a fancy of Lord Riddlethorpe’s?’
‘We all thought it was at first, didn’t we, Mr Simkin?’ said Mr Chanley. ‘I wouldn’t have a word said against his lordship, and it’s been my honour to serve him these past fifteen years, but he hasn’t always been a man of purpose. He’s never wanted for anything except something to do. He’s taken to all manner of fads and novelties over the years. Painting, poetry, horse racing, horticulture – you name it, he tried it. He even packed himself off to Egypt at one point, with me trailing in his wake. Imagined himself an archaeologist, he did. Fancied he was going to discover lost tombs and treasures.’
‘And did he?’ I asked.
‘He came down with dengue fever just as we arrived in Cairo. After spending two weeks in bed, he decided that archaeology wasn’t for him and that what he really wanted was to be a potter. So we bought a couple of crates of local pottery as inspiration and shipped ourselves back home.’
I laughed in spite of myself. ‘Something of a butterfly, then,’ I said. ‘But you seemed to be saying that you thought the motor racing was different? What changed?’
‘His father died,’ he said. ‘He suddenly found himself the ninth Earl of Riddlethorpe. Grew up overnight. He threw himself into it like nothing he’d ever done before. It had been just another one of his fads until then, but it became an all-consuming passion once his father had passed. He bought motor cars, learned all about them, and then started building his own. He fell in with that Mr Waterford, and it went from being a gentleman’s hobby to being a real business. He spent this past year building it all up; they even laid the test circuit in the grounds, and now here it is, all crumbling around him.’
‘You said “that” Mr Waterford. Do you disapprove?’
‘He’s a bit of a fly one, if you ask me,’ said Chanley.
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘Can’t say as I can put my finger on it precisely. You get a feeling, you know?’
‘I do know,’ I said. I turned my attention to Miss Perrin. ‘And what does Lady Lavinia make of it all?’
‘She was pleased as Punch when it finally looked like his lordship was settling down,’ she said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, she loves her brother like billy-o, but it would be a lie to say she wasn’t worried as to how he might never settle to anything.’
‘Has she said anything about the accident?’
‘She’s as shook-up as everyone. She didn’t really know Mr Dawkins, but she knows as how it could have been any of them who copped it. Any of “you”, I should say – you were down to race, too.’