‘I could have a word with him now, if you know where he is,’ I said, trying not to sound too much as though this was exactly what I had been after all along.
She frowned. ‘He’s a bad lot, that boy. He disappears for hours on end, and Spinney won’t do a thing about it. They both think we have no idea where he gets to, but when he’s not in the boot room larking about with the younger lads, or loafing in the kitchen yard, he’ll be hiding out in the wine cellar.’
‘It might be a good idea to mark his card for him,’ I said. ‘You’re quite right – he’s definitely the sort to stir up gossip just to make mischief.’
‘I dare say he is. If the wine cellar key isn’t on the board, it’ll be in his pocket. And his pocket will be sitting on a barrel in the far corner of the cellar reading a penny dreadful by candlelight.’
I left her to return to her musing. She still hadn’t set the cup back in its saucer.
There was no sign of the wine cellar key on the huge board outside Mr Spinney’s room. This was good news – it meant I had a fair idea where Evan might be. It was also bad news – I had no idea whatsoever where the wine cellar might be.
It took a fair few minutes of trekking through the labyrinthine corridors to track it down. I went back to the servants’ hall to ask Mrs McLelland for directions at one point, but she had gone, and I was wary of asking anyone else. I had no business being in the wine cellar, and I would have had to concoct some sort of story to explain my interest. I tried a few doors and discovered a store cupboard, a passageway of some sort, and two laundry maids gossiping while folding a pile of bed linen.
Eventually, I worked out which door I needed – it was the one with a wooden sign screwed to it that read: WINE CELLAR.
I tried the door, but it was locked. I muttered an oath in Welsh. If only I had some discreet means of breaking in . . . But then I remembered. For my birthday in March, Lady Hardcastle had bought me the gown I wore to dinner with the Farley-Strouds. But she had bought me another special gift as well, an ornate silver brooch. I wore it all the time and had quite forgotten its little secret: concealed within was a pair of picklocks. I pulled on the edge of the brooch and the tiny burglary tools fell into my hand.
The simple lock succumbed in seconds.
I opened the door as quietly as I could, and slipped inside. With the door closed behind me, there was precious little light to help me find my way – just the faint glow from the gap at the bottom of the door. This wasn’t the first time I’d explored a darkened cellar, though. My eyes became quickly accustomed to the gloom, and I was able to feel my way around the racks of wine bottles without too much difficulty. As I moved deeper into the room, I became aware of another source of light off to my right. Flickering candlelight.
‘Evan?’ I said quietly. I didn’t fancy a struggle if I startled him. It’s not that I couldn’t best him, but we were surrounded by many very breakable bottles of extremely expensive wine.
I heard the rustle of a book closing. ‘Miss Armstrong? Is that you?’ said Evan.
‘It is,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d come down for a chat.’
I rounded the final rack and found him, as Mrs McLelland had said, perched on a small barrel in the corner of the cellar. He’d made himself quite a pleasant little nest, with a larger barrel as a table to hold his candle and his books. He’d even brought himself a cup of tea.
‘Don’t go givin’ me away now, will you,’ he said as he put his book down on his makeshift table.
‘I’ll not say anything,’ I said. ‘But I think that ship may already have sailed. It was Mrs McLelland who told me where to find you.’
‘That interferin’ old trout,’ he said. ‘I might have known she’d have stuck her beak in.’
I wasn’t at all convinced that trout had beaks, but I didn’t want to antagonize him. ‘Have you been down here long?’ I asked instead.
‘Since the lunch that never was,’ he said as he stretched extravagantly. ‘Lovely little break.’
‘But you spoke to the inspector?’
‘I did. But don’t worry, I never tell coppers nothin’. We’ve reached an understandin’, see, me and the local law. They don’t like me, and I don’t like them. It keeps things nice and simple.’
‘Right you are,’ I said. ‘So you’ve not heard what’s happened?’
‘No? Has someone else been done in?’
I laughed. ‘Nothing like that,’ I said. ‘But almost as interesting. Inspector Foister has arrested Mrs Beddows and Mr Waterford on suspicion of murdering Herr Kovacs.’
He gaped at me. ‘He’s never,’ he said eventually. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed. What did he do that for?’
I outlined the case that Lady Hardcastle and I had built up against them.
‘What a load of rubbish,’ he said. ‘She was in his room last night. I walked in on ’em this mornin’, just as she was getting out of bed. He gave me a sovereign to keep me mouth shut.’
‘You probably ought to give it back,’ I said.
‘Ha-ha, very funny. I reckon he’d think it was worth it if I saved ’em from the noose.’
‘He would, I’m sure. But you can’t be certain they were in there all night, can you? They would have been able to get down to the coach house and still be back in time for you to catch them. Maybe you didn’t “catch” them. Maybe that was part of the plan. Maybe you were their alibi.’
He frowned. ‘Look, Miss Armstrong, I didn’t pay no attention at school. Truth is, I hopped the wag more often than I showed up. It’s only Old Man Spinney’s naggin’ that’s got me readin’ at all, so I ain’t no scholar like you or Lady H. But I ain’t stupid, neither. And if anyone in this house knows about alibis, it’s me. They weren’t up to no good. Well, unless you count . . . you know . . . what they were up to.’ He blushed and turned away slightly.
I had one more card to play. ‘Miss Buffrey says that her mistress’s tweeds are missing. She has convinced herself that they’re hidden away, covered in blood from the murder.’
He laughed. ‘She’s almost right,’ he said. ‘They are hidden away, and they are covered in something, but it’s mud, not blood. It was the other day – Thursday, I reckon – and they’d been off together in the afternoon. When I went to see if he needed any help gettin’ dressed for dinner in the evening, he gave me some clothes. “There’s ten bob in it for you if you can get these cleaned and no one the wiser,” he says. It was a tweed skirt and jacket. Caked in mud, they was.’
‘You’re doing quite well for yourself keeping Mr Waterford’s confidences,’ I said. ‘But it does give the lie to Miss Buffrey’s suspicions.’
‘Like I says, it weren’t them.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Lady Hardcastle and I didn’t think it was, either. How about Herr Kovacs? Was there anything noteworthy there?’
‘He was an odd fish,’ he said. ‘Odder than odd. I’d go in there and find him mutterin’ gibberish to himself. Mad as a hatter.’
‘To be fair, he was probably muttering in Hungarian or German. Have you been in his room since he was killed?’