A Mansion for Murder, page 1
A Mansion for Murder
A Kate Shackleton Mystery
FRANCES BRODY
To Jake and Lindsay Attree
Long Ago
Long ago, Nick lived with his grandmother in a hut on the land called Milner Field. On Sundays, his grandmother washed his face at the well that belonged to the old manor house nearby. She put her shawl over her head and shoulders and her empty basket over her arm. They would walk along the towpath to Shipley, to the Chapel of Golden Light. They sat on chairs that hurt your bottom, listened to Bible stories, and sang hymns. When he could write his name, Nick joined the Band of Hope and signed the pledge. Never a drop of alcohol would pass his lips as long as he should live. On the day he signed the pledge, a Golden Light lady gave Nick a pair of clogs.
After repeating words called declarations, they drank warm sweet tea, ate a slice of bread and butter sprinkled with sugar, and left with their basket half full of food and their souls saved. Walking back along the canal, cheerful, relieved to be out of it, the pair of them sang, ‘For the Love of Barbara Allen’, ‘Ten Green Bottles’ and ‘A-hunting We Will Go’. Nick had all the actions off pat, made up by himself. His grandmother copied him as best she could.
One day, when he was squidging and squelching along the muddy path, carrying their bucket to fetch water from the manor house well, he stepped in a puddle. One of his clogs came off. He set down his bucket, giving him two free hands to rescue his clog, making a watching frog jump. You can have too much rain.
At the well, he turned the handle, lowered the big bucket, and then slowly raised it. When he took water for his own bucket, he saw a bone that had come from the well to present itself to him.
His grandmother had eyes in the back of her head. She found his bone. ‘This is no good for soup,’ said she. She was pretending, thinking that he did not know the bone once belonged to a live person.
Nick held the bone next to his arm. ‘It matches me. It belonged to a child.’
‘From long ago. Only dry old bones float. Times past, that well ran dry. Bury the bone near to where it came from, to be close on Judgement Day.’
On the day he buried the bone, his grandmother told him that the old manor house had stood for over three centuries and that the well was much older than the house. One day, she would tell him a story from the mists of time, the story of a young shepherdess whose life came to an end at the bottom of that well.
The ground by the well was too muddy for digging. Nick found a better place to bury the bone. Two builders were removing the gates from the old manor house. These gates were to be kept for one of the entrances to the new mansion. Another entrance would be a fine arch, called Gothic.
When the men had gone, Nick dug a hole by the new gatepost. The ground was easy to shovel out. He buried the bone, and said the prayer he knew from the Chapel of Golden Light.
Chapter One
My name is Kate Shackleton. On that Saturday afternoon in August, 1930, I boarded a train from Leeds to Saltaire, looking out at smoke-blackened factories and rows of redbrick houses. The landscape gave way to trees, mill chimneys and stone-built cottages. Nettles, nightshade and buttercups brightened the railway embankment.
Investigating as a profession crept up on me unawares, almost a decade ago, just as I was wondering what to do with the rest of my life. After the Great War there was much upheaval. My husband was one of the many who did not return from the battlefields.
Across the world, so many lives would never be the same again. During that aftermath of war, I discovered my knack for investigating. I engaged a housekeeper, Mrs Sugden, and recruited a former police officer assistant, Jim Sykes. In the summer of 1930, hard times and warm days swallowed requests for our services. Mrs Sugden planned to fill the quiet time by doing some decorating.
The arrival of a letter on the last Monday of July broke a spell of inertia. The envelope was neatly written in black ink, by someone who had practised his penmanship. There was just one tiny blot where the writer had pressed too hard on a comma. The envelope was formally addressed to Mrs Gerald Shackleton, so from someone who knew my husband’s name. Bank letters and business letters address me that way. My mother and aunt have now replaced Gerald with Catherine. For cousins and friends, I am Mrs Kate Shackleton. Did the ‘Mrs Gerald Shackleton’ mean I ought to brace myself for some old comrade’s story about Gerald?
I sat at the kitchen table to read this letter from a stranger.
South Lodge,
Milner Field,
Saltaire
26th July, 1930
Dear Madam,
Please excuse a stranger writing to you. I found out your address through a pal. I am twenty-two years old and live with my parents, who take care of a mansion you may have heard of—Milner Field. The mansion is up for sale. The Lodge, where we live, is part of the sale so I may not live here much longer. My mother is housekeeper at Milner Field. My father is head gardener. The possibility of moving away made me write to you today.
I work for Salts Mill in the maintenance department and am shortly to take on bigger responsibilities. I tell you this so that you know I am not someone out of the blue with a bee in his bonnet, but a man who is building his reputation and wants to do things right.
Here is the matter in a nutshell. I have something to tell you, a story about the past that I know will be of interest to you. Please trust that I cannot say more at present.
If it is convenient, please come to the Milner Field South Lodge a little after 6 p.m. next Saturday. There is a good reason why I ask you to come here rather than me come to you. I would meet you at Saltaire railway station but people are nosy. If you arrive in Saltaire early, in time to hear the mill hooter, press your back against the wall to avoid the stampede as two thousand workers leave the premises.
Yours faithfully,
Ronald Creswell (Ronnie)
My correspondent included a map and directions from Saltaire railway station. I reached for the magnifying glass. His sketch fitted neatly on to the reverse of his writing paper. He had drawn railway station, mill, streets, arrows, canal, wood, river, farm and a cross with the caption, ‘Entrance Milner Field. Go to South Lodge’.
This was a man who might reproduce the Mona Lisa on the back of a postage stamp.
Mrs Sugden came in from the garden, wearing her hessian apron over the print frock she’d made from a pattern that came free with the local paper. I told her about the letter as she stood at the kitchen sink washing her hands.
‘He could be a madman,’ she said, picking up the worn striped towel, ‘or a prankster sending you on a wild goose chase.’
‘Is it the season for a goose chase? Anyway, I’ve never been to Saltaire, and by all accounts Milner Field mansion is remarkable.’
Mrs Sugden was not convinced. She reached for the letter and turned it over to see the map. ‘I don’t like the sound of a mansion named after a field. Where’s the grandeur in that? And why doesn’t this Creswell chap offer to meet you on the station platform as any polite person would? I don’t hold with him sending you through hill and dale.’
I found myself playing defence barrister. ‘He guesses I prefer to find my own way, or he has an awkwardness about making polite conversation and wants to come straight to the point when on home ground.’ I looked at the letter again. ‘He’s twenty-two.’
Mrs Sugden turned on the tap and began to fill the kettle. ‘That’s what he tells you. He could be any age, waiting in the woods, wielding an axe.’
‘I’ll tread carefully.’
She dipped into the coal scuttle, picked up a big cob of coal and rinsed it under the tap. ‘Put this in your bag. Any trouble, whack him one.’
‘No! I’ve no intention of being charged with assault. It would be an inconvenience.’
This would be my first visit to Saltaire. It was home to a gigantic mill, I knew that much, and that the visionary founder of Salts Mill had a village built to house his workforce. Of Milner Field mansion, I knew nothing. The quickest way to find out about something is to ask a person who knows. For me that person is usually elderly Mr Duffield—librarian, archivist and walking encyclopaedia when it comes to local matters.
I found Mr and Mrs Duffield sitting in their back garden under the supervision of a tiger-striped cat with prominent cheekbones and a sprinkling of white hairs who took pride of place on the table.
There was tea in the pot, tonic wine in a decanter and biscuits on a decorative plate. I told the Duffields about the mysterious letter from Ronald Creswell and asked what they could tell me about Milner Field and Saltaire.
Mr Duffield proved willing to give his wife and me a history lesson. He cleared his throat and took a sip of tonic wine. The cat closed its eyes as Mr Duffield began.
‘Sir Titus built the largest mill in the world and a village to go with it. It’s my opinion that his youngest and cleverest son, Titus Junior, saw himself as having something to live up to. Titus Junior inherited his father’s business acumen and his grand ambition. He reached for the stars, never put a foot wrong, married well and wanted a life that matched his place in the world. Sir Titus had been content to rent a house. Titus Junior wanted a mansion where he could entertain, and land to go with it. He and his wife had expensive tastes. Titus Junior bought the Milner Field estate, with farmland and Elizabethan manor house. He promptly demolished the manor house and engaged an architect to build a mansion fit for a millionaire. Milner Field became a social hub, Titus Junior and Catherine even played host to t he Prince and Princess of Wales. His Highness planted a tree to commemorate his visit.’
‘And did the tree thrive?’ Mrs Duffield asked.
‘I expect so.’ Mr Duffield took another sip of tonic wine. He shook his head, announcing mournfully, ‘But at age forty-four, Titus Junior died suddenly in the billiard room.’
Mrs Duffield had just picked up a copy of County Lady. She put it down. ‘Oh dear, how sad.’
‘Quite.’ Mr Duffield refilled our glasses. ‘I can think of men who would have done the world a good turn by dying at the age of forty-four, or even thirty-three, but he was not one of them. In no time at all, the company went into liquidation and the house and estate were mortgaged. The company was bought by four Bradford men. The leading figure among those men, James Roberts, bought out the rest. Sir James moved with his family into Milner Field.’
The name James Roberts brought me up short. This was the generous man who grew up in modest circumstances in Haworth, bought Haworth Parsonage from the Church of England and presented it to the Brontë Society for the benefit of the nation, just one of his many philanthropic acts.
I felt suddenly lacking in knowledge to have been unaware that Sir James once lived at Milner Field and was pre-eminent in Salts. I had been volunteering as a nurse while much of this making-a-fortune-from-textiles was taking place. ‘I hope no great misfortune befell Sir James.’
Mr Duffield gave a heavy sigh. ‘Three of his four sons died young. His remaining son, Harry Roberts, brilliant and resourceful, his father’s right-hand man, was so badly wounded at the Front in France that he remained an invalid. Sir James lost heart. He moved away. Milner Field was put up for sale in nineteen twenty-two.’
‘Don’t tell me more,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear to think of Sir James and Lady Roberts suffering such a loss.’
The cat stood, glared, flicked its tail and walked away.
‘Milner Field remained on the market. Its grisly reputation counted against a house that had become slightly shabby and in need of attention. It remained unoccupied until a syndicate purchased Salts Mill and the property. The managing director and his wife moved in. That move did not end well for them, nor for their successors in the business and in residence at Milner Field. Pneumonia is easily caught in a damp house. I will refrain from names and details because the most recent funeral was in August last year. It would be indelicate to linger on subsequent calamities, of which there were many.’
Mr Duffield could not pinpoint the precise date when Milner Field mansion became known as an accursed place. The belief grew gradually, as one set of diminished families left and another set took over, only to be wearing mourning and attending funerals sooner than may have been expected. As far as Mr Duffield knew, the former mansion, dating from Elizabethan times, had attracted no strange and disturbing tales, but then Elizabethans and their descendants were used to plagues, wars civil and foreign, disasters, early deaths and sinister doings. However, Mr Duffield had heard folk tales of the area dating long before the manorial lands of that place came to an uneasy truce with fate’s sharp edges. He heard tell of marauding bandits, parties of hunters laying claim to lands and livestock, of times when families hid their daughters.
‘The house is up for sale again,’ I said.
‘So I heard. Whether anyone believes in it or not, the curse—or the suspicions of a curse—permeates the place like a thick fog. To be on the safe side, do not let anyone for whom you have the slightest regard consider putting in a bid for it.’ Mr Duffield gave me a frank look, as if I must be warned against recommending the place.
‘I don’t know anyone who is looking for a mansion. An outsider with sufficient money for a country house in the North would want to be by Lake Windermere, not the Leeds–Liverpool Canal.’
‘Of course there’s no such thing as a curse,’ said Mr Duffield, somewhat undermining his own accounts of ill-fortune across generations. ‘People look for explanations, and a curse fits the bill. But it will be an enormous pity if the mill goes to the wall due to lack of cash reserves. What with the Wall Street Crash, the strikes, reduced orders, it would be useful for Salts to have money from the sale of the mansion. With things as they are, the whole village might join the ranks of the unemployed.’
Mr Duffield poured more tonic wine all round. Mrs Duffield perked up as her husband took a deep breath and prepared to continue his story.
‘I recollect a tale told to me by a young reporter trying to make his mark. It’s historical, perhaps Middle Ages. It tells of a wronged young shepherdess, just a child, and her cruel murderous death. There’s also an account within living memory, around eighteen seventy, of a tragic accident to a little lad who was trespassing during the building work and toppled to his death. Some say it was no accident, it was murder.’
Mrs Duffield sighed heavily. ‘Heartbreaking! This shines a light on how the curse came to be. The mothers of the shepherdess and the little lad cursed the place. They were hundreds of years apart in time, but close in grief and sorrow. Such agonies leave a memory on the land and the mansion that was built on it. I read something similar in Reader’s Digest.’
Chapter Two
I set off for Saltaire and Milner Field no wiser about Ronnie Creswell’s mysterious letter. How had he come to pick on me? I wondered. I did have a connection with a mill from several years ago, but twenty-two-year-old Ronnie would have been too young to have heard anything about that.
The train’s engine seemed to sound out the name of the house: Milner Field, Milner Field, Milner Field. I wanted to see this mansion. Yes, we were in hard times, but there are always people with money to spare, ready to snap up grandeur and bask in delight.
I was the only passenger to leave the train at Saltaire.
Being in good time, I took a brief look about. The first thing that struck me was the neatness of the place: row upon row of stone houses. Their red-brick city counterparts frequently gave me a feeling of being shut in. These dwellings gave no sense of being closed in from the sky and the world. I allowed myself a little diversion along Albert Terrace, passing George Street and Ada Street. I should have liked to explore, but thought it better to follow Mr Creswell’s directions.
His map led me to a neatly kept park where a board of instructions spelled out the hours during which residents might make use of the amenity and listed the activities that would draw a frown. I spotted the cricket pavilion that he had dotted in as a landmark.
From the park, my way led to a wood where the ground dipped and rose so that I needed to keep my eyes down for a long stretch. The overgrown path and spreading roots of trees gave the hint that I had deviated from the popular way through the wood. Coming into the country, I ought to have known better than to wear silk stockings, the favourite bait of brambles. I picked my way carefully.
Just as I was beginning to feel the letter writer possessed a warped sense of humour, the path broadened. The land to the left sloped up towards an old well and then rose to form the perch for a farmhouse and outbuildings. Bilberries were ripening. A woman with a basket picked busily. There is always someone who beelines bilberries first. She paused to give a glaring assessment of me. Rival picker? No, not dressed for it.
I wished her good evening.
‘Is thah lost?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’m on my way to Milner Field.’
‘Then keep going, if thah must.’
At that moment two shots rang out in quick succession, followed by the frantic craw of crows as they flew from the gunshots.
Eventually, a broad driveway curved, cutting through the land from a road up the hill on my left. I heard the distant clip-clop of a horse and cart.
Suddenly, Milner Field came into view, beyond the gateposts so neatly and minutely drawn by Ronald Creswell. I walked some way before reaching a lodge house and beyond that a better view of the mansion, all turrets and towers of the sort where Rapunzel might let down her long hair and wait to be rescued by a passing knight. It also reminded me of the dreadful country-house weekends that my aunt occasionally enticed me to when trying to fix me up with a suitable man. Grand, Gothic, its windows glowing in the sunlight, the building trumpeted the news that Titus Salt Junior, youngest son of the late Sir Titus, spared no expense in creating a modern-day fairy-tale castle suitable for a wealthy merchant. Yet this spectacular and somewhat forbidding building gave off an air of melancholy that made me shiver. Bread is described as ‘sad’ when it has not risen. This mansion had risen magnificently, yet that same word came to my lips: sad.
