Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Twelve – Mrs Bennet Investigates

Mrs Bennet helps the police with their enquiries.

When the police indicated they were ready to begin our interviews I requested that I go first. Giddings was happy with that as I had been early on the scene of the crime. He wanted my impressions while they were still fresh in my mind. (He didn’t say so, but he was probably concerned that, as an older person my short-term memory was most likely to fail.)

“Before we start, Mrs Bradshaw, I believe you have your mobile phone in your bag?” He knew I had, as I had called Mary Manners. “I need that, please, and your PIN code, if you’ve set one.”

That settled things. There was no hiding now. It had been stupid to try; the police weren’t fools.

“Certainly, Inspector, but there are some things you need to know first.” He looked up expectantly. Sergeant Sharpe stopped scribbling in her notebook.

“I’m not Michelle Bradshaw,” I said. “I’m Mike Bradshaw,” I continued in my normal, male voice. “I’m not a lady mature student. I’m a twenty-year-old man.”

I was expecting the two coppers to be astonished, and I wasn’t disappointed, but their reaction was still completely unexpected. The inspector looked at the sergeant, and said, “My God, another one!” She nodded. He returned to me. “Very well, Mister Bradshaw. Tell us everything.”

So I did. I told him my whole story.

When I eventually paused for breath, Giddings said to the sergeant, “You’d better get Holly Woodbridge in here now. The two of them seem to be in this together.”

When Holly came in, looking worried for obvious reasons, I pre-empted her from saying anything incriminating.

“I’ve told them everything, love, as we agreed.” Sensibly (for once), she shut up. I turned back to Giddings. “Some of the people in the other room don’t know my secret, and as I’m sure you’ve realised, one of them may be the murderer. So Holly and I decided we should hold everything back until we could brief you alone.”

“Well, I suppose that’s reasonable…” he began, doubtfully.

“But there is one more big secret you need to know,” I interrupted. I took a deep breath. “I know exactly who the deceased is, and I can tell you a lot about her. She’s Hannah Matthews and she is – was – my stepsister.”

There was a long silence. Sharpe resumed scribbling. Giddings was looking at me, as if he was expecting me to continue with a confession to murder.

“We’ve never got on, although the animosity was all on her side. When my mother married her father, she seemed to think that we were intruders in her family. She’s a couple of years older than me and she left home the moment we moved in. Before today I hadn’t seen her for more than two years. I have absolutely no idea what she was doing here.”

I paused again. Giddings was still saying nothing.

“And for the avoidance of doubt,” I continued, “I didn’t kill her.”

“Of course, you didn’t!” said Holly vehemently.

Giddings was still looking sceptical. I could see that from his point of view I could have a strong motive. I went on.

“Keith Matthews is quite wealthy, and he very kindly pays my university tuition fees to save me taking out a student loan, but he has never legally adopted me, and as far as I know I’m not in his will. Hannah was his sole heir.”

Giddings thought for a moment, then asked, “I will need to get in touch with Mr Matthews. Can you let me have his contact details?”

“Yes, of course.”

I opened my phone and navigated to ‘Contacts’ for him. I handed it to him, not expecting to get it back today.

“The PIN number is 719645,” I said. “Oh, I’ve just thought… Keith and my mother were going on a Caribbean cruise, but they left just before we came here – more than four weeks ago. I would have expected to hear from them by now. Our mobile phones have to be off during the working day, but Mum could have left a message, or called in the evening. I hope nothing’s happened to them. If the motive for killing Hannah was money, that might have implications for Keith.”

Giddings was preparing to ask more questions, but Holly had something to say. Her eyes were shining. She’d obviously had another bright idea. That usually meant trouble for me, but maybe not this time…

“You do realise, Inspector, that Mike may be the only member of the Experience cast who couldn’t have killed Hannah. He, as Mrs Bennet, was stuck in the Longbourn dining room all afternoon. Obviously, I don’t know exactly when Hannah was killed, but…”

“Witnesses?” Giddings interrupted.

“Amy was running back and forward with food and drinks all the time as the maid,” Holly said. “She would remember if Mrs Bennet had gone out for more than a couple of minutes. But most of the cast will have called in at some point. You’ll need to ask them of course, but I’m willing to bet they’ll all say that Mama, I mean Mike was always there in her seat, I mean his seat at the head of the table.”

“There were guests too,” I added.

“But surely none of the visitors could vouch for you being there all the time?” asked the sergeant. “Isn’t there a regular turnover?”

“Usually, yes,” I agreed. “Today the lunch session lot left at about two o’clock, then the afternoon people wandered in. I remember there was an elderly couple who showed up just after two and were still there at tea when the body was discovered. We had a long chat about life in 1813. I remember they said they needed a ‘nice sit-down’. Their feet were hurting after walking round the Estate all morning.”

“Toilet break?” It seemed Giddings’ questions were all short and to the point.

“Not today, actually. My outfit is pretty tight as you can see, so I don’t eat or drink much during the day. I could do with a wee right now in fact, and I’m desperate to get out of this corset.”

I tried a smile. It wasn’t returned. Bad sign.

“Well, you’ve certainly given us a lot to think about, Mr Bradshaw. I think we’ll stop there for the moment. Please don’t leave the vicinity of this building. I will want to talk to you again when we’ve interviewed all the others. In the meantime, I suggest you keep up the deception. The revelation of your true identity can only confuse the issue. It might be best if you don’t reveal your relationship with the deceased for the same reason.”

I was dismissed, so I got up to go. Holly tried to follow.

“We might as well take you next, Miss Woodbridge,” Giddings said.

Holly sat down again. Giddings turned to the sergeant.

“Can you ask one of the DCs to go through the guests’ statements and try and locate the elderly couple Mr Bradshaw mentioned?” he said as I left.

* * *

Dinner that evening was more than an hour late. Nobody cared; we were probably all in shock. Our working holiday in the 19th Century had come to an abrupt end. I wondered whether The Pride and Prejudice Experience was insured against closure on account of murder?

After the forensic team had finished upstairs, we had spent the early evening confined to our rooms while they worked in the library and throughout the ground floor. We changed into our ‘civvies’ and had to hand over the shoes we had been wearing during the day for comparison with footprints found in the hall and library. We were only allowed back in the kitchen and the staff common room when Forensics had finished.

A couple of uniformed policemen had brought a sheepish-looking Douglas back at about half-past six. His interview with Giddings and Sharpe lasted quite a lot longer than any of the others apart from mine. When he arrived for dinner nobody dared ask what had happened to him. I wanted to know more about his relationship with Hannah, but I wasn’t Mike, I was Michelle, and I had agreed with the inspector to stay that way for the moment. In any case, as far as I knew, Holly was the only person in the cast who knew that the deceased was my sister.

Conversation was awkward; everyone had now had their first interview, but the two detectives were still somewhere on the premises. We’d finished our meal and were lingering over coffee – nobody seemed keen to leave the table after such a day. Naturally it was Holly who eventually broke the silence.

“So it seems Michelle is the only one of us who’s in the clear,” she said.

“How do you make that out?” asked Douglas, the hostility plain in his voice.

“She was in the dining room in front of witnesses all afternoon.”

“What witnesses?” he insisted.

“We all saw her there at some point, but even if none of us could swear that she never left her seat, there are guests who can,” Holly said calmly. “One old couple were with her from some time after two right up until Diane found the body. That must cover the time of the murder, mustn’t it?”

Douglas fell silent.

“I’m sure most of us have alibis too,” said Amy.

“Well, you certainly don’t,” said Sam. “As the maid you’re in and out between the kitchen and the dining room all the time. You could easily have met this Hannah person in the library, stabbed her, and got back on duty without being missed.”

She spoke without any malice, but Amy looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“I don’t mean that I think you did,” said Sam, kindly. “I’m just pointing out that it would only take a minute or two to do the deed, and most of us had the opportunity.”

“I didn’t even know her,” Amy protested.

“It seems like Douglas is the only one who did,” said Sam.

“You don’t know that!” he said angrily. “The real murderer is hardly likely to tell anyone, is he?”

“Or she,” said Tom from his favourite armchair. His eyes were closed. I thought he’d gone to sleep, as he usually did after dinner.

“Sam’s right though,” said Holly. “I’m sure all of us except Michelle were alone at some time during the afternoon. Hilary went to the loo at one point, leaving me with our visitors…”

“And so did you, Holl,” said Hilary with a smile.

“Yes, I did, at about three o’clock, I think.”

“The same applies to me and Rob,” confirmed Derek.

“Well, the toilets at the stables are pretty disgusting,” added Rob, “so we try and hold it till we can go on one of our visits to the House.”

“And we all have to go in the front door and use the bathrooms at the back,” said Holly.

“…which takes you right past the library,” I said.

“I can’t vouch for Douglas all afternoon either,” said Sam, “and he can’t vouch for me. Linda took a couple of breaks too. By the way, Diane, did you tell the police that you dressed that Hannah woman this morning?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did. You and I were next to each other doing costumes in the Great Hall. I was going to give my guest that beautiful green dress, till I realised she was too fat for it. You took it off me when Hannah said she liked it.”

“Well, I dressed half a dozen women this morning. I didn’t notice her particularly.”

“You must have noticed the dress, though. What did the two of you talk about? She seemed quite agitated.”

“I don’t remember – any more than I remember her,” Diane said. “Probably something about corsets or petticoats.”

Sam and Diane had never got on that well. Diane was red with anger now. Sam hardly noticed. Sensitivity wasn’t her strong suit.

“This is a nightmare for the police, isn’t it?” I interrupted their argument. “Nearly anyone in the cast could have done it and most of us have pretty shaky alibis. I guess they’ll have to concentrate on finding a link between the deceased and one of the suspects.”

“Why couldn’t it have been a random killing?” asked Douglas, who we all now knew did have a link to Hannah. “Some psychopath with a knife comes across a pretty stranger browsing in the library and kills her on a whim.”

“Pretty unlikely, I’d have thought,” Linda said, making her first contribution.

“And the police wouldn’t get anywhere working on that assumption,” added Holly.

“Why shouldn’t it have been one of the visitors?” Linda asked.

“Not impossible but even less likely,” suggested Tom. “None of them would know the layout of the House and they’d be going somewhere that was out of bounds to them. They’d be risking being challenged by a member of staff.”

“Also, if an outsider wanted to kill this woman, surely they could find a more convenient and less risky place to do it,” I said.

“Right – somewhere quiet, near where she lived,” said Holly. “This place was teeming with people this afternoon. The killer took an insane risk, whoever it was.”

“Which suggests that either he – or she – had no choice,” I said. “The deed had to be done here, unless it was a crime of passion, a spur of the moment thing, unplanned.”

Nobody had anything to add.

At that moment Inspector Giddings and Sergeant Sharpe appeared. They had been sitting quietly in the bar area round the corner, out of sight of the dining table.

“We’ll say goodnight now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Giddings, making his way out of the back door. “We’ll see you all again tomorrow morning, no doubt. Don’t think of leaving, will you? There will be uniformed police at all exits from the Estate.”

Sergeant Sharpe followed him with a smug smile on her face.

“They heard everything we said!” wailed Diane when they were out of earshot.

“Well, I hope they thought our analysis was useful,” said Holly.

We all got up to go. There was a general move toward the bar. I was just about to follow Holly when Tom came up to me.

“Could I have a quiet word with you, dear?” he said.

“Certainly, Tom,” I said. “I’ll be right with you, Holly,” I called. “Get me a drink, would you?”

I knew it wouldn’t be a pint of lager. I was getting used to white wine.

“Let’s go in Mr Bennet’s study, shall we?” Tom said. “I’d rather we weren’t overheard.”

It fleetingly occurred to me that none of us should be going off anywhere alone with another suspect, but I didn’t think I had anything to fear from Tom. He didn’t know that his plump stage wife was twenty years younger than her apparent age and with a young man’s strength.

“What’s on your mind, Tom?” I asked when we were seated in the study with the door closed.

“Seeing Douglas again reminded me,” he said. “I overheard him arguing with someone early this morning. You know my room is next to his in the Portakabin. I was getting dressed and drinking my morning coffee. The window was open and I heard their voices. They didn’t see me.”

“Really? Did you hear any of the conversation?”

“Not much, unfortunately. They were trying to keep their voices down. The only words I could make out were Douglas saying, ‘I haven’t told anybody, I swear. You don’t have to keep threatening me.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect he sounded angry and scared.”

“Who was the other person?”

“I don’t know – she was just round the end of the building. But it was definitely a woman’s voice. I’m afraid my hearing isn’t good enough anymore to distinguish women’s high-pitched voices. I did catch a glimpse of a green dress, if that helps.”

“I think most of the girls have green dresses. We all have three outfits, of course. But why are you telling me this?”

“Well, you’re the only other grown-up here, aren’t you? The others are all kids. I can trust your judgement. I know I didn’t kill this poor girl and I think Holly was right. You’re the only other person we can be sure is innocent. Now do you think I should tell the police what I heard?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Douglas is in the frame at the moment. The little altercation you heard is sure to have a bearing on that. Don’t forget: Hannah Whatshername was wearing a green dress when we found her.”

* * *

A little after half-past eight the following morning, I was summoned to Mr Bennet’s study, which the police had designated their command centre. I sat down, expecting a grilling from the two detectives.

Since I was still required to pose as a middle-aged woman, albeit now a 20th Century one, I was wearing one of my modern dresses, a beige thing with blue polka dots. Holly insisted I also wore tights and heels, as a respectable woman my age would do. She had helped with my makeup and hair – that is, wig – which she had put in a convenient updo, like on the day we all met at the Dog and Duck. The inspector was impassive, but I was pleased to see the sergeant looking at me in amazement, apparently still baffled at the effectiveness of my disguise.

She offered me coffee and I accepted. Giddings opened the conversation.

“I’m pleased to say…” He didn’t look especially pleased. “…that we found the elderly couple you mentioned,” he said. “Tell her, I mean him, Sergeant.”

“They are a Mr and Mrs Cooper,” Sharpe began. “The old gentleman is a retired headmaster and his wife was a concert pianist. They are in their early eighties but both are completely competent – no sign of dementia or shaky memory. They’re Jane Austen buffs and they thoroughly enjoyed their time with ‘Mrs Bennet’ in the Longbourn drawing room. They thought your performance was excellent, by the way. ‘Spot-on,’ Mr Cooper said.”

I sensed that Giddings was getting impatient with the level of detail Sharpe was providing. She looked up from her notes.

“More importantly from our point of view, they’re both adamant that, although lots of other people – cast and guests – came and went, none of the three of you left the room between two o’clock and just after four when ‘Kitty’ came in. They noticed she was in a panic, and even remembered she called you ‘Mike’. They’ve been wondering about that ever since.”

Giddings interrupted. “Our pathologist is convinced that Miss Matthews was stabbed no earlier than two-thirty, so that would appear to put you in the clear.”

I must have let the relief show on my face.

“Of course, you might have had an accomplice,” he said. “You may not be in his will now, but who else is Keith Matthews going to leave his money to, now his daughter’s dead? So you remain a person of interest, and I’m afraid you will have to stay here for the moment.”

He reached toward a small pile of papers in front of him on Mr Bennet’s desk. They looked like letters and their envelopes. He picked up the top one.

“Then there’s this,” he said, “which I think changes things dramatically. It arrived this morning.”

He tossed a letter to me. The envelope was addressed to Mr M J Bradshaw, Hadleigh House, and it was in Keith’s handwriting. Our mail came in through Mary Manners at the Hall. I hoped she’d think ‘Mr’ was an error on the part of the sender.

“Are you allowed to open people’s private mail?” I said, not attempting to conceal my anger.

“In a murder enquiry my warrant extends to ‘all communications to or from legitimate suspects’,” he said calmly. “That’s why I was allowed to commandeer all your mobile phones, and I can check your bank accounts too. It wouldn’t be difficult to persuade my superiors – or a judge – that all the cast of The Pride and Prejudice Experience are ‘legitimate suspects’. Read the letter, Mr Bradshaw.”

“Dear Mike,” I read, “this is a very difficult letter to write, because I’ve come to care for you as a son, and I know it will be upsetting.

“I have a brain tumour and will need to undergo chemotherapy. I need to prepare for the worst, so I’ve set up identical trust funds for you and Hannah. The trustees will pay each of you a monthly stipend, which I’m sure you will find generous but which she will regard as stingy. You will each get full access to the funds on your thirtieth birthday. Hannah will probably blow all of hers in six months, but that’s not your problem. The rest of my estate will go to your mother, and then on to the two of you and – I hope – your families when she dies.

“I’m writing this now because, when we saw you at home the night before we left for our cruise, I realised it was wrong to keep you and Hannah in the dark any longer.

“I hope to see you when you’ve finished your summer job and before you go back to Uni, but I’m expecting to spend a good deal of time in hospital, probably the Royal Marsden. In any case, I know you’ll look after your mother if the worst happens. She will need you badly,

“Much love, Keith.”

I felt tears welling up. Sergeant Sharpe was watching me sympathetically. Inspector Giddings was inscrutable as always, but he seemed to be in no rush to advance the interview, so maybe he was human after all.

“My deepest sympathies, Mr Bradshaw,” Giddings said. “We will try and reach your parents and explain the situation here.” He turned to Sharpe. “Please keep trying to contact Mr and Mrs Matthews, Sergeant. You might try the Royal Marsden. You should speak to Mrs Matthews, if possible. Let her make the decision as to whether to tell her husband. The news of his daughter’s death might be too much for him in his current condition.”

He turned back to me, but I spoke first.

“I see how this changes things,” I said. “I’m back to being Prime Suspect, aren’t I? But I swear I didn’t know…”

“You’re right that it does change our thoughts about the case, but not in the way you think. I’m inclined to believe that you didn’t know you were about to receive a ‘generous stipend’. In fact, we’ve checked your bank account and it’s already started. A payment of £3,000 appeared a week ago. I suspect you wouldn’t be here, pretending to be ‘Mrs Bennet’ for a relative pittance if you knew you didn’t need to be – your obvious devotion to Miss Woodbridge notwithstanding.”

Sometimes he talked like someone from the 19th Century himself.

“All that, combined with the fairly solid alibi the Coopers have given you, means that we’re still inclined to push you to the back of the queue of suspects.”

That was good to hear, but he wasn’t finished.

“But it changes things in other ways,” he said. “We have to assume that Miss Matthews received a very similar letter, and that might explain what she was doing down here. She might have come down to see you, if she had found out you were in the cast. From your description of her, she may have been angry that half of what she considered her inheritance was going to you.”

“And she might not have been able to find you,” put in Sergeant Sharpe. “She would hardly have expected her hated stepbrother to be masquerading as Mrs Bennet!”

“So if Keith Matthews is as wealthy as you’ve said, then money might be a possible motive after all,” said Giddings. “And if someone stands to gain from killing Hannah…”

“They might need me out of the way too,” I said.

“Precisely. So that’s another reason why you should stay in your Michelle disguise, at least until we can identify who might benefit from your death. It might protect you if the killer is someone who doesn’t know Michelle is Mike.”

“All the guys from the Uni Drama Course know – that’s Amy, Sam, Diane, Hilary, Douglas, Derek and Rob. Oh and Holly too, of course. But she definitely isn’t trying to kill me.”

“But she might have killed Hannah,” said Giddings. “Though probably not for money. I understand her parents are well off too?”

I nodded. “Actually, the only people in the cast who don’t know my real self are Tom and Linda. If you want to look at everyone associated with The Pride and Prejudice Experience, Sheila and Esther know, but Mr Vaughan, Miss Manners and the Countess don’t.”

“We’ll check their alibis but we understand that Mr Vaughan was away and Her Ladyship and Miss Manners were greeting guests as they arrived at the Hall. I think Mrs Brown and Mrs Routledge were there too and very busy providing visitors with their costumes.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, sir,” said Sergeant Sharpe. “Those two ladies are in the same position as the cast. They were definitely up at the Hall most of the time, but there are usually a few cast members and one or two local volunteers to help with costumes, so either of them could have slipped out for a while during the crucial period. It’s about a ten-minute walk from the Hall to Hadleigh House, so they would need to be away for about half an hour in all. Unlikely, I suppose, and I can’t imagine a possible motive, but feasible.

“We’ve ruled out the catering staff here too,” she continued. “There’s only three of them, a chef and two assistants, and they were all busy in the kitchen throughout the critical period. I suppose they might be covering for each other, and we’ll check their backgrounds to see if any of them knew the deceased, but I think it’s unlikely.”

Giddings sighed. “It keeps coming down to motive. We need to redouble our efforts at tracing connections between the victim and our suspects. By the way, do you know where the murder weapon came from?” he asked me. “Forensics reckon it’s an ornamental letter opener – surprisingly sharp.”

“I think there was something like that on Mr Bennet’s desk,” I said. “You should ask Tom Hawthorne. He’s been sitting there every day for a month. He must have noticed it.”

“There’s nothing like that on the desk now,” said the inspector. “I suppose just about anyone in the cast could have taken it at any time. There were no fingerprints or useful DNA on it. There were some fibres of a modern material like nylon, from the gloves the killer was wearing presumably, but I’m not hopeful we’ll be able to get a match from them.”

“Yes, Sheila said that all of the cast’s gloves are made of modern materials, and unfortunately for your investigation, all of the cast wear gloves almost all the time – as people actually did in the Regency era.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he called.

Tom himself appeared right on cue, like all the very best actors. He seemed a little surprised to see me.

“Oh, I can come back later, if you like,” he said, “though Michelle knows what I’m about to tell you.”

“Well, you might as well go ahead then,” Giddings said, inviting the old actor to sit down.

Tom went on to tell the two detectives what he’d told me last night. I was pleased to see they asked exactly the questions I had. Giddings made no comment. Then he asked about the letter opener. Tom was able to confirm he had seen it on the desk but hadn’t noticed it going missing. The inspector thanked Tom for his help in a manner that made it clear he was dismissed.

“That was interesting,” said Giddings. “We need to know who Miller was talking to. You’d better go and fetch him, Sergeant.

But she couldn’t find him. Because at that moment his lifeless body was lying in the cobbled courtyard at the back of Hadleigh Hall.

Next: Mrs Bennet the Snitch