With those words, she seized and held the entire company’s intent and unwavering attention.
“For it was,” she told them, “Monty Underhill’s discovery of an ill-gotten gain and his subsequent pursuit of his own ill-gotten gain that led to his murder.” She paused, then went on, “But the story didn’t begin on Monday. Its genesis lies more than two years ago. That was when Augustus Armstrong, the late Earl of Leith, died, leaving, or so everyone believed, the title to his nephew, Frederick Armstrong.
“But Frederick stepped into the earl’s shoes only because Augustus and his son, Jonathon, had had a falling-out years before, and Jonathon had vanished from the ton. After years passed with no sign of Jonathon, Augustus moved to have Jonathon officially declared dead. Subsequent to that, Frederick became Augustus’s heir.
“However, as Augustus grew older, he pined for his son, and having never believed in his heart that Jonathon was truly dead, Augustus hired agents to search until they located Jonathon. Ultimately, after many years of fruitless endeavor, the agents succeeded in tracking Jonathon to New York. He had carved out a new and successful life for himself and was living in comfort, even luxury, there. As per Augustus’s instructions, the agents did not inform Jonathon of his father’s interest but instead dispatched the information to Augustus.
“Augustus received the news that his son was alive and well after Augustus had fallen ill and mere weeks before he died. During that time, Augustus wrote a new will. He knew his time was running out and, rather than chance waiting for his solicitor to attend him at Leith Hall, he used his previous will as a template and hand-wrote a new last testament leaving the title and entailed fortune to Jonathon and including directions of where Jonathon could now be found.”
“Augustus had the new will witnessed by his estate manager and a tenant farmer who happened to be in the house, with neither man knowing what the document was, then Augustus left the new will along with the agents’ letters in the drawer of a desk in his upstairs sitting room, a room he rarely used. Although he knew he was failing, he believed he would have ample time to hand the new will to his solicitor when the man responded to the summons Augustus had already sent. Presumably, he hoped the solicitor would take on the burden of informing Frederick that he was no longer Augustus’s heir. But then, Augustus’s heart gave out, and he died.”
Penelope paused and glanced swiftly over her audience; they were captivated and hanging on her every word. “So Augustus’s final testament and the knowledge of Jonathon’s whereabouts, along with the correspondence relating to Jonathon being found alive, remained hidden in the drawer of the desk in the rarelyused sitting room at Leith Hall. And per Augustus’s previous will, his nephew, Frederick, became the Earl of Leith.”
“Frederick—whom we know as Leith—lived in London. Augustus hadn’t summoned him, and Frederick knew nothing of the new will or of Jonathon being alive. Other than a quick trip to Leith Hall for Augustus’s funeral, over the months immediately following Augustus’s death, the business of taking control of the earldom’s estates kept Leith fully occupied in town. Eventually, however, he went to Leith Hall and set about working his way through all of Augustus’s papers. That process took several visits over several months. It was only toward the end of that process that Leith thought to look in the drawer of the desk in the sitting room his uncle had rarely used. That’s when Leith discovered his uncle’s final will and realized that he wasn’t, in truth, the earl at all.”
To say that the company was riveted would have been a gross understatement. Satisfied, Penelope continued, “Leith made that discovery on a day when, that afternoon, he was due to join a large party for the annual Hunt Ball at Wyndham Castle. Thrown into complete turmoil by his discovery, Leith had to leave within an hour or so. Rather than leave the will—the document that effectively disinherited him—where someone else might find and read it, when he left for Wyndham Castle, he took the will with him.
“Unsurprisingly, the will captured and held his attention to the exclusion of all else. At the castle, in the room he’d been given, which happened to be in the old part of the building, Leith paced and read and paced some more—then it was time to go downstairs, or he’d be late, so he thrust the will into his bag, then left the room and locked the door behind him.
“Early the next morning, after the ball ended and Leith finally returned to his room, he was too exhausted to do anything other than fall into bed. And the next morning, whenhe looked for the will in his bag, it had vanished. He had no idea who could have taken the document or how anyone could have got past the locked door. But there was a huge contingent of staff brought in for the ball, as well as a host of guests who had attended. Assuming they’d somehow gained entry to the room, anyone could have found the document, realized what it was, and taken it.
“Leith now faced a dilemma. He hadn’t told anyone of the final will, and he no longer had it. He couldn’t prove it existed, and he didn’t want to face the prospect of being disinherited. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he did nothing. He continued for several months, steadily growing ever more comfortable in his role as earl. Then, he received the first blackmail demand.”
Penelope paused, then added, “Although he didn’t say so, I suspect that in some corner of his mind, he must have been expecting it. He paid, of course, for the sum demanded wasn’t that large, not relative to the earldom’s coffers. He did, of course, try to identify his blackmailer—and by what the blackmailer had written, that person definitely held the late earl’s final will—but the blackmailer was too clever and slippery, and Leith never caught any hint of who he was. None at all. And as the months went on and the demands continued, Leith continued to pay. However, parting with the money wasn’t the worst of it. The knowledge that, at any moment of any day, Leith might be exposed as the imposter he was—indeed, as he has been today—weighed on him and undermined his enjoyment of his life as the Earl of Leith. More and more, the prospect of the will surfacing weighed on his mind, and there was nothing he could do to ease the pressure. And as the months passed, the pressure only grew.
“Then, Leith was invited to Patchcote Grange for this house party. And on the heels of that invitation came another demand from his blackmailer, and this time, the payment was to be made while Leith was here.”
A ripple of expectation passed over the company, and several members looked at one another in speculation while others looked anxious. As if unaware of the latter, Penelope rolled on, “As directed, Leith made the payment early on Monday morning, but in designating the spot where he should leave it, his blackmailer made a fatal error.”
Penelope glanced at Barnaby. They’d arranged that after she set the stage, he would step in and lead the company through the subsequent events.
He stepped forward, drawing the company’s attention. “As you will by now have guessed, Monty Underhill was Leith’s blackmailer.” They’d agreed to, as far as possible, omit all mention of the others Monty had victimized.
Barnaby inclined his head to Lady Pamela; they’d warned the family of the substance of what they would reveal, and after recovering from the shock, stony-faced, Pamela had consented to the disclosure, which, regardless, would inevitably be made public at Leith’s trial. In an even tone, Barnaby continued, “It appears that Monty had grown tired of never having any money to call his own. Blackmailing Leith was his choice of how to rectify that. We must stress that, no matter the circumstances of his death, in turning to blackmail, Monty committed a criminal act. However, to explain what happened on Monday morning, the spot Monty had nominated in which Leith was to leave his payment was the large Chinese vase that stands on a display shelf in the library.”
The revelation caused muted exclamations from the gentlemen who had seen Monty go to the vase in the library that morning.
Smoothly, Barnaby continued, “In selecting that place, Monty didn’t realize that someone with a spyglass, standing across the lawn in the cover of the trees, could keep the vaseunder observation.” He paused, then added, “And that’s what Frederick Armstrong did.”
Barnaby glanced at Stokes, who stepped forward and stated, “Through all your interviews, you gave us the vital clues to piece together Armstrong’s movements and conclusively prove that only he could have killed Underhill in the orchard. In essence, the locations of all the rest of you were either vouched for by someone else or could be proven by other facts. What occurred was this. After placing the money in the vase, Armstrong saw that the vase was in line with one of the windows. He also saw a collapsible spyglass sitting on the mantelpiece. He borrowed the spyglass, and knowing he’d been told to leave his payment in the vase before eight-thirty and also realizing that, in this instance, his blackmailer wouldn’t want to leave as much money as he’d just placed inside the vase for a maid to accidentally come upon, after telling several people that he was going upstairs to his room to write letters, instead, Armstrong left the house via the side door and circled around into the band of trees that faces the house. In doing that, he was noticed by Mr. Patterson and Vincent Underhill as they made their way to the stable. Leith’s footprints confirm that, from the trees, he watched the vase through the library window and waited. Eventually, as the five gentlemen who were in the library at the time can attest, Underhill came in, chatted genially to his guests, then crossed to the vase, ostensibly to straighten it. In doing so, he removed the packet of money Armstrong had placed inside.
“From the trees, Armstrong saw Underhill go to the vase and remove the money. Immediately thereafter, Underhill went out for a stroll and left the house via the front door. When Underhill stepped outside, alone, and walked across the lawn under Armstrong’s eyes, Underhill’s fate was sealed. To understand Armstrong’s overwhelming rage, you need to appreciate that, until that moment, he’d considered Underhill not just a goodfriend but a mentor of sorts. Someone who, for decades, Armstrong had thought of kindly, and who he believed thought of him kindly.”
“To realize that Monty was his blackmailer was a terrible shock,” Penelope stated. “And while that doesn’t in any way excuse what Frederick did, it does explain his violent reaction.”
“In short,” Stokes said, “in the grip of a towering rage, Armstrong seized the nearest weapon to hand, an iron garden stake, and stalked after Underhill as he strolled toward the orchard. We believe that, with the orchard’s grass so thick, Underhill didn’t hear Armstrong approaching. Underhill was examining a hollow in a tree when Armstrong came up behind him and hit him over the head with the iron stake, killing him.”
“Subsequently,” Barnaby stated, “Armstrong did his best to cover his tracks while also searching for his late uncle’s will, a document he couldn’t afford to allow to fall into anyone else’s hands. He was convinced Monty had it and had hidden it somewhere. On returning to the house, once again via the side door”—Barnaby tipped his head toward the younger crew—“with his return witnessed by Patterson and Miss Samantha Goodrich, Armstrong didn’t join the rest of the company on the lawns but instead slipped into Monty’s study and comprehensively searched for the will. He even found the key to the safe and looked in there, but he didn’t find the will.
“He was frustrated, but not about to give up. On Tuesday evening, when Armstrong told Kilpatrick, who was leaving the house to walk to his home, that he was going upstairs to write letters, Armstrong went to Monty’s bedchamber. He was searching there when Monty’s valet”—Barnaby nodded down the room to where Grimshaw stood with Gearing before the closed doors—“came into the adjoining dressing room. Armstrong struck the valet unconscious before he’d had achance to see who the intruder was. And Armstrong continued to search.
“However,” Barnaby went on, “after that, with a constable on guard in the study and us interviewing in the library, Armstrong decided to lie low for the moment. But he grew increasingly concerned at what we might learn, and so he concocted a plan to offer us someone he hoped would be a believable scapegoat. He’d learned that after walking with her sister, Rosalind, and then parting from her, Regina Hemmings had been alone in the shrubbery at the time Armstrong had killed Monty. Regina didn’t have an alibi for the murder, and so Armstrong decided to lure her to the orchard. To do that—to separate her from Alison Waterhouse, with whom Regina was walking—Armstrong caused Mrs. Waterhouse to fall in the corridor upstairs and followed that by striking her sufficiently hard to render her unconscious, then he used news of her mother’s accident to send Alison flying to the house, leaving Regina to walk alone, with Armstrong, supposedly back to the house.
“But instead, Armstrong, who as we all know can be charming when he wishes, led Regina to the orchard, to where he’d set his scene. Luckily, mere moments before, in the library, we’d discovered the vital will and realized the murderer was Armstrong. Consequently, we set about hunting him down—and caught up with him just in time to prevent him staging Regina’s death so that it would appear to everyone that she’d committed suicide, presumably driven by guilt over having killed Monty.”
“Only,” Penelope said, “we’d already established that Regina couldn’t have delivered the blow that killed Monty. She’s too short. But that’s what was behind the incident you all saw with your own eyes in the orchard this morning.”
They had, Penelope thought, covered every base and accounted for the facts the company knew in a way that spared Monty’s other victims.
