Murder at the mansion

Truth to tell, there is no murder involved, but there should be. All the characters involved have stepped straight out of a 1930’s Agatha Christie novel. The only thing missing is the body – which is a mystery in itself.

The story begins on a frosty Tuesday morning. Jeanette and I have been invited to Mrs Peacock’s cottage for morning coffee.

The cottage where she lives is ‘tied’ to the main house where she and her husband, a retired police officer, are also the housekeeper and gardener.

We turn off the side road, over a bridge and through a set of magnificent gates and onto the driveway where a commanding house gradually appears, a huge gothic monstrosity but not without a certain eerie, dramatic charm. A sweeping lawn in front is still covered in snow and deer meander around in the distance.

We park outside Mrs Peacock’s cottage, opposite to the stables where a pheasant is ‘hanging’, before its journey to the stovepot and table.

Mrs Peacock is one of those talented people who can sew, knit, write, cook and still find time for social work and to attend college to learn yet more craft skills. She and I share a common interest in the English language.

“How do you spell anonymise?” she asks me.

“You don’t. It doesn’t exist as a word,” I say. “It’s anonymous.”

“Oh, the university guidelines tell me I have to ensure the work my students submit is anonymised.”

“Well, I am sure it’s not a verb. You will have to say ‘anonymously’,” and I spell it out for her.

“Hmm, explains why the spell-checker couldn’t find it,” says Mrs P.

Settled with coffee, fruit cake and Earl Grey biscuits we learn that Mrs Peacock and her husband have lived here for six years. The owner of the big house is over 80, disabled from a childhood accident, and only visits once or twice a year. It is his holiday home. Actually, he is a twin, but as he was born first, he gets this house. We’ll call him Col. Mustard.

Col. Mustard’s sister, Mrs White, was the person who originally interviewed Mrs Peacock. As she and her husband stood on the front doorstep, somewhat overawed by the mansion rising up above them, Mrs White barked at them:

“Do you smoke?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Mrs Peacock, feeling it best to tell the truth. “But we are planning to give up,” she adds hopefully.

“That’s excellent,” said Mrs White, her accent cutting shards from the crystal decanters. “Come on in, we all smoke here.”

The house has 13 bedrooms and most years is only fully occupied for Hogmanay. There is no central heating, and these days no army of servants, so guests have to stoke their own log fires in their bedrooms. Col. Mustard’s nephew, Prof. Plum, sometimes comes to stay and he brings his friends with him. Mrs Peacock must make sure the house is ready and aired, all the beds are made and towels laid out.

When Col. Mustard comes to stay, usually only for a week or two in May and again in August, Mrs Peacock cooks his meals and sees to his linen. He is very appreciative of her efforts.

“I always know when he is happy because he comes to the kitchen and says ‘that porridge was wonderful, Mrs P’ or ‘splendid fish pie’!,” she tells us.

“If he says nothing, I know it wasn’t up to scratch.”

Mrs Peacock’s dream of having her own linen store has come true, she has a whole room devoted to the house linen and after she arrived Mrs White taught her how to iron napkins.

“You iron them wet, wrong side first, then right side to get the sheen, and then fold them into three,” she informs us.

Close by to her cottage is a farmstead. She says she and her husband are friendly with the owners but in the six years she has lived there, they have never been into her cottage.

“And they never will,” Mrs Peacock says. “They hated the previous couple and refuse to cross the threshold.” The previous couple held the position of gardener and cook for ten years. That’s a long time to be at silent war with your only neighbour for several miles.

A shadowy figure that has presided over the house for many a long year is the ex-housekeeper, Miss Scarlett. She is notorious for meddling and stirring up antipathies amongst the staff. She is suspected of having designs on Col. Mustard. Or perhaps on his will. Lately she has become persona non gratis and no one is missing her.

“She was forever accusing us of terrible things like stealing the silver,” says Mrs P.

“Mind you, you have to be very careful. Miss Scarlett was dining at Rev. Green’s manse a few years back and she commented on how delicious the salmon was. Oh, said Rev. Green, I purchased it from your gamekeeper.”

The poaching gamekeeper was sacked that very night.

So there you have it, a cast of characters living in this isolated mansion, cut off for weeks at a time, with enmities and a long history of feuding.

All that is needed is motive, opportunity – and a body.