A Well Kept Secret Read online

  Returning once more to the ground floor, he walked out from the dining room French windows and took a stroll down the surprisingly extensive garden, admiring the variety of plants and shrubs on display. It was a garden that would undoubtedly have delighted Alicia, and once again the familiar pang struck him as he thought about her and the fact that she would never be able to see it for herself. About half way down the garden, just beyond a screen of neatly pruned evergreens, he came across the large ornamental pond complete with a fountain that he vaguely remembered from his childhood. There was a seat beside this, situated in a sort of rose bower, and he stayed there for a while watching the carp and other fish in the water as well as the occasional bird that came down to drink or bathe in the purpose-built shallows at one end. He sat there for a quite a while, just relaxing and enjoying the rural peace of the spot. Eventually he stirred himself and returned into the house where he ascended to his room once again to finish sorting out his luggage. With the task complete, he went off to enjoy a shower. Have completed this, he returned once more to the lower floor. As he turned into the hallway from the foot of the stairs he was mildly startled when the door to the kitchen opened and Mrs Brent’s head appeared.

  “If you would care to go through to the dining room,” she said in much the same cold tones as she had used earlier, “your meal will be served in a few minutes.”

  Without waiting for a response she vanished within the precincts of the kitchen once more.

  He hadn’t even been aware of her entering the house; obviously the keys she had passed on to him were not the only set. From the brief glimpse he had caught of her he deduced that she had either finished or abandoned her decorating or whatever it was that she had been engaged upon when he had arrived. There were no longer any paint smudges visible, and her dark brown hair had been drawn back into what might have been a bun, although he couldn’t be sure. There was still nothing even remotely friendly in her manner or expression. He wondered briefly what it was that caused her to betray so much palpable resentment of his presence. He obediently entered the dining room, and noticed at once that she had set a place for him at the head of the polished mahogany table. He settled himself into the comfortable dining chair in his appointed position and a short while later she came into the room bearing a large tray, which she set down on the serving-table adjacent to where he was seated.

  “Cold chicken,” she announced, picking up a plate and placing it before him “Side salad, and a jacket-potato. There’s cheese and biscuits to follow, or fruit here if you prefer. The percolator is over there on the sideboard. Do you wish wine?”

  It was the same, cold, efficient and completely distant manner.

  “Thank you, no, this will be fine” he responded.

  “Very well; if you require anything else tonight, you know how to contact me,” she said, straightening up. “As I advised you earlier, the gates are controlled from the remote I observe you have not as yet collected from the hall-stand. There is a fixed control in the kitchen. Perhaps tomorrow you will let me know if you will be eating in or out, how long you propose remaining in residence, together with some idea of your tastes in order that I may prepare you meals as required.”

  “Will you not stay and talk for a while now?” he asked tentatively.

  “I’m sorry; I have a lot of work to do.” She said it without a trace of feeling.

  “I see; then I must not detain you,” he conceded. “Could you spare me a few minutes at, say, ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  For a moment he thought that she was going to refuse.

  “Would you like a cooked breakfast?” she asked, seemingly avoiding giving him a direct answer.

  “That would be nice.”

  “What time would suit you?”

  “Eight o’clock, if that is convenient?”

  “I will serve your breakfast at eight and you may say whatever it is you wish to say then. Now you must excuse me.”

  Without waiting for an answer she turned and left the room.

  Chapter Three. Sunday Night to Monday Morning.

  If there was one thing that had always fascinated Martin right from his earliest childhood it was a mystery. As a young lad he had avidly read stories about Sherlock Holmes, and later Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, as well as Sexton Blake, Inspector Wexford and sundry other fictional detectives, and had imagined that one day he would emulate their achievements. It had never happened of course, although the interest had never entirely deserted him. The latent hostility of the enigmatic Mrs Brent intrigued him and excited that latent childhood interest, because she was certainly like no other person he had ever come across. She wasn’t being pointedly rude to him, yet resentment seemed to prickle out her like a hedgehog. If, as he half suspected, she had simply taken an instant dislike to him, why did she immediately volunteer to cater for his needs? She could so easily have handed him the keys, and that would have been that. He hadn’t entered into any arrangement to employ her, and her manner certainly wasn’t such that it was designed to endear herself to him. It posed the obvious question to him; why was she bothering to do something she so patently didn’t really want to do at all? Was it because the upkeep of the house was more important to her than anyone who happened to be in it? Was it because she didn’t trust him to treat the property of her late employer in a proper manner? Whatever the reason, it was something of a mystery, and like all mysteries, it aroused his interest.

  Absurd as such a notion might be, an unnatural obsession with the care and welfare of the house and its contents was a possible explanation. As he had already noted, everything was cleaned and polished to perfection, yet why did she still go to so much trouble? It begged the question; was any provision made in the will to pay her beyond the retainer he knew about, just to do this? If that was the case, Charles had singularly neglected to mention it to him, and that wasn’t at all like Charles. Even if it was true, from what he had seen, the level of attention bestowed upon the task was remarkable, even down to the touch of cut flowers that he had found upon arrival. Yes, it was undoubtedly a mystery of sorts, and right now a mystery of any sort was something he needed, just to be distracted.

  What exactly, he wondered, had been the relationship between the frosty housekeeper and his late uncle? It seemed most unlikely they had been having an affair; with that surly expression and abrupt manner she simply didn’t look the type to attract that sort of interest from anyone. No; an affair seemed out of the question; if she had been half as brusque with her late employer as she had been with himself, it would have taken a much braver man than Martin to even attempt such intimacy. That fact in turn left the question; what had possessed his uncle to employ such a sour-faced harridan in the first place? Perhaps as a medical man he had wanted to make sure that nobody in their right mind would ever suspect that there was anything improper in their relationship? He smiled inwardly at the thought. Much more likely she had other skills and attributes of which he was currently in ignorance

  He continued to mull the matter over as he busied himself eating, and he finally resolved to make a few discrete enquiries concerning her antecedents on the morrow. With his meal finally complete, he took the tray and empty dishes through to the kitchen, and acting purely upon a whim, washed them up. It amused him to think that the ultra-efficient Mrs Brent would undoubtedly return in the morning expecting to clear up behind him. He tried to picture the astonishment she might feel when she discovered what he had done. With everything finally packed away, he returned to the study, intending to spend some time in a closer examination of any books or papers left by his late benefactor.

  In the event he stayed in the study for the rest of the evening, looking through the desk and then the drawers and cupboards of the various pieces of furniture in the room. It soon became obvious that all personal papers had been removed as he had been told, for he found very little of interest. The books that he examined were mostly on medical subjects, a few being quite old and possibly rare volume
s. One somewhat incongruous volume placed amongst the medical and scientific books was entitled ‘The Dictionary of Fact and Fable’ written by somebody he had never heard of called Rev E. Cobham Brewer. It was so out of keeping with the rest of the library that he assumed that it must have been a gift from someone. Moving on from examining the books, he found a few faded photographs in one of the desk drawers, and these, as he soon recognised, were of his late aunt. He remembered her only vaguely from the single occasion he had seen her.

  It was close to midnight when he realised that he was starting to feel quite tired. From force of habit he walked round the house checking all the doors and windows, completing his tour from the point where he had started, the study. From the window of this room he discovered that he could see the outline of the garage block, and noted that there were no lights in the windows of the flat above. No doubt the sensible Mrs Brent had retired some time since. Satisfied that all was secure, he ascended the stairs to his bedroom, and eventually retired. It was only after he had climbed into the bed that he remembered that he had failed to take one of James’ pills, which he had inadvertently left in the bathroom. Having decided that the oversight would cost him a night’s sleep because he was too tired to go and fetch them, he drifted off.

  The sun was streaming in through the window when he woke. He felt pleasantly surprised that he had actually slept the whole night without being disturbed by dreams or wakened by depression. In itself that was quite an achievement; and to do it in a strange room and bed made it even more so. He lay quiet for a while, thinking of Alicia before shaking himself out of the beginnings of the familiar down swing that had become the pattern of his life. Rising from the bed, he ambled across to the bathroom where he shaved, showered and dressed in some of the older clothes he had brought with him for the purpose. Finally, he descended the stairs and went out into the garden. It was only about seven o’clock, and he felt like a stroll before facing breakfast and the redoubtable Mrs Brent.

  There was a pleasant freshness to the air he found invigorating, and he walked down past the fish-pond, through a maze of flowering shrubs and finally to the spinney that appeared to form the far boundary of the property. Many of the trees in there were quite old, and they towered to a considerable height. Fortunatelyt there was little undergrowth to impede his passage. He suspected that whoever tended the rest of the grounds also cared also for the trees. A squirrel came out and scolded him, and he saw that there were a whole variety of birds nesting high in the canopy. He had heard somewhere that walking among trees could be highly beneficial, particularly in times of stress. He didn’t believe in such old wives’ tales, yet he had to admit that by the time he had strolled the length and width of that spinney he felt remarkably refreshed and invigorated.

  Leaving the trees behind at last, he continued his stroll along winding but quite well kept paths throughout the rest of the rear garden. The air was filled with the sound of bird song, and the scent of blossom that he had noticed on the previous evening was once again heavy in the air. All manner of birds appeared and he noticed that there was also a rich variety of butterflies around the blossom and once he even saw a gorgeously coloured dragonfly. Living, as he normally did, in a modern air-conditioned city property, he readily appreciated the advantages of the semi-rural location of the old house. It had been his original intention to remove whatever he wanted in the way of effects, and then to sell it by auction, but strolling round the grounds caused him to wonder for the first time if this was what he really wanted to do.

  He was still mulling this question over as he reclined in a chair on the patio when Mrs Brent appeared with a tray from which the appetising smell of bacon and eggs wafted in his direction. She was dressed in neatly pressed jeans and a loose, roll-neck sweater, with her hair once again pulled back tightly behind her head. Up to that point he had not really looked at her as a person; seen in the morning sunlight he decided that she didn’t quite match-up to the image of the dragon he had formed of her on the previous day. She looked younger than he had thought when he had first seen her; certainly not older than her early thirties was his mentally revised estimation. She had regular features and a good bone structure to her rather heart-shaped face, and her complexion was clear. He noticed when she opened her mouth to speak that she appeared to have a perfect set of teeth. Whether she was also possessed of a reasonably feminine figure or otherwise was impossible to tell from the style of clothing she wore, although the jeans appeared to indicate that she was slim, with longish legs.

  “You wanted to speak to me,” she said without preamble as she put the tray down on the table. “I can give you ten or fifteen minutes; then I have to leave to go to work.”

  “You have a job then?” he asked in surprise.

  “Of course,” she answered acidly. “I do not choose to live on state charity.”

  She was, he observed, just as prickly and defensive as ever. What was it, he wondered, that made her so unapproachable? In the brief time that he had had acquaintance with her, she had not shown one speck of normal human feeling; never a smile, no trace of a sense of humour, just the same constant aura of resentment. She might just as well have been a talking robot! Either she was just naturally a very sour woman, which somehow he found difficult to believe, or there was something in her background that had made her that way.

  “Please sit down, Mrs Brent,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite the one he was using. “I do not wish to detain you for more than a few minutes.”

  He had the impression that she was reluctant to comply with his request, for she hesitated for a moment before finally taking the seat. She instantly occupied herself by pouring from the coffee pot that had accompanied his meal on the tray.

  “You will note that I took the liberty of bringing an extra cup,” she remarked in a tone that suggested that if he didn’t like the fact he knew what he could do about it. “I normally have one cup of coffee before leaving for work.”

  “That is perfectly all right,” he assured her lightly, trying to gently breech the stone wall of her defences, “and I do appreciate that you must be a busy person. I merely wished to clarify a few matters to our mutual benefit. As I expect you have already been told, I am the late Dr Marston’s nephew, and heir to his property. All I know about your situation here is that you are acting as caretaker whilst the property is empty?”

  “That is correct.”

  “As I understand it, you are paid a small retainer to keep an eye on the house, yet I notice that you appear to be fulfilling all of your old duties?”

  “That is also correct.”

  “Then I trust that there has been some sort of additional financial provision made for you in return for this?”

  “Certainly not; you can check with the Doctor’s solicitors if you wish. I’m paid a small retainer until the house is either sold or taken over as a residence. Anything I do in the house is done because I choose to do it, not because I am paid to. I have a part-time position in Wellworthy to make sufficient money to live on.”

  “I see,” he answered calmly, trying to soothe her hostile attitude by refusing to react to it, “and am I right in believing that Dr Marston’s employed you full time as his housekeeper?”

  “Yes.” Her tone seemingly defying him to comment adversely upon the fact.

  “Then I imagine he came to rely heavily upon your help after he lost his wife?”

  She glared at him with narrowed eyes, her expression suggesting she was suspicious that he was covertly suggesting something improper in the relationship. “In the circumstances I wouldn’t have expected him to do otherwise,” she responded tartly.

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “Were you fond of him?” He saw her eyes flare up as he spoke, his words obviously adding fuel to her existing suspicions, and he added swiftly; “Please understand, I am not for one second implying anything improper.”

  For a moment he thought that she was going to break off the conversation entirely and walk
away from him. She stared at him with barely concealed animosity, and he could sense the competing feelings boiling away within her.

  “The Doctor was always extremely kind to me,” she said tightly at last, “and before you ask; yes, I would have done anything for him; there is no secret about that. I will also admit that I was extremely upset when he died.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” he said, “because, if you don’t mind me saying, you strike me as being a person of integrity. I would therefore automatically assume that if he was consistently kind in his attitude towards you, then I can see that it would be perfectly natural for you to respond in a similar manner. I draw a degree of personal comfort from knowing that he had somebody such as yourself to lean on during what must have been a very sad and trying time after the death of his wife.”

  Even as he was speaking, he recalled only too painfully how shattered he had been when Alicia had died; only there had been nobody for him to really lean on during that awful period. He had hoped for a glimmer of reciprocation from the woman, yet it seemed his well-intentioned words were wasted; his thinly veiled flattery had no obvious effect.

  “He was a good man,” she said woodenly. “He would have given his life for anyone. I could do no less for him.”

  “I’m afraid I never really knew him,” Martin admitted. “Nor am I aware of the exact circumstances of his death. Even being named as his heir came as a complete surprise. Was he a sick man?”

  “Not really; he was getting on a bit of course, but quite fit.”

  “But were you aware of any health problems that might have led to his death?” he persisted.

  “He seemed perfectly all right to me,” she answered, yet still there was no warmth in her voice. “He walked a lot; ate moderately, hardly touched alcohol, kept to a sensible diet and never smoked. He was well known and highly respected down in the town where he has been the local doctor for most of his life until he retired. Everyone thought very highly of him.”