The Thornthwaite Inheritance Read online

  ‘What other lies?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Adam has a . . .’ Mr Farthing faltered for a moment. ‘A . . . a colourful imagination. He gets it from his mother, I believe.’

  ‘There are other qualities I get from my mother,’ said Adam Farthing, striding into the room. ‘Like a desire to better myself. It’s a quality which you sadly lack, Father.’

  .

  ADAM FARTHING’S AMBITION

  There was no outward change to Adam’s appearance from the last time Lorelli had seen him. His hair was as blond and wavy as before, his eyes as blue, his chin as square. And yet, with all she now knew of him it might have been a different person that strode into the portrait room.

  ‘Hello Adam,’ said Lorelli, coldly.

  ‘Back from the dead, I see,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Now, son, I thought we agreed that you would stay out of sight,’ said Mr Farthing.

  ‘As usual father, you’re ruining everything,’ said Adam.

  ‘I’m acting in your best interests,’ replied Mr Farthing.

  ‘Well, don’t. I don’t need your help and I don’t need you.’

  Mr Farthing looked as if something had become lodged in his throat and was causing tears to spring to his eyes. ‘Your words can be very hurtful,’ he said, blinking back the tears.

  ‘Why did you pretend to be dead?’ asked Lorelli.

  Adam turned to look at her. ‘Lorelli, I’m so sorry. I never meant to upset you.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t,’ lied Lorelli. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to explain. I really like you, Lorelli.’

  ‘You mean you really like my inheritance.’

  ‘Son, it’s time to leave,’ said Mr Farthing.

  ‘No!’ shouted Adam. ‘I’m tired of you messing everything up.’

  ‘Adam Farthing, I am your father. You will show me some respect,’ barked Mr Farthing.

  ‘You don’t deserve respect,’ spat Adam. ‘A real father would have supported me. A real father would have sent me to a decent school. A real father would care who killed his wife.’ He shouted these last words in his father’s face.

  Mr Farthing shook his head. ‘There are things you don’t understand about your mother.’

  ‘I understand enough. I know that you never provided for her.’

  ‘It wasn’t in her nature to be satisfied.’

  ‘You mean she wouldn’t settle for second best,’ said Adam.

  ‘You think that the wealth that surrounds you here would make you happy, do you? Well, look at these two. Do they look happy?’ Mr Farthing pointed a trembling finger at Lorelli and Ovid.

  ‘I would be happy if I had what they had,’ said Adam.

  Mr Farthing shook his head sadly. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to bring you here. I remember the effect it had on your mother. She couldn’t talk about anything else afterwards. Your mother couldn’t put it out of her head. She was driven mad by jealousy. It was the same year that she took her own life.’

  ‘It’s not true. She didn’t kill herself. Mum was murdered.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Mr Farthing calmly, sounding like a man who had had this argument many times before.

  ‘Skinner would have found out who did it if you hadn’t interfered,’ said Adam.

  ‘Skinner only cares about getting paid,’ said Mr Farthing. ‘You had no right to hire him in the first place.’

  ‘Adam hired him? Not you?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘All my life I’ve been searching for the man in my mother’s sketches. Then, in Bagshaw’s End with you, I saw a photo of Hedley Bagshaw. I recognised him immediately.’

  ‘So, why did you blow up my piano?’ said Ovid incredulously.

  ‘I didn’t. Mr Crutcher was right about the piano being dangerous,’ said Adam. ‘It blew up because of the way I was playing it, just as he said. But then I realised that by acting injured it would give Skinner a chance to interrogate the servants. Otherwise Mr Crutcher would never have let him in. Nothing is more important to me than finding out who killed my mother,’

  ‘Remember what the counsellor told you,’ said Mr Farthing. ‘It’s understandable that you want to blame someone else for your mother’s death. But no one else is to blame. Not me, not you and certainly not poor Mrs Bagshaw’s husband. Your mother took her own life because she was unhappy, but it’s not your fault.’

  There was a moment’s pause when these words seemed to linger in the air before Skinner stepped through the doorway and said, ‘Actually, Bernard, I think I may have discovered your wife’s killer.’

  ‘You,’ snarled Mr Farthing. ‘You won’t get a single penny from us. You should never have taken a case from a child.’

  ‘I’m fifteen,’ protested Adam.

  ‘You’ll pay me once I reveal what I have discovered, if only to keep me quiet,’ said Skinner. ‘You may come in now, Father.’

  .

  SKINNER’S DISCOVERY

  ‘Murderers and thieves, all of them,’ said Father Whelan, moving like a crow with an injured wing as he entered the room in his black robe. ‘The history of the Thornthwaites is one of murder and skulduggery.’ He pointed up at one of the portraits on the far side of the room. ‘Lord Royston Thornthwaite, born 1872, died 1934,’ he said dramatically, ‘hanged his own father in order to get his inheritance.’ The priest moved to another portrait. ‘Lord Silas Thornthwaite, born 1912, died 1972, a man so mean spirited that he once shut down the local orphanage in the dead of winter because they couldn’t afford the rent.’ He moved to the picture of the twins’ parents. ‘Lord Mycroft Thornthwaite,’ he said in a hissing whisper, ‘killed Hedley Bagshaw in 1996 only to be murdered by his own wife later that year.’

  ‘Get out of our home,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Renounce your family’s ways,’ said Father Whelan, waving his arms in the air dramatically.

  ‘Why have you brought this crazy priest here?’ said Adam to Skinner.

  ‘Because Father Whelan holds a vital clue regarding this case,’ Skinner replied.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Mr Farthing. ‘There is no case.’

  ‘Ah, but there is,’ said Skinner. ‘Father Whelan saw two people leaving the printer’s the night Hedley Bagshaw died. He recognised Lord Thornthwaite but not the woman he was with. Please, Adam, show him the picture of your mother.’

  Adam pulled out his mother’s pencil-drawn self-portrait and held it out for the wild-eyed priest to see.

  Father Whelan leant forward, peered at it then recoiled in horror. ‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘That’s the woman who was with Lord Thornthwaite that night.’

  ‘What does this mean?’ said Adam.

  ‘Ruth Farthing was with Lord Thornthwaite the night Hedley Bagshaw died,’ said Skinner. ‘It stands to reason that she witnessed him do it.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘Possibly she helped him.’

  ‘This is conjecture. You don’t know any of it for sure,’ said Mr Farthing.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Skinner. ‘We may never know who did what that night, but we do know that your wife and Lord Thornthwaite were there. We know that the following year your wife died, therefore I believe that Lord Thornthwaite, having murdered Hedley Bagshaw, killed Mrs Farthing to prevent her giving him away.’

  ‘How dare you say such things?’ said Mr Farthing angrily.

  ‘I was hired to find out the identity of your wife’s killer.’

  ‘I thought I made it perfectly clear in the car that Adam should not have hired you,’ said Mr Farthing. ‘My boy is dreadfully disturbed by his mother’s death. I have tried everything I can: psychiatrists, counsellors . . . anyone who might help him come to terms with the fact that Ruth took her own life . . .’

  ‘You d
on’t understand,’ shouted Adam.

  ‘I do. Your denial is understandable. No son wants to believe that his mother would rather die than be with him. It’s hard for a husband too but we have to accept the truth. She killed herself.’ Mr Farthing’s voice quivered with every word.

  ‘If you do not pay me for the work I have done I will go public with my discovery,’ said Skinner.

  ‘Pay you?’ shouted Mr Farthing furiously. ‘You expect to get paid for these flimsy accusations?’

  ‘My bones grow old but my eyes are sharp. Your wife was with Lord Thornthwaite that evening,’ said Father Whelan.

  ‘Our father was abroad that night,’ said Ovid.

  ‘That’s right. He was on his honeymoon,’ added Lorelli. ‘So whoever you saw, it wasn’t him. Besides, how come you were the only one to see him?’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ said a voice behind them.

  The twins, Father Whelan, Skinner, Mr Farthing and Adam turned around to see Nurse Griddle standing in the doorway, her face as unsmiling as ever.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Ovid.

  ‘I was in the village that night,’ she replied, stepping into the room. ‘I saw Lord Thornthwaite go into the printer’s.’

  ‘Ah-ha. Then you can confirm that Mrs Farthing was with him too?’ said Skinner.

  ‘No.’ Nurse Griddle shook her head. ‘Lord Thornthwaite entered with Hedley Bagshaw himself.’

  ‘But if you saw him, why didn’t you report it to the police?’ asked Lorelli.

  ‘Because I left the village that day. I didn’t hear about Hedley’s accident until I returned several months later to take my place here at Thornthwaite Manor.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell the police what you saw even then?’ said Skinner.

  ‘No. I only told one person.’

  ‘Who? Who did you tell?’ asked Ovid.

  ‘She told me, my dear,’ said Mrs Bagshaw, entering the room with Hazel in tow behind her, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups on. ‘I thought you might like some tea but I don’t have anywhere near enough cups. I didn’t realise you had visitors. Hazel, go and fetch some more.’

  .

  MRS BAGSHAW’S CONFESSION

  Hazel laid the tray down in the corner and left to get some more cups.

  ‘I don’t know why we don’t have any tables in this room,’ said Mrs Bagshaw.

  But no one seemed interested in Mrs Bagshaw’s views on the lack of furnishings in the portrait room.

  ‘Why would our father kill your husband?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Please don’t ask me such questions,’ said Mrs Bagshaw. ‘Lord knows, I don’t want to dwell on the past.’

  ‘The past, of course.’ Lorelli remembered the newspaper article she had seen. ‘Hedley Bagshaw was a historian too. He was looking into our family history,’

  ‘So?’ said Ovid.

  ‘That’s it.’ Skinner clicked his fingers. ‘I bet he uncovered something in the family history that Lord Thornthwaite wanted kept secret.’

  ‘What could he discover that was any more terrible than the truths we already know about the Thornthwaite history?’ said Father Whelan.

  Mrs Bagshaw looked at the floor and spoke quietly. ‘I don’t know what Hedley discovered but it’s true, after what Nurse Griddle told me I did come to believe that Lord Thornthwaite had killed my husband.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’ said Ovid.

  ‘The case was closed,’ said Mrs Bagshaw. ‘Besides, your father had the perfect alibi, didn’t he? He was on honeymoon with your mother.’

  ‘Lady Thornthwaite lied to protect him,’ said Father Whelan.

  ‘Why would you stay working for him if you believed this?’ Lorelli asked Mrs Bagshaw.

  ‘Ah, here’s Hazel with the cups. About time too.’

  Hazel walked across the room and placed more cups on the tea tray, but still no one poured.

  ‘So you were pleased that our mother . . .’ Lorelli paused. ‘. . . that she killed him.’

  Mrs Bagshaw looked into Lorelli’s green eyes then burst into tears. ‘My poor darlings. You’ve grown up believing your mother killed your father. I can’t imagine how that’s felt, how it’s affected you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Ovid.

  Mrs Bagshaw let out a low moan. She looked at Father Whelan. ‘May the Lord forgive me,’ she wailed. She turned back to face the twins. ‘Your mother never killed anyone. She loved your father and she loved you.’

  Skinner laughed. ‘The evidence was very clear. Lady Thornthwaite poisoned her husband. I’d stake my entire reputation as a police officer on that fact.’

  ‘Then your reputation is worthless,’ said Mrs Bagshaw, standing in between Ovid and Lorelli. ‘I killed Lord Thornthwaite. I killed your father.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Skinner.

  Ovid felt as though a frosty arrow had pierced his heart. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘How did you kill him? Our mother prepared the meal that evening.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Skinner.

  ‘She prepared the food and gave me the night off, but I handed her the plates. I knew which was for Lord Thornthwaite. It was an impulse. I saw the bottle of poison and the plate and, in that one dreadful moment, I lined his plate with poison. I’m so sorry . . .’ Mrs Bagshaw fell to her knees. She reached out her hands to the twins but they stepped away in revulsion, leaving her sobbing on the floor.

  ‘You killed our father,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘And framed our mother,’ said Ovid.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking properly.’ Mrs Bagshaw’s face was red and blotchy with tears. ‘The pain doesn’t go away when you lose someone in such terrible circumstances. You look for ways to make it go but nothing helps. Then you are told that there is someone to blame and you try to get rid of the pain by getting rid of that person . . .’ The rest of her words were lost among her loud sobs.

  ‘To take a life, to take that which is irreplaceable from the world, this is the most terrible sin,’ yelled Father Whelan, pointing a crooked finger at Mrs Bagshaw, crumpled on the floor.

  ‘I know. I’ll pay for my sins. I deserve punishment. I will not protest when they come for me,’ she said, crying.

  ‘You deserve everything you get,’ said Ovid bitterly.

  ‘No, don’t leave me,’ cried Hazel, falling down by Mrs Bagshaw’s side, and throwing her arms protectively around her.

  .

  NURSE GRIDDLE’S CONFESSION

  ‘Hazel, my girl, my sweet,’ said Mrs Bagshaw. ‘I’m so sorry. I know I’ve always been strict with you but I’ve always loved you as though were my own.’

  ‘I know, Mother. I know you have. Please don’t leave,’ said Hazel, through her tears.

  Ovid and Lorelli looked at each other, both of them trying to digest the new information that Mrs Bagshaw had killed their father.

  ‘Hazel, you’ll be better off without me.’ Mrs Bagshaw touched her face tenderly. ‘I’ve never been the mother I wanted to be, the mother you deserved . . .’ Her words were replaced by loud heaving sobs.

  ‘Don’t say that. I love you, Mother,’ said Hazel. ‘I can’t bear the thought of you going to prison.’

  ‘She has committed murder,’ said Father Whelan. ‘No punishment is too great for such a heinous crime.’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ cried Hazel.

  ‘Oh, Hazel, my beautiful girl,’ said Mrs Bagshaw, her body rocking with pain.

  ‘We’ll leave Thornthwaite Manor forever,’ said Hazel. ‘We’ll run away. We’ll hide. We’ll go far from here where no one will find us.’

  ‘No, you can’t leave.’ To Hazel’s surprise it was Nurse Griddle who burst out with these words.

  ‘She has
to leave. I have to take her away,’ said Hazel.

  Nurse Griddle looked down at her. ‘I am talking about you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll go where she goes. She’s my mother,’ replied Hazel.

  Nurse Griddle placed a hand on Hazel’s shoulder. ‘Hazel,’ she said softly. The corners of her mouth curled up into an awkward smile. It was the first time that anyone in Thornthwaite Manor had ever seen Nurse Griddle smile and it made her face almost unrecognisable. ‘I’ve wanted to say this for so long . . . too long, far too long. Hazel, I am your mother.’

  Hazel turned to Nurse Griddle. ‘I . . . You . . . How . . .’ she began. But if she knew what the rest of the sentence was she seemed unable to speak it.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mrs Bagshaw.

  Nurse Griddle took two steps away from her then turned back. ‘I was pregnant when your father made that stupid bet that he could swim across Avernus Lake.’

  ‘That was your husband you were talking about,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘My fiancé. We were to be married the following month,’ said Nurse Griddle. ‘No one knew I was pregnant. After he died, I fell into a depression. I just couldn’t cope. I ran away from the village and then when Hazel was born I travelled back. I wasn’t able to deal with a newborn baby so I left her on the doorstep of someone I knew would look after her.’

  ‘All this time you said nothing,’ said Mrs Bagshaw.

  ‘How could I? I had no right. She was your daughter by then. I took this job to be near her but I knew I would have to keep my secret.’

  ‘But the letters . . .’ said Hazel.

  ‘I always posted them from different locations so you never guessed from the postcode how near I really was. I meant everything I said. I’m sorry I gave you away. I do love you.’ Nurse Griddle reached a hand out to Hazel.

  Hazel stood up and walked across to the window. Outside the sun was low and the wind was picking up, bringing with it a blanket of dark clouds creeping over the blue sky.

  .

  A BEAR IN THE PICTURE

  Even Father Whelan was stunned into silence by the revelations, unsure who to condemn first and for what reasons. Mrs Bagshaw and Nurse Griddle looked at each other, with tears in their eyes. Hazel refused to look at either of them. Mr Farthing looked distinctly uncomfortable. Adam felt confused. Ovid was angry. Skinner looked as though he was trying to work out how to make the situation work to his advantage. Lorelli put her arm around Hazel’s shoulder.