The Monks Hood Murders: A 1920s Murder Mystery with Heathcliff Lennox Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Karen Baugh Menuhin

  Published by Little Dog Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Front cover: An old Monastery courtyard garden, with flowers, statue and fountain. / Old Monastery Garden Courtyard By Larry Jacobsen

  First paperback and ebook edition August 2020

  To Philip & Trudi Palin

  With love.

  Chapter 1

  April 1922

  ‘I must inform you, sir, there is a ghost in the garden.’

  ‘No, there isn’t.’ I didn’t look up from the magazine I was reading.

  ‘I have the word of Cook that there is, sir.’ Greggs’ tone deepened to better stress the seriousness of the situation. ‘She is withholding the tea tray until the matter has been investigated.’

  I sighed. I was sitting with my feet up in my library, having spent most of the morning in the attic chasing a bat. Spring had arrived, and with it, spring cleaning. The maids, who came twice a week, had decided to start at the top of the house. Normally, I would be outdoors during their incursions, but a clammy mist had descended on the day and driven me and my little dog, Mr Fogg, back inside. Having spent a fruitless hour hunting said bat, I’d come down empty-handed and sneezing from the dust. I’d been looking forward to tea and cake by the fireside and perusing the latest news on field sports and fishing.

  ‘Where’s Tommy Jenkins?’ I asked. Young Tommy was our boot boy and perfectly capable of searching the gardens for imaginary spectres.

  ‘You sent him to the village, sir, to pay the charge on the letter.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ That gave me pause. The postman had left information that a letter ‘stuck all over with foreign stamps’ was being held at the post office. Apparently there was duty to pay on exotic missives. I didn’t see why the postman couldn’t have brought it to my home so I could pay the Government-sponsored extortion myself. ‘Hasn’t he returned yet?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Cook has baked a Simnel cake.’

  ‘Oh?’ I eyed him.

  ‘The cake is becoming cold, sir.’ He gazed upwards, chins wobbling above his stiff collar, hands held together over his butlering waistcoat. A sure sign of perturbation in my old retainer, who, no doubt, had been deprived of his tea and cake, too.

  I tossed the magazine aside. ‘Where exactly is this ghost supposed to be?’

  ‘Cook told me she saw it glide past the kitchen window,’ he intoned.

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t the gardener?’

  ‘It is his day off, sir.’

  ‘Someone with a sheet, playing the fool, then?’

  ‘She said it was black, sir. Like Death without his scythe.’

  ‘Right.’ I stood up. ‘Tell her I’m going outside and the tea and cake had better be here when I get back.’ That was a bit of bluster actually, because Cook would do precisely as she saw fit.

  I shrugged my shooting jacket over my tweeds and walked out into the murk alone. Foggy had refused to join me, having already experienced the damp chill swathing my old house, The Manor at Ashton Steeple. There was nothing to see, of course – not that I could see anything more than a couple of feet in front of me. I strolled around with hands in pockets, wondering why Cook, the most common-sensical person I’d ever met, had suddenly started spotting ghosts. Perhaps she was going gaga, which would cause all sorts of problems. Not least the lack of excellence in the kitchen.

  Winter had been lengthy, freezing and frequently blanketed with snow. Spring had struggled to leap into bloom and remained soggy and wet for the most part. I wandered past magnolia trees and cherry blossom drooping under the weight of silver-hued droplets. The grass lay sodden beneath my feet, beads of moisture clung to glistening cobwebs, and a trailing rose-briar brushed my hair to comb it with dew. Mist had rendered the garden ghostly, trees and arbours reduced to pale traceries stitched in shades of gossamer grey.

  My mind was far from the fog, it was on the letter held by the damned post office. The news had given my heart a lift. It must be from my girlfriend, Persi Carruthers. Actually… she might not be my girlfriend. I’d last seen her in the sun-drenched city of Damascus where she’d been torn between me and her idiot ex-fiancé. But, she’d decided on me – well I was pretty certain she had. She’d told me she would write, and I’d been waiting for weeks and weeks, and now I was wondering if she’d changed her mind or…

  A wraith glided across the path ahead of me.

  That stopped me in my footsteps. It was a shadow, dark and indistinct, it passed through the trellis archway and into the walled garden beyond. The hairs rose on the back of my neck. I took my hands out of my pockets and broke into a run.

  The spectre, or whatever it was, had vanished into the mist, but I knew the old gate at the other end of the walled garden was jammed shut and he’d have the devil of a job getting through it. I raced down the path, past raised beds of berry bushes and bare earth to find nothing at all at the end. I turned, looking this way and that, when a voice called softly from behind a gnarled crab-apple tree.

  ‘Good day.’

  ‘What?’ I froze.

  ‘I wish you good day.’ He came slowly towards me, a drifting shade, muted and blurred.

  ‘I…erm, greetings. What are you doing in…in.’ I stuttered to a halt as he approached.

  ‘Major Heathcliff Lennox?’ The apparition spoke quietly. His shape took form, he wore a sort of coat, or cloak…actually Cook was right, he did look awfully like Death without a scythe.

  ‘Oh, right, well that’s me. Why… I mean… who are you?’

  He came closer and suddenly emerged from the fog, garbed in black cassock and cowl. He was a monk!

  ‘I’m Father Ambrose.’ He pushed his hood back and smiled gently. ‘I’m the Abbot of Monks Hood Abbey.’

  ‘Ah, um, well. Excellent. Would you um…care for some tea?’ I stuttered.

  He nodded, so I led him back to the house, wondering why an Abbot had taken to lurking in my garden.

  Fogg greeted us with a woof as Greggs opened the front door. The little dog kept his wits better than my butler, who stood open-mouthed in the hallway, letting the damp air into the place.

  ‘Refreshments,’ I hissed to him.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘For our guest.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He dithered, gaped again and then tottered off in the direction of the kitchen.

  I settled the unexpected visitor into a wing chair in the library, it being cosy and warm from the blazing fire. The Abbot’s thick cassock steamed gently in the heat, adding to the comfortable fug in the oak panelled room.

  He looked around appreciatively. ‘How delightful. I do feel quite at home surrounded by books,’ he said, his voice warm with enthusiasm.

  ‘I haven’t read them all,’ I confessed.

  He smiled and confided, ‘I haven’t read all of mine, either.’

  Greggs entered carrying a tray laden with silver teapot, jug, cups, sugar bowl and the cake.

  ‘Tea?’ I offered.