Free A Better Quality of Murder: (Inspector Ben Ross 3) by Granger Ann

our investigation underway as speedily as possible. I should also like to speak to you, Miss Marchwood. I know you were companion to Mrs Benedict and were with her last Saturday.’

    Behind the pince-nez her eyes blinked rapidly. But Miss Marchwood was not the sort to burst into tears. That kind of unseemly behaviour was left to the parlourmaid, Parker. Miss Marchwood, like all companions, had had plenty of opportunity to learn to control her feelings. My wife, Lizzie, although she had been companion to her Aunt Parry before our marriage, would never have turned into a Miss Marchwood. Lizzie has great difficulty in concealing her feelings and opinions.
     
    As for Isabella Marchwood, with the death of Allegra Benedict she must now be out of a job. She would have to seek a new post and I wondered if Benedict would be willing to allow her to remain in the house until she found one. It must be painful for him even to see her and know that if only she had stayed with her employer, and not been parted from her by the fog . . . Did he blame Miss Marchwood for what had happened?

    ‘I was,’ the companion said briefly, in reply to my question. ‘Will you speak to me first or to Mr Benedict?’

    ‘I should perhaps see the owner of the house – and the bereaved husband – first.’

    ‘Then please wait here one moment.’

    With a swish of silk skirts she turned and began to climb the staircase. Mr Benedict’s study was on the first floor, then, well away from disturbance from callers and household coming and goings.

    I waited below, taking the opportunity to have a good look round. Everywhere I saw more signs of mourning. All pictures on the walls were veiled, as was a large mirror. I made bold to open a door and peer into what was obviously a drawing room. Again, windows curtained, pictures and mirrors veiled . . . even the legs of a grand piano had been decorously girded about with black silk skirts. No wonder the place was so dark.
     
    But then I spotted a picture that wasn’t covered and went to investigate. It stood on the piano and was a photographic study of the deceased woman. In it she was dressed in white and appeared to be very young. She was posed against a classical pillar and some draperies and I was struck again by how beautiful she must have been in life. Before this photograph had been placed a single rose in a ruby-red glass vase. I picked up the heavy silver frame to look more closely and saw, stamped in gold across one corner of the picture, the words ‘Studio Podestà’ and beneath them ‘Venezia’.

    ‘Inspector?’

    Miss Marchwood was back and stood by the door, watching me with undisguised disapproval. Well, policemen snooped. It’s what we’re good at. Nobody in the house would like it but they would have to get used to it.

    ‘Mr Benedict will see you. I’ll take you up to him.’

     
    Benedict rose from a leather wing chair to greet me as I entered. The room, like the rest of the house, had been plunged into mourning but the window drapes had been pulled back sufficiently to admit a thin beam of light, bisecting it. As elsewhere, mirrors and windows had been veiled. But there was a single exception and it echoed that below. Above the mantelpiece hung a large oil portrait of Allegra, seated in some sort of garden. In it, as in the photograph on the grand piano downstairs, she looked very young. The background was of blue skies, bright sunshine and what appeared to be a trailing vine across a pergola. In this picture too she wore a white dress and nestling in her lap, higgledy-piggledy, were assorted flowers. The intention, I supposed, was to suggest the sitter had been gathering them.
     
    ‘My wife was a great beauty,’ Benedict said quietly.

    I was embarrassed enough to show it. ‘I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you or to stare so openly at the portrait. Mrs Benedict was, as you say, a very fine-looking lady . . . and all the other paintings in the house are