Devonshire Squires Chapter Twelve
John pressed the doorbell firmly, with a confidence that he didn't actually feel. It was all well and good following Sherlock around and letting him do his madman thing; taking on the role himself was something new. Mary's presence made him feel slightly uneasy; what happened if he was useless at confronting Colonel Hayter? Her opinion of him mattered, and he shifted a little uncomfortably beside her now.
They'd travelled down by train from London Bridge to Reigate in just under an hour. It surprised John just how quickly they had left the leafy suburbs of London behind and entered the countryside. Reigate was nestled at the foot of the North Downs. Some thirty miles to the southwest lay Parham Park, on the edge of the South Downs National Park. He had not told Mary about Parham and his trip there to the shooting party. It felt a life time ago.
The area of West Sussex that lay between the Downs was commuter territory- modern housing surrounding older market towns. They had taken a taxi from the station, and been driven south past the serried ranks of look-alike homes built in the 1980s. On the very edge of Reigate, just as the town gave way to fields, the cab turned left and went down a tree lined avenue sign-posted Hartswood, Reigate Grammar School Playing Fields. The immaculately manicured pitches and a modern sports pavilion reeked of money and privilege.
Mary smirked. "How the other half lives…"
John smiled in return. "Yeah, well, my school in Corby didn't manage anything like this. Did yours?"
She giggled, "Nope- not one of them."
That was one of the things he liked about Mary. She was down-to-earth. At one of their earliest dates, she'd told him about her nomadic life as a child in an army family. Her father was a Paymaster, a serving officer in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and the family was regularly moved each time he was posted to a new division. "Seven camps in England and Northern Ireland; then there was Germany and Cyprus. Yep- I've always been on the move. It's why I'm such a chameleon- had to blend in with the natives everywhere I went. Four schools in nine years- but I wanted to be with my parents, rather than get stuck in some God-forsaken boarding school that they couldn't afford."
Hartswood Manor was the address that Bill Murray's contact had given them. Down the road ahead, John could see a sign for Hartswood Farm and Barns, then to his left, an estate agent's sign. As the taxi turned into the driveway beside the sign, Mary was the first one to voice surprise.
"Wow- this is impressive!"
The manor house was big. White painted walls under a red tiled roof, it looked like something that might have started centuries ago, but was now a hodge-podge of different roof lines and chimneys, under three floors at its tallest places. The door was a solid oak under a vine-covered wooden porch. The old fashioned brass doorbell rang somewhere deep inside, but at least they could hear it. The question was, would anybody be at home? John had paid what was on the meter, but asked the taxi to wait, telling him that he could keep the meter running. Nearly two miles out of town, he was reluctant to have to try to get one back, if the house proved to be empty or if Colonel Hayter refused to talk to him.
As they waited, he fidgeted. What the hell was he going to say? "Excuse me, but can you explain how your fingerprint ended up on a dead body in London?"
That's probably what Sherlock might say, but whether John could pull it off was a different story.
Mary leaned in and whispered, "I hear footsteps."
The oak door opened and a tall, heavy-set man with short grey hair beamed a smile.
"Welcome! I'm delighted you could make it. And early too- how very convenient."
Before either John or Mary could recover from such a hearty greeting, Hayter called out to the taxi driver. "You can go now- I'll drive them back to the station."
As the driver put the taxi into gear and started back toward the gate, the man pushed the door to the house open wider.
"Come in, come in! It's too cold outside to stand on the threshold."
Mary looped her arm around John's and started in, bringing him with her.
"Right- let's get those coats off. I'm George Hayter. The agent didn't tell me your names; just that you'd be here before noon."
While John took a couple of seconds to digest that statement, realising that the Colonel had mistaken them for a potential buyer of the house, Mary stepped in. Slipping off her coat and suffing her woollen hat and scarf into the sleeve, she beamed back at Hayter.
"I'm Mary and this is my fiancé, John. We're getting married in May, and looking for properties in the area. Thanks for letting us take a look."
After handing over her coat to the Colonel, she turned back towards John. She gave him a look that said clearly play along. John took off his coat and scarf, handing it over, too, with a slightly bemused smile.
After hanging them up on a series of hooks by the front door, Hayter set off. "Right then. Let's start the tour with a potted history. The central portion of the manor house dates from 1615, but we think that some of the timber frames used on the inside of the house date back to even earlier- about 1550. It's mostly plain three- storey Georgian, but inside that you can still find bits of what was the gabled and plastered house of 1615."
Mary was looking at the white and black tiled floor, and the wooden panelling on the walls. "It must be listed."
"Yep- Grade 2- but not starred, thank God, so we've been able to update the plumbing and put in a modern kitchen. And it's also allowed us the split up the original house into three separate ones- we are sort of reverse- engineering. To be honest, it's just one of those houses that started fairly modestly and just kept growing as the family could afford improvements over the centuries. So around the Elizabethan timber framed core, Georgian and then Victorian bits were added. From the front you can see the three different building phases, which have been separated into the three different houses now." As he led them down the corridor, his back was turned, so John shot a look at Mary, who shrugged, and then whispered in his ear, "At least he hasn't thrown us out yet."
Hayter turned to his left. "This is the reception hall." There was a fireplace, and mullioned windows, as well as an oak staircase. The wood panelled walls and the wood floors with Turkish carpets gave the place a warm feel, helped by the log fire. It was impressive.
Mary laughed with pleasure at the carpeted staircase. "A whole new meaning to the phrase red carpet."
Colonel Hayter returned her smile. "You're right. My mother used to say that she made more grand entrances down that staircase than any commoner had a right to make."
John saw a chance to make a start. "So, the house is the Hayter family seat?"
That prompted a chuckle. "Not exactly- that makes us sound like aristocracy. My mother's father was a soldier. When he was de-mobbed in 1947 he bought it off a penniless farmer who owned the Hartswood Farm next door. It was in a shocking state- been a hospital in World War One, and pressed back into hospital service during the second war. Between the wars, it had more lives than a cat- including as a girl's school in the 1920s."
He opened the door to the left of the chimney, and they entered a room that was more than twenty feet wide and just a little less long. Again, it was wood panelled with a stone fireplace. There were four huge red velvet sofas, each looking a little worse for wear, on a rather garish red and pink carpet.
Hayter saw the look in Mary's eyes. "And here's where I start apologising for my mother's taste. She was more concerned about comfort than style, and liked a lot of red. Too much, as you will see. But it's only skin deep."
John tried again. "Your mother- do I take it she no longer lives here?"
The taller man shook his head. "No, she died two years ago. I used to spend most of my time in London, but I've just stopped that. I've turned the smallest of the three houses here into mine- it's the two storied Victorian wing, closest to the road. Parking and entrance are at the back, so there's no shared use of the main driveway you came in.
Mary smirked, "a semi-detached manor house. Sort of a contradiction in terms."
Hayter shook his head. "No, just practical in this day and age of smaller families. This one and the one in the middle are for sale, either to one buyer who wants to put them back together as a ten bedroom house, or to two different buyers. There's no point in me trying to pretend I'm ever going to have a family big enough to fit into all this."
He led them into the next room. This was set up as a dining room, and it was even bigger than the drawing room. The wood panelled walls were painted a soft green, and there was another stone fireplace. John stopped to admire the view through the set of windows onto a paved area west of the house. It was a sun trap, and even on this cold day at the end of November, the weathered garden furniture looked inviting.
"Oh." There was a tinge of disappointment in Mary's voice that made John turn to look at her. She was standing in the doorway of what he could see was a kitchen, with bright turquoise painted walls.
The Colonel collected John and went into the oddly shaped kitchen. "Yes, I know- it's quirky." The blond wooded cabinets and gleaming stainless steel appliances felt very modern after the traditional décor of the two main reception rooms.
"It's …rather small for a house this size."
"Yes, well, I agree. My mother's carer lived with her and wanted a modern kitchen. But it was just the two of them. You have a choice, Mary. There is a huge cellar downstairs that can easily be fitted as a modern kitchen. Or, if you bought the adjoining house as well, then there is a gorgeous farmhouse kitchen with an Aga, and the reception room would make a splendid dining room."
John was getting twitchy. The more Mary led the Colonel on into believing they were potential buyers, the less likely it was that they'd get the truth out of him. He decided to cut to the chase. But before he could draw breath to speak, the Colonel spoke first.
"Um, I hope you don't mind me being nosey, but, well, the two of you are not exactly youngsters, so a family with a lot of kids doesn't seem on the cards. What would you want with seven or ten bedrooms?"
Before Mary could spin a story, John stepped in. "We're not actually in the market for a house, Colonel Hayter. We're here to investigate why your fingerprint showed up on a naked body in a derelict building in Spitalfields."
The silence was so complete that John could hear the clock ticking on the wall above the sink.
Then Hayter said quietly, "You're not the police."
"No, we're not," Mary volunteered. "I'm a nurse, and he's a retired RAMC surgeon like you are, only he left after Afghanistan."
Hayter blinked rather owl-like at her. Then he looked at John, closely. Finally, he nodded and then leaned his arms on the kitchen counter. "Watson, John Watson. I thought you looked familiar."
That put John on the spot. Rather tersely, he asked "How did you know that?"
Hayter lifted his eyes to John and chuckled. "Good Lord, man. Everyone who's been in the Army Medical Corps has heard of you. You're on the telly, in the newspapers, on the internet. The blogger who works with Sherlock Holmes."
"So, are you going to answer the question?"
"Where's Holmes? And why would he be remotely interested in an accidental death?"
"He isn't; I am. In particular why an RAMC officer with your record would be involved in something like what happened on Fort Street."
The Colonel gave a sad smile, and then turned to open one of the cupboards. "To answer that will take a few minutes, so let me make you both a coffee."