The Secrets of Armstrong House Read online

  He immediately sought out Charles amongst the guests outside the Abbey.

  “Charles, removal men arrived at the house just after you left and began to seize all the furniture. What is this about?”

  Charles paled on hearing the news. “I haven’t a clue!”

  “They produced a court order from the bank. I’ve sent Burchill to Jones to get a full explanation,” said Lawrence.

  Appalled, Charles quickly searched through the crowd for Hugh and took him aside.

  “I need to talk to you urgently,” Charles whispered to him.

  “Charles! It’s my wedding day, it’ll have to wait,” said Hugh, moving away from him to the guests.

  As the party moved back to The Dorchester for the wedding breakfast, Charles waited for his moment to get Hugh on his own. But Emily was beside him at all times.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Arabella asked Charles, noticing his agitation, as they sat at one of the head tables.

  He ignored her as he saw Burchill arrive and discreetly make his way through the function room to the head table and hand Lawrence a letter. Charles watched as Lawrence tore open the envelope and read. Lawrence suddenly looked up and looked around the room, searching for Charles. Spotting him, Lawrence stared at him in fury.

  Charles suddenly got up from the table and began to walk quickly to the door. Startled, Arabella saw Lawrence and Margaret get up from their seats and hurry after him. Arabella decided to follow and hurried out to the huge foyer outside the banquet room.

  “Charles!” said Lawrence, waving the letter from the bank in front of him. “Jones has written to say my house is repossessed for non-payment of a mortgage taken by myself on the property! That the furniture has been taken to be auctioned off tomorrow at Sotheby’s as the bank wants its money back without delay!”

  “What have you done, Charles?” demanded Margaret furiously.

  “There must be some mistake,” said Charles. “The repayments have been settled.”

  “What repayments?” shouted Lawrence, causing the passing hotel staff to look over, concerned. “What is this mortgage Jones is talking about. I have no mortgage on that house!”

  Charles shifted uncomfortably before explaining. “I took out a loan and offered Hanover Terrace as collateral.”

  “On my house, without my permission?” Lawrence screamed.

  “Lawrence!” whispered Margaret. “Shhh!”

  “It was only a temporary measure. And I had arranged for the repayment. The bank has made a mistake.”

  “No, you are the one who has made a mistake!” said Lawrence. “How did you secure a loan against the house without my signature on the documents?”

  Charles said nothing as he stared ahead.

  “You have surpassed yourself, Charles, and that takes some doing!” said Margaret.

  “You are despicable!” said Lawrence. “That house was bought by my father and you just gambled it away as if it were a bag of sweets! You’ve gone too far this time, Charles. I could put up with your fecklessness, your lack of responsibility, your greed. But now you can add fraud to your list of credits. You ruined Harrison’s life, you’ve ruined Emily’s life, and now you’ve lost our precious London home!”

  Margaret stared at Arabella. “And what part did you play in all this?”

  “None! This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Arabella defended herself, her head spinning from the revelations.

  “I’m so ashamed of you!” said Lawrence, with tears in his eyes, then suddenly turned and walked off.

  “This isn’t over,” warned Margaret. “Not by a long shot!”

  “Charles?” said Arabella, looking for some kind of an explanation, but Charles just turned and walked away.

  Hugh was chatting to some guests. “Yes, my wife and I will be looking for a suitable residence as soon as we return from South America.”

  “There’s a house on my street for sale, if you are interested,” said a guest.

  “No, the houses on your street are far too small for what Mrs Fitzroy will be needing,” said Hugh dismissively.

  Charles grabbed Hugh’s arm. “I need to speak to you. Now!”

  Hugh looked at him irritably and excused himself from his guests.

  “What is it?” asked Hugh.

  “The bank has repossessed the house – they’ve already taken all the furniture away. Did you pay them the money?”

  “The money? Oh, you mean the money you owed them? No, I didn’t.”

  Charles erupted in anger. “Well, why the fuck not? They’ve taken the house away, my father knows about it and I’m ruined!”

  “I never said I’d pay off your mortgage with the bank. I just said I’d cancel all the money you owed me over the gambling debts.”

  “But you said you’d make contact with Jones!”

  “And I did, and then when he told me how much was outstanding I declined to pay it.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, I’ve been busy organising the wedding.” Hugh surveyed the function room of well-dressed people. “Look at them all, the cream of society at my wedding, eating my food and drinking my champagne. Are they finally accepting me? I don’t think so, but I’m too rich and generous for them to ignore. But now with my new wife, I’m one of them. Lady Emily Armstrong. Oh, I know they will laugh and talk about me behind my back, but Emily is one of them and I’m now married to her and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

  “You’ve crossed me. I expected you to pay that mortgage off. Emily would never even have looked at you if I hadn’t talked her in to it.”

  “And I’m thankful to you. You’ve given me the respectability I craved.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “In this case,” said Hugh, placing a hand on Charles’ shoulder and whispering into his ear, “it really does take one to know one – brother-in-law. Now I have to get back to my guests and my wife.”

  “I’ll get you back for this one day,” warned Charles as Hugh walked away.

  Hugh was laughing as he went over to Emily and kissed her.

  Arabella tried to act normally for the rest of the wedding day but she found it almost impossible as questions danced around her mind. Why did he take the mortgage? How did he manage it? Why did he need it with her dowry in place? And what would become of them now with their home gone? She would never forget the looks on Lawrence’s and Margaret’s faces: a mixture of disgust, horror and anger.

  There was no sign of Charles and she realised he must have left the wedding. Typical Charles, she thought, running out and leaving her to deal with the mess. As what Charles did was related to the rest of the Armstrong family, she had to put up with their questions and their accusing eyes.

  That evening it was arranged for Margaret and Lawrence to go and stay with Gwyneth. Gwyneth kindly agreed to take Prudence and Pierce with her as well, as Arabella desperately needed to talk to Charles and find out what was going on. As she sat in the back of a hansom cab on her way home she hoped Charles would be back in Hanover Terrace.

  The cab pulled up outside the house and the driver helped her to dismount. She walked up the steps and knocked on the door. No one answered so, puzzled, she let herself in with her key. An eerie silence hung over the house as she walked through the empty hall. She looked through the open door to their once splendid dining room and she saw it had been stripped bare as well. She walked up the stairs and into the now empty drawing room.

  She saw Charles standing there, staring out the balcony window.

  “You’re back?” he said seeing her reflection in the window pane before him.

  “You should have told me you were leaving The Dorchester,” she said.

  He turned to face her. “I suppose I should have told you a lot of things.”

  “It’s true then . . . they’ve taken the house . . . Why did you need a loan from the bank?”

  “To fund our life of course,” said Charles.

  “But my dow
ry – we have my dowry!”

  “That, my dear, disappeared long ago.”

  “What?”

  “It’s spent.”

  “Lost at gambling tables around London, you mean!” Arabella was furious.

  She walked around the room. “Where are the servants?”

  “Gone. I explained to them there was no money to pay them.”

  “How much money have we got left?” She was almost afraid to ask.

  “Nothing. The mortgage loan kept us going for a while but now that’s gone too.”

  “How did you ever let it get to this?” she demanded.

  “There’s no point in analysing what went wrong.”

  “There is to me! But what are we going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you’d better start thinking! Do you know something? One day somebody is going to kill you . . . and it could very well be me.”

  chapter 42

  Present Day

  Nico’s teenage daughter from his previous marriage, Alex, was at Armstrong House for the weekend. Kate loved when Alex was staying with them. She had built a close relationship with the girl. Having no children of her own, she relished her role of stepmother.

  “Oh, Kate, I meant to ask you a favour?” asked Alex.

  “Name it,” said Kate.

  “I wanted to ask – would it be possible for me to have a cameo role in your docudrama?”

  “I can’t see any problem with that,” Kate assured her.

  “What?” said Nico. “No way!” He had been very concerned with Alex’s recent revelation that she was interested in becoming an actress.

  “Dad!” Alex protested.

  “Alex, you have exams this year. You don’t need any distractions from them. You need to concentrate on your grades so you can get into university and get a proper profession,” said Nico.

  “Acting not being a proper profession?” Kate arched her eyebrow cynically at him.

  Much to Nico’s chagrin, Kate brought all the storage boxes from the attics down to the library to go through.

  She sat at the desk in the library smoking a cigarette, examining all the photographs from Charles’ time. She had previously selected the best-quality photographs for the film but now she started going through the pile she had discarded, looking for some detail that would help her in her quest. As she studied the photographs of Charles and his family, it was hard for her to equate this smiling handsome man with all the reports of him being cruel and ruthless. But everyone had two sides to them, she reasoned, and looks could be deceiving. She looked at the photographs of his wife Arabella. She was very beautiful but Kate couldn’t find a photograph of her smiling. She didn’t look sad either, but she seemed tense. And she couldn’t find one photograph of just the couple together. And in the family photographs they didn’t stand together, the children Pierce and Prudence being always positioned between them. As an actress she was used to reading people, looking at their faces and their body language and determining what kind of person they were, what made them tick, how they interacted. This did not look like a happy couple to Kate. She studied the photos of Prudence and Pierce. Prudence seemed a confident girl, always smiling with knowing eyes. Pierce appeared more reserved. Their body language when with their parents showed great affection towards them. She passed through the photographs and came across one of Charles in his car with the two children in the front seat beside him. She imagined the terrible impact it must have had on them when he was shot and their lives changed forever. She took up the photograph and felt sad looking at them. A family who could have had so much destroyed overnight, that night in December 1903.

  Looking at the photograph she suddenly got a jolt. She got up and walked quickly to the police file and took out the photograph of the crime scene and compared them.

  Kate went marching quickly across the hall and into the drawing room where Nico was stretched out watching television.

  “Eh – do you mind?” he said as she took up the remote and turned off the television.

  “Look at these photos!”

  He took the photos and shrugged. “So?”

  “So, they are different cars! Charles’ car was a different make to the one he was shot in. See – his car doesn’t even have a windscreen. In fact most cars didn’t have windscreens back then.”

  “So what? He probably had another car.”

  “Not very likely – there were fewer than three hundred cars in Ireland at the time – they were extremely expensive and a rarity.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Charles was in somebody else’s car the night he was shot. Perhaps a woman’s car, because of the fox fur and high-heeled shoe that was left there.”

  “I doubt any woman would be driving back then,” said Nico.

  “Oh, they did. Not many, but you had the beginning of the suffragette movement by then and they were trying to prove themselves to be as capable as men,” said Kate.

  “So what are you getting at?” asked Nico, irritated by her detective work.

  “It makes sense, because the gunshot is through the passenger’s side of the windscreen, so Charles must have been sitting on the passenger side as somebody else was driving their own car!” Kate was delighted with her discovery. “Where was Charles going that night with this woman, and who was the woman in the car? And why did the family go to such lengths to cover it up? Was that why Lady Margaret and the family said he was in a carriage because they didn’t want it to be known whose car he was actually in?”

  Nico flung the photos on the coffee table. “Don’t you think you’re taking all this a bit far?”

  “I haven’t taken it far enough, Nico!”

  “Did you ever hear the expression – let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “I have, and I never liked that expression.”

  “You wouldn’t! You know, Kate, you’re always trying to push things to the limit. The fact is, although all these people are long dead, they still have a right to privacy.”

  “Not really, not if they covered up a crime they don’t.”

  “Well, I think they do. And I think at the end of the day it’s immoral for you to start trying to sensationalise something for the sake of your film and getting it better publicity and ratings,” he said in a determined voice.

  “I knew you weren’t behind me on this! I knew you weren’t happy about it from the start,” she accused.

  “Well, if you knew, then why did you proceed with it?”

  “Because – because I wanted to!”

  “It’s not the first time you’ve had an obsession with my family’s past, and look where that led you before!” he said. “We don’t need any more unsavoury secrets to be uncovered!”

  She looked very hurt. “Thank you! Thank you very much for dragging all that up again.”

  “I just don’t want you getting carried away with this like last time,” he said.

  “And you know something?” Kate went on regardless. “Your surname might be Collins, but I think you have that same streak as your Armstrong ancestors did. I think you’re as happy as they were to cover this up to protect the reputation of your family.”

  “At the end of the day, Kate, this man you’re investigating is my mother’s grandfather. It’s not that far back, and I know my mother would be horrified to know you were trying to besmirch her family name. She was very proud of it, you know.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Nico, but I can’t stop now. I want to know what happened and to make sure justice was done.”

  “Kate – the great crusader!” mocked Nico.

  She stood up and grabbed the photos. “And if you don’t want to help me, then I’ll do it on my own.”

  He watched her walk out of the room then he put the television back on.

  Book three

  1897–1900

  chapter 43

  It was nine o’clock in the evening in New York and all the employees of Union Bank had long since gone hom
e as the chairman of the bank, Morgan Wells, left his office and walked down the corridor. He spotted a light on in Harrison Armstrong’s office. He walked over and opened the door to find Harrison inside at his desk, poring over paperwork.

  “Are you still here?” asked Morgan, not surprised that he was.

  “Yes, I need to finish this before morning – the client is coming in at nine,” explained Harrison, not concealing his irritation at being disturbed.

  “Why not go home, get a good night’s sleep, and get in early and finish it then?” suggested Morgan.

  “I’ll keep going, thank you,” said Harrison as his head went down and he continued reading.

  To Harrison’s further irritation, Morgan walked into the office, over to his desk and picked up some of the paperwork.

  “Are you sure you want to stay?” asked Morgan. “I can give you a lift home. My motor car is waiting outside.”

  “No, thank you,” said Harrison.

  “Any plans for the weekend?”

  “No, yes – I’ve a few things on,” said Harrison.

  “Me and my wife are having a dinner party on Saturday evening. We’d like you to attend if you’re free?”

  “I’m actually not free, but thank your wife for the invitation,” said Harrison curtly.

  Morgan smiled. “There will be a lot of interesting people there – some powerful people in banking. It could be good for you to attend.”

  Harrison looked up. “Is it an order that I attend?”

  Morgan gave a little laugh. “Of course it’s not an order – just an invitation.”

  “In that case, as I said, I’ve something else on,” Harrison said firmly.

  “I see,” Morgan nodded and, turning, walked to the door where he paused and said, “You know the expression, Harrison – ‘All work and no play’ . . .”

  “. . . gets the job done on time,” Harrison finished, giving the expression his own ending.