Murder at Mansfield Park

table.
    ‘I come here at last in desperation, Mary. Knowing her as I now do, I cannot believe she would have returned here willingly. Not alone, at any rate. In triumph perhaps, to make a point.
But the carriage is not yet ordered, the house not yet taken, the announcement in The Times not yet made. No, no, I do not believe it, it is not possible.’
    He fell silent, and they heard the distant sound of the great clock at Mansfield, striking the half hour. Mary stirred in her chair. She hardly dared trust herself to speak, yet it was now
absolutely necessary to do so. But even as she was collecting her thoughts and wondering how to begin, the door opened for a second time.
    ‘You see, my dear,’ Dr Grant was saying to his wife as they came into the room, ‘I was quite right. I knew the presence of such a horse in the yard could betoken only one
thing. I will see to it that more claret is brought up from the cellar. I am glad to see you again, Crawford, even if you do return to a neighbourhood in mourning. We will all be very thankful when
Sir Thomas resumes his customary place at Mansfield, and the funeral can at last take place; so protracted a delay is disrespectful, and serves only to amplify what is already the most lamentable
circumstance. Indeed, I cannot conceive a situation more deplorable.’
    ‘In mourning ?’ said Henry, rising again from his chair. ‘I do not understand—that is, Mary did not say—’
    Mrs Grant looked first to Henry, and then to her sister. ‘Mary? Surely you have been most remiss—there has not been such an event as this in these parts for twenty years past. You
will scarce believe it, Henry, but we have had a murder amongst us. Miss Price is dead.’
    Dr Grant was the only one among them capable of any rational thought or deliberation in the course of the extraordinary disclosures that must naturally follow, though Mary could have wished his
remonstrances less rigorous, or at the very least, rather fewer in number. Dr Grant had, indeed, a great deal to say on the subject, and harangued Henry loudly and at length for having so requited
Sir Thomas’s hospitality, so injured family peace, and so forfeited all entitlement to be considered a gentleman. Mrs Grant needed her salts more than once, during this interminable
philippic; while Henry, by contrast, seemed hardly to hear a word of it. He was not accustomed to allow such slights on his honour to pass with impunity, even from his brother-in-law, but his
manner was distracted, and his whole mind seemed to be taken up with the attempt to comprehend such an unspeakable turn of events; he had started that day a husband, even a bridegroom, but he would
end it a widower.
    Dr Grant had not yet concluded his diatribe. ‘And now we have this wretched man Maddox in our midst, poking and prying and intermeddling with affairs that in no way concern him, in what
has so far proved to be a fruitless quest for the truth. He will want to see you, sir, without delay; that much is abundantly clear. There will be questions—and you will be required to
answer. And what will you have to say for yourself, I wonder?’
    There was a silence. Henry did not appear to be aware that he was being addressed. He was staring into the bottom of the glass of wine Mary had poured for him, his thoughts elsewhere.
    Dr Grant cleared his throat loudly. ‘Well, sir? I am waiting.’
    Henry looked up, and Mary saw with apprehension that his eyes had taken on a wild look that she had seen in them once before, many years ago. It did not bode a happy issue.
    ‘What did you say?’ he cried, springing up and striding across the room towards Dr Grant. ‘Who is this— Maddox —you speak of? By what right does he presume to
summon me —question me ?’
    The two men were, by now, scarcely a yard apart, and Henry’s face was flushed with anger, his fists clenched. Mary stepped forward quickly, and put a hand on his arm. ‘He is the
person the family have charged with finding the man responsible for Fanny’s murder,’ she said. ‘It is only natural that he should wish to talk to you—once he knows what has
occurred.’
    Henry shook her hand free; he was still staring at Dr Grant, who had started back with a look of alarm.
    ‘Henry, Henry,’ said Mary, in a pleading tone, ‘you must see that it is only reasonable that Mr Maddox should wish to talk to you. You may be in possession of information that
could be vital to his enquiries. You must