Murder at Mansfield Park

remember that you saw her—spoke to her—more recently than any of us. It may be that there is some thing of which you alone are aware, which may
be of vital significance—more than you can, at present, possibly perceive.’
    She stopped, breathless with agitation, and watched as Henry stared first at her, and then at her sister and Dr Grant.
    ‘So that is what you are all thinking,’ he said, nodding slowly, his face grim. ‘You think I had some thing to do with this. You think I was responsible in some
way for her death. I —her husband—the man she risked every thing to run away with—you actually believe that I could have—’
    He turned away. His voice was unsteady, and he looked very ill; he was evidently suffering under a confusion of violent and perplexing emotions, and Mary could only pity him.
    ‘Come, Henry,’ she said softly. ‘Your spirits are exhausted, and I doubt you have either eaten or slept properly for days. Let me call for a basin of soup, and we will talk
about this again tomorrow.’
    ‘No,’ said Henry, with unexpected decision. ‘If this Maddox wishes to see me, I will not stay to be sent for. I have nothing to hide.’
    Dr Grant eyed him, shaking his head in steady scepticism. ‘I hope so, for your sake, Crawford.’
    The two ladies turned to look at him, as he continued. ‘We here at Mansfield have spent the last week conjecturing and speculating about the death of Miss Price, but it seems that we were
all mistaken. It was not Miss Price at all, but Mrs Crawford . That puts quite a different complexion on the affair, does it not?’
    Mary’s eyes widened in sudden fear. ‘You mean—’
    ‘Indeed I do. Whoever might have perpetrated this foul crime, it has made your brother an extremely rich man. As Mr Maddox will no doubt be fully aware.’
    At that very moment, Charles Maddox was sitting by the fire in Sir Thomas’s room. It was a noble fire over which to sit and think, and he had decided to afford himself
the indulgence of an hour’s mature deliberation, before going in to dinner. He had not yet been invited to dine with the family, but such little indignities were not uncommon in his
profession, and he had, besides, gathered more from a few days in the servants’ hall than he could have done in the dining-parlour in the course of an entire month. They ate well, the
Mansfield servants, he could not deny that; and Maddox was a man who appreciated good food as much as he appreciated Sir Thomas’s fine port and excellent claret, a glass of which sat even now
at his elbow. He got up to poke the fire, then settled himself back in his chair.
    Fraser had completed his questioning of the estate workmen, and although he had assured his master that there was nothing of significance to report, Maddox was a thorough man, and wished to read
the notes for himself. There were also some pages of annotations from Fraser’s interviews with the Mansfield servants. Maddox did not anticipate much of use there, either; he had always
regarded both maids and men principally as so many sources of useful intelligence, rather than probable suspects in good earnest. Moreover, only the female servants had suffered that degree of
intimacy with Miss Price that might have led to a credible motive for her murder, and he could not see this deed as the work of a woman’s hand. Stornaway, by contrast, had spent the day away
from the Park, interrogating innkeepers and landlords, in an effort to determine if any strangers of note had been seen in the neighbourhood at the time of Miss Price’s return. Now that
Maddox knew she had indeed eloped, it was of the utmost necessity to discover the identity of her abductor. If Stornaway met with no success, Maddox was ready to send him to London; it would be no
easy task to trace the fugitives, and Maddox was mindful that the family had already tried all in its power to do so, but unlike the Bertrams, he had connections that extended from the highest to
the lowest of London society; he knew where such marriages usually took place, and the clergymen who could be persuaded to perform them, and if a special licence had been required, there was more
than one proctor at Doctors-Commons who stood in Maddox’s debt, and might be induced to supply the information he required.
    It was little more than ten minutes later when the silence of the great house was broken by the sound of a commotion in the entrance hall. It was not difficult to