by Issy Brooke
“But was she really in bed?” Adelia said. “We have absolutely no way of proving it.”
“And she openly hated him,” Theodore said. “Along with hating everyone else, of course.”
Anne shook her head, still unwilling to consider the implications of what was being said. “But, while I acknowledge she had motive and possibly even means – though I cannot picture it! – did she really benefit from his death? She hated him, of course. But the act of murder itself is an inconceivable one. What would she gain from such an act?”
“If her motive was revenge, then yes, she did gain,” Adelia said gently. “She gained comfort from knowing he was no longer of this world.”
“I cannot countenance it. And why would she wait so long to do what she did?” Anne asked, anguish in her voice.
“Sometimes hatred simmers away,” Adelia replied. “It grows and it consumes a person from within, making them irrational. Is she not unstable? I have seen it over and over.”
“And yet why would she have done it in the boathouse – how would she have done it? Did she tempt him down there? Why would he answer an invitation to meet her there on a cold night?” Anne was shaking her head. She was adamant that she could believe Emily had a motive; but she would not believe she was a murderess. “Did she really plan this and how did she do so?”
Adelia sighed. She was of a similar opinion to Emily. “These are all very good points. Theodore? What do you think?”
“She is still on our list,” he said. “But she is at the bottom of that list as the unlikeliest suspect.”
Anne nodded glumly. “Well, that is something. Thank you.”
Adelia could not let the matter drop, although she could see that Anne wanted it to. She said, wearily, “However, I do wonder about the connection between Mrs Macauley and Miss Johnson.”
“They are close friends – just as you are friends with Mrs Hobson.”
“Perhaps. They do have some sort of secret,” Adelia said. “Perhaps it involves Mrs Spenning. They know something.”
“Is there ever a time when you and that woman are not plotting something yourselves?” Theodore said.
Adelia ignored his tone. She said, “And Mrs Macauley herself admitted that her husband had a huge motive to kill Spenning. Yes, Mr Macauley has an unimpeachable alibi. But that does not preclude us from considering that Mrs Macauley could have had a hand in things on his behalf. Indeed, could not Miss Johnson and Mrs Macauley have bound themselves together in this evil endeavour?”
Anne’s eyes were wide with shock.
Theodore stroked his chin and Bernard sat back in his chair, ruminating. Even Bamfylde looked serious as he considered this new suggestion.
“But,” Adelia went on. “We are hampered at every turn by the time that has passed since the crime occurred. If it was a crime. And if it were a crime of passion, and neither of the guilty parties benefited in any tangible way, we will never find hard evidence. There is no trail for us to follow.”
Bernard harumphed in frustration, making a noise that did well to express how they all felt. “There must always be some sort of trail!” he said. “Even the oldest of paths, however invisible, can yet be detected by those with the right senses or those who ask the right questions.”
“This is not a matter of ley-lines,” said Anne with an indulgent smile.
“Perhaps not, but think of this – the emotions must have left some kind of mark in the ether of the place. Such strong emotion cannot simply disappear!”
Adelia looked in alarm at Theodore, who was equally startled. He said, “Well, um, as to that, no scientific basis has yet…”
Bernard cut him off. “I am entirely a man of science! Can you explain electricity to me?”
“In simple terms, perhaps…” Theodore said before he ground to an inevitable halt. “Ah, well, no.”
“Every day, new discoveries are made in which previously unknown or inexplicable things are revealed to have a basis in science. We would be wise to heed the wisdom of the ancients,” Bernard said. Just as Adelia started to nod, he then alarmed them all again by declaring, loudly, “Therefore I propose that we try dowsing!”
Adelia wanted to laugh but could not offend her son-in-law. Anne reached over and patted his hand. “No, dear, I don’t think that will work.”
“I found Patrick’s lost toy soldier last week, did I not?”
“Eventually,” she conceded.
“There is but one thing we can realistically do,” Theodore said in a voice that was slightly too loud. Everyone looked at him. “We have our suspects. Some have greater motive and others greater opportunity. Mrs Spenning, Mr Calcraft, Miss Johnson; these are the primary ones. I’ll accept Mrs Macauley perhaps as an accomplice, as we investigate Miss Johnson.”
That made Anne squeak in disappointment.
“And investigate we will,” Theodore went on. “But let us do it to eliminate them, one by one. Whoever is left must be our guilty party, as long as we can uncover the means by which they got Spenning down to the boathouse.”
“It sounds logical, and I am a man of logic, after all,” Bernard said pointedly, obviously still smarting that his idea for dowsing had been turned down.
Adelia was a little curious. Did he use forked hazel sticks, or a pendulum, or some other means? Then she shook her head. It was all nonsense, she thought. Wasn’t it?
Though he was an awfully intelligent man and she felt bad for doubting him.
Theodore was on a roll and he interrupted her thoughts. “We are agreed, then. Now we must discover why Mrs Spenning has stayed here, and what she does in such secrecy in Great Yarmouth. And we must discover what went wrong between Calcraft and Spenning.”
They all nodded, and the gathering broke up.
Adelia could not contain her curiosity about the dowsing in the end, and as soon as she mentioned it to Bernard, he seized it with enthusiasm.
“It is a fine afternoon,” he said, not even looking at the window, but instead thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, searching for something. He dragged out a holed stone on a fine silver chain. “Let us grasp the day! I shall show you, my lady, directly and without delay. Anne, darling, can you walk outside in that dress?”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “You know very well I can walk in anything. Where are we going?”
“To the boathouse. Don’t tell the others. I shall show you what the wisdom of the land can tell us – if you have the ears to hear it! Onwards!”
There was something of the small boy in his rallying cry, like a little lad playing at soldiers, just like Patrick. Anne was beaming and Adelia did not have the heart to pour any cold water on the plan.
Within half an hour, the three of them were standing outside the tumbledown boathouse on the edge of the river.
Bernard held the chain high in his left hand, and put his palm flat below the hanging stone. He closed his eyes and said aloud, “Show me yes.”
The stone began to make a circle anti-clockwise. Then he demanded, “Show me no,” and it began to swing back and forth.
There was no way it could do that, Adelia knew, but for tiny movements of Bernard’s hand. But he clearly didn’t believe that he was influencing the movement so she didn’t say anything. Instead she stood next to Anne and they watched together as he approached the boathouse, asking questions of the swinging stone.
“Did something dreadful happen here? No – no, that is too vague. Was Mr Walter Spenning killed here?” He paused. “Hmm. Nothing. Maybe that’s too specific. Maybe I should simply say died.” On he went, pacing around both outside and inside, pleading with the pendulum to give him an answer.
“Of course, it won’t hold up in a court of law,” Adelia whispered to Anne as he disappeared out of eyeline again. “Though it is all fascinating.”
Anne was gazing in the direction he had gone. “Isn’t it?” she whispered back. “I don’t pretend to understand it but he knows what he is doing.”
“Do you
think it will work?”
“If it is possible to work, then my Bernard will get it to work,” she said with absolute confidence. She sneezed suddenly, a sharp succession of little noises, and Bernard was immediately upon them, already bundling the pendulum back into his pocket.
“Anne! Are you feeling a chill coming on? Have you a headache?”
“I’m perfectly well.”
“No. You were caught in the rain the other day and perhaps it’s delayed. We must return home at once.”
Adelia expected her daughter to protest. The Anne of old would have stamped her feet and then sulked in bitter silence.
But not this Anne. She gazed at her husband with pure adoration in her eyes. She took his arm, and allowed him to lead her home.
Oh, thought Adelia all of a sudden. How much easier it is for her, that he will confidently take the lead. How secure she must feel!
And then she thought, Now that Mr Spenning is gone, how insecure must his poor widow be? She has money, or at least she has a house in which to live … but what else does she have?
12
Adelia and Anne set to work once they were back at the house. They sat down and began to go through Anne’s local address book, and began a campaign of letters and notes sent in haste to every woman of standing in a thirty-mile radius. Their aim was to discover as much as possible about Florence Spenning and her dealings in Great Yarmouth.
The vicar’s wife proved invaluable. Mrs Thubron informed them that she knew of the workhouse in Great Yarmouth and indeed, she knew very well of Mrs Pickworth’s charitable endeavours. Within the space of twenty-four hours, she had informed Adelia and Anne of a talk that was being given in some public rooms the very next day. The topic was to be how abstaining from lowly pleasures and vices would give one the moral strength to succeed in life. Such topics, Adelia reflected, were only generally aimed at the poor and needy.
The vicar’s wife, somewhat sniffily, replied, “But it is precisely because they lack moral fibre that they are poor! If we give them a coin or two, they may fill their bellies, but how much better is it that we fill, instead, their souls? That is why I must urge you all to dig deep into your pockets on behalf of our local church that we might light a beacon of hope for the poor suffering folk of this parish…”
After she had left, Adelia spent a happy half-hour imagining what would happen if she put her friend Harriet in the same room as the vicar’s wife.
Adelia and Anne were to travel to Great Yarmouth in the family coach, and at the last minute, Adelia pressed Anne to invite Emily Johnson.
“That is generous of you, mama.”
“No,” said Adelia with a wince at her own honesty. “It is because she will start to suspect that we don’t trust her if we don’t involve her.”
Miss Johnson’s reaction was curious. When she was first invited to accompany them to a talk in Great Yarmouth, she readily agreed. But as she learned where the talk was to be held, and for which charity – the workhouse – she grew almost afraid, and said that she was feeling unwell all of a sudden.
“Shall we send for a doctor?” Anne asked in alarm.
“No, no. I am perfectly well.”
“You just said you were not,” Anne said.
Adelia came out with it. “Is there some reason why you do not wish to come to the talk now that you know where it is to be held?”
Miss Johnson frowned. She seemed to be having an internal battle. Adelia had a flash of insight, then. Miss Johnson’s emotions boiled so very fiercely below her surface that every moment must have been a constant battle to master them. If she were not so very strong, her outbursts would be even more frequent.
Miss Johnson gained control of herself. “I will come,” she said, in a husky voice.
So the three of them rode in a carriage into Great Yarmouth that night and found themselves in a great company of people, mostly women with a few earnest young men scattered around. Those young swains seemed to pay more attention to the women in the audience than the talk itself.
Although, if she were honest, Adelia would have paid more attention to watching rain run down a windowpane if she were given the chance. The talk was delivered in a pitiful monotone by a woman of middling years who had absolutely nothing good to say about anyone who found themselves destitute. She was very much on the side of the “workhouses should be horrible enough that the thought of them actually stops people becoming poor”. As if one could be frightened into becoming wealthy, indeed!
Adelia kept a close eye on Miss Johnson. She was sitting between Adelia and Anne. She knitted her fingers together tightly on her lap, and kept her eyes fixed only on the woman on the podium. There was some reason why she didn’t want to be here, but she was fighting to overcome – something.
So they all listened, or appeared to listen, quite intently.
But of course, Adelia wasn’t there to improve her soul. As soon as the talk was over, and people began to mill around to drink tea and share their thoughts, Adelia began to look around. She was hoping to meet Mrs Pickworth. She suspected that the woman they’d seen with Mrs Spenning, the matronly sort who had been encouraged to ignore them, had been Mrs Pickworth herself. But she wanted to be sure.
Adelia saw no sign of that matron, but when she spotted the woman speaker, she thought she might get something from her instead so she headed across to intercept the speaker. She was clearly a representative of the workhouse. Anne and Emily followed, Anne sticking close to Emily who was already asking to return to Litton.
Adelia introduced herself in a grand manner, which got the woman’s attention immediately. Adelia was not daft. She knew it was because the woman scented a potential benefactor. The grander the title, the more cash could possibly be squeezed out of someone.
“My dear Lady Calaway, you grace us with your presence,” the woman simpered.
“I want to thank you so much for your enlightening talk. I have always been interested in how smaller towns such as this one cope with their singular problems. But what a turn-out of people tonight! More, I would wager, than a similar event in London could boast. I adore the commitment of the local women. I believe that I know one of them – a certain Mrs Florence Spenning? Is she not involved as a concerned citizen with the workhouse? I was curious to know in what capacity she devotes her time.” Women of a certain standing would often be visitors, as if their mere presence would set a good example to the inmates.
But the woman who had given the talk merely said, “Ah yes, Mrs Spenning. What can I say about her? What can anyone say, indeed?”
Anne began to flap her hands and twist her head around. Miss Johnson was pulling away from their little group, trying to make for the door, and was clearly on the verge of causing a scene.
The woman continued to speak. “Mrs Spenning has always been involved with us and is a keen supporter of our work now.”
“In what…”
“And here she is now! You may speak to her yourself. Mrs Spenning, here is a friend of yours, I understand?”
Florence Spenning had been passing by. She was accompanied by the matronly woman that Adelia had been so keen to see. She gritted her teeth in a smile of the barest politeness. “Oh. Lady Calaway. How interesting to see you here.”
“Likewise.”
Mrs Spenning turned, out of social obligation, to Anne and Emily, who were both now rigid with anxiety. “Lady Blaisdell-Smith, it is lovely to see you. And … Miss Johnson.” She left it hanging to be interpreted as they wished.
“And this is…?” Adelia prompted.
The matronly woman looked a little hesitant. She glanced at Mrs Spenning before saying, with a warm smile, “I am Mrs Pickworth. Delighted to meet you all … again.”
The woman who had given the talk melted away. She might have wanted to pump Adelia for donations but even an insensible brick could have felt the tension in the air and realised that now was not the time.
And if Mrs Spenning was angry, that was nothing compared to th
e look on Emily Johnson’s face. She flared her nostrils and bit down on her lower lip as if she were doing her utmost not to scream out “Murderess!”
“Em, are you quite well?” said Anne, reaching for Emily’s elbow as she began to sway.
“I must take a seat,” Emily said, turning deliberately away from them all.
“Miss Johnson!” cried Mrs Pickworth, putting out her arm. Emily lunged away from her.
But as she turned, the train of her skirt at the back twisted around in that infuriating way that bunched fabric tended to have, and it caught her legs to prevent her from stepping forward with freedom. She stumbled, and put out her arm to steady herself, which collided with a passing young man, and caused her to right herself too much in the other direction, so that she was falling suddenly backwards.
But Florence Spenning was there to catch her, darting forward with speed so that Emily only collapsed into her arms. Mrs Spenning deftly spun her around and lowered her into a chair that had been procured immediately by the young man with whom she’d collided. Emily flung up her arm in horror at all the fuss, and the small bag she had on her wrist caught on the man’s buttons, causing it to tear at the drawstring and spill out its contents.
Pills, dozens of little paper-wrapped pills, rolled on the wooden floor.
The man fell to his knees to gather them up and so did Mrs Spenning. She actually got right down as if she were a scullery maid, and leaned forward to reach out for the errant pills. She took them from the young man, too, and poured them all back into Emily’s bag, and left the scene without a single word more.
The man, after many bows and profuse apologies, withdrew.
Mrs Pickworth dithered. “Might I help? Miss Johnson, you have been so good in the past…”
“No!” cried Emily. “Let me be!”
Anne and Adelia clustered around poor Emily who was now scarlet with mortification and almost unable to speak coherently. Tears swam in her eyes.
A few other ladies came fussing over but it was clear that Emily wanted to be left alone until she was ready to stand up again. Adelia and Anne closed ranks and protected her until she rose to her feet and they stood either side of her to guide her to the exit. Mrs Pickworth had withdrawn in confusion.