She followed him out to the hall. He went to the front door, opened it, peered out into the dusk. ‘Another warm evening, Mrs. Christie. Though we could do with the rain. These spring showers don’t last.’
He turned to shake her hand, all reluctance gone. ‘I have to say, I do tend to agree with you about Miss Wilkins. I was always rather fond of her. She was often here, calling in for a chat. Miss Holgate had become fond of her too. And I know she could be difficult at times, and rather uncontrolled where her feelings were concerned, but I really wasn’t sure when those police took her away like that. On the other hand ...’ His gaze went to the library door. They stood in silence, reflecting on the events of the last few days. He sighed. ‘It is all rather a test of one’s faith,’ he said. He seemed to have changed, as if being a Reverend was just an outer layer which had now fallen away, leaving an ordinary man, full of the doubts of ordinary men.
‘We’re not used to such things,’ Agatha said.
‘No,’ he said, with feeling. ‘We are not used to such things.’
She took a step down the drive.
‘Thank you for your visit,’ he called after her, with a new warmth.
*
Agatha walked home in the sultry evening, listening to the last chatter of the birds as they quietened for the night.
She felt a tightening sense of anxiety. She had a sense that this story was far from over, that there was still the possibility that there was a murderer at large.
The evening stretched ahead of her. The parish box files awaited, stacked on her desk next to her notebooks. Inspector Jerome would just have to stay as he was, for now.
Chapter Twelve
The rain that the vicar had hoped for duly arrived. On Monday morning, Agatha struggled towards the church, trying to carry box files whilst holding an umbrella above her head.
Miss Holgate opened the church side door. A wave of relief passed across her face,when she saw that Agatha was carrying the files.
‘Oh good, I can put them back in their places,’ she said, leading Agatha inside. ‘Were they any use, Mrs. Christie?’
‘Oh yes,’ Agatha said, placing them down on the desk with a thump. ‘Very useful indeed, Miss Holgate. I have learnt many important things.’ Agatha noticed Gwendoline’s expression, a tightening, anxious look. ‘Although, I would very much like to see the papers that Mr. Fullerton squirreled away. You see, it is quite likely that the papers he took away show that he is, in fact, married to Bertha Wilkins.’
This time Gwendoline didn’t try to hide her response, which was wide-eyed shock. She sat down, hard, on the nearest chair. ‘Married?’
‘He could hide the copy certificates. But he failed to realize that these registers contain the history of all the transactions carried out on Church premises. Even secret ones, at dead of night last August, with only a clerk from the Parish Council and his maidservant as witnesses.’
‘Eva?’
‘Yes.’
‘Before I came here,’ Gwendoline said, almost to herself.
Agatha sat down across the desk from her. ‘Miss Holgate,’ she said. ‘Could you explain exactly how you came to be working here?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Her face was once again smooth, childlike. ‘Mr. Fullerton suggested it to the vicar. And because he knew those ladies who worked in the clinic, and you see, they were part of the charity who ran the school, and so when the vicar said that he needed someone, they chose me. And I’m so glad they did,’ she finished, with a rush of relief.
‘Why did Mr. Fullerton suggest it?’
Gwendoline shrugged. ‘I suppose he knew that the vicar was struggling with all this.’ She waved her hand across the piles of boxes.
‘Did Clifford know you?’
‘Oh, no. Not at all. Not until I was put up for this appointment.’
‘But he knew Robert.’ Agatha was speaking almost to herself. ‘And Robert knew Cecil.’
‘Cecil? Yes, they’d met, in London, through the charity.’ Her face clouded. ‘Poor Cecil,’ she said. ‘Poor Phoebe too …’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘We loved that summerhouse,’ she said. ‘Phoebe and I. We’d taken to going there a lot now it’s got warmer. We’d talk about the future, all our hopes, about who we’d marry, we’d laugh and laugh … And sometimes I’d go there on my own, and take some tea and some books, and just read and read, but now … Now I don’t want to go there any more.’ She dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips.
Agatha broke the silence. ‘That night, when you and Phoebe were there – Bertha Wilkins joined you.’
Gwendoline nodded. ‘We didn’t really want her there, but she was being friendly for once, and anyway it’s her summerhouse, and we didn’t know what to do. She’d brought sherry. I’d never had sherry before, usually just tea, there’s a flask in the vicarage kitchen which I always use … But Bertha had brought sherry, and three glasses, I don’t know why. We thought she’d come to throw us out, as it’s her house, but she seemed pleased to find us there, she said we were welcome, and that she was sorry if she’d been horrid to Phoebe. And then poured the sherry.’
‘And you all drank it?’
A brief smile lit up her face. She shook her head. ‘Phoebe said she didn’t like it. She’d tried it at her parents’ house and she said she was never going to have sherry ever again. So just Bertha and I had the sherry and Phoebe had the tea. It was all a bit odd. Bertha had been hanging around Phoebe for days, at Mrs. Garvey’s house too, and I think Phoebe was just relieved that she wasn’t being a nuisance for once.’
‘Does Miss Wilkins know Mrs. Garvey?’
‘Oh, everyone knows everyone in this village,’ the girl said.
Agatha leaned back in her chair and surveyed the heaps of files. She turned back to Gwendoline. ‘Miss Holgate – there is no other way of putting this, but – you are the last person to have seen Phoebe alive.’
Gwendoline gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘I know, Mrs. Christie. The policeman said that to me too. That Inspector, when he questioned me, he said they always talk to the last person to have seen the deceased alive, that’s what he called her, the deceased …’ Her voice tailed away.
‘Is there anything you want to add, anything at all you can think of to tell me?’
Gwendoline fixed Agatha with an intense, wide-eyed look. ‘There is one thing, but it’s not about Phoebe. It’s about Robert. I think the thing that Cecil wanted to tell me was about something from my past, something from the East End. If Robert ever … if he ever gets over all this, and he might … I want to know who I am.’
Agatha looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘One of my sisters, once, when we were fighting, she said, “It’s not as if you’re family anyway.”’ Gwendoline was staring at the table in front of her, her hands clenched in fists.
Agatha’s mind was working. ‘You – you were adopted?’
Gwendoline looked up at her. ‘I don’t know. It only happened once, and then Ma gave her a clip round the ear and told her not to talk nonsense, and I never asked. But if Cecil had been working in the East End, he might have seen something or spoken to someone … that’s all I can think of, that would make him want to talk to me like that, all urgent like that.’
The room was quiet. Only a rustling coming from the chimneybreast, perhaps mice, or nesting birds.
Agatha spoke again. ‘Robert knew Cecil,’ she said. ‘Would he know what Cecil wanted to tell you?’
Gwendoline shrugged. ‘He hasn’t come here to see me. Only once. He stood, over there by the door, just standing there, and then he went out again. After that I try not to be alone with him.’
‘It seems to me,’ Agatha said, getting to her feet, ‘that there are now several more people I need to have a chat with.’
*
Agatha’s first stop was only a few yards away, at the vicarage. She rang the bell. The door was eventually answered by Eva, as she now knew she was called. Eva was in black with a white apron, on which she was
wiping floured hands.
‘I wonder if I might have a word with the Curate,’ Agatha said.
Robert was in the dining room, polishing silver. He greeted her and pulled out a chair for her.
‘They’ve got you working, haven’t they?’ she said, smiling at him.
The smile was not returned. He folded his polishing cloth neatly and placed it on the table.
‘Mr. Sayer,’ she said. ‘Do you regret taking this post?’
He looked up then, and gazed at her with a look of misery. ‘Oh, Mrs. Christie,’ he said. ‘I just feel I’d be letting everyone down if I left.’ He sat down dejectedly at the table.
The vicarage dining room was a large, spacious room with a polished mahogany table at its centre. It had the feeling of being underused, and Agatha wondered why the poor young man was polishing silver that would probably go straight back into the cabinet, never to be taken out again.
‘The vicar doesn’t really know what to do with me, since these awful events,’ he said. ‘And if it wasn’t for Mrs. Ettridge, or Auntie Sylvia as she insists I call her, I think he might have sent me back up to London by now.’
‘Do you want to leave?’
He met her gaze. ‘The one thing that is keeping me here, is Gwendoline. Ever since she came to the vicarage to work here, I’ve felt … I’ve felt we were meant to be together.’
‘And why can’t you declare your feelings, Mr. Sayer?’
He raised his blue eyes to hers, but said nothing.
‘Mr. Sayer. When we met, last week, you entreated me to come to Bethnal Green, because you were sure that you would be blamed for the murder of Cecil Coates. And yet the police, having questioned you, have left you alone. Why did you feel so responsible?’
He sat in miserable silence.
‘How did you meet Mr. Coates?’
This time he answered. ‘At the clinic. I’d been doing chaplaincy work in the hospital there, last year, and he was doing his medical training. We hit it off. And then when I came here, he’d often visit, or I’d go up to London to see him.’
‘So, last week, when he came to see you …’
‘He was hiding something. He seemed so determined to come. But when he got here, he kept asking after Miss Holgate, and I have to say I did get rather shirty with him. He even asked the vicar when she’d be at work. I wish now I’d been clearer about my intentions towards her, just to shut him up, but I hadn’t declared myself to her, and it would have been indecorous to announce it to a friend first.’
‘I still don’t see why you felt so anxious last week.’
He hesitated, then blurted out, ‘It’s all to do with Miss Wilkins.’
‘Bertha Wilkins?’
He nodded, blushing. ‘She was working as a nurse, at the clinic, as you know. And then when her sister died, she came back to the village. But she and Cecil had met by then, and they did carry on some kind of friendship. Well, more than a friendship, I think. I know she was very angry when he started visiting here and then met Miss Banks and became very attached to her instead. But then, when the vicar was telling Auntie Sylvia that he needed a curate, it was Miss Wilkins who insisted it was me. And of course, Auntie Sylvia knew me and was very taken with the idea. That’s how she told me it all happened. But why should Miss Wilkins want me here? She’s hardly spoken to me since I arrived, apart from just here, in an everyday way.’
‘Did the police talk to you?’
He nodded. ‘They asked what I’d seen, that kind of thing. They wanted to know about Cecil’s bedtime cocoa, had I seen it. Of course I hadn’t. I sleep in the little room at the back of the house, at the top. Cecil was in the best bedroom, and in any case he was still in the library when I went to bed.’
‘Did you tell the police about your suspicions about how you came to be here?’
He shook his head. ‘I thought of it. But it amounts to nothing. Just that when the vicar wanted a curate, Miss Wilkins, who hardly knew me, insisted I come. But I’m sure it was so that Cecil would follow me. And then he died, and I felt I’d been part of a plot …’
‘I see what you mean.’ Agatha watched him as he pulled nervously at his ear lobe, under his sandy hair. ‘However,’ she went on, gently, ‘it’s not a plot of which you have any part. If I were you, I’d shake off this sense of unworthiness and go and talk to Miss Holgate about your feelings.’
‘Oh, but she’s never alone. And I’ve never felt about this about anyone before, and I really don’t know what to say.’ He looked at her with his earnest blue eyes. ‘Once I went in to the office, where she works, but I just stood there, I didn’t know what to say, and so in the end I just went out again. I felt so foolish.’
‘Mr. Sayer,’ she said. ‘Nothing is to be gained by remaining silent. Please trust me.’
He looked up at her as she got to her feet.
‘And now I must talk to the vicar,’ she said.
As she left, she saw he had picked up his cloth. But she thought she noticed a new vigour in his actions, a stronger set to his shoulders, as he returned to his polishing.
*
Agatha knocked on the door of the vicar’s study, then pushed it open. He was sitting by the window, staring out at the garden with a vacant expression.
He turned to her with a distant, weary look. ‘Oh,’ he said, as he saw who it was. ‘Mrs. Christie. Did Eva let you in?’ He got to his feet, with tired, heavy movements, then almost immediately sat down again.
‘Reverend Collins,’ she said, approaching the desk. ‘I’d like to know why Miss Wilkins and Mr. Fullerton were married in secret last summer.’
There was a sharp intake of breath. He stared at her, open-mouthed. ‘Mrs. Christie,’ he said, with new indignation. ‘I can hardly see that that is of any concern to you.’
‘Mr. Collins,’ she said. ‘Miss Wilkins is about to be accused of a crime of which she is innocent, and therefore, I would assert that it concerns us all.’
‘Mrs. Christie. I would expect better from you. As far as Parish matters are concerned, I am perfectly aware that you are an infrequent attender, about which I am prepared to be quite understanding. We live in uncertain times, and it seems to me only natural that people have to follow their own individual path. It is in my view one of the great strengths of the Church of England, that it respects people’s own opinions. But barging in here, asking me about an event that was very private and only of interest to those two persons concerned –’
‘I have other questions, Reverend,’ she said, taking a seat opposite him. ‘Specifically, who had access to the kitchen in the vicarage on both Monday night and again on Thursday night.’
‘The kitchen?’ His face was blank, but then a look of comprehension flickered across it. ‘You mean, because poor Cecil was poisoned,’ he began. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Oh dear oh dear …’ His tone of indignation had gone, replaced once more by weariness as the implication of Agatha’s question began to dawn on him.
‘Well,’ he began. ‘On Monday evening, Miss Wilkins was here. We were having one of our chats … and the thing is … Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Oh dear oh dear …’ He looked straight at Agatha. ‘She insisted on preparing warm drinks for people. Tea for myself and Mr. Sutton, who was working late in the barn. And I distinctly remember her saying, “And Cocoa for our young visitor, Mr. Coates”.’
His words settled in the space between them. Agatha breathed, then said, ‘And Thursday evening?’
‘Miss Wilkins was here. But – but with Mr. Fullerton. Briefly. It was earlier in the day, but Miss Wilkins again spoke of tea, and went into the kitchen. I heard her boiling water, I remember now, the clatter of cups … And then Mr. Fullerton left, and she left soon afterwards.’
‘And then at some point, Miss Holgate went up to the summerhouse?’
He gazed at her. ‘That I wouldn’t know. I don’t interfere in the doings of my staff once their work is done.’
‘Reverend Collins. You have been most helpful. But I have to ask
you about this secret marriage. I know it seems to you to be prying, but I must impress upon you, it is of the utmost importance, if a miscarriage of justice is to be prevented.’
*
Half an hour later, Agatha was standing, once again, outside the vicarage. The vicar had settled himself at his desk once more, having told her all he knew, he said, which was that Miss Wilkins had found herself in the unfortunate position of bearing a child out of wedlock, and that she had confided this fact in Mr. Fullerton, who had taken pity on her, and agreed to marry her and raise the child as his own. Then, unfortunately, the baby was born very unwell, had had a hasty baptism, and had died within a few days of her birth, and was, indeed, buried up in the old graveyard, near Miss Wilkins’ sister. It had left the marriage, therefore, in a rather difficult position, and frankly, he did not blame the couple for preferring to put the whole sorry business behind them.
She had thanked him, and had got up to go, but in the hallway she’d turned to him again.
‘Reverend Collins, you have been most helpful. There is one other favour that I would like to ask you. It’s on a more light-hearted subject, and one that I hope will be more pleasant for you to carry out. I’ve been talking to both Miss Holgate and your curate, and I can see how this silence between them is breaking their hearts. I’d like to help reunite them in some way. I know it’s just the sort of busy-bodying that we village women are guilty of, but I hope you will forgive me for that. It is well intentioned. And so,’ she finished, ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to host a tea party in the next day or so, to cheer everyone up.’
His face had brightened. It was as if life had returned to normal, as if the duties of being the vicar of a country parish were entirely shaped around helping busy-bodying village women host tea parties, and that order had therefore been wonderfully restored.
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