A Simple Country Mystery

by Blythe Baker

  “He says that no one here would attempt escape,” said Mr. Bower. “He says it is impossible.”

  I frowned. This young man seemed to be giving us the answers we wanted to hear. Wouldn’t it be easier to believe that all of these soldiers were good prisoners, did as they were told, and caused no trouble? If they behaved, then would they be released as soon as the war was over? Were they simply biding their time?

  After some time, it was clear that Johan’s responses were not going to change. He kept saying that no one had escaped, and that no one could escape.

  “He’s not wrong, you know,” said the blonde soldier in the room with me. “No one could escape from here. Not ever.”

  I glowered at the glass. I wondered how pleased Sergeant Crow would be with this soldier for being as flippant as he was.

  Sam pulled a photo out from his pocket, which startled me. Even from this distance, it was clear that it was a photo of Mrs. Lowell. I had seen it in the papers beside her obituary. It was remarkable just how much she looked like her daughter, with the same feathery, pale blonde hair, narrow face, and round, beautiful eyes.

  “Do you recognize this woman?” Sam asked.

  Johan leaned forward, peering at the image.

  I watched his face closely, searching for any hint of change; a narrowing of the eyes, a twitch of the mouth. Yet nothing happened.

  Johan sat up straight, and shook his head. “No,” he said, directly to Sam.

  I wondered if it was the only English word he knew.

  Sam soon sent Johan away, his shoulders sagging as soon as he was out of the room. “There was no point in continuing to speak with him,” Sam said, glancing over at the glass. “He was saying the same thing over and over again. We weren’t going to get anywhere.”

  I walked over to the speaker, and pressed the button down. “I was getting the same feeling. I’m concerned he was telling you what you wanted to hear.”

  Sam nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  There was a loud buzzer, and the door across from Sam opened once again, and another soldier was brought in.

  “The trouble is that it’s incredibly hard to know whether or not they are answering the questions truthfully,” the soldier behind me said. “These men have been trained to keep their expressions neutral, regardless of the questions that are asked. Even a man as intimidating as the Inspector there wouldn’t be able to frighten them.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, biting back a retort. The soldier was right, after all, and I bristled because his words were striking a fear head on. What if they were lying to Sam? What if this whole trip was a waste of time, and we would have nothing more than these prisoners’ false words to return with? We would still be at the starting line, still wondering if it was at all possible that one of them had snuck off the camp and killed Mrs. Lowell.

  Sam asked this prisoner the same questions he’d asked Johan. Had anyone broken out? Might anyone have somehow made it to the village? Did they recognize the woman in the photo?

  The prisoner answered no to them all, as did the following four prisoners that were brought in to be questioned.

  Every question that was answered with yet another no made Sam even more antsy. First the wrinkles in his forehead deepened. Then his leg began to bounce. As they escorted the sixth prisoner from the room, his hands were both balled into fists and there were patches of deep red all over his face and neck.

  “I think your inspector is simply fighting a losing battle,” the soldier behind me said, once again unsolicited. “It might be better to just give up.”

  Was he some sort of mind reader? Why was it that he continued to say all of the things that were passing through my own mind?

  I walked over to the communication box, and pressed my palm against it. “We could sit here all night, Sam, but this is not getting us anywhere.”

  Sam, who was pacing back and forth behind the table, massaging his temples, stopped. He looked up at the glass. “Every one of them was lying to me,” Sam said. “I don’t know about what, but it is quite obvious they were all trained very well. Each and every one of them.”

  “I know,” I said. “What should we do?”

  Sam glared down at the floor, rubbing the back of his thick neck. “We leave,” he said, holding his hands out in defeat. “We don’t have any other choice, do we?”

  No, we don’t…I thought. These men would likely continue to give us these same answers no matter how long we stayed.

  We apologized to the Sergeant a short while later. As I glanced at the clock on his wall, I realized that it was after midnight.

  “Well, you got what you needed, right?” he asked. “None of these men escaped. You can squash those rumors now.”

  “If I trusted what they were saying to me, I certainly would,” Sam said. “But I’m not sure I can rely on what they said.”

  Sergeant Crow was none too pleased with that response. “Inspector, I appreciate your willingness to come all the way out here, but I can assure you…without a doubt…that this camp has the highest security possible. No one has ever escaped, and no one will. Not as long as I am in charge of this operation. If you cannot take the words of the prisoners, then take mine. I trust the soldiers in my command to be vigilant and of sound mind at all times while they are serving here. The moment I see any lax behavior, the very moment…I ship them out of here back to London.”

  Sam nodded. “Very well, Sergeant. I have no reason to doubt you. You can consider those rumors extinguished, and the reputation of your camp safe.”

  “Thank you,” Sergeant Crow said, rather heavily. “And you do your part to ensure that the good people of Brookminster do not lose sleep over such a ridiculous article.”

  “I will do my best,” Sam said.

  We departed a short time later, making our way back through the fenced drive, passing through the gate, and onto the road headed back into town.

  “I’m sorry to have wasted your night,” Sam said.

  “No need to apologize,” I said. “I suppose we can rule out these prisoners as suspects now, can’t we?” I asked.

  Sam’s expression hardened. “…I suppose we can.”

  The reluctance on his face was telling me a different story.

  13

  The rest of the way home, Sam and I redirected our attention back to Mrs. Douglas, the landlady, Mr. Fenton the bookshop owner, and Miss Harmon.

  “To be honest, Mrs. Douglas has been canceling – no, pardon me, rescheduling – our meeting together all this week,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Every time I try to call her at home, she never answers. I’ve even gone by there on my way home from the station in the evenings, and she simply never seems to be there.”

  “Do you think she’s avoiding you because she is the one who killed Mrs. Lowell?” I asked.

  He sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m not entirely sure. Yes, Mrs. Douglas certainly seems like she could be the sort of woman with a personal vendetta against someone like Mrs. Lowell. After speaking to her neighbors, it’s clear that the two women did not get along very well. When Mrs. Lowell needed a place to stay after her husband died, she did very little to fulfill her end of the agreement, which was to pay Mrs. Douglas rent every four weeks. From what I was told, Mrs. Douglas was initially very kind about the price, saying the widow could pay half what her other tenants had to until she was able to get back on her feet…”

  We drove past the sign welcoming us back into Brookminster, the light from the streetlamps along the road dispelling the darkness that only nearly one in the morning was familiar with.

  “It seems that Mrs. Lowell did nothing to help herself, though. She spent much of her days holed up in her house, while litter and dirty dishes built up. Her daughter was often heard to visit her friends in the evenings, just so she could have some dinner to bring back to her mother.”

  “She was grieving, from the sound of it,” I said.

  “Yes, but even still, there is a poi
nt where the grief must be set aside, and life lived once again,” Sam said. “It seems that Mrs. Douglas gave her many chances to set the situation right, even forgiving several months worth of rent in the hopes that it would encourage Mrs. Lowell to pick herself back up…but it seems like it never happened.”

  I frowned, staring down at my hands knit together in my lap. “She allowed the grief to completely take over.”

  “Precisely,” Sam said. “So, naturally, Mrs. Douglas became angry with her, which is not entirely unreasonable. She does have bills to pay, her own family to care for. Grace for others who have experienced such terrible loss is all well and good, but coddling people is not. It’s simply debilitating. And Mrs. Douglas wasn’t going to do that, which I assume is why Evangeline told us they fought as much as they did.”

  “I imagine so, yes,” I said. “But didn’t Evangeline also say Mrs. Douglas was being rather hostile, by shutting the water off and kicking them out to have repairs done?”

  Sam sighed. “We must remember that these stories were all told from the perspective of a child. A young child, no less. We must take what she said with a grain of salt, and perhaps realize that her love for her mother and her desire to see someone brought to justice might be altering her memories of those events ever so slightly.”

  I thought back to the house, and how dilapidated it was. “I wonder if the house’s poor condition was Mrs. Lowell’s doing, and not Mrs. Douglas’s like I had thought.”

  “It very well could have been,” Sam said. “If she was neglecting it for months, so absorbed in herself that she didn’t even notice the disrepair…and if Mrs. Douglas simply wanted to ensure that the house was still in working order for them while she waited for Mrs. Lowell to come out of her stupor.”

  I exhaled sharply through my nose. “There truly are two sides to every story.”

  “Now, this business with Miss Harmon,” said Sam slowly as we turned onto High Street. All of the houses stood quietly in their rows, all of the windows dark. “I know this woman. And from what you have explained to me, you do not. Allow me to tell you who Miss Tessa Harmon actually is…”

  He slowed to a stop outside of my house, turning the bright headlights off so as to not disturb any of my neighbors, including Sidney, whose home was right beside my own.

  “That woman is a terrible gossip, but she is a great deal more like a snarling dog without any teeth,” Sam said. “I wish I could tell you the number of times I’ve heard that woman complaining about someone else, or flippantly talking in public about how much she despised someone... People have accused her of all kinds of things; theft, forgery, defamation – though that last one is true – and all of them have landed her in my office at one time or another,” he said. “I have to keep telling her to realize when it’s time to keep her mouth shut.”

  Irene had said much the same. “Is there anyone in this world she does like?” I asked.

  Sam laughed, which startled me. “Of course,” Sam said. “Men. And she moves from interest to interest as easily as if she were changing her shoes. She even made an attempt to woo me once.”

  My eyes widened. “You?”

  He looked at me, arching an eyebrow. “You can see how successful she was at that,” Sam said. “My point is that she might be interested in Mr. Fenton this week, but it is quite possible that come next week, she will be moving her advances on to someone else. She likes a challenge. As soon as Mr. Fenton starts to show any interest in return, she will forget him.”

  “I see,” I said. That certainly did seem to fit her character type. When Mr. Fenton was flat out refusing her charms at the bookshop, it seemed to only encourage her further.

  “It’s quite masochistic, isn’t it?” I asked. “Only engaging with someone who is not interested?”

  “It certainly is,” Sam said. “Now, this Mr. Fenton, you said he’s the one that owns the bookshop, yes? Quiet? Nervous all the time?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve even heard that he is terribly accident prone. Some say he’s cursed.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Cursed… The things people in this village believe,” he muttered. “The man isn’t cursed, he just has the worst luck I’ve ever seen.” He grunted. “I don’t believe in luck, either. Look, all I’m saying is that the man has a difficult time not harming himself. He doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings, from what I’ve heard, and he is quite careless. He has been the one to call the police station for help more than anyone else in this town. I hardly ever answer the call, because everyone around the station just knows him as The Catastrophe.”

  “That’s not very kind,” I said, frowning.

  Sam shrugged.

  “He seemed like a perfectly nice man when I met him,” I said. “A bit nervous, as you said, but still very amiable.”

  “Yes, but sometimes the quietest and kindest are the ones that we have to pay special attention to,” Sam said.

  “Oh come now,” I said, glowering at him. “You cannot tell me there is any truth to the idea that it’s the quiet ones who are always the troublemakers.”

  “There certainly is,” Sam said. “They are often the ones who are lost under the radar, who everyone looks over.”

  “He just doesn’t strike me as a murderer,” I said.

  “Sometimes they don’t,” Sam said. “But emotions running high can push people to do unexpected things. Crimes of passion, you know. They’re a real thing.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Besides, Evangeline was the one who told us that she overheard them fighting a great deal, right?” Sam said.

  “Yes, but I thought that was because Mrs. Lowell felt so guilty about falling in love with someone so soon after her husband died,” I said. “I wonder if Mr. Fenton and Mrs. Lowell were friends before her husband passed away.”

  “I imagine they had to have been,” Sam said. “I highly doubt a perfect stranger would want to propose to someone in the state that she was in unless he already had some feelings for her in the first place.”

  “I would have bypassed him entirely,” I said. “He just seemed so broken up over her death.”

  “A good cover,” Sam said. “Deters suspicion away from him. No matter, though. I will be following up with both of these new leads, first thing in the morning if I have any say in it.”

  He glanced out the window at the still street, and a rumble of thunder echoed far off in the distance.

  “I’m sorry that you weren’t able to get more concrete answers from those prisoners tonight,” I said.

  He shook his head. “It’s all right. I had expected as much. It’s hard to know whether or not it’s safe to trust an enemy, after all.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “I shouldn’t keep you any longer, Mrs. Lightholder,” he said. “I must admit, though, I was appreciative of your company this evening.”

  I smiled at him, finding once again that I was surprised by his actions. “I’m glad you invited me along.”

  One of his thick, dark brows arched, and a smile appeared. “I was under the impression that you invited yourself…as you so often seem to do.”

  Sheepish, I felt my face flush.

  “Well, have a good rest of your evening, Mrs. Lightholder,” Sam said. “Whatever might be left of it.”

  “You as well, Inspector Graves,” I said.

  I stepped out of the car, letting the door close behind me. I waved at him as he pulled along down the road into the night, the pools of light illuminating the car as it went.

  It was strange, in a way, having spent an entire evening like that with Sam. And he’d been perfectly pleasant. It certainly wasn’t the sort of social outing that I was used to, but it was intriguing to see Sam working the way he was. I was not surprised by his gruffness, nor his cool approach to interrogation.

  What had surprised me, though, was his gentleness toward me. There was a caring gentlemen beneath that hard exterior, and I was pleased that I was beginning to
see that in him.

  I let myself into the house, and found that my heart was light, despite what had happened that evening.

  Am I beginning to grow? I thought as I brushed my hair out of its updo, already dressed in my pajamas, my eyelids becoming heavy. Am I finally starting to move on from Roger?

  I wasn’t certain about what, exactly, I might be feeling for Sam. In a way, it was very similar to the sort of comfortableness I felt with Sidney.

  They were both very handsome, single men. If I had never met Roger, I would have been thrilled to have found either of them. Both might have made good matches for me.

  I shook my head as I shut off the light in my washroom, and made my way into the bedroom. There is no reason why I should be thinking about either of them like that, I said to myself. Neither of them has even shown any interest in me.

  I crawled into my cool, soft bed, pulling the blankets up to my shoulders.

  No, it’s better if I forget I ever thought about that, I pondered. Better for me to just protect myself.

  I dozed off that night, and for the first time in a long, long time…I didn’t dream about Roger.

  14

  The next few days passed by without so much as a peep from Sam. I half expected him to call me and let me know what his investigations unearthed, but never heard a thing.

  I realized that we must be back at square one, and that both of those leads must have come up empty.

  It was rather discouraging, thinking about having to start over completely with the investigation about Mrs. Lowell’s murder.

  The rest of the village seemed curious about the case as well. I heard more than one person come into my shop, murmuring under their breath about Mrs. Lowell and what had happened to her.

  “It’s troubling, you know,” said Mrs. Trent to me as she paid for a hat that I had redecorated with a brand new ribbon around the peak. “Wondering who this person might be who killed her.”

  I set her new hat into one of the hat boxes that I had also repurposed, having painted and adorned it with some spare sequins that had fallen off a gawdy dress that had once belonged to my aunt. “I know for certain that Inspector Graves is working very hard on the case,” I said. “He is determined to find whoever committed this crime, so that everyone in town can sleep better at night.”