A Fatal Secret

by Faith Martin

  Clement soberly agreed that spending money that wasn’t yours was indeed stealing, pretending not to see the crestfallen look on the lad’s face at this unwelcome piece of news. ‘So what did Eddie say when Emily said that?’

  ‘He said it should be “finders keepers losers weepers”. Which is all right, isn’t it,’ George said, nodding firmly. Clearly he had no doubts about this iron-clad rule, and Clement didn’t want to get on the lad’s wrong side by explaining the rather dubious merits of this axiom when it came to the finer points of the law.

  ‘Did you hear where they found it? Whatever this treasure was?’ he asked, but at this, Master George shook his head vigorously.

  ‘No, ’fraid not, or I might have loo…’ He suddenly flushed as he realised that he was about to admit to something that Nanny might have spanked him for, had she known about it. ‘They saw me then, and changed the subject,’ he said instead.

  ‘Hard lines,’ Clement said, and meant it. He’d have liked to know more about this intriguing incident. So far, it was the only sniff of a real motive they had. If Eddie’s death had indeed been murder.

  ‘You were at the Easter egg hunt, weren’t you?’ Clement said, but just then he heard the door open behind him, and with a sinking heart, could guess just what was coming next.

  ‘Master George!’ Mrs Roper roared, and the little lad wasn’t the only one to jump. ‘What have I told you about talking to strangers? Come in at once! Nanny has been looking for you. You haven’t finished your geography lesson.’

  George shot them an agonised glance, muttered ‘sorry’ and promptly scampered back inside.

  Clement and Trudy watched him go, weathered the venomous look the housekeeper shot at them, and then watched as the door was slammed shut with a resounding bang!

  Trudy let our her breath in a whoosh. ‘Poor little tyke. I hope he doesn’t get in any trouble,’ she added kind-heartedly.

  ‘I doubt it. I imagine he’s quite good at looking out for himself, is Master George,’ Clement said with a grin, remembering the lad’s way with winsome looks. ‘So, what do you make of his tale of his sister and Eddie finding treasure?’ he asked.

  By unspoken mutual consent, they began to stroll around the gardens, keeping to the paths and admiring the handiwork of Mr Cricklade and his small gang of gardeners as they went. Forsythia bushes were in full bloom, their yellow stems complimenting the massed beds of tulips and daffodils, and in the rose beds, the prickly, pruned bushes were beginning to show red leaves.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Trudy said. ‘Eddie and Emily may just have been playing a game of “what if”. You know – “what if I were rich”. You’d then go on to list all the things you’d do or buy. It’s the sort of game nippers might make up.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe,’ Clement said, not sounding convinced.

  ‘You don’t think they really found buried treasure, do you?’ Trudy asked with a smile.

  ‘Depends on what you mean by treasure,’ Clement said. ‘We know both children were curious and among other things, liked to play at spies. And we know Emily, for one, is a very intelligent child. Who knows what they might have found whilst playing one of their games?’

  Trudy looked around. They were crossing a lawn, and in the distance, she could see the sheen of silver through the trees – and guessed it was sunlight on the lake. The whole estate was an ideal playground for children, with plenty of spaces for hiding and maybe eavesdropping on people or observing their actions.

  They were rounding the area now where the formal gardens made way for more landscaped grounds. In the distance, Trudy could see a grey domed roof and suspected some folly or summerhouse. Without consciously thinking about it, she turned her steps in that direction.

  ‘Do you think it’s possible someone was giving the children money?’ she asked quietly, not liking the way her thoughts were going. ‘You know… Perhaps they stumbled on a courting couple who’– aware that she was probably blushing now, Trudy kept her face turned resolutely away from her friend – ‘may have had reasons of their own for slipping them a bob or two to keep quiet about what they’d seen. Especially if one, or even both of them, had been married. To other people, I mean.’

  Beside her, Clement bit back a smile. ‘Yes. Perhaps.’

  ‘And don’t forget, to children, very little could feel like a fortune. If I’d found tuppence when I was their age, I’d think I was rich.’

  ‘But you’d probably know it wasn’t enough to buy a bicycle and a pair of skates,’ Clement pointed out.

  Trudy frowned. ‘But if someone was paying them serious money… Clement, you can’t really think the children could have been blackmailing someone, do you?’

  Clement sighed. ‘It’s not a nice thought, is it?’

  ‘No! And I don’t really think it’s a feasible one either. I know I’ve never met Eddie Proctor, but from all we’ve learned about him, he seems a nice, straightforward sort of little boy.’

  ‘Not a wrong ’un, as they say?’ Clement mused.

  ‘No. And what’s more, I think his parents would have raised him to know right from wrong,’ Trudy insisted stubbornly.

  Clement nodded. He too, didn’t much like the idea that Vincent’s son might have been caught up in something ugly. And yet… somebody had wanted the lad dead.

  ‘I take it we’re agreed then that the boy was murdered?’ he asked softly. ‘And that we should proceed under that assumption?’

  They had stepped off the gravelled walkway now, and were following a mulched path through the trees. Ahead, a pale white solid shape told them that they were reaching the summerhouse in the trees.

  ‘Yes. I think so,’ Trudy agreed. ‘I’m not sure why – but it just doesn’t feel as if died in an accident.’

  ‘In which case, there has to be a motive,’ Clement pointed out with unanswerable logic. ‘We know he wasn’t interfered with, so we’re not looking for some sexual deviant. And there was no evidence of domestic abuse. So what does that leave us with?’

  Trudy felt her eyes smart, and quickly shook her head. ‘I just don’t want to think…’ But it was no good. Her throat began to clog and she knew she couldn’t say her ugly thoughts out loud.

  ‘That the lad might have been doing something wrong and got mixed up in something that helped contribute to his own death?’ Clement obliged, by doing it for her. ‘No. It’s sick-making, isn’t it.’

  ‘Yes. And I still don’t believe it’s true,’ she insisted stubbornly.

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Clement said heavily. ‘Because if not… you must see what that means?’

  Trudy blinked, looked at him, thought about it for a moment, and then suddenly went pale. ‘Oh no! Emily!’ she whispered, aghast. ‘You can be sure that whatever Eddie knew, she did too!’ Which meant yet another child could be in danger.

  Just then, the trees – mainly beech, elms, and a few scattered hazels – receded, leaving an open area, in which had been built a large, hexagonal structure. A vista had been cleared in front of it to give it a view of the lake. Wild woodbine grew up the trellis attached to the walls, and a white-painted veranda surrounded it on all sides.

  ‘Oh, how lovely!’ Trudy said, her dark thoughts momentarily chased away by the romance of the scene.

  Clement too, looked at it, but with far more thoughtful eyes. ‘It looks in very good shape for a mere pagoda,’ he mused, beginning to circle around it. The grey slate roof was immaculate, as was the woodwork. The windows were sparkling clean and… yes. He could see where a small stovepipe chimney had been set in one wall.

  By the time they’d walked to the front, he could see that the building’s only door was quite sturdy, and firmly shut. And that, off to one side and half-hidden in the laurel was an old-fashioned privvy.

  Just then, the door opened and a large shuffling figure stepped out onto the wooden planking that led to the two shallow front steps.

  ‘Hello. It’s Lallie isn’t it?’ Trudy said, dredging her memory for his n
ame from their previous talk with the head gardener. The last time she’d seen him, this man had been training pear trees against a south-facing wall.

  What was it Mr Cricklade had said? He was a bit simple?

  ‘Hello, miss,’ he said, sounding and looking surprised to see them.

  It was Clement who caught on first. ‘You live here, Mr… er…?’

  ‘Clark, sir. But everyone calls me Lallie,’ he said. ‘Yes, this my ’ome.’

  He was a big man, Trudy noted, who rather gave one the impression of being soft and fat, which was, in fact, rather misleading. Perhaps it was his voluminous, obviously hand-me-down clothes that gave that impression, or the way he shuffled about with slightly stooped shoulders, as if he was constantly caught in the attitude of apologising for something.

  ‘Hello, Lallie,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re sorry for the intrusion. We didn’t know you lived here,’ she said, nodding at his unusual home.

  ‘Oh, ar, ’ave done ever since comin’ home from the war,’ Lallie said, his face lifting in a smile as he looked around. ‘Didn’t always used to. Dad was a cowman on the farm before he died, and then Mum stayed on in the cottage. But when I come home, vicar told me she’d been took, see, the winter afore. New-monia, he said. And the squire had rented out the cottage to som’un else.’

  ‘Oh no! How awful,’ Trudy said. What a thing to come home to! This poor soul had probably lived in the village, man and boy, and had joined up, no doubt with all the others of his generation, to fight in the trenches. And when he returned…

  ‘Ar – miss me old mum, I do,’ Lallie agreed peaceably. ‘So anyways, vicar, he says let me have a word with the squire, like, and next thing I knows, Mr de Lacey asks me if I wanna live here.’ He turned and nodded at his modest home. ‘He said I could use anything I needed to do it up, like. Tools and wood and whatnot. Let me have a good look round the sheds and the like. I found me a nice little old wood-burner stove, and fixed her up right good.’

  ‘You’ve done a fine job,’ Clement agreed, and meant it. He could see the old wooden structure was perfectly weatherproof and well cared for, with a fresh coat of paint, and new putty around the windowpanes to help keep out the draughts.

  ‘Old Cook, she found an old gas stove in the storerooms I could have, and a brass bed was found in the attic up at the Hall, which fits right nice against the far wall. People were right nice to me, they were.’ He beamed a smile. ‘Folks are nice, if you give ’em a chance, my old mum always said, and she was right. Do you wanna come in for a cup of tea? I have a pump that Mr Cricklade said draws water from the underground spring that feeds the lake.’

  ‘Oh thank you, but we don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Trudy said. And not because she had any qualms about drinking the water. Somehow she just felt it would be wrong to step into this man’s humble home. ‘We were just up at the Hall. Talking to Mr de Lacey about that poor boy who died.’

  ‘Ah. Bad business that,’ Lallie said, shaking his head. His mop of unruly brown hair probably hadn’t been cut properly since his army days. ‘I showed him a nest once, that a pair of throstles had built in an old teapot up in a damson hedge.’

  Trudy hadn’t heard of thrushes being called by their old English country name of throstles since she was a girl in pigtails and short skirts. ‘I’ll bet he liked that. Did he collect birds’ eggs?’ she asked amiably.

  ‘Dunno.’ Lallie shrugged his shoulders. Then he smiled. ‘Nippers were always here and there, playing cowboys and injuns and what have you. I made ’em a trolley once, from some old pram wheels and a bit o’ wood and string. Made Miss Emily squeal, it did, when they went down the hill.’

  ‘We’ve just been talking to her and her father,’ Trudy said softly.

  ‘Ah. Dare say squire’s not happy with that there well,’ Lallie said heavily. ‘Never said nuffing to me about making sure it was covered up though, honest,’ he added quickly.

  ‘We’re all clever with hindsight,’ Clement said sadly. ‘I have no doubt, if he could go back in time, Mr de Lacey would have made sure it was safe.’

  Lallie again shrugged his shoulders. ‘I ’appen as he would, an’ all,’ he agreed heavily. ‘Squire be all right, in his own way. But private like. Very private,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘Don’t do to cross the squire, it don’t,’ he added.

  And then, with an abruptness that took them both a little by surprise, he suddenly came down the two steps and set off into the woods. ‘Got to get on, or Mr Cricklade will tell me I’ve been shilly-shallyin’ and whatnot,’ he called back by way of explanation, over his shoulder. ‘Mind you keep to the paths then!’ was his final admonition, before he disappeared from view.

  Chapter 20

  ‘We’d best keep to the paths then.’ Clement grinned at Trudy as they turned and began to make their way back towards the car.

  Trudy grinned back for a moment, but then her face fell again, as her mind continued to worry over a very nasty thought that just wouldn’t go away.

  ‘Dr Ryder, do you think Eddie might have been lured to the well with a promise of money?’ she asked quietly. ‘Regardless of what all this talk of treasure was about, it might explain what he was doing at the well in the first place.’

  ‘Hmmm. It’s possible. All kids like the thought of money.’

  Trudy sighed. That was true enough. When you were just a kid, the desire for money wasn’t really anything truly venal because you simply didn’t really have any concept of greed as a good or bad thing. To your young self, money was just another one of those things that belonged to the mysterious world of grown-ups that you didn’t really understand. If you had it, for instance, you would spend all day at the fair, or the cinema, or go to the sweet shop and buy bags and bags of goodies. (Unlike grown-ups, who seemed reluctant to spend it at all!) And if you didn’t have any pocket money – which you mostly didn’t – you then promptly forgot all about it and found something else to do that didn’t require money at all.

  But a promise of money would always be alluring and could pretty much guarantee a kid’s compliance. ‘Well, there are plenty of people with money in this case.’ Trudy sighed heavily. ‘Any one of the de Lacey family for a start – either the squire or his cousin. And Marjorie is loaded with it! Did you see all that jewellery she wore?’

  Clement laughed. ‘How could I miss it? But as you’ve already pointed out, we needn’t be talking serious wealth here anyway. A boy of Eddie’s age could have been lured with a promise of a shilling.’

  Trudy sighed over this sad truism.

  ‘Anyway, let’s not get too sidetracked with this talk of treasure,’ the coroner advised. ‘Remember the source. Nippers of George’s age can get things wrong or misunderstand things. But we do need to get back to the parents and see if Eddie had been unusually flush lately.’

  ‘It might be a better idea to talk to his brothers and sisters,’ Trudy warned. ‘If Eddie did have some money, he might have kept it hidden it from his parents.’

  ‘All right. You go and talk to them,’ Clement said, ‘but go carefully. Kids can sometimes surprise you by how resilient they are, but even so, they’ll still be mourning their loss. But aren’t you supposed to interview minors only with their parents present? Mind you, it’s unlikely they’ll rat Eddie out in front of their mum and dad if he did have some spending money stashed away.’

  Trudy smiled. ‘I was thinking that I might just sort of bump into them on their way home from school for their lunch and have a chat.’

  Clement mock-sorrowfully shook his head. ‘Probationary WPC Loveday,’ he said, in sad, slightly scandalised tones. ‘Are you becoming corrupted in your cynical old age?’

  Trudy smiled. ‘No, sir. I’m just using what the sergeant calls my initiative,’ she shot back promptly.

  ‘Oh. That’s all right then.’ He grinned.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘I’m going to talk to the cook up at the Hall,’ Clement said
. ‘I want to learn more about the dragon who guards the de Lacey den.’

  Trudy shrugged. She didn’t quite see why the coroner was so interested in Mrs Roper. True, she seemed a bit fierce in her family loyalty, but some old retainers were just like that. And she certainly couldn’t see why she would want to murder a village child – even if he did have the temerity to become friends with Emily de Lacey!

  Chapter 21

  Mrs Hilda Verney was slightly surprised by the visitor to her kitchen. For a start, she was not used to distinguished-looking gentlemen simply wandering through her kitchen door via the rear entrance. Nor was she keen on having her daily routine interrupted without good reason. But her initial suspicion was very quickly overcome when he introduced himself.

  She hadn’t gone to the inquest herself, but she had read the newspaper reports of little Eddie Proctor’s death. How could she not? It would be the gossip of the village for decades to come. And one of the reporters, who’d obviously done his homework, had given a brief résumé of the coroner in his report, which included the fact that he’d been a renowned surgeon of many years’ standing, before his change of occupation.

  And like a lot of rural, working-class people, Mrs Verney held doctors – and surgeons in particular – in very high regard. Add that to the cut and quality of his suit, his air of power and authority, and his rich, very educated voice, and Mrs Verney was soon reassured as to his bona fides.

  Besides which, the head of the house had informed all the staff that they might run into this man in the Hall or the village, and if he were to ask them any questions about Eddie Proctor’s accident, they were to cooperate with him fully.

  Naturally, this had led to wild speculation belowstairs as to what it might all mean, but the boot boy had said with confidence that it was all down to Vincent Proctor. The lad had been lurking outside the study when the farmworker had asked the squire to make sure that a proper investigation into Eddie’s death would be done, and he had quickly spread it around belowstairs.