by Robin Paige
But questioning Deaf John took longer than he expected. Encountering the smith on the path to the forge, he was directed to the old man’s cottage. According to the smith, the farrier (who worked under his supervision) had come to the smithy with chills and a fever that morning and had been sent back to his bed.
“Perhaps,” Charles said, “I should ask you to go with me to see him. If the man is truly deaf, I may not be able to make my questions understood.”
“Ye’ll ‘ave no trouble,” the smith said, wiping his nose on his coarse sleeve. “People think John’s simple an’ doan’t give ’im credit. But ‘e’s canny, right ’nough, an’ clever at readin’ lips. Anyway, I seen ‘is girl Meg goin’ that way, too, a little bit agon, carryin’ a pail o’ soup fer ’er faither’s lunch. She’ll ‘elp ye talk t’ ’im.”
The cottage stood at the end of a dirt lane lined by several such cottages, all rented to estate workers. The dooryard was mostly packed dirt, with the frosted remains of a few summer flowers under the window. The thatched building had only one room downstairs, with two small casement windows set into the thick walls and a Dutch door, the top half of which stood open. Looking in, Charles saw that the dim room was furnished with a table, several chairs, and a narrow bed, with a potato sack thrown down by way of hearth rug and a paraffin lamp set on the table for light.
But the room was clean-swept and neat, there was a small fire in the grate and a potted geranium on the windowsill, and the thin mattress was covered with a bright green coverlet, which had been thrown back. A stooped old graybeard whom Charles took to be Deaf John, his shoulders hunched under a blue knitted shawl, sat in a wooden chair before the fire, his large, calloused hands holding a bowl from which he was drinking a thick soup. A slight, pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen sat on a stool at his knee, a worried expression on her thin young face. She was wearing a maid’s working dress of blue stuff, covered by a white apron, and her curly brown hair was tucked under a white cap. The evident tenderness of her concern for her father warmed Charles’s heart, and he was hesitant to intrude. But he had come here to question the old man, and question he must.
He cleared his throat quietly, so as not to startle the girl. Even so, she whirled around, her mouth falling open at the sight of a stranger in the doorway. “I’m sorry to have frightened you, Meg.” He took off his hat. “My name is Charles Sheridan. I’ve come to—”
The girl’s brown eyes became very large, the eyes of a frightened doe, and the freckles showed against the sudden pallor of her cheeks. “Yer th’ one wot’s doin’ th’ investigatin’?” she asked in a small, frightened voice that was barely more than a whisper. “Wot d’ye want wi’ me? I doan’t know anything.”
He smiled to allay her fears. “My business is with your father,” he said, opening the bottom half of the door and stepping in. The old man, gray hair straggling on either side of his weathered face, was watching him intently. “I understand that you can help me communicate with him.”
The girl looked at her father, trading fright for worry. “But ‘e doan’t know anything neither, sir. ’E took bad sick this mornin’ an’ can’t work. ‘E’s bin right ’ere, either lyin’ in bed er sittin’ in front o’ th’ fire, since arter breakfast. Why, ‘e ain’t even ’eard ’bout Lord Wallace gettin’ shot.”
Charles was not surprised at the speed with which news traveled on the estate. He suspected that rumor of Wallace’s murder had reached the Lodge before the messenger left for Chelmsford. And in spite of the Prince’s concern for secrecy, the news had by now reached the far outskirts of the Park and was on its way to Dunmow.
“It is not about Lord Wallace’s death that I wish to inquire,” he said, and was startled by the sudden and involuntary relief that flooded the girl’s face. Struck by the idea that she knew something, he was about to question her. But he caught himself. Kate—a woman, and less intimidating—would be better able to persuade the girl to reveal anything she might know. “I have been told that your father saw someone coming out of the stable yesterday morning, about the time the Prince’s groom was killed. Will you ask him if that is so?”
Deaf John put his hand on his daughter’s arm, made a gruff sound, and nodded vigorously.
“‘E’s sayin’ ’e wants t’ tell ye wot he knows,” she said nervously. “‘E read yer lips, ye see, sir, although sometimes it’s better if I ask ’im, too, t’ make sure ‘e’s got it right.”
“Does he know the name of the person he saw coming out of the barn?”
The girl put her lips close to her father’s ear and shouted. “ ‘E wants t’know ‘oo ’twas, Dad. D‘ye know ’is name?”
The old man shook his head, then grasped the shawl, lifted it and settled it again on his shoulders, saying something that sounded to Charles like a harsh, confused garble.
“‘Twere a person in a cloak, ’e says,” the girl interpreted. She seemed to Charles to be less apprehensive about this subject.
“A man or a woman?”
Another shout, another garble. The old man pointed at Charles’s boots.
“‘Twere a man, by ’is boots,” she said. The old man said something, amplified by signs and gestures. “Black boots,” the girl went on, watching her father. “Dad doan’t know ‘is name, but ’e owns a big gray mare.” There was another consultation, and she added, “A big gray mare wi’ a new shoe on ‘er left ’ind foot.”
“Thank you,” Charles said, inwardly exultant. With such a clear description, it should be easy enough to discover the cloaked man’s name. He was thanking her for her help when a shadow blotted the light from the door.
“‘Do’s ’ere?” a man’s voice inquired, with rough concern. “ ‘Tain’t th’ doctor, is’t? ’E ain’t took that bad, I ‘ope.”
“Marsh!” Meg exclaimed, and jumped to her feet, her eyes going from Charles to the other with a return of the fear Charles had seen earlier. “No, no, ‘tain’t th’ doctor,” she said hurriedly. “Dad’s eat up all ’is soup an’s ready fer ‘is nap. ’E’ll be back t’work termorrer, sure. So ye doan’t need t’ stay.”
Marsh, a surly, pock-faced young man wearing the green and gold livery of a footman, looked a little surprised at her sudden dismissal. He dropped an armload of wood beside the fire and brushed the bark off his sleeve. “Th’ smith wants ‘im back termorrer? I doan’t think so.” He raised his voice and bent over the old man. “Ye wants t’ stay i’ bed another day er twa, ol’ John,” he shouted. “They kin do without ye at th’ forge.” He lowered his voice and added, to the girl, “Lit’le as they pay, they’ll scarcely miss ‘im.” He turned to face Charles, his eyes angrily slitted. “An’ ’oo be ye?”
“It’s all right, Marsh,” the girl said. With an obvious effort at intervention, she stepped between them. “ ‘E’s only somebody ’er ladyship sent to—”
“Yer th’ one ‘oo’s doin’ th’ job fer th’ police, ain’t ye?” Marsh asked belligerently. He pulled his black brows together and thrust out his jaw. “Well, ye might as well git yersel’ gone, then. This ’ome’s private. There’s nothin’ t’ be learnt ’ere.”
Meg touched the young man’s sleeve. “It’s all right, Marsh,” she repeated. “Th’ gentl‘man’s done ’is askin’ an’ he’s leavin‘.” When Marsh did not respond, she leaned closer and added, so low that Charles had to strain to hear, “ ’E was only askin’ ’bout th’ stableboy.”
“I doan’t like it, Meg,” Marsh muttered. The glance he cast at Charles was half fight, half fear. “I doan’t like ‘is bein’ ’ere, snoopin’ in pore folks’ bus’ness.”
The young man was something less than one-and-twenty, Charles thought. It was unusual for a footman-Meg’s brother, was he, or her sweetheart?—to be so bellicose. At Somersworth, in the lifetime of his father, such an attitude would have been grounds for instant dismissal with a bad character. But times were changing, and with them the demeanor of the servants. Their submissive obedience was giving way to a natural and irrepressible wis
h to better themselves and, when that wish was thwarted, a sullen resentment. That, he suspected, was what lay behind the young man’s antagonism. If Marsh were in his employ, some more challenging and interesting work would have to be found for him, with opportunities for advancement.
He bowed to the old man, nodded at Meg and Marsh, and went to the door. “Thank you for your help,” he said.
“Yer welcome,” Meg said, with an attempt at civility. Marsh growled something unintelligible, and they both turned back toward the fire and the old man.
Charles retraced his steps to the smithy, a three-sided stone building with a tiled roof, as dark as a cave. The roof and walls were black with the soot of the many coal fires that had been built in the enormous stone forge at the back, and the place rang with the infernal clanging of the smith’s heavy hammer. The air was acrid with coal smoke and the smell of the hot oil that was used for tempering. Walking into the place was like walking into the devil’s den.
On one side of the forge, Charles saw a sturdy boy of hardly more than twelve, pumping a large ox-hide bellows fixed flat to the dirt floor. The bellows directed a stream of air into the furnace, fanning the hungry flames. On the other side of the forge, the smith was bent over an anvil, punching holes in a hot ox shoe he was fashioning from an iron bar. Behind him stood the huge beast, docile in the elaborate leather and canvas sling that supported his weight while the smithy shod him, one hoof at a time. The smith, a burly man in a leather apron, his face blackened with coal smudge, looked up as Charles approached.
“Git wot ye was after?” he asked, with a certain familiarity. Charles had long ago noticed the easy address of craftsmen, whose skill and experience seemed to give them the right to speak as an equal to almost anyone. With the skill of long practice, the smith picked up the hot shoe with his forge tongs, turned swiftly to hoist the ox’s right foreleg, and applied the shoe against the horny wall of the hoof. There was a great sizzle and smoke, but the animal stood compliant as before, appearing not to notice.
“I made a start,” Charles said. He waited until the smith had finished putting in the nails, nipped them off, clinched them over, and dropped the beast’s leg. “I wonder,” he said. “Do you know the name of a man whose large gray mare has a new left hind shoe? I should like to interview him.”
The smith seemed to find this funny. Chuckling broadly, he took another piece of metal and, placing it on the forge, waited for it to glew red. Motioning to the boy to increase the rhythm of the hissing, wheezing bellows, he said, “Ye wud, eh? Well, sir, I doubt ye’ll be interviewin’ ‘im anytime soon.”
Charles raised his voice. “And why is that?” he asked, over the roar of the forge.
“Because ‘e’s dead, that’s why. ’E’s th’ gentl‘man ’oo was found shot this mornin’” The smith picked up his hammer and began to pound the glowing metal. “Lay t’ it, boy!” he shouted over the ringing of iron on iron. “Lay t’ it, m’fine lad!”
Outside the forge and down the path, it was so quiet that Charles could hear the dry leaves rustling. So Reginald Wallace had been in the stable around the time of the boy’s death. Did this fact suggest that Wallace himself was the killer, and his murder an act of revenge by one of the servants ? Or was he a witness, murdered to keep him from revealing what he knew?
He was some distance away from the forge before he suddenly remembered something he should have dealt with prior to any interviews. He took out the folded paper Kate had given him, which she had pulled from Wallace’s pocket as he lay on the ground. He opened it and scanned the page quickly. When he finished reading it, he had a firm grasp of the direction in which this investigation must proceed.
But it was a revelation that brought him no joy.
17
Love, pain, and money cannot be kept secret. They soon betray themselves.
—Spanish proverb
To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.
-HENRY WARD BEECHER
It was already lunchtime, and Winnie Wospottle had not yet recovered her customary good humor, so sharp had been her disappointment of the evening before. Remembering Lawrence with pleasure from the dear old days in Brighton, she had fully expected him to accept her invitation to join her in the laundry room. With that expectation, she had arranged the cozy corner behind the hot water boiler with all the care which a lady, anticipating a clandestine visit from her lover, might lavish on her boudoir.
Winnie was a resourceful woman. When she first arrived at Easton, she had made it her business to learn what was available in the kitchens, pantries, closets, cupboards, still-rooms, butteries, game larder, and wine cellar. In Winnie’s considered opinion, this plenty was free for the taking, as long as she kept a vigilant eye out for Buffle, the house steward, who was reputed to glue pieces of felt on the soles of his shoes so that he might step noiselessly in the halls. Even when she had nothing special to celebrate, she regularly availed herself of the abundance, just to keep in practice.
On this occasion, Winnie had already filched a dozen sprigs of hothouse stephanotis and some stems of fern from the fragrant vases in the pantry, standing ready to be distributed to the bedrooms upstairs. While Buffle was counting the plate, she purloined two crystal goblets from the sparkling rows arrayed on the shelves, reasoning (rightly) that with so many goblets displayed, two would not be missed. And while the undercook was scolding the scullery maid for inattention to the floor, she made off with half a baked chicken, a plate of cucumber sandwiches, and a dish of crystallized fruits. A bottle of fine French wine from the cellar completed her acquisitions.
The plunder safely transported to the ironing room, Winnie hung a sheet behind the boiler to screen off the corner, draped a board with a lace tablecloth and centered it with the flowers and a pair of candles, and fluffed up the down pillows that made a soft, warm bed behind the hot water boiler. Surveying her seraglio, she was entirely pleased. Full of warm anticipation, she went off to her attic bedroom to ready herself for an evening of revel in the servants’ hall.
The festive evening, however, had come to a fruitless and bitter conclusion. The fickle Lawrence danced but once with her and was then lured away by a brazen young girl named Amelia, lady’s maid to the red-haired American woman, who seemed to think she had some sort of claim on his affections. And even though Winnie went alone to the ironing room and comforted herself with wine, baked chicken, cucumber sandwiches, and candied fruits, all she earned thereby was a headache and a bellyache, causing her to miss breakfast and further adding to her surliness. By lunchtime, working like fury, she had overseen the washing and hanging of a dozen baskets of towels and linens and had personally fed two dozen sheets through the mangle, which she did not trust the maids to operate. She was hot and cross, and the discovery that she was to be in the second shift at table (there being too many servants to seat all at once) destroyed what remained of her disposition. By the time she sat down to lunch and heard about Lord Wallace’s death and the Prince’s command to cooperate with the investigators he had appointed, she was in a fine stew.
“Wot’s wrong wi’ th’ constable, I wants t’ know,” she demanded truculently. “Why is’t we got t‘ave some ’ightoned nob askin’ us questions?”
“Ye won’t be answerin’ t’ a nob, Winn,” said Wickett, the bandy-legged coachman. He grinned mischievously. “A lady nob is ’oo ye gits t’ talk to.”
“Not that, neither,” said Marjorie, an iron-faced undercook whose reputation for temper was second to none, not even to that of Winnie herself. She added, in an acid tone, “‘Tis th’ red-haired American ’ooman. She’s already ‘ard at it, in th’ mornin’ room. Arter lunch, th’ upstairs maids are t’ line up, six at a time, as they’re called. She’ll call fer us later.”
“Th’ American?” Winnie asked, affronted and dumbly amazed. “Why, she’s not even a lady! She ’as no rank wotsomever.”
“Ooh, aye,” said Marjorie, becoming increasingly inflamed. She jerked a
stained and calloused thumb in the direction of Amelia, who was seated a little way downtable, next to Lawrence. “ ‘Er miss.”
Winnie’s amazement turned to disgust. She glared at Amelia. “Be careful wot ye say, then,” she said to Marjorie, and added, with the force of inspiration, “I don’t doubt she’s a spy.”
Wickett leaned over to look downtable. “A spy?” he asked incredulously. “Why, she’s jes’ a lit‘le thing, no bigger’ n a mite. Pretty, too, ’f ye ask my ’pinion.”
Marjorie’s fancy had been tweaked by Winnie’s assertion, and she curled her lip at Wickett. “Pretty she may be, but she’s cert‘n’y a spy,” she said with conviction. “A spy fer ‘er mistress, is wot she is. I read ’bout spies in a story once. They listen t’ secrets, then run upstairs an’ snitch t’ their mistress.” She raised herself off the wooden bench in order to get a look at Lawrence. “D‘ye s’pose ’e’s another one?” she asked in a shrill stage whisper.
“Now, I wudn’t doubt that,” Wickett growled vindictively. He had lost a bob to Lawrence that morning when the Daimler had completed the round-trip run to Chelmsford in something under two hours and thirty minutes and he was still smarting. “Lookit ’is eyes. Shifty-like, wudn’t ye say?”
“Foxy eyes,” Winnie agreed. She raised her voice so it could be heard the length of the table. “Watch yer tongues. There’s spies among us. Don’t tell no secrets.”
A sudden hush fell over the table, as all eyes turned questioningly to Winnie. Peyton, the bootblack, who was reputed to have a level head, looked up with a frown.
“Shudn’t think we’d ‘ave a spy ’ere,” he said mildly. “‘ Oo d’ye mean?”
Winnie might have spoken, but Marjorie, whose excitement had been growing by the moment, jumped to her feet.
“‘Tis them!” she cried, pointing her knife at Lawrence and Amelia. “Them two. Spies!”
Amelia looked one way, then another, confused. “Spies?” she cried, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh, no!”