Death at Gallows Green

by Robin Paige

Eleanor bit her lip. “Because I fear that when I returned the jewels I failed to lock the safe. I was in a great hurry to dress for dinner, and Mama’s footman came in with a message just as I was putting the emeralds back. He distracted me with a question and I left the room without assuring myself that the safe was locked.”

  Kate frowned. “Do you then suspect the footman?”

  “Lawrence?” Eleanor’s lavender eyes clouded. “I fear I must. I am very sorry, for he has been at the manor for seven years and has been a help to me on many occasions. Two years ago in London, I was involved in a rather foolish liaison. Lawrence carried messages for me and kept my confidence when he might easily have betrayed me to Mama for his advantage. Since then, I have felt obliged to him, and would hate to see him sent up on charges on my account.” She put her hand on Kate’s arm. “Can you not see why I feel such a terrible responsibility? If I did not close the safe properly, I placed temptation in Lawrence’s way. I may have caused his downfall.”

  “If it is true that the footman took the jewels,” Kate said gently, “the moral fault is his, not yours. Have you taken your suspicions to your father or to your brother Bradford?”

  At the mention of Bradford, Eleanor pulled herself upright. “I am sorry to say that my brother and I have not been on the best of terms of late. And as for speaking to my father—” She paused. “I will, of course, if I must. But I hoped that you might be able to help.”

  “I?” Kate was surprised. “How could I help?”

  Eleanor’s shoulders lifted helplessly. “I am not at all sure,” she said. “I was hoping that perhaps you might discover whether Lawrence took the jewels, and if he did, how he disposed of them. If redeeming them is not too costly, I may be able to persuade Mr. Fairley to assist. I’ve come to you because I know that it was through your investigations that the murderer of your aunt was brought to justice, and I thought—”

  “I very much fear, Ellie,” Kate broke in, “that you overestimate my abilities. In any event, I do not see how I might have the opportunity to do the kind of investigation required in this case. I think you must speak with your father or your brother about this matter, and let them handle it.”

  Eleanor looked crestfallen. “I suppose you’re right. But I did so hope—You’re sure, Kate?”

  “I have a great interest in mysteries,” Kate said firmly, thinking of Beryl Bardwell. “But I am no detective. I fear you must pursue this without my assistance, Ellie.” She smiled and deliberately changed the subject. “I trust that your disagreement with your brother is not serious.”

  Eleanor fanned herself. “Probably not.” Her mercurial face brightened and her voice became lighter. “Do you know that he has a romantic interest in you?”

  “I doubt that it is a serious interest,” Kate said, matching the lightness of her friend’s tone. She had long since come to terms with the fact that she was not a beauty. Her face and figure were presentable and her mop of mahogany hair attractive when she bothered to comb and dress it properly (which she did not always do). But she spurned the social arts of flattery and flirtation and said what she .thought without worrying much about how it might be received. Hers was not a style that readily attracted lovers, who seemed to wish for more compliance than she was willing to offer. And to tell the truth, she was glad, for she had not met many men, either American or British, whose romantic attentions she would welcome. If spinsterhood was the price for her independence, she was more than ready to pay it.

  “It may be more serious than you think,” Eleanor said with a mysterious smile. “And have you heard from our mutual friend, Sir Charles Sheridan? Did you know that he has returned from Paris and is staying at Marsden Manor?”

  “I had not heard,” Kate replied casually, not betraying her interest. Before leaving for Paris, Sir Charles had called twice. They had walked among the ruins on the other side of the lake, where he had found a rare species of bat that interested him greatly. She found him quite attractive and enjoyed his company—had indeed almost thought that he might be a man whose attentions she could welcome. But something told her that it was the bats that brought him to Bishop’s Keep, rather than an interest in her. Now, thinking of Sir Charles and remembering his investigative skills, Kate said, “You might speak to Sir Charles about your mother’s jewels, Ellie.”

  Eleanor brightened. “What a splendid idea! Mr. Fairley and I will be going back to the manor on Monday to spend the week. Mama is planning a garden party to introduce him to the neighbourhood.”

  “Yes, I know,” Kate said. “I’ve been invited.”

  “I can’t be sure, of course,” Eleanor went on in a teasing tone, “but I suspect that both Sir Charles and Bradford are interested in you. Tell me, Kate. Which do you prefer?”

  Kate returned Eleanor’s teasing with a deliberately arch smile. “Oh, come, now, Ellie. Sir Charles is interested only in my bats. And your brother has spent most of the past few months in London immersed in his automobile investments. Faced with such masculine preoccupations, what is a woman to do? I think I shall not prefer at all, but remain exactly as I am, unmarried and independent, answering neither to a baron-to-be nor to a knight who loves bats.”

  Eleanor shook her head in despair. “Oh, Kate, you are so wicked. Whatever shall I do with you?”

  “Yes,” Kate said decisively, “I am very wicked and very unmarried. And I intend to stay that way.”

  9

  In all good fairy tales, the princess is transformed by a fairy godmother, or a hidden identity is brought to light, or a magical animal brings wealth and happiness. It was thus for the shy young woman of Bolton Gardens, who was transformed by the magical animals she loved and brought to life, and for the children who will forever after treasure her work.

  —SARAH TISDELL

  The Magic of Imagination

  It was raining the next afternoon at the hour that Kate had agreed to walk with Bea. A little while before their appointed time, she went in search, expecting to find her room on the third floor where the visitors’ servants were put up—or in the garret, where Bea’s ward was no doubt confined. But Kate was surprised when the maid of whom she inquired told her that the room was on the second floor, near the head of the stairs. When she knocked and was bade to enter and did, she was surprised again. Not only was the room on the wrong floor, it was far too handsomely furnished and decorated to be that of a servant. It was hung with rose damask draperies and contained a four-poster bed, carved mahogany furniture, and a blazing fire in the fireplace. And there was no madwoman mumbling insanities in a corner. Instead, stretched out on the hearthrug, in drowsy repose, lay the white rabbit Kate had apprehended yesterday.

  “Hello,” Bea said, looking up from the sketch pad in her lap, on which she was working in pencil. On the table in front of her sat a small creature, quiet and complacent enough, but with a prickly coat as rough-bristled as a scrub brush and a black snout almost like that of a small pig. “I should have come to find you in a moment or two,” she added. “It is much too wet to walk out, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it is,” Kate said. “I would rather enjoy the rainy afternoon by looking out the window.” As she came forward, a brown mouse with large black eyes peeped out from beneath Bea’s skirt. “Excuse me,” Kate said urgently, and backed up a step. “There’s a mouse under your skirt!”

  “Oh, dear.” But instead of jumping onto the chair and shrieking, as Kate might have expected, Bea pulled her skirt aside and looked down. “Hunca Munca,” she scolded, “get back in your house. Can’t you see we have a visitor?” When the mouse still sat blinking beadily at her, she scooped it up, rose, and popped it into a small wire cage on the window sill. “You shall have a bit of cheese if you are polite,” she said.

  “But if you persist in making a nuisance of yourself, you shall be put to bed without any tea.”

  Kate was so astonished that she could only stare. “Do you often talk to mice?” she managed finally.

  “It depends upo
n whether I have anything to say. I more often talk to hedgehogs.” Bea went to the table and picked up the prickly creature, which snuggled into her hand.

  Kate stepped forward. “What a funny creature,” she said, extending a finger. “What is its name?”

  “Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle,” Bea said.

  Kate couldn’t help smiling. So this was the madwoman in the garret! “She’s just like a fat, sleepy little dog.”

  Bea nodded. “As a model, she’s very comical. So long as she can go to sleep on my knee, she’s delighted. But if she’s propped up on end for half an hour, she begins to yawn pathetically, and then likes to bite.”

  Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle chose that instant to yawn, showing sharply pointed yellow teeth.

  “You’re very brave, to make a pet of a creature with such sharp teeth,” Kate said. She glanced down at Bea’s sketch pad on the table. There were several drawings of the hedgehog. In one, she was wearing a large apron over a striped petticoat and a ruffled mobcap, and her forelegs were soapy to the elbow. “I see you’ve dressed her up,” she added, admiring the skill and humour with which the cunning little animal had been drawn. “How clever. And what a remarkably lifelike figure!”

  “Thank you,” Bea said. “She’s a washerwoman, you see. All my animals have one profession or another.” She pulled out another sketch, this one of a frog dressed in a mackintosh and galoshes, with a fishing rod and basket. “The children like my stories better when I write about what the animals do—fishing or ironing clothes—and show them doing it.”

  “You’re a writer!” Kate exclaimed happily, as Beryl Bardwell recognized a kindred spirit. “As well as an artist.”

  “No,” Bea said sadly. “I’m afraid I am neither. I have begged to be allowed to submit a story or two for publication. But unhappily for me my father is actively opposed, and my mother agrees to everything he says. I’ve only managed to sell a watercolour for a calendar and a few humourous Christmas cards, and I’ve illustrated some terrible doggerel that a German firm printed on cards at fourpence-ha’penny.” She sighed. “When Papa discovered what I was doing, he set up such a horrid fuss that now I only put my pictures in letters. I write for the little Moores, you see. They’re the children of my former governess. They like my stories.”

  Kate looked back at the drawings. “But you’re so enormously talented. How can you let your parents deny you the opportunity to develop your art?” She didn’t add, and on top of that, you’re a grown woman, and ought to be doing as you like. But she thought it.

  Bea gave a melancholy shrug. “How am I to do otherwise? I am entirely dependent on their financial support. I am expected to live with them in Bolton Gardens until I am married.” She smoothed Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s furry ears. “And that becomes less likely each year. They discourage friendships, you see, with men and with women.” She twinkled, and the corners of her mouth turned upward. “Not that I mind so dreadfully being a spinster. I have not yet met a man I wanted to marry, and I am perfectly content to live singly. But it is difficult, since I am allowed away from Bolton Gardens only in my parents’ company.”

  Now Kate understood why Bea had spoken so triumphantly about her solitary railway journey. “I wonder that they permitted you to come here alone,” she said.

  “That’s because the Hyde-Parkers are cousins and we are frequent visitors here.” Bea opened a large wicker hamper with its own little food and water dishes and set Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle inside. “Papa and Mama planned to make the trip, but Mama fell ill with a cold and I begged to be allowed to come alone. Not that I like Melford all that much,” she added, pouring a handful of hemp seeds into the hedgehog’s dish. “It’s grand and imposing, but rather boring, except for the squirrels in the park. Still, it’s a chance to be on my own, and I intend to make the best of it. I have brought my sketching materials and Papa’s second-best camera, and when the rain stops, I shall go out and see what I can find.”

  “You are a photographer, then?” Kate asked, thinking of Sir Charles, whose other passion, besides mushrooms and bats, was photography.

  “Yes,” Bea said. “I enjoy it, but I must confess that I took it up as a means of getting away from Mama when we are on holiday.” Her plain face was transformed by a brilliant smile. “She detests driving through the bracken in a pony cart, stopping in the cold wind to photograph a growth of Peziza or a gigantic Cortinarius.” She laughed a little. “Poor Mama. She wearies me so at times, but I do pity her. I could not live confined, as she does.”

  “I see,” Kate said, suddenly struck by the marked contrast between this shy young woman and gay, exuberant Eleanor. But in a way that seemed startlingly clear to Kate’s American eyes, these two British young women were very similar. Eleanor married as her parents expected, Bea stayed home. Both did as they were bid, and both were docile enough on the surface; yet both exercised whatever subtle means they could find to resist coercion, to establish their own separateness, their independence. For Eleanor, it was her husband’s fortune that gave her a measure of freedom. For Bea, it was her eccentric love of animals, and the art that it inspired.

  Kate looked up. An idea was forming in her mind—a most wicked idea. “Do you never travel anywhere except to Melford in the company of your parents?”

  “Only occasionally with my brother Bertram, and last year to my cousin Caroline, at Harescombe Grange.” Her smite was pensive. “After visiting Caroline, I have become dreadfully anxious for more travel. I do love the countryside, and gardens full of flowers, and cottages, and walking by the water.”

  “Then perhaps,” Kate said, “you would like to come to Bishop’s Keep for a few days. It is near Dedham, in Essex, about forty miles from here. There are gardens and cottages, and miles and miles of countryside, and a lake and a river—the River Stour—and an estuary, where the Stour flows into the sea. And it is all very beautiful, now that spring is here. The house is large, and you and your friends”—she looked at Peter on the hearth, and Hunca-Munca in her cage—“your many friends could be quite comfortable.”

  Bea’s blue eyes were round. “But I am expected to remain here for at least a week! The Hyde-Parkers would not object, certainly. But whatever should I tell Papa and Mama?”

  “Do you have to tell them anything, at least right away? If you are wanted, the Hyde-Parkers could telegraph to Dedham and you could receive the message straightaway. And when you returned home, you could as easily take the train from Colchester. Your parents would be none the wiser.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Bea’s face was wistful, then thoughtful, and at last determined. “I think,” she said, in a small but steady voice, “that it is a splendid idea.”

  “Wonderful!” Kate exclaimed. “We shall leave on Monday morning, by carriage, and be home in time for tea.” She was halfway to the door before she thought of something, and turned. “How funny,” she said. “I didn’t even think to ask your whole name.” She laughed a little. “Or perhaps it is a secret. Perhaps I should simply call you Bea, and not ever know who you really are.”

  “Oh, it’s no secret. I forgot, that’s all.” Bea laughed. “Mama would be scandalized at my manners.” She sat down at the table and took up her sketch pad again. “My name is Beatrix,” she said. “Beatrix Potter.”

  10

  COUNTY OF ESSEX TO WIT

  SIR CHARLES SHERIDAN, KNIGHT

  BY VIRTUE OF A WARRANT UNDER THE HAND AND SEAL OF HARRY HODSON, ESQUIRE, HER MAJESTY’S CORONER FOR THE COUNTY OF ESSEX, YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED TO BE AND APPEAR BEFORE HIM ON MONDAY THE TWELFTH DAY OF MAY, AT TWELVE O’CLOCK PRECISELY AT THE CORONER’S COURT TO BE HELD AT THE LIVE AND LET LIVE, LAMB’S LANE, DEDHAM, THEN AND THERE TO GIVE EVIDENCE ON HER MAJESTY’S BEHALF TOUCHING THE DEATH OF SERGEANT ARTHUR OLIVER, CONSTABLE, GALLOWS GREEN, ESSEX. HEREIN FAIL NOT AT YOUR PERIL.

  The Live and Let Live, the only pub on Lamb’s Lane, was little bigger than a cottage. Its low-ceilinged main room, beams blackened with smoke, was crowded with farmers and villagers, jamm
ed against the walls and the long wooden counter that usually served as a bar. Both windows were open so that the sounds of the lane—the baaing of a passing flock of sheep, the roll of wheels, and the clatter of hooves—were mixed with the indoor drone of voices and punctuated by the occasional loud remark. But the sweet May air could hardly contend with the overpowering scents of sweat and horse and leather jerkin.

  At the farther end of the room was a small trestle table, like a desk, and behind it a scarred oak armchair. This seat was reserved for Coroner Harry Hodson. At one end of the table was a stool for the clerk, with paper, pen and ink, and blotting-paper; at the other end was a chair for witnesses. Directly in front of the table, on the plank floor, was a closed pine coffin. Two long benches were arranged at right angles to the coffin for the jurors, who after some commotion at the door and shouts of “Let ’em pass, by Gawd, so they kin earn their two shillings!” were ushered through the crowd to take their seats. At two shillings, the jurors were not overcompensated for their work, for their attendance could be enforced for the entire day if need be. Still, the event gave the day distinction, and those summoned were willing to spend it serving the Queen and her coroner.

  It was into this gloomy cave that Charles Sheridan made his way, carrying a leather portfolio. He paused to let his vision adjust from the noonday glare to the inner darkness, and then pushed through the crowd until he found a place to stand not far from the coroner’s table. He caught sight of Edward Laken leaning against the opposite wall and waved a greeting, thinking that Edward looked pinched and pale and unhappy. Arthur Oliver had been his good friend.

  A moment later, a wisp of a man came through the rear door, perched on the stool like an eager bird, and shouted “Gentlemen, the Coroner!” Anybody who was sitting down stood up until Harry Hodson, who had nearly doubled in girth since Charles had last seen him twenty years before, took his seat with due ceremony in the chair of honour and nodded at the clerk to proceed.