Death at Gallows Green

by Robin Paige

  Charles regarded the young constable thoughtfully. So Pell himself had asked to take the case—it hadn’t been a whim of Hacking’s, or some sort of punishment for Ned. But why had he wanted it? What was it to him?

  Edward sat down and took up the pen Bradley handed him. “You can have your statement,” he said sourly. “But before you go trotting Napthen. off to see Pell, don’t you think you’d better collar Tod and Brock? We brought the prisoner here in a fly. On the way we passed a dozen people, and a dozen more saw us in the High Street. Not to put too fine a point on it, but word of his arrest won’t take an hour to reach the other two, and any others who might be involve.”

  Bradley chewed his lip nervously. “Yes, yes, I see the difficulty. Er, are you available to help? It’s a matter for more than just one officer, I should think. And this case isn’t the only problem on my hands. It’s been a busy morning.”

  “It has?” Charles asked, looking around. The constable’s office didn’t appear busy, and the lunch testified to at least a quarter hour of leisure. “What’s happened?”

  Bradley shifted. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about it, at least not at the moment, although I’ll have to institute a search if she doesn’t turn up. It’s a missing child over at Gallows Green.” He glanced at Edward. “You were a friend of Sergeant Oliver’s, weren’t you? Did you know his daughter Betsy?”

  Edward’s face went white. He stood up abruptly and his chair fell over with a clatter. “Are you telling me that Betsy Oliver—”

  “Afraid so,” Bradley said ruefully. “Gone missing. Happened last night, apparently. Sounds a bit improbable, I admit, but it seems she was in the habit of slipping out the window and down the drainpipe after dark. Her mother’s in a bit of a panic, and sent over to ask for help.”

  “Gone missing!” Edward roared, “and you sit here stuffing yourself with fried fish!” He ran to the door and yanked it open. “Come on, Charlie!”

  “But the report!” Bradley exclaimed. He snatched up the paper Edward had been writing on and waved it frantically, like a white flag. “I can’t take this man to Colchester without your written statement! I don’t know any of the details!”

  “Damn the bloody details,” Edward snapped, his eyes flashing. “Come on, Charlie! Agnes’ll be beside herself. I must be with her.”

  And there, in Edward’s anguished face, was written the truth that Charles had not grasped until now. It was not Miss Ardleigh that Edward cared for, it was Agnes Oliver. But Charles was not conscious of any relief, for his belly had twisted with cold fear for the child’s safety. Betsy Oliver was a witness to the theft that had motivated her father’s slaying, and now she had disappeared. Had the thieves who killed the father taken the daughter, as well?

  Charles held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. “We have a man here who may know something. Napthen.”

  Edward whirled. “Of course!” he cried, snatching the key off the wall and running to Napthen’s cell.

  But whether Napthen knew something and would not reveal it, or whether he knew nothing at all and could only deny, they could not tell. After ten minutes of fruitless questioning, Napthen was flung into his cell once more and Edward and Charles hastened to Gallows Green.

  36

  “It is a frightful turn of events, I very much fear. She has been missing for nearly a full day.”

  “A full day! Has all expectation of her safe return been given up?”

  “Not yet, not yet. But it would be wrong to entertain false hopes. All seems very dark.”

  —BERYL BARDWELL

  Missing Pearl, Or, The Lost Heiress

  From the summer-like sunshine of the days before, the weather had turned cold and drizzly. Wisps of mist haunted the lanes like vagrant ghosts, and diamonds of raindrops dripped from every twig and thorn. It began to rain in earnest halfway to Gallows Green, and Kate was glad she had asked Pocket to drive her and Bea in the closed carriage. They carried with them a full basket supplied by Mrs. Pratt, who had insisted on sending the food she had prepared for their luncheon. Kate had brought it, although she knew Agnes would have little appetite. Some of the searchers might need food, though—for of course there would be searchers.

  And there were. When Kate and Bea alighted from the carriage, a crowd of men was just setting off from the Oliver cottage, booted and mackintoshed against the wind-driven rain. Kate and Bea went into the kitchen where Agnes was huddled beside the fire in the company of her neighbour, Mrs. Wilkins, a stout woman with a face like a cauliflower and a nose as red as a radish. Her rolled-up sleeves revealed arms that rivaled those of her husband, the hamlet’s smith, but her touch was gentle. She clucked softly to Agnes, petting her as if she were a child.

  “She went looking for the duck, I am sure,” Agnes was saying wearily when they came in. “If the duck can be found, Betsy will be found too.” She began softly to cry, and Mrs. Wilkins pulled her to her ample bosom.

  “There, there, dearie,” she said, “doan take on so. Like as not she’ll be found quickly. Or else she’ll come dancin’ ’ome on ’er own, an’ you’ll ‘ave th’ pleasure o’ stroppin’ ’er fer givin’ ye such a fright.” With that practical observation, the fruit of nearly two decades of motherhood, she tucked the rug over Agnes’s knees, greeted the visitors, and went to pour the kettle into the tea pot.

  Kate took Agnes’s cold hands in her own. “Tell me about the duck,” she said.

  “The foolish thing was gone yesterday afternoon.” Agnes wiped her eyes. “Betsy looked everywhere. The child was still looking when I called supper, and it was all I could do to get her to bed, just before you came. I found her nightdress on the floor this morning, and her shirt and breeches missing.”

  “I’m sure she’s all right,” Bea comforted. “She’s a very level-headed child, and she knows the fields and river.”

  Agnes’s face was thin-lipped. “That is why I fear so,” she said in a ragged whisper. “I am quite sure she isn’t lost. No child ever knew her way more surely than Betsy.”

  The door burst open and the rain and wind gusted in. “Agnes!” Edward cried, and was across the room in two steps. Sir Charles lingered at the doorway, looking on.

  “Oh, Ned,” Agnes sobbed, letting herself be gathered up and held in Edward’s strong embrace. “First Artie, and now Betsy. How can I endure it?” She buried her face in his shoulder, while he pressed his lips against her hair.

  “We will endure it together, dear heart,” he said, so low that Kate was the only other who heard. “And when she is found we will be glad together.” There was a long silence in the room while he stroked her hair and she clung to him, both oblivious to all else.

  At last Mrs. Wilkins coughed. “Well, now,” she remarked sagely. “Here is the tea, and I shall be off.” She poured five cups, found her shawl, and left, with a nod at Kate and Bea and a long look at the constable, still on his knees now beside Agnes’s chair, her hands in his.

  There was a catch in Kate’s throat when she looked up, feeling Sir Charles’s eyes on her. She blushed, remembering her thoughts of that morning, and looked away again quickly.

  “What’s to be done?” she asked.

  “The entire hamlet has mustered for the search.” Sir Charles’s brown coat was wet, and water dripped off his hat and onto his shoulders. “There’s no doubt she’ll be found.” He paused and stepped closer. “Edward has arrested the man who let Highfields Farm,” he said in a lower voice, “a man named Napthen. We fetched him to the gaol at Manningtree this morning. He says he knew nothing about Artie’s murder, but he admitted to letting the barn. He named Tod and Brock in connexion with the grain stored there.”

  Kate glanced toward Agnes. She was gazing at the fire, her hand still in Edward’s, and did not appear to be listening. Agnes had enough to bear without knowing this—at least, not yet. “They’ll be arrested quickly?” she whispered.

  “Before the day is out, I hope.”

  Kate was glad that the serg
eant had been exonerated from the charge of poaching, and glad that progress was being made toward the apprehension of his murderers. But the gladness could not lighten her heart just now. Sir Charles’s declaration that Betsy would be found sounded confident enough, but she felt a coldness settle in her as she remembered that it was Betsy who had seen the grain thieves, had heard their voices and their names, and could identify them. If Tod and Brock had somehow learned what she knew, and discovered that they were implicated in the constable’s murder—

  Kate felt her throat tighten. “If only we had known about them before . . . “ Her voice trailed away, but Sir Charles took her meaning and nodded.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “If only we had known, we could have apprehended them before yesterday evening. But we did not.” He touched her arm. The slightest touch, but deeply intimate, it seemed to her. “There was nothing we could have done, Miss Ardleigh, knowing only what we knew.”

  Biting her lip, Kate turned away. But she had known. She had known that Betsy was a witness to nocturnal activities in the barn, and had suspected that something illegal was involved, and that it was somehow connected with the sergeant’s death. She could have come immediately to Agnes and warned her to keep her daughter safe. Or she could have told Edward to watch out for the little girl, or Sir Charles. Or she could have taken on the task herself, and kept an eye on Betsy. She could have done many things, should have done them, but she had done nothing—except to think how she might turn the events of last night into material for Beryl Bardwell’s foolish novel.

  Heartsick, Kate turned to the grey window, silvered with cold rain. Betsy was somewhere out there in that chilly damp—not a fictional girl, a character in one of her sensational stories, but a flesh-and-blood child, whose alert, curious attention to the world around her had lured her into very real danger. Thinking of the possibilities, Kate’s heart twisted within her.

  Was Betsy alive, or was she dead?

  37

  We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.

  —Prayer Book, 1662

  Edward at last released the weeping Agnes and stood. His heart was heavy and dull as lead within him, but he could not simply sit beside the fire and let others carry on searching. He put his hand on Agnes’s shoulder.

  “She’ll be found,” he said, with all the conviction he could summon.

  “I pray, Ned, oh, I pray.” Agnes closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her hand. “If only I had penned the duck.”

  Edward stood for a moment looking down at her, at the way the soft brown hair curled away from her face, at the lines of worry that etched her forehead. Sweet Agnes, who could in her innocence believe that Betsy had strayed after the duck, while he feared in his policeman’s heart, darkened by the knowledge of too many ill deeds, too much rank disorder, that the truth was much harsher. Why hadn’t he seen to the child’s safety? Charlie had told him what Betsy knew, and he had sensed immediately how dangerous such knowledge could be. But he had done nothing to protect her, not the least thing, when it was his business to do it, as well as his heart’s desire! In his haste to apprehend Artie’s killers, in his hurry to show Pell that he could succeed where Bradley would inevitably fail, he had caused Betsy harm and Agnes torment, and the thought of his negligence ripped like a mad dog at his insides.

  Grim-faced, Edward stepped across the kitchen to the door, where Charles stood waiting, his shoulders sodden with wet. “Come on,” he said, low.

  “To Tod’s?”

  “If Bradley isn’t going after the blighter,” Edward said between his teeth, “we will.” He led the way diagonally across the soggy turf of the village green, skirting muddy puddles. A pair of sheep tethered on the new grass shied as he and Charles splashed toward the smithy, which sat back from the dirty lane under a wooden sign-board painted with a pair of iron tongs and an anvil. Wilkins, the grey-haired, leather-aproned smith, was standing just outside his shed, the sleeves of his sacking shirt rolled to the elbows, feet wide apart, muscular arms akimbo. He was a massive man, well over six feet, heavy and bull-necked. Behind him, an apprentice was pumping an enormous bellows. The forge was roaring and the fire blazing, a bright sight on a dark and chilly day.

  “Any sign o’ th’ child?” Wilkins called in a voice like a rusty file.

  “Not yet.” Edward came up to the smith. “We’re looking for Russell Tod. He rents from you, does he not?”

  “ ’Ee does that,” Wilkins said with a nod of his grizzled head. “The lit‘le cottage at th’ foot o’ th’ garden. But if ye’r wantin’ t’ see Tod, ye’ll be disappointed. He’s not t’ ’ome. Went out early this mornin’ and an’t been back.”

  “Was Tommy Brock with him?” Charles asked. Behind the smith, the apprentice, a pocked, narrow-shouldered lad of twelve or so, left off the bellows, prodded the fire, and stood listening.

  The smith scratched his grey mustache, trimmed short against the possibility of sparks. “Brock?” He squinted, considering. “Don’t b‘lieve I know ’im. Tod went alone, anyways. I saw ‘im ride away. Near nine this mornin’, ’twas.”

  “What about last night?” Edward asked. “Was he at home?”

  Wilkins’s snort was petulant. “A man ‘ires a cottage, not a keeper. Wot business o’ mine is it whether he’s t’ ’ome or away?”

  Edward could feel his patience fraying. “A child is missing,” he said. His voice hardened as he thought of Agnes’s daughter in the hands of her husband’s killer. “We have reason to suspect that Tod’s involved. Was he at home last night?”

  Wilkins’s look was somber. “Wudn’t know,” he said. “’Ee cud o’ bin ’ome, ‘ee cud o’ bin gone, f’r all o’ me.” His gold tooth glinted. “But th’ girl, that’s another matter,’tis. She was ‘ere yesterd’y afternoon, lookin’ out ’er duck, an’ ’er dog was ‘ere this mornin’, lookin’ out ’er.”

  “The dog?”

  “Th’ girl’s collie dog. Th’ boy took ‘im ’ome an’ tied ’im up proper, behind th’ shed.” He sighed. “I’d be searchin’ fer th’ girl too, pore thing, ’f I din’t ‘ave a job t’ be done by nightfall.”

  The apprentice, wearing a black-wool cap, ragged breeches, and a shirt with no sleeves, came forward out of the gloom of the smithy. “Ye‘r askin’ ’bout Mr. Tod?”

  Edward looked down on him. He was too frail to be a smith’s apprentice, with those broomstraw arms and delicate hands. But hamlet boys counted themselves lucky not to be in the fields. Likely this one preferred the deafening roar of the forge and the ring of the hammer to the back-breaking labour of ploughing and harvesting. And likely those wrists would thicken in the next year or two.

  “I am.” He added, in a more kindly tone, “Do you know something that might help us find the girl?”

  “Not th’ girl, no,” the apprentice said, and wiped his nose on his sleeves. “But I know that Mr. Tod was gone las’ night, f’r a while, leastways.” He jerked his thumb upward. “I sleeps in th’ loft above th’ forge on chill nights. I was there last night. I saw summat—a lantern, an’ Tod, an’ sev’ral men.”

  “Did they have a wagon?” Charles asked eagerly.

  The apprentice shrugged. “All I know is, ‘ee went away, an’ ’ee come agin a while arter, an’ then I went asleep.”

  “Thank you,” Edward said, thinking how easy it was for deeds to be done at night, when the countryside was dark and decent folk were snoring in their beds. He turned back to the smith. “We’ll be taking a look around the cottage.”

  “Ye’r the constable,” the smith said.

  A low hedge of elder separated the cottage from the neat garden with its rows of lettuces and cabbages and carefully-mounded potatoes. The roar of the forge could not be heard here, and there was no other sound except for the gossipy chatter of rooks in a nearby large elm and the irritated hoot of an owl awakened from its daytime slumbers.

&
nbsp; Edward paused to peer first into one low casement window, then another. There were only two rooms, but they were neat and relatively clean, and the flagged floor was covered with a nearly-new coconut mat. A hearth opened to both of the rooms, of such size that several sides of bacon might be smoked in the chimney at once. An oak table stood in one room, a narrow bed in the other, a chair and in each a small wooden dresser. Beside the bed stood a washstand with a basin; on the wall over it a shaving glass, on the floor beneath it a boot rack and boot jack. The bedclothes were flung aside as if Tod had risen hastily and flown.

  “Nothing here, looks like,” Edward said. What had he expected to find? A clue to Betsy’s whereabouts? A trail of white duck feathers? Desperation seized him, and he sagged against the wall. “Where can she be?”

  “Anywhere,” Charles said flatly. He gestured toward a small lean-to shed behind the cottage, so overgrown with creeper that the windows, if there were any, were completely covered. “There, perhaps.”

  They went toward the shed, against one side of which was piled a heap of sodden coal. An empty coal scuttle stood nearby, and a stack of faggots had tumbled onto the ground and were wet through. The shed door was built of panels of sturdy oak with a hasp and padlock. Edward tried it, but it was locked fast. He picked up a rusty spade and was about to break it open when he heard a loud shout. He turned. It was the apprentice, rounding the corner at a run, waving his wool cap like a black flag.

  “They found ’er shirt,” the boy cried. “In the river, where the willows grow aslant! They say she’s drownded!”

  Edward gave one loud, heart-stricken groan, and his blood froze in his veins.

  Charles put out his hand. “Ned,” he said gruffly, and with deep sympathy.

  “It’s my fault, Charlie.” Edward was filled with a whirling misery that sucked all the breath, all the strength out of him. “I might have prevented this. If only I had gone to Agnes last night, after you told me what Betsy saw—if only I had cautioned her that there was danger.” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the shed, giving himself up to the anguish. “My fault, my fault.” The words of the Prayer Book were like a litany in his mind. I have left undone those things which I ought to have done. And I have done those things which I ought not to have done; And there is no health in me. He began to weep, great wrenching sobs, for the child who was lost, and the dead father, and the living mother, and himself . No health in me, no health in any of us, no health in the world.