by Robin Paige
Still rejoicing, he bent over the twisted body. Russell Tod’s head—mouth open, eyes staring—was flung back and to one side, pointed chin tilted upward, face colourless in the grey light, coppery hair and side-whiskers rain-slicked. The man had died, it appeared, from a blow to the left side of the head: the skull had a queer, caved-in look, the depression badly bruised and discoloured. There was blood, although not much of it, at the nostrils and at one corner of the mouth. Perhaps he had been thrown from his horse and struck his head on a rock, or had ridden under an overhanging tree limb. But there were no trees in the vicinity, nor any rock substantial enough to have inflicted that damage. More likely, he had been kicked in the head by his horse.
Edward turned as Charles came up, camera in one hand, tripod over one shoulder.
“Ah, Charles,” Edward said, relieved to see him. Standing alone beside Tod’s body, so close to the man who had wrecked Agnes’s life, was a dangerous business. There was a maelstrom of feeling inside him, an ungovernable flood of it, capable at any moment of sweeping him away. “So we’ve come to the end of it,” he said, with a half-guilty, ill-concealed satisfaction.
“Perhaps,” Charles replied somberly. He set down his gear. “But perhaps not. How did he die, do you think?”
“Kicked by his horse, it would seem.” With an effort, Edward shut out the feeling. “No sign of the horse, though. No report of it, either.” He didn’t say so, but it did seem a bit odd. In this area, where the country people knew animals and respected them, a saddled, riderless horse would be caught and penned and immediate word sent to the owner.
Charles said nothing, only bent to the body.
Edward looked down at his friend and shook his head. He knew himself to be a good policeman. He kept the Dedham peace by being the kind of man the villagers could respect. He cautioned the rowdies at the pub and hauled them off for a night in gaol when a cautionary word did not suffice. He kept a watch on the nomad gypsies that ranged his rural district and on the scores of casual labourers that thronged the village at harvest time. But while Edward was ambitious, there was almost no opportunity for the kind of real detective work that Charles relished, even if he had been trained to it. The great bulk of the crimes that happened on his patch were crimes of passion or opportunity, not crimes of stealth, and the criminals were easy to identify.
Under other circumstances, Edward might have been on his knees beside Charles, peering at the body. Now, more than a little guilty for having been glad of Russell Tod’s death and anxious to go to Agnes and tell her that her pain was ended, he shifted from one foot to the other and scowled. Russell Tod was dead, and only Mary Dayle would mourn him. His death had ended the anguish, the sorrow, the unimaginable heartache of Betsy’s loss, of Artie’s death. There was no point in dragging it out by this inch-by-inch. hair-by-hair investigation in which Charles was so deeply engrossed. Nothing more was to be learned than what they could see with their eyes, unaided.
Finally, Charles stood up. “I doubt it was a horse, Ned.”
“A stone, then,” Edward said quickly. “He fell.”
“No. The area of discolouration and depression is far too small. The object that caused this death was little more than an inch in diameter. The man was killed when he was hit by something the size of a poker.”
Edward closed his eyes and wished he could close his ears, wished, irrationally, that he had not summoned Charles to the scene. But that was wild foolishness. He was a policeman, and his job was to see that justice was done, fall upon whom it might. He opened his eyes and said, “You think he was murdered, then?”
“Most probably,” Charles said. “What did you find when you searched the area?”
Edward looked at him. “I haven’t.”
Charles’s nod was sympathetic. “He’s dead. That’s something.” He paused. “Death always comes too early or too late. Pity he can’t tell us about Betsy.”
“Yes,” Edward said. He looked down at the body. “Murdered to keep him from telling what he knew, d’you think?”
“Someone higher up, perhaps, in the ring of thieves.” Charles was thoughtful. “I wondered at Tod, a simple bailiff, being able to arrange for a boat to receive the grain.”
“Napthen, then. He worked on the docks in Harwich. He’d know how to arrange it.”
Charles shook his head. “Not Napthen. He spent the night in the Manningtree gaol.”
“Then Brock.” Edward looked at the sprawled body, trying to imagine how it might have happened. A falling-out of thieves, angry words, an impulsive blow. The body loaded into a cart and flung out, so that the murder could be mistaken—by a policeman anxious to bring an end to the business—for an accidental death.
“Perhaps,” Charles agreed. “Yes, perhaps Brock.” He bent to examine the ground around the dead man, found something that interested him, and studied it carefully. “Who discovered the body?” he asked.
Edward chuckled dryly. “Who do you think?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Miss Ardleigh, of course.”
“Ah, yes.” Charles turned, eyebrows raised. “I might have known. The woman is ubiquitous.”
“Indeed,” said a wry voice.
Edward turned, startled. “Good afternoon again, Kate. I thought you and Miss Potter had gone home.”
“We had.” Miss Ardleigh stepped off her bicycle, leaned it against Edward’s cart, and crossed the ditch toward them. She was wearing the same remarkable tweed costume she had been wearing when Edward arrived on the scene, summoned by the neighbouring fann boy whom she had dispatched with the news of her gruesome discovery. Edward had to confess to being nearly as stunned by the sight of her ankles as he had been by the sight of the dead man. Even now, his glance was drawn inexorably to her lower limbs, and he had to wrench it away, feeling his face colour.
“Miss Potter has a dreadful cold,” she went on. “I took her back to Bishop’s Keep, saw her to bed, and organized her tea.” She looked down at the body, frowning. “But I could not get this . . . this business out of my mind. I came to see what you had learned.”
“I wonder,” Charles said, “if I may examine your boots.”
Miss Ardleigh looked at him for a moment before speaking. “I hope you don’t think I killed the man.”
“I doubt it,” Charles said evenly. “Did you?”
“No,” she said. Her mouth tightened and she glanced at the body with something like the fierce satisfaction that Edward himself felt. “But I must say that I’m glad I wasn’t given the opportunity.”
Edward thought he had given up being surprised by Miss Ardleigh. But he could not help being surprised now. She bent down, unlaced her stout black boot and pulled it off, balancing on one foot in an altogether unladylike posture. He averted his eyes from her slender black-stockinged foot, a part of the female anatomy that he had seen only once or twice before in his life and found, to his dismay, inordinately provocative. She handed the boot to Charles, who dispassionately inspected its broad, flat heel and handed it back.
“Did Miss Potter approach the body?” he asked.
“No,” Miss Ardleigh said. She bent over to lace up her boot again. “She remained in the gig.”
“Did you see any woman in the vicinity?”
“No,” Miss Ardleigh replied. She straightened, her grey eyes puzzled. “Why do you ask?”
Edward frowned. A woman? What reason could Charles have to think that a woman had anything to do with Tod’s death?
Charles did not directly answer the question. “I should like to cast your boot heels in plaster,” he said to Miss Ardleigh. “I have some back at the manor, for the field work I plan to do in fossils.” He turned to Edward. “Your heels too, Ned.”
Edward nodded. “But I should like to know,” he said slowly, “why you have taken such a sudden interest in shoes.”
“Because of this,” Charles said, pointing to a deep, round indentation, a half-inch in diameter, in the soft earth. “And this.” He pointed to another. “
And this.”
Chagrined, Edward bent to look. He was here on police business. He should have seen the indentations himself. But he had been so swept up by his feelings that he had not paid even a routine attention to the site, and scarcely more to the body. He had not even gone through the pockets.
Miss Ardleigh bent over. “Heel prints!” She straightened, her eyes widening in an expression of surprise. “A woman’s prints! You don’t suspect . . .” She stared at him and her voice trailed off. “Do you?” She was clearly frightened.
Edward stiffened. A woman’s prints! Was it possible that—?
No, no, of course not. Whatever else the shoe prints meant, they could not mean that. He drew in his breath and controlled his feelings with an effort. Agnes was too calm, too composed, too level-headed to have done something like this. And besides, she did not know the details of her husband’s murder, nor suspect that Betsy’s drowning was anything but an accident. Without that knowledge, she had no reason to kill Tod. He frowned, thinking back to the conversation in Agnes’s kitchen, when Tod’s name had been mentioned within her hearing.
But she hadn’t been listening—had she?
Charles shoved his hands into his pockets. “There’s not enough evidence to suspect anyone, man or woman, at this point.” He did not look at Edward. “But I think it a good idea to preserve these prints after I have taken photographs of the body. And also to cast the heels of the three of us, for purposes of comparison, and of anyone else who may have been near the body.”
Miss Ardleigh was pale. She stood still for a moment, then said, with the air of a woman who had just made up her mind to something, “I’ll ride to the manor for your plaster, if you like.”
Edward was too deeply engrossed with the questions running through his head to question her intention. But Charles’s quick smile lightened his sober face, and his voice was teasing.
“You’d let Lady Marsden see you cycling, in that get-up?” Miss Ardleigh tossed her head. “I am sure that Lady Marsden already believes me unredeemable,” she retorted. “A bicycle and a bit of ankle won’t make her think any the worse of me. And since I intend to wear this comfortable ‘get-up’ regularly, everyone had better become accustomed to it.”
Charles chuckled out loud. “Right, then. The plaster will be found in my science kit, on the table in my bedroom. Lawrence can get it for you.”
“I’m off,” Miss Ardleigh said briskly, and left them.
Charles unpacked his camera, set up the tripod, and took a half-dozen photographs of the body and several more of the puzzling round prints. Finally he finished, repacked his gear, and straightened up. He looked at Edward and spoke for the first time since Miss Ardleigh had gone. His words went straight to the heart of Edward’s worry.
“I don’t see how Agnes might have killed him, Ned.”
Edward felt a relief wash through him, so great that his knees actually felt weak. “No, no, of course not. She knew nothing about Tod’s connexion to—She had no motive.” He cleared his throat loudly, too loudly. “I’ll search the body now, if you’ve done.”
Charles stepped back. “It’s yours, Constable.”
Edward knelt beside the body and ran his hands into the pockets of the jacket, the dark trousers. He found nothing except a few shillings, a small silver pocketknife, much worn, and a grimy handkerchief. But when he pulled out the handkerchief, tied into the corner was a gold coin with a nick in the edge.
“Artie’s gold sovereign,” he exclaimed, holding it up. “That corks it!”
“I suppose it does,” Charles said. “Now all we have to do is find the person who corked him.”
Edward pocketed the sovereign, the knife, and the handkerchief. “If you’re done with your picture-taking, you can help me load the body into the cart. I’ll take it to the police surgeon at Colchester, and make my report while I’m there. I’ll telegraph Bradley, too.”
“Right,” Charles said. “I’ll wait here for Miss Ardleigh, and cast the heel prints. God knows we can’t go peering at every female boot in the county, but the casts may come in handy.”
It wasn’t until he was halfway to Colchester, the body wrapped in a canvas and angled awkwardly in the back of the cart, that Edward realized what Charles had really said, and felt as if he had just driven into a cloud of icy, roaring blackness.
Charles had not said that Agnes had not killed Tod. He had said that he didn’t see how she might have killed him.
Between the two there was a world of difference, a spectral world haunted by Agnes’s motives. Artie and Betsy. Both beloved, both dead, both at the hand of Tod.
Now Tod was dead, too. Agnes, if she had known what he had done, could very well have killed him. And Charles, persistent and perceptive as he was, and dedicated to the art of detection, would undoubtedly discover the truth of the matter—even if it destroyed her.
And at that moment, Edward hated his friend.
43
“How did you come here?” asked Pigling Bland.
“Stolen,” replied Pig-wig, with her mouth full.
—BEATRIX POTTER
The Tale of Pigling Bland
Arthur Oliver and Russell Tod were indeed dead, and nothing more was to be done for them in this world.
But Betsy was not.
Yes, Betsy Oliver was alive, although not at all happy with her lot in life. She lay trussed like a plump harvest pig, with a rag tied in her mouth in place of a baked apple, on a heap of dry, scratchy hay in a lean-to shed a short distance from the smithy. Her shirt was gone and her boots, and a filthy, scratchy blanket smelling of horse had been thrown over her.
Still, until the last few hours, Betsy had not been unbearably uncomfortable. Although she was securely bound and her feet and hands had long since gone numb, she was warm and dry, and she had not been lonely. The man with the pointed chin and scraggly red hair had twice come into the shed to remove her gag and feed her porridge and brown bread and give her milk to drink. And yesterday afternoon, through a crack in the board by her head, she had watched Uncle Ned and Sir Charles arrive, They were just about to break open the door and rescue her, when the smith’s boy (a loud, loutish creature, frightfully inconsiderate of small birds and lizards) had galloped around the corner, waving his black cap and shouting that she had drowned.
What utter nonsense, she had thought angrily. How could anyone imagine that she might drown when her father had always boasted that she could swim as well as any pike? But no one seemed to raise that question. Voices from the smithy drifted into her prison: she heard that her boot had been found, as well as her shirt, and that the river was being dragged for her body. This intelligence was far more painful than the ropes that bound her, because she knew how sad and grief-stricken and lonely her mother must be. She longed to run home and fling her arms around her mother and tell her that the sharp-chinned man had only made it appear that she had drowned and she was perfectly alive. And not only alive, but less lonely, likely, than her mother, for she had Jemima Puddle-duck for company, and Mr. Browne, who sat on a limb outside the shed, hooting a raspy encouragement.
It was perhaps not surprising that Mr. Browne should have followed Betsy and her captors and stationed himself as a watchful guard outside her prison. Or that Kep, such a good tracking dog, should sniff her out and stay close by until the stupid smith’s boy had laid hands on him and taken him away. But how did it happen that Jemima Puddle-duck had located her so speedily?
Betsy could give herself little credit for this fortuitous turn of events. The fact was that there was a small opening in one of the boards at the back of the shed, and Jemima—determined duck that she was—had discovered it. This event had apparently occurred several days before, for four large eggs lay like polished ivory in a nest in the dry straw. This morning, Jemima had slipped through the hole and settled herself amiably upon her four eggs, evidencing no surprise at finding Betsy in the audience. She sat there for an hour, yawning occasionally, now preening a wing, now her
breast feathers. When she had finished her motherly duty, she got up and examined her fifth egg, nibbling it fondly with her orange bill. She then carefully covered all the eggs, quacked a maternal farewell to them and to Betsy, and went out briskly in search of her breakfast.
With Jemima’s cheerful company, the heartening calls of Mr. Browne, and the sharp-chinned man’s porridge and bread, Betsy had been less worried about herself than she was about her mother. But the sharp-chinned man had not come back since his dispute with the other man last night, and she was beginning to fear that he might not come back at all, especially considering the circumstances under which he had left.
Betsy had been asleep in the velvety darkness, dreaming that she was at home with her mother and father, having a late tea at the kitchen table. At first she had thought that the voices—the whispers and hisses and muttered curses—were somehow part of her dream. She even heard her father’s name, and he heard it too. In the dream, he got up from the table and reached for his policeman’s hat and said he would be back when he had done an urgent errand. But then she woke and pulled herself into a little ball under her scratchy blanket, realizing that her father was in the dream but the voices were real. The men who spoke were in the cottage on the other side of the shed. She looked through the crack and saw them, standing in front of the window, the light behind them.
At first Betsy was frightened by the harshness of the voices, that of the sharp-chinned man and the other. But her fear wore off a little as they kept on arguing, the voices rising and falling, only a word here or there distinguishable. This had gone on for a long time, while Betsy dozed and woke and dozed again. Then she woke to see them come out of the cottage, carrying a lantern. In the circle of light, their figures were quite clear: the sharp-chinned man and the other, a stoutish man with black whiskers and a hobble. They went around the corner of the cottage, and a moment later she heard the muffled hoofs of a horse. The sharp-chinned man had not come back.