The Murder Stone

by Charles Todd

  Francesca nodded. “I pray my cousins were among them.”

  As she drove from the church back to River’s End, Francesca could feel exhaustion sweeping over her. She’d slept poorly during her grandfather’s last weeks of life. And the reading of the will had been unexpectedly unsettling. Now she craved only a cup of tea and her bed, not necessarily in that order. Comfort, to dispel the encroaching shadows.

  There was a man standing beside the steps to the main door; his horse stood waiting to one side. It stirred uneasily as the motorcar swept past. He was silhouetted against the setting sun, tall, broad-shouldered, and for an instant she caught her breath.

  How many times had she seen her grandfather waiting for her just there, when she had gone riding or was traveling home from London? Coming toward her, smiling, taking the reins of her horse or handing her down from the motorcar—

  But this man didn’t move until she had stepped out of the vehicle, and then, reluctantly, he took off his hat.

  He looked nothing at all like Francis Hatton.

  How silly of me—she thought, blinking back hot tears.

  Strangers weren’t commonplace here in the Valley. She regarded him, still unable to trust her voice. This man was too young to have been an acquaintance of her grandfather’s. And she was nearly sure he hadn’t attended any of the brief memorial services at St. Mary Magdalene for her five cousins. But perhaps he had been at the Front and couldn’t get leave. . . . He had the bearing of an officer.

  “Miss Hatton?” he asked, his voice neutral, as if he wished to be certain who she was before proceeding.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Fifteen steps separated her from the door and the solitude of the house—and yet it felt like a mile to go.

  “My name is Leighton. Richard Leighton. Does it mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?” she countered, wondering if perhaps Simon had spoken of him, or Peter. Had Leighton written to her grandfather when Harry died? So many people had, people she had never met. Harry’s charm had touched so many. She waited for the usual words of condolence and explanation: “I was a friend of Robin’s. Didn’t he tell you? I heard that he was wounded, I’d hoped he would make it . . .”

  Instead, her response seemed to anger him. She could see that in the flush that rose in his face, although he went on to answer civilly enough. “I had expected that it would be familiar to you.”

  Nothing to do with the cousins, surely! What, then? There was now an intensity about him, as if he wanted something from her, and she had no idea what it was. Francesca said, in an effort to hurry matters, “As you can see, I’ve just returned from a rather long journey—”

  “As have I. I would be grateful for a few minutes of your time, Miss Hatton.”

  “Mrs. Lane will have gone home for the day. I don’t care to receive visitors when my housekeeper isn’t here.”

  “Mrs. Lane was—persuaded—to wait for your return. Give me five minutes. If it isn’t too much trouble—” The last words were thrown down like a challenge.

  Francesca examined him more closely. Hard, dark blue eyes stared back at her. The high-bridged nose, the firm mouth, the chin that belonged to a man certain of himself, determined on his own course.

  Like her grandfather, she thought unexpectedly.

  And like her grandfather, a shadow of illness was there as well. . . . She knew the signs: the brackets of pain on either side of the mouth, the strain across the cheekbones, the tightness of the jawline.

  It didn’t matter. Her determination could be as firm as his. “You may tell me here whatever it is you wish to say. I don’t intend to admit you or anyone else today.”

  Leighton glanced across at the coachman, who had come around the corner of the house to drive the motorcar back to the stables. Bill, silent, stood his ground, eyes on Francesca’s face. The stranger’s horse stamped, jangling its reins, as if it sensed the tense atmosphere.

  Finally Leighton said, as if he would have preferred no witnesses, “Very well, then. I’ve come to ask if, in your grandfather’s papers, you’ve run across my family’s name. Or to be absolutely clear, the name of my mother, Victoria. It’s important to me if you have.” The deep voice was curt, cold.

  Francesca felt a stab of uncertainty. Was this something else she was expected to know—and hadn’t been told? She wasn’t prepared for more secrets! And then annoyance took over. “My grandfather’s been dead only a matter of days. I certainly haven’t spent that time going through his papers or anything else!” Heaven knew, it had been hard enough listening to the reading of the will—

  The man gestured impatiently, as if he felt she was being intentionally intractable.

  “I’m staying at the inn that stands on the fork of the road. The Spotted Calf. I shall return to call in five days. Will that be sufficient time?”

  The Spotted Calf was the small inn set on the green down the road from the Rectory. It had been named over a century ago for the ghost of a small calf seen wandering across the Exe bridge when drovers passed through. The inn was mainly used by sheepmen, anglers, and travelers caught in storms, and was neither a comfortable nor a picturesque accommodation. Only the sign—a calf standing on the little stone bridge and bawling—showed any originality or imagination.

  “I’m in mourning,” Francesca rejoined acerbically. “Can’t you understand that? I bid you good day, Mr. Leighton!”

  With a nod at Bill, releasing him from duty, Francesca went up the three steps that led to the door and lifted the knocker. If Mrs. Lane, she thought, had been foolish enough to stay at the bidding of a stranger, she could answer the door a second time.

  When the elderly housekeeper opened to her, Francesca stepped inside and was about to shut the door in Leighton’s face.

  Bill was already starting the motorcar, and the roar of the engine almost drowned out Leighton’s voice as he said swiftly, urgently, “It’s likely your grandfather killed my mother. If he did, I—the family—would like to know where she’s buried. My grandfather is still alive, you see. And he hasn’t much time left!”

  Stunned, speechless, Francesca stared at the stranger standing on the lowest step.

  Unbidden, the words of the unsigned letter in the legal box came back to her.

  May you and yours rot in hell then. It is no more than you deserve!

  “It’s not true—dear God, I refuse to believe a word of this!” she exclaimed, offended. But the stark pain in his face told her he was convinced he was right.

  “Look, I’m not trying to hold you to blame for what your grandfather did. But we’ve waited a very long time. And now that he’s dead, Francis Hatton can’t be brought to justice. He can’t be questioned or hanged. We can’t even prove our suspicions. It will do him no harm—”

  Unwilling to hear more, she nodded to Mrs. Lane, who shut the door on Leighton’s last words.

  And then as the door latch clicked, Francesca had second thoughts. If she refused to listen, what would he do? Spread these lies through half the village? Driven by such anger, he might make all manner of trouble! Who could say? Francis Hatton’s funeral was at the end of the week—she couldn’t bear to see it disrupted—

  She opened the door again herself, and said to the tight-lipped man still standing there, “I’ve changed my mind. Call tomorrow. At eleven o’clock.”

  To her surprise he didn’t answer. He simply turned on his heel and walked back to his horse.

  As he swung into the saddle, Richard Leighton grimaced. Touching his heel to his mount’s flank, he told her harshly, “I’ll be here.”

  With that he rode off.

  Mrs. Lane said, watching him go, “He knocked at the door no more than a quarter of an hour ago, Miss. I told him you weren’t receiving visitors. But he wouldn’t take no as an answer. I stayed on, for fear he was trouble brewing.”

  “Yes, that was kind of you,” Francesca replied absently, closing the door again. Her heart was thundering in her chest. “You’ve lived here in th
e Valley all your life. Did you ever hear of a Leighton family? Or of a missing wife? Or of someone of that name whom my grandfather might have known?”

  The housekeeper was shaking her head. “I never did. It isn’t a Devon name, or I’d have recognized it on the instant. What did he mean, saying your grandfather may’ve killed his mother?”

  “It’s all nonsense, I’m sure,” Francesca answered wearily. “I don’t even want to think about it! I hope you’ve left something nice for my tea. I didn’t feel much like eating in Exeter.”

  “I saw how you picked at your food.” Mrs. Lane took her mistress’s coat and gloves. “There’s a bit of the roast beef still, and I’ve made potatoes the way you like them. And a little tart. Miss Hatton . . .” It was a measure of the woman’s anxiety that she had used formal address. “Why should your grandfather have murdered anyone? I don’t understand!”

  CHAPTER 4

  That night, as Francesca lay listening to the sounds of the old house stirring around her in the cool night air, she put her hand on the old dog’s head for comfort and remembered her grandfather’s final weeks.

  She had been sent down from London on the seventeenth of August, when the heat of summer stilled the air and dust lay heavy on the roads.

  Francis Hatton had been ill for a week by that time, one side of his body frozen forever by the seizure that had nearly killed him.

  He had recognized her, but had turned his face away, as if ashamed to be helpless. The doctor, standing across the bed, watching his patient, said with false heartiness, “Mr. Hatton. It’s Francesca! Come for a visit . . .”

  And the dark green eyes had swung to fix themselves on his granddaughter without warmth or welcome, as if she had disappointed him by being there.

  “Folly to bring you away from London with a war still on,” he murmured. And then his voice grew stronger. “Was it this old fool’s idea?”

  Dr. Nealy smiled. “Yes, indeed it was. Leaving the city will do Francesca a world of good. She’s pale, and too thin. Spending all her days in railway stations is not healthy for a young woman. If you behave yourself, so that she can take an hour now and again to sit in the sun or walk over the hills, so much the better.”

  “Hmmpf.”

  “Well, then, that’s settled. She’s off now to rest after her journey. And I’ve to look in on another patient.”

  Francesca leaned down to the bed to kiss her grandfather’s dry, whiskery cheek.

  And the old man said, quite clearly, “Cesca? Where are the boys? Did you bring them with you?”

  He had slipped quietly into the half-world of memory and illness. Francesca, her heart aching, went quickly from the room.

  Each day Francis Hatton had strayed for longer periods into the past. Sometimes reliving his own youth, calling to his wife, his two dead sons, sometimes remembering the end of July, when he had been whole and the fifth black-edged telegram had come.

  This time it had reported Harry’s death on the Somme.

  Hatton had written to Francesca in London, telling her the news, and ending sadly with I’ve given everything I have to England. Simon and Freddy, Peter and Robin, and now Harry. All gone. It will be a long winter for me . . .

  That night the seizure had struck him down. He had been sitting at his desk, reading a book of poetry, translating line after line of elegant Latin into elegant English. It had been a way of passing time that had settled into a hobby years before—a hobby which had even produced an anonymous volume or two of annotated works. The pen had suddenly scratched across the page, splattering ink over the print and trailing off into an indecipherable scrawl.

  Francesca had found the book just where he had left it and looked with tears in her eyes at the open page and the ink stains and the abrupt, infirm strokes of the pen. She had closed it gently, as if she had trespassed. And somehow she knew he would never come back to find it waiting there.

  After that she had sat for hours listening to Francis Hatton ramble through the long span of his life.

  Sometimes she recognized names. Her grandmother Sarah. Edward, her dead father. Tristan, her uncle. And of course Tristan’s sons, the orphaned cousins she’d grown up with. Sometimes she heard her own name spoken with love and affection, and once or twice in admonishment. For the most part she’d been a good child, but even she hadn’t been immune to the high spirits of five lively boys in the house. From Simon, the eldest, to Harry, the youngest, they had been mildly riotous and often in trouble, but never unrepentant.

  Or as Peter, the middle brother, had told her before marching off to war, “It was a glorious childhood. I couldn’t ask for any better. I hope I can bring up my own family by the same standards. . . .”

  They had never lived long enough, any of them, to hold their own sons.

  Francesca, slowly pulling together the tangled narrative until she believed she could picture the whole history of this man, had been grateful for an intimate glimpse into Francis Hatton’s past. Loving husband, good father, unstinting surrogate parent to his grandchildren, his life had been clearly above reproach. But she had thought, once, after the rector had come and gone, that it was just as well her grandfather had lived a blameless existence, since he was doomed to repeat it now for anyone to hear.

  She hadn’t known—then—that Francis Hatton had kept secrets from her. Nor that he would be accused of murder. Such was his discipline that even in the vague ramblings of delirium her grandfather had managed to hold tight to a private core she had never even dreamed existed. . . .

  Throwing off the bedclothes, she found her slippers and robe, unable to close her eyes although her very bones ached with weariness. Lighting the lamp by her bed, she left the dog asleep and went down the dark passage to her grandfather’s room.

  She opened the door to the faint smell of sickness that lingered there. A nurse had come in to look after him in his final days, to bathe him and change the sheets and see that he was continent and comfortable. A severe woman, with hair drawn back in an unforgiving knot at the back of her head, and a face that was closed as if she kept her feelings buried well inside. But Miss Honneycutt was competent and unexpectedly kind, a Devon woman with deep roots in the land, and Francis Hatton had accepted her tactful ministrations without complaint.

  Francesca set the lamp down on the table that stood by her grandfather’s favorite chair, and looked around the room. It was large and cheerful enough, with cream brocade covering the walls above the dark wainscoting, and deep blue hangings on the bed and at the windows. The floorboards were bare, the wood polished to a high sheen. The furnishings were Regency, which her grandfather had preferred to heavier Victorian designs. A man’s room more than a woman’s. She couldn’t remember it any other way, and now she wondered for the first time whether her grandmother had slept there, or in the adjoining bedroom. Her grandmother had been dead before she, Francesca, had been born. . . .

  It was too bad that her grandfather had never been fond of family photographs. He had claimed it was a Victorian fancy—that frames cluttered up tabletops and mantels, the solemn, outgrown faces an embarrassment as one grew older. But she would have enjoyed seeing her grandmother’s likeness or recalling the cousins when they were young. As far as she knew only one frame, holding a photograph of her parents, had ever stood by Francis Hatton’s bed. And that had been more for her sake, she thought, than his own. He had sat her on his knee, pointing to it, when she was small and bereft and had wept at night for her mother.

  “Look, there she is. Smiling. Pretty. Happy. You mustn’t miss her, Cesca, and want her back again. It would be selfish, don’t you see?”

  And Francesca had stopped crying. . . .

  Trailing her fingers over the glossy surface of the desk that stood between the windows, she looked across at the bed as if asking forgiveness for prying. And then she let down the top.

  There wasn’t much to find. Francis Hatton had kept the ledgers for his estate in an office at the back of the house, where his tenants
reported each day on the running of the farms and the upkeep of the property. Here were family matters, from a copy of his will to the reckoning for his last pair of boots. Francesca looked at each item, and folded it again to put it carefully back where her grandfather had kept it.

  The book of poems he’d been working with as his stroke brought him down was where she had left it, on the desktop. She lifted it to touch the leather binding with tenderness, riffling the pages as if through them she would reach out to his last coherent thoughts. And then put it away again.

  From time to time the boys had written to their grandfather in London on his occasional visits there, dutiful letters after a gift of money or some other treat. Her own were there, too:

  Dearest Grandpapa,

  I am no longer spotted with the measles, and I miss you terribly. I do not enjoy needlework in spite of what my tutor says about the duty of a lady to make her stitches neat and tiny. I have learned a new piece for the piano and will play it for you when you come home . . .

  Freddy, the fourth cousin, three years older, had taught it to her, and she smiled now as she remembered his longer fingers showing her small ones where they should strike the keys next until she had the positions by heart.

  Dearest Grandpapa,

  Thank you for the new book. I have read it, although it is quite long. I fell from a tree in the garden and hurt my knee. I was very glad to spend the afternoon in bed. Peter feared I had broken my leg, and Simon told me that I would have to be shot, like a horse. But Bill laughed at him and carried me into the house. I cried only a little . . .

  And another, slipped under the study door in an effort to return to her stern grandfather’s good graces.