Death at Epsom Downs

by Robin Paige

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “Now, might we go back to my question? Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill Mr. Day?”

  Lillie pulled her brows together. “I really do not think—”

  The drawing room door opened and the butler reluctantly stepped in. “Mrs. Langtry—”

  Lillie turned, suddenly angry. “Oh, what now, Williams?” she cried. She seized a velvet cushion and fired it at him as hard as she could. “Can’t you leave us alone for an instant?”

  Williams raised his arm to deflect the cushion that would otherwise have struck him squarely in the face. “Miss Jeanne Marie is here, ma’am,” he said, with infinite dignity.

  He stepped back, opening the door wide. A brown-haired girl of seventeen or so, her face blotchy with tears, blouse rumpled, straw sailor askew, pushed past him. Hands on hips, she planted herself in front of Lillie and stared down at her.

  “Jeanne!” Lillie gave a little gasp. “I thought you were staying with Lady Ragsdale.” She peered around the girl. “Have you run on ahead? Where is she?” She stopped and looked up at the girl. “And why are you crying?”

  “I came down by myself,” the girl said, in a voice so low that Kate had to strain to hear. “On the train.”

  “On the train?” Lillie exclaimed. “Alone? Has something happened, Jeanne?”

  “I know the truth at last,” the girl said. “That’s what has happened. After all the years of make-believe, I finally know what’s real.”

  “Ma petite chérie,” Lillie said, taking the girl’s small white hand. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  Kate half-rose from her chair, thinking that she should not intrude on this private scene, but realized that Lillie had entirely forgotten her and that the girl, Jeanne-Marie, had never even noticed that she was there. She sat back as the girl took out a pocket handkerchief and mopped her streaming eyes.

  “Lady Ragsdale says that you’re not my aunt, after all, Aunt Lillie. You’re my mother!”

  Lillie stared at her for a moment in unfeigned consternation, her lips trembling, tears starting in her eyes. Then she pulled the girl onto the sofa beside her, took the handkerchief, and began tenderly to wipe away her tears.

  “For once in her life, sweetheart,” she murmured, “Emily Ragsdale has told the truth. My darling Jeanne, I am your mother. And I love you more than life.”

  At this confession, the girl pulled away and began to weep again, even more stormily. Lillie held her tightly, trying to calm her without success. “Hush, Jeanne!” she commanded at last. “Do you want the servants to hear? You know how they talk.”

  This admonition seemed to produce the desired result. When Jeanne was calm enough to speak, she managed to choke out, “If you loved me, why did you pretend? Why did I have to spend all those dreadful years with Gram on that hateful little island? Why couldn’t I have been with you?”

  Lillie took her hand. “I had hoped to put off this discussion until you were older, my dear, but now that you know part of the story, you might as well know the whole. You were born after your father and I agreed to live separately and I was forced to make my own way in the world. I decided to become an actress. But the theater is no place for a child, and I knew that if I were to be successful, I should have to be away a great deal, traveling. Your grandmother and I felt it would be best for you to live with her on Jersey, where you could have friends and lessons and a stable life.”

  Jeanne’s face twisted and she jerked her hand away. “But to tell me that my parents were dead—”

  “I’m so sorry for that, darling Jeanne,” Lillie said. She leaned forward and pushed the disheveled hair off the girl’s forehead. “I know it seems cruel, but we all thought it was for the best. All through your life, you have had powerful friends and protectors. The Prince of Wales—”

  “But what about my real father?” Jeanne demanded, her voice shaking. She pushed her mother’s hand away. “Uncle Ned was my father, wasn’t he?”

  Lillie stiffened. “Of course he was your father. What makes you ask a question like that?”

  “Because Lady Ragsdale said that the Prince of Wales—”

  Lillie laughed merrily. “Oh, what utter nonsense! Do you think for a moment that if the Prince were your father he would openly sponsor you at court? Think of the scandal!”

  Jeanne pouted. “Well, then, what about Uncle Ned? If he was my father, why couldn’t I have lived with him?”

  Lillie pulled herself up and said, in a calm, chill voice, “Edward Langtry was not the kind of father a daughter deserves, Jeanne. Marrying him was a terrible mistake. I could not compound my folly by imposing it upon you.” Her voice softened. “Anyway, he was totally incapable of supporting himself, let alone a daughter. And he drank a very great deal. I could not even let him know that you were his daughter, for fear that he might insist on involving himself in your life.”

  “But I should like to have been able to love him as my father,” Jeanne said fiercely. “And now he’s dead, and I shall never—” She looked up and caught a glimpse of Kate. Quickly, she turned back to Lillie. “Who is she?”

  Color flared across Lillie’s face as she realized that there had been a witness to this intimate scene. “This is Lady Charles Sheridan, Jeanne. She is my houseguest. Lady Charles, may I present my . . . Jeanne-Marie.”

  “I’m very glad to know you, Jeanne,” Kate said gravely. There was nothing more she could say.

  The girl rose from the sofa and bobbed a little curtsy. “Yes, my lady,” she said, very low.

  The mood had been broken and Lillie was once more in command. “Jeanne, dear, I suggest that you go to your room and wash. We have not yet had our luncheon, and I should like you to join us. You can tell us all about Lady Ragsdale’s plans for your presentation at court. Has your dress arrived? You must be very excited.”

  The girl dropped her head. All the fire seemed to have gone out of her. “Yes, Aunt—” She looked up. “What should I call you?”

  Lillie gave her a narrow smile. “Under the circumstances, my darling, I think it is best if you simply continue to call me Aunt Lillie. This will remain our little secret until you’ve been presented at court, and perhaps for a few months after. We don’t want to confuse our friends, do we?”

  Jeanne gave her mother a long, dull look in which Kate read all her heartache. “Yes, Aunt,” she replied, and left the room.

  There was a silence. At last, Lillie said, in a low voice, “Now you know my deepest, most closely held secret.”

  Do I? Kate wondered. But she only inclined her head and said, “I’m sure you did what you thought was best for her. It must have been difficult.”

  “There were rumors, of course, and endless sly innuendoes. That’s why Jeanne had to live on Jersey.” Lillie’s voice became acid. “If she had been with me, the newspapers would have made such a game of it, counting my age against hers and forever speculating about the identity of her father. Once she is safely married, perhaps I can tell her who—”

  A strange, haunted look crossed her face and she stopped, clearly feeling that she was giving too much away. Kate, though, could complete the sentence: once Jeanne-Marie was safely married and living somewhere out of the public eye, Lillie could tell her who her real father was. Not Edward Langtry, obviously. Was it the Prince of Wales, or someone else? Who was Lillie protecting, besides herself?

  “How difficult for the child,” Kate said quietly. “And for you.”

  Lillie gave an elaborate sigh. “I must confess that I feel a little relieved that she has found it out at last. At least I will no longer have to pretend to her.” She slanted a glance at Kate, and her tone was cautionary. “I hope, however, that I may rely on you to keep my secret. You won’t include any of this in your article for The Strand?”

  “Of course not,” Kate said without hesitation.

  “Thank you,” Lillie replied, and added, reflectively, “I should not want your readers to know that I am old enough to have a da
ughter who is soon to be presented at court.” She sighed heavily. “And I simply cannot tell Suggie that he would be step-papa to a grown daughter, only a half-dozen years younger than he!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Near Snailwell

  What splendid lies shall be found among the cheeses? What disappointed hopes, what epic deeds?

  Elegies

  Thomas Pudding

  Thomas Moore resided on a small dairy farm a half-mile to the east of the hamlet of Snailwell. With Jack Murray beside him, Charles drove the rented gig down a narrow lane. On one side, a stone fence opened onto a wide view of the heath and a river valley; on the other, an ancient hedge enclosed a parcel of rocky hillside and a picturesque herd of black-and-white cows, grazing on the June grass. The hedge was interwoven with wild roses and honeysuckle and blackberry in blossom, and patches of yellow flag, bright as new gold coins, bloomed in the ditch.

  At length, passing through a wooden gate, they came upon a prosperous-looking farm. Before them was a large two-up, two-down stone cottage with a chimney at either gabled end, the roof thatched with straw and netted to keep birds away. The central door, painted green, was bowered with a pink China rose and a purple clematis, and fragrant rosemary clothed the whole foot of the walls on either side. The gray mist had risen, the sun was gleaming through the silvery clouds, and the casement windows with their red-checked curtains had been flung open to catch the warming breeze. From indoors, Charles could hear the melodic voice of a girl, singing a lullaby. The song stopped when they pulled up in front, and a moment later the girl appeared at the door, a tow-headed child on her hip. She was plump and red-cheeked, with long brown braids and a white apron over a plain gray dress. She dropped a curtsy when Charles got down from the gig.

  “We’re looking for a Mr. Oliver Moore,” Charles said. “Is he here, miss?”

  The girl pulled her brows together in a pretty frown, as if wondering how she should reply. “I’ll ask, sir,” she said, and disappeared indoors. In a moment she was out again, without the child, who could be heard wailing disconsolately within. She picked up her skirts and ran around the front corner of the cottage. With a nod to Jack to accompany him, Charles set out after her.

  The girl was darting up a path that lay between a large vegetable garden filled with lettuce and rhubarb and potatoes and peas climbing a lattice of hazel twigs, and a stoutly fenced pigsty containing two pink porkers. An arrogant rooster rose up threateningly in her way, but she flapped her apron at him and he scuttled under the railing to join his hens looking for bugs around the bee hive.

  At the end of the path, the girl ducked into a low stone building, with netted windows equipped with shutters in the front. Following close behind, Charles saw through the windows that it was a cheese-house, built for the drying of large cheeses, no doubt produced from the milk of the black-and-white cows on the hillside. The stone floor was raised up several feet above the ground to protect the cheeses from damp, and wide wooden shelves had been hung round the walls. These shelves were lined with cut nettles, over which had been laid large rounds of yellow cheese, as bright as the yellow flags in the ditch. These were being turned by a slight, rusty-haired man, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows.

  “Ollie,” Charles heard the girl say in a low voice, “there’s a pair o’ gentl’men lookin’ fer ye. Wot’ll I tell ’em?”

  “Yer s’posed t’ keep it quiet that I’m ’ere,” Moore hissed.

  “I din’t say,” the girl protested, and turned with a start as Charles’s shadow fell across the threshhold. She dropped a frightened curtsy and fled back down the path.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Moore,” Charles said quietly. “I am Charles Sheridan, and this is Mr. Murray. We’ve come to talk with you about the murder of Mr. Alfred Day.”

  “Don’t know nuffin ’bout it,” Moore growled with a show of belligerence. “Nuffin a’tall. If ye don’t b’lieve me, ask me brother Thomas. I bin ’ere fer three ’ole days. ’E’ll swear to it.”

  “No, sir,” Murray contradicted him firmly. “You were in the Great Horse in Newmarket High Street yesterday evening, before eight. The proprietor testifies to that, and others will, too.”

  Furtively, Moore glanced from one to the other. He wore thick-soled boots, stiff brown trousers tied at the waist with a length of dirty rope, and his shirt was homespun—the usual farmer’s garb. But he was clean shaven, his hair was neatly cut and pomaded, and his hands and nails were clean. He did not have the look of a country man.

  “Are ye from the p’lice?” he asked nervously.

  “No, Mr. Moore,” Charles said. “We are conducting a private investigation.”

  This seemed to make Moore feel easier. His shoulders relaxed, and he became more confident. He glanced from Charles to Murray. “Wot’cher want from me, then?”

  “We want you to tell us what you know about your employer’s murder,” Charles said. “Everything you know about it, please, sir.”

  “Don’t know nuffin,” Moore repeated, with emphasis. “I wuz at the Great ’Orse, true. But then I went up to the Owl and stayed an hour or so. You can ask Mrs. Thorpe. ’Fore I left, I bought one of ’er shepherd’s pies. She wrapped it fer me to take ’ome.”

  “To St. James Street?” Charles asked, thinking of the remains of the pie on the table in the loft.

  “Where else?” Moore countered. “I went ’ome, ate me pie leisure-like, and went t’ bed. I wuz woke in the middle o’ the night by men movin’ round in the office below. Thieves, they wuz. Bangin’ drawers, pullin’ out papers, talkin’—”

  “What time was this?” Murray asked.

  “I din’t strike no light, now, did I?” Moore was truculent. “They din’t know I wuz there. I wuzn’t goin’ to call their attention to me, now, wuz I?”

  Charles pictured the situation, the clerk cowering in his bed with the covers pulled over his head, afraid that the men would come up the stairs and discover him. “You say you heard them talking,” he remarked. “What were they talking about?”

  Moore chewed on his lip. “One of them said as how Badger wuz dead. Shot in th’ alley b’hind the Great ’Orse. I reckoned when they ’eard ’e wuz dead, they come lookin’ fer money.” He shook his head as if with disgust. “Prob’ly figgered t’ find a satchel full o’ gold sovereigns.”

  “But they didn’t?” Charles asked.

  “Badger wuz a careful man,” Moore said. “ ’E never kept no money in the office. ’E ’ad a safe at ’ome.”

  “I see,” Charles said. Perhaps it would be a good idea to interview the widow after all. The safe might contain some sort of clue to the killer’s identity. “You didn’t recognize the voices, I suppose.” And might not readily tell them if he had.

  Moore shook his head.

  Charles narrowed his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked abruptly. “Why are you hiding out? What do you know?”

  Again the furtive glance, and a silence.

  Murray stepped closer, crowding Moore against the shelves. “Don’t be a fool, man,” he snarled. “Your employer’s been murdered and you’ve run away to hide. Who’s to say there was no money in that office? Who’s to say that you didn’t kill Badger, ransack the office, and make off with that satchel of sovereigns? I promise you, the chief constable won’t be so tender, nor the judge at the assize. Answer the question!”

  Moore seemed to deflate in front of their eyes. His shoulders slumped as if his backbone could no longer support them, and his head dropped. “I’m ’iding out from Baggs,” he muttered.

  “Baggs?” Charles frowned. “Why?”

  “ ’Cause ’e’s ’oo killed Badger.”

  “How do you know?”

  Moore chewed on his lower lip. “ ’Im and Badger ’ad sharp words about ’orse doping, more’n once. Badger din’t like doping, ye see. It interfered wiv the book. Badger said it’s the bookie ’oo gets ’urt when there’s doping—the bookie and the ord’n’ry bettor. Badger went through ’ard t
imes in ’is life. ’E ’ad a warm place in ’is ’eart fer the ord’n’ry bettor, ’oo saves up ’is pence to ’ave a go on a good ’orse.”

  “And Baggs?” Murray asked. “What was his view on the subject?”

  Moore’s face darkened. “Baggs ’ad got in wiv the American dopers and saw a chance to make some big money, like they’re doing. When Badger told ’im that ’e’d been to talk wiv the stewards, Baggs wuz fierce wiv ’im. And when ’e said ’e intended to organize the bookies, Baggs wuz fiercer. Said ’e wudn’t stand still and watch ’im meddle in wot din’t concern ’im.” He hunched his shoulders and added darkly. “Baggs is the one ’oo killed Badger.”

  “Do you have any certain knowledge of that?” Murray demanded.

  “I ’eard ’im say ’e would, din’t I?” Moore replied. “They wuz arguing, and Baggs told Badger that if ’e tried to organize the bookies to stop the dopers, ’e’d kill ’im dead. Right in front of me, ’e said it. Loud and nasty-like. ‘I’ll kill ye dead wiv me own two ’ands,” e said, just like that.”

  “When did he say that?” Charles asked.

  “Recent. A couple of days ago. When I ’eard the men sayin’ how Badger was shot to death in the alley, I figgered it wuz Baggs as done it. Since ’e knew I wuz there when ’e threatened Badger, I feared ’e might come after me. To keep me from telling. So I come ’ere, to me brother’s ’ouse. And ’ere is where I’m staying.” He held out his hands and added, fervently. “That’s the truth, sirs, the ’ole truth and nuffin but the truth, so ’elp me God.”

  On the whole, Charles rather thought that it was—the truth, at least, as Sobersides saw it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  At Regal Lodge

  No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

  Samuel Johnson