by Charles Todd
And there was his motive for their murder, surely.
“Was there anyone else who made trouble?”
“Ah. The Bingham lad.” She smiled at the memory. “He ran away as regular as clockwork. We’d find him in the village regaling anyone who would listen with his tales. He told me he’d seen a Maharajah with ropes of pearls that hung down to his feet, and elephants painted all over with pictures, and camels that bite when they’re not pleased.”
I could have told her that all those stories were true. I’d seen the ropes of pearls, and elephants decorated for Hindu festivals, and camels most certainly bit anyone who didn’t have a care about how to approach them.
“What was young Bingham’s first name?”
“He wasn’t there very long. His parents died, I think, and someone came to fetch him. I can’t seem to bring it back.” She frowned with the effort. “Donald? Daniel? I do remember that he called himself a peculiar name. He showed me a picture once of this strange black creature with a red tongue and more arms than legs. Gave me a start to see such a thing. It wasn’t normal.”
I took a wild guess. “Was it Shiva?”
“That’s it.” She nodded. “How did you know?”
Shiva. The Destroyer. Not such an innocent little boy after all, if he longed for vengeance.
“I must have seen the same drawing somewhere.”
“Then you’ll understand why I remembered it all these years, because it truly sent a shiver up my spine.”
She was tiring, we would be asked to leave soon. And so I put the last question baldly.
“I’ve always wondered. Who killed the Caswell family?”
“It was said that the Wade lad did it, but there were rumors that Mr. Gates, who inherited The Willows, had had his eye on it for some time. There were some thought Mr. Caswell owed him money and couldn’t ever repay it. The day Mr. Gates first walked in the door, he settled our wages and dismissed the staff. And we were that glad to go. I couldn’t step into the parlor without seeing them there stiff and dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if ghosts walk in that house of a night. I’ve wondered if that isn’t why The Willows is on the market. It’s not a happy house. In my view it was never a happy house from the start.”
Even if the elder Gates had killed the Caswells, he was dead now and could not be blamed for what happened to the Gesslers.
I rose to go, thanking her for speaking to me. Simon, who had been sitting across from me, got to his feet as well. I thought he was about to say something more, but he seemed to change his mind, and we took our leave.
As he turned the crank and got in beside me, I asked, “Why were you so long filling the coal scuttle?”
“Was it too obvious?”
“I don’t think she noticed. Mainly because it would take her even longer to fill the scuttle herself and carry it in.”
“I had a look around the cottage. And around the yard behind it. Miss Gooding is very trusting. She doesn’t lock her doors or the shed out beyond the kitchen garden.”
“That sounds rather ominous,” I said. “What did you find?”
“Upstairs by Mrs. Gooding’s bed, there was a picture frame like yours from the charity stall. I opened the back. There was a red stamp like that in your frame. Because the frame is heavy silver, I suspect it wasn’t Miss Gooding’s to begin with. Possibly it’s one that the Caswells kept and she wanted it because of the children. She could well have decided, when everyone was sacked so precipitously, that the new owner would have no need of it. Or perhaps it had been relegated to the attics for years and she simply helped herself to it. At any rate, I expected the photograph to be very similar to yours. But it wasn’t.”
“Miss Gooding told me that every Christmas a photograph was taken of the children, to send to their parents. It could have come from another year.”
“It was a more recent photograph of what appeared to be a group of children at a church outing or perhaps a private party. And it hadn’t been taken by a professional like Gessler. I think it had been substituted for the original one in that frame.”
“Perhaps that’s what she wanted to put in there. That’s why she kept the frame in the first place.”
“That’s possible.” But I could hear the doubt in his voice.
I remembered Miss Gooding’s clouded eyes. Once she would have known the difference if the photograph had been switched. By now she probably never really looked at it—really looked at it—at all. It was there, it was comforting, her children, and that was all that mattered. She knew their faces by heart.
I considered what that meant.
“Simon. We must turn around and go back to the cottage. There’s one more question I want to put to Miss Gooding. But if what you’re telling me is true, then her failing eyesight saved her life.”
Chapter Fourteen
Miss Gooding was surprised to see us standing on her doorstep once more.
I apologized profusely, telling her that I must have left one of my gloves by my chair.
Trusting soul that she was, she held the door wide and said, “I don’t remember seeing anything on the floor, but then my eyes aren’t what they once were. Do come in and look, my dear.”
I crossed the room to where I’d been sitting and said, “Oh, here it is.” And I held up the glove I had just taken out of my pocket.
Miss Gooding squinted. “So it is. Well, I hope you hadn’t got too far before you remembered it.”
As I walked to the door again, I said, “Do you have visitors very often, Miss Gooding?”
“The rector calls when he can. And the former sexton comes to bring me the gossip. There was a young man not three weeks gone who had lost his way. I was just going to fetch more coal and he offered to do it for me. Very kind of him, wasn’t it? But he said it was the least he could do after disturbing me.”
“What did he look like?” Simon asked.
“He was not as tall as you, slender, I think, dark haired. I couldn’t make out his face, but he had a kind voice.”
“And a kind heart,” Simon replied as she held the door for us.
“Yes, I’m sure of it.” Miss Gooding smiled.
I thanked her again, and we left.
“How did you guess that he had come to the door, instead of slipping in the house?” Simon asked when we were once more on the road.
“Perhaps he wanted to see if she remembered him. Would he have killed her, do you think, if she weren’t losing her sight?”
“That may have saved her, as well as being asked to fill the coal scuttle, which gave him the chance to look for whatever it was he came for. Something brought him here. If it was for the photograph, he was clever enough to switch it rather than steal it frame and all. She might have noticed if it went missing.”
“Why did you wander around, Simon?”
He glanced at me. “To see if Miss Gooding had anything that would be worth burning down her cottage to destroy after we had returned to Somerset.”
Before going to sleep that night, late as it was, I looked at the photograph again.
I was beginning to put names to some of the children, although I couldn’t have said which were which.
The boys must be Thomas Wade, young Mayfield, and Bingham. That left two other boys unidentified. One of the little girls must be Lieutenant Wade’s sister. Was one of the others Gwendolyn Caswell?
I studied the faces, trying to find something in them that would help me understand why this photograph mattered. But all I could really see was the unformed features of the young. Were they good children before they arrived at The Willows, and then shaped by their experiences there?
I remembered Mr. Kipling’s tight mouth and hard eyes when he was asked about his own experiences in a house like The Willows. Whatever had happened to him was buried so deep inside that he couldn’t bear to have it brought back
again into the light of day. Even after all these years.
My father was already at breakfast when I came down the next morning.
He looked up from his newspaper and said, “Your friend Corporal Caswell has been discharged from hospital.”
“Are you having him watched?” I asked, dismayed. “How did you find him?” I hadn’t told him the name Lieutenant Wade was using. Or that he’d been a patient in the influenza ward. “Or—has someone been watching me?”
The Colonel Sahib smiled. “Nothing so dramatic, my dear. A postcard from Rouen.”
He passed it across the table to me.
Sister Bailey had written it.
Took a convoy of weak and convalescent cases to American Base Hospital. Corporal Caswell discharged, everyone in mourning. Lucky you to get leave, we are overwhelmed as usual. Friend carrying this to England.
And beneath it in another hand I read:
Mailed in Portsmouth. Miss seeing you, Bess. Take care.
It was signed by the First Lieutenant of the Mermaid, a ship I’d taken back and forth from France I don’t know how many times.
I felt my face flush. I’d assumed the worst. And now I would have to explain why I had said such things to my father.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized, setting the card down. “I didn’t sleep well. But that’s no excuse for being rude.”
My father was astute. He got up and helped himself to more porridge and brought a bowl to me as well.
“Is Caswell the name he’s using?” he asked gently.
“Yes. I didn’t want to tell you that. I didn’t want to put you on the spot, deciding whether to send someone to France to arrest the man or to wait and see what I could learn in Petersfield.”
“Perhaps you should let Scotland Yard take over the inquiry now. Or the Army.”
“What if they didn’t do a very good job the first time round?”
“That’s always possible,” he agreed.
It was always hard to keep anything from my father. And so I told him about Corporal Caswell, the influenza patient brought in to our hospital, and how he had tried to escape, and how that had been perceived as trying to rejoin his men too soon. How he had told me a little about his escape from the MFP, but avoided telling me anything about the murders.
“But something happened in Petersfield,” I finished. “And until I know what it was, I’m not comfortable with the view that Lieutenant Wade killed the Caswell family.”
“You may have stumbled on something entirely unrelated to the murders, have you considered that? People have secrets, and a murder inquiry tends to bring them out into the open, guilty or not of the crime being investigated.”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” I replied. “It’s just—I don’t know how to explain it. Except to say that it’s rather odd that so many secrets seem to center around the Caswell family and their house.”
The Colonel Sahib nodded. “Not so odd, given the fact that those children grew up and went on to lives of their own.” He set his empty bowl aside. “I ought to send orders to have this Corporal Caswell picked up so that he can be questioned. Instead I’ll see that someone keeps an eye on him. They needn’t know why.”
“He’s clever,” I warned. “He’s survived this long.”
Living with a regiment left me with no illusions about what would happen. And even if he escaped the MFP, where could Corporal Caswell go in the midst of a bloody, stalemated war?
The answer came unbidden. The smartest thing someone like Corporal Caswell could do in the circumstances was to let himself be taken prisoner by the Germans. Whatever hardships he would have to face would be light compared to getting out of Afghanistan. And he would be out of reach until the end of the war.
My mother and I went to call on Mrs. Mayfield. She lived just thirty miles away, as it turned out.
I took with me the photograph of the children, and my mother carried with her several jars of the plums we had just put up.
I was shocked at how much Mrs. Mayfield had aged. Her son’s death and then her husband’s had turned her fair hair white before its time, and there were lines of suffering in her face that touched me deeply.
She welcomed my mother and me warmly, glad to have visitors. She took the jars of plums, embraced my mother in gratitude, ringing for tea to be brought in.
“I must tell you, the kitchen garden has been a godsend this summer. With so many shortages, it has meant some variety in meals. My cook does her best, but it has tried her patience to make do day in and day out.”
My mother smiled. “So have we all. There was no sugar for the plums, of course, but never mind, it’s a treat all the same.”
They chatted about friends for a time until the tea tray was brought in by a middle-aged housekeeper. Mrs. Mayfield turned to me and asked how I felt, working with so many wounded, and whether I should continue nursing when—if—the war ended.
“I’m sure my work won’t end straightaway. But after we have all the wounded and the returning prisoners safe, I shall have to consider what to do next.”
“You’re such a pretty girl, Bess, surely there’s someone you care about?”
I smiled. “Not at the moment,” I assured her. “I’m kept too busy to think about falling in love.”
Across the room on the table by the window were framed photographs of Captain Mayfield, of the bridal couple when they were married, and then of their son, smiling in his mother’s arms, in his grandfather’s lap, riding a pony with an Indian servant leading it, and even the very one I had in my purse, along with another very much like it—but with fewer children—and what appeared to be a birthday photograph, for it showed their small son holding several toys and seated in the very chair I had bought.
I nodded toward the table. “Such lovely photographs,” I said and felt ashamed of what I was about to do. “I remember some of them from India.”
A shadow passed over her face. “My lads,” she said, affectionately including her husband in the term.
Gesturing to those taken by the Gesslers, I singled out the copy of the one I was most interested in and asked, “Who are the other children there with George? Do you recall?”
She got up and crossed to the table. “This one? George is by the newel post, still so fair, just like Henry at the same age. And next to him I think is the Wade child, and his sister, just there. The older girl is Gwendolyn Caswell, and I don’t remember who the younger one is. Josh Bingham at the foot of the stairs. George liked him, but I was told later that he was forever running away. Imaginative child, I thought him, telling his wild tales. I don’t remember the other two boys. I don’t believe they were there when Henry and I visited the house.”
Disappointed more than she could possibly guess, I said, “Yes, I’m sure there were children coming and going much of the time.”
“I was just so very grateful that those terrible murders took place after the family stopped taking in children. Just think what could have happened—what a harrowing experience it would have been for the children. Or they themselves might have been harmed. It doesn’t bear thinking of.”
“Why did they stop taking in children? Do you know?” my mother asked.
“I don’t, really, but I seem to remember that Mrs. Wade told me the reason the Caswells offered was that their daughter was growing up and they wanted to give her more time than they could with a house full of little ones to look after. But then Henry told me he’d heard they had come into money. Still, it must have been quite a strain on young Gwendolyn to share her parents and her home with so many strangers.”
My mother made noises of agreement, and then it was time for us to take our leave. We thanked Mrs. Mayfield for her hospitality, and my mother promised to come again soon.
A few minutes later we were on the road back to Somerset. I was driving, and my mother was silent for a ti
me. “Did you learn anything useful, Bess?”
“I learned more about the others in that photograph. And I was grateful not to have to show her mine, or explain how I came by it.”
“Yes, there’s that. Poor woman. I can’t imagine having to grow old without either you or your father there beside me.”
“Captain Mayfield was close to the age of retiring from the Army. Why was he at Mons?”
“He’d gone over at once with the Expeditionary Force. They were outnumbered, sadly so. But they fought well. I don’t think you could have stopped him from going if you’d tried. I lived in fear that Richard would be called back into the Army. But he was more useful in other capacities—how he must have hated that!—and I could sleep again.”
I could imagine worrying about my father or Simon in the trenches. For both of them would have preferred active service to whatever it was they did when they disappeared for a day or a week at a time. I’d heard my father say more than once that he had agreed to it only because he felt his experience would save the lives of green recruits facing the German Army’s best-trained men.
“Did they come into money—the Caswells?”
“Possibly,” my mother said. “Or perhaps it suited them to let people believe it when they stopped taking in children. It must have rankled to be reduced to that.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, remembering Joshua Bingham telling the world that there was an idol in The Willows filled with diamonds. That was a little over the top, even for an imaginative boy. But one of the children could have left behind what appeared to be a trinket of no value, one that the Caswells discovered to be worth a small fortune. I wished I’d paid more heed to the toys little George Mayfield was holding.
What if somehow the Caswells came into money that wasn’t theirs in the first place but belonged to one of the children? I couldn’t quite see how that could happen. Was there another grave in the churchyard in Petersfield that we hadn’t discovered?