Hither Page

by Cat Sebastian

  “I have had no fewer than seven cups of tea today,” Leo said. “I have never had so much tea in my life. Nobody has, in fact. Can a man die of tea poisoning?”

  “Well, if you’re headed to Little Briars, as I am, you’re only going to get more tea. So brace yourself.” They walked up the path together, their shoulders occasionally bumping together. “Before we get inside, I ought to tell you that Marston wasn’t strictly forthcoming with the police. He believes he heard a bicycle go past his cottage last night. He thought it was Wendy because nobody else is in the habit of bicycling along the footpath.”

  “I don’t suppose he recalled the time.”

  “Around eight or nine. But in any event, it can’t have been Wendy’s bicycle. Miss Pickering assures me that Wendy has been quite ill and hasn’t left her bed. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I would have been here sooner if half the village didn’t fancy themselves at death’s door due to tonsillitis.”

  James knocked on the door and Edith answered it herself.

  “I tried to keep her in bed,” Edith said by way of greeting. “But she’s not hearing it.” She led the way to the parlor, where Cora sat in her customary chair and Wendy was curled on the sofa, her face gray and dark circles beneath her eyes.

  “Good God,” James said. “You were quite all right yesterday afternoon.” In the graveyard, she had seemed sleepy and perhaps a trifle foxed, but not ill. “Edith said you had been sick, but I had no idea.”

  “I slept sixteen hours,” she said with an air of pride. “And now my head feels stuffed full of cotton wool. I’m as stupid as can be.” Her voice was thick with sleep, as if it took great effort for her to form words.

  “Which is why you ought to have stayed in bed,” James pointed out. He removed a small torch from his bag. “Open up and say ‘ah.’” She stuck her tongue out and complied.

  When James put the torch back in his bag, she sat up straight. “Do I have any pustules—” she pronounced that revolting word with evident delight “—on my throat?”

  “No.” James put the back of his hand against Wendy’s head. It wasn’t the most accurate method of gauging temperature, but at a touch he knew Wendy had no fever. “You don’t have tonsillitis.” He reached for her wrist to take her pulse.

  “Sixteen hours,” Leo said. He still stood in the doorway to the parlor. “That’s very odd. What is this, some kind of sleeping sickness?”

  “Your heart is racing,” James said. “Have you had any symptoms other than fatigue?”

  “I thought I was going to be sick a couple of times, but didn’t actually vomit. My head hurts and I feel very stupid.”

  “Wendy, are you absolutely certain that you didn’t take anything to help you sleep?” James asked.

  “I was already half asleep when we walked through the door,” she answered. “The last thing I would have needed was a sleeping draught.”

  “Are you absolutely certain?” James repeated.

  “Yes, James. It’s not the sort of thing you do by accident. I don’t ever need anything to help my sleep. I always sleep like a stone. I daresay it’s my clean conscience and all the fresh air I get,” she said brightly, followed immediately by a wide yawn. “I wouldn’t even know where to find the stuff. Presumably, Edith or Cora have some, but I’ve never asked for it.”

  “What are you suggesting, James?” Edith asked.

  James tapped his fingers together. “Wendy’s symptoms are consistent with a slight overdose of barbiturate. Nausea, confusion, cardiac arrhythmia.”

  “This is not reassuring,” Edith said.

  “Have I been poisoned?” Wendy asked, looking somehow both afraid and delighted.

  “We need to send for the superintendent,” Leo announced. “I saw Wendy drink from Mildred Hoggett’s flask yesterday.”

  James stared. He had seen the same thing with his own eyes: Wendy drinking from the dead woman’s flask, first at the funeral, and then the previous day. “The vicar told me he saw Mrs. Hoggett drink from the flask during the dinner party. I ought to have realized as soon as Griffiths told me, but we’ve had so much else to think about. How on earth did the flask get back here for Wendy to find in Mrs. Hoggett’s bedroom before the funeral?”

  “That could be how Mrs. Hoggett was given the Veronal,” Cora said, speaking for the first time since James and Leo had entered the parlor. “The timing works out. Someone might have laced the gin in the flask with Veronal, then kept an eye on poor Mrs. Hoggett. After she became drowsy, they might have suggested she lie down upstairs.”

  “Then it would have to be Armstrong or Norris,” James said. “And they’re both out of it because one is dead and the other has an alibi for last night’s murder.”

  “There’s no saying the two deaths were caused by the same hand,” Leo said. James felt even more stricken.

  Cora cleared her throat. “Anyone at that party might have suggested that Mrs. Hoggett lie down. We all knew her, you see. ‘Oh Mildred dear, you must be falling ill, do lie down in the spare room upstairs and I’ll let the colonel know you’re unwell.’ Just like that. They could even have offered to walk her to the spare room, pocketed the flask, then tripped her once they reached the top of the stairs.”

  “But how did the murderer bring the flask back here?” James asked.

  “People come and go from this house all hours of the day,” Edith pointed out. “Anyone might go upstairs under the pretext of using the washroom.”

  James sank into the empty half of the sofa beside Wendy. “Oh, how stupid of me. I only just now realized. If the Veronal was in Mrs. Hoggett’s flask, that means she was the target all along. But the colonel was killed anyway. Does that mean this isn’t over? Are people going to keep getting killed?” He truly didn’t think he could keep going like this, corpses popping up all over his village.

  “No it does not,” Leo said, coming to stand behind him. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  ALL LEO’S INSTINCTS, born of years spent sniffing out secrets, told him that Little Briars had the answers he needed. He had worked at the edges of this tangle, pitifully eager not to ruin the surrounding fabric, and what he was left with was a knot the exact size and shape of Little Briars. He ought to have puzzled this out days ago, but his judgment had been clouded, his impartiality compromised, and he had had nobody to blame but himself.

  But now he saw the solution and a way to resolve it. When James stood to telephone the police, he sat beside Wendy. “I need to speak to you alone,” he whispered. “And now.”

  “Oh would you really?” she exclaimed delightedly. “Edith, Mr. Page is going to walk me outside to feed my horrible, lazy chickens.” That, Leo supposed, was as good a cover as any. He helped bundle Wendy into a men’s overcoat and a pair of Wellingtons. With Wendy leaning heavily on his arm, they stepped outside. “Well,” she said as soon as the door shut behind them. “You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

  “And you mine. I gather that you feel at loose ends here in this village and perhaps you don’t think you have options, but I would urge you to reconsider doing anything drastic.”

  She looked up at him in the purest bafflement. “Mr. Page, what on earth do you think I’m going to do?”

  He looked at her closely. She did seem groggy and pale, but those symptoms were easily counterfeit. Then again, she might have taken some Veronal after killing Armstrong, relying on the evidence of drugs to provide an alibi.

  “The man who came to visit you last month,” he said. “The man who claimed to be Miss Delacourt’s cousin. Sir Alexander Templeton. I know him. I know he was in the village, I know he came to Little Briars, and I know he’s in the habit of recruiting clever, rootless young people for his service. And while it all seems exciting at first—and it is exciting, it really is—eventually you’ll find yourself in my position and...I don’t think you’d like that. I don’t think the ladies inside would like it, or Mrs. Griffiths. I know Dr. Sommers wouldn’t like it. There’s time for you to recon
sider. Whatever happened at Wych Hall last night, we can bury that easily enough. Nobody actually saw your bicycle. But—”

  “Mr. Page. Please stop. I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about. This man you’re speaking of, he came to see Miss Delacourt. Not me. He was some old friend of hers.”

  Looking at her, Leo would have sworn that she was telling the truth. But no doubt any number of people had thought the same of him. Well, there was nothing for it but to talk to Templeton. Either he had recruited this girl or he hadn’t. As far as Leo could piece things together, Sally Bright must have identified Wendy as a prospective agent and told Templeton. Templeton then visited Little Briars to see Wendy himself. What troubled Leo was that Templeton hadn’t told him. Perhaps this was meant to be a test for Wendy, to see if she could dispose of a couple of targets without being detected. Or perhaps, Leo wondered, it was a test for himself. From the very beginning, there had been something wrong about this case—too many agents for too small a job, it just wasn’t the way Templeton did things—and now Leo thought he knew why.

  Wendy had certainly had the means and opportunity to kill Mrs. Hoggett, although he hadn’t figured out why Templeton thought the charwoman needed to be eliminated. She could have put Veronal into the woman’s flask, lured her upstairs, taken the flask back, and pushed her down the stairs. But why drink from the flask in plain view of everyone? That didn’t add up. Perhaps she hadn’t killed Mrs. Hoggett, but had only killed Colonel Armstrong. She had motive and means for that as well. She could have ridden her bicycle straight from Little Briars to the terrace at Wych Hall, knock on the french doors, wait for the colonel to answer, step into the library, wait for the colonel to sit at his desk, shoot him, get back on her bicycle, and return to Little Briars. It could be done in less than half an hour. James had said that Wendy knew how to shoot, and if she had been taught by Miss Delacourt, she probably was more than competent. But none of that answered why Armstrong needed to be killed. Templeton had wanted to give the man enough rope to hang himself with; dead, he could provide no evidence as to who was selling industrial secrets.

  Unless Templeton had been lying about that as well. Perhaps the business about British steel was only a ruse. Leo’s head spun.

  “My mistake,” he said easily. “Shall we go inside?”

  When they returned to the parlor, the police superintendent and his sergeant had arrived to collect the flask.

  “I just remembered something when I was standing outside with Mr. Page,” Wendy announced to the room at large. “I was feeding the chickens and it all came back to me. I believe I walked in my sleep last night.”

  Everyone in the room stared at her. “You’ve never slept walked in your entire life,” Miss Pickering said, putting down her knitting.

  “No, I’m afraid I do. I’ve kept it a secret because I’m really quite ashamed, you see. But last night I remember thinking I needed to feed the chickens. So I crept outside and you will never guess what I saw.” She gave a dramatic pause. “I saw a man on a bicycle!”

  “Are you quite sure it wasn’t a dream, Miss Smythe?” Superintendent Copley asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the girl said with wide eyes. “When I woke up, my feet were wet from the snow.”

  “I don’t suppose you can describe this man on the bicycle,” Copley asked.

  “He was large. Huge, really. And he had red hair.”

  “Which you were able to discern in the moonlight,” Leo muttered.

  “My eyesight is remarkable,” Wendy said.

  Edith put down her knitting. “You did no such thing. This is the purest taradiddle.”

  Wendy ignored the older woman. “My sleep is very troubled, alas.” She flung a dramatic hand across her forehead.

  “Not an hour ago, you told us you always sleep soundly,” James pointed out.

  “I was ashamed of my poor sleep and afraid it reflected badly on my character.”

  “Wendy,” James groaned. “What are you doing?”

  “I have these episodes,” she went on. “It’s because of my tragic past.”

  “You don’t have a tragic past,” Edith remonstrated.

  “My tragic past,” Wendy repeated firmly. “It makes me forget things. James can tell you that’s quite typical of people with tragic pasts.”

  Leo did not know whether to laugh or cry. He could not recall ever being so simultaneously amused and flummoxed by a case. Was this girl a murderer? A lunatic? A spy? A silly child with a penchant for drama? Or was Leo missing something entirely? He was too close to see this case properly.

  He excused himself and grabbed his coat and hat, wrapped his muffler—that blasted muffler, equal parts kind gesture and red herring—tightly around his neck, and stepped out into the still-falling snow. He was going to ruin his shoes and it would serve him right. Without a clear purpose in mind, he headed toward the village. What he ought to do was get on the first London train and talk to Templeton. But it was Friday evening. Templeton wouldn’t be at Malvern Shipping and Surety. He’d be at Hampstead Heath with the family Leo was only vaguely convinced existed in the first place. Why hadn’t they set up a secure method of communication? With Wychcomb St. Mary being so close to London, it hadn’t seemed necessary at first, but now the lapse struck Leo as yet another sign this case had been wrong from the start. No, he needed to figure out what was going on before confronting Templeton. There was no use going to him with loose speculation. I thought you recognized my muffler, Wendy Smythe is a clever orphan, ergo spycraft. Templeton would have him thrown into the Thames. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t that outlandish a prospect even if Leo’s theories were correct.

  When he reached the village, he saw that Christmas decorations had started to appear in some windows. In a fit of what could only be maudlin lunacy, he had the urge to put glass balls and paper stars on a tree. He wanted to sing carols he had never learned. His own life seemed impossibly cold and dark and jagged around the edges, and that had been enough before he realized he wanted warmth, softness, light. That was the problem: he had borrowed a bit of light and warmth from James, from the ladies at Little Briars, from the village as a whole. And all he had to give back was cold and bitterness. Because even if he had been wrong about Wendy Smythe, there were only so many solutions this case could have and none of them were pretty.

  He was going to ruin the peace of everybody here, James in particular, and that thought wrenched at his heart in a way he hadn’t thought possible.

  Chapter 14

  When he heard a soft tapping at his door some time after the clock had chimed ten, James hadn’t any doubts about who it might be.

  “The police laboratory confirmed that there was Veronal in the flask,” Leo said as he shivered on James’s doorstep. It had begun snowing again, with the result that his hat was a ruined disaster and his coat was soaked through. “And the only fingerprints were Wendy’s, naturally enough.”

  “Do you want to talk about this while standing on my doorstep or do you want to come inside?”

  Leo smiled wanly and stepped inside. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me.”

  “Then you’re not as clever as you look. I’m losing all faith in the intelligence services.” James shut the door and reached to help Leo out of his coat, but the other man leaned away.

  “You ought to lose faith, if I’m any indication of our brightest lights. Let me tell you how I’ve spent the last few hours. I accused someone of being a spy, started to wonder if the only person I’ve ever trusted is trying to set me up for reasons I cannot fathom, considered the feasibility of moving to the Outer Hebrides and raising sheep under an assumed identity—more assumed than usual, that is. Oh, and while accusing that person of being a spy I told her my agency head’s name.”

  “Well,” James said, removing the hat from Leo’s head and making a futile effort to push it back into shape before hanging it on a peg. “You’ve been busy.”

  Leo let out a strangled laugh. “Am I dev
eloping some kind of persecution complex? Is this incipient madness?”

  James slid the sodden overcoat off Leo’s shoulders. “Come into the kitchen so we can dry this out. When you start to suspect people of various bad intentions, are you usually right? I won’t pretend to know you inside and out, but you hardly strike me as a man who flings accusations about and drops top secret information without good cause.”

  “I’ve been a model agent,” Leo said, making it sound equal parts confession and boast.

  “Given that,” James said, steering Leo to the chair nearest the cooker, “I’m inclined to trust your judgment in these matters.”

  “No, that’s just the problem. This place has ruined my judgment entirely.”

  “Wychcomb St. Mary?” James asked, kneeling to unlace Leo’s shoes.

  “Emphatically. Do you know, James, this evening I thought to myself: I would like to put paper stars and glass balls on a tree.”

  “I see you’ve reached the heights of depravity.” James stuffed old newspapers inside the wet shoes to speed their drying and then tugged off Leo’s socks.

  “Anyway, I’m here to make an offer. If you want me to back off, I’ll do it. No hard feelings. I know I must set off whatever tripwires you’ve got in your brain, and—”

  James took him by the lapels and dragged him down for a kiss. It was a mess of a kiss, lips and teeth smashing together with no order whatsoever, but he thought it got the point across.

  “You don’t,” James said, when he pulled back to sit on his heels. “Set off my tripwires, that is. Murder does, but that isn’t you.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Leo said. “Sometimes I’m fairly certain it’s all I am.”

  “That’s a fat lot of nonsense.”

  “Trust me that I’m more menacing when I’m not sad and barefoot in a country kitchen. You don’t know how I’ve spent the last few years.”

  “I think I can guess,” James said. “I mean, really, Leo. I can’t demand that everyone I want to spend time with have a clear conscience, especially when we just finished the bloodiest war in the history of man. Nobody’s hands are clean.” He stroked down Leo’s sleeves and took hold of his hands, as if to make the point. “Not mine. By patching people up, I played my role in letting the war go on. I’m complicit. And I think that’s partly why I have so many—tripwires, as you call them. I feel ashamed, almost. But at the end of the day, I believe the war was necessary. I believe that killing is sometimes necessary, even though I believe at the same time that it’s an abomination. I need to find a way to make sense of that.” He took a breath and passed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “I just know that I want to—kiss you, yes, but also get to know you. So, I decline your offer.”