We walked down to the village, passing women hoeing in the fields. One of them, an unusually tall black lady, straightened her back and looked at us. The others continued their labour indifferently.
The canal was on the other side of the village. What we had hoped to see, I do not know. What we saw were men up to their chests in water digging out sand and throwing it up on the sides while others went along moving the sand back and forming banks. Behind them, patrolling steadily, was a man with a long whip, the overseer, usually the Pasha’s man, exercising the whip whenever he thought fit.
We went back to the village. It was a small one, just a few houses clustered around an open space which served as a square, one or two tebaldi trees and beneath them a well. Women were dipping a bucket into the well and filling their pitchers, and, not far away, a group of men were sitting, the village elders.
One of them rose as we went past. It was the village omda, the headman, whom we had met when we arrived. He asked us if the house was to our liking. We said it was; only the sand had blown in during the storm. He said he would send a woman up to clean through the house again. She had done it earlier, he said apologetically, only at this time of year, when there were frequent sandstorms, it was hard to keep it like that.
I said that to us, after Cairo, the village seemed very peaceful. He said that all the men were away working on the canal. He hoped they would not be away for too much longer as there would soon be a need for them in the fields.
We asked him if he found it difficult supplying the necessary labour for the corvee. He shrugged.
“They know it has to be,” he said.
I asked if any of the villagers tried to evade it. He said that if they did it would fall upon the family and on the village, so on the whole people didn’t.
Herbert asked if anyone at work ever tried to slip away. Seldom, said the omda, for then the whole gang was flogged. He seemed about to add something, then stopped; then burst out that in fact it had happened only a few days before. A man had disappeared. “The wound is still fresh in our minds,” he said. He pointed to a woman filling her pitchers alone by the well. The other women had departed.
“That is his wife,” he said. From now on, he said, or at least until he gave himself up, his wife would have to fill her pitchers alone.
“And what if he never comes back?” Herbert asked.
The headman did not answer directly. He said only that the Pasha’s reach was wide.
We walked back up to the house in silence.
“We know now, at any rate, the identity of our man,” Herbert said, throwing himself into one of the chairs on the verandah.
And yet the mystery had only deepened. We now knew who the poor fellow was. But how had he met his end? And for what reason?
We could now understand, we thought, the explanation for his presence in the farm. He had fled from the gang working on the canal and, seeking refuge, climbed over the wall, believing the farm-house to be still deserted. There, at least, he would be safe from the wild beasts outside.
Was it not possible, however, that in doing so he had come face to face with a creature wilder than any of those he feared?
There were other questions. Had he been pursued to the farm? Or had he come there and inadvertently stirred an inhabitant who, or which, had turned on him perhaps in panic and killed him?
All this seemed possible and likely. What did not seem possible or likely was the tale told by the footprints: that some one or thing should enter the room while we were actually in it, our heads covered, it is true, but nevertheless there, pick up the bottle and then walk calmly out with it and disappear into the sandstorm.
Later in the afternoon, after we had enjoyed the splendid Christmas lunch that Clara had prepared for us, the woman that the omda had promised came up to clean the house again. It was the woman we had seen on her own beside the well. Perhaps the omda had sent her up in pity, knowing that without her husband she would be in need of any recompense that we might offer.
She was a sturdy peasant women in her thirties, barelegged and bare-footed, though without her face covered, as it would perhaps have been in the town. While we were enjoying our coffee and brandy, she set to work in the kitchen and soon had swept it clean. Then she came into the dining room with her brush. She saw the footprints, there, still in the sand that covered the floor, and stopped.
Then, without a word, she swept the floor clean and afterwards moved on to the bedrooms.
“There goes our chance,” said Herbert quietly, “of keeping this from the village.”
When she had finished she went home. Herbert and I sat out on the verandah wondering what we should do. If she revealed what she had seen, the whole village would be up here. They would rout around and almost certainly come across the body in the ice-house. And then, as Herbert pointed out, it would not look good for us. We decided that in the circumstances we would have to revise our plans. We would go to the omda first thing in the morning and disclose the presence of the body.
That night I found it hard to get to sleep. Inside the house it was insufferably hot so I moved my bed things out on to the verandah; but there the bright moon light made it almost as clear as day. I lay awake, listening to the cries of the jackals and the wild dogs, and the distant cry of a hyaena.
In the end I could stand it no more and got up. I did not wish to disturb Herbert but walked out into the yard. In my mind were strange memories – the memory of someone else who had once been fleeing from bondage and in his flight had come across a small boy. From that boy he had received a helping hand and that helping hand had stayed with him for the rest of his life. It had transformed his life, made it different not just from what it was but from what it might have been. It had put a light into the darkness of his mind, an ignis fatuus, perhaps, a false light, like those marsh gases or corpse lights that dance in graveyards, but nevertheless a light, and, on reflection, I would not have had it otherwise.
Now my mind was turning over uneasily another poor creature who had fled from bondage: for was it not bondage, where work was enforced with the whip?
Flight, flight: did we not all flee from pain? And hadn’t I, too, eleven years before fled from pain by leaving England? But was not that flight a false light, too? I had thought to distance myself from a cruel but broken woman. But can one ever distance oneself from one’s own heart? I knew now that if I had my chance again I would not distance myself but try, in whatever way I could, to mend what was broken. But chances, I have learned, do not come twice.
Thus musing, I turned on my heel, and, as I did so, I caught what seemed to be a movement in one of the outhouses. For a moment my blood froze. Could it be that our visitant of the first night had returned?
I roused Herbert and together we went over to the barn the noise had come from. There it was again! Something was definitely moving inside.
There were two doors. Herbert went round to the one at the rear while I stood by the main entrance. Something was coming towards it. It came very quietly, a soft padding of bare feet. It came through the door. I seized it and called for Herbert’s aid.
It was not as I had expected. Smaller, softer. Weaker. It struggled in my grasp. Herbert came running. I shifted my hands to get a better grip.
And then I nearly let go! The form beneath my hands was unmistakeably that of a woman.
I pulled her out into the moonlight. Herbert came rushing round the corner of the barn, saw her and stopped.
It was the woman who had been cleaning the house for us earlier.
“What are you doing here?” he said sternly.
She spat at him.
I dragged her towards the house. She resisted for a moment and then suddenly submitted.
On the verandah she sat silently and at first would say nothing.
Then she burst out:
“Where is he?”
Herbert and I looked at each other. Could we tell her?
“Who?” I said, temporising.
<
br /> “My man.”
“Your husband?” said Herbert.
She nodded impatiently.
Herbert and I looked at each other again.
“He is gone,” said Herbert.
She sat there still for a moment. Then –
“So he is gone,” she said. Her whole body seemed to slump. “So he is gone,” she said again. She shrugged. “I knew it,” she said bitterly, “I knew it when I saw –”
She stopped.
“He was not a good man,” she went on, after a moment. “He used to beat me. Especially when he had been drinking. He went with other women. I complained to the omda and the omda told him he would have to leave the village if he couldn’t mend his ways. But still he drank, and still he went with them. One especially. I told him I would denounce her to the omda and he would have her stoned. He begged me not to. He swore he would put her aside and be a good husband to me in future. He cried. He always cried after he had been drinking. And he said he would mend his ways. He had said it before, but this time I believed him.
“And I was right to, for he did try to put her away. And she was angry and taunted me, saying I was no good to a man, that I would never bear him children. And then she taunted him, saying that he was not a proper man. Still he would not go with her; but he went back to drink. He could not do his work properly. The Pasha’s man berated him and whipped him, and one day he could stand it no longer and ran away.
“He came home to me and I said: ‘If you stay here, they will find you. Hide yourself in the old farm-house and I will bring you food.’ But then I heard that you had moved in, so I dared not. But when I came up this afternoon I brought food for him. But I could not find him. I thought perhaps he had fallen asleep somewhere, so tonight I came again. But again I could not find him. And now you tell me he is gone.”
“Handel, old chap—” began Herbert.
I knew what he was thinking. We could not continue with our deception. It was cruel to this unfortunate woman. Let the consequences be what they would, we would go to the omda in the morning and declare all.
The first thing in the morning we went down to the village and asked to see the omda. The villagers had sensed that something was toward and had begun to gather. The omda came out of his house and sat down on a bench in front of it. He had chairs brought for Herbert and myself. As the crowd grew deeper I grew more and more concerned about what we had to say.
But then something surprising happened. The cleaning lady stood up first.
“Omda, I have come to declare a fault,” she said.
“Speak on.”
“I helped my man when he fled in fear from the Pasha’s man.”
“So?” said the Pasha’s man, who was standing at the back of the crowd, fondling his whip.
“He came to me at our house and I said: ‘If you stay here, they will take you. Go to the old farm-house and hide there.’ I meant to take him food.”
“And did you, Amina?”
“No. At least, I did: but I could not find him. Because by then he had fled.”
“Fled, Amina?”
“Yes, omda. With this woman.”
She was pointing at a woman in the crowd, the big, dark woman we had noticed among the hoers.
“I?” said the woman. “I?”
“Yes, you, Khabradji.”
“But I am here!”
“And he is not. But you know where he is, Khabradji.”
She looked at the omda.
“That is what I have come to declare, omda,” she said, and sat down.
Hands pushed Khabradji forward.
“She lies, omda. It is not so!”
Amina rose again.
“You were in the house with him.”
“Not so!”
“It was so. I saw your footprints.”
“What!” said Herbert and I simultaneously.
“They will confirm it,” said Amina, turning to us.
I stood up.
“Certainly, we saw footprints in the sand,” I said. “But whose they were–?”
“We thought they might be of some strange beast!” said Herbert excitedly.
“Strange beast?” said the omda, raising an eyebrow.
“They were large and—”
“Large, certainly,” said the omda, looking at Khabradji. Everyone laughed. She looked self-conscious. Evidently her size was a by-word in the village.
“—but no strange beast!” said the omda.
The crowd laughed again.
Herbert stood up.
“It was a mistake,” he said. “And yet in that mistake truth lies. Khabradji, you were certainly in the house. We saw your footprints. You came right into the room where we were sitting. And now, Khabradji, I have a question for you: did you take the bottle?”
“Bottle?” said the omda.
“Bottle?” said Amina.
Herbert turned to her –
“I know, alas, that you are familiar with bottles, Amina. Because of your husband. But was not Khabradji, too? So let me ask my question again: did you take the bottle that was on the table?”
“I – I –” stuttered Khabradji.
“I think you did, Khabradji.”
“Well, what if I did?”
“What did you do with it?”
“Do with it? I – I drank it.”
There was an amazed laugh from the crowd.
“No, you didn’t. You took it out and gave it to Amina’s husband.”
“What if I did?” muttered Khabradji. “What if I did?”
“Where is he, Khabradji? cried Amina suddenly. “Give him back to me!”
Khabradji seemed to shake herself.
“Give him back?” she said. “That I cannot.”
She sat down, as if she had said all she was going to.
I rose from my place.
“But, Khabradji,” I said, “that is not all, is it? You gave him the drink, yes; and then what?”
“I do not know,” muttered Khabradji.
“I do. When he had drunk and was stupefied, you killed him.”
“Killed him!”
There was a gasp of horror from the crowd.
“Killed him?” cried Amina, and made to throw herself at her rival. Hands held her back.
Khabradji now rose in her turn.
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “I killed him. With my hoe. While he lay dulled and sleeping.” She looked at Amina. “I was not going to let you take him back. While I was in the field, I saw him running and guessed where he was going. That night I went to the farm-house myself and found him. I pleaded with him to come back to me. But he would not and spoke bad words. I was angry and rushed from him. But then I looked into the house and saw the bottle and the evil thought came to me: why should not I be revenged? So I took the bottle to him and let him drink; and then I killed him.”
As we were leaving, I heard one villager say to another:
“What was all that about a beast?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Odd that they should think there was. Strange minds these Englishmen have!”
“Superstition,” said the other villager. “That’s the problem.”
All in all it was an odd Christmas indeed. But it had one effect that was lasting. It had taken my mind back to another time when my life had become strangely bound up with that of a poor fugitive. Indeed, it was that which had ultimately led to my flight to Egypt. Reflecting on that, I realised that I had left unfinished business behind me. It occurred to me that the time had come to return to England and address it. Perhaps, too – I confess it – it was the children’s Christmas stockings, bringing home to me that there was more to life than work in a Counting House. Anyway, I went back to England, expecting not great things now but very little: finding, however, when I got there more than I had ever dared to expect.
The Mystery of Canute Villa
Martin Edwards
Throughout his career as a magazine editor Dickens had
a fruitful, if at times difficult, business relationship with Elizabeth Gaskell. They first met in 1849 when she attended a celebration dinner that Dickens held upon the publication of David Copperfield. Dickens later visited Mrs Gaskell and her husband at their home in Manchester and Mrs Gaskell occasionally asked Dickens for his help in assisting people whom she believed were in need.
She held Dickens in high regard but did not always approve of the way Dickens would meddle with her manuscripts, nor did she approve of his separation from his wife. Nevertheless, Household Words serialized much of her best work, including the novel North and South and various episodes that became Cranford, whilst All the Year Round serialized her novel of murder and guilt, A Dark Night’s Work (1863). The following story is set at the same time that Mrs Gaskell completed that novel. You will also encounter a name in this story that we will come across again.
Martin Edwards is a solicitor in Liverpool, just like the main character in his noted series of books starring Harry Devlin which began with All the Lonely People (1991). Several of Edwards’s short stories will be found in Where Do You Find Your Ideas? (2001) and he has also edited several anthologies including a series for the Crime Writers’ Association, starting with Perfectly Criminal (1996).
“Why should an innocent and respectable lady of good family and in her late middle years, never touched by a breath of scandal, be haunted by a mysterious stranger whose name is entirely unknown to her?”
The woman in the railway carriage nodded. “You have expressed the problem in a nutshell.”
Her companion tugged at his beard. “It is a tantalizing puzzle, I grant you, my dear Mrs Gaskell.”
As the train rattled round a bend, she said, “I only hope that I have not called you up to Cheshire on a wild goose chase.”
He gave a little bow. “Your summons was so intriguingly phrased, how could any man fail to hasten to your side?”
“Of course,” she said, “I am profoundly grateful to you for having agreed to spare me a little of your precious time. I realise that there are many calls upon it.”
More than you know, dear lady. Charles Dickens suppressed a sigh. It had been his intention to evaporate – as he liked to describe it – from London to spend a few pleasant days with Ellen Ternan. However, as no doubt she had calculated, Mrs Gaskell’s telegram had fascinated him. Within an hour of its receipt, he was on the train heading north to Manchester. He had an additional motive for racing to her side, being determined to seize an opportunity to improve relations between them. Once they had been on first class terms, but ever since their wrangles over the serialization of North and South, she had displayed a stubbornness unbecoming (if not, sadly, uncommon) in any woman, let alone the wife of a provincial clergyman.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 43