“It is too bad of you, Henry,” she whispered in an aside. “You have quite put him off his turbot. I will not have the mutton spoilt.”
“Tell me what you know of Collingforth's black-coated friend,” Neddie commanded. “The inscrutable Mr. Everett.”
“Ah!” Henry cried, and his countenance lightened. “There you have hit upon a malignant fellow, indeed! Everett had not been in Canterbury a day before it was generally circulated, that he is an arranger of prizefights — which, tho' quite beyond the pale of the law, are much patronised by the Quality. Everett represents the interests of a champion, a bruising mulatto by the name of Delacroix, who hails from Martinique.”
“But what can such a man have to do with Denys Collingforth?” I enquired.
“Collingforth has a passion for boxing, as he does for every game of sport, and has lost a fortune in betting around the ring. Men like Everett may always be found in the neighbourhood of such an one; for a susceptibility to the sport enslaves the purse as well as the man.”
“But there was no prize-fight at the Canterbury Races,” Neddie objected. He had ceased to pace, and now sank back into his chair. “Some other purpose must have drawn Everett hither.”
“I believe he was forced to quit his lodgings in Town for a while,” Henry replied. “A matter of some delicacy, only vaguely understood by the regulars at the Hound and Tooth. I surmised a brush with the law, and a desire to lie low; a sudden inspiration as to his friend Collingforth, and a hasty descent into Kent. I should not be surprised if an arranger of prize-fights was hardly ignorant of the coarser pursuits of his company — the fixing of cards and games of chance, and the ruin of innocent young men in gaming hells. I have seen an hundred Everetts in my time, and may now discern the type.”
“Then we must conclude that the better part of Collingforth's trouble springs from debts of honour,” I ventured. “His intimacy with Mrs. Grey is in part explained.”
“Excellent, Jane!” Henry cried. “Depend upon it, you shall always provide the elegant turn of phrase that moves a tale along. I was coming to Mrs. Grey directly.”
“Then pray do so at once,” Neddie broke in. “This wandering among the byways of the Sporting Life grows tedious.”
“Mrs. Grey, as we know, had her own affection for the Sporting Life. A certain coterie of Kentish gentlemen enjoyed the privilege of high play at her tables. It seems that as lately as the spring, Collingforth counted himself among their number — and that he lost heavily. Mrs. Grey held a fistful of Collingforth's vowels — and showed no sign of forgiving his debt.”
“Then he should hardly mourn her early death,” I said slowly. “I wonder whom else she numbered among her debtors?”
Henry shrugged. “Any amount of local bloods. The lady liked to win, and she possessed the Devil's own luck. Fully half the men of Canterbury were laying bets on the Commodore yesterday, in the hope of improving their fortunes — but to my dismay, they merely bargained further into ruin.”
“And there was Mrs. Grey, exulting in her win, while their hopes turned to dust and ashes,” Lizzy observed. “Lamentable behaviour, I must say.”
“But incitement to murder?” I protested.
“Why not?” Henry's tone was rueful. “The notion has been no stranger to my own thoughts. At least ten times this morning I have considered whether a bullet to the head might not be the kindest service I could render the Commodore, if not myself.”
“Henry!”
“It has been a purgatory merely to move about the town, Jane, I assure you. One young buck, who was far too much in wine, went so far as to suppose a collusion between myself and Mrs. Grey — with the Commodore's jockey throwing his race, and all the losses redounding somehow to my benefit. Or to Mrs. Grey's, had she lived— I cannot be entirely certain.”
“But to return to Collingforth,” Neddie urged. “Surely the death of his chief creditor must relieve his circumstances?”
“I am very much afraid that the loss of merely one among the company, can do little to repair his fortunes.”
“A desperate man might kill for revenge, in the belief he had nothing to lose,” I said.
“—particularly if he may so construct the murder scene as to divert attention from himself,” Neddie added.
“The body in the chaise?”
“Of course. Only a fool would dispose of his victim so obviously — or a very cunning fellow, indeed. From the moment of Mrs. Grey's discovery, we have been struck by the implausibility of the body's lying as it did. We have endeavoured to clear Mr. Collingforth's name, and hardly credited the notion of his guilt—”
Neddie's words were cut short at the entrance of the manservant, Russell, from the kitchen passage.
“Forgive me, sir,” he said with a bow, “but there is a constable just arrived from Canterbury. He is most insistent that he be seen. I have informed him that the second course is not yet served, but he refused—”
“Yer honour!”
A spare, bandy-legged fellow pushed past the footman and sprang lightly into the dining-parlour. “I've come fer yer gold sovereign, and I won't take no paper fer it, neither!”
A length of soiled cloth unfurled from his hands, its gold frogging glinting in the candlelight. Lizzy gasped, and Neddie started to his feet.
Mrs. Grey's scarlet riding habit.
Chapter 6
What the Habit Revealed
20 August 1805, cont'd.
NEDDIE MOVED TO THE CONSTABLE'S SIDE AND TOOK THE gown from his hands. He whistled softly under his breath. “What is your name, my good sir?”
“Jacob Pyke, yer honour, and a Kentish man from four generations.”
“Then I must assume you are familiar with the country, Mr. Pyke.”
“I knows it as well as me own wife's arse, sir.”
A choking sound from Lizzy, hastily covered by a cough.
“Mr. Pyke!” Neddie said sharply. “There are ladies present.”
The constable scraped a bow, and leered all around. “Beggin' yer pardon, and I meant no harm, I'm sure, it being a common enough saying.”
“And where did you discover this, Constable?”
The man's eyes shifted from my brother's face, and he began to worry the cap he now held in his hands. “In a hedgerow, yer honour, along the Wingham road a ways. 'Twas rolled in a piece of sacking, and thrust well back under the brush, so's not to be seen, like.”
“Then how did you happen to discover it, Mr. Pyke?”
An expression of astonished innocence, so false as to cry foul, suffused the man's countenance. “Why — I were told to look for it, yer honour, same's every man jack in Kent. Poking about the leaves and such-like I were, with a long stick, and I comes to a largish lump what don't push back. 'Ho, ho,' I says to myself, 'that there lump ain't a branch nor a bramble no more'n my hand. That be a lady's gown, that be.' And I had it out on the end of the stick.”
“I see.” Neddie sounded amused. “I commend your dedication to duty, Mr. Pyke. And the sacking?”
“Yer honour never said nothing 'bout wanting no sacking,” Pyke countered belligerendy. “It weren't in my orders, and I can't be held accountable. Besides — the lad wanted it fer a remembrance, like.”
“The lad?”
Mr. Pyke took a step backwards, and looked about him wildly. “Just a lad,” he said, “of no account howsomever. He happened to be passing when I unrolled the gown, and begged for the sacking to show his mates.” Betrayal was in every line of Constable Pyke's frame, and I surmised that the unfortunate lad — whatever his identity— had found the riding habit while larking in the hedgerow, and had turned it over to the first constable who came in his way. A finer sense of honour had animated the boy than should ever compel his elders; but presumably he had thought the sacking a sensational item enough— knowing nothing of Neddie's gold sovereign.
My brother sighed, and studied the man before him closely. “I should like to see this place,” he said, “where you found the ri
ding habit.”
“Don't know as I could find it again, yer honour,” the constable protested. “It's nobbit a bit of hedgerow, same's any other.”
“I should like you to be waiting along the Wingham road tomorrow morning, all the same,” Neddie advised, “in expectation of my appearance. We shall go over the ground as closely as may be. And now, Mr. Pyke, pray be so good as to return to the kitchen. You shall have your gold sovereign, and some supper for your pains.”
The man looked all his relief at Neddie's words, and bobbed a salute as he disappeared into the passage. My brother hastened to his library, where he kept his strongbox; and the exchange concluded, we heard no more of Mr. Pyke.
“Henry and I shall forgo the Port this evening, I think,” Neddie said as he reappeared, “and beg you to join us immediately in the library. We must learn what the habit may tell us.”
THE HABIT'S SECRETS, AT FIRST RECKONING, WERE Disappointingly few. Not so much as a drop of rusty brown stained the scarlet, that might suggest the spilling of blood — but as Mrs. Grey had been strangled with her own hair-ribbon, this was not to be expected.
We spread the gown on one of the library's long tables, and made a thorough examination of its folds. It was much creased, but hardly dirty, excepting the dust at the hem that must always accompany a foray out-of-doors; and perhaps some splashes of mud acquired in the lady's enthusiasm for the mounted chase. No tears or rents did we find, that might suggest a violence in the removal, other than a space at the back where one gold button was missing.
“Strange,” Neddie muttered. “The button is found in Collingforth's chaise, but the garment from whence it came is left lying in a hedgerow. Was Mrs. Grey stripped of her clothes in the chaise itself, and the gown thrown aside later on the Wingham road?”
“That does not seem very likely,” Lizzy replied. “I must believe we refine too much upon the gold button. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Grey's brutal end — she might have lost it in a trifling way, when Jane and I observed her to enter the chaise well before the final heat.”
“Very true,” Neddie said thoughtfully, “but it must rob my observation entirely of its honour, my dear!”
“One thing is certain,” I added. “Mrs. Grey cannot have removed the habit herself. Such a quantity of buttons running from neck to waist should require the offices of a maid — or an intimate friend.”
“We must assume, then, that she received assistance,” Neddie said briskly, “—and that she knew whoever killed her.”
“But why remove the gown at all?”
I stared at Henry wordlessly. “I am all astonishment that a man such as yourself — a Sporting Gentleman, and a man of the world — requires the explication of a spinster. Having heard a little of Mrs. Grey's reputation, surely you may form an idea of the circumstances.”
My unfortunate brother opened his mouth, blushed red, and averted his gaze, to my profound amusement.
“As to that — I believe I shall await the coroner's report as to the state of the body,” he replied. “But you mistake my meaning, Jane. I am perfectly well aware that a riding habit may prove an impediment to certain types of sport, and it is possible that Mrs. Grey divested herself of the garment with exactly the intention you suspect. But why remove the habit from the scene of the corpse's discovery? Why not leave it where the body was found? — If, indeed, the lady was even killed in Collingforth's chaise. And if she was not… how should her murderer transport a corpse, dressed only in a shift, under the eyes of all Canterbury?”
I had asked myself a similar question only yesterday. “I had believed the point was moot. We must assume that the murderer shifted the chaise — either to intercept Mrs. Grey on the Wingham road, or to transport her cooling body.”
“Pretty tho the plan may be, dear Jane, it cannot explain the disposal of the habit. Why should the murderer bother to thrust the thing under a hedgerow, if it bears no sign against himself?”
“Then let us dispute the matter less,” Neddie broke in, “and examine the habit more.”
He fetched his quizzing glass from the desk, and pored over the scarlet stuff. Lizzy ran her fingers thoughtfully along the hems, as tho' calculating the cost of its gold frogging, while Henry began to count the trail of buttons rather hurriedly under his breath. I merely stood by and surveyed their endeavours with a bemused expression. At length Neddie perceived my inactivity, and looked up.
“Yes, Jane?”
“It is the custom for ladies who ride, as you know, to carry nothing on their persons, not even a reticule. Their hands must necessarily be reserved for the control of the reins. And yet Mrs. Grey, travelling alone yesterday as she did, must have carried some provision about her. There are no pockets let into the seams of this gown; therefore I suggest you look for one concealed in the interior — perhaps within the lining.”
“Excellent thought!” my brother cried, and seized the gown immediately.
“Not at the waist, dear,” Lizzy advised him, “for it should never do to carry coins below the breast. I would survey the bodice itself.”
And there, in an instant, we found what we were seeking — a small pocket of cloth, let into the bodice's lining, quite invisible from the gown's exterior and only large enough to hold a trifle. Mrs. Grey, it seemed, had employed it to conceal a piece of notepaper. Any coins or bills she might have held had long since disappeared.
“Quickly, Neddie,” Lizzy cried, with something closer to animation than I had ever observed in my brother's wife, “spread it out so that we all might see.” The note was dated hurriedly, and rather illegibly, 19 August 1805 — the very date of yesterday's race-meeting.
Ma chere Francoise —
You must know that I am a man run mad. If you do not consent to hear me, I will have but one recourse. Oh, God, that I had never seen your face! The Devil himself may assume just such a form, and move with such wanton grace, and yet remain the very soul of evil. I shall be waiting in my chaise before the final heat is run. A word, a look, will tell me all — my salvation or destruction, equally in your hands.
It was signed Denys Collingforth.
“Good God!” Lizzy ejaculated, and sat down abruptly in a chair. “So it is all a pack of lies! Collingforth did communicate with Mrs. Grey at the race-meeting, and the result was her furtive visit to the chaise. He must have seen her there. They must have spoken. And when she refused to meet his demands, he killed her in a rage!”
“You forget,” I said gently. “We all observed her, large as life, an hour after the visit to Collingforth's chaise.”
“What is that?” Lizzy snapped her fingers dismissively. “The scoundrel merely awaited her departure, and pursued her along the Wingham road. We have divined it all an age ago — we merely lacked sufficient proofs. The cowardly rogue, to discover her corpse himself, and protest an innocence that must be the grossest falsehood!”
“But why divest the lady of her habit?” Henry persisted. “I cannot find the sense of it. Did he suspect her to retain the tell-tale note, he might merely have searched the body for it. Depriving Mrs. Grey of her clothing, without destroying the letter, can have served him nothing.”
“Perhaps he could not conceive of the cunning bodice pocket, and in his haste, merely disposed of the clothing as a surety,” I suggested.
We were silent a moment in contemplation.
“I cannot like it,” Neddie declared, and commenced to turn before the library's windows. “As my dear Lizzy has said, the note must strike at the very heart of motive. Whether he speaks of unrequited love — or unforgiven debt — Collingforth betrays an ungovernable passion; and the violence of his feeling might well have ended in murder.”
“You must expose him to the coroner, I suppose?” Lizzy enquired faintly.
“I have no choice.”
“But you will inform Mr. Collingforth of your discovery before tomorrow's inquest,” I said. “Common decency would urge such a small consideration. He must be afforded a
chance to explain himself.”
Neddie did not immediately reply, but stood in a sombre attitude before the open windows. No breeze stirred the dark hair that fell artlessly across his brow; and if he perceived a little of the twilight scene beyond the glass, it was not reflected in the blankness of his gaze. Heavy thought, and warring duties, and the weight of care sat hard upon my brother's countenance. Then at last he wheeled and crossed to his wife.
“I fear, my dear, that regardless of the hour I must ride out to Prior's Farm, and destroy Collingforth's complaisance entirely. It is too grave and too ugly a business, to await the inquest in the morning.” He kissed her hand and looked to Henry. “Will you ride with me, brother? I cannot like the Kentish roads at present. Between the unknown murderer and the French invader, a man might find his death in any number of ways.”
“I should ride with you in any case,” Henry retorted, “as you very well know. But I wonder, Neddie, where you think to find Mr. Collingforth. As I intimated at dinner, he is believed to have fled.”
“We must begin at Prior's Farm, and follow where the trail might lead. Do not sit up in expectation of our return,” Neddie called to his wife, “for we shall be very late upon the road.”
Wednesday
21 August 1805
WE DID NOT SIT UP IN EXPECTATION OF MY BROTHERS' return, but tho' I followed the mistress of Godmersham to bed in an hour's time, neither could I sleep. The unhealthy excitement of the past two days quite robbed me of tranquillity, and so I took up my pen and the little book of unlined paper I keep always about me, and set down this account of the day. My candle-flame barely flickered in the torpid air, and but for the scratch of the nib in the breathless room, the great house was unnaturally quiet. I had not doused the light a half-hour, however, before the hallooing of the porter at the gate, and the clatter of horses' hooves on the sweep, announced the gentlemen's return.
I hoped for a full account this morning, but was most tediously put off — for when I sought the breakfast-parlour at ten o'clock, I found only Lizzy in possession, and a very cross Lizzy, indeed.
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