An Inquiry Into Love and Death

by Simone St. James

  My mind spun with the changes of subject. I glanced at the daughter, but she was no help; she merely looked at me and waited for an answer. “I’m alone,” I admitted. “My parents could not come.”

  That stopped Mrs. Kates, but only for a moment; the daughter’s jaw dropped visibly, as if I’d just shed my clothes.

  “Why, how very modern!” Mrs. Kates exclaimed. “We don’t get much of that here. Are your parents ill, perhaps?”

  It was well-meant, but both Mr. Hindhead and Edward Bruton had already commented on my single status. I was beginning to feel like a two-headed cow or a bearded lady. Was a girl alone so very freakish? My parents had always been too busy or preoccupied to coddle me. “They’re not ill. I’m twenty-two; I can care for myself, I assure you.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t know.” Mrs. Kates lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I went straight from my father’s house to my husband’s when I was seventeen, and then I had Julia. People say we look more like sisters than mother and daughter.”

  “You do,” I said politely, though it was altogether true. Mrs. Kates wore a great deal of makeup, skillfully applied, but under it she was blessed with unlined skin, as if she’d never had a worry or a day in the sun. Julia, with her unvarnished face and ungroomed brows, looked like an alternate version of her mother.

  “I don’t know much about modern girls,” Mrs. Kates was saying. “Marry and have children, that’s what’s always worked just fine, as far as I know. Is that motorcar yours? Are you married?”

  “No,” I said, rubbing the bottom of one bare, cold foot over the top of the other and contemplating the chilled air on my knees. “I’m a student at Oxford.”

  This was greeted with a thunderous, surprised silence, as if I’d announced my intention to run as MP. I plunged ahead into the gap. “Look, I’d ask you in for tea, only the stove’s not lit, and I haven’t looked at the supplies. Perhaps—”

  “Oh, no, dear.” Mrs. Kates regained her voice. “You mustn’t worry. What brings you into the garden on such a morning, anyway?”

  “The window,” I replied, motioning up toward the bedroom. “I thought I heard something there last night. You don’t know anything about rodents or birds on the roof, do you?”

  “Heavens, no. Though the house belonged to my husband, and I’ve only taken it over since he died. I don’t know much of anything about those sorts of things at all. I don’t even come out here often, as it’s so far at the end of the road. Was it very bad?”

  “Halloo!” came another voice over the wall.

  We all turned. Edward Bruton came through the gate carrying a paper sack in each hand. “I knocked at the front, miss,” he said to me, “but no one answered, and when I heard voices, I came ’round. I thought you could do with some supplies from town.”

  I tried to decline, but he waved me away and said he had a few things in his cart anyway, which he may as well give to me, as they were entirely extra and he had no idea what he would do with them otherwise. I could do nothing but accept in the end, as he would have it no other way, though I did manage to convince him that I could light the stove myself. No, he hadn’t heard of any rodents on the roof, though if I needed him to do so, he could check in a jiffy. He’d done some light work around Barrow House when Mrs. Kates needed it, hadn’t he?

  Mrs. Kates agreed with this, though she had notably ceased talking. Julia, predictably, said nothing. And after Edward Bruton had gone—kindly without mention of my horrid appearance—Mrs. Kates turned to me with a new look in her eye, that of the gossip who had been waiting for her subject to leave.

  “And how did you meet Edward already?” she asked me.

  “Last night, on the road into town. He gave me directions.”

  “I see. He’s had a hard time since the war, you know. His father left the business in a terrible state—he had health problems, and he got taken in by some sort of phony investment scheme, not that I understand such things. In any case, poor Edward came home to financial ruin. But he’s been working hard since then, and I think things have turned around. He hasn’t taken a wife yet, but I believe he has an eye on my Julia.”

  “Mother!” Julia cried in anguish, the first word I’d heard her say.

  “I see,” I said, wondering madly what was expected. “He seems very kind.”

  “Yes, he is. My dear, we simply must be on our way. It’s been a pleasure. Julia, come with me.”

  I watched them go, the girl slouching with embarrassment as she followed her mother. Mrs. Kates stopped and turned. “By the way, it’s a strange thing. I don’t have a key to the house. I set it down when I was in the house last, and I forgot it. Have you seen it lying about?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t,” I said. “I have the one given me by the solicitor.”

  “Yes, that was your uncle’s. I kept my own—until I misplaced it, that is. You haven’t seen it?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Well. Do keep an eye for it, if you would. I really will need both sets of keys back at the end of the month.”

  “I understand.”

  Inside, I finally lit the stove and put on tea—Edward Bruton, bless him, had brought some—grateful for the silence again. As kind as they were, I could see how small-town neighbors could be exhausting.

  As I poured the tea, I looked at the watch and the book on the table again. In the mundane light of day, they were less unsettling. It was strange to find the book in the stove, certainly—but it wasn’t inexplicable. Toby could have put it there in an absent moment. As for the watch, it had been left on the table; that was all. The sounds outside my window last night were made by some sort of rodent, and I’d turned the sounds into nightmares because of my grim, depressed mood. The experience in Barnstaple had made me see things, feel things that weren’t there. An accident. It was an accident; that was all.

  I took my cup and wandered through the hall to the front rooms, which I’d seen only in the dark last night. I’d start over as if last night hadn’t happened. I’d collect Toby’s things and pack them up, and then I’d return to Oxford.

  I poked my head into the library and saw no personal effects there. I moved into the mismatched front parlor at the front of the house, taking in the worn rug, the spindly chairs, and the ugly fireplace. There were no personal effects there either, and no wonder; I couldn’t imagine anyone using such an uncomfortable room.

  I was about to move on to the stairs when a movement outside the parlor window caught my eye. I pulled back the curtain and peeked out.

  A large, dark brown sedan was pulling up in front of Barrow House, coming to a stop behind my parked Alvis. The driver’s door opened and a man got out—a long-legged, dark-cloaked man. As I watched, he shut the door of the motorcar and strode toward the house, his chin tilted down, the brim of his hat shading his eyes from view.

  He moved easily, powerfully, clad in a slate gray suit under an overcoat of deep, almost velvety black. There was something almost sinister about the black of that coat and the sharp, low brim of his hat; he made an incongruous figure on a sunny morning in a small English town. As if in answer to this, a cloud dimmed the sun and a gust of wind blew up, swirling the dead leaves in the garden behind him.

  I felt my well-being fade away. The man slowed and raised his head, and the hat brim lifted, revealing a square jaw, a well-shaped mouth, high cheekbones. His eyes were dark, and though he was handsome, there was nothing comforting about that face. It was grave, intelligent, perhaps a little weary, his gaze taking in the house with mechanical precision.

  He’s from the solicitor’s office, my mind scrambled. But no, he didn’t look the lawyerly type. The undertaker’s man, then, come to the wrong place.

  Then he saw me watching from the window, and his gaze stopped on me. I felt a flush of awareness and an inexorable drop of dread. The cloud thickened over the sun, the sky darkened fu
rther, and he silently touched his hat, then lowered his hand to point at the front door, a request for me to let him in.

  I set down my cup and obeyed, my feet moving before I was even aware of it. As I opened the door, he was coming up the steps, taking them with effortless grace. He reached up and removed his hat as he approached. “Miss Leigh, I presume?”

  “What is it?” I managed. “Just tell me, please.”

  He read my expression and frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  I shook my head. “It’s too late for that. Yes, I am Jillian Leigh. I’ve already worked out that you’re not a solicitor or an undertaker, and that it’s something terribly bad. So just tell me what it is, then, if you would.”

  I had surprised him; he thought this through for a moment, and I realized he was incredibly handsome, and that I was viscerally, almost painfully aware of it.

  “Very well then,” he said at last. “I need to speak to you, if you have a few moments. I’m Inspector Merriken, of Scotland Yard.”

  Five

  Scotland Yard?” I stared at him in horror. “What does Scotland Yard want with me?”

  “Perhaps we could discuss that inside.”

  If I slammed the door in his face, perhaps all of this would go away. I bit my lip and looked at him. He waited patiently, his hat in his hand. His gaze traveled over me casually, but I wasn’t fooled.

  “Miss Leigh?”

  I stepped back from the door. “All right. All right then. Please come in.”

  He moved forward and I closed the door behind him. Up close, I could see that his suit was well tailored, his shirt crisp, the tie knotted flawlessly at his throat. A man who dressed with care, then, on whatever an inspector’s salary was. It was easy for him to be sartorially perfect, as he had a frame that would give most men’s tailors fits of joy: tall, broad shouldered, slim hipped, sleekly muscled. He wore both the suit and the coat with an ease that bespoke a man who took his physique for granted. He smelled of chill fall air and wool.

  I stepped back and thumped into the wall of the tiny hall. I knew what he saw when he looked at me—a raw, inexperienced girl, barely dressed. Take hold of the situation, Jillian. I’d spent too long in a girls’ school, the only men of my acquaintance aged professors and fellow students in home-knitted jumpers. Old men and boys, really.

  “I’m sorry,” I managed. “That wasn’t much of a greeting. I’m not usually so rude.”

  “It’s quite all right,” he said.

  “Would you, ah, would you like tea?”

  “If you have some, yes.”

  I nodded. “Follow me.”

  I led him down the hall, conscious of the fact that I’d been caught in my studying clothes yet again. I was aware of my bare legs and feet, of the hem of my dress brushing the backs of my knees, in a way I hadn’t been in the presence of Mrs. Kates or even Edward Bruton. Likely Inspector Merriken considered me slovenly and unkempt. I wrapped my cardigan more closely around myself as I walked.

  If the inspector thought anything of my appearance, his expression gave nothing away. When we reached the kitchen, he took a seat at the table as I put the kettle back on the hob and found more cups.

  “I’m sorry about your uncle,” he said.

  His tone was quiet and sincere, and I turned my back to him, busying myself with the tea things. “Thank you.”

  “I was in Barnstaple yesterday,” the inspector continued. “I got there shortly after you did, as it happens. I met with the magistrate.”

  “He told me my uncle’s case was an accident,” I said to the dishes I was arranging. “He said it was official.”

  “Yes. He told me the same thing.”

  I set the tea on the table and looked at him. “Then I’m sorry for asking, but why are you here?”

  He had not removed the dark coat, and it folded around him where he sat at the table, the edges of the fine wool spilling off his chair. He had placed his hat on one long thigh, and his hand rested atop it, the fingers spread and graceful. He tipped his head just the slightest degree as he watched me. “Mr. Hindhead was rather concerned about you,” he said by way of reply. “He said you didn’t weep or, indeed, appear the least bit upset. He told me he could only conclude that instilling education in women produces in them a decided lack of natural feeling.”

  I was shocked for only a second, until anger took over. I crossed my arms. “I didn’t realize that viewing my uncle’s body was a test of my decorum,” I said tightly. “I mistakenly thought it was the most horrible experience of my life.”

  The inspector’s gaze held mine. I thought I saw something flicker across it—a flash of approval, perhaps, though I was too angry to care. “Then we are of the same mind about Mr. Hindhead’s opinions.”

  It took me a second to understand what he was saying. Before I could gather myself to form a reply, the inspector tapped the cover of A History of Incurable Visitations, which lay along-side the watch on the table before him. “Were these your uncle’s?”

  “Yes.”

  He picked up the book, read the title on the spine. He lowered it again and leaned toward me across the table. “All right, Miss Leigh, let’s be clear. Forget about the magistrate for a moment. Your uncle was an unusual man.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, he was.”

  “Most people, you see, fit some sort of pattern at the heart of it. Your uncle was not one of those people. He was a stranger here, and he had no reason to be on those cliffs. No one knows, or will admit to knowing, who hired him to come here. I cannot quite see the pattern, and it bothers me.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. I had assumed Toby had been here on a job, called here by someone as usual. “But the coroner . . .”

  “The coroner at Barnstaple,” the inspector said, “knows more about foxhunting and trout fishing than he knows about death. He likely made a ruling so he could go home to supper. I don’t particularly care what he wrote on that piece of paper. I don’t answer to the coroner.”

  I lowered myself into the chair opposite him. “I don’t think I can help. I don’t have any of the answers. To tell the truth, I barely knew my uncle.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Eight years ago.”

  “Were you close before that?”

  I thought of the afternoons reading, of the day on the beach. “He was kind to me.”

  “Why hadn’t you seen him in so long?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t answer that. He had some kind of rift with my parents. I never knew what it was about. He just disappeared one day; that was all.”

  “And your parents are in Paris.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked away, calculating. He had a face of constant clear yet subtle expression, somber, inquisitive, suspicious. Already I was fascinated by it. In repose, he was handsome, but it was the play of thoughts behind his eyes that made him almost searing to look at.

  He turned back to me. For a long moment his gaze took me in, unmistakably assessing me, as if for that moment I were the only person in existence. The force of it was unsettling, but I kept my chin up and stared back. Take hold of the situation, Jillian.

  He seemed to make a decision. “Your uncle,” he said without further preamble, “was found on the beach at the foot of the cliffs. A fisherman in a passing boat spotted him from the water. It’s an open spot, but hard to see from land. We’re lucky someone saw him when he did. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and your uncle had been dead for three to five hours.”

  I swallowed. The tea sat untouched between us on the table.

  “I ask myself the question,” he continued, “whether a healthy, sober man simply slipped off a cliff in daylight. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.” My voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Did your uncle have any enemies?”<
br />
  I shook my head. Inspector Merriken, I realized, was taking advantage of my shock and pressing me. He was very skilled at it. “You forget that he may have killed himself.”

  He leaned forward again. “That’s why I’m here. You knew him. Do you think he killed himself?”

  I looked down at the table. I had set my hands flat, and I stared at the backs of them, at the spread of my fingers. “I don’t—I can’t picture—” I tried again. “He was alone; I do know that. He’d never married or had children. He was considered eccentric. He was estranged from my parents, who were his only family.” It felt traitorous even to be saying these things. “Still, the idea that he would . . . just do that—I don’t think I believe it.” I looked back up and watched the expressions on Inspector Merriken’s face—skepticism, disappointment perhaps. “I suppose the family members never believe it, do they?”

  “It’s an understandable reaction.”

  Anger rose in my throat again, surprising me. “There’s nothing understandable about this. Nothing.”

  He only nodded, and took a small notebook and pen from the breast pocket of his jacket. “Now you see why I’m here.”

  He bent to the notebook and wrote, obviously some kind of notes for himself. I waited during a moment of silence, the only sound the scratching pen. I looked at his handsome face and realized I was still angry at his calculated manipulation of me, at his effortless control, at my own attraction that tempted me to give in. I wanted to shake him.

  “Why not me?” I said at last.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Why not suspect me of murder? Perhaps I had a motive.”

  He did not look up. “Because you were in school at the time he died, in a tutorial with three other students and a professor named Martha Mackenzie. I’ve talked to the professor already.”