An Inquiry Into Love and Death

by Simone St. James

  I closed my eyes. I wondered why I was now so frightened of a man whose house I had already come to twice for comfort. But every instinct I possessed told me to be still.

  I knew what William would do mere seconds before he did it; our thoughts were that much in tandem. I hoped against hope that I was wrong, but just as I thought it, he opened the back door and let out Poseidon.

  I heard an excited whuff of breath and the padding of the big dog’s paws. I shrank myself smaller, but there was no hope he would not notice me; his sense of smell was unerring, and after a quick bounce ’round the garden, he headed straight in my direction.

  I leaned ’round the wall and looked at him through the gate. He was standing, his ears perked, his tail raised and ready. I made a helpless gesture and shushed him in mime, begging him not to bark. Now would be a good time for that ghostly man to whistle for his dog.

  He didn’t, but luck was with me. Poseidon, it seemed, was not an excitable dog; he took me in with his brown, long-lashed eyes and, having cataloged and assessed me, gave his tail a single wag of approval and turned away, intent on his business. Apparently it had been agreed between us that we would share the garden.

  William would be at the back of the house, watching his dog. I rose onto my hands and knees and crawled—literally crawled—on the ground along the garden wall, making my way toward the front of the house. The wall was only shoulder-high, and even a crouch would be risky, so I sacrificed my stockings until I was well away, hoping no nosy Rothewell villager would happen by and see me. I would, I thought, have to learn to mind my own business in the future.

  But even as I got far enough from the house to rise onto my feet again, even as I slid into the shadows of the bushes and through them onto the road, my mood sank lower and lower. What a fool I’d been, warning William that it was dangerous here. He’d been lying to me, and so had the vicar. And now, after that little fiasco, William for one would no longer trust me. But I had no idea exactly what I was up against, and until I did, it would be unwise to make a move.

  Best to wait for Drew to come back, if he ever would.

  I brushed my hair from my face. I no longer looked like a crazed fugitive, only like an innocent—if dirty—woman out for an evening walk. I tried to brush off my skirt and my knees, but there was no help for it. If anyone saw me and noticed my disarray, I’d say I’d tripped on the forest path and fallen.

  Barrow House was quiet and dark when I returned. Sultana waited by the front door and slid past my ankles as I entered. The cup of tea was where I’d left it, cold now. The journal was still on the desktop in the library, the drawer open, the crumpled note still lying where I had dropped it on the floor.

  I picked it up and read it again. Toby’s handwriting was truly elegant, masculine and clear. Beware, daughter of Rothewell.

  I supposed some part of me had always known, but it was time to acknowledge the ghost in Barrow House.

  I cleared my throat. “Toby,” I said.

  There was no reply. It had been Toby who left me the pocket watch, Toby who had put the book in the oven. Toby who had rolled the torch down the stairs when the lights went out.

  “Toby,” I said again, louder.

  Nothing. I glanced at the instruments on the desk, but they didn’t move. Sultana wound around my legs, hoping for food. Walking John terrified her, but of the ghost in the house she had never been afraid; that night on the landing, she had merely looked at it, as if it were fascinating. I wished I knew now what she had seen.

  “Who murdered you?” I said into the silence. “Write it in a note. Please.”

  I smoothed the note in my hands. I was not a daughter of Rothewell—I was the daughter of Charles and Nora, and I had been born in London. Still, the message was unmistakable. But who, or what, should I beware of?

  Walking John was outside the house; Toby was inside. And suddenly I wondered: What if it was Toby whom Walking John was trying to lure, not me? What if it was Toby he wanted? And what could Walking John possibly want of my uncle, alive or dead?

  “I don’t understand,” I said aloud. “Help me.”

  When there was again no answer, I put the note in my pocket and started for the kitchen, to wash the stinging dirt from my palms.

  Twenty-one

  I woke from a dream in which I was drowning in Blood Moon Bay. I was in the middle of those cold, merciless waves, thrashing as they broke over my head and pulled me under. I was cold, my skin growing numb, my limbs becoming sluggish as I tried to stay afloat. The cliffs rose bloodred above me, lit by some uncanny light.

  A figure stood on the beach, watching me drown. At first it was a boy; then it was a man, gaunt and dark, staring at me from the black eyes of its face. I opened my mouth to scream, and swallowed salty water, and then I woke.

  Dim sunlight made its way through the covered bedroom window, the chill gray color of dawn. Sultana lay on the bed with me, curled up and unconcerned. I stared at the ceiling, the walls, wondering for that long, free-falling moment after the end of the nightmare exactly where I was. I had survived another night in Barrow House.

  A hot bath restored me to sanity, and I was putting some breakfast together when a knock came on the front door. I opened it, trying not to notice the kick in the beat of my heart that meant I hoped it was Drew.

  It was Edward Bruton, his ruddy face kind as he doffed his cap.

  “I’ve just come to see how you are, then, miss,” he said, “as I’m just ending my rounds. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I let him in. He’d worried about me my first night here, and he’d checked on me every day since. It seemed to surpass mere neighborliness, and part of me wondered whether Drew’s insinuation—that Edward was interested in me—was true. If so, what a mess it would be. How to appear friendly, but not encouraging?

  I led him to the kitchen. He preferred coffee, so I busied myself making it; he had brought me some, of course, in his supplies. He sat at the kitchen table a little uneasily as I worked, perched on the edge of the hard wooden chair, running a hand through his thick red hair. Though he was well-kempt, he had the shadow of stubble on his face and neck—the kind of skin some men have that indicates a constant struggle to stay clean shaven. If he ever let it go, I thought, he’d have a bright red fiery beard that would be eccentric and unmistakable.

  “I nearly forgot,” he said after a moment. “The vicar gave me this for you.” He pulled a folded note from his pocket.

  Aubrey Thorne granted me permission to see his archives at ten o’clock this morning.

  “Bad news?” asked Edward, seeing my expression.

  I’d made the request in implicit trust, but now I knew I’d walked into some sort of game to which I didn’t know the rules. “It’s fine,” I told him. “I’ve asked to see the vicar’s archives, and he’s agreed.”

  “Archives? You mean those musty old papers he keeps in the vicarage?”

  “The very ones, I suppose. I know my uncle asked to see them. I’m trying to figure out what he may have been looking for.”

  “Ah.” Edward’s expression clouded a little, some of the openness and pleasure gone. I handed him his cup of coffee and remembered that I did not know whom I could trust in Rothewell. “Your uncle didn’t talk to me much,” he said. “I don’t think he quite liked me, to be honest.”

  I tried to picture Toby warming up to Edward, and couldn’t. “You mustn’t take it to heart. I don’t think Toby dealt very well with people.”

  “Maybe not. I tried a few times, I did. He only ever really spoke to me once, and that was to ask me where I was born. Why would he ask a question like that, do you suppose?”

  I sat in the other chair and looked at him across the table, puzzled. “I don’t know. What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I was born here, of course. I never left it for a day until I went to war.”

  �
��The war again,” I said. “It seems to have affected everyone in the village.”

  He shrugged. “Every young man in Rothewell went, though only a few of us came back. I joined late, because I broke my hip when I was a lad and at first they wouldn’t take me. They changed their rules soon enough, when things got bad. I drove an ambulance. I was still driving it on Armistice Day. Kept going until about six o’clock that afternoon; it took that long for the news to reach some of us. Then I came home and drove my father’s donkey cart instead, and I was glad to make the trade.”

  I looked down at my cup, not sure what to say.

  But Edward leaned toward me, the war momentarily forgotten. “Have you found anything? About what your uncle was doing, I mean?”

  I sighed. “Edward, my uncle was a ghost hunter.”

  “Yes, I knew that. He did tell me. But I’m wondering what else you may have found. If you’ve seen anything . . . important.”

  I looked up at him, my eyes narrowed.

  He seemed to have no subterfuge to him, only an interest that was strangely avid. “It’s just that the question he asked me seemed to have a purpose to it,” Edward went on. “As if he was putting something together. And I wonder if you’ve found out what it was.”

  I shook my head. If there was some other purpose to his question, Edward was a terribly good liar. “I wish I knew. I don’t.”

  He leaned back again. “I’d like to know what was going on. I’d talk to the inspector again, but he left for London yesterday.”

  I blinked at him, keeping my voice steady. “You talked to the inspector?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  I was going cold, deep in my stomach. “Tell me what?”

  “I thought he might. You seemed to be working together.” His face reddened, the shade matching his hair. “I thought he might have said.”

  “Edward,” I said, “what might he have told me?”

  “I’ve blundered into it now.” He stood up from the table, his cup forgotten, and paced the kitchen, distress written all over his face. I watched him, my hands icy, as he tried to sort it out in his mind. He moved back and forth, staring down unseeing.

  Finally he gave up. “I’m no good at this,” he said. “I knew I wouldn’t be. I knew I should stay out of it, but of course I go ahead and just assume. The fact is, Miss Leigh, I have something to tell you.”

  “Please,” I said, my teeth clenching now. “Go on.”

  “And now I’m at it, I don’t know where to start.” He put his hands in his pockets. He had stopped pacing and stood in the middle of the kitchen, still not looking at me, unable to sit down. “The thing is, I got back from the war. I told you I’ve lived in this place all my life. I got back from the war and something was different about Rothewell.”

  He shrugged. “At first I thought it was just me. War makes men a little mad, you know, and I wondered if I’d gone wrong in the head. But after a while I knew it wasn’t me. There were lights in the woods at night—not the usual ones Walking John brings. Strangers would come to town for a few hours, then be gone again. I know every fishing boat that travels these waters, but I saw boats I didn’t recognize—in the bay, going back and forth, or just sitting there—and I didn’t recognize the men in them either.

  “I didn’t know what to do about it, not really. There wasn’t any harm happening to anyone, and the sightings were so sporadic, only a few times per year. I thought my imagination was running away with me, and there could have been an innocent explanation. But I do my route up and down the hill every day, and it gives a man a lot of time to observe and to think. And then I saw something that I couldn’t get out of my head.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  He still had his hands in his pockets, and now he recited carefully, concentrating as if trying very hard to get it right. “I had come down the hill one morning. I’d finished dropping off the supplies and was letting Henry—that’s my donkey—take a bit of a breather before the journey back up. It was very foggy that morning, and there wasn’t much visibility. I was just off the end of the High Street, by the edge of the headland. A boat came by out of the mist, a small one. I saw it clearly. The name on it was Cornwall. It seemed strange that it was out on its own in the fog so close to shore. One man was on deck, and he called down to another, whom I couldn’t see. Sometimes fog plays funny tricks with sound, and from where I was standing I could hear him perfectly. He was calling to the other man in German.”

  “In German?” I asked. “On a boat called Cornwall?”

  “I know it’s strange. But I was over there long enough to know what German sounds like. It didn’t add up, and I didn’t like it. This is my home, Miss Leigh, the place I grew up in. I decided I had to do something.”

  Despite myself, my first thought was of the blond man I’d seen twice now. Could he have been German? It was hard to tell. “Is it possible you were overreacting? Perhaps they were tourists or hired hands. We’re not at war with them anymore, after all.”

  “Maybe not, but they aren’t our friends, either. So I did something I never thought I’d do. I wrote a letter to Scotland Yard.”

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Scotland Yard.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He glanced up at me. “That’s why the inspector came. He came because of the letter I wrote.”

  “And my uncle died—”

  “After I wrote the letter, yes.”

  I shook my head. “He came here because of my uncle. He came here to determine whether my uncle was murdered.”

  “Miss Leigh, I’m sure that’s part of the investigation. Once Scotland Yard started investigating, I guess a man turning up dead at the foot of the cliffs seemed awfully suspicious. But a Scotland Yard inspector doesn’t spend this much time on a single death that hasn’t even been proven murder. They don’t have the manpower for it.”

  I didn’t want to hear it; I wanted to argue. “No, they don’t have the manpower. That’s why he’s been sent back to London. He said he was going to talk to his partner, look into things on his own. . . .” I trailed off. Even I, in my stubbornness, had to admit it didn’t make sense.

  Edward, of all things, looked apologetic. “With due respect, Miss Leigh, he doesn’t have to do anything on his own. He’s still on the official investigation. The one into Rothewell.”

  “You’re saying that Scotland Yard based an entire investigation on one letter talking about a few lights and a man speaking German?”

  “I’m saying that after I wrote that letter, the inspector showed up so fast I thought he’d come to arrest me. And then he questioned me within an inch of my life, he and his partner. It wasn’t the behavior of policemen checking out a local man’s hunch. It was the behavior of two investigators already on a case.”

  “You’re saying they already knew. That they were already pursuing something of their own when you sent the letter.”

  “Yes.”

  I stood and began pacing. I was angry at myself for being so stupid. Scotland Yard investigating a death that the coroner had already ruled an accident—it was an utter lie, of course. I had been completely naive, a fact that Drew had shamelessly taken advantage of. “But what? What is it?”

  “I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is . . . well, there have been rumors of smuggling along the coast.”

  “Smuggling? Now?”

  “It’s just rumors, of course. We’ve a lot of history here. But yes, even now. It would be farther up the coast, because no one can land in Blood Moon Bay. Walking John sees to that. But if someone in Rothewell is part of a larger scheme . . . it might explain Scotland Yard.” He looked worried. “I don’t like seeing you in the middle of it. I don’t guess I can persuade you to leave?”

  “No, you can’t. When did the interview happen? The one with you and the inspectors?”
>
  “The day after your uncle died.”

  It added up. I got to Barnstaple shortly after you did, Drew had said the first day I’d met him. I’d assumed he’d come from London. But in fact he’d come from Rothewell; he’d already been here, and he’d never seen fit to tell me. He’d never seen fit to tell me anything: that there was a larger investigation, that they thought my uncle’s death was a part of it. I’d been shut out from everything that was going on, left to wander through the dark on my own.

  I looked at Edward, who obviously knew exactly what I was thinking. “And this trip to London?”

  “He’s regrouping with the Yard, and he’s pooling information with his partner. He’s to meet with his superiors and give a progress report. He came to see me on the way out of town to tell me.”

  Just after he’d gotten out of bed with me. “Is that so?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Leigh. But you have to see that this is more dangerous than even you thought. Please let me convince you to leave Rothewell.”

  “That’s what the inspector said,” I told him. “What a fool I was. I thought he was just worried about Walking John.”

  “You’re not a fool,” he said softly. “And Walking John is not a small worry.”

  “He’s wrapped up in this, Edward. I don’t know how, but somehow he is.”

  “I think you’re right. I’m used to seeing lights in the woods. I’ve been seeing them all my life. An outsider wouldn’t understand, but that’s just the way it is here—you see lights; you know Walking John is abroad; you close your doors and stay home. It’s just what he does. But the lights I’ve seen recently are different. They come at odd times. Walking John’s lights are always still, opening and shutting like lanterns. They’re beacons. These lights move. They jump and jerk like men are carrying them.”

  The lights I’d seen had been still, opening and closing just as he’d described. I shuddered, remembering. “No one goes in the woods at night,” I said. “No one goes to Blood Moon Bay. What better place to commit a crime?”

  He shook his head. “You’d have to be desperate indeed to go through Walking John’s land in the middle of the night. It isn’t anything I’d do for love or money.”