A Casualty of War: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries)

by Charles Todd

  “Oh God,” I whispered, terrified that he’d killed Ellis. I sat there and watched them come nearer with every stride. And then they were close enough that Simon said, “He’s alive. I think there’s something wrong with one leg. He didn’t get far.”

  He opened the rear door and managed to shove the unconscious Ellis inside. Then he fumbled in his pocket and took out a revolver. “Hold on to that. I took it from Ellis. It’s probably what was used to shoot at Mrs. Travis.”

  It was an older model, possibly a souvenir from the Boer War . . .

  Shutting the door, he went round to turn the crank, and then he got in next to me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked again. I could see that he was as wet as I’d been.

  “I am now,” I said, summoning up a smile. And then he was intent on getting his motorcar out of the field before we became bogged down. We got to the main road with a jolt that made me stifle a cry of pain.

  We went back the way I’d come just hours before with Mr. Ellis, only this time Simon drove with caution, for the road was even worse than it had been. We were both relieved to find ourselves in what appeared to be the brightly lit High of Clare. It wasn’t really that bright, but it seemed like a beacon after the thick darkness on the road.

  Then we were plunged into darkness again as we drove on toward Sinclair. In fits and starts, I’d been telling Simon what had happened. When I’d finished, he said, “When I couldn’t find you, when no one seemed to know where you’d got to, I knew something was wrong. Mrs. Caldwell had seen you walking toward the inn, and I went there to look. That’s when I saw that your chair seemed to be out of place. Not where you’d normally sit. I guessed then, but which direction? I stopped at the tea shop and asked Mrs. Horner if she’d seen Ellis, that Mrs. Travis was asking for him. She told me he’d passed her shop not quite half an hour before, and I went after him.”

  I smiled. “I’m very glad you did.”

  He turned toward me, and for the first time there was a glimmer of a smile. “Your mother would have me shot in the Tower if I hadn’t found you.”

  Simon wanted to take me straight to Dr. Harrison, but I insisted that we go instead to the church, fearful that the standoff was over and someone had got hurt.

  But to my surprise, nothing had changed. I found Inspector Howe leaning against the tower wall, staring upward. If looks could kill, Captain Travis would have been dead long since.

  Mrs. Caldwell sat in one of the pews, her face haggard. She started up in alarm when she saw me, wet and bloody, a blanket around my shoulders. Inspector Howe turned as he heard my footsteps. “What happened to you?” he demanded, as if I’d put him out by being accosted by a murderer and involved in a crash against a tree.

  “I am here to give evidence that Mr. Ellis of the firm of Ellis, Ellis and Whitman has taken me prisoner under threat of violence, and admitted to me that Lieutenant Bonham is his nephew. You’ll find Bonham shot at Mrs. Travis to make you think it was the Captain, and attacked Miss Fredericks when he thought she might have seen him. I expect you’ll need this.” I reached into my apron pocket and pulled out the revolver. “It probably belongs to Mr. Douglas, at the inn. What’s more, Lieutenant Bonham tried to kill Captain Travis in France. On the solicitor’s orders. The Captain will recognize him. The reason Mr. Spencer was killed has to do with a file now in the possession of Mrs. Travis. He discovered that Mr. Ellis was embezzling from the estate. If you’ll step out to the Sergeant-Major’s motorcar, you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

  Inspector Howe was staring at me. I knew what a sight I must look, but it only bore out my story. Mrs. Caldwell, recovering from her shock, was there at my elbow, offering me a clean handkerchief in place of the bloody one I was clutching in my hand.

  “Come and sit down,” she said, urging me toward the nearest pew. But I stood my ground.

  “Not until the Inspector goes out to see for himself.”

  He beckoned to Constable Simpson, and together they went out to where Simon was waiting on the lane in front of the church.

  Mrs. Caldwell was saying, “Are you all right, Bess? You’re awfully pale, and there’s blood everywhere. You’re shivering.”

  I was still quite wet, and it was cold in the church. I thought of Captain Travis up there in the tower. He’d be cold as well. But at least he was out of the rain.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured her, as I’d assured Simon. And I thought I probably was, save for the cut on my forehead and bruises everywhere. I suddenly wanted to sit down, and it seemed to take a long time before Inspector Howe was satisfied.

  Eventually he came back through the door, his expression grim.

  “Simpson and Brandon have taken Ellis to Harrison’s surgery. He was just coming to, and he was in pain from his leg. Seems a dog’s bite was reopened by the crash. It was just beginning to close.”

  “Dr. Harrison’s dog?” I asked quickly. “We thought he might have bit someone who came after poor Mr. Spencer that first time.”

  “I’ll be looking into that. Meanwhile, Brandon is filling his motorcar with petrol, and then he’s driving me out to where Ellis’s motorcar was left.”

  I wanted to object, but who else could take the police there?

  I said, “What about Captain Travis? You can’t just leave him there in the tower.”

  “Oh, can’t I? He wouldn’t come down. He can stay there until he rots, as far as I’m concerned.” He beckoned to his men and they trooped out, leaving us in the church alone.

  I didn’t trust him, and I caught Vera Caldwell’s arm as she was about to hurry to the tower door and call to the Captain. We waited a quarter of an hour, in case it was a trick, and then I let her go.

  “Alan? You can come down,” she called. “It’s safe. The police have gone. They have Mr. Ellis in custody now. It’s over.”

  But there was no sound from above.

  I got stiffly to my feet. At the foot of the tower, I called, “It’s Sister Crawford, Captain. Will you please come down? I’m so cold I can’t bear it any longer.”

  Another minute or two passed, then I could hear his footsteps on the stone staircase. He looked as wretched as I felt, but when he saw me, he said, “Good God.”

  And I had to explain all over again.

  Mrs. Caldwell took him back to the Vicarage, no longer caring what her husband might say. She and the Captain wanted to take me there as well, but I refused. And when they had gone, I walked to the inn in the rain, commanding myself to put one foot in front of the other until I reached the door.

  I made it up the stairs, thinking about a hot bath and a cup of reviving tea.

  But when Simon came back much later, I’d crawled into bed and fallen fast asleep.

  In the morning we went to The Hall. Mrs. Travis was just sitting down to breakfast with Lieutenant Bonham. I could tell that for once, gossip hadn’t yet reached her.

  We’d agreed, Simon and I, on what to say to him. And with a smile, after inquiring about Mrs. Travis’s arm, I said, “Lieutenant? Your uncle, Mr. Ellis, is asking for you. He’s been injured, and he’s in Dr. Harrison’s surgery. Can we drive you there? And Miss Fredericks is there as well. She wants to see if you’re the man who hurt her.” I turned to Mrs. Travis. “Mr. Ellis had withdrawn the money he took from you. He was carrying it with him when he was caught. I expect he didn’t intend to share it with his nephew.”

  I knew, in an instant, that Mrs. Travis had told the Lieutenant all about Mr. Ellis. She might even have shown him the box of estate deeds and papers. But she hadn’t known who the Lieutenant really was. She turned to stare at him.

  He tensed, ready to fight his way out. But Simon was between him and the door, and one look at Simon’s expression warned him that it was not a wise choice.

  Mrs. Travis, horrified, stood there while I went to the door and called to Inspector Howe in the drive. He came in and took the unresisting Lieutenant into custody.

  I had the fleeting thought that of the two
men, I’d have said the Lieutenant was the more dangerous. And I’d have been wrong.

  I followed Inspector Howe, Constable Simpson, and Simon out to the drive, where the motorcars were standing.

  We had arranged a final surprise for Lieutenant Bonham. When I was sure he was in custody, I was to alert Captain Travis, whom we’d kept out of sight, to step forward and confront this man, to lay to rest, finally, the nightmare that he’d lived ever since he’d been brought into our forward aid station with a head wound. I’d have liked to have Lucy Fredericks there as well, but she would have her opportunity to identify the Lieutenant when she was stronger. I wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen. Simon had been worried about that. But we owed it to the Captain.

  We came out into the sunlight, the five of us. The Constable went forward to open the rear door to the Inspector’s vehicle, but the Lieutenant stopped just at the edge of the drive, protesting what he called a travesty of justice.

  “There’s no evidence I was involved in anything here. I can’t help it if that man’s my uncle. I’ve done nothing wrong. You can’t prove anything against me.” He looked from the Constable to Inspector Howe.

  “Your own guilty conscience led you to attack Lucy Fredericks—she didn’t see you shoot at Mrs. Travis,” I said quickly. “She told us, even before you came, that you were trouble. And there’s proof that your uncle attacked Mr. Spencer the first time—he’s got the dog bite to show for it. If he doesn’t want to hang for murder, he’ll confess that he sent you the second time to finish his work. And somehow I believe he will, because he’s already told me he wanted you to kill Captain Travis in France, if you could find him out there. That was terrible enough, shooting at one of your own side. Killing a man with broken ribs, who couldn’t defend himself properly, shooting at a defenseless woman who has welcomed you into her home, and nearly beating Miss Fredericks to death just because you were afraid she might have seen you outside the drawing room window have all the earmarks of a coward’s work.”

  He turned on me then. “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know all I care to know.”

  Without waiting for my signal, Captain Travis stepped around the corner of the house, where he’d been impatiently standing. It had taken a good deal of persuasion on my part, and Simon’s as well, to keep him from marching into The Hall and confronting Lieutenant Bonham there.

  But it had been far more urgent to winkle the Lieutenant out of The Hall without any trouble.

  Well before dawn we had been back in Bury, laying out all our evidence for Inspector Howe. Without the boxes of papers from Ellis’s office, now in Mrs. Travis’s hands, we had been put to some trouble explaining how we knew what the Colonel Sahib and Simon had seen during their midnight carousing with Mr. Ellis’s clerk. The man had even been pulled in to give his evidence about the embezzling, but he knew nothing about it. And then there was the connection with Lieutenant Bonham. Inspector Howe had refused to take my word for his relationship with Mr. Ellis, and we had had to send the clerk back to the firm to find those records as well.

  Now, as Alan Travis walked out into the sunlight, his head uncovered, I could see that both men were English fair in complexion and coloring. Both men had blue eyes, but Lieutenant Bonham’s were not that intense blue of the Captain’s, and he was nearly an inch shorter as well, his shoulders less broad, his jawline less firm. And yet for an instant there was a fleeting resemblance, the kind one finds in people sometimes, making one look twice to be sure. I could see as well how much stronger the resemblance was between James and the Captain. Although he was thin and still far from recovered from his back wound, there was something about the expression around the eyes that the Captain shared with his cousin. Lieutenant Bonham was a poor third to both men. All the same, Mr. Ellis had played a very strong hand in sending him to meet Mrs. Travis, still grieving for her son. Who knew what might have come from that?

  Something in my face must have alerted the Lieutenant, for he wheeled toward the corner of the house, and the two officers who had twice come face-to-face on the field of battle met again on an English doorstep.

  None of us could miss the swift flare of recognition that passed between them. I watched Alan Travis’s hands clench at his sides as he came on toward us, and beside me Simon stirred as well, prepared to intervene if need be.

  Captain Travis stopped some fifteen feet away. And his eyes swept the man standing there, braced for any attack. Lieutenant Bonham’s gaze was cold and angry now, but he waited, saying nothing.

  The tension in the air was almost palpable.

  Captain Travis said with bitterness, “You look nothing like my great-uncle after all. Nor like the man I met and respected in Paris. I was a fool ever to think you did. Sister Crawford is right. And so was I. You have the instincts of a killer, and someone had to stop you.”

  Lieutenant Bonham didn’t reply.

  After a moment, Captain Travis turned to Inspector Howe, adding harshly, “Take him away. He’s a disgrace to the uniform he wears.”

  And then, without waiting, without asking to see Mrs. Travis or mentioning the estate he was heir to, Alan Travis turned and walked away down the drive, back to The George and the room he was sharing once more with Simon.

  I was close enough to hear what Lieutenant Bonham was saying under his breath. “If my aim had been better . . .”

  But it hadn’t been in France, and it hadn’t been here in Suffolk, when he shot at Mrs. Travis.

  I couldn’t stop myself from answering him. “Or perhaps that of the Germans . . .”

  And he glared at me, venom in his gaze.

  The tension broke then, as the Captain disappeared around the sweep of the drive. And only Simon had heard my words as the men collected themselves and headed for the motorcars.

  When Inspector Howe’s motorcar drove away with the Lieutenant in handcuffs and guarded by Constable Simpson in the rear seat, I turned to Simon.

  “Well,” I said, inadequately.

  “Well,” he answered, understanding.

  I left him in the empty drawing room, the sheet still hanging across the shattered window, and went back up the stairs.

  It took me some time to comfort Mrs. Travis. First her solicitor had betrayed her, and now the young man she had trusted. She cried a little, then was angry, and finally said, laying her head against the back of the chaise longue in her room, “I’ve been a stupid woman, but I thought—I believed it was what Hugh would have wanted. He never had anything good to say about that branch of the family. He would have hated seeing them inherit The Hall.”

  I was sympathetic, but in a way I couldn’t feel sorry for her. She had fought the wrong battles. And perhaps had lost the war. I couldn’t imagine that Captain Travis would feel kindly toward her.

  But I was wrong there. A little later in the morning he borrowed Simon’s motorcar to drive out to The Hall while Simon was giving his statement to Inspector Howe. When he arrived, he told me there had been some difficulty with Lucy Fredericks’s father, who had wanted to tear the Lieutenant limb from limb. His daughter had finally calmed him down.

  When I led the Captain to the drawing room, a sheet still covering the broken window, Mrs. Travis rose from the chair where she’d been sitting and said formally, “Captain Travis? I owe you many apologies. It’s my fault this business of the will wasn’t settled long ago. It’s possible that you would never have been shot, and Mr. Spencer wouldn’t have come to Sinclair to die. And Mr. Ellis would have been found out sooner.”

  He accepted her apology with grace, and she added, “I’m in the process of arranging for a new solicitor. When that’s settled, we will come to an agreement about this house and my son’s estate. There will be death taxes, of course, but you will still be a wealthy man.”

  Looking around him at the elegant room in which we stood, he said, “I have a home, Mrs. Travis. In Barbados. I love it with all my heart. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you choose. If I marry and
have children, perhaps one of them will wish one day to live in England. I won’t stand in his or her way.”

  “That’s very gracious of you, Captain.” She was fighting to keep her voice from breaking. “And very generous.”

  “Alan,” he said. “That’s my name. I believe it was one of your son’s names as well.”

  “It was. The medieval wool merchant who built the church in the village and made a fortune in trade was Alan Travis too. A plain man, the story goes, who refused a title because he didn’t want to sit in Parliament when he could live at The Hall. Much as you prefer Barbados. I hope you’ll come to Suffolk again. You’ll be welcomed. For James’s sake and for your own.”

  We left soon afterward, and I took the Captain back to Mrs. Caldwell. He thanked me profusely for all I’d done. “There’s no way I can repay you,” he said. “You believed me when no one else did. I’m in your debt, I always will be. Will you come to Barbados one day? And let me show you the island?”

  I smiled. “I would like that very much,” I said. “We’ll see.” But even as I said it, I didn’t think I would ever be likely to visit Barbados or any other island in the Caribbean Sea.

  He came to take my hands and leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek.

  “The door is always off the latch,” he said quietly.

  I walked out to where Simon was waiting in his motorcar. He’d stopped at The George to fetch our luggage while I was giving a formal statement to the police. I was free to go.

  I waved to Sister Potter, just walking back to her cottage. Lucy had been allowed to return to The Hall after the Inspector had taken the Lieutenant into custody. And after the doctor had seen him, Mr. Ellis, I’d been told, was taken to Bury. Betty, at The George, informed me that Sister Potter had refused to serve as his nurse.

  I didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

  It was such a pretty village, I thought as we left it behind.

  After we’d passed the broken hedgerow where Mr. Ellis’s motorcar had come to grief, Simon glanced my way.

  “Were you asked to come to Barbados?”