by C. S. Harris
He said, “Do you believe Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville hid his treasure on the island?”
Forster glanced over at him and smiled, the dimplelike slashes appearing in his tanned cheeks. “De Mandeville? Nah. But did ye never hear of Dick Turpin?”
“Dick Turpin? You mean, the highwayman?”
“Aye. Him as once worked Finchley Common. Used to hide out at the island, he did. His uncle Nott owned the Rose and Crown by the Brook, across the chase at Clay Hill. Seems to me, if there’s treasure on that island, it’s more likely Dick Turpin’s than some old knight what’s been dead and gone for who knows how many hundreds of years.”
“Is that what you were looking for? A highwayman’s gold?”
Forster reached for his mule’s reins. “Never claimed it were me. All I’m sayin’ is, Turpin’s story is well-known about here. Coulda been anyone lookin’ for what he mighta hid.”
“So why did Miss Tennyson accuse you?”
Forster urged the mule forward a few feet, then stopped to reach for another stone. “She didn’t like me much. Never did.”
“And you didn’t like her,” said Sebastian, keeping his eyes on the hefty rock in Forster’s hands.
“I won’t deny that. She threatened to tell Sir Stanley I was the one who tore apart the well. But she had no proof and she knew it.”
“So why did you threaten her?”
“I didn’t. Anyone who tells you different is either makin’ stuff up or jist repeatin’ crazy talk he heard.” Forster slammed the rock down on the growing pile, then paused with his fists propped on his lean hips, his breath coming hard, his handsome, sun-browned face and neck glistening with perspiration. “I been doin’ me some thinkin’. And it occurs to me that meybe Sir Stanley has more to do with what happened to the lady than I first suspicioned.”
“Odd, given that yesterday you seemed more intent on casting suspicion on Sir Stanley’s wife, Lady Winthrop, than on Sir Stanley himself.”
“I told ye, I been doing me some thinkin’. It occurs to me this might all have somethin’ to do with the way Sir Stanley likes to fancy himself one of them ancient Druids.”
“A Druid,” said Sebastian.
“That’s right. Dresses up in white robes and holds heathen rituals out at the island. I know for a fact Miss Tennyson seen him doin’ it just the other day. He coulda been afraid she’d give away his secret.”
“Couldn’t have been much of a secret if you knew about it.”
Forster’s eyes narrowed with unexpected amusement. He laid a finger beside his nose and winked, then turned away to stoop for another stone.
Sebastian said, “And how precisely do you know that Miss Tennyson saw Sir Stanley enacting these rituals?”
Forster hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spit it into the grass. “Because I was there meself. Last Saturday evening, it was, long after we’d finished work for the day. Sir Stanley was at the island in his robes when Miss Tennyson comes back—”
“How?” interjected Sebastian.
“What do ye mean, ‘how’?”
“You said Miss Tennyson came back. So was she walking? In a gig? Who was driving her?”
“She come in a gig, drivin’ herself.”
It was the first Sebastian had heard of Gabrielle Tennyson driving herself. It was not unusual for a woman to drive in the country without a groom. But Gabrielle would have driven out from London, which was something else entirely. He said, “Did she do that often? Drive herself, I mean.”
“Sometimes.”
“So you’re saying she arrived at the island and found Sir Stanley about to engage in some sort of ancient ritual?”
“That’s right. Just before sunset, it was.”
“Did either of them know you were there?”
“Nah. I was hid behind some bushes.”
“And what precisely were you doing at the island?”
“I’d forgot me pipe.”
“Your pipe.”
Forster stared at Sebastian owlishly, as if daring Sebastian to doubt him. “That’s right. Went back for it, I did. Only then I seen Sir Stanley in his strange getup, so I hid in the bushes to see what was goin’ on.”
“And you were still hiding in the bushes when you saw Miss Tennyson drive up?”
“I was, yes.” Forster turned away to reach down for a big, jagged rock. “I couldn’t hear what they was sayin’. But there’s no doubt in me mind she seen him and that rig he was wearin’.”
“And then what happened?”
“I don’t know. I left.”
“So you’re suggesting—what, precisely? That Sir Stanley was so chagrined by Miss Tennyson’s discovery of his rather unorthodox behavior and belief system that he lured her back to the island on Sunday and killed her?”
“I ain’t suggestin’ nothing. Just tellin’ ye what happened, that’s all.”
“I see. And have you told anyone else about this encounter?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Why, indeed?” Sebastian started to turn away, then paused as a thought occurred to him. “One more question: Did you discover anything unusual or interesting in the course of the excavations at the island last Saturday?”
Forster frowned. “No. Why?”
“I’m just wondering why Miss Tennyson would return to the island, first on Saturday evening, then again on Sunday.”
“That I couldn’t say.”
“You’ve no idea at all?”
“No.” Forster reached for his mule’s reins.
“What precisely did you discover Saturday?”
“Just an area of old cobblestones—like a courtyard or somethin’.”
“That’s all?”
“Ain’t nothin’ to kill a body over, is it? Well, is it?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” said Sebastian. “Except for one thing.”
Forster wrapped the reins around his fists. “What’s that?”
“Miss Tennyson is dead.”
“And them two nippers,” said Forster.
“Are they dead?” Sebastian asked, his gaze hard on the countryman’s beard-shadowed face.
“They ain’t been found, have they?”
“No,” said Sebastian. “No, they have not.”
“Ye think ’e’s tellin’ the truth?” Tom asked as Sebastian leapt up into the curricle’s high seat.
Sebastian glanced back at his tiger. “How much did you hear?”
“Most o’ it.”
Sebastian gathered his reins. “To be frank, I’m not convinced Forster has the imagination required to invent such a tale entirely out of whole cloth. But do I believe him? Hardly. I suspect he went out to the island that night on a treasure-hunting expedition. But he may indeed have seen something.” He turned the horses’ heads toward Enfield Chase. “I think I’d like to take a look at this sacred well.”
The island lay deserted, the afternoon sun filtering down through the leafy canopy of old-growth elms and beech to dapple the dark waters of the moat with rare glints of light.
“Ain’t nobody ’ere,” whispered Tom as Sebastian drew up at the top of Camlet Moat’s ancient embankment. “I thought they was still lookin’ for them two boys.”
“They are. But I suspect they’ve given up hope of finding any trace of them around here,” said Sebastian, his voice also low. Like Tom, he knew a reluctance to disturb the solemn peace of the site.
Without the scuffing sounds from Forster’s shovel or the distant shouts of the searchers they’d heard the day before, the silence of the place was as complete as if they had strayed deep into a forgotten, enchanted forest. Sebastian handed his reins to the tiger and jumped lightly to the ground, his boots sinking into the soft leaf mold beside the track. One of the chestnuts nickered, and he reached out to caress the horse’s soft muzzle. “Walk ’em a bit. I shouldn’t be long.”
“Aye, gov’nor.”
He crossed to the island by way of the narrow land bridge. The trenches dug by Sir Stanle
y’s workmen had all been filled in, leaving long, narrow rows of mounded dark earth that struck Sebastian as bearing an unpleasant resemblance to the poor holes of churchyards. But he knew that in a year or so, the grass and brush of the island would cover them again, and it would be as if no one had ever disturbed the site.
Sebastian paused for a moment, his gaze drifting around the abandoned clearing. One of the more troublesome aspects of this murder had always been the question of how Gabrielle Tennyson—and presumably her cousins—had traveled up to the moat that fateful Sunday. The discovery that Gabrielle sometimes drove herself here in a gig opened up a host of new possibilities.
It was an unorthodox thing for a young woman to do, to drive herself into the countryside from London. Perhaps she thought that at the age of twenty-eight she was beyond those restrictions. Or perhaps she considered the presence of her nine-year-old cousin and his brother a sufficient sop to the proprieties. But if the Tennysons had driven themselves here that fatal day, the question then became, What the bloody hell happened to the horse and gig? And why had no liveryman come forward to say he had hired the equipment to them?
Sebastian turned to follow the path he’d noticed before, a faint trail that snaked through the brambles and brush to the northeastern corner of the island. It was there, in a small clearing not far from the moat’s edge, that he found what was left of the old well.
Once neatly lined with dressed sandstone blocks, the well now looked like a dirty, sunken wound. Ripped from the earth, the old lining stones lay jumbled together with wet clay and shattered tiles in a heap at the base of a gnarled hawthorn that spread its bleached branches over the muddy hole. From the tree’s branches fluttered dozens of strips of tattered cloth.
Sebastian drew up in surprise. They called them rag trees or, sometimes, clootie trees. Relics of an ancient belief whose origins were lost in the mists of time, the trees could be found at sacred places to which suppliants with a problem—be it an illness, grief, hardship, or unrequited love—came to whisper a prayer and leave a strip of cloth as a token offering that they tied to the branches of the tree. As the cloths rotted in the wind and sun and rain, the suppliants’ believed their prayers would be answered, their illnesses cured, their problems solved. Rag trees were typically found beside sacred wells or springs, for dipping the cloth in holy water was said to increase the power of the charm.
He understood now why Tessa had ventured out to Camlet Moat by moonlight.
He watched as a hot breeze gusted up, flapping the worn, weathered strips of cloth. And he found himself wondering how many other villagers came here to visit the island’s sacred well.
Quite a few, from the look of things.
He went to hunker down beside the pile of muddy stones. The desecration of the well had obviously occurred quite recently. But it was impossible to tell if the man—or men—who’d done this had found what they were looking for.
A faint sound drew Sebastian’s head around as his acute hearing distinguished the distant clatter of approaching hooves, coming fast. He listened as the unseen horse and rider drew nearer, then checked. A man’s low voice, asking a question, drifted across the water, followed by Tom’s high-pitched reply.
Sebastian stayed where he was and let the current owner of Camelot come to him.
Chapter 28
Dressed in the supple doeskin breeches and well-cut riding coat of a prosperous country gentleman, Sir Stanley Winthrop paused at the edge of the clearing, his riding crop dangling from one hand. “Lord Devlin. What brings you here?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “You didn’t tell me the island was the site of a rag tree.”
“I suppose I didn’t consider it relevant. Surely you don’t think it could have something to do with Gabrielle’s death?”
Sebastian turned to let his gaze rove over the ancient hawthorn with its tattered, weathered offerings. “It’s an interesting superstition.”
“You consider it a superstition?”
Sebastian brought his gaze back to the banker’s face. “You don’t?”
“I think there are many things on this earth we don’t understand, and the power of the human will is one of them.”
Sebastian nodded to the pile of muddy stones at his feet. “When did this happen?
“Gabrielle found it this way when she came up here a week ago. There’s an old legend that Geoffrey de Mandeville buried his treasure beneath the well.”
“Any idea who’s responsible?”
“Some ignorant fool, I’m afraid. Obviously searching for gold.”
“De Mandeville’s gold? Or Dick Turpin’s?”
“Ah, you’ve heard the stories about Turpin as well, have you?” Winthrop stared down at the muddy mess, and Sebastian caught a flash of the steely rage he’d glimpsed briefly once before. “Unfortunately, both have become associated with the island.”
“Did Miss Tennyson tell you who she thought had done it?”
“She told me that she had her suspicions. But when I pressed her to elaborate, she said she had no real proof and was therefore hesitant to actually accuse anyone.”
“She never said she suspected your foreman, Rory Forster?”
“She suspected Rory? No, she didn’t tell me. How very disturbing.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s face. But Winthrop once more had his emotions carefully under control; the even features gave nothing away. Sebastian said, “Why didn’t you tell me Miss Tennyson returned to the island the evening before she died? Or that you were here that evening too?”
Winthrop was silent for a moment, as if tempted to deny it. Then he pursed his lips and shrugged. “If you know we were here, am I to take it you also know why?”
“I’m told you have an interest in Druidism. That you came here last Saturday dressed in white robes to enact a pagan ritual in observance of Lammas. Is that true?”
A faint glimmer of amusement shone in the other man’s eyes. “What precisely are you imagining, Lord Devlin? That Gabrielle came upon me by chance and I was so horrified to be discovered that I murdered her to keep her quiet?”
“It has been suggested.”
“Really? By whom?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
“No, I suppose you can’t.”
“Are you interested in Druidism?”
“Does it shock you that I should have an interest in the religions of the past?”
“No.”
Winthrop raised an eyebrow in surprise. “In that you are unusual. Believe me.”
Sebastian said, “And did Miss Tennyson share your interest in the religion of our ancestors?”
“She shared my interest, yes. I can’t, however, say she shared my belief.”
“Do you believe?”
Again that faint gleam of amusement flickered in the banker’s light gray eyes. “I believe there are many paths to wisdom and understanding. Most people are content to find the answers to life’s questions in the formal dogmas and hierarchies of organized religion. They find comfort in being told what to believe and how to worship.”
“And you?”
“Me? I find my peace and sense of meaning in ancient places such as this”—Winthrop spread his arms wide, his palms lifted to the sky—“with the trees and the water and the air. The exact beliefs of our ancestors may be lost, but the essence of their wisdom is still here—if you listen to the whispers on the wind and open your heart to our kinship with the earth and all her creatures.”
“Is Lady Winthrop aware of your beliefs?”
Winthrop’s hands dropped back to his sides. “She is aware of my interest.”
Which was not, as Winthrop himself had pointed out, the same thing at all. Sebastian said, “I gather Lady Winthrop’s own religious beliefs are rather…orthodox.” And rigid, he thought, although he didn’t say it.
“We must each follow our own individual paths.”
Sebastian studied the older man’s craggy face, the chiseled line
of his strong jaw, the fashionably cut flaxen hair mixing gracefully with white. He found it difficult if not impossible to reconcile this talk of spiritualism and harmony with what he knew of the hard-driven banker who had amassed a fortune by financing war and ruthlessly crushing anyone who stood in his way.
As if sensing Sebastian’s doubt, Winthrop said, “You’re skeptical, of course.”
“Do you blame me?”
“Not really. It’s no secret that my life has been spent in the pursuit of money and power. But men can change.”
“They can. Although it’s rare.”
Winthrop went to stand beside the dark waters of the moat, his back to Sebastian, the tip of his riding crop tapping against his thigh as he stared across at the opposite bank. “I once had five children; did you know? Three girls and two boys, born to me by my first wife. They were beautiful children, with their mother’s blue eyes and blond curls and winsome ways. And then, one by one, they died. We lost Peter first, to a fever. Then Mary and Jane, to measles. I sometimes think it was grief that killed my wife. It was as if she just faded away. She died less than a month after Jane.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sebastian softly.
Winthrop nodded, his lips pressed together tightly. “I married again, of course—a most brilliant alliance to the widow of a late colleague. I knew she was likely to prove barren since she’d never given my colleague children, but what did it matter? I still had two children. When I bought Trent Place last year, I believed I’d finally achieved everything I’d ever wanted. Then my last two children died within weeks of each other. Elizabeth caught a putrid sore throat; then James fell and broke his neck jumping his hack over a ditch. There are just too many ways children can die. And when I buried James…” Winthrop’s voice cracked. He paused and shook his head. “When I buried James, I realized I’d dedicated my life to amassing a fortune, and for what? So that I could build my family the most elaborate monument in the churchyard?”
Sebastian remained silent.
After a moment, Winthrop gave a ragged laugh. “The current Lady Winthrop is of the opinion that my grief over the loss of my children has affected the balance of my mind. Perhaps she is right. All I know is that I find neither peace nor comfort in the righteous dogmas of her church, whereas in a place like this—” He blew out a long, painful breath. “In a place like this, I find, if not peace, then at least a path to understanding and a way to come to grips with what once seemed unbearable.”