by Joan Smith
After the silence had stretched to an acceptable length, Prance said, “A suspiciously timely demise, just after he identified his wife’s body.”
“This reeks to high heaven,” Byron said in a grim voice. “I’m sending for Eggars immediately. Best take the body to the house, eh? We can’t leave it alone, and it’s demmed cold to have someone standing here for hours. God only knows how long it will take Eggars to get here.”
“Send a wagon and a few footmen to help with the body,” Luten said. “I’ll stay with him — it. You go on back to the house with Byron, Corinne.” She didn’t give him any argument.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Prance asked him.
“No need, Prance. Coffen will be staying.”
Coffen didn’t return to the abbey, but he didn’t stay with Luten either. He suggested that Luten have a look under the tree for the gun, while he followed the trail of the disheveled grass thirty or forty yards, until he came to the edge of the forest, away from the abbey. The hard-packed earth beyond held no trace of horseshoes or wagon wheels, but common sense said that the body hadn’t been carried far without such help. There was no sign of his mount, Diablo. Wherever he had been killed, someone was at pains to dump the evidence on Lord Byron. Either that or Byron had done Vulch in himself, and Coffen didn’t think he was fool enough to drag the body on to his own property if he’d killed him somewhere else.
After a thorough search, he returned to Luten. “No sign of the gun,” Luten said.
“I didn’t think so. Prance is right, you know,” Coffen said. “The timing is demmed suspicious. I wonder whoever did this didn’t wait one more day till the other body was buried.”
“I expect Vulch was demanding more money for claiming the body was Minnie’s. Threatened to withdraw his evidence, perhaps.”
“Don’t see how he could,” Coffen said. “The tooth, remember? I wonder if some friend of Minnie’s thinks Vulch killed her, and shot him for revenge. She might have had a fellow on the string, for all we know. There’s one thing I’m going to do before Eggars gets here.”
“Search Vulch’s house?”
“Exactly. I’m off. Sorry to leave you alone with the body, but I want to get to Vulch’s place right away. You mind Byron beat us to that note the other time. I’d give a monkey to know what was in that note. I doubt he had a hand in this murder, though, or he wouldn’t have been at such pains to leave the body in his own woods. “
“Wait till the wagon comes and I’ll go with you,” Luten said. “Let’s see if he has a key in his pocket.” Luten gingerly slid his fingers into the pockets and drew some coins out of one, a comb from another. Other than that, there was nothing, nothing to indicate why he had been shot, or by whom. He wasn’t even carrying a gun.
“No key,” Luten said, “yet he’d have locked his door, with all that gold inside. Someone’s taken the key. Whoever shot him, I expect.”
“Either that or he was shot in his own house and the body brought here. We’ll see if we find any blood about his place.”
The wagon duly arrived, the corpse was placed on it, covered with a blanket, and drawn to the abbey, where it was removed to an unused room by the servants. Luten and Coffen left immediately for Vulch’s house.
They were not long gone before Ruttle was shown into the salon. “Me again,” he said, hurrying forward in a fluster. “I don’t know why I’ve come, except I’ve been everywhere else looking for him. The oddest demmed thing, Byron. Vulch arranged for his wife’s burial at eleven o’clock this morning, and didn’t show up for the service! What the devil could have happened to him? You don’t suppose he’s drunk himself into a stupor? He likes his ale but he can usually handle it.”
Mrs. Ballard’s lips pinched in rebuke at such unvicarish utterances.
“He won’t be showing up, Ruttle,” Byron said. “He’s dead.”
The vicar gave a leap of alarm. “Good God, Vulch dead! How did it happen? A riding accident?”
“A shooting — accident,” Byron said, hesitating over the last word.
“But what shall I do with his wife?”
Prance said, “You might wait another day and bury them together, side by side. Which, I understand, is where they seldom were when alive. One of life’s little ironies.”
“There’s no one to discuss it with either,” Ruttle continued. “They neither of them have any family. He came out of the orphanage and her folks are all dead. She used to work for old Mrs. Chumley, at the Grange. Not long after Mrs. Chumley died, Minnie married Vulch. There was a handful of their acquaintances there this morning, but none felt they had the authority to order the burial should go ahead, nor did I. Vulch had made quite a point that he wanted to be there. A shooting accident, you say ...”
“Well, a shooting in any case,” Byron said.
Ruttle’s sharp eyes narrowed. “You’re not suggesting he was killed on purpose?”
“A shot through the forehead does carry that suggestion,” Prance said. “As the vicar, I expect you’re privy to all the little local scandals, Rattle. Who might have had a feud with Vulch?”
“Who didn’t?” the vicar replied without a moment’s hesitation. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but it’s no secret the fellow was a scoundrel. This might very well be the outcome of a card game. Folks don’t sit down with him twice, if you catch my meaning. I daresay he tried his tricks with some traveler at the Green Man and met his match. That’s where Eggars should follow his inquiries, the Green Man.
“But about the burial, you think I should wait and hold a double interment? It would save time, and I daresay I’ll not get a penny for my work. I should have insisted Vulch pay in advance.”
Mrs. Ballard gasped at such an unchristian attitude.
Even Prance was shocked at this blunt speech. “Does the Parish not pay for paupers’ funerals?” he asked in a pinched voice.
“A few pennies, I daresay. Vulch shot. Good God, the place is becoming a regular shooting gallery. Well, I shan’t take up any more of your time. The Christmas party is still on, eh?”
“Certainly,” Byron said, escorting him to the door. “If I’m incarcerated, my friend Prance will play host for me.”
“Ho, they’ll not pin this one on you, milord. You had no argument with Vulch, had you?”
Byron’s nostrils pinched in anger. “I was referring to someone’s disposal of his corpse on my property.”
“Well, they had to put it somewhere. Better they landed him on you than me,” Ruttle said. He punched his curled beaver onto his head, and strode out the door, laughing.
Mrs. Ballard rose, pulling her mauve shawl about her shoulders, said, “That man ought to be defrocked. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear he killed Vulch himself,” and left the room.
“Exit, pursued by outrage,” Prance said. “Mrs. Ballard is becoming quite vocal. Two outbursts in as many days.” He turned to Byron. “She wouldn’t have a point, would she? Any reason Ruttle should wish Vulch dead? Did he ever have any quarrel with Vulch?”
“As the man said, who didn’t?”
* * *
Chapter 20
Coffen and Luten wasted no time and few words as they galloped along the road to Vulch’s cottage. They saw a nursemaid walking Willie through the park as they passed Redley Hall. There was no sign of the pony Sir William was to buy for him.
“We’ll leave our mounts in the stable so no one will see we’re here. And have a look to see if Diablo’s in the barn as well,” Luten said as they approached the house.
They knew even before they entered the barn that Diablo was indeed there, and very likely hungry and thirsty as well, to judge by his strident whinnies. The lone milcher was lowing, her udders sagging under the weight of milk.
“We’ll have to feed and water the poor beggar,” Luten said, going forward to calm the horse. There was little dearer to any gentleman’s heart than a good mount.
“And see to getting Bossie milked as well,” Coffen added. He inhal
ed the pungent fumes of the stable, which were as pleasant to him as perfume. “There’s a dandy piece of horseflesh,” he said, patting Diablo’s velvet nose. “I wouldn’t mind buying him, but if Vulch treated him the way he treated his wife, he’ll have destroyed his mouth entirely, and likely made him skittish along with it. I wonder what’ll become of him. Speaking of that, I wonder who gets Vulch’s blunt. Kooey bono in other words.”
They drew a bucket of water from the well, filled Diablo’s feed bag and left him happily munching. “That stall wants mucking out,” Coffen mentioned. “We’ll tell Eggars to have someone tend to it — and get Bossie milked before she bursts an udder. I daresay she’s hungry as well, to judge by the racket she’s making.” He gave her a forkful of hay.
“Let’s go in and see if the blunt’s still there,” Luten said. “It could have been the motive for his murder.”
“Aye, if anyone knew he had it. He seemed to keep it pretty close. I mean to say, lived like a pauper and he ran up a month’s bill at the Green Man. You’d never guess to look at him that he was high in the stirrups.”
The back door of the house was unlocked. They went in quietly, through the small, dirty kitchen where the dishes from his last meal sat on the table. Gammon and eggs, to judge by the remains. They went on through to the parlor. It was messy, but other than dust, newspapers tossed on a table and a jacket on a chair, it showed no signs of disorder. The furnishings were not askew and nothing was broken, to indicate a skirmish.
They went on into the bedroom. Coffen headed for the black leather chest, sitting open and empty on the floor by the bed. He examined the lock and said, “It’s been pried open.” He moved the chest and pulled out the key. “The key’s here. Vulch would have used the key if he took his money out himself.”
Luten’s sharp gray eyes toured the room. Like the parlor, it was dirty and messy but not otherwise disturbed. “I wonder if he was killed here, at home,” he said. “The murderer was obviously here, yet there’s no sign of a struggle.”
They looked around for bloodstains, first in the bedroom, then in the parlor, where they discovered a neat hole on the high back of the sofa, with a smear of dried blood around it. The bullet hole’s location was at head level.
“Not much blood, is there?” Coffen said.
“Head wounds don’t bleed much. It wasn’t a case of a robber being caught in the act, or this bullet hole would be in the bedroom. His head wound wouldn’t be so neatly placed in the middle of his forehead either. It looks as if the killer took careful aim.” Luten looked all around. “He was shot as he sat here, which suggests a friendly visit. Or that Vulch knew the caller at least and was caught unawares.”
“There’s two glasses of ale on the sofa table,” Coffen said. “It was somebody he knew, right enough. Let’s scour the place and see what clues we can find.”
They examined every possible hiding place, every nook and cranny, every drawer, under the pillow and mattress and under the scrap of carpet in the parlor. In various places they found a hunting gun, a pistol and bullets, a plentiful supply of fish hooks and elaborate lures, various sporting magazines, a box of cheap watch fobs, gentlemen’s rings and trinkets suggesting items taken in lieu of money from people who had sat down to cards with Vulch. Or perhaps they were the fruits of his playing highwayman. They also found three decks of carefully shaved cards. The meager possessions indicated the sort of life Vulch led, but they found nothing to tell them who had murdered him. There were no cards open in the house, to show that he and his caller had been playing a card game that led to a shooting.
“It’s impossible,” Luten said, looking all around in frustration. “Nobody lives like this. Not a picture, not a letter, not a birth or marriage certificate, nothing to connect him intimately to another human being. Even an orphan would have some papers.”
“I was noticing there was nothing that could have belonged to Nessie. We were wondering before if he might have some keepsake — if he’d killed her, I mean. We only took a quick peek under the mattress,” Coffen said. “We didn’t look to see if he’d slit it open and hidden anything in it.”
Luten sighed. “I don’t see why he’d hide his personal papers, his marriage certificate for instance, but we might as well finish the job while we’re here.”
They pulled the well-worn and by no means clean sheet from the bed, to see no sign of tampering with the soft, feather-filled mattress. They flopped it over, and there pinned to the bottom, well in from the edge, was a brown envelope.
“By the living jingo, we’ve found it!” Coffen cried, and snatched it off. It was sealed but had nothing written on the outside. He ripped it open and shook out two aging documents and three folded letters addressed to Mr. Howard Vulch. The yellowing documents were his marriage certificate to Minnie Whyte and a copy of her uncle’s will leaving her the cottage. Apparently Minnie hadn’t yet written her own will. The letters were from her, written in a round, childish hand. He quickly read each letter and passed it on to Luten.
They were all three from London, no street address was given on the first one, dated shortly after her disappearance. She said simply that she was well and her nose wasn’t broken after all, but she wasn’t coming back. This suggested that her reason for leaving was a severe beating. The second letter, dated a year later, gave an address and room number on Wild Street, a poor part of London near the theater district. The houses there were mostly rooming houses for struggling actors and others in the theater business. It was also home to prostitutes.
The second letter revealed that Vulch had been in contact with his wife when he was in London. In it she complained that things weren’t going so well as they were when he visited her, and if Vulch still wanted her back, he should send her the fare for the stagecoach and she would return. The third, dated just one month ago, also gave the Wild Street address. In it she said she had got work as a seamstress, had saved one pound, six pence, and would be home as soon as she saved enough to make the trip.
Luten sighed over these pitiful epistles. It seemed Vulch had thought enough of his wife to go after her when she left. Either that or his pride disliked being deserted. In any case, he had gone to London and pursued her until he found her. That must have taken some doing. Or perhaps he had written her of his visit, arranging a meeting place. Then when she had decided to return, he must have changed his mind, for he had obviously never sent her the money for the stage, despite that cache of gold in the trunk. Things must have been going badly indeed for Minnie to want to return to a wife beater.
“We should’ve asked the postman if Vulch had got any interesting mail,” Coffen said, and made note of this for future cases.
“Eggars should have,” Luten added.
“In a small place like this, the postman would’ve known. He might even have known the letters were from Minnie. I daresay he’d be afraid to say so, if Vulch threatened him.”
“So the body is not Minnie’s and Vulch knew it,” Luten said. “I wager he lied about the missing tooth as well.”
“I fancy he was well paid for letting on the body was hers,” Coffen said. “He must have been worried that she’d come pouncing back to give the lie to his story. I wonder if he wrote to her, staving her off.”
“He must have had some plan to keep her away permanently. Either murder her or bribe her. Or perhaps he intended to take his money and join her in London. The question is, whose body was in that grave?”
“The only other missing girl we know of is that Nessie Landers, Lady Richardson’s maid. And she never was here, really.”
“We’ll give these letters to Eggars,” Luten said, sliding them into his pocket. “Whoever the poor girl was, her remains won’t be spending eternity next to Vulch at least."
They rode back to Newstead to relate their findings.
“If the body isn’t Minnie’s, it must be Nessie’s,” Prance said. “No other girl was missing at that time.”
“Not Nessie. The tooth,” Coffen said.
“We have only Lady Richardson’s word for Nessie’s full set of teeth,” Prance retorted. “Vulch knew somehow that the corpse on the island was missing a tooth, and claimed that Minnie had the same. How could he have known, if the murderer hadn’t told him?”
“He could know if he knew the girl well,” Luten mentioned, “though I agree it’s more likely he was in league with the murderer.”
Prance said, “Eggars claims the coroner kept that missing tooth a dark secret. The Richardsons are the only ones who would have known if Nessie was missing that molar.”
“She said Nessie had all her teeth. Why the deuce would she lie about it?” Coffen demanded, his frustration turning to anger. “Tarsome fellow. She has nothing to lose or gain, one way or t’other.”
Byron, afraid Coffen would revert to the women involved in his youthful orgy, said, “Vulch would have known about the missing tooth if he was the fellow Nessie ran off with.”
“Yes, by Jove, he would,” Coffen agreed readily. “I suspected that early on, if you recall.”
“Or it could be some poor girl who was just passing through the neighborhood and fell in with bad company,” Byron continued. Then after a frowning pause he added, “Some poor girl with a missing molar.”
“That Vulch knew about. Unlikelier and unlikelier.” Coffen made a scoffing noise and muttered, “Coincidence.”
“But why wasn’t she missed?” Prance asked. “Was the poor creature so alone in the world that no one, not one single, solitary soul bothered to ask about her when she disappeared?”
“Might have been a fallen woman,” Coffen said. “Or some poor girl like Minnie, running away from trouble at home. Frustratin’. How could we find out if Vulch was Nessie’s seducer now that he’s dead? There was no clues at his house. Anyone got an idea?”
“Who might know something is Minnie,” Corinne said. “She should be notified of Vulch’s death in any case. She can safely come home now.”