The Sudbury School Murders (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #4)

by Ashley Gardner

  "Tell me what you are doing here."

  "Damnation, Lacey."

  My exasperation rose. "My help has been begged in the past several days by people who refuse to tell me the truth. If I am to assist, I must have complete candor. That is my price."

  She glared at me. "And I could simply leave you here to take root in this meadow."

  "Marianne, Grenville will hire a Runner, though I advised him not to. I imagine he has done so already."

  Marianne bit her lip. I had never seen her look so anguished, not even when I'd spoken to her in Grenville's house a few weeks ago, where he had more or less confined her and assigned a maid and a footman to dog her footsteps. She'd been angry then, but now, she looked frightened. "I am not certain I can trust you."

  I hid a sigh. "You will have to trust me. Who are you in Berkshire to meet? A man?"

  "No. I've told you."

  I shook my head. "You quite baffle me, Marianne. Any money Grenville has given you has disappeared with nothing to show for it. If you do not give it to a man, what becomes of it?"

  She held up her hand. "Stop. Cease questioning me. I am not certain what to do. I must think."

  She was trembling. I tried to conjure sympathy for her, and I really did wish to help her. Marianne struggled through life even more than I did. Grenville had offered to become her protector, to give her every luxury, but she fought him. Marianne loved her freedom, even if it brought her penury.

  We walked for a while in silence. The path led behind the hedges and trees that screened us from the canal. I wished we could come upon a bridge over which to cross back to the towpath, which would be much easier to traverse. The track on this side was little used and often plunged right into undergrowth.

  Marianne was lost in thought, and so was I, so neither of us at first heard the curious drone that came from behind a clump of brush. When I did hear it, I stopped, puzzled.

  Marianne gave me an impatient look. I stepped away from her, walked a little off the track, and parted the grasses. I froze.

  "Whatever is the matter, Lacey?" Marianne asked. I heard her behind me, then she peered past me, and gasped.

  A horde of flies and other insects buzzed about a knife that was half-buried in the grass. It was long and serrated, the kind a butcher might use to cut up a carcass. The blade and the mud and grasses around it were caked with brown stains. The flies swarmed around it all.

  I looked up. The canal was not five feet away, but thick scrub and trees screened it from view. We were perhaps half a mile from Sudbury in one direction, and half a mile from Lower Sudbury Lock. "Middleton was killed here," I breathed.

  Marianne's hand went to her mouth. She looked green. "How awful."

  I reached down and lifted the knife. I had no doubt that Middleton's lifeblood stained it. The killer had lured him here. Or--thinking of Middleton's past--perhaps Middleton had been the one who lured his killer to this spot, then the tables had turned.

  Ramsay had told me that Sutcliff had run after Middleton in order to meet him on the road to the village. But this spot was in the opposite direction, south of the lock. What had made Middleton come this way?

  The brush was much broken here. I stepped over the bloodstained grass and slipped and slid down to the bank of the canal.

  A barge was drifting past the far bank, on its way to Lower Sudbury Lock. The man at the tiller stared at me curiously as I came plunging out of the brush, but lifted his hand in a courteous greeting.

  I waved back, but my heart was beating excitedly. No wonder we'd found no signs of the body having been dragged through grass or mud near the Lower Sudbury Lock.

  "He was taken to the lock in a boat," I announced to Marianne.

  Marianne looked puzzled. "You mean a bargeman obligingly gave a murderer and his corpse a ride to the lock? Or do you think he was murdered by a bargeman himself?"

  I climbed back to her. "Not a barge. A rowboat. There are ample places to tie a rowboat at the bank. The man murdered Middleton, tipped the body onto his boat, rowed up the canal, and heaved him into the lock. Then he could row back down to Great Bedwyn, hide the boat, and go about his business, or even portage around the locks so the keepers would not see him. He could be far, far away by now."

  Marianne gave me her hand to help me to the top of the bank. "Surely someone would have noticed."

  "Not in the middle of the night. It would be dark as pitch along here. Most barges tie up for the night near towns, not out here. This stretch would have been empty, and were it foggy, I doubt that anyone would even see a boat go past. No, he had perfect cover."

  Marianne's face was still white. "It is gruesome."

  "I know." I wrapped the knife in my handkerchief. "I must take this to the magistrate in Sudbury."

  "Which you could do if I hadn't frightened away your horse," she said, looking chagrined.

  "If I'd been on horseback, I'd never have found this spot."

  I borrowed Marianne's handkerchief, tied it to the closest tree to mark the place, and then we resumed our slow progress up the trail.

  "Why would he not take the knife away with him?" she asked as we made our way along. "If he took such trouble to remove the corpse, why not the knife?"

  I considered. "Perhaps he was too agitated. Or perhaps he dropped it in the dark and could not find it. But do you see, Marianne, no matter what he did with the knife, that the rowboat is significant?"

  "The rowboat you think he used," Marianne corrected me. "Why should it be significant? "

  "Because it means that the meeting was planned. They either rowed here together, or they met here. It is unlikely anyone would chance upon each other in this bleak spot in the middle of the night. The boat was brought so that the murderer could get away without leaving a trail."

  "I suppose," Marianne said doubtfully.

  "Middleton did not meet a man on the road, quarrel with him, and fight to a deadly end. This knife is large--it's a butcher's knife, not a paper knife or a cutting knife that a man might just happen to have in his pocket. Someone fetched it specially. Just as they fetched the rowboat specially. So you see," I finished, "the murder was thought out, not done on the spur of the moment. That means that the idea that it was a continuation of Sebastian's quarrel with Middleton in the stable yard will not wash."

  Marianne raised her brows. "You sound certain."

  "I am certain. Someone knew Middleton, wanted him dead. Someone he was not afraid to meet in the dark on the side of the canal."

  "He was a fool then," Marianne observed.

  "He was not afraid. But perhaps, working for James Denis, he'd become confident that he could face any man who challenged him."

  Marianne shook her head. "The Romany man could have done it, Lacey. Easy for him to steal a boat and a knife and arrange the meeting."

  I disagreed. "Sebastian is big and strong and young. Even Middleton might think twice about confronting him alone in an isolated spot. Besides, they worked in the stables together--why would Middleton agree to meet somewhere else in the middle of the night? No, it was someone who did not want to be seen at the stables, and someone Middleton considered weak." My heart chilled as I spoke the words. "Such as one of the students."

  "Or a tutor," Marianne said. "I've seen some of them. They look a bit spindly and colorless."

  "Or a tutor," I glumly agreed.

  "But would a lad or a spindly tutor have been strong enough to kill him?"

  "Possibly, if they took him by surprise. The boat points to a person not as strong as Middleton. That person already knew he could not carry the corpse away, and so provided the boat."

  "You are on flights of fancy, Lacey," Marianne said skeptically. "Why not simply slide the body into the canal and have done?"

  "To point attention away from the spot, perhaps to incriminate someone else. The lockkeeper, for instance, is a large and strong man. The body is found in the lock--there is the strong lockkeeper living next to it. Probably the constable was supposed
to suspect him. But Rutledge muddied things by insisting that Sebastian had committed the crime."

  Marianne did not answer, merely kept her head bent, her gaze on the trail. When we at last turned onto the narrow track that passed the lockkeeper's house and led to the stables and the school, Marianne stopped.

  I looked at her. "You will come no farther?"

  "No, thank you."

  She looked so downcast, so worried, that I wanted to pat her shoulder, but I knew she would not accept such a thing. "Grenville will be here soon," I said. "You must decide whether you will let him see you, and what you will tell him. If you wish to speak to me of it, or wish me to help you, send word to me.

  "It is not a simple matter, Lacey."

  "I see that."

  She gave me a belligerent look. "I know you will tell him. You are loyal to him. Why should you be loyal to me?"

  "Marianne," I said impatiently. I was much more interested at the moment in getting the knife to the magistrate than in her feud with Grenville. "I am beginning to believe that you and Grenville are a pair of fools. I give you my word I will say nothing to him until you give me leave. But I wish you would confide in him. It would, at the very least, make things more comfortable for me."

  Her glance turned ironic. "And certainly I wish nothing more than to make you comfortable." She sighed. "I will send for you--perhaps."

  She began to walk away.

  "Where do you lodge?" I called after her.

  She turned to face me, walking backward a few steps.

  "Shan't tell you."

  She swung around again, skirts swirling, and tramped on toward the canal.

  *** *** ***

  I found my horse, the sensible beast, in the stable yard. Thomas, the stable hand, was just pulling off the saddle.

  "A moment," I said. "I must ride on to Sudbury."

  Thomas blinked once, twice, then fastened the saddle back in place without a word. I was in a hurry, but I took the time to ask Thomas about the quarrel he claimed he'd overheard between Middleton and Sebastian.

  "It were him," he insisted, when I suggested he'd been mistaken.

  "Where were you standing?"

  Thomas pointed. At the end of the yard, a door led to a tiny hall and a stone staircase that led to the rooms over the stables. A small window broke the wall above the door. I peered at the dusty pane which overlooked the yard below.

  "They stood by the gate," Thomas said, motioning across the yard. "Shouting. Could hear them clear as day."

  "It was dark. You could not have seen them clear as day."

  Thomas looked impatient. "Mr. Middleton was tall, wann't he? So is Sebastian. The tallest men in the stables. No mistake."

  He was certain. I knew a suggestion that it had been another tall man, not Sebastian, would not be welcomed. I let it go and had him boost me onto the horse.

  I rode to Sudbury and the magistrate's house. He and the constable were as excited as I to see the knife and hear what I'd told them about the spot near the canal. We went together back to the place I'd marked, the constable on foot, the magistrate driving himself in a one-horse cart.

  The two men speculated over the crushed, bloodstained grass, and I showed them exactly where I'd found the knife. I told them my theory that the murderer had taken the body up the canal in a small boat. They were less inclined to believe that, but agreed that they could see no evidence that the body had gotten into the lock any other way.

  They also agreed with me that the knife was made for butchering or cutting up meat for cooking. The constable was given the task of wandering through Sudbury and the nearby villages inquiring who had lost a knife.

  I could do little more than point them to the spot and tell them what I thought. They were much interested in the area, less so in my opinions.

  I left them, rode back to the stables, deposited my horse with the lads, retrieved my walking stick, and made my way back to the school.

  When I reached the quad, I found commotion. The morning was fully upon us, light flooding over the eastern wing of the Head Master's house. In the middle of the quad stood Simon Fletcher. His brown hair was awry, his robe kilted back on his shoulders. He stared down at what lay in the middle of the circle of curious boys.

  It was a pile of books, Fletcher's, I guessed by the look on his face. They were charred and still smoldering. The wind stirred sparks that whirled in tiny, bright flashes.

  On the cobbles next to the pile of books was a placard, ill-printed, containing a foul-worded invective against boys learning Latin.

  Fletcher lifted an anguished gaze to me. "My books," he mourned. "My entire library. Gone. I'll never replace them."

  He kicked aside a scorched tome, scattering sparks and blackened paper.

  At that moment a cultured, well-bred voice said coolly from the arched portico, "Good lord. Have I arrived at a bad time?"

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  Grenville's sudden arrival provided a better diversion for the boys than a pile of burned books. They swarmed out to his traveling coach, marveling at its polished sides and mahogany inlay, the perfectly matched horses, his coachman in fine livery.

  Grenville himself looked slightly alarmed as the gangly youths rushed past him. He dabbed his lips with a handkerchief and strove to maintain his mask of sangfroid. I saw, however, that his cheeks were pale and his eyelids waxy, and I knew that the journey from London had brought on his motion sickness.

  "You need brandy," I remarked.

  "Good of you to notice." His dark eyes took in the quad, Fletcher wringing his hands, the scattering of charred books. "What has happened? Where is Rutledge?"

  "I imagine he will charge along any moment now," I murmured.

  I was not wrong. Rutledge emerged from his house just then, Sutcliff at his side. He swept his gaze over the tableau, assessed the situation, and stormed to the middle of the quad. "Bloody hell, Fletcher."

  "Ruined," Fletcher moaned. "I can never afford to replace them all."

  Rutledge gazed at him in baffled outrage. "Are you telling me, man, that you never noticed somebody carting off a load of your books and setting them alight? Or were you off at the tavern nursing your day's dozen pints?"

  "I was having breakfast in the hall," Fletcher said, thin-lipped. "We heard shouting in the quad. We came out. Found this." He gestured at the pile of books.

  I looked at the sad heap on the stones, a light rain hissing on the smoldering pages. The books lay haphazardly, some having skittered a few feet from the main pile, some flopped open upside down. The pile was anything but neat. Yet, all had burned.

  I turned and peered up at the south hall, windows open to let in the mild spring air. "They were not placed here," I said. "They were dropped. Probably from that window." I pointed to an open window above the ground floor, right over the clump of books.

  Grenville gazed upward, tilting back his curled-brimmed hat. "But surely someone would have seen that."

  Rutledge turned a cold eye to Grenville, just noticing that he stood among us. "Good God, what the devil are you doing here?"

  Next to him, Sutcliff glanced sideways at Grenville, taking in his black coat and gray trousers, his ivory and yellow striped waistcoat, and his cravat with its perfect, and simple, knot.

  Grenville ignored them both. "It would take daring," he said to me.

  "The boys were breakfasting," I said. "As were the tutors. The quad would be deserted." I peered up at the window again. "What is in that room?"

  Grenville adjusted his hat and lifted his walking stick. "Let us have a look. With your permission of course, Rutledge."

  "By all means," Rutledge growled. "Let Captain Lacey indulge himself."

  Grenville gave him a half-smile. The smile shook a little; he must have been in a bad way on the journey. "Captain Lacey's guesses have been correct before. Only a few short weeks ago, he looked upon an anonymous body fished out of the Thames and was able to pinpoint the killer in less than a fort
night."

  Rutledge's brows knit. "Well, he's been here almost that amount of time and has done nothing useful."

  "Give him a chance, my dear Rutledge," Grenville assured him.

  I was ready to tell the both of them to go to the devil. But I was curious to see that room. We all entered the chill darkness of the south hall; me Grenville, Rutledge, Sutcliff. Fletcher, still wretched, followed us. "I can tell you what's there already," Fletcher said as we climbed the main stairs. "Nothing. It's a small room, and we store things there. No one ever goes in it."

  "Is it kept locked?" I asked.

  Rutledge answered. "No. Why should it be?"

  We moved down the corridor that ran the length of the house. Rutledge opened a door partway along. "You see?"

  The room was indeed small and filled with junk. Broken chairs, half-painted drapes obviously used as scenery backing, old bookcases, a few crates, empty bottles, battered books--things that might be useful to someone if they cared to come here and root around.

  Grenville moved through the junk to the window. It was open, and rain pattered on the sill. "Well, well," he said. "Lacey was correct." He leaned down, retrieved a few objects from the floor. I moved closer.

  He held a piece of flint, a spill, and a small, pocket-sized book, half-burned. "Someone stood here and struck a spark and then calmly set the books alight. Probably piled them on this . . . " He kicked at a velvet drape that lay in a wrinkled mass next to the window. "And tipped them out below. From here, he could make certain no one was in the quad. A quick rain of burning Latin texts, and then he nipped out of the room again, probably back to breakfast." He turned to Fletcher. "Did anyone come in late?"

  Fletcher shrugged tired shoulders. "I did not notice."

  "Or," I suggested, "he could have run outside and began the shouting. Does anyone know who shouted first?"

  "By the time I reached the quad, most of the boys were there, and the tutors," Fletcher said.

  "There were only a handful when I came out," Sutcliff volunteered. "But I really didn't see who. Ramsay was one, but I couldn't say which were first. I saw what had happened then ran to fetch the headmaster."