A Tall Dark Stranger

by Joan Smith

  “It’s been trifled with!” he exclaimed, I recognized Mr. Murray’s voice.

  “That demmed Isaiah!” Marie Murray exclaimed, and climbed down from the donkey cart. She was wearing a footman’s outfit and presumably one of her husband’s hats. “Where is he? He was supposed to keep an eye on it!”

  “You shouldn’t have trusted a boy,” her husband scolded. “He’s fallen asleep, likely.”

  “Not he!”

  The second bag was hauled up. We watched as Murray hoisted the bags into the donkey cart, his broad back straining at the job.

  When the evidence was in place, Robert whispered, “Now!” and we went quietly forward. Robert’s pistol was pointing at them.

  “Mr. Murray—and Mrs. Murray,” he said grimly, “under authority of His Majesty, I arrest you.”

  I had never before in my life seen such an anguished expression as I saw on Mr. Murray’s face and I hope I never see it again. The strangest thing of all was their total silence. They just looked at each other, Marie frightened to death and Mr. Murray’s lips twisted in anguished despair. He took his wife into his arms and pressed her head to his shoulder. She sobbed softly, clinging to him.

  After a moment Murray looked up and said in a gruff voice, “We’ll go quietly, Renshaw. You can put the pistol away.” All his political eloquence had left him and I liked him better for it. “We planned to return the money to the government. We didn’t plan to keep it, I promise you. And by the way, I want it on record that I am the one who took it. I am responsible. My wife is innocent.”

  Robert cast a questioning look at Marie, then said to her husband, “You realize, Mr. Murray, you’re admitting to murder as well. Lord Harry—”

  “No, no! He was killed by a tramp. His death has nothing to do with this. His watch and purse were missing.” He looked a question at his wife, who nodded vigorously.

  “There’ll be an official investigation, of course,” Robert said. “It won’t help that you suborned a minor to assist you.”

  “Isaiah offered!” Marie said at once.

  Lollie had been watching and listening from behind the church. When he saw that the criminals had been captured, he joined us, hauling Isaiah along. He had unfastened Isaiah’s hands and feet but had tied the lad’s wrist to his own with one of the ropes to prevent escape.

  Robert turned to Isaiah. “Did you offer your services to the Murrays?” he asked.

  Isaiah looked a question at Marie, who glared at him. “Are you still taking me to Lunnon, missus?” he asked her. He looked at Robert’s pistol and the defeated air of Mr. Murray.

  “What are you talking about?” she scoffed.

  “You said you’d take me to Lunnon with you!” he howled. “That’s the only reason I dunnit. You said your man would protect me if I was caught. You said they couldn’t harm me if I was helping an M.P. You promised!”

  “Isaiah offered his services,” Marie repeated, trying to muster an air of dignity.

  “Did not! You ast me.” He turned to Robert. “It was all her doings.” He pointed his free hand at Mrs. Murray. “When I told you that day in town I’d seen your boyfriend kill Lord Harry, there in the water meadow, and you’d best make it worth my while if you didn’t want it known.”

  “Marie!” Mr. Murray moaned, his face broken by grief.

  “It was my brother, Archie!” she said. When her husband just shook his head in disbelief, she turned to Robert. “You believe me, Robert. This was all my brother’s idea.”

  “How did your brother know about the shipment of government money if you didn’t tell him?” Murray asked.

  “I let it slip accidentally,” she said at once. “I had nothing to do with it except trying to protect my baby brother.” It turned out eventually that her baby brother was one Henry Fanshawe, age thirty-five.

  As the explanations were becoming complicated, Robert decided it was time to call in McAdam. He sent Lollie to Oakbay for our carriage. When it arrived, Robert and Lollie accompanied the Murrays to Chilton Abbas, where they were interrogated in the roundhouse. George had come in the carriage as well, to lend a hand.

  “This may take a while,” Robert said to me before leaving. “I’ll return to Oakbay with Lollie when we’re through in town. You’ll be there?”

  “Of course.”

  An intimate smile touched his lips and was echoed in his dark eyes. “Good. We have some unfinished business to discuss. Try if you can to get a few hours’ rest, my dear.” He had never used that endearment before or just that tender tone of voice.

  “What about me?” Isaiah asked, when the Murrays were being trundled into the carriage.

  “I’m taking you to Oakbay,” George informed him.

  “Would you mind having him there until I return?” Robert asked me.

  “He’ll get away!” I said, disliking such a responsibility.

  “I’ll speak to him,” Robert said.

  He took Isaiah aside for a private chat. I don’t know what Robert said to him, but before leaving I heard Isaiah say, “I only dunnit ‘cause she promised to take me to Lunnon.” In any case, he went along quietly to Oakbay in the Murrays’ donkey cart with George and me.

  “I never bin in a carriage before,” he said, smiling at such a rare treat. He looked so thin I could only feel sorry for him and hope that Robert could ease his punishment.

  Robert was to stop at the Smoggs’ cottage to inform them what was afoot. He left with the others. I was happy to see he had put his pistol away.

  Dawn was breaking by the time we reached home. Rooks and swallows wheeled in a pink and indigo sky. Isaiah immediately asked for food and George took him to the kitchen.

  I was filthy from head to toe from romping through the meadows and graveyard. There was no time for sleep, only to make a fresh toilette and meet Auntie in the breakfast parlor at the usual eight-thirty. I gave her an edited version of the events that had transpired. She took the notion that I had had the story secondhand from George. I didn’t feel it necessary or wise to tell her I had been an active participant.

  “I saw it coming, of course,” she said, much to my surprise, as she had never mentioned any suspicion of the Murrays. She noticed my shock and continued, “I mentioned Mrs. Murray’s fate line, did I not? I didn’t like to tell her, but I knew something of this nature would occur. I gave it a few years, but perhaps she’s closer to forty than thirty-five. That would account for the discrepancy. There is no arguing with the evidence of the hand.”

  No more was said of Robert’s fire hand. I took my sketch pad out to the park as an excuse to watch for Robert’s return. As I left, she said, “Have Isaiah sent up to me, Amy. It would be interesting to read that whelp’s hand.”

  I feared she would hear an unedited version of the night’s activities and went quickly out to the park as soon as I had notified Lentle of her request. The time I waited flew by in pleasant dreams of the future. It was going on eleven o’clock when I heard the carriage coming up the drive. I raced it to the front door and was there when it stopped.

  Lollie got out first, looking exhausted but happy. “Well, it’s done,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “We might as well go in and let Aunt Maude hear it as well. It will save repeating it.” We all went up the stairs to the double oak doors.

  Robert looked leery. “How has Isaiah been behaving?” he asked.

  “Auntie was going to read his hand when I left. If he had made a run for it, I would have heard.”

  Auntie had heard them arrive and beat Lentle to the door to greet them. Isaiah was no longer with her.

  “Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life!” was her greeting. “I mentioned to Amy that I had foreseen it all, of course. Let us have the details, Lollie.”

  The gentlemen were seated. I ordered coffee, as they looked as if they could use it. I didn’t think they had had breakfast and asked Lentle to serve lunch as soon as possible.

  Robert let Lollie tell the t
ale, interrupting from time to time to hasten it along or straighten out a point.

  “It all started in London a month ago when Mrs. Murray found out about the shipment to the navy. She was in hock to her eyes because of her gambling. She got her brother to arrange the theft and bring the money down here to wait a few months until the talk had died down. She didn’t want it kept in her own house, so Fanshawe hired a room in a nearby village. Meanwhile Lord Harry had got a line on Fanshawe—he’s no stranger to the law courts—and followed him down here.”

  “Mrs. Murray never said much about that brother. Now we know why!” Auntie exclaimed. “We heard plenty about the solicitor from Norwich, but very little of the brother.”

  “Yes, well, he’s nothing to boast of,” Lollie said impatiently. “When Lord Harry began asking questions, Fanshawe wrote to his sister. She convinced Murray to come home for a spell, so she’d be on hand to manage affairs here.”

  “I thought it odd, her being home when the Season is on in London,” Auntie said.

  “Fanshawe used some other name, but Lord Harry had a good hunch who he really was. He was trying to find out who Fanshawe was working with—how he found out about the shipment—which is why he was asking us about Fanshawes, Amy. I daresay your telling him Mrs. Murray was a Fanshawe before marriage made him suspect her. Fanshawe admitted to Lord Harry that he knew where the blunt was, to lure him to a quiet spot to kill him. Isaiah had been snooping and had seen Marie and her brother together in the meadow. His only mistake was that he thought the brother was a boyfriend. Isaiah even saw the murder. Since he couldn’t find Fanshawe, who had raced back to London, he accosted Marie to buy his silence. Marie insists she knew nothing about the murder, but it’s pretty clear she engineered the theft at least. McAdam has sent a notice off to London to pick up Fanshawe. We’ll hear his story in time.”

  “Who was it who bashed you in the meadow the day we found the money, Lollie?” I asked.

  “It was Fanshawe, with a little help from Marie. He had taken a room in an inn between here and Woking, using a different name, and used to visit Marie when Murray wasn’t about. They saw us in the meadow that day and hid behind the hut. They were there when I found the money and lay in wait till you left to bash me. When Maitland suddenly showed an interest in buying Chalmers’s farm, Marie hoped to put suspicion on him.”

  “She was the first one who told me Maitland was buying the farm. She didn’t mention he was taking a mortgage,” I said.

  “No more he is,” Lollie said. “He’s offered for Hadley’s bran-faced daughter and been accepted. It’s her dot that will buy the place, or make the down payment at least, Hadley is backing the deal.” We ladies had a deal to say about this.

  “Dash it, I’ve lost my place. Where was I?” Lollie said.

  “At the shepherd’s hut,” Auntie reminded him.

  “Right. From there they hid the blunt in those thorn bushes on Maitland’s property, but they knew they couldn’t leave it there. Marie knew Renshaw was an agent, so they couldn’t hide it at Beauvert. Since they knew we were searching the meadow, they took the notion of hiding it in our cellar. It’s fairly close by and wasn’t likely to be suspected. Only they didn’t know about the coal chute and broke the lock.”

  “I saw two people that night,” I said. “So it wasn’t Mr. Murray with Marie. It was Henry, alias the tall stranger. He did exist, Lollie.”

  “Yes, we thought it was Renshaw and his tiger,” Lollie said. Robert lifted an eyebrow at me. Lollie continued, “Isaiah was becoming persistent in his demands, so Marie decided to take him into her confidence and use him to retrieve the money. She told him she’d take him to London and start him out as a foot-boy or some such thing. Well, she couldn’t leave him behind, knowing so much. Then she had that party to throw us off the track and try to make things look normal.”

  “How deeply is Mr. Murray involved?” Auntie asked.

  “He knew nothing about it until yesterday,” Robert said. “Marie became worried when things got complicated, so she told her husband that Henry had stolen the money and hidden it in your cellar. Isaiah was to recover it and go to London with them. Murray agreed to help her on the condition that she return the money to the government. Anonymously, of course. They’d fly it to London at once, using the pretext of the election to account for their sudden departure.

  “He had already decided not to run in the next election. He wanted to get Marie out of London, away from bad company. She agreed; whether she actually meant to give up the blunt is a moot point. I wager she thought she could bring him around her thumb.”

  I saw Auntie nodding and knew she was thinking about Marie’s club thumbs and the fate line.

  “Anyhow,” Lollie continued, “Marie found out from her husband, who knew the details from McAdam, what was afoot at Oakbay last night.”

  “McAdam told us not to tell anyone!” I exclaimed.

  “You may be sure Murray was pestering the life out of him. Murray wields a pretty big stick. McAdam told him everything he knew. It was Isaiah who suggested using the coal chute. It seems he’s done it before. I expect we’ve been heating the Smoggs’ cottage all these years if the truth were known. Marie gave Isaiah the bottle of drugged wine, with the label soaked off so it couldn’t be identified, to give Leo Forten.”

  “Leo Forten would drink turpentine if it came in a wine bottle,” Auntie said with a sniff.

  “Once Forten was asleep, Isaiah slipped into the cellar,” Lollie continued. “How the little devil ever hauled those heavy bags up the cellar stairs and out to the donkey cart by himself is a mystery. He must have made a few trips. It was agreed that Isaiah would hide the canvas bags in the empty grave and the Murrays would pick them up before dawn, run them back home and into their carriage, and take them to London to return to the government. Isaiah was to go to London with them. Only we were there waiting for them,” he said, and gave one of his smirking smiles.

  “What will happen to them?” Auntie asked eagerly.

  “Fanshawe will swing, certainly, for murdering Lord Harry,” Lollie said. “I don’t know how much weight Murray carries at Whitehall. He might manage to get his wife and himself off with a lightish sentence. The affair has opened his eyes to his wife’s character in any case. She’ll not hoodwink him again. Too bad for Murray.”

  “If you joust with a cat, you must expect to get scratched,” Auntie averred, and continued on with a few other homilies. “It will provide a cold pudding to settle his great love of that trollop.”

  As it was getting on to lunchtime, Auntie suggested the gentlemen freshen up before eating. Robert was to remain for lunch. Auntie had a hundred questions to ask while we ate. Robert had two private meetings before he left Oakbay. One was with Auntie to ask her permission to propose to me. The other was with Isaiah. Both were successful, but I didn’t learn about either until that evening. Immediately after lunch Robert and Lollie returned to Chilton Abbas to continue clearing up the details of the case.

  Auntie and I were not far behind them. Beau’s bull being loose on market day was nothing compared to the excitement going forth in Chilton Abbas that afternoon. Mrs. Davis was so agitated, she was running about the streets without a bonnet, and the drapery merchant closed his shop to allow himself and his wife to gossip without danger of someone walking off with a yard of ribbon without paying for it.

  I was somewhat surprised to see Isaiah there. He was carrying a large parcel. Too large for him to have lifted from a shop shelf without paying. Probably a poached hare he was selling to the innkeeper.

  “G’day, miss,” he said. “You needn’t report me to Monger. I’m on p’role. It’s what they do in the army if you promise to be good. Colonel Renshaw set it up, seeing as how I’m a minor. I was more sinned agin than sinner,” he said proudly. I assumed this was being misquoted from Robert, as I couldn’t imagine Isaiah being familiar with the Bible.

  I hoped Colonel Renshaw knew what he was about. If he had made himself responsi
ble for that monkey of an Isaiah, he would have his hands full.

  “I wonder why Renshaw bothered letting on he’d been in India,” Auntie said. “There is no shame in having been one of Wellington’s officers. Quite the contrary.”

  “Because of his dark skin. Where’d he get that, ‘cept in Spain or India? Didn’t want you to twig to it he was a spy, did he?” Isaiah replied, though she hadn’t spoken to him, “Sojers back from Spain often switch to spyin’. Nabobs don’t. As if the colonel’d bother with India.”

  On this condemnatory speech he continued on his way.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By eleven that night when Robert came, most of the details had been sorted out. Officials had been summoned by special messenger from London. Fanshawe had been arrested and charged with murder and robbery. He was less generous than Murray. He didn’t hesitate to draw his sister into the mire with him. “What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?” was my aunt’s comment on his behavior.

  Marie was to stand trial for accessory to robbery and murder. She would certainly end up in Bridewell. Murray might have escaped with a fine in exchange for giving evidence, but he refused the offer. He would stand by his wife, but the feeling was that he might still escape without incarceration. His political career, of course, was over.

  The Tories wasted no time. They had already approached Maitland regarding standing in the next election. Strangely, he refused. Auntie says that between taking on a wife and another monstrous farm, he’ll have his dish full at home. Beau Sommers has been approached to be the new candidate.

  “Can you imagine Beau as an M.P.? Lollie could do a better job,” Auntie said. “Isaiah Smoggs could do as well.” I doubt Beau even knows where Whitehall is, but the word is that he will run.”