Death of an Unsung Hero

by Tessa Arlen

  “All Glenn can remember after that was Captain Bray half carrying him, half leading him. As they made their way along the uneven ground, at one time the pain in his head was so bad that he blacked out. Later on, when he came to, he was in a field hospital and the orderly told him that Captain Bray had brought him back to safety and that they were the only survivors of ‘A’ company. In the days that he lay in the field hospital waiting to be shipped back home, he remembered thinking over Captain Bray’s words: ‘Yes, you are right, the vengeful little swine sent me off into enemy fire.’ And wondered what reason Hector had to do such a thing when the captain had risked his life to save him. He said that Hector had always been a sly one—he knew him, you see, because every one of them in their company had all come from the same village in Gloucestershire. Their captain was the owner of the Brayley estate, and Glenn and his father had worked on the estate all their lives. Private Glenn was a hedger and ditcher before the war, and his father a gardener at Brayley House. And this character Hector was the son of the estate steward. Lieutenant Carmichael was a solicitor’s son from Cheltenham, but the other men who had died that day had all been from Brayley. They had all joined up on the same day.”

  “Are you saying that this Hector stole Lieutenant Carmichael’s uniform and identity and then ran off?” Harry turned his head and looked over his shoulder at his mother.

  “Yes, I am, but wait until you hear the rest of it. So, four days later Private Glenn was shipped back home with a Blighty one. He heard that Captain Bray had recovered from a slight wound sustained when he was reconnoitering the best way back to their lines, and that he had also returned to England. Glenn was so ill after he returned home that all he wanted to do was to forget everything that had happened. He wrote once to Brayley, to Mr. Bray, to inquire after Captain Bray, but had had no reply.” Her ladyship’s voice now that her story was told sounded tired and depressed. “So you see there is indeed a connection between all of these men. The Bray brothers, Sam Glenn, Ian Carmichael, and Private P. Hector.”

  “And this character who came to Haversham Hall calling himself Carmichael was really Hector?”

  “Yes. When he explained that a Lieutenant Carmichael had come to our hospital, and described him, Glenn said that Hector must have taken the lieutenant’s uniform and exchanged his identity disks for Carmichael’s when they were waiting in the wood for Captain Bray to return.” Lady Montfort turned to Mrs. Jackson to acknowledge Mr. Stafford’s telegram that showed the death of Hector in his official records. “And then he abandoned Private Glenn, hoping that Bray would be killed as he tried to find a way clear to get them all to safety. Hector, the man who was shot outside our house, was a coward and a deserter. Captain Bray would more than likely have had him court-martialed when he recovered, but he had retreated into a world that had no past. He remembered nothing of those two days or even his life before the war. That is until he came home to England to be helped to begin the business of reclaiming his life by Major Andrews.”

  Now that she had finished, Lady Montfort sat quite still, looking out into the darkening evening. Lord Haversham had switched on the Daimler’s powerful headlights and they lit up the country road ahead of them flanked on either side by high hedges. A great golden moon lifted up into the night sky just above the horizon.

  “A harvest moon, look, Jackson, how beautiful it is. It is hard to believe on a night like this that a battle like the one at Beauville Wood could possibly be going on in France right now, isn’t it?”

  Lord Haversham glanced up automatically into the night sky and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The only sound was the motorcar’s powerful engine as it covered the miles toward home. Mrs. Jackson sighed, a long sigh. “But that is not all, m’lady,” she reminded her ladyship. “That is not quite the end of it, is it?”

  “No, Jackson, it is not,” Lady Montfort said as she came out of her thoughts. “If you can make this thing go any faster, Harry, I would be very pleased if you would.”

  “The harvest home supper will be in full swing by now, Mama, we have definitely missed it.”

  “No, it’s not that, Harry; I want to get home as quickly as I can, because what is troubling me most of all is that if Hector was well known to Captain Bray, then he was also known to his brother, the three boys grew up together. Mr. Bray met Private Hector when he and Althea found him on Brook Lane in his broken-down motorcar. In fact, Althea introduced Private Hector as Lieutenant Carmichael. But Edgar Bray never said a word, did he, Jackson? He never admitted to knowing Hector, and Hector did not admit to knowing Mr. Bray. So what do you make of that, Harry?”

  Lord Haversham slowed to negotiate the narrow streets of Oxford. They drove up the deserted High Street to Magdalen Bridge, and as the moon shone down on the smooth surface of the water below them, the other side of the riverbank was lost in the blackness of the night sky, and Mrs. Jackson had the horrid feeling that the bridge would just go on and on into darkness and that they would never reach the other side. She shivered in the stifling heat of the night.

  Lord Haversham said, “Captain Bray’s murder was planned, planned so that Hector would not be exposed as the coward he was, and also so that…” They reached the other side of the river and the companionable comfort of the bank and he slowed the Daimler as it started the climb up Headington Hill.

  “So that Mr. Edgar Bray would inherit the estate in his brother’s place,” said Mrs. Jackson, eager to make her point.

  “Exactly, Jackson, you speculated as much earlier on and you were right,” said Lady Montfort. “Harry, can’t you go a little faster?” A roadside public house had come up on their right; its white walls gleamed in the Daimler’s headlamps and Lord Haversham slowed to take the bend in the road. “We’ll be home in an hour or so,” he said, and then: “So Bray killed his brother so he could inherit?” The turn negotiated, Harry again pressed the accelerator and the motorcar leaped forward once more.

  “Yes. Bray, convinced that he is the new lord of Brayley Manor, is swanning around Iyntwood being handled with kid gloves as he mourns the death of his murdered brother, and waits for Sir Walter Meacham to be brought to trial for the murder of both men. I am quite sure you can go a little faster, Harry.”

  Mrs. Jackson held on to the roof strap as they swayed around another corner. Yes, but we don’t want to end up in a ditch, and we have to get home as quickly as we possibly can because Lady Althea, bless her innocent little heart, is spending an awful lot of time with a man who probably murdered his brother and then disposed of the man who had helped him to do it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The night air was heavy. Clouds coming in from the east had gathered in a great banks along the horizon and were now moving in overhead, obscuring the moon, as Harry drew up outside the great barn at Brook End Farm. Clementine felt such anxiety that she barely noticed how hot and airless the night was. Her only thought was for her daughter. As she got down from the motor she saw to her relief that Althea’s little motorcar was parked demurely next to the gleaming coachwork of Mr. Bray’s splendid Lanchester. She is safe then, she is in the barn with everyone else. She crossed the cobbled courtyard toward the light streaming out through the doors of the barn, thrown open to the night air. From the sound of it, the harvest home supper had turned itself into a harvest home dance. She could hear the scrape of fiddles overriding the notes of a piano that was in bad need of tuning, and someone had dug up a cornet and was doing his best to keep three-three time. As she stood in the threshold of the barn, blinking in the light, she was joined by Mrs. Jackson and, behind them, Harry.

  “I can’t see her anywhere,” she said, scanning the red and perspiring faces of farmers, their wives, and some of their children as they swirled past them to the quick tempo of a sprightly waltz. Festive red, white, and blue bunting was strung across the rafters, bales of hay were covered with old horse blankets to provide seating, and down one side of the barn were trestle tables offering great pink hams, cold ch
icken, and dozens of cakes and pies. Clementine’s gaze swept on to the top table and there was her husband, standing with a tankard of ale in his hand, gravely listening to the Reverend Mr. Bottomley-Jones, who was more than likely making one of his gentle and persuasive pleas for funds to repair the bellows of the church organ, or a trip to the seaside for the local children. The noise from the music and the voices of those dancing rose up to them in a wave of celebratory cheer, its volume encouraged by a large keg of beer standing next to the trestle tables of food. “Can you see Althea anywhere, Harry?” Clementine shrieked into her son’s ear, and turning to Mrs. Jackson she mouthed, “Lady Althea?” And together they scanned the dance floor.

  “Can you see Edgar Bray?” Harry shouted back to his mother, and again all three of them searched the crowd.

  “There is Colonel Valentine.” Mrs. Jackson touched Clementine’s arm and nodded toward the chief constable.

  “Good,” said Clementine, although neither of them heard her. “We are going to need him.” She caught her husband’s eye and immediately had his attention, for he excused himself and started to make his way down the side of the barn toward them.

  As they stood waiting for him, a flicker of lightning lit up the dark cloud outside and almost immediately was answered by the rumble of thunder as it rolled toward them across the heavens. “You are over two hours late. Where on earth have you both been?” Lord Montfort looked quite angry, and Mrs. Jackson took several steps back, determined that she not invade the privacy of a family argument.

  Clementine paid absolutely no attention to her husband’s annoyed greeting. “Where are Althea and Edgar Bray?” she asked—almost accusing him of the sort of negligence one reserved only for negligent chaperones at a debutante’s ball.

  “Here, celebrating the harvest with Althea’s Land girls and our farmers,” her husband reminded her, as if she had forgotten her duty as the wife of the county’s most prominent landowner. “I didn’t see her in there,” Clementine said. “Harry, did you see her?” but Harry had disappeared back into the barn’s stifling interior.

  “What is going on, Clemmy?” Her husband caught her anxiety. “Where on earth have you been? Would someone,” he turned to Mrs. Jackson, “please tell me what is going on?”

  Harry emerged from the barn. “I walked around, she’s not in there, and neither is Edgar Bray.”

  “Well, I expect they have walked over to the stables. Bray wanted to meet Dolly.”

  “He met Dolly on the day he arrived,” Clementine said. “He said more than just hello to her, he took her for a gallop across the wheat field from her pasture, all the way up to the south gate of our kitchen garden, where he beat his brother to death.” Her words caused her husband to turn to her with such a look of incredulity that ordinarily it would have been remarkably droll if their daughter’s safety had not been in such jeopardy. “Ralph, we must find Althea; if she is with Mr. Bray then she is in considerable danger. Once we have her safe I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Are you sure they went to the stable?” Harry asked, and behind him the sky lit up with a brilliant flash as the storm moved in directly overhead. A resounding crack and crash of thunder and the air was filled with a particularly pungent smell as if someone has just struck a light from a tinderbox.

  “The last thing I heard Bray say, about twenty minutes ago—of course you can’t hear a damned thing in there—was that he wanted to meet Dolly, and Althea told him that the stable was next door.” He was already walking ahead of them toward the stable. As the four of them rounded the corner another great flash lit up the barnyard, and to Clementine’s utter relief she saw a faint light shining through a chink in the stable door.

  As they approached the open gate into the stable courtyard her husband lifted his hand. “Clemmy, stay here with Mrs. Jackson. Come on, Harry, we’ll just wander in and send Althea back out to you. And then we can have a little talk with Mr. Bray.”

  With her heart beating away in a breathless sort of way, Clementine watched them open the door and walk down the wide aisle between empty horse stalls toward the pool of light at the stable’s far end.

  “Spoiling Dolly with too many carrots will make her lazy,” she heard her husband say, and to her immense relief she heard Althea’s light voice reply, “But she has worked so hard, Papa, and she is such a good girl.” And then the hairs on her arms lifted at the sound of Edgar Bray’s smooth-toned voice: “I think what I admire about her the most is that she is so biddable, so sweet-natured.” Just the sound of his voice caused Clementine’s heart rate to pick up in a sickening thud that filled her throat. Even the reassuring sound of her husband’s voice—calm, reasonable, and just a little chiding, the voice of a father who is surprised to find his daughter alone with a man in a barn—did little to quell her rising anxiety. “Althea, your Land girls are looking for you. I think they want to drink a round of toasts to their first harvest. Will you come along now? Your mother is here and she’s waiting for you.”

  And then to her horror she heard her daughter say, “Is she back from Cheltenham? I would have thought she would spend the night there. Didn’t you say it was a terrifically long journey, Mr. Bray?” Silly, silly girl, Clementine thought in exasperation, why does she always have to say whatever comes into her head? And then the smooth voice replied, “Must have been awfully important for her to rush off to Cheltenham and back in one day.” And before anyone could stop her Althea piped up, “Well, she was in a rush; I think it had something to do with one of the soldiers in your brother’s regiment. She thought he would have information that would help her solve these awful murders.”

  She must stop these rash revelations! As Clementine ran forward into the stables, Edgar Bray turned a look of such malignancy toward her that a surge of adrenaline prickled up the backs of her legs. Althea must have heard herself and sensed the change in the man who had been chatting away so pleasantly about horses and harvests. She stopped laughing as she lifted her head from kissing the nose of the gray mare and within the tick of a second was pulled toward Mr. Bray. In his hand was an army-issue service revolver. And without any doubt, Clementine thought as ice-cold fear froze her into immobility, the service revolver he used to shoot Private Hector in the back.

  “Best to put the gun down, Bray, and let Althea come over to me.” Lord Montfort extended his arm to Althea.

  Harry started to move forward, and Bray’s grip tightened around Althea’s waist, holding her tightly against him.

  “Stop, both of you,” he said. His anger that all his plans for a perfect future were now in ruins was so powerful that his once pleasing features were almost unrecognizable. “All of you, into that empty stall.” He gestured to the right with the muzzle of his revolver, but they all stood rooted to the spot, staring at him as if they could not understand a word he was staying. Bray’s arm slid up Althea’s body until his forearm was across her throat and she gasped, her eyes staring at them in fear. He jerked Althea closer to him and she gave a little cry of pain, which was hastily snapped off by his strong arm. Her eyes bulged, her white face started to suffuse with blood, and her mouth gaped in a silent scream that they do as they were told so that she could breathe again.

  Clementine moved into the stall, followed by her husband and son. Harry stood as close to the door as he could. “Close the door,” Bray said, and he removed his arm from Althea’s throat. Clementine heard her gasping for breath as Harry reached out and swung the door to, but held it as if it were closed. “And put your hand through the bar and latch it. That’s it. I don’t want you to stir from that stall until you are quite sure that I have gone. Now, Althea, walk forward, and do exactly as I say, or I will shoot you.”

  They will never hear, they will never hear a thing in the barn. The waltz came to an end and within two beats the musicians launched into a polka. Clementine put her nose up against the bars of the stall and peered out to see her daughter take a step forward away from the horse and toward the center of the aisle
, and Edgar Bray, holding the gun steady, leaned on his cane and took his first step to follow her.

  It was at this moment that Dolly woke up from a deep dream of days standing up to her hocks in meadow grass with the warm sun on her back and found to her annoyance that no carrot was on offer. She didn’t appreciate Althea’s moving away from her, and as Edgar Bray came alongside her she gave him a vigorous nudge to remind him that a treat was needed. She caught Edgar Bray in mid-step and he was thrown sideways, his weight falling on his useless leg, and came crashing to the ground. Before Clementine’s horrified gaze, Harry slipped the catch on the stall door, and was through it in a moment, catching his sister by her waist and whisking her to safety. Right behind him, Lord Montfort leaped out of the stall and brought his foot down on Mr. Bray’s right wrist before he could reach for his revolver. Bending down, he swiftly relieved the man of his gun, and Harry joined him to lift Mr. Bray up off the ground.

  Out of breath, Lord Montfort clapped his son on the shoulder in congratulation. “Put him in a stall, and make the latch secure with a stud chain or something. And then go and get Valentine. We need to sort this one out before everyone comes looking for us.”

  “I will go and find the colonel,” Mrs. Jackson said; and looking at Harry with his cap off, his hair on end and his face hot and angry, Clementine had to agree that this tall, unruffled woman would cause less of a stir in the barn full of revelers than would her son. The last thing they wanted was to have the entire party out there to find out what was going on.