by Robin Paige
“But he’s not at The Elms,” a boy said desperately. “If he isn’t here, where is he?”
A man’s voice replied. “If ye must know, Paddy me boy, Mr. Kipling’s gone t’ Mr. Arthur Sassoon’s ‘ouse. ’E won’t be back till late.” The man laughed heartily. “That is, if ’e comes back at all. They went in a motorcar, an’ I wudn’t be a bit surprised if they din’t drive right off th’ cliff. Motor cars be beastly things.”
Aunt Georgie rose from the table and went swiftly to the window beside Kate’s chair. She threw open the casement, and Kate turned to see the boy she had met on the beach, confronting a man carrying a hoe in one hand and a basket of weeds in the other.
“Mr. Mounter,” Aunt Georgie snapped, “what do you mean by speaking so dreadfully? Go on about your work, please. And you, Patrick! What is your need of Mr. Kipling?”
The man gave a muttered apology and went off, boots crunching on gravel, and Patrick came up to the window. The freckles stood out on his white face, and his hands were balled into fists. “I must fetch him,” he said urgently.
“Fetch him!” Aunt Georgie said with a light laugh. “But that’s ridiculous. Mr. Kipling and Lord Sheridan have gone to spend the evening with the—”
“It wouldn’t matter if he’d gone off t’ meet the Queen,” the boy said recklessly. “An’ if his lordship’s with him, all the better. They must be got back at once!”
Kate rose from her chair and stood beside Aunt Georgie. In his determination, the boy seemed more mature than she had remembered. “Why, Patrick?” she asked mildly.
The boy hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching her face. Something he saw there seemed to make up his mind, and he spoke. “ ‘Cause,” he said bleakly, “the Rottingdean coast guard’s up there in th’ mill.” He jerked his head in the direction of Beacon Hill, rising behind the garden. “Captain Smith has been shot. Murdered.”
“Murdered?” Kate whispered. A chill passed through her as she stared at the boy’s set face. The second murder of a coast guard in two days!
“Murdered!” Aunt Georgie cried. “But it’s nothing to do with my nephew! Why should he be involved? It’s a matter for the constable! You are to stay here, Patrick. Do you understand?”
“Goodbye,” Patrick said. “And don’t tell the constable!” He was gone before the women could open their mouths to protest.
Aunt Georgie turned to Kate, consternation written on her face. They stared at one another for a moment; then Aunt Georgie seemed to pull herself together. “Something is going on here, Kate,” she declared, “something unspeakably dreadful. But this is my village. I serve on the Parish Council, and I tell you that I will not allow evil to corrupt this beautiful place! I am inclined, on reflection, to agree with the boy. Constable Woodhouse has taken little interest in the one death. It is not likely that he will take any more interest in another. I shall send Mr. Mounter to the post office with a wire to the chief constable at Brighton, Sir Robert Pinckney, with whom I am acquainted. I shall beg him on behalf of the Council to bring his men to investigate these murders.” Her eyes took on a determined gleam. “Early in the morning, you and I shall drive to Black Rock to visit poor Mrs. Radford, and when we return, I shall personally call at every house in this village, asking the inhabitants to tell me what they know about this wretched, wretched business.”
Kate was silent for a moment. She did not like to contradict Aunt Georgie, but she did not think it likely that the truth, whatever it was, would be rooted out by a door-to-door canvas. More, the matter could not be let go until the chief constable from Brighton put in an appearance—whenever that might be.
“I am sure that those are all good measures,” she said at last, “but there is something more immediately pressing. The scene of the murder cannot be left unattended until the chief constable arrives from Brighton or Charles and Rudyard return from Hove. Someone may stumble on the body and disturb or destroy important evidence.”
Aunt Georgie frowned. “Perhaps we could send Mr. Mounter, with instructions not to allow the scene to be disturbed.”
“Are you sure,” Kate asked quietly, “that Mr. Mounter can be trusted?”
Aunt Georgie looked aghast. “You can’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think,” Kate replied honestly. “I believe, however, that it is best for me to go. Our manservant, Lawrence, and his wife have gone walking along the cliffs toward Saltdean this evening, and I don’t expect them back for some time. But I will send a note to Seabrooke House asking Lawrence to come to the windmill as soon as he returns. Meanwhile—” She smiled ruefully. “I am sorry for this end to a delightful evening, but I fear I must ask you to excuse me.”
“Well, I hope you don’t think I should allow you to go up there all alone,” Aunt Georgie said firmly. “I will find a jacket and a lantern and we shall be off immediately. But first we must find Mr. Fisher and ask him to open the post office so we can send a telegram to Brighton. I hope, at least, that we can trust our postmaster!”
And so it was that The Right. Honorable Baroness of Somersworth and Lady Edward Burne-Jones spent an interminable evening keeping watch over a dead man. With an involuntary shudder, Kate held up the lantern and glanced hurriedly at the body to make sure it had not been disturbed. Then she and Aunt Georgie sat just inside the door of the old windmill, waiting as the last light faded over the Channel and a pale sliver of waning moon rose over the silent, fog-shrouded downs, speaking only in whispers, as if their voices might wake the man who had been hastened so rudely to his eternal sleep.
“The dead coast guard,” Kate said. “What is his name?”
“Captain Reynold Smith,” Aunt Georgie replied. “He was assigned here several years ago, from Dover. He managed the coast guard office on the High Street and lived in the cottage behind.”
“Was he married? Did he have children?”
“I believe not,” Aunt Georgie said. “I met him occasionally on business for the Parish Council. I did not find him an altogether pleasant man. Insolent, I thought him, and quite assertive in his manner. When I spoke to him of Mr. Ruskin’s ideas on social reform, I am sorry to say that he was almost belligerent in his refusal to hear me out.” She shook herself. “But I will not speak ill of the dead. I am sure that Captain Smith was a good man, and merely uneducated as to the need for improved sanitation and health care in villages such as ours.”
Perplexed and sad, Kate thought about the two human lives that had been taken in this placid village and wondered to herself who might be responsible. Had the same person killed both men? Why had it been done? What evil was hidden in the dark heart of this peaceful village by the sea, so serene in its seeming innocence and calm?
Sometime around ten, the fog suddenly grew more dense—not like the thick, yellow pea-soupers of London, but a gray, cold mist that curled and hissed over the downs like smoke. When Lawrence Quibbley hurried up the hill to take the women’s places, they did not see his lantern until he emerged from the cloud directly in front of them. Cold, weary, and perturbed, they returned to the drawing room at North End House for a cup of hot black tea and a few moments of conversation, Aunt Georgie describing to Kate her efforts (unsuccessful, so far) to persuade the Parish Council to build a public bath and wash-house for the village, and to hire a nurse who could make daily rounds, attending to the sick and elderly.
And then Kate, so tired she could scarcely think, walked back to Seabrooke House. Her route took her past the Black Horse, a whitewashed alehouse, on the High Street. Lamp-light spilled in golden puddles out of its windows and onto the cobbled street, and from within could be heard the sound of murmuring voices, sometimes breaking into loud shouts. If Kate had paused to listen, she might have saved a great deal of time and effort in the investigation of the deaths of the coast guards. But she was too tired to stop, and hurried past, and so went home to bed.
11
Foxes Made in Germany. Considerable indignation is being aroused in the hunting distr
icts ... in consequence of the importation of foxes bred in Germany. Farmers are loud in their protestations against the practice, and allege that they are sustaining frequent and heavy losses by Reynard’s nightly visits to their homesteads. The German fox is described as being even more vicious than his English namesake.
—The Daily Telegraph, August 30, 1897
Charles and Kipling, stepped out of Kate’s Panhard in front of the stately stone-fronted residence in King’s Gardens, Hove, a little before eight. The liveried footman was occupied in directing a carriage to a spot at the side of the street. He turned, one eyebrow raised, to stare at the car with a disdainful hauteur.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said stiffly, “but I must ask you to drive your machine around to the back. This space is reserved for guests’ horses and carriages.”
Kipling, always a little hot-tempered, opened his mouth to retort, but Charles motioned him back into the motorcar. “This happens frequently,” he said with a crooked grin, piloting the noisy vehicle in the direction the footman indicated. “People hardly know what to do with an automobile, so they treat it as if it were a tradesman’s vehicle.”
Kipling grinned. “Well, let them,” he said. “But this ride has made a convert of me, I must say. You must show me how all its mechanisms work. I am rather keen on that sort of thing, you know. When it’s time to look for another residence, I will see about hiring a motorcar.”
“But I thought you had taken The Elms for three years.” Charles stopped the Panhard and they got out. “You’re not settling in Rottingdean, then?”
It was Kipling’s turn to be rueful. “The house is not an ideal residence. Rottingdean is too close to Brighton, for one thing, and already the day-trippers have become a nuisance. They ride past in a disreputable old charabanc and gawk at me through the study window. Or they cluster outside the gate and pester our legitimate callers. I’m afraid we’ll be obliged to have the gate boarded over.”
“Perhaps that’s the price you must pay for fame,” Charles said with a laugh.
“Not I,” Kipling said determinedly. “Anyway, I think it is better to put some distance between Carrie and Aunt Georgie. It is easier just now, when Carrie is occupied with little John. But both are strong-willed women, and one is not entirely comfortable in the midst of them. If we do not locate another residence by spring, I believe I shall take Carrie and the children off to South Africa for a time.”
They had come around the front of the Sassoon house, under the nose of the haughty footman, and were greeted at the door by the butler and ushered into a grand, marble-floored hall, where they surrendered their motoring coats and hats to a black-gowned maid.
“The gathering is in the library, my lord,” the butler said to Charles and led them down the hall to a double door, which he opened with a stately flourish. They stepped into an opulent, oak-paneled room lined with books and fine paintings and filled with small groups of men in black coats and white ties. Several tables lavishly decorated with hothouse flowers were laden with food suitable to a fashionable standing supper: beef and ham sandwiches, fresh whole oysters, lobster patties, sausage rolls, potato rissoles, cheeses, fruit, sweetmeats, sponge cakes, the Prince’s favorite Scotch shortcake, and plates of petits fours. Green felt-topped tables for cards had been set up in an adjoining room and a quartet of musicians was playing a Strauss waltz in a corner, hidden behind a cluster of potted palms. The air was already blue with the smoke of cigars, and the conversations were occasionally punctuated by bursts of laughter and the clink of champagne glasses. At the announcement of their names, the Prince, stout and affable, his nautical beard neatly trimmed, turned and came toward them.
Charles was not an intimate of the Marlborough House set, but he had met the Prince of Wales on several other occasions. In fact, he and Kate, prior to their marriage, had helped to resolve an embarrassing and politically dangerous situation at a house party at Easton Lodge, the home of the Countess of Warwick. The Prince, the target of a potentially damaging blackmail plot, had been so impressed with Charles’s forensic skills that he had declared himself ready on the spot to lend royal support to a national independent forensic laboratory, headed (of course) by Charles himself. It was a suggestion that Charles firmly resisted, and he was glad that the idea seemed to have slipped the Prince’s mind. While he enjoyed the challenge of an occasional criminal investigation, Charles did not intend to make a career of it. He had far too much else to do, now that he had been obliged to take on the daunting responsibilities of Somersworth and the unpleasantness of Parliament.
“Sheridan, good to see you!” the Prince exclaimed, and extended his hand. Charles took it with a bow, greeted their host, Arthur Sassoon, then introduced Kipling.
“Mr. Kipling, sir!” the Prince exclaimed, beaming. “Splendid to meet you at last! I can’t tell you how much we all admired the poem that appeared in the Times this summer. Her Majesty was quite pleased.”
“I am delighted to hear it, sir,” Kipling said, with what Charles thought was uncharacteristic modesty. “Glad to have been of service. I fear it was not your customary Jubilee Ode, however.”
The Prince laughed. “There was a ghastly crop of ’em, wasn’t there?” A footman held up a silver cigar box, and he took out a cigar and held it to be lit. “Yes,” he said, more soberly, “amidst the pomp and circumstance of the Jubilee, Recessional gave one something to think about. Put the whole affair into a different perspective, as it were.” He puffed.
Charles accepted a glass of wine from a silver tray, smiling to himself. If the Empress of India had been pleased with Kipling’s Recessional, it was probably because she had not fully understood it. The phrase “Lest we forget” cautioned rather than celebrated the accomplishments of imperialist England. He rather thought the Prince had taken Kipling’s point, however. In the next moment, he was sure of it.
“Yes, well, I speak for us all when I say the poem was entirely appropriate to the occasion,” the Prince said, lingering on the subject. “We must not allow ourselves to become complacent.”
“Your Royal Highness speaks a solemn truth,” said a tall, pale goateed man at the royal elbow. “Great power must be forever vigilant lest it be overtaken.”
“Captain Pierre Gostarde, of the French Navy,” Sassoon murmured to Charles. “He is in England to participate in maneuvers with Her Majesty’s fleet.”
The Prince turned to Kipling. “I understand that you have spent some time with the fleet this summer, sir.”
“Yes, a fortnight,” Kipling said warmly. “Took part in the steam-trials of a prototype destroyer. A devil’s darning needle, she was, twenty-foot beam, two hundred ten overall. The little witch jumped from twenty-two knots to thirty like a whipped horse. She’ll not be overtaken, I warrant, once she’s into production.”
“But that will take some time,” growled the French captain. “Meanwhile, the Germans are building up their navy with an almost frightening speed.” He glanced at the Prince. “You will forgive me, Your Highness, for talking of such things, but I learned just yesterday that a new iron-clad, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, was launched recently at Kiel. Another—an armored cruiser of fourteen thousand horsepower—is to take to the waves shortly. And I am told that the Kaiser has carefully studied Admiral Mahon’s book on the influence of sea power, and is determined that Germany shall be supreme on the world’s oceans.”
The Prince flicked his cigar. “Quite so, quite so,” he murmured. “Nephew Willie has always wanted to be thought superior. Now that he’s been bested in yachts and horses, he’s taken to navies. Unfortunately for him, he will have to spend a great deal of money to catch up. Even Italy has more warships.”
This remark elicited chuckles all around, but Charles knew that the Prince was not being entirely truthful. The royal yacht Britannia, the joy of the Prince’s heart, had won every yacht-racing prize there was—until the Kaiser commissioned her designer to build a yacht his uncle could not defeat. But when the superior German
Meteor II appeared at Cowes, the Prince simply refused to compete. He sold the Britannia and concentrated instead on his racing stables, winning the Grand National, the Two Thousand Guineas, and the Newmarket. Just this year, his horse Persimmon had brought him a second Derby. A thwarted Wilhelm, meanwhile, vented his spleen by building bigger and better warships.
“Perhaps, Mr. Kipling,” said a slim, elegant gentleman with a gold-rimmed monocle, dark hair parted fashionably in the center, “you should send a copy of your poem to the Kaiser. Humility is a virtue to be practiced under all flags.”
“Well said, Your Excellency!” the Prince exclaimed with a shout of laughter, and slapped the man’s back. “Very well said! I’ll have a copy posted immediately, with my compliments. Willie won’t know what to make of it. You know the poor fellow has no sense of humor.”
“None whatsoever, Your Highness,” the gentleman murmured and bowed, clicking his heels together.
The Prince glanced up as a handsome, blond young man, approached. “Ah, Comwallis-West,” he said cordially, “my dear boy, how are you? The Princess of Wales was asking if I had seen you, just the other day.”
“Lord Sheridan, Mr. Kipling, may I present Count Ludwig Hauptmann of Germany,” Sassoon said, as the Prince stepped aside to talk with the young man.
“Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a Bavarian,” the monocled count said, and Charles heard the faint accent in the man’s English. “It was inevitable that Bavaria be united with Prussia, since we share a common frontier and language. Still, ever since Bismarck forced the alliance upon us, I have felt it an uncomfortable relationship.” A smile flickered in his blue eyes, so pale as to be almost glacial. “I suppose it may come down finally to temperament. We Bavarians are not so rash as our Prussian neighbors. We are more deliberate.”
“Rash is exactly the word,” Kipling said, taking out his pipe and lighting it. “The Kaiser’s congratulatory telegram to Kruger after the Jameson Raid—the reckless, Prussian way, wouldn’t you say? Didn’t give a thought to the effect on other governments.”