by Robin Paige
The first few words drew Patrick from his bed and down the narrow stairs. Out of sight, he listened intently until he heard Mrs. Portney’s chair scrape back and the door close behind her. But before she left, he learned most of what had transpired at the Black Horse—the important part, anyway. It troubled him so deeply that he could scarcely sleep. When he did, he dreamed of Captain Smith, cheeks as white as alabaster and eyes like huge glass marbles, who seemed to glower at him out of the darkness in the corner. When he pulled the blanket over his head and turned to the wall, he saw in his mind’s eye George Radford’s dead face, and the bloody stain in the front of his jersey.
He dreamed of meeting Harry Tudwell and a crew of fierce-faced villagers in the tunnel that ran under the High Street. When he turned and fled the other way, he ran straight into the clutches of an unholy creature in a cloak that rustled like bats’ wings. He woke, sweating and shivering, and lay awake for a long time staring at the ceiling.
But dawn, a pale, gray dawn, came at last. Still troubled, Patrick dressed and stole down to the cold, silent kitchen. Mrs. Higgs was asleep with her head on the kitchen table, her mouth open, snoring loudly. He snatched a piece of bread and washed it down with a cup of cold tea, then climbed the hill to the windmill. The grass was covered with sparkling beads of dew and the damp soaked the legs of his trousers. A hundred yards behind him, most of the village still slept in the cottages and houses nestled in a fold of the great green downs. And to the south, the Channel brooded in the mist which hid the southern horizon.
Lord Sheridan was already there, unpacking a large camera and other sorts of photographic paraphernalia. Lady Sheridan was with him, looking very pretty in a tweed suit the exact shade of her windblown auburn hair. She smiled at Patrick.
“His lordship tells me that he was very glad of your decision to go to Hove to fetch him,” she said. Her mouth quirked and her gray eyes twinkled. She leaned forward and spoke in a whisper, as if for his ears alone. “Sometimes—but just sometimes, mind—it pays to do what you think is right, rather than what you are told to do.”
Patrick felt the warm flush rising in his face. “Th—thank you, my lady,” he said shyly. He looked around. “Where is Mr. Kipling? I thought he would be here.”
“He sent a note saying that both Mrs. Kipling and the new baby are seriously ill with colds and he is needed at home,” Lady Sheridan said.
“I have deputized her ladyship to help me with the camera,” Lord Sheridan said, “and you are to be my investigative assistant.”
Lady Sheridan put her hand on his shoulder. “If you don’t feel quite comfortable going inside,” she whispered, “you must say so.”
“It’s all right, really,” Patrick said, standing up as tall as he could. “I’ve already seen him, and that was the big shock.” He looked at her. “But shan’t you be afraid?” His experience of ladies was limited, but he had thought that most were delicate and would certainly faint at the sight of a corpse.
“To tell the truth,” Lady Sheridan admitted candidly, “I am a little nervous.” She smiled at him, and he thought once again how pretty she was. “But you and his lordship will be with me, so I shall be quite brave.”
Patrick smiled. He liked this lady, although her firm mouth and sharp eyes somewhat belied her soft voice and he suspected that she was only pretending to be nervous.
“Shall we begin?” Lord Sheridan said in a businesslike tone. “I intend to first photograph the scene, and then we three shall do a thorough search of the interior of the mill. We need to be finished before Sir Robert Pinckney and his officers arrive from Brighton and the villagers become aware that something is going on. Kate, you can help me set up the camera.” He handed Patrick an alcohol lamp. “You shall manage the flash lamp while I take photographs, Patrick. This is how you light it.” He showed him how to do it.
“What about footprints the killer might have left in the dirt floor?” her ladyship asked, frowning. “Won’t we disturb them?”
Patrick gave Lady Sheridan a respectful look. Of course—footprints. He should have thought of that earlier. “I’m afraid I’ve already mucked up any there might be,” he said apologetically. “I’m sure I did a good bit of scuffing around when I was looking at him.”
Lord Sheridan nodded. “I’ve already had a look around, and there appear to be no distinctive prints. But we must exercise care. Walk lightly, and don’t scuffle. Come now, let’s get started.”
A few moments later, Patrick was standing not far from the rigid body of Captain Smith, holding the lamp in his hand. His lordship was stationed a few feet away, under the hood of a large camera set up on a wooden tripod, not very different from the camera used by the beach photographer to take pictures of the day-trippers who wanted to show their friends that they had visited the seashore. But that photographer worked with a painted scene, a lady and gentleman in bathing dress and holes to put a face through and the sea for a backdrop. Here, there was only a dead body in a dark mill, and Patrick could not imagine why his lordship should want photographs of such a grisly scene.
Lord Sheridan adjusted something on the camera. “Now, then, Patrick,” he said in a muffled voice, “let there be light!”
Patrick struck a match against the stone wall and lit the alcohol flame of the strange-looking lamp, then squeezed the rubber ball, as he had been instructed. A puff of magnesium powder flew into the flame. For an instant the shadowy interior of the old windmill was illuminated by a blinding white light, brighter than any Patrick had ever seen, and the pallid face of Captain Smith seemed to leap at him out of the darkness.
“Very good, my lad,” Lord Sheridan said, and repositioned his camera. “Now, shall we do it again?” His lordship took a dozen photographs, handing each exposed plate to her ladyship to be stowed in a leather bag. A dozen times Patrick flashed the magnesium lamp, each time turning his head to avoid seeing the awful glare of white light, like the light of the Resurrection, on the dead man’s face.
With the last flash, a reflection on the floor by the wall, not far from the spot where his shillings were hidden, caught Patrick’s eye. It was a shiny brass cartridge casing, almost an inch long and perhaps a third of an inch in diameter. He was about to pick it up when Lady Sheridan stopped him.
“There might be fingerprints,” she cautioned.
“Fingerprints?” Patrick asked dubiously.
“Marks made by the tip of someone’s finger, and visible only with special inspection. It is a new means of identifying criminals.” She raised her voice. “Charles, come and see what Patrick has discovered. It’s a bullet!”
Patrick was still not quite sure what a fingerprint might be, but he knew a casing when he saw it, thanks to the hours he had spent shooting with Mr. Tudwell. “It’s a casing, not a bullet,” he said. “And it was not here two days ago, when I came to—” He was about to say, to put two shillings behind the stone, but thought better of it. “When I came to look at the pigeons.”
“Patrick is correct. It is a casing.” Lord Sheridan knelt and studied the shiny brass cylinder where it lay, not touching it. “But it’s very odd, I must say.”
“What’s odd about it?” Lady Sheridan asked, bending over for a closer look.
“Well, for one thing,” his lordship said, “the size and nature of the wound led me to assume that the coast guard was killed by a pistol.”
In spite of himself, Patrick’s eyes were drawn to Captain Smith’s bloody jacket. The hole, just above the dead man’s silver watch-chain, was small and neat. He had seen birds and rabbits peppered with shotgun pellets. This was different.
“But this cartridge would not fit any pistol with which I’m familiar,” Lord Sheridan went on. “If indeed the weapon was a pistol, it is of a very unusual type.” He stood, hands on hips, surveying the scene. “And notice the distance between the casing and the body.” He took out and unfolded an ivory rule and measured it off. “Eight feet, four inches,” he muttered. “Remarkable. Quite remarkable.�
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“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Charles,” Lady Sheridan said apologetically. “What is so remarkable about the distance?”
“Look here.” His lordship went back to bend over Captain Smith’s body. “There are powder bums on the victim’s jacket,” he said, pointing, “where the bullet entered. This would suggest that he was shot at very close range—a foot, no more.” He cocked his head, speaking half to himself. “Why, then, is the casing there, by the wall, a full seven feet from the point where the gun was fired?”
“I don’t see any great difficulty,” her ladyship returned. “The killer likely picked up the cartridge from the point where it fell and tossed it there.”
But Patrick was beginning to see the direction of Lord Sheridan’s observations, and the logic behind them. “That’s not the way it would have happened,” he said excitedly. “A man using a revolver would have left the mill with the casing still in the cylinder. He would not have broken it open, ejected the cartridge, and tossed it away. And if by some chance he broke open the pistol, he would have put the spent cartridge in his pocket, or let it fall where he stood.”
“Very observant, Patrick!” his lordship exclaimed. “We shall make a detective of you yet. But should we exclude a rifle as the murder weapon? Some modern rifles do have an ejection mechanism that could have tossed the cartridge casing that distance.”
“I have never handled a rifle,” Patrick said thoughtfully, “but my father once shot an Afghan at three hundred yards with his, so it must be a very powerful weapon. Wouldn’t a rifle bullet have gone right through him, and hit the wall?” As he said the words, he shuddered.
“Bravo!” Lord Sheridan said. “Indeed it would. But it did not, for I have looked. There is no sign of an exit wound.”
Patrick reflected for a moment. “I don’t think Captain Smith would have let anyone with a rifle get close to him.”
His lordship nodded. “In his line of business, he would probably have developed strong suspicions where weapons were concerned. A pistol, however, can be hidden.”
“Yes,” Patrick said. “If Captain Smith thought the man was his friend...” He stopped. He had occasionally seen Mr. Tudwell and Captain Smith in conversation at the Black Horse, or walking on the High Street. They had certainly seemed to be friends.
“You say, Charles,” Lady Sheridan mused, “that there is no exit wound. So the bullet remains in the victim’s body?”
“Yes,” his lordship replied. “Until the autopsy, when it will be extracted. That will give us more information about the gun that fired it. And there are several other things. Look at this.” He bent over and pointed to a closely smoked cigarette butt. “One might think that Captain Smith had been sitting here for some time, waiting. And there is this, too.” From the dusty floor, close beside the dead man’s thigh, he carefully picked up a small piece of green pasteboard, holding it by the corner.
“It looks like a ticket,” her ladyship said. “A ticket to what, I wonder.”
Patrick knew the answer to that, and he felt a strange relief as he said, “It’s a ticket to the bathing machines on the beach. Trunky Thomas owns them. You have to pay him before you can use one. Everybody complains that he charges too much.”
“Something tells me,” Lord Sheridan said dryly, “that the victim would not have been in the habit of frequenting the local bathing machines.”
“No,” Patrick said thoughtfully. “He wouldn’t.” Now that he thought of it, he realized that Harry Tudwell was not the only man he had seen walking and talking with the coast guard. Trunky Thomas knew him, too. In fact, he had seen the two of them huddled together, talking, not long after the first coast guard’s body had been dragged onto the beach.
“Ah,” Lord Sheridan said. “I think, then, we should have a talk with Mr. Thomas.” He went back to the cartridge casing, inserted a stick in it, and placed it carefully in his handkerchief, wrapping it up. He glanced at Patrick. “You know this village, Patrick, and you must have some information about what is going on here. Is there anything you can tell us about this crime?”
Patrick half turned away, wondering how much his lordship knew about Rottingdean’s nocturnal enterprise. All things considered, he himself didn’t know very much for certain, beyond the fact that the villagers—almost all of them, as far as he could tell—had been involved in digging out the old tunnels and were now engaged in the smuggling business. He couldn’t, for example, say where the goods were coming from or where they were going, or what besides spirits, wine, tea, tobacco, and fancy dress goods might be involved. And he certainly didn’t know who had killed Captain Smith, although he had to admit to feeling grateful to whoever had dropped the ticket, for it opened the way to at least one other explanation of what had happened here. And although he had run his share of errands for Mr. Tudwell and carried his share of messages, whatever he said would be a guess, and Lord Charles was asking for information, not guesses. Besides, there was no need to tell more than was necessary at any one time, and he had already told quite a lot. He shook his head.
Lord Sheridan looked disappointed, but only nodded. “Let’s go over the floor carefully, then. When we are finished, we’ll go outside to wait for the constable from Brighton.”
They searched in silence for ten minutes or so but discovered nothing else, and when Patrick stepped into the morning light, he wasn’t sure whether he should be glad or sorry. Even for someone as intelligent as his lordship, it must not be easy to discover who had killed a man when the only clues were a cartridge casing and a ticket to a bathing machine. It was entirely possible that the killer of Captain Smith would go forever undiscovered. But whether that would be a good thing or a bad, he was not yet sure.
“Lady Burne-Jones and I should like to drive to Black Rock this morning, Patrick,” Lady Sheridan said, interrupting his thoughts. “We hope to visit the widow of the young coast guard who died earlier. But neither of us are sure of the way to the cottage. Will you go with us and point it out?”
Patrick was silent for a moment, thinking of Harry Tudwell, to whom he owed so much and who counted on him, and weighing out the consequences of doing this or that, or saying the one thing or the other. But surely there was no difficulty in pointing out the Black Rock Coast Guard Station to such a lovely lady.
“It’s not hard to find,” he said. “You can’t miss the white cottage and the flagpole. But I’ll go with you, if you like.”
Lady Sheridan put her hand on his shoulder. “Very good. This morning air has made me hungry. Shall we walk down to North End House and see if there might be some breakfast waiting for us there?”
Patrick was glad enough to oblige.
14
A German colleague in Natural History asked an old Spanish lawyer [in Chile] what he thought of the King of England sending out a collector [Charles Darwin] to his country to pick up lizards and beetles and to break stones. The old gentleman thought seriously for some time and then said, “It is not well ... No man is so rich as to send out people to pick up such rubbish ... If one of us were to go and do such things in England, do not you think the King of England would very soon send us out of his country?”
—CHARLES DARWIN The Voyage of the Beagle
Here begins the Great Game.
—RUDYARD KIPLING Kim
Kate had thought of taking the Panhard for the trip to Black Rock, but Charles wanted it to drive to Brighton to attend the autopsy, should it be held that day. So when Aunt Georgie suggested that they take her dog cart, Kate readily agreed.
It was an early hour for calling, but Aunt Georgie was energetically determined to inquire into the welfare of the young widow, and as equally determined, when they returned, to begin her canvas of the village in order to discover what might be learned about the murders. And Kate, for her part, was also anxious to talk to Mrs. Radford. She might know something that could shed some light on the questions left by the two deaths. It was a pity to intrude on her grief, Kate thought, but bet
ter that the questions were asked by two sympathetic women than by one unfeeling man.
Aunt Georgie chirped to the pony that Mr. Mounter had brought round, Patrick leapt up behind in the four-wheeled cart, and they were off. As they drove up the High Street in the direction of the sea, Kate saw small clumps of people talking together, and she guessed that word of Captain Smith’s murder was beginning to make its way around the village. One trio of gossiping women included her own cook-housekeeper, Mrs. Portney, who had a basket over her arm and was animatedly discussing something with the other two. Mrs. Portney glanced up, a look of consternation crossing her pinched face when she saw Patrick. She elbowed one of the others, who turned to stare, narrow-eyed, as they drove past. Patrick himself sat with hunched shoulders, his head down, and Kate hoped that she had not put the boy into some further difficulty by asking him to come with them.
Black Rock lay on the Dover Coach Road on the way to Brighton, about two and a half miles to the west of Rottingdean. When they came to the steep climb up the shoulder of Beacon Hill, just outside the village, Patrick jumped out to walk and spare the pony his weight. Once at the top, they could see almost to Brighton, where the shining groins reached out long fingers into the ocean. Before them, between grassy banks, stretched the white ribbon of narrow road, its surface powdered to a fine chalk by horses’ hooves and wagon wheels. On the left was the heaving ocean, stretching to the southern horizon, on the right, the rolling downs lifting to the north. The early mist had given way to a bright blue sky, dazzling sunshine that turned the ocean to a silver glitter, and a clean salt breeze. It was a fine day for a drive, Kate thought—or it would have been, if their purpose had not been so gloomy.
Aunt Georgie, her shoulders straight, her mouth set in a firm line, guided the pony past Beacon Hill, where a small knot of uniformed men and several horses and wagons stood in front of the windmill. “Those must be the men of Brighton’s chief constable,” she said. “I’m glad to see that Sir Robert received my telegram and came so promptly.”