Sam had explained to Janet once how careful a person had to be not to get the different grinds mixed up. If he were to make a mistake and ram a whole load of fine-ground powder down the barrel, it would cause a big enough explosion to blow up the musket. And himself with it, like as not. Could Mary not have realized what a dangerous substance she was monkeying with? Had somebody else been better informed than she?
The remains of Mary’s clothing would have to be examined as well as the remains of Mary herself, of course; that was a job for a forensic specialist. Since her costume had mostly been made of wool, there might, with luck, be enough left of the garments to show where the powder had been stashed. Mary would have had to be pretty crazy to carry gunpowder on her knowingly when she performed her allegedly famous leap; but who was to say she wasn’t? She’d bragged about her expertise as a gemologist; she’d been absurdly self-congratulatory over her prowess as a fire-leaper. Mightn’t she have felt cocky enough to think she could jump safely over, then perhaps flick the packet of gunpowder behind her just as she landed to create a spectacular effect, little realizing what kind of effect she’d be likeliest to create?
Her timing would have had to be on the button, assuming she’d been deft enough to pull it off; any sort of gunpowder would have flared up the instant it hit the fire. Gem-cutters must surely have to possess great skill with their hands, but that wasn’t to say they had to be fast. Dai had been Mary’s apprentice; maybe he’d have some information about where the gunpowder had come from. Probably Madoc had already asked him. Madoc wouldn’t be handling the case, of course; but he’d go on bird-dogging from sheer instinct until whoever was in charge locally showed up.
Somebody did show up. One constable on a bike. Typical British understatement. Well, how many cops did you need to start an investigation? How many did you want charging around, disturbing the peace of an influential old gentleman like Sir Caradoc Rhys on his ninetieth birthday?
Thank God Uncle Caradoc had gone to bed before the Beltane fire was lighted. When you came to the end of a perfect day, you didn’t need one hideous memory to spoil it. What would the verdict be: accident, suicide, murder, or sorcery?
Uncle Huw was the local magistrate. Would he have to preside at the inquest? No, more likely it would be the county coroner. Madoc would know. Janet wished she could go over and talk to him, but she knew enough not to. She might better occupy herself going back to the main house and breaking the news to his parents before they got a garbled account from somebody else.
No, she mustn’t leave. She was a witness, and potentially a more reliable one than some of the others present, since she hadn’t had anything stronger than tea to drink. Besides, Madoc might need her here at the scene, if only for a look or a nod. This must be even worse for him than it was for her. After all, Mary was family, he’d known her more or less all his life. Oh, why did this awful thing have to happen tonight?
And when else could it have happened? How many Beltane fires would Mary have had the chance to jump in the course of a year?
The constable had his notebook and pencil out, Huw was putting more wood on the fire so that he could see to take notes. The blaze was making people uneasy, making them want to get away, and who could blame them? Huw was answering the constable’s questions now. Janet worked her way around to where she could catch Madoc’s eye, and he came over to her.
“All right, Jenny love?”
“Bearing up. How about you?”
“Hanging in. Want to talk to the constable?”
“Yes, I don’t mind. What’s his name?”
“Rhys the Police, what else? He read a poem this afternoon—you slept through it. Cyril’s a nice fellow, we used to play football together. Did you get a good view of what happened?”
“Too good.” Janet had to swallow hard before she could speak again. “I don’t have to look at her, do I?”
“God, no.” He stood with his arm around her till Huw had got done talking, then spoke up. “Cyril, would you like to talk to my wife? Jenny, you remember Constable Rhys, he was at the party this afternoon. We’re forty-third cousins, I think.”
Janet and the constable expressed their mutual pleasure at meeting again so soon and their regret at the reason for their unanticipated reunion. Then she, being Janet, got straight to the point.
“I suppose the first thing is to find out where Mary got hold of fine-grain gunpowder. Have you asked Uncle Huw?”
“Fine-grain gunpowder, Mrs. Madoc?”
“Oh yes, it must have been, to have acted the way it did. Didn’t Madoc tell you? There was this great, loud poof, then a ball of flame like a bomb going off. Not that I’ve ever seen a bomb explode, but that’s what it made me think of.”
“Could this explosion not have been caused by petrol or some other volatile substance?”
“No, I’d have smelled petrol. What I did smell was gunpowder, strong as anything. I was downwind of it, so I got a good whiff. It lingered in the air for a bit afterward, other people must have smelled it too. And there was that big puff of white smoke, the way gunpowder burns. Remember, Madoc?”
“Yes, love. I remember. How do you know so much about gunpowder?”
“Sam Neddick, mostly. Sam’s my brother’s hired man back in New Brunswick, Constable. He hunts a lot.”
In and out of season, but one needn’t go into particulars. “I shouldn’t be surprised if Mary’d had a pretty good load of it in her skirt pocket or someplace like that right next to her body, to have been burned so—” Janet swallowed again. “She might even have had some sprinkled on her clothes, or inside that steeple hat she was wearing. Your forensic lab can do powder tests on the clothes, can’t they?”
“That will be for the chief constable to be deciding,” Rhys the Police replied somewhat stuffily. “But why would the lady have done such a mad thing?”
“Why, Jenny?” said Madoc.
“Madoc, you know the way Mary’d been carrying on ever since we got here. I’d say she might have done just about anything to get people’s attention. Night before last, Constable, she was bragging all through dinner about what grand leaps she’d made over other Beltane fires and what a show she was going to put on this time around.”
Madoc gave her a squeeze to help steady her voice and she went on. “Mary claimed that the right way is to jump back and forth through the flames three times in a row. I’m wondering, and mind you this is nothing but speculation, whether Mary might have meant to put on some special effects after she’d got the range, as you might say. She could have brought the gunpowder along with her, not realizing what a terrible risk she was taking. Ordinary coarse-grained gunpowder doesn’t ignite all that easily, you know; she may simply not have realized she’d got hold of the wrong kind.”
“That is a possibility to be sure, Mrs. Madoc. Assuming your idea is right, would there have been anybody she might have let in on what she was planning, do you think? Somebody feckless enough not to stop her?”
Somebody disgusted enough not to stop her would be a more likely way of putting it, Janet thought. Mary must have worked her way on to plenty of hate lists with her antics today alone. Janet hedged.
“I suppose it’s possible Mary said something to her brother. I don’t know whether Madoc told you, but she and Bob were conducting some kind of mystic rite in the chapel before he came out to light the bonfire. At least we assumed that must be what they were doing—they’d lit candles and were prancing around the altar waving branches. We watched them for a minute or so through the window.”
“A mystic rite?” The set of Constable Rhys’s mustache showed what he thought of mystic rites. “And where is Mr. Bob Rhys now?”
“In bed, I expect. The doctor had to give him a shot to quiet him down, and Madoc’s cousin Owain helped him into the farmhouse. He’d gone straight into orbit when—well, you could hardly blame him, considering. He kept yelling ‘Sorcery! Sorcery!’ They couldn’t get him to stop.”
“Mystic rites and
sorcery? That is bad, Mrs. Madoc, very bad. He will not have been putting you on, you will not think?”
“He sounded pretty convincing to me. I got the impression Bob thought somebody had ill-wished their charm and caused it to backfire. Which sounds crazy, but he and Mary both seemed to be fairly well hipped on that stuff. I probably shouldn’t even be saying this; I only met them two days ago. You’d do better to talk to their nephew, Dai. I gather they’ve more or less raised him from a kid and he’s been working as Mary’s apprentice. For that matter, I expect practically anybody here could give you more reliable information than I.”
“I would not be too sure about that, Mrs. Madoc, but I shall have to question them all.”
The constable sounded fairly dismal about the prospect, Janet could understand why. “Then I expect you’ll want to get everybody into the barn. There’s light enough to see by, and you could do your notes sitting down at the table. I don’t know if the tea urn’s still hot, but we could make you some fresh easily enough.”
“Tea is always helpful.”
To Rhys the Police as well as the next one, like as not. Half-incinerated corpses didn’t sit comfortably on anybody’s stomach. The constable blew a rousing blast on his whistle to collect everybody’s attention and addressed the gathering in stentorian tone.
“It will be necessary for me to be taking statements from everybody, so nobody must go away without first having been questioned. You will all please go into the big barn now and sit down. I will ask Mr. Huw Rhys to go and put in a call for Mr. Davies the chief constable and I will ask Detective Inspector Madoc Rhys to help with the questions if he will be so good, and that way we can get through this painful business without taking all night. Mrs. Madoc has offered fresh tea,” he added on a hopeful note.
“Then it is me you will have to be excusing long enough to bring out the hot water,” Alice called out. “And the cakes.”
That struck a chord. People were looking a shade less pinched as they straggled in and took chairs around the long board that had been so festive earlier on. The lanterns were still burning, possibly as a deterrent to certain types of reveling among the young fry.
Their gentle light was a welcome change from the darkness outside that was still being interrupted by an occasional spurt of flame from what was left of the fatal bonfire. The supper mess had been cleared away, but an array of clean cups and saucers still stood beside the tea urn. Constable Rhys decided it would be quite in order for both Iowerth and Betty to assist Mrs. Madoc in her errand of mercy. As things turned out, all Janet did was fetch the refilled cream jug and some writing materials for Madoc, but her good offices were given full honor by one and all.
Madoc started working one side of the table, Constable Rhys the other. By the time the police ambulance arrived from wherever it had had to be summoned from with the chief constable tagging along behind in a snappy red Jaguar, they’d pretty well finished their interrogations and each had two cups of tea in the bargain. Madoc had passed up the cakes, but Rhys the Police had shown his gratitude for the women’s kind endeavors by eating a whole plateful all by himself.
“And there is no way, Doctor, of questioning Mr. Robert Rhys until he wakes up of his own accord?” The chief constable was a shortish, sixtyish man in country tweeds who somewhat resembled the late Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor except that he seemed inordinately shy of women and had shown palpable uneasiness on being introduced to Mrs. Madoc.
“I don’t think it would be much good trying to rouse him now, Mr. Davies.” The doctor had stayed on with the rest lest anyone should turn faint or, more probably, fall victim to a surfeit of cakes and tea. “He’ll be in reasonable shape by morning.”
“Then we shall just have to wait.” Mr. Davies didn’t look too upset about the prospect. “Now, Mrs. Madoc Rhys, you say you believe the victim may herself have put gunpowder in her pockets?”
“I didn’t say I believed it, I only suggested it as a possibility.”
He quailed and turned to the nervously hovering Dai as a less daunting prospect.
“And you, Dai Rhys, you were Miss Mary Rhys’s nephew and also her apprentice.”
“It was her idea. The apprenticeship, I mean. I didn’t want to be.”
“Oh, you didn’t want to be? May I ask why not?”
“Because I—I just didn’t.”
“Was it perhaps that you did not get on well with your aunt, who, with her brother, had taken you in as an orphan and given you food and shelter and education and set you on the path to a respectable career as a gem-cutter?”
“They didn’t! I mean, they did, but it wasn’t as if I’d been Oliver Twist or somebody. My father left—” It apparently dawned on Dai that he was not making the best possible showing in front of the chief constable, he proceeded to make a bad matter worse. “I know what they did for me. I just got sick and tired of hearing about it all the time.”
“So you stuffed your aunt’s pockets with gunpowder?”
“Me? Where would I get gunpowder?”
“A very good question, Mr. Dai Rhys. Can somebody here give us an answer? Mr. Huw, would there be gunpowder on this estate?”
“Only in a few shotgun cartridges. None loose, not in my house and not, to the best of my knowledge, in my father’s.”
“You would submit to a search of your house and barns?”
“If you deem it necessary, Mr. Davies. I can’t speak for my father. I only hope you won’t go waking him up tonight, because he is an old man who has had a strenuous day.”
“But suppose we were to search only the bedroom that Miss Mary Rhys was occupying, in the hope that we may ascertain without further ado whether she brought gunpowder with her when she came?”
“I should say that would be a sensible thing to do,” Huw replied with some relief. “I understand the advisability of the room’s being searched before somebody gets in there and starts mucking about, and I have no objection, provided you don’t disturb my father.”
“Which room was Mary sleeping in?” Owain asked.
It was Lady Rhys who replied. “The one next to my husband’s and mine. We’re at the opposite end of the manor from Uncle Caradoc, so there shouldn’t be much risk of your waking him unless you go shouting and thumping about. I should suggest you take my son Madoc with you instead of Cyril, Mr. Davies. His tread is far the more catlike of the two. And perhaps my daughter-in-law also, if she doesn’t mind, so that Mary’s ghost will not be embarrassed by seeing a strange man rummaging among her undergarments unchaperoned. I expect she’s hanging about up there by now, itching for a chance to haunt somebody. Poor thing, one does hope Mary gets more fun out of the body than she ever did in it.”
The chief constable obviously had not bargained for Lady Rhys. He had to blink and hem a few times before he could manage a reply.
“Thank you for your suggestion, Lady Rhys. I should welcome the assistance of Detective Inspector Madoc Rhys, and also that of his lady wife, should she care to accompany us in our search. Constable Cyril Rhys, you will please remain here and complete the taking of statements.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rhys the Police stood up and saluted smartly, though not without casting a regretful glance at his depleted plate and empty cup. As the search squad left the barn, they met Alice hurrying back in with fresh supplies.
“The investigation is proceeding with decorum and dispatch,” Madoc muttered in Janet’s ear.
“Of course,” she murmured back. “I expect your mother’s right about Mary’s ghost. Come on then, it’s not polite to keep a specter waiting.”
Chapter 14
“SO YOU DID FIND the gunpowder?”
Sir Emlyn’s beautiful white hair was in disarray, he must have been taking a nap on the red-room bed before they woke him by barging in with the dreadful news.
Madoc nodded.
“What was left of it. Jenny found it, actually, a cardboard box that could have held a pound or more, with only a spoonful or
so left in the bottom. The box had simply been tossed into the fireplace, which could have been rather exciting for whoever happened to light the next fire.”
“Exactly the feckless sort of thing Mary would do. Not to speak ill of the dead, but you know as well as I what a featherhead she was.” Lady Rhys started gathering up her needlepoint materials. She was embroidering a pillow with a unicorn on it for her granddaughter’s room, judging that by the time she finished, Dorothy would be out of bunnies and kitties and into her unicorn stage. “I must say I’m extremely relieved to have the matter settled so quickly, Madoc. Now you won’t have to go around detecting things and upsetting people. The Condryckes’ friends are still snubbing us, you know, over that time in New Brunswick.”
“Yes, Mother. Did Dorothy wake up?”
“Just once. She wasn’t wet and she didn’t seem hungry, she just wanted her old granny to cuddle her a bit. So I did, and she dropped off again, the lamb. I do so wish Dafydd were as commonsensical as you, Madoc, about settling down and raising a family. Can’t you quietly take him aside and have a nice, brotherly chat?”
“No, Mother. Would you care to join me in a nightcap? We’ve that duty-free brandy, if Tad hasn’t drunk it all up.”
“A fine way to talk about your own father in front of the baby. Just a spot, then. Poor old Mary, I cannot get over her having done such a gruesome thing. She must have been batty as a—a what, Emmy?”
“A bat, perhaps? Thank you, Madoc. Cheers. Mary may not have been one’s favorite relative, but one wouldn’t have wished such a death on one’s worst enemy. I do hope she hadn’t time to suffer.”
The Wrong Rite Page 13