But she had seen him only hours before! How, she now asked herself, had he behaved? As the storm approached, he’d become quite distraught. It had occurred to her at the time that the wretched man felt some blame for Phoebe’s death, and was greatly affected by it. Yet hadn’t there been more? She recalled the doctor’s last instructions. He was obviously concerned for Diana’s health. But hadn’t he also urged her to have a care for her safety, as well? He had told her to be careful of drafts … and of windows! In the event that someone might enter? But who? Could it have been—?
No. Oh, no! And yet—could it possibly have been himself? Abruptly, she remembered the way Dr. Tucker had gazed at Phoebe, the afternoon she’d left them alone. His tender look had seemed to reveal both pleasure and pain … perhaps even a sickness of the spirit … but surely, he couldn’t have been such a man? One who destroyed, after enjoying forbidden pleasure? Enslaved by amorous desires, yet perhaps inclined to warn, like a hissing snake, before he struck?
Or, she asked herself after further reflection, what if her own vivid imagination, inflamed by unhappy novels that had lately come her way, led her now to conclusions based on nothing but foolish, melancholy fancy? Was this tendency not something she had often regretted in Diana’s dramatic and too quickly made pronouncements? Did not this unfortunate man deserve something better, after all?
Again, the wind slashed through the branches above, sending down more drops. Charlotte rose and stood looking out over the sunny landscape beyond. Then Orpheus pressed against her, trying to move her away from the thing that lay so still before them.
Mrs. Willett left her basket where she’d dropped it, and hurried down the path. She might, she thought, stop to ask for help at the inn. But what help could there be for Benjamin Tucker now?
And so she continued on, out of the trees and across the sloping field, skirts flying, past the gaze of landlord Jonathan Pratt, who sat at his desk.
What could Mrs. Willett be up to now, Pratt asked himself, straightening sharply. Craning his neck to the window, he saw her reach the road and cross it, gain the lawn, and leap past the trees that stood before Longfellow’s house, before she vanished inside.
Sitting back, the landlord tried to imagine what this was all about, with little success. However, he assured himself, he could expect to hear more of whatever had happened soon enough.
RICHARD LONGFELLOW, HAVING seen Mrs. Willett running, hurried in from his own unsuccessful search. Upon learning the shocking news he sent Cicero to alert Constable Wise and Reverend Rowe. He himself woke Montagu. The two men then started out together, leaving Charlotte alone in the house while they went to recover the corpse—something, after all, hardly fit for a woman’s eyes.
They found the physician lying as Mrs. Willett had described. Both stared into the jagged crater in the left side of his cranium, and at a small, powder-blackened hole opposite. Beneath the two, the all too familiar features remained—features that had been animated only the day before, when the doctor had joined them in conversation—kindly features now sadly stilled by the hand of a tormented soul.
“It is hard for me to understand,” Longfellow admitted, “that a man would do this to himself, when surely he knew of far less unpleasant ways to leave the world.”
“Perhaps he wanted to call attention to whatever drove him to the final act.”
“I would imagine, then, that he’s left some kind of explanation behind …”
They searched the doctor’s clothing, but came up empty-handed. Longfellow next rose to retrieve his pistol, which still lay on the ground. With a frown, he put the thing into his pocket. Then he turned to study the corpse once more.
“It was thoughtful of him to come away,” he said finally.
“Rather than do the thing in your parlor?” Montagu replied, sitting back on his heels.” Yet I think your villagers will be suspicious of you, Richard. From what I hear, you’ve lately taken on the characteristics of Beelzebub.”
“Surely, they don’t believe I am the very Devil?”
“I would be inclined to imagine Dr. Faustus myself,” the captain replied with mock seriousness. “Unless, of course, our old friend here better deserves the role.”
Longfellow unfolded a large piece of canvas he’d brought along, setting it down next to the corpse. “One tries to assist a fellow being out of kindness,” he grunted, while both shifted Tucker onto the tarp, “thinking, too, of the good of his own family—and what does he get for his pains?”
“Involvement in the lives of others quite often forces distasteful tasks upon us.” They lay hat and wig on top of their former owner, and rolled all up together. “Fortunately, Richard,” the captain added, as he picked up his end, “no one can expect you to carry this sorry burden alone.”
“We’ll see about that,” Longfellow returned skeptically.
Captain Montagu paused to pick up Mrs. Willett’s abandoned basket. Then, lifting the heavy bundle to their shoulders, they started off together down the trail, finally gaining the meadow below.
Again, Jonathan Pratt stared out of his window; this time, his eyes protruded even more at what he saw. What were Longfellow and the captain doing with a rolled-up sheet, looking for all the world as if it contained a body? And with a picnic basket, as well?
The landlord stood just as Lydia Pratt came into the room, searching for a copy of an order she’d recently sent to Boston. Fortunately, her husband’s wide girth blocked her view.
“My dear,” he said, offering her his chair, which he had turned from the window. “I believe I’ll go out for a while. To take the air.”
“And leave me to do your work,” countered his spouse. “Go, then. I can do what needs to be done here, and you could certainly use the exercise! While you’re out, go and tell Mrs. Willett she may have the lamb quarter she requested for their dinner tomorrow. It will be sent over this afternoon.”
“Yes, my dear,” answered Jonathan Pratt, smiling at what his wife did not know—and feeling an additional surge of anticipation.
ALL THAT REMAINED of Dr. Benjamin Tucker was deposited in a dim laundry shed behind Richard Longfellow’s house. As sunlight struggled to penetrate small, bubbled sheets of glass, the corpse was viewed by Jonathan Pratt and by David Pelham, who had happened to observe the others and followed them. Mr. Pelham’s acquaintance with Dr. Tucker led Longfellow to hope that he might assist them in setting this strange story right.
Next, having been summoned once again by Cicero, Reverend Christian Rowe appeared. The preacher glanced down with distaste at the mutilated head, before producing a handkerchief and carefully wiping at his fingers. Finally, Cicero himself returned with Phineas Wise. The constable lowered his eyes to the body, and raised them with a grim nod.
Richard Longfellow then ushered the men back to his house, and into the little-used great room. Charlotte and Cicero trailed unnoticed behind the rest. Two small cherry wood tables that had flanked the tall hearth were soon united, and chairs pulled from a set of two dozen standing along pale yellow walls. Longfellow himself threw open blue velvet curtains; suddenly, the sun streamed in, illuminating a blizzard of dust and a pair of crystal chandeliers. When he walked back to join the others, his steps echoed across the polished wood floor.
Partially hidden behind a screen, Mrs. Willett sat on a sofa once meant to be her sister’s particular seat, well away from the rest. This she found rankling, for she might have taken a chair by any of her neighbors on a social occasion; however, the arrangement had the advantage of allowing them to overlook her presence, and of letting her stay to observe what females were usually not permitted to see.
When he had sent Cicero off for refreshments, Longfellow examined the four faces around the table. “It appears,” he began, “that we have yet another body, with little to account for it.”
“This fellow, though, wasn’t about to become a member of our village,” said Phineas Wise.
“He is our responsibility, I think, nonetheless.”
“Well, it’s obvious to me that the doctor arranged his own end, though for unknown reasons.”
“I only wonder that he carried no written explanation, which I believe is the usual thing. And Tucker seemed quite content when he first arrived. He told me he looked forward to renewing his practice in town, once the smallpox abated. What do you say to all this, Mr. Pelham?”
“He told me the same.” David Pelham leaned back, fingering the indigo scarf of a workman, which hung today over his frock-coat.
How like human nature for the rich (and lately even the royal) to enjoy dressing as if they were laborers and milkmaids, Longfellow observed, while the lower orders attempted to imitate dukes and duchesses—at least, those who could find the coin to waste.
“Did you speak with him last evening?” he finally inquired.
“No—though we spoke the other night of the slowing of business in the colonies, as well as his own misfortunes. And I agreed to help him, if I could. We’d not seen each other for many months; yet I supposed he was frequently despondent. I found Tucker to be a scattered man. One of many moods. Though not a bad sort.”
“Nothing else?”
David Pelham looked carefully at Longfellow, seeming to weigh something in his mind. Then he answered quite firmly, his face becoming smooth again.
“Nothing else.”
“I suppose there is little doubt.” Longfellow sighed deeply, considering human frailty for a moment before returning to his duty. “Phineas, how is your other investigation proceeding?”
It was Reverend Rowe who answered. “As well as can be expected, when few will admit to knowing or seeing anything at all. At least to us—yet they break off talking of it among themselves as soon as we appear!”
“Thus far,” the constable went on, “we have been unable to discover if the girl had another lover, or that Will Sloan had any desire to abandon his wedding plans. His mother will say little—but it seems the girl’s time is well accounted for, and she received no letters, apart from those that came from her own family.”
“But something here is not right,” the reverend insisted. “I believe there is still strong reason to suspect evil in our midst.” He then gave a terrific start, and his head ducked under the table; in a moment, his shout sent a spitting cat flying. More than one set of eyes was averted as Reverend Rowe rose up, glaring.
“As to Will Sloan,” said Longfellow mildly, “I’ve now sent queries to Worcester and Concord. Thus far I’ve heard nothing. I suspect Boston would be too big a jump for the lad—at any rate, with the state the town’s in, few would have noticed him there. It is a shame, Reverend, that you’ve received little for your trouble here, though I find it hardly surprising.”
Jonathan Pratt quickly added his own thoughts. “I do not see the point of explaining my whereabouts every hour of the evening, from dusk to dawn—which we only suppose to be the time something might have been done to Miss Morris. I wonder, Reverend, if you would answer such questions yourself, another time? No, I thought as much.”
“I expect to keep at least some things my own business, as well,” said David Pelham.
“Yet Mr. Pelham has given us his oath,” said the constable, “and has sworn that he remained in his room all the evening, reading an improving book with a bottle of Madeira for company. If I’m not mistaken,” he added, his face showing a Yankee’s pain at a profit lost, “here is more of the same.”
Cicero came in with a tray that held two bottles and a half-dozen glasses, one of which he filled and took across the room to Mrs. Willett.
“As for last evening, Mr. Pelham,” Reverend Rowe asked, obviously hoping to add to his meager arsenal of blame, “where were you then?”
“Last night? I recall that I had a supper of oysters and ale; then I sang lustily with a handful of others in Mr. Pratt’s taproom, to counter the thunder, until well after the storm broke. The old fellow must have been dead then, for I cannot see a physician risking his health by walking out into the pouring rain, even to shoot himself.”
It seemed to Richard Longfellow that Mr. Pelham was somewhat deficient in feeling, so odd was the latter’s mood, given their grim discussion. He seemed to go from sense to rattle with little warning—one of the many annoying symptoms of courtship. Ah, well. Considering what Diana had done to her other suitors, Pelham would soon become sober again. “Just where does this leave us?” he turned to ask Phineas Wise.
“In my official capacity,” said the constable, “given what you have told of finding the body and the weapon, I believe Dr. Tucker to be a suicide. Doubtless his action stemmed from melancholy, due to the unfortunate death of the young woman in his care. I would add that I believe the death of Miss Morris to be the result of natural causes, influenced by the inoculation, perhaps, but also by the delicate nature of many a female constitution. I suppose the village will see it that way—and that they will accept our verdict in both cases, if the selectmen concur. This should make an appeal to the Middlesex authorities unnecessary. But, we should wait a little for Will to show up, I think, before we tell the world our conclusions. Just in case we’re all wrong,” he added under his breath.
“I agree it’s what the village would prefer to think,” said Longfellow. “And most of us would rather not bother the sheriff in Cambridge! If we have reason to suspect anything more after Will’s return, then we might still take the matter to a justice of the peace. But I doubt it will come to that.”
There was a chorus of relieved approval. “Unless, of course,” Captain Montagu suddenly suggested, “there is one among you who will press for further action, for his own reasons.”
“Who? Who would do such a thing?” Phineas Wise looked about with alarm.
“Last autumn, I watched as one of you rallied the village to threaten the life of an innocent man, while asking others to imagine the worst of one of the gentlest among you. Did you not, sir?” Montagu concluded, pointing a finger across the table at Reverend Christian Rowe.
There were gasps at the audacity of the remark, for Reverend Rowe, as a representative of the church, enjoyed a position of moral leadership even among those who often found his words distasteful. But the preacher replied with a smile that was politeness itself.
“I was glad to admit my error,” he owned easily. “But we are all under the eye of the Lord. And none should fear honest inquiry on His behalf. Such inquiry is never a personal matter, for I am sure we are all friends here, and fellows in God. In the same spirit, however, I might remark that once again we find Mrs. Willett and Mr. Longfellow involved in a most peculiar death—this time, while they both reside under one roof. As I have said before, that fact has already aroused the suspicion of others … but I will keep an open mind, and say no more.”
In the silence that followed, Constable Wise blew his nose loudly on a not too clean piece of linen, which he then stuffed back into his breeches. “For now, then, we’re in accord,” he told Longfellow. “The week’s events are tragic, but they require no charges. However, we have one more problem that needs solving. Who will be responsible for Dr. Tucker’s body?”
“A suicide cannot be laid to rest in the churchyard,” Rowe stated flatly.
“Then,” said Longfellow, “as I brought him here to Bracebridge, I’ll take the responsibility. I shall send word to his household this afternoon, though I doubt it will do much good. For the moment, Tucker can stay where he is.”
After addressing a few more details over another fortifying glass, the men rose to their feet. Longfellow moved to Mrs. Willett, bottle in hand, and sat down beside her on the sofa. “I’ve been asking myself,” she began, after accepting a second glass, “who will see to Lem and Diana, now that Dr. Tucker is gone.”
“Thankful Marlowe at the Three Crows once recommended a Worcester man. But I suspect we can do as well ourselves.”
“Richard, do you suppose people are talking … about the two of us?”
“People are always looking for something to w
orry them, Carlotta. But we might discuss that thrilling possibility tomorrow, at our leisure—for Rowe has ordered my entire household to stay away from Sunday meeting until we lift the quarantine. Remind me, too, that I should discuss village etiquette with Captain Montagu. Now, I shall go and break the news of Tucker’s death to Diana. I’m sure Edmund will want to join me. But I’d better show my other guests out, first—or they might decide to take a tour of our bedchambers, and stay to dinner!”
There was little point or reason, Charlotte told herself, to argue with the conclusions she had overheard. And yet, every man present had neglected several muddy questions. Exploring them further herself, she decided, might allow her mind to rest more easily. And then there was the question of Phoebe’s final rest, as well….
Warmed and fortified by the wine, Mrs. Willett went forward to gather what she could. She had no notion of where her inquiries would lead. But at least she had an idea of where they might begin.
Chapter 11
CHARLOTTE RETREATED FROM the bustle of the hall and climbed to the second story of Richard Longfellow’s house, where four bedrooms stood in a row. Here, she usually went left toward her own chamber, just before Cicero’s at one end. But this time she stopped, reconsidered, and turned the other way.
Longfellow’s was the last room of the east corridor; she knew it had the advantage of the morning light. The nearer of the two, next to her own, was usually given to Diana on her visits, though lately it had been the temporary home of Dr. Tucker. She turned the brass knob and walked in. The bed still had its coverlet in place, over a freshly mounded featherbed. There was a large trap standing open on a chair; at the foot of a bedside table stood another bag she’d seen before, which held medical supplies and instruments. On the table itself, she saw a red volume—a recent publication on wildlife in the southern colonies.
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