Traitors Gate

by Anne Perry

  “Yes. Yes, you are right,” Harriet said with relief. They were fast approaching the last section of the driveway to the house. The elms had fallen away behind them and they were in the open sunlight. There were several carriages standing on the gravel before the front doors, and the gentlemen ahead were going into the Hall for the funeral meats. It was time they joined them.

  It was when he was almost ready to leave that Pitt was given the opportunity to speak to Danforth and ask him further about the episode of the dogs. Sir Arthur had always cared deeply about his animals. If he took the matter of finding homes for his favorite bitch’s pups lightly, then he had changed almost beyond recognition. It was not as if he had forgotten the matter entirely; according to Danforth he had sold them to someone else.

  He found Danforth in the hallway taking his leave. He still looked uncomfortable, not quite sure if he should be here or not. It must be his testimony at the inquest weighing on his mind. He had been a close neighbor and agreeable friend for years. There had never been bad blood between the estates, although Danforth’s was much smaller.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Danforth.” Pitt approached him as if by chance. “Good to see you looking so well, sir.”

  “Er—good afternoon,” Danforth replied, squinting a little in an effort to place Pitt. He must have looked as if he came from London, and yet there was an air about him as if he belonged, and a vague familiarity.

  “Thomas Pitt,” Pitt assisted him.

  “Pitt? Pitt—oh yes. Gamekeeper’s son, I recall.” A shadow crossed his face, and quite suddenly the past flooded back and Pitt could recall the disgrace, the fear, the shame of his father’s being accused of poaching, as if it were yesterday. It had not been Danforth’s estate, but that was irrelevant now. The man who had pressed the charge and seen him sent to prison, where he had died, had been one of Danforth’s social class and background, one who owned land as he did; and poachers were a common enemy.

  Pitt felt his face burn and all the old humiliation come back, the resentment and the feeling of being inferior, foolish, of not knowing the rules. It was absurd. He was a policeman now, a very senior policeman. He had arrested better men than Danforth, wiser, richer, and more powerful men, men of better blood and lineage.

  “Superintendent Pitt, of Bow Street,” Pitt said coldly, but the words fumbled on his tongue.

  Danforth looked surprised.

  “Good God! Not a police matter, for heaven’s sake. Poor man died of …” He let out his breath with a sigh. “They don’t send superintendents for—suicide. And you’ll never prove it. Certainly not through me!” Now his face was equally cold, and there was a bitter affront in his eyes.

  “I came to pay my respects to a man I loved deeply,” Pitt said with a clenched jaw. “And to whom I owe almost all I have. My occupation has no more to do with my presence here than does yours.”

  “Then dammit, sir, why did you say you were from the police?” Danforth demanded. He had been made to look a fool, and he resented it.

  Pitt had done it to show that he was no longer merely a gamekeeper’s son, but he could hardly admit that.

  “I was at the inquest.” He evaded the subject. “I know what you said about the pups. Sir Arthur always cared very much about his dogs.”

  “And his horses,” Danforth agreed with a frown. “That’s how I know the poor fellow was really losing a grip on things. He not only promised me the pick of the litter, he actually came with me to choose. Then, dammit, he went and sold them to Bridges.” He shook his head. “I could understand simple forgetfulness. We all forget the odd thing now and again as we get older. But he was convinced I’d said I didn’t want them. Swore blind to it. That’s what was so unlike the man. Terribly sad. Fearful way to go. But glad you came to pay your respects, Mr. er—Superintendent.”

  “Good day, sir,” Pitt acknowledged him, and then without giving it conscious thought, turned and went back through the baize door into the kitchens. He knew precisely where he was going. The paneled walls were so familiar he could recognize every variation in the wood, every place worn smoother and darker by countless touches of the hand, or brushes of fabric from the shoulders of footmen and butlers, and skirts of maids, housekeepers and cooks for generations past. He had added to the patina of it himself when his mother had worked here. In the history of the Hall, that must seem like only yesterday. He and Matthew had crept down here to beg biscuits and milk from the cook, and odd titbits of pastry. Matthew had teased the maids, and put a frog in the housekeeper’s sitting room. Mrs. Thayer had hated frogs. Matthew and Pitt had laughed themselves nearly sick when they heard her scream. Tapioca pudding for a week had been a small price to pay for the savoring of such a delight.

  The smell of furniture polish and heavy curtains and uncarpeted floors was indefinable, and yet so sharp he would hardly have been surprised to face the mirror and see himself reflected a twelve-year-old boy with lanky limbs, steady gray eyes and a shock of hair.

  When he turned into the kitchen, the cook, still in her black bombazine with her apron over it, looked up sharply. She was new since Pitt’s time, and to her he was a stranger. She was flustered as it was, with the loss of her master, being allowed to attend the service herself, while still being in charge of the funeral meats.

  “You lost, sir? The reception rooms are back that way.”

  She pointed to the door through which he had come. “’ere, Lizzie, you show the gentleman—”

  “Thank you, Cook, but I am looking for the gamekeeper. Is Mr. Sturges about? I need to speak to him about Sir Arthur’s dogs.”

  “Well I don’t know about that, sir. It isn’t ‘ardly the day for it….”

  “I’m Thomas Pitt. I used to live here.”

  “Oh! Young Tom. I mean …” She colored quickly. “I didn’t mean no …”

  “That’s all right.” He brushed it aside. “I’d still like to speak to Mr. Sturges. It’s a matter Sir Matthew wished me to look into, and I need Sturges’s help.”

  “Oh. Well ’e was ’ere about ’alf an ‘our ago, an’ ’e went out to the stables. Land needs to be cared for, funeral or no funeral. You might find ’im out there.”

  “Thank you.” He walked past her, barely glancing at the rows of copper pans and kettles, or the great black cast-iron range still emanating heat, even with all its oven doors closed and its lids down. The dressers were filled with china, the larder door closed, the wooden bins for flour, sugar, oatmeal and lentils were tight. All the vegetables would be in racks outside in the scullery, and the meat, poultry and game would be hung in the cold house. The laundry and still room were along the corridor to the right.

  He went out of the back door, down the steps and turned left without conscious thought. He would have known his way even in the dark.

  He found Sturges just outside the door to the apple room, the ventilated place with shelf after shelf of wooden slats where all the apples were placed in the autumn, and as long as they did not touch each other, usually kept all through the winter and well into the late spring.

  “‘Allo, young Tom,” he said without surprise. “Glad as you made it for the funeral.” He looked Pitt directly in the eye.

  It was a difficult relationship and it had taken many years to reach this stage. Sturges had replaced Pitt’s father, and to begin with Pitt had been unable to forgive him for that. He and his mother had had to leave the gamekeeper’s cottage and all their furnishings which had gone with it, the things they had grown accustomed to: the kitchen table and dresser, the hearth, the comfortable chair, the tin bath. Pitt had had his own room with a small dormer window next to the apple tree. They had moved up into the servants’ quarters in the Hall, but it was nothing like the same. What was a room, when you had had a house, with your own doorway and your own kitchen fire?

  Of course he knew with his head how lucky they were that Sir Arthur either had believed Pitt’s father innocent or had not cared, and had given his wife and child shelter and made t
hem welcome. Many a man would not have, and there were those in the county who thought him a fool for it, and said so. But that did not stop Pitt from hating Sturges and his wife for moving into the gamekeeper’s cottage and being warm and comfortable there.

  And Sturges had then walked the fields and woods that had been Pitt’s father’s work and his pleasure. He had changed a few things, and that also was a fault not easily forgiven, especially if in one or two instances it was for the worse. Where it was for the better, that was an even greater offense.

  But gradually memory had softened at least a little, and Sturges was a quiet, patient man. He knew the habits and the rules of the country. He had not been above poaching on the odd occasion as a youth, and he also knew it was by the grace of God, and a landowner willing to look the other way, that he had never been caught himself. He made no judgment as to whether Pitt’s father had been guilty or innocent, except to remark that if he were guilty, he was more of a fool than most men.

  And he loved animals. At first tentatively, then as a matter of course, he had allowed young Thomas to help him. They had begun in suspicious silence, then as cooperation necessitated speed they had broken the ice between them. It had melted completely one early morning, about half past six when the light was spreading across the fields still heavy with dew. It had been spring and the wildflowers were thick in the hedges and under the trees, the new leaves opening on the chestnuts, and the later beeches and elms thick with bud. They had found a wounded owl, and Sturges had taken it home. Together they had cared for it until it mended and flew away. Several times all summer they had seen its silent form, broad winged and graceful, swooping in flight around the barn, diving on mice, crossing the lantern’s ray like a ghost, and then gone again. From that year on there had been an understanding between them, but never any blunting of criticism.

  “Of course I came,” Pitt answered him, breathing in deeply. The apple room smelled sweet and dry, a little musty, full of memories. “I know I should have come earlier. I’ll say it before you do.”

  “Aye, well, so long as you know,” Sturges said without taking his eyes off Pitt’s face. “Look well, you do. And very fancy in your city clothes. Superintendent now, eh? Arresting folk, no doubt.”

  “Murder and treason,” Pitt replied. “You’d want them arrested, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh aye. No time for murdering people, at least not most people. Done well for yourself then?”

  “Yes.”

  Sturges pursed his lips.

  “Got a wife? Or too busy bettering yourself to go a-courting?”

  “Yes, I have a wife and two children: a son and a daughter.” He could not keep the lift of pride out of his voice.

  “Have you indeed?” Sturges looked him straight in the eye. He tried to keep his dour manner, but the pleasure shone out of him in spite of it. “Where are they then? Up London way?”

  “No, Charlotte is here with me. I’ll bring her to meet you.”

  “You do that, if you want.” Sturges was damned if he was going to appear as if he cared. He turned away and began absentmindedly tidying some of the old straw.

  “Before I do, can you tell me what happened about the dogs and Mr. Danforth?” Pitt asked.

  “No I can’t, Tom, and that’s a fact. Never took to Danforth a lot, myself, but he was always fair, far as I knowed. And bright enough, considering.”

  “He came over and chose two pups?”

  “Aye, he did that.” He heaped the straw in a pile. “Then a couple o’ weeks later sent a note by one o’ his men to say he didn’t want ’em anymore. And a couple o’ weeks after that, came back to collect ’em and was as put out as all hell that we hadn’t still got them. Said a few unkind things about Sir Arthur. I’d have liked to ’ave given ’im a piece of my mind, but Sir Arthur wouldn’t ’ave wanted me to.”

  “Did you see the note, or did Sir Arthur just tell you about it?”

  He stared at Pitt, abandoning the straw.

  “‘Course I saw the note! Were writ to me, me being the one as cares for the dogs, and Sir Arthur himself up in London at the time anyway.”

  “Very strange,” Pitt agreed, thoughts racing in his head. “You are quite right. Someone is playing very odd games, and not in any good spirit, I think.”

  “Games? You mean it weren’t Mr. Danforth going a bit gaga?”

  “Not necessarily, although it does look like it. Do you still have the note?”

  “Whatever for? Why should I keep a thing like that? No use to anyone.”

  “Just to prove it was Mr. Danforth who was in the wrong, not Sir Arthur,” Pitt replied.

  “And who needs proof o’ that?” Sturges pulled a face. “Nobody else as knows Sir Arthur thought it was ’im!”

  Pitt felt a sudden lift of happiness, and found himself smiling in spite of the occasion. Sturges was a loyal man, but he moderated the truth for no one.

  “Sturges, do you know anything about the accident Sir Arthur had when the runaway horse came down the street and the rider caught him with his whip?”

  “Some.” Sturges looked unhappy, his face drawn into lines of doubt. He leaned against the apple racks. “Why are you asking, Tom? Who told you about it anyway? Mr. Matthew?” He had not as yet adjusted to the idea that Matthew was now the master, and heir of the title.

  Somewhere outside a horse whinnied, and Pitt heard the familiar sound of hooves on the cobbled stableyard.

  “Yes. He seemed to think it was not an accident.” He did not want to put words into Sturges’s mouth by saying it had been devised as a threat.

  “Not an accident?” Sturges looked puzzled but not dismissive of the idea. “Well, in a manner o’ speaking, o’ course, it wasn’t. Fool came down the road like Jehu. Man like that should never ’ave bin on a horse in the first place. I look on an accident as something as couldn’t be helped, ’cept by the Almighty. Two ha’pence worth o’ sense ‘d helped this. Came galloping down the street like a clergyman, by all accounts, whip flyin’ all over the place. It was a mercy no one else was hurt but Sir Arthur, and the animal he was ridin’ at the time. Caught the poor beast a fair lashin’ ’round the head and shoulders. Took us weeks to get ’im right again. Still scared o’ the whip, it is. Probably always will be.”

  “Who was the rider?”

  “God knows,” Sturges said with disgust. “Some idiot from the far side of the country, seems like. No one ’round here knew him.”

  “Did anybody know who he was? Do you know now?” Pitt pressed.

  The sunlight was warm through the apple room door. A yellow-haired retriever poked its head in and wagged its tail hopefully.

  “‘Course I don’t know,” Sturges answered angrily. “If I knew who he was I’d have had him on a charge.” It was a brave statement, more wish than actuality, but Pitt was quite sure he would have tried.

  “Who else saw it happen?” Pitt asked him.

  The dog came in and Sturges patted it automatically. “Nobody, far as I know. Wheelwright saw the man go past. So did the smith, but didn’t see him hit Sir Arthur. Why? What are you saying? That it was Sir Arthur’s fault? He got in the way?”

  “No.” Pitt did not resent his anger, or the defensiveness in his face. “No, I’m saying it may not have been an accident in any sense. The man may have spurred his horse to a gallop intentionally, meaning to catch Sir Arthur with the whip….”

  Sturges’s face was full of amazement and disbelief.

  “Why would anybody want to do that? It don’t make sense. Sir Arthur had no enemies.”

  Pitt was not sure how far he should go in telling Sturges the truth. Perhaps the Inner Circle would be straining his belief a little far.

  “Who would it be then?”

  “Sir Arthur had no enemies. Not around here.” Sturges was watching him closely.

  “Is that what he thought?”

  Sturges stared at Pitt. “What have you heard, Tom? What are you trying to say?”

  “That Sir Art
hur was a danger to a certain group he had joined, and about whom he had discovered some very unpleasant truths, and was bent on exposing them. They caused this accident as a warning to him to keep his covenants of silence,” Pitt answered him.

  “Oh aye, this Circle he spoke about.” Sturges blinked. “Pretty dangerous to go that far though. Could have killed him!”

  “You know about the Circle?” Pitt said with surprise.

  “Oh yes, he talked about it. Evil men, from what he said, but from up London.” He hesitated, searching Pitt’s face. “You mean what I think you mean, Tom?”

  “Well, was he wandering in his mind, imagining things?”

  “No he was not! Upset, maybe, pretty angry about some of the things he said was going to happen abroad, but as sane as you or me.” There was no pretense in his voice, no effort to convince himself of something that in his heart he had doubted. It was the quality of his tone as much as any words that drove away Pitt’s last reservations. He was filled with a sudden and intense gratitude, almost a kind of happiness. He found himself smiling at Sturges.

  “Then, yes,” he replied firmly, “I mean what you think I do. It was a warning, which he was too angry and too honest to heed, and so they murdered him. I don’t know how it was done yet, or if there is any way I can prove it, but I shan’t stop trying until I do.”

  “I’m glad of that, Tom. I’m right glad of that,” Sturges said quietly, leaning a little to scratch the dog’s head. “It grieves me sore that those who didn’t know him should think what they do of him. I’m not a vicious man. There’s too many die as shouldn’t as it is, but whoever did that to him, I’d dearly like to see them hanged. The whole of Brackley will be grateful to you if you do that, an’ I can speak for all.” He did not add that he would even be forgiven for not having come back, but it was in his face. He would have held it crass to put such a delicate thing into words.