by Robin Paige
“Avis?” she said softly.
Avis turned, the candle’s glow outlining the curve of her plump cheek. “M’lady?”
“Your sister said that you were until recently in the employ of Lady Duncan, at Thomworthy.”
The broad, capable shoulders seemed to stiffen. “Yes, m’lady.”
“Until ... when?”
There was a brief hesitation, and then the shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. Avis’s voice was lower when she said, “Three days ago, m’lady.”
Something Kate heard in the woman’s tone made her say, “Forgive me for being impertinent, please, Avis. But Sir Edgar’s death is much on Mrs. Bernard’s mind, and I thought perhaps you might shed some light on what happened. When did you first learn of it?”
Avis seemed to pull in her breath. “Jenny and me, us heard it right here, from Mrs. Bernard. Yestiddy, us heard it. Somethin’ about a gun, it wuz, an’ a rock.”
“And from anyone else? When was it confirmed?”
“This evening, the man who looks after the farm said that Sir Edgar was killed.”
“I see. I wonder ... You were at Thornworthy. Do you have any information about Sir Edgar’s departure from there?”
This time, the hesitation was more lengthy. Avis turned her head slightly away, so that now Kate could not see the outline of her face, only the neatly dressed hair, the fold of woolen shawl, the set of her shoulders. “No, m’lady,” she said at last.
But Kate did not quite believe her, and she puzzled over these new bits of information as she went slowly down the steep stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
Doctor, in Macbeth
William Shakespeare
In the small parlor off the hallway, Charles and the doctor were sitting in front of the fire, drinking tea liberally laced with brandy and talking about Thomworthy. For in Dr. Lorrimer, Charles had at last found someone who knew something about Sir Edgar’s coming to the moor, and he intended to make the most of their time together.
“Tell me about him, Lorrimer,” he said. “What was he like?” But even as he asked the question, he understood that its answer would not tell him all he needed to hear. Everyone who knew Sir Edgar would know something different about him, and while some of these images would certainly be illuminating, they would also be contradictory. Still, it was impossible to understand the murder without knowing more than he did about the victim, and so he had to ask.
“From what I understood of his earlier activities,” the doctor replied, “I shouldn’t have said that Sir Edgar was a man to enjoy a life of rural retirement. One of Rhodes’s men, you know, down there in Africa, where he made a great deal of money, a great deal faster than he ought. He seemed, or so I thought, to fancy more excitement than the moor offers.” He turned his head, and the firelight glinted off his glasses. “But he had been ill, you see, and wasn’t expected to live long.”
“Oh?” Charles asked curiously. He blew across the top of his teacup and took a sip, feeling the welcome warmth of hot brandy slide down his throat. “What sort of illness? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t know the details, I’m afraid,” Lorrimer replied. “One of those nasty African fevers that comes and goes unexpectedly, quite frightening in its recurrence, I was told.”
“You say that he wasn’t expected to live. When was that?”
“When he returned from Africa and inherited Thornworthy from his uncle.” He put down his cup and fished in his pocket for tobacco and cigarette papers. “The moor has had a restorative effect upon a great many people, and Sir Edgar was among those fortunate enough to be returned to health by the fresh air and bracing climate. Very different from the African heat, to be sure.” Dexterously, he rolled a slender cigarette, then lit and drew on it. “Or perhaps it was the salutary effects of matrimony. He and his wife were married only a short time before they came here.”
“I see,” Charles said. He waited, and when the doctor continued to smoke in silence, finally said, “Go on, please.”
The other seemed to start, as if he were recalled from private thoughts. “Ah, yes. Well, in the event, Sir Edgar’s health seemed to improve a great deal, and he told me not long ago that his London doctors had pronounced him quite cured and likely to live a long and healthy life. I think it was that news which made him consider the possibility of standing for election. He seemed ready enough to reenter an active public life. I even understood that he was planning to purchase a house in London, and remove there for part of the year. But then he dropped the scheme and withdrew his name from consideration. I didn’t hear why.”
Charles thought about that for a moment, letting the silence lengthen. The wind was howling in the chimney and the rain beat violently against the window. He thought of the prisoner out on the moor and hoped he had found shelter from the storm. After a moment, he returned to the subject. “There was some sort of uneasiness between Sir Edgar and his cousin, I understand. Something about the inheritance?”
“Oh, dear, how stories do get around,” Lorrimer said with a sigh. He bent over to flick a cigarette ash into the fire and continued in that posture, his elbows on his knees. “Yes, I am sorry to say that there has been a great deal of uneasiness, as you put it, in this matter. Jack Delany is a hotheaded man, and he was absolutely persuaded that his claim to Thornworthy would be honored by the courts.” He straightened, rubbed his nose, then sat back in his chair. “I must say, Jack took it quite hard when the decision went the other way. Made a great deal of unpleasantness about it, actually. Those of us who know him counseled him to be careful in what he said for fear that it might be misinterpreted.”
Charles regarded him. “So Delany threatened Sir Edgar? To his face? And in the hearing of others?”
“Well, yes, but—” The doctor paused, pursing his mouth. “You’d have to know Jack Delany. As I say, he’s hotheaded. Says what he thinks without calculating its effect. But I very much doubt that he would...” His voice trailed off. “Anyway, I understood that the current line of thinking pointed to the escaped prisoner as Sir Edgar’s killer.”
“Perhaps,” Charles said. “But it seems useful to see what other possibilities there might be.” He paused. “Jack Delany does stand to inherit the estate of Thornworthy now that his rival is dead, does he not?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s correct. The entail devolves upon the oldest son of the surviving bloodline.” Lorrimer was silent for a moment, while in the grate, the peat fire began to burn lower. “If you are looking into Jack Delany, Lord Sheridan, there is something more you should know. And I will tell you myself, so that you hear the facts, rather than getting the tale from the moor people, who may know only one bit or another of it.”
“And what is that?” Charles asked.
Lorrimer sighed. “A year or two before Sir Edgar married and came to the moor, Jack Delany was involved in a nasty bit of unpleasantness. He had purchased some land, you see, and the seller—a man who lived in Okehampton—had reneged on the bargain. Jack was upset about this, quite naturally, and went to the man to remonstrate. One thing led to another, and there were ... words. The man produced a revolver, Jack disputed his possession of it, and there was a fight, in the progress of which the gun went off and the man was killed.”
“I see,” Charles murmured. He put down his cup, tenting his fingers under his chin.
“Luckily for Jack, there were witnesses to the accident, and they reported what they had seen to the Okehampton constable, exonerating Jack of wrongdoing in the matter. The coroner’s inquest returned a finding of accidental death. Of course, there were some—the dead man’s friends and family—who did not agree with the finding. If you go about inquiring into Jack Delany’s background, you are quite likely to hear
their side of the matter.”
Charles sat quietly for a moment, staring into the fire, absorbing this information and considering the courses of action that might have led up to Sir Edgar’s death. “I wonder ... Did you form any conclusion from your autopsy this afternoon as to the possible course of the bullet?”
“Only that whoever shot him was standing fairly close,” the doctor replied. “The bullet traveled up through the throat and into the—” He broke off as Kate came into the room, and stood. “Lady Sheridan.”
Charles stood, too, and went to the tea tray, where he poured a cup of tea for Kate and sloshed brandy into it.
“I left Avis with your patient, Doctor,” Kate said, taking the cup from Charles. She took his chair, too, with a glance of thanks, as Charles put a block of peat on the fire and pulled another chair around. “What do you think of her condition?”
“I am frankly surprised,” Dr. Lorrimer said, “and worried.” He tossed his cigarette into the fire. “Mrs. Bernard has been suffering from consumption, but she was much improved in the last few months. I hadn’t expected to see her situation deteriorate quite so rapidly.”
“Has she spoken to you about Sir Edgar?” Kate asked.
Charles glanced sharply at her, but she didn’t add any explanation.
“Only a few broken words,” the doctor said with a little grimace. “Difficult to make out.”
“Did she mention a gun or a rock, or dogs?”
“Yes,” the doctor said slowly. He glanced at Charles. “I’m a trained man of science, hardly a believer in demon dogs or the fairy folk of the moor. But I have heard and seen things in my time that suggest that there are things in heaven and earth other than those we ordinarily take account of.” He paused and added in a lower voice, “Mrs. Bernard knew of unnatural deeds, and her knowledge has bred in her an unnatural trouble.” He peered at Kate. “She spoke to you, then, about what she dreamed?”
“Dreamed or somehow envisioned, or actually saw.” Kate held her cup with both hands, warming them, and she stumbled over her words, as if her lips were numb. “Apparently she spoke of his death—his murder—yesterday, to Jenny and Avis.”
“And nothing was known of it until today,” Charles said reflectively. “Until this afternoon.”
Jenny appeared at the door. “Doctor,” she said urgently. “Avis sez ye must come quick.” Dr. Lorrimer nodded and went after her.
When they had left the room, Charles said, “How does Mrs. Bernard seem?”
“Very low,” Kate said, sipping her tea.
“The gun and the rock—she knew these details?”
“And the dogs.” Kate sighed. “But when I asked her if she had seen anyone else besides Sir Edgar, she only said she had not. But there was something about a struggle.” She shook her head. “Was he quite terrible to ... to look at, Charles?”
“Yes,” Charles said, and added, “I’m glad you didn’t have to see him, my dear.”
“But she did.” She sighed again. “And does, each time she closes her eyes. She loved him, Charles, although she says that he never knew. How she can live with what she sees, I don’t know. I keep thinking how I would feel if you...” She swallowed painfully.
Charles reached for her hand and held it to his lips, then let it go again. They sat for a few moments, looking at the fire. At last, Charles said, “She may have loved him, but I think we can safely assume that Mrs. Bernard is not the woman who was mentioned in the letter Lady Duncan received.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t,” Kate said decidedly.
“The question remains, then, how she learned what she knows.”
“Yes, that’s the question,” Kate said. “But I—”
There was a step on the stair, and Kate stopped. Charles looked up as the doctor reentered the room, his eyes bleak.
“She’s gone,” he said.
Kate let out her breath in a little cry.
“So quickly,” Charles said wonderingly. In his life he had often had occasion to marvel at how easily the line between life and death could be crossed, and how irrevocably.
“Yes,” the doctor replied in a matter-of-fact tone, and reached for the brandy bottle. “She died with his name on her lips,” he said, and added, “God have mercy on her soul.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one Innocent suffer.
Commentaries on the Laws of England
Sir William Blackstone, 1723-1780
After Kate and Charles had gone off to Mrs. Bernard’s, Patsy Marsden sat for a few moments, sipping her wine and half listening to Dr. Doyle, who was making some comment or other on the progress of the story he was writing, which was set on the moor and seemed to be filled with escaped murderers and demon dogs. But Patsy’s thoughts were elsewhere at this moment, with Evelyn Spencer, whom she now knew as Mattie Jenkyns, and with Evelyn’s brother, whom Charles Sheridan believed was innocent of the crime for which he had been imprisoned—innocent, too, of the murder of Sir Edgar. And if Charles Sheridan believed these things, Patsy did, too, for she had known him long enough and well enough to be able to place her whole trust in his judgment.
But those who were hunting the escaped man believed, with an equal conviction, that he was guilty of both murders and would be inclined to shoot him on sight. Suddenly aware of Spencer’s danger, she was seized by a sense of terrible urgency. She had to do something, although she wasn’t sure what. She pushed her chair back and stood.
“Forgive me, Dr. Doyle,” she said, breaking into his remarks. “I’ve enjoyed hearing about your work, but I must ask you to excuse me. I am going out.”
“Out?” Mr. Doyle drew his eyebrows together. “My dear young lady, it is storming!”
“Yes, isn’t it,” Patsy said, standing.
He was openmouthed. “Where in the world do you mean to go? You can’t possibly—”
“Indeed, I must,” Patsy said firmly.
“Then I will go with you,” he said, and stood, too. “You must have an escort. It is unthinkable that you—”
“No, thank you,” Patsy said. She smiled. “I’m afraid that a man would be of no use in this matter. Good night, Dr. Doyle.” And with that, she marched out and down the hall to her own room, where she pulled on a coat and a macintosh, wrapped her head in a scarf and tied another around her neck, and took up her umbrella.
But out on the street, the umbrella was ripped inside out by the wind the instant she put it up. She struggled to furl it again, then bent into the cold, driving rain, pushing as quickly as she could toward the feeble circle of light around the next lamppost, and the next, and so on down the street until she finally reached Mrs. Victor’s boardinghouse, a two-story frame dwelling on the corner of Station Street. There, she climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell, sheltering as best she could under the narrow canopy over the stoop, until at last an astonished Mrs. Victor opened the door and allowed her in.
Three minutes later, she was climbing the stairs, to be greeted by an equally astonished Mattie Jenkyns, in a flannel nightdress and dressing gown, her dark hair tied back with a ribbon, at the open door to her room. Behind her, a small gas fire burned against the wall, a chair pulled close up before it, a book and a shawl on the chair. A paraffin lamp gave off a circle of light. Evelyn saw that a double bed covered with a thin blanket was pushed into one corner of the room and a rod suspended across another, hung with Mattie’s clothing, a blue dress, a black skirt, a white blouse, the red cloak.
“Patsy Marsden!” Mattie exclaimed. “Whatever in the world are you doing out on such a wretched night?” She clutched her gown close around her neck and pulled Patsy’s sleeve. “Oh, do come in, for heaven’s sake! You must be wet through.”
“Hello, Evelyn,” Patsy said. She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and began unwrapping her scarves. On the way, she had decided that surprise was the best attack against Mattie’s substantial defenses. “I think it’s time that you and I talked abo
ut your brother.”
Evelyn Spencer stared at her for a moment and then burst into tears.
The storm of violent sobs lasted for several moments, abating only when a light rapping was heard at the door and Mrs. Victor handed in the tray Patsy had requested, containing a china teapot bundled into a knitted cozy, and two china cups, with sugar and lemon and a little pot of milk beside. Patsy put the tray on the gateleg table beside the window, where the net curtains—there were no draperies—fluttered with every blast of the wind. It was no wonder the room was cold.
“Milk?” she asked, and at Evelyn’s tearful nod, added milk to both cups. By this time, Evelyn was huddled in the chair, her bare feet tucked under her, the shawl pulled over her shoulders. Patsy handed her a cup and took the other chair, noticing how much the woman seemed to have changed in the course of a few hours. There were dark puffs beneath her eyes, her skin was mottled, her hair was tangled.
“How did you ... find out?” Evelyn asked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was afraid someone might remember my name, but I had no idea you would connect it with—” She stopped.
“Lord Charles Sheridan related your brother’s story at dinner tonight.”
Evelyn stirred in her chair, fingering the cheap gold locket she wore on a ribbon around her neck. “His ... story?”
Patsy nodded. “He believes that he has proof of your brother’s innocence in the murder of his wife. He bases this on his fingerprint analysis and on the information he got from a newspaper clipping he found in Spencer’s cell—and on his own personal observations.” The hem of her serge skirt was wet almost to her knees, and her feet were cold inside her boots. Shivering, she moved closer to the fire, although it gave off so little heat that it could not warm her. “He doesn’t believe your brother killed Sir Edgar, either.”