“Are you still shaken by finding Fairbrother?” he said.
“No. Lyndy, I have to ask—”
“It is not what you think,” Lyndy blurted. Why did he sound defensive? When had Lyndy ever felt the need to justify himself to anyone? Besides, he’d done nothing wrong. It was Philippa’s fault. No, it was all Mother’s fault for putting the idea in Philippa’s head. “Let me explain.”
“Please do,” Stella said, a tremble in her voice.
Damn Philippa and that blasted handkerchief. They had done what finding a dead body had not—crushed this gentle spirit.
He pulled her to him, the lace on her dress collar tickling his neck. In their rush to escape Outwick House, Stella had forgotten, yet again, to don her hat. It dangled in one hand at her side. To avoid the questions and concern in her eyes, he gazed then, into her hair, spun around her head like a billowy brown turban, gleaming in the sunlight. He resisted the urge to pull out a strand and wrap its silkiness around his finger.
“You were saying?” she urged. But the scent of coconut oil in her hair, mingled with her perfume, intoxicated him. Lyndy was suddenly in no hurry to talk about another woman, let alone Philippa.
“I was young and—”
“Eh-em. Hullo,” a gruff voice called from behind them. They both started. Lyndy’s head snapped up; Stella dropped her hat into the dust of the drive.
Inspector Brown strolled toward them from the direction of the lane. Hadn’t he left a while ago? Stella quickly wiggled out of Lyndy’s embrace, snatched her hat from the ground, and stepped a few feet back. She pinched her lips in frustration.
“Inspector,” Lyndy said, “are you still here? Hadn’t you left before us?”
“Quite. But we broke down in the lane a bit of a ways out.” He pointed behind him, down the wooded lane that led from the Fairbrothers’ estate. He swatted his hat against the dust on his trouser leg. “A crack in one of the spokes. My constable can ride old Matilda back, but I didn’t fancy having her carry us both.”
“I bet you didn’t,” Lyndy said, imagining the scene. Poor old Matilda, indeed.
“Speaking of horses, how is your Tully, Miss Kendrick?”
Inspector Brown knew of the thoroughbred’s misfortune? The policeman was more informed than Lyndy assumed. He’d be wise to remember that.
“Thank you for asking, Inspector.” Stella’s face brightened at the mention of her beloved horse. “Tully is doing much better. She should be up and ready to ride in a day or two.”
“All thanks to Harvey Milkham, I hear,” the inspector said. Stella’s shoulders slumped again. Her enthusiasm for her horse’s recovery was instantly replaced by her apprehension regarding the snakecatcher.
“Yes, Harvey was a godsend.”
Stella hesitated as if she was going to say more, perhaps about Harvey’s sack that she’d found? The inspector, with brows raised, waited in anticipation. Had he mentioned the incident with Tully, hoping to spur a discussion about the snakecatcher? Because he suspected Harvey in Fairbrother’s death, as Stella predicted he might? If so, the inspector was shrewder than Lyndy assumed as well.
“Right!” Inspector Brown said when Stella refrained from saying more. “I wondered, Miss Kendrick, if you’d be willing to let me ride back with you to Morrington Hall. I can telephone the station for someone to fetch me from there. That is where you’re headed, isn’t it?”
“Of course, Inspector,” Stella said, with feigned enthusiasm. “Anything to help.”
She shrugged at Lyndy, a troubled half smile on her lips, before turning toward the motorcar. He appreciated her disappointment. Their conversation about Philippa would have to wait. So why was he so relieved?
* * *
When they arrived at Morrington Hall, the family dogcart, laden with tarps, folding chairs, a large picnic basket, and several tin pails, was parked in the drive. Stella peeked inside. Stuffed into the tin pails were all sorts of odd tools: wooden picks, shovels, brushes, trowels, pencils, string, metal files, a tape measure, nails, and a frame of metal mesh. They clanked and clattered as the footman pushed in more pails. Clucking like old hens, Professor Gridley and Lord Atherly anxiously directed the footman’s progress in packing it all. Stella couldn’t help but smile.
“What’s all this, then, Papa?” Lyndy asked after Inspector Brown stepped inside to use the telephone.
“We’re off to Furzy Barrow,” Lord Atherly said excitedly. “Care to join us?”
“It would be an excellent distraction, Stella,” Lyndy was quick to say.
“I don’t think I’m up to it,” she said, casting him a meaningful look. “It’s already been an eventful morning.” Besides, they hadn’t finished their conversation. Lyndy had all but admitted she’d been right; Lady Philippa had meant something to him. She had to know the whole truth.
“Yes, we’ve only just heard.” Lord Atherly frowned. “Pity.” Then his face brightened, his somber tone gone. “But I think Lyndy’s right. It’s best to get on with things.”
Professor Gridley nodded eagerly in agreement. “Lord Atherly explained your keen interest in our work, Miss Stella,” the professor said. Dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he added, “You’ll be excited to know that His Lordship has possibly found the first evidence of Equus spelaeus in all of the British Isles.”
Stella had no idea what Equus spelaeus was but, given the contents of the dogcart, she couldn’t deny her curiosity to find out. Nor could she deny that Lord Atherly and Professor Gridley’s enthusiasm was infectious. She found the older gentlemen refreshing compared to Lady Philippa and Lady Atherly. And Lyndy was right. After all the morning’s deeply unsettling events, not just finding Lord Fairbrother, Stella definitely needed a more pleasant diversion.
Perhaps Lyndy could explain some things on the way.
“Will you be back for dinner?” Lyndy asked as she alighted from the larger family carriage. The dogcart would follow.
“I expect so,” Lord Atherly said, “but tell your mother not to wait if we’re not back by the gong.”
“You’re not coming with us?” she asked him, hurt that he’d contrived to distract her and avoid his long-overdue explanation.
Lyndy raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Me? No. I’ve seen enough barrows to last a lifetime.”
“It’s true the Forest is full of them,” Lord Atherly said, as he climbed into the carriage, “ancient, Bronze Age burial sites is what they are, but only a few have been properly excavated. One never knows what one will find.”
“Hopefully more Equus spelaeus fossils, Lord Atherly, more evidence of Equus spelaeus,” Professor Gridley said, rubbing his hands together. He sprang in beside Stella, his energy belying his age, rocking the carriage as he did.
“But, Lyndy—” Stella started to protest, her displeasure blatantly apparent. Lyndy reached up, laying his hand on her knee.
“We’ll talk when you get back. I’ll answer all your questions, tell you everything you want to know.” With his expression unreadable, Stella studied his eyes. She liked what she saw. It was enough for now. She nodded. He patted her knee before stepping back. “Enjoy yourself,” he called as the horses pulled forward and clomped down the drive.
“I’ve never been to an archaeological excavation before,” Stella admitted to the professor, feeling her excitement rise the moment the carriage turned off the lane and rumbled out into the open heath. Stella had seen stunning stereoviews of the ruins of the Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, in Colorado. But she’d never been exposed to anything so ancient as the Bronze Age.
“Don’t you worry, Miss Stella,” the paleontologist said, “once you get your hands dirty, you’ll forget all about your morning’s upsets.”
“Quite right, Professor,” Lord Atherly concurred. Stella looked over her shoulder to see the spires of Morrington Hall disappear behind the trees.
She certainly hoped so.
But when they arrived, Stella was disappointed. What had she expected? Fur
zy Barrow was nothing like the dramatic cliff dwellings of Colorado or even like the humble pioneer graveyards in Kentucky. There wasn’t a single carving or engraved stone in sight. No, their destination was a grassy mound, much like an upside-down punch bowl, almost indistinguishable from the open heathland surrounding it. Only the sunken ditch and parallel earthen bank that surrounded the barrow marked it as peculiar. Then they rounded to the other side of the site. There Stella could see where the earth had been carefully scooped away from a large section of the mound. Rectangular areas of more deeply dug earth dotted the inside. Stella rose to her feet.
Maybe this was going to be fun, after all.
Stella didn’t know who alighted from the carriage more quickly, her or the professor. Lord Atherly chuckled, pleased to have such enthusiastic company.
“Mind yourselves now,” Lord Atherly said, as he led them in. They traversed a long wooden plank, laid across the “ring ditch,” as Stella learned the sunken earth around the barrow was called, so not to trample it. But inside, animal tracks of pony, cattle, and deer crisscrossed the barrow’s earthen floor.
So much for being careful.
“What happened here?” Professor Gridley said, pointing to the tracks. “Wasn’t this site protected from being run over by animals?”
“I’m not one to speak ill of the dead,” Lord Atherly said, “but several of us petitioned the Verderers’ Court to erect a fence, on multiple occasions. Lord Fairbrother always voted against us.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Professor Gridley said, smoothing away several tracks with his boot.
“The landowner was always against it,” Lord Atherly said.
“Whose land is this?” Stella asked.
“It belongs to a fellow called Parley.”
“George Parley?” Stella said. “The man who accused Lord Fairbrother of cheating at the Cecil Pony Challenge yesterday?”
“One and the same,” Lord Atherly said.
But why would Lord Fairbrother do any favors for George Parley? From their interaction yesterday, the two men weren’t on friendly terms.
“Shall we proceed?” Lord Atherly said. Professor Gridley and Stella readily agreed. “Over here, Professor. This is where I found the Equus fossil.” Lord Atherly crouched down, studying a patch of the barrow’s earthen wall. Professor Gridley bounded to his side.
Stella, a small wooden shovel in hand, picked a spot on the other side of the barrow and started digging. The smell of the newly disturbed soil surrounded her. The hard impact of each jab of the trowel soothed her frustrations. Within minutes, she had forgotten all about Lord Fairbrother and George Parley and Lyndy and was kneeling on her skirt in the dirt, bent over what looked like the rim of an ancient clay bowl buried in the ground.
“I think I’ve found something.”
“You’re a natural, Miss Stella,” Professor Gridley said, as the two men joined her. He leaned over the place where she’d been digging. He handed her a trowel. Stella stabbed into the ground and began scooping away the dirt until she’d revealed the full depth of the bowl. With Stella on one side and the professor on the other, they slowly lifted the rough bowl out of its hole. But it wasn’t a bowl after all; it was conical and two feet deep, like a large clay flowerpot with a spotted pattern decorating the upper third.
“It’s amazing,” Stella said, studying the ancient artifact up close.
Professor Gridley laughed at Stella’s wide-eyed wonder. “Ah, who doesn’t remember their first find, eh, Lord Atherly?” Stella had only known the Earl of Atherly a couple of months but was already well acquainted with the story surrounding his first fossil find and how it propelled him toward an obsession that almost bankrupted his family. “Maybe Miss Stella will be the next Gertrude Bell or Harriet Boyd Hawes.”
Lord Atherly scoffed. “I pray not, Professor. What would Lady Atherly say?”
Lady Atherly, indeed. She already disapproved of Stella for being an American. Stella couldn’t imagine what the countess would do if Stella took up archaeology.
“But I must admit, Miss Kendrick, you’ve certainly found an impressive example of a Bronze Age cinerary urn your first time out,” Lord Atherly said. “Well done, I say.”
“What is a cinerary urn?”
“It is the vessel in which the ancient people buried the ashes of their dead.” Stella gasped and let go of her side of the urn.
“Whoa,” Professor Gridley said, the clay pot suddenly slipping from his grip. Lord Atherly lunged forward and caught the urn before it smashed to the ground.
“I’m so sorry.” Stella’s hands were shaking.
That urn had remained intact for thousands of years. The ashes inside had rested in peace for thousands of years. And she’d almost scattered it. Stella sat back on her heels and tossed the trowel into the dirt.
“Now, now. Chin up,” Lord Atherly said as he moved the urn to the other side of the barrow.
“Perhaps I’m not a natural, after all.”
Professor Gridley kindly patted her on the back. “Or maybe you’ve just had enough of dead bodies for one day.”
Self-consciously she laughed as she brushed away a tear with the back of her soiled hand. “Yes, Professor. I think that might be it.”
* * *
Brown hated this room. But not for the obvious reasons. Yes, the smell of formaldehyde was an acquired odor, the whitewashed walls and ceiling illuminated by a row of lamps hanging low and bright were stark, and the dead body on the table in the middle of it all was not the company Brown preferred to keep. And he could’ve done without stepping into a spilled puddle of carbolic; now he’d need a new pair of shoes. But no, Brown hated being in this room because a citizen under his jurisdiction, under his “so-called” protection, had met a violent, heinous end. Could he have prevented it? If it was the result of a crime, would he solve it? Would Brown bring closure to the victim’s loved ones? Or would this be the case that made him want to walk away from it all? Brown shivered. He should’ve brought his overcoat. He’d forgotten how cold this room was.
“Ready?” the medical examiner asked.
Dr. Lipscombe stood opposite Brown as they conferred over Lord Fairbrother’s prone body on the examination table. Brown nodded. He’d worked with Dr. Lipscombe since the good doctor arrived in Lyndhurst eight years ago. And from his conciliatory tone, Brown knew he was about to convey bad news. With white hair and mustache and wearing a white coat, the doctor hovered over the body like a ghost.
“I have done a thorough external examination and have aspirated water from the victim’s stomach and lungs.”
“I was wrong, then? He drowned?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, he was dead before he went into the water?”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
Brown was right; it was troubling news. “Then what are you saying, Doctor?”
In response, Dr. Lipscombe gently lifted the white sheet that covered Fairbrother’s head and pulled it just below the lord’s ribs. A slit-like wound, to the right of his sternum, stood out against his otherwise unblemished chest.
“I’m saying, Inspector, that our victim was stabbed, and was quite possibly unconscious before he went into the water. Hence the presence of some fluid in his lungs and stomach.”
“But the cause of death wasn’t drowning?”
“No. There wasn’t enough fluid in the victim’s lungs to have killed him.”
“Then he died of a stab wound?”
Dr. Lipscombe peered up at Brown, silently weighing his answer, before returning his focus to the body on the table. Brown wanted to thump the bald spot on the back of the doctor’s head. Typically, Dr. Lipscombe was a congenial man. Why wouldn’t he tell Brown what he needed to know so he could get out of this blasted room?
“In the absence of any evidence of antemortem injury or trauma, I should say so, yes.”
“So, he could’ve been stabbed by a branch or a sharp stone while in the river?�
�� Even as he asked, Brown knew the answer. But he had to be sure.
“No, absolutely not.”
“Could he have otherwise survived the wound?”
Dr. Lipscombe shook his head. “No. The weapon penetrated his lung and nicked the hepatic vein.”
Brown closed his eyes to the white all around him—his eyes were starting to sting—and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why couldn’t the doctor have told him this from the start?
“But, Dr. Lipscombe, we examined the riverbanks. We found cigarette butts but no sign of blood.”
“We may find evidence of blood when I analyze the victim’s clothes, despite their being submerged for hours. But I suspect most of it washed away when the victim fell or was pushed into the river.”
It made sense. Hide the blood and the body in one swift push. It might even look like an accident, to the amateur eye, when or if the body resurfaced downstream. But luckily, Brown was no amateur. Just in case, he would go back to the river and look for traces of blood.
“And the suspected weapon?”
“I believe the wound was caused by a smooth, thin, double-sided blade such as a dagger or small, narrow sword.”
Brown opened his eyes. The glaring starkness of the room made him regret it. “Is it your opinion, as the medical examiner, that the victim was stabbed deliberately?”
Dr. Lipscombe slowly pulled the sheet back over the dead lord’s head. Brown’s throat burned as he tried to swallow.
“That is what I’ll be reporting to the coroner, yes.”
“Right!” It was time to get out of this bloody room and catch himself a killer.
CHAPTER 11
A strong cup of coffee and something to eat.
That’s what Professor Gridley recommended Stella retrieve from the picnic basket in the dogcart. Whether it was his concern for her welfare or for that of the barrow’s ancient treasures, Stella didn’t care. She was grateful for the suggestion; she needed a break.
Murder at Blackwater Bend Page 9
