Murder at Blackwater Bend

by Clara McKenna

  “Thank you, Professor.” Before she’d walked ten yards, the two men had returned to the barrow, their heads bent together in discussion.

  Stella laughed. What a contrast between these two men and Daddy. In fact, most of the Englishmen Stella had met since arriving had been kinder to her, more respectful of her than her father. Even Lord Fairbrother had sought her opinion on his pony’s chances of winning the Cecil Challenge Cup. This morning, Daddy hadn’t asked how she was, where she was going, or why she was missing breakfast. All he wanted to know, as she left to go fishing, was whether she had something Miss Cosslett could wear to the engagement party.

  She lifted the walking stick in her hand to study swirls in the wood, a knothole perhaps. Professor Gridley was kind to lend it to her. Why couldn’t her father be more like that? An errant thought popped into her mind.

  Please don’t let Lyndy betray me as Daddy did.

  Stella brushed away the terrible notion and struck out across the heath toward Pilley Manor. Within minutes, she was relishing the trek and her freedom. No Aunt Rachel, no Daddy, no Lady Atherly, no Lady Philippa, not even Lyndy was there to tell her what to do or where to go. She walked where her feet took her, the walking stick coming in handy for the unexpected dips and bogs in the terrain. She stopped when she wanted, to sample the sweet fragrance wafting up from the purple flowering heather or to admire the sudden appearance of a brightly colored green woodpecker. Only the absence of Tully threatened to dampen her spirits. As always, she’d rather be riding her horse.

  In Tully’s stead, Stella had the New Forest ponies to enjoy. Along her hike, Stella frequently came upon the free-ranging animals. When she did, she approached them only close enough to see if and how their tails had been cut. Tail markings, Stella had learned, were distinctive for each of the four corners of the Forest. Most of the ponies Stella encountered hadn’t traveled far from home, but once she’d happened upon a mare and her foal that belonged to a commoner from far up north. She marveled at how the commoners could let their precious ponies graze as they may, in hopes they could find them again.

  Standing alone on the vast heath, with billowy white clouds floating across the blue sky above, and strands of loose hairs tickling her face in the breeze, Stella felt like a New Forest pony. She relished the feeling.

  Spying a donkey Lady Alice had named Headley, Stella walked toward it until she caught the scent of smoke. Leaving the animal to graze in peace, she scuttled between clusters of gorse, careful to avoid snagging her skirt on the prickly spines, over a ridge thick with feathery green ferns, and through a line of trees, their leaves singed black. She stepped into a spongy moss-covered clearing beside a heaping mound of white ash and charred pieces of roughly hewn clapboards. All that was left of Harvey Milkham’s home.

  “Oh, Harvey,” she said, spying metal bed springs that stuck up through the ash. After kicking away a pile of the partially burned pieces of wood with her boot, Stella knelt to retrieve a tin cup hiding beneath the ruins. It was covered in soot.

  “Lassie?”

  Stella, having thought she was alone, dropped the cup and jumped to her feet. “Who’s there?”

  Harvey’s head poked out from behind an ancient oak, wide enough to hide him from passersby.

  “What are you doing, Harvey?” Stella asked, wiping the soot from her hands on her skirt. “Why are you hiding?” Had he already heard about Lady Philippa’s accusations against him? Stella pictured the sack she’d found. Did he have reason to hide?

  “Are you alone, lass?” Stella nodded that she was, and Harvey slipped from behind the tree and approached what was once his home. His eyes were bloodshot, and he reeked of sweat and bourbon. Her father’s Kentucky bourbon. “I’m sorry you have to see us like this.”

  “I’m sorry about your home, Harvey.”

  “’Tisn’t so much the hut. Me, I can build another. It’s the loss of me rights, lass. Now, I’ve no rights to graze me old horse, to dig up peat for the winter, to collect wood from the Forest. That’s what bothers me so. Now, I’ll be having to grovel before that Lord Fairbrother every time to do a thing. Worse, he’ll have someone else on this land before I can petition to build again.”

  “Harvey, haven’t you heard?” Stella couldn’t believe he didn’t know.

  “Heard what, lass?”

  “Lord Fairbrother is dead.”

  The old snakecatcher squinted at her, the bushy hair on his eyebrows almost touching. “Say again?”

  “He was found in the River Blackwater.” Stella hesitated to say more, to acknowledge her part in the discovery. “At Blackwater Bend.”

  “Drowned?”

  “The police don’t think so. . . .” Again, she hesitated. How did she tell him that the police suspected murder and Lady Philippa thought Harvey did it?

  “Then, how?”

  “Harvey, I don’t know how to say this. You’ve been so good to Tully and me, but . . .” But better it came from her than from anyone else. “But Lady Philippa thinks you killed him. She’s told the police.”

  “Us?” Harvey staggered a little as he pointed his finger to his chest. “Kill that snake in the grass? Never.”

  “But you threatened him, Harvey. In front of lots of people. If the police determine Lord Fairbrother’s death was murder, as they suspect, they’re going to think you had something to do with it.”

  “Let them think what they want.”

  “But you were there, weren’t you? I found one of your burlap sacks nearby. But don’t worry, I hid it before anyone else saw it.”

  His eyes wide, Harvey pushed his hat up from his forehead and right off the back of his head. It fell to the ground. His hair, where his hat had been, lay matted against his scalp.

  “You don’t think . . . ?”

  “No, I know you wouldn’t flick off a spider crawling across your dinner plate, but Lady Philippa . . . You should go talk to the police.”

  “And tell them what? That I left me bag behind because the trout weren’t biting?” He bent to snatch up his hat but after three failed attempts to grab it, dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

  “Is that what you were doing there, fishing for your dinner?”

  “As I do every night.”

  “Did you see Lord Fairbrother? Did you see anyone else near the river last night?”

  “The verderer sometimes, aye. But not last night.” Maybe Lord Fairbrother was already dead. Or maybe Harvey left before Lord Fairbrother got there. Stella bent down, retrieved Harvey’s hat, and handed it to him. It still smelled of wood smoke. “Nor anyone else.”

  “Have you been back there this morning?”

  Harvey shook his head, lifting a small metal flask from his jacket pocket. “Had this for me dinner instead, and me breakfast.” It broke her heart. If only she’d brought some of the picnic leftovers along. Harvey needed something that would stick to his ribs.

  “You need to go to the police,” Stella repeated. “Before they come looking for you.”

  “Let them look,” he said, plopping his hat back on. What did that mean?

  Stella looked down at the burnt remains of his hut. “Where are you living now? Do you need someplace to stay?”

  “Don’t you be worrying about us. I found me a grand place to kip.” He chuckled as if he’d told himself a joke. Before Stella could press him, he added, “How’s that handsome mare of yours?”

  “Tully is almost fully recovered, thanks to you.”

  “Then why are you out here on foot?”

  “I was helping Lord Atherly and Professor Gridley excavate one of the barrows. It was so interesting, Harvey. Have you ever been?”

  “Oh, aye. Even dug up me own urn once.” Of course he had. He was a life-long resident of the New Forest, and his snake catching took him to every nook and cranny of it. “And now the vessel and its contents are the same,” he said sadly, swaying unsteadily, staring into the remains of his home. “And Lord Atherly made you walk, from where?”

&nbs
p; “Furzy Barrow.” Stella turned and pointed back the way she’d come, appreciating the distance she’d traveled. “And you know me, Harvey. Lord Atherly didn’t make me do anything. I wanted to walk. I thought it might clear my head after . . .”

  Stella turned back to face Harvey again. But in the few moments her back was to him, the old man, drunk as he was, without a word of good-bye, had quietly snuck away.

  CHAPTER 13

  “And what time was this?”

  Constable Waterman wobbled at the makeshift desk, an old, musty chopping block hauled in from the woodshed, as he sat across from the butler at Outwick House. Brown shifted his feet again as he leaned against the wall.

  The dark, stifling cupboard, which was the only way to describe the tiny room off the boiler room, had been set aside for Brown’s use during the investigation into Lord Fairbrother’s murder. It had room enough for the chopping block and two small, rickety, wooden ladderback chairs, also hauled in from goodness knows where, and that was all. At least if he ever felt claustrophobic, it would take but three steps and Brown would be in the corridor. And it was as quiet as a tomb.

  “That would be at ten o’clock,” Hodgson said, sitting ramrod straight, as if he’d shoved the back of the chair inside his waistcoat.

  Butlers were interchangeable to Brown: all full of self-importance and righteousness, all determined to protect the image of the house and the family that lived therein. In Brown’s experience, as keepers of their institutional secrets, butlers weren’t much help in uncovering the truth. “Lord Fairbrother always took his nightly constitutional at ten o’clock.”

  “And who would know of this routine?” Constable Waterman said.

  Hodgson thought a moment. “Anyone in the house. Anyone who knew Lord Fairbrother more than just in passing. Perhaps the farmers along the routes His Lordship favored?”

  “And what routes did His Lordship favor?”

  “That I wouldn’t know,” Hodgson said.

  “I see. Did Lady Philippa ever accompany him on these walks?”

  “No one accompanied him.” Hodgson pinched his lips as if daring them to make him say anything else. Was he trying to protect Lady Philippa or telling the truth? Brown couldn’t tell.

  “Where was Lady Philippa last night?”

  “Her Ladyship dined here, with Lord Fairbrother and Mr. Barlow, and then retired to her room.”

  “And she stayed in her room?”

  “I couldn’t say, Constable,” Hodgson said, the very idea of questioning Lady Philippa evident in his tone. “But I can tell you she gave strict instructions not to be disturbed until breakfast.”

  That wasn’t the same as staying in her room, was it? Quite the opposite. Brown had hoped to tick Lady Philippa off his suspect’s list. But now?

  “She was quite devastated to learn of Lord Fairbrother’s absence when her maid brought up her breakfast tray,” the butler added.

  Devastated? By a mere absence at breakfast? Irritated or concerned, perhaps, but devastated? Brown thought it unlikely. These “betters” of his were never devastated by anything short of a scandal. But then again, who could tell with this widow.

  Brown had gone straight from Dr. Lipscombe’s surgery to Outwick House. He’d found Lady Philippa draped in black, yes, but sipping tea and eating slices of sponge cake with Cecil Barlow, Lady Atherly, and the countess’s daughter, Lady Alice. Hardly the devastated widow. Before Brown had a chance to tell her his news, that someone had stabbed her husband, she demanded the arrest of Harvey Milkham. Brown assured her, and the others who were keen to add their voices to that of the widow, that he would investigate all possible lines of inquiry, that he would find her husband’s killer. But she was determined to throw the blame on the snakecatcher and would hear nothing of other possibilities.

  Brown should’ve known better, to be asking Her Ladyship questions with her posh friends about. After seventeen years in the Hampshire Constabulary, he knew he was lucky to be in her drawing room at all. Still, he’d been taken aback, when, after he’d asked Lady Philippa for an account of her whereabouts last night, she’d snatched the thing closest to her, a crystal vase full of gardenias, and had thrown it at him.

  Hence the dismal accommodations to conduct his interviews. But he wasn’t to be deterred, not by a cramped cupboard, not by a petulant widow, not by a tight-lipped butler. Brown had a killer to catch.

  “His Lordship had never before been absent in the morning?” Brown asked, loosening his collar a bit. God, it was hot in here.

  “Never,” Hodgson declared.

  Then why hadn’t Lady Philippa mentioned she knew her husband hadn’t returned this morning? Another question to pose to the grieving widow. When she’d calmed down, of course.

  “You mentioned Mr. Barlow. Where was he after dinner?” Constable Waterman asked.

  “I saw Mr. Barlow in the smoking room. He’d rung and requested a glass of port before retiring himself.”

  “Does the name Harvey Milkham mean anything to you?” Brown asked.

  “Of course. Mr. Milkham is the local snakecatcher.” Brown studied Hodgson as he answered. The butler showed no sign of dissembling, no indication that he suspected why they’d mentioned Milkham’s name. “The gardeners have hired him on numerous occasions when they found snakes on the estate.”

  “Has Harvey Milkham ever come into the house?” Constable Waterman asked.

  “Why would he do that?”

  Good question.

  “Would he know of Lord Fairbrother’s nightly walking ritual?” Brown asked.

  “I don’t see how he would,” Hodgson answered slowly, wrinkling his brows together. The butler’s suspicions were rising, but Brown had learned enough.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hodgson. May we speak to the housekeeper, um . . .” Constable Waterman consulted the list Hodgson had provided of all the servants. It was considerably longer than what they’d encountered at Morrington Hall. Perhaps the rumors of the earl’s financial troubles were true. “Mrs. White.”

  “Of course.”

  Hour after hour, Brown and Waterman, squeezed into that suffocating room, asked the same questions of servant after servant. With only slight deviations, all accounts pointed to the same as the one the butler told: Lord Fairbrother left the house for his nightly constitutional at ten o’clock, Lady Philippa retired directly after dinner, and Mr. Barlow enjoyed some solitude in the library until he too retired to bed. It all seemed straightforward. And it was getting them nowhere.

  * * *

  Mary, the scullery maid, flopped down on the chair across from Constable Waterman. Frizzy wisps of her curly brown hair stuck out from around her cap like a thin mane about her face. She rubbed her bulbous nose with her sleeve, leaving behind a smudge of ash on the tip. She’d begun talking the moment she’d stepped into the room. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old.

  “I know I’m not supposed to speak ill of me betters, let alone thems that is dead, but I dinna like milord, and I thinks you need to know about it.”

  Constable Waterman looked down at his notes, his face twitching as he struggled to stifle a laugh. Brown found nothing humorous in this pathetic creature. He’d wager, if he were a betting man, she was the first honest person to sit in that chair all day.

  “And why didn’t you like Lord Fairbrother, Mary?” Brown asked.

  “One”—she held up a finger, wrinkled and red-raw—“he was cruel to milady.” Waterman’s head shot up as both policemen took note. This was the first Brown had heard of any such behavior. “And two—”

  “How was he cruel to your mistress?” Brown asked before the maid could continue.

  “Well, I’m not supposed to see or hear anything, am I? But I’ve got two working ears and eyes, don’t I?”

  “And those decent, hardworking eyes and ears saw and heard what?” Brown asked.

  “My ears work harder than me eyes, seeing as I’m almost always bent over the fire grates, aren’t I?”


  “And those ears heard?” Brown knew when patience was the order of the day. He was instantly rewarded.

  “They heard arguments, didn’t they? And shouting and crying. Always me mistress crying. One time something smashed against the wall. When I came to clean it up, broken glass was everywhere.” Brown could believe it. But who had done the throwing, he couldn’t say. “I cut me finger, something awful. Got blood on me apron. Mrs. White took the cost of a new one out of me wages.”

  “What would they argue about?” Brown asked, steering the conversation back.

  Mary shrugged, wiping her nose on her sleeve again. “What do I know of such things? I’m a good girl.” What did she mean by that? Brown waited, but she seemed satisfied with her answer and said nothing more.

  “You’ll have to give us more than that, Mary,” Constable Waterman said.

  For the first time, the maid hesitated. “I’ve heard other names mentioned, but it’s mostly Cecil they argue about.”

  “Cecil Barlow?” Brown demanded. He could imagine the presence of the charismatic plant hunter could strain any marriage.

  “And something about being first,” Mary added, ignoring Brown’s question. “And milord mentioned his fancy pony, a lot.”

  Brown sighed. The maid overheard them quarreling about the Cecil Pony Challenge, not Cecil Barlow, then. But why would they be arguing about the pony breed competition? Brown wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He’d have to get out of this room soon, or he’d melt.

  “And they did this with you in the room?” Constable Waterman asked, incredulous.

  To his credit, Brown’s constable was an honest, fair-minded lad. He couldn’t imagine how some of his betters treated the lowest in their households. Unfortunately, Brown knew all too well.

  “I’m not really there, though, am I? Not to them. Most times, I’m in the next room or the hall. But I still can hear them, all right.”

  “I find it hard to believe you were the only witness to this, Mary,” the constable said.

  “Me, the only . . . Ha! No, if I knows about it, everyone knows about it.” Her logic made sense, but not a single other servant had mentioned it. Why? Most likely, Mary was the only one brave enough, or more likely foolish enough, to reveal the family’s secrets to the police. Brown vowed to protect the maid from retribution if possible.