The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross

by Lisa Tuttle

  I was startled, wondering why, when we had been in such haste to get here, we should turn away at the gate, but of course I said nothing. Miss Goodall gave a shrug and a sniff as she replied, “I have no wish to stay where Mr. Ott has been turned out! You may drive me home—” Then she recollected our situation, and quickly added, “Or, at least, as far as you wish to go. I regret I am unable to offer you rooms in my own house, but I live quite alone, in an old farmhouse quite some distance from the town, and it would not be suitable. There are some very nice hotels in Cromer…”

  Mr. Jesperson cut her off before she could go on to describe the possibilities, opening the carriage door and gesturing impatiently. We had scarcely a chance to get settled in our seats before he was back in the driver’s seat and snapping the reins.

  “What an impatient young man,” Miss Goodall murmured disapprovingly. “There was no need to hurry us so. It makes no matter when we get back.”

  Having been foiled of her desired visit with Mr. Ott, her displeasure spread itself everywhere. But I found it more restful being snubbed by her than to be forced to listen to her self-absorbed chatter. While she sat glaring out the window, I let my mind leap ahead to the hotels of Cromer, and especially the prospect of a hot meal in one of the warm and pleasant public dining rooms.

  Our return to Cromer was nothing like as swift as the journey out. Instead of attempting to overtake Mr. Ott’s sedately moving carriage, Mr. Jesperson matched his pace, keeping close behind. I felt certain that despite Mr. Ott’s dismissal, he meant to speak with him tonight, rather than wait until the morning.

  We had just reached the outskirts of Cromer, the lights and buildings ahead offering an enticing, welcome prospect after the journey over heath and through forest, when, quite unexpectedly, Mr. Jesperson pulled up the horse. The carriage stopped, and rocked slightly as he leapt down.

  “What is the matter?” demanded Miss Goodall, peering out her window. “Whatever is wrong with that man?”

  I looked out my side and saw that Mr. Jesperson was running after Mr. Ott’s carriage, which was moving slowly and erratically onto the grassy road-verge.

  I opened my own door and scrambled out, not bothering to make any reply.

  Mr. Jesperson caught up with Mr. Ott’s carriage and sprang up beside the driver, taking control. The carriage halted, and I ran up to find Mr. Ott slumped down in his seat, and Mr. Jesperson bending over him. In that instant, I knew Felix Ott was dead.

  Chapter 24

  Murderous Misses

  The dead man’s eyes were closed and his face in the moonlight was that of a peaceful dreamer, relaxed and without care. There could hardly have been a greater contrast with the dead visage of Charles Manning that had initiated our Norfolk adventure, and yet I had no doubt the two deaths were intimately connected.

  Mr. Jesperson straightened up from his investigation and looked at me. His entire aspect was drooping and melancholy. “This is what I hoped to prevent. But we were too late, after all.”

  “Have you any idea what—”

  “This.” He held out his hand to me, palm cupped upward. “This is what killed him.”

  I stared at two small brown specks on his palm. “That? What is it?”

  “Crumbs caught in his mustache. No doubt there will be more in his pocket handkerchief, and even more in his stomach.”

  I leaned closer, as he clearly wished me to do, and took a cautious sniff. “Ginger cake?”

  “Indeed. He must have consumed it at Wayside Cross. You remember, of course, that ginger cake was among the contents of Manning’s stomach.”

  My own empty stomach growled. At that moment, the sound of a carriage door, and then Miss Goodall’s waspish voice carried to us on the still night air: “Is it a private party, or may anyone join? What are you about?”

  “Go,” said Mr. Jesperson, his voice low and urgent. “Keep her away. Delay her for an hour if you can, then bring her along to the police station. If she will not, then come yourself.”

  I wasted no time asking questions, but scrambled down at once. As soon as my feet were on the ground, Jesperson clucked to the horse and slapped her neck with the reins, and they rattled off.

  A loud squealing sound made me wince. Miss Goodall came pelting along the road, seized me by the arm, digging her fingernails in painfully hard, and gave me a petulant shake as she demanded, “Why? Why’d you let them go without us? What is going on?”

  “We are to meet them, never fear.”

  “What…When? Where? Why?”

  I clucked my tongue and gave her a reproving frown. “Must Mr. Ott explain his every plan to you in advance?”

  “His plan? Oh! Where are we to meet, and when?” The annoyance was entirely gone from her expression, and she stopped squeezing my arm; now she looked like a child who has been promised a treat.

  My stomach growled again. I hesitated, and then, reflecting that there would be nothing to eat at the police station, made a decision. “We’re to go to the Hotel de Paris,” I said. “The restaurant there is open to non-residents, and it is supposed to be very good. Do you know it?”

  “Why, of course!”

  I marched her back to her carriage. “You drive; I shall sit inside.” I did not wish to parry any more questions from her about Mr. Ott’s imaginary plan. I could use the rest from her company while thinking about the meaning of this latest death.

  —

  The restaurant at the Hotel de Paris was as good—and as expensive—as the guidebooks suggested. Still uncertain how long I could, or should, delay revealing the true state of affairs to Miss Goodall, I decided that a bowl of soup followed by an omelet would be enough of a meal for me. She, very much puzzled by my insistence that we would dine before the gentlemen arrived, objected also on the grounds that she rarely ate anything so late. Just to keep me company, she agreed to a bowl of soup, and when I’d finished my omelet (aux fines herbes—perfectly light and delicious) she ventured to suggest that something sweet would not go amiss, so we both had the tarte Tatin with heavy cream.

  “Where are our friends?” she asked, surreptitiously licking the tines of her fork. “It is not very gentlemanly to keep ladies waiting so long.”

  Something like stage fright clutched at my stomach and dried my mouth. “Oh, dear. I am afraid…”

  She dropped her fork. “What?”

  I took a deep breath. “Mr. Jesperson told me that…there was a possibility…and if they had not turned up by the time we finished our meal, we weren’t to wait any longer, but to go directly to the police station.”

  Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth—for a moment, I thought she would scream, but social graces intervened. Her eyes darting about the room in search of spies or villains, she whispered across the table, “Police! Why, what has happened—what did he think might happen?”

  “Do you know where the police station is?”

  “Certainly.” She scorched me with her look. “I had to go there when my father died.”

  “I am sorry to stir up unhappy memories. If you do not wish to come with me—”

  She nearly overturned the chair in her eagerness. “He asked for me—of course I must go.”

  —

  The old man on the desk made haste to show us through to Sergeant Canright’s office, where we were expected. As he opened the door to the inner office, I heard a man’s deep voice say, “Predicting what he ate is no evidence he was poisoned.”

  “Excuse me, sir, sirs,” said the old man. “The ladies are here.”

  Miss Goodall’s eager, hopeful expression faded as quickly as her eyes went from the tall, slender form of Mr. Jesperson to the stockier figure of the police officer and found no one else in the room.

  “Where is he? Where is Mr. Ott?”

  “Please sit down, Miss Goodall. And Miss Lane.”

  “Why are we here? What has happened to Mr. Ott—you drove his carriage,” she said, turning her accusing gaze upon Mr. Jesperson. “I saw you take the rei
ns and drive away with him.”

  “Miss Goodall.” The policeman had the voice and delivery used to commanding obedience. “Please sit down, and I will explain.” This time, she did as he asked.

  “You were well acquainted with Mr. Ott, I believe—a member of his School?”

  She lifted her head. “I am. Why do you say it like that?”

  He grimaced. “It is never easy. I have sad news, I fear—”

  She held up her hands in horror. “No!”

  “Felix Ott expired suddenly, earlier this evening.”

  “Who did it? Who killed him?”

  Frowning, the policeman glanced at Jesperson, who raised his eyebrows. Sergeant Canright sighed and replied to Miss Goodall: “Why should you imagine him killed when I tell you he died?”

  “I heard you mention poison as we came in.”

  “Ah!” He wagged a finger at her, half smiling. “The dangers of hearing a word out of context. You heard me tell Mr. Jesperson that there was no evidence of poison. All the signs point to death by natural causes—a sudden, overwhelming heart attack. They happen more frequently to older men, but sometimes they strike someone in the prime of life, like Mr. Ott.” He shook his head. “Just one of Mother Nature’s nasty little tricks.”

  Miss Goodall bit her lip. “Do you mean to arrest Mother Nature?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She glared at him furiously and snapped, “Why are we in a police station? If my…If dear Mr. Ott died of natural causes, what have the police to do with it?”

  He grunted. “Nothing, so far as I am concerned. If you must have someone to blame, do not look at me. Jesperson and his partner came to Norfolk to investigate the death of Charles Manning. As you probably know, he was one of Mr. Ott’s closest associates, and he died of a sudden heart attack. Jesperson considers it highly suspicious that Ott should go the same way—but the two deaths are not so similar after all.

  “Manning died because he took too much quack medicine. It got his heart to racing, it made him crazed, he was seeing demons and witches all around, and it was too much for his heart. Our surgeon didn’t find anything like that in poor Mr. Ott’s belly—and our doctor here is as good as any in London; he knows the workings of various poisons on the body, and would not have failed to spot anything in the system that could have stopped his heart. Also unlike Manning, who dined and drank heartily in the hours before his death, Mr. Ott was quite abstemious. He had eaten nothing at all in the last six hours or more except a piece of ginger cake.”

  “You say he was not killed by poison,” said she. Her eyes glittered, but I thought the tears she held back were of anger rather than sorrow. “But that was no natural death, nor a coincidence. I say he was killed by a spell, and I know who cast it—a witch! It was that evil Miss Bulstrode—he knew she was a witch, and that was why she killed him.”

  “You have good reason to know about the casting of spells, do you not?”

  I was surprised to see Mr. Jesperson move around the policeman’s desk to confront Miss Goodall with this unexpected question.

  She blinked at him. “How do you mean?”

  “I mean that you tried to hire Miss Bulstrode to cast a deathly spell. She refused. Although she agreed that such spells could be cast—as you knew from your own studies—she was not an assassin for hire.”

  As he spoke, I remembered the story Miss Goodall had told me, about the spell Miss Bulstrode had refused to cast.

  “She may also have told you—or perhaps it was Mr. Ott? I know you had several intense discussions with him on the subject—that if any witch did cast such a spell, it would work if the victim deserved to die. If he did not, the spell would rebound on the ill-wisher—not the witch herself, as she would have many potent guards in place, but on the one who had commissioned the spell.”

  He cocked his head thoughtfully. “A pretty idea, but it hardly accords with the world we live in. We want to believe in natural justice and just deserts, but all around us we see the evil profiting by their actions, and bad things happening to good people. But it was a notion Mr. Ott was keen to promote, to give his School the gloss of morality, and to counteract the old slander equating witchcraft with devil-worship.

  “However, it hardly matters if it was true; it worried you enough to cause you to abandon the idea of causing your parents to die by magical means. You used poison instead.”

  Sergeant Canright breathed an oath.

  Miss Goodall, who had been attending to Mr. Jesperson’s lecture with something of the hypnotic fascination of a snake to a snake charmer, abruptly crumpled. Burying her face in her hands, she shook and sobbed.

  “See here, Jesperson,” Canright exclaimed. “That’s an awfully serious charge.”

  Mr. Jesperson kept his attention focused on the weeping woman. “It is true, is it not, Miss Goodall? You hated and feared your father, a rough and often violent fellow who was a handy man with the stick. He used to beat your mother—and you, too—on the slightest excuse. I do not think anyone who knew him was terribly surprised when he turned up dead by poisoning—you told me so yourself, Canright. You said the local gossips surmised that his wife had finally had enough, and gave him a fatal dose in his tea. But you had no evidence, and she seemed genuinely distraught over his death: He was a brute, but she loved him.

  “Then, when Mrs. G was found dead, killed by the same batch of poison, you probably felt natural justice had been served. The murderess could not live with her husband, but neither could she go on living without him, so she killed herself. This was the general presumption, but it was wrong.” He leaned in closer to Miss Goodall, and now his voice changed, becoming gentle and concerned: “Why did you do it, Miss Goodall? Why did you kill that good soul who never did you any harm?”

  She raised her head and looked at him from red and swollen eyes. Her face was streaked with tears, but there was no remorse in her look or her tone as she answered, only a selfish indignation. “She would not give me my inheritance. She refused to give me anything; she would not even agree to sell off the smallest bit of land, not even a few acres for the School.”

  “I see. You did it for him—for Mr. Ott’s School of British Wisdom. You wanted nothing for yourself, but only to help the man you loved?”

  “Yes. It’s true. All I ever wanted was to help him.” A sob welled up in her throat, and she almost wailed the next words. “And it was all for nothing! Oh, Felix—I did everything for you—and for what? Now you are gone, nothing matters.” She collapsed again into hopeless tears.

  Jesperson turned away from her. “I leave her to you, Canright. I think we may borrow Ott’s carriage, since we’re about his business.” He took his coat from the stand by the door.

  “Where are you going?” Canright asked.

  “Wayside Cross.”

  The policeman snorted. “You think he died by witchcraft?”

  “Not at all. As I told you before, Ott was poisoned. It happened in that house. The poison is one hardly known in this country, so there is no shame to your surgeon that he did not find it. But I will prove it—make sure he keeps the contents of the stomach. If we can find the rest of the ginger cake, he can test its toxicity, and we’ll have our proof. Oh, and you may wish to come along to Wayside Cross yourself in…shall we say, an hour? Yes, that should give us enough time to find out the villain, so you can make the arrest.”

  Grinning, Canright shook his head. “You are a regular card, Jesperson. You expect me to believe—”

  “Believe it or not, as you please—just come. We shall have something for you by then.”

  “And if you do not?”

  “Then I shall treat you to a meal. Is that good enough?”

  “Make it a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Done. Come along, Miss Lane, the clock is ticking.”

  Despite the cold, I chose to sit beside Mr. Jesperson as he drove, for I felt he still had a great deal of explaining to do.

  “When we left Norfolk last week, you wer
e certain that Mr. Manning had killed himself by an accidental overdose,” I said as we started off. “But now you seem to say that he was murdered, and that whoever killed him went on to kill Mr. Ott.”

  “No.”

  I stared at him. “Where am I wrong?”

  “I never believed the cunning man’s mixture was the cause of Manning’s death,” he replied. “It was a possibility, however, and once I had learned the extent of Manning’s viciousness—how he had meant to treat Miss Ann—I thought it better that his death be considered self-administered than that either or both of the young ladies he tried to wrong should be dragged into the mire of a murder case. I thought that what she had done was justified as self-defense; he had brought it upon himself, and got his just deserts, and she…” He groaned, and slapped the reins against the horse’s neck, urging it to go faster.

  “But I was wrong! I should never have set myself up as judge and jury! I am a detective. My job is to find out the facts and put them together until they make a true picture—and let others be the judge of what to do about that picture. I should never have kept it all to myself.”

  I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “You might have told me, at least.”

  “Certainly I should have. Can you forgive me?”

  “You are forgiven,” I said, a trifle uncomfortably. “Anyway, I blame myself for not questioning you more closely—for simply accepting—”

  “Yes, I thought you would be more suspicious, considering that it was you who discovered the murder weapon—the fruit of the suicide tree—the Cerbera odollam,” he said more cheerfully.

  “So Alys is the killer. She is the one who made the cake.”

  “But she said she made it for Ann,” he reminded me.

  “Oh, Ann.” I dismissed the idea of that timid, weeping girl having the nerve to kill anyone. “That baby.”

  “Is she a baby who has not yet learned morality? If babies had enough strength, their passions would be deadly,” he said.

  “But why should Ann want to kill the man she was looking forward to marrying? I admit, once she knew what he meant to do to her, she might have been inspired to strike back—but the cake had already been baked and brought to London. Such premeditation does not sit with the idea of self-defense.”