The Ghosts of Greenwood

by Maggie MacKeever

  Due to the after-effects of such prolonged merry-making, Dulcie might have been expected to spend a large portion of the next morning tucked up in her bed, as did the majority of her houseguests. Instead, she had Culpepper dress her in an ecru gown, a pelisse of emerald velvet and a bonnet in the highest kick of fashion, and sallied forth to Halliday Hall.

  As Crump had foreseen, she was not denied entry. As Crump might also have anticipated, Dulcie did not display any appreciable interest in furthering the progress of Bow Street.

  She entered the drawing room, paused to study the wind chart. Ventured the elderly butler, who was hovering at her elbow, “Miss Fellowes is in her room. Shall I ascertain whether she is receiving calls, Lady Bligh?”

  “I think not.” The Baroness warmed her hands at the fireplace. “What do you think about Sir Wesley’s will?”

  “It is hardly my place—”

  “After all your years of service, you are entitled to an opinion, Jenks. You will remember Janthina.”

  “Yes, my lady. That is—”

  “Never fear,” Lady Bligh said gently. “I shall be admirably discreet.”

  “I don’t doubt it, my lady.” The butler’s spine grew marginally less stiff. “I was fond of Miss Janthina. Wild to a fault she was, but a good girl for all that. And as for what’s being said about Master Cade—”

  Dulcie cut him off. “Thank you, Jenks. You may inform Mrs. Halliday that I wish to speak with her.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The butler withdrew.

  Within moments, voices sounded in the corridor. Amanda hurried into the drawing-room, followed by a second woman, who was not among those fortunate females who look attractive in dull black. “Jenks said you wished to speak with Barbary, but I was sure you must have meant me! In case I am mistaken, I have brought her along. Do be seated, Lady Bligh. May I offer you some tea?”

  “Not at all and yes you may.” Dulcie settled in a wicker chair. “You may also introduce me to your companion. I am anxious to learn more about Cade.”

  Amanda performed a pretty introduction. Barbary Halliday acknowledged it with a slight inclination of her head. Lady Bligh elevated her eyebrows. Hastily, Amanda dispatched the butler in search of refreshment.

  “Now we may speak frankly,” said Dulcie, after Jenks had again taken his noiseless leave.

  Mrs. Halliday seated herself, but remained silent. “Young people nowadays have no grasp of the art of conversation,” observed the Baroness, who did not subscribe to the theory that widows should be handled tenderly. “Cade is dead, I gather. How?”

  Barbary did speak, then, tersely. “A boating accident. Near Brighton. He and his companions went out in inclement weather. My husband’s body was never found.”

  “A sad affair.” Dulcie pulled off her gloves. “Had the boat been tampered with?”

  Amanda was startled into interrupting her elders — and her newfound daughter-in-law was her elder, by a good ten years. “Mercy! You don’t think that Connor—”

  “There were no inquiries,” Barbary said repressively. “It was agreed to be an accident.”

  “As I recall, Cade was an exceptionally strong swimmer,” the Baroness remarked.

  “Even the strongest swimmer may flounder,” retorted Barbary, “when befuddled with drink. Cade was generally befuddled with drink.”

  “Oh!” Amanda gasped.

  “Ah,” said Dulcie. “Such are the perils of over-indulging a child. As well as a husband, perhaps.”

  For the first time, Mrs. Halliday looked closely at the Baroness. She blinked. Lady Bligh had chosen to celebrate the season in her own inimitable fashion. Peering out from beneath her elegant bonnet was green hair.

  “I don’t understand,” Amanda protested. “I was told that everyone liked Cade.”

  Dulcie glanced at the portrait of Sir Wesley that hung above the mantelpiece. “So one is led to believe.”

  The tea arrived, and with it an assortment of scones and biscuits. Lady Bligh, who had not taken time to break her fast, made a hearty meal. Barbary and Amanda between them consumed no more than a sparrow, and watched with fascination as their visitor emptied her plate.

  “Let us continue!’ said Dulcie, as she scooped up the last crumbs. “When did Cade meet with this mishap?”

  “Earlier this year,” Barbary replied coolly. “For further details, you must apply to Mr. Crossthwaite. I have already told him all I know.”

  Said the Baroness, in no more amiable tones, “You may be assured that I will do precisely that.”

  “Goodness!” breathed Amanda. “The two of you are behaving as if you were bruisers measuring each other’s strength for some future bout. Or so it seems to me, though naturally I have never seen a prizefight. But if all this is true, then Cade’s ghost could have been haunting Lady Margaret’s Garden, since he is truly dead.” She frowned. “I have always heard that ghosts haunt the places where they died. Why would Cade haunt the garden if Connor didn’t murder him there? Maybe he wanted to punish his father for sending him away.”

  “Cade’s ghost?” Barbary echoed. “You jest!”

  Dulcie treated her to a nice display of excellent white teeth. “You haven’t heard the local gossip. It is one of the many disadvantages of going about with one’s nose stuck in the air. But I daresay Mr. Crossthwaite will wish you to keep to yourself until he determines whether there is any validity to your claim on the estate. Interesting, that you waited so long to contact your husband’s family.”

  “She hesitated because of Connor, of course!” Amanda explained quickly, lest a boxing match take place in her own drawing-room. Or Barbary’s drawing-room. Or whoever owned the dratted place now. “Barbary must have known Connor wouldn’t let her near Sir Wesley. She would have seen the announcement of Sir Wesley’s passing in the newspapers, and then Connor’s, and so here she is.”

  “How clever,” murmured Dulcie, without the slightest hint of admiration in her voice. “Especially since the newspapers made no mention of the Halliday solicitor. Yet she managed to search him out.”

  Temper flared in Barbary’s eyes. “I only want what’s fair. As would anyone forced to live in genteel poverty for several years.”

  Lady Bligh, who had never in her life wanted for anything, picked up her cup. “I daresay that in your situation I might have acted similarly.”

  Amanda reflected that, during her own experience with straitened circumstances, she had never owned a garment fashioned of such fine material as Barbary Halliday’s ugly dress. “It doesn’t surprise me that anyone should have wanted to avoid Connor. I wish I might have done so myself! Nor am I surprised that Gypsy Joe shot him — at least everyone says the murderer was Gypsy Joe. Nobody seems to remember that Connor was nearly caught in one of his own man-traps. Are we also to blame Gypsy Joe for that?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dulcie. “The mysteriously moving traps. But it wasn’t Connor who normally frequented Lady Margaret’s Garden. You would have realized the implication of that already, were you not such a skitterwit.”

  “You mean I was meant to be the victim?” Amanda turned pale.

  “It doesn’t seem unlikely.” Her hostess having failed to offer her further refreshment, Lady Bligh reached for the teapot. “On the other hand, our unfriendly spirit might have anticipated that Connor would investigate the mysterious occurrences centering around the place. But I’m forgetting that Mrs. Halliday knows nothing of all this. Allow me to explain.” She did so. Barbary listened with every evidence of fascination, while Amanda’s distress grew apace.

  “I wish you had not reminded me,” she cried, at the close of the Baroness’s account. “Ghosts and curses and fountains that start up of their own accord, and ‘MURDER’ written in the sand— It’s too much to bear!”

  “There is invariably a rational explanation for every seemingly inexplicable phenomenon,” Lady Bligh responded repressively, as she poured tea for Barbary and then herself. “Providing one takes the trouble to seek it out. For ex
ample, your frequent excursions to Lady Margaret’s Garden could be interpreted as a morbid fascination with the spot where Sir Wesley met his death.”

  Amanda’s pretty face crumpled. “It wasn’t like that. I mean, I thought of him, but not in that way. Lady Margaret’s Garden is such a peaceful private sort of place.”

  “Private?” Dulcie echoed. “Have you forgotten mantraps and ghosts?”

  “I doubt Cade is your ghost,” Barbary interjected. “He was so used up by drink and dissipation that he would lack the energy.”

  Amanda stared at her. “That is an odd way to speak of the man you married. You must have had some fondness for him, once.”

  “Must I?” said Barbary. “Did you?”

  Amanda looked bewildered. “How could I? Oh, you mean Sir Wesley. He was a good man. And, to say the truth, I was in danger of dwindling into a fubsy-faced old maid. You can’t really think that misplaced mantrap might have been meant for me, Lady Bligh? At least now no one need further fear those horrid things. I’ve ordered them removed.”

  “You may expect the park to be filled with poachers, then,” the Baroness informed her. “But that’s none of my affair. I doubt that there’ll be further ghostly manifestations. The purpose of that little charade has been played out.”

  “You think so?” Amanda inquired hopefully.

  “What purpose?” Barbary asked.

  Lady Bligh set down her teacup, which again was empty. “One good thing has come of all this. Janthina has been restored to her rightful place. As for Giuseppe, Bow Street believes that he arranged to meet with Connor, and lay in wait to murder him. Certainly Connor rode out to meet someone that day. I think it unlikely Giuseppe could have arranged matters better if he had wished to be charged with the crime, which I doubt he did. There are several other perplexing points, among them the fact that the dueling pistol found by Connor’s body once belonged to Cade.”

  Barbary frowned. “So Miss Fellowes said. I fear I can be of little help. As I told Mr. Crossthwaite, Cade did once possess a pair of dueling pistols, and I suppose he could have brought them with him from Greenwood, but I truly do not know. He sold them long ago, when he needed money. Cade always needed money, despite the allowance Connor made him.”

  “Allowance?” echoed Amanda. “I thought—”

  “So did everyone else, it seems,” Barbary replied. “The fact remains that Cade received a handsome allowance from his twin.”

  This hardly accorded with the general opinion of Connor’s character. Amanda wrinkled her brow. “Maybe Connor had a guilty conscience,” she suggested.

  Barbary rose. “Connor had no reason to feel guilty, so far as Cade was concerned. And now, you must excuse me. I am weary and would rest.”

  “Pray do not let us detain you.” Lady Bligh also stood. “Naturally one would not feel quite one’s self after enduring such an ordeal.” Her expression as sour as if she’d bit into spoiled fruit, Mrs. Halliday left the room.

  The Baroness turned her shrewd gaze on Amanda. “You look burnt to the socket, child.”

  “If so, it should surprise no one,” retorted that young woman. “What with mysterious heiresses, and missing murderers, and all the other recent trying events, I think sometimes I shall succumb to a fever of the brain.” She cast Dulcie a sideways glance. “Will you tell me, how is Ned?”

  “How do you think?” Lady Bligh pulled on her gloves. “You can hardly expect him to be encouraged that you go about embracing other men.”

  “I do?” Amanda stared. “Oh, you mean Lord Dorset? Tell me Ned didn’t see us together! That wasn’t what it seemed.”

  “Was it not? Then you have made a rare mull of matters indeed.”

  Gloomily, Amanda watched the Baroness prepare for her departure. “I vow there is a curse on the Hallidays, and by default it has fallen upon me! I don’t know why it should, because I merely married into the family. It doesn’t seem at all fair that I should be plagued by misfortune when I haven’t a drop of Halliday blood. I almost hope Janthina is alive, so that she can inherit the curse along with everything else!”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The following day dawned cold and overcast, and did not improve. Lady Bligh decreed that Lady Dorset should remain abed, and to ensure that this directive was carried out, enlisted the assistance of Jael. To make sure that the pair of them remained closeted in Livvy’s bedchamber, she issued certain orders to her own abigail.

  Having disposed of the ladies, the Baroness sent young Austen to inspect the Castle dungeons and the medieval instruments of torture housed there. She then repaired to the solar, where she settled on a wooden pew, took up her knitting, and proceeded to look frail. Within moments Lord Dorset and the Honourable Hubert arrived at an unprecedented truce, and set out to execute various commissions on their ailing aunt’s behalf.

  Sir John eyed his hostess. “What devilment are you up to now?”

  “You wound me, John, you truly do.” Dulcie performed an intricate maneuver with knitting needles and scarlet wool. “There would be no need for devilment, were Bow Street not sublimely incapable of managing its own affairs.”

  As so often happened in the presence of his hostess, Sir John experienced a strong impulse. Since this particular impulse concerned her knitting needles, he left her side, only to next encounter Ned, who was currently brooding upon the sacking of Cuidad Rodrigo. The town had been taken by columns of troopers who promptly mutated into a horde of drunken looters, Ned informed his unappreciative audience, shooting at doors and windows and any stray person who got in their way. The following morning, the valiant victors had presented themselves to their commander festooned in silk gowns, hung about with strings of stolen Spanish shoes, laden with hams and loaves of bread.

  When Ned moved on to a description of Badajoz, where every door had been battered in, old men shot, women raped and children bayoneted, Sir John discovered in himself a need for fresh air. He donned his coat and hat and set out in search of Crump, on whom he meant to vent his irritation, for no particular reason save that the Runner wouldn’t dare retaliate in kind.

  Sir John decided to walk to the village. Gibbon advised him of a short-cut through the forest, and brought forth a map. Coat collar drawn up around his ears, hands shoved in his pockets, Sir John set out down the lane.

  His thoughts were not good company. Too many days had passed since Connor Halliday’s corpse was found, days during which Bow Street had learned only that a great many people could not have killed the man. Or so it seemed. Was it merely his suspicious nature that made him question the convenient timing of Barbary Halliday’s arrival? He could not help but see her as a carrion crow, come to pick at the corpse. Had she secretly arrived sooner, in order to speed Connor’s exit from the stage?

  Or was he grasping at straws, because he didn’t want to think that Dulcie was set on protecting some member of her household? Several of Dulcie’s houseguests might be capable of murder, if not all of them, himself included.

  Sir John disliked indecision. He wanted to be presented with the murder weapon, the shoe-throwing horse, and the missing tinker, all at once.

  Unfair, he told himself, to expect miracles of Crump. They weren’t in London, where information could be purchased as easily as roasted chestnuts on any corner of any street.

  Speaking of street corners, there were none in sight. Sir John paused, pulled out Gibbon’s map, and peered at it through the softly falling snowflakes. There should be a pile of rocks, a blasted tree— He saw nothing of the sort.

  Sir John crumpled the paper in his hand. Unless he was very much mistaken, he’d been sent off in pursuit of a wild goose. Gibbon might have given him this confusing map, but it would have been at his mistress’s command.

  Or would it? Dulcie hardly intended him to freeze to death in her damned forest. However, some other person might. Someone who didn’t want the questions surrounding Connor Halliday’s death resolved.

  If so, they had underestimated their quar
ry. Sir John was not so easily thrown off the scent. He might stumble through unfamiliar territory without benefit of compass, he might also trip and fall flat on his face. But the sun still rose in the east, and set in the west; Greenwood Castle lay behind him and the village lay ahead, if not over this hill, then surely the next.

  There were, as it turned out, several hills involved before the village loomed into view. By the time Sir John arrived at the Four Nuns, he was mad as several nests of hornets and chilled to the bone.

  The taproom was deserted. No errant Runner lounged at the hearth, toasting his toes by a cozy fire, sipping a mug of ale. Sir John surveyed the enormous granite fireplace, flagged floor and beamed ceiling. As he drew nearer to the Patent Warm-Air Stove, he heard a faint familiar voice.

  “Hell and the devil confound it,” snarled Sir John. The occupants of the private parlor looked up as he strode into the room. Lady Bligh was dressed to brave the elements in a wine-colored ermine trimmed cloak, an ermine shako with orange beads and tassels, a white silk dress and stout half-boots. With her were her butler and a tall, stooped gentleman.

  “There you are!” the Baroness said cheerfully. “Had you a pleasant stroll? We’d begun to fear that you’d lost your way. You may be interested to learn that Mr. Crossthwaite refuses to acquaint us with the details of Cade Halliday’s death.”

  The solicitor glanced at the open door, as if contemplating a dash for freedom. Sweat beaded his brow. Gibbon, too, looked as if he wished himself elsewhere.

  Sir John wished him elsewhere also. Preferably, the Fleet. “Blast it, Dulcie! I’ll not have you interfering in official matters, do you hear?”

  “ ‘Hear’?” echoed the Baroness. “I am hardly so ancient that I have overnight grown deaf. Before you subject me to another of your rake-downs, my dear, permit me to point out that you are in need of all the ‘interference’ you can get.”