by Charles Todd
But he was petting the dogs and didn’t lift his head.
I said, “Rachel. There’s the question of who attacked Oliver Martin and killed Mr. Stephenson. Not to mention those two dead soldiers in the churchyard. If the police look closely into Ellen’s affairs, it’s likely they’ll find more than you’ve bargained for.”
“Why would they even consider looking for those men here? Even if they discover she had married them?”
Hugh said, “Rachel.”
She shook her head. “No, Bess is going to make all our lives wretched—she’s so sure she’s in the right, so certain she knows what’s best. I can’t bear it.” She dropped the loaf of bread on the table.
“I’m not going to tell the police anything. But Ellen has brought them here—and I’m afraid this is just the beginning. You and Hugh must be prepared.”
“I won’t listen to any more of this.”
She ran into the small room off the kitchen, and in the silence that followed we heard the loom starting.
Hugh said grimly, “This has been a shock for her. She’ll come round. But you’re right, Bess. Before this is over, we’ll all be questioned. They’ll want to know why the deaths weren’t reported. Why all of us conspired to keep them secret. That’s how the police will see it. That will be bad enough. If they learn about the silver, then there’s no turning back.”
I went over to the cooker and began to slice the bread for toasting before starting the eggs. “Perhaps you and Rachel might consider visiting my mother in Somerset. For a little while.”
“There are the sheep. She won’t leave them.” There was resignation in his voice.
There was nothing more we could say, Hugh and I.
We were not destined to finish that already delayed breakfast. While we were still eating, there was a knock on the door. Hugh went to answer it.
I could hear Sergeant Barnes’s voice. And Hugh’s in reply. But not the words.
After a moment, Hugh came back down the passage. He was clearly shaken.
“Sergeant Barnes wants you to come. Ellen killed herself. He wants you to pronounce her dead, since there’s no doctor. Before he removes the body.”
“I’ll go. It’s best.” Simon rose and started toward the door.
“I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say. But they want Sister Crawford.”
Simon went with me, over the objections of the Sergeant. I was glad he had. Ellen had turned the shotgun on herself when the police came to her door. There was no doubt she was dead.
There was blood everywhere, and the smell of it was overpowering in the small bedroom. I went through the formalities, then nodded to the Sergeant. As I turned to go, I was careful not to step in the pools.
I paused in the bedroom doorway while the Sergeant asked about the destruction he could see throughout the cottage. I replied that rumors had always held that Ellen Marshall’s grandfather had hidden a fortune somewhere. “I don’t live in the village, as you know. I can only pass on what I’ve heard in the short time I’ve been here.” Avoiding Simon’s gaze I looked down. And there on the threshold was a gray smear.
I could almost have said it was the ash from a cigarette, but the two policemen had been in and out of the room, and there wasn’t enough left to be sure.
I almost missed the Sergeant’s reply.
“A fortune? Out here? Well, it appears she never found anything. Else the destruction would have stopped soon enough.”
“I expect that was a great disappointment to her,” I agreed. We moved on, into the passage by the bedrooms. “I’ll be leaving in the morning,” I told Sergeant Barnes then. “I’m due to return to the clinic where I’m posted. I had come here to look in on Captain Williams. I’m happy to say he’s no longer in need of medical care. The Sergeant-Major here was sent by my parents to escort me. Do you need a statement from either of us?”
“No, Sister. But I’d like to know who the deceased was firing at, before we got here. We couldn’t help but see the scars.”
“At shadows,” I said firmly, and went out to Simon’s motorcar, getting in without looking back.
He was reversing to drive back to the house when a thought occurred to me.
I put down the window and called to the Sergeant, who was already disappearing into the cottage.
He turned and came back to the door. “Sister?” He was polite but slightly impatient.
“Did you see her kill herself?”
“We didn’t need to. We knocked at the door, called to her to identify ourselves. She didn’t answer, and so I told her that if she didn’t step to the door, unarmed, her hands up, we’d be coming in after her. That’s when we heard the shot. We didn’t realize what it meant. We thought it was a warning. And so we took our time going in.” He nodded to me, and started back inside.
“Are you sure it was suicide?” I called after him.
“You saw the body, Sister.”
I had.
Simon said quietly, “Let it go, Bess.”
I leaned back against my seat. “He’s not going to listen, is he? Inquiry closed. I told the police the absolute truth. Just not all of it.”
He started up the incline. “Who killed her, if she didn’t kill herself?”
“Whoever attacked me—Oliver Martin—Mr. Stephenson?”
“If you think that’s possible, then you should speak to the Inspector in charge, in Swansea.”
“Yes. I expect you’re right. But the villagers won’t like that, will they? I wish I knew what to do.”
Chapter 20
When we returned to Rachel’s house, she and Hugh were waiting in the front room.
She had been crying. “Is it true? She took her own life?” When I nodded, she added, “How sad. I thought her so—so wonderful. She was everything I thought I wanted to be. What will they do with her . . . her body?”
“Take it back to Swansea. There will be an inquest. Afterward, the body will be released to the family for burial.”
“She doesn’t have any family.”
I said, “Mr. Wilson might ask that she be brought home to be buried with her parents and her grandfather.”
“I’ll ask him. Will you take the letter to Swansea with you? I know she tried to kill that man. Mrs. Stephenson might well be right about the others there in the churchyard. Still—” Rachel broke off.
“I’ll take the letter. And see that it is put in the right hands.”
She excused herself to go and speak to Mr. Wilson.
Hugh said, “I expect it’s best this way. For everyone, including Ellen Marshall.”
Simon, standing by the door, shook his head slightly.
“Yes,” I said. Simon was right, this was neither the time nor the place to say more.
That afternoon I put my clothes and personal belongings into my kit, save for what I needed that night and to dress in the morning. I tried to stay out of Rachel’s way and took longer than I really needed to. Downstairs, Simon and Hugh were talking together in the front room, and I was glad they had taken a liking to each other. Occasionally I caught a word. The troubles out here had long since been replaced by discussions of the war. The fact that Hugh was an officer mattered not at all. But then Simon was accustomed to speaking to my father as an equal—with deference, but as an equal. Hugh hadn’t had much in common with these villagers of English descent. He must have missed another man he felt free to talk to. His crutches and his missing leg were forgotten as they refought battle after battle.
The police had gone, Hugh told us at dinner. I hadn’t heard the motorcar leave.
After dinner, we made the best of the situation. None of us was in a merry frame of mind. Hugh was rather quiet, and Rachel was still sad, although she’d persuaded the rector to write that letter. It was already tucked into my kit, ready for our departure in the morning.
Simon was a little restless, and I changed the bandage on his arm, expecting to find early signs of infection, but the wound was still clean. After that we
called it a night. He was to sleep in the front room, and I thought about the pallet we’d made for Oliver Martin. He’d come close twice to dying. I was glad he’d responded to care and would be all right.
Rachel went out for a last look at the ewes, and I heard her come up half an hour later.
The house seemed to creak and groan as the wind came up around midnight and the temperature dropped. I found it hard to sleep, tossing and turning, seeing Ellen’s body over and over again in the dark room. I’d faced worse sights in France, but I was uneasy about her death. Just as well, I thought, that I was leaving. Rachel and Hugh could get on with their lives, and I could return to my own. Whatever was happening, whatever had happened, would have to sort itself out. But there was still a killer out here. And that kept me awake. It was close to two o’clock when I finally fell asleep.
I woke with a start as my bed moved under the weight of someone sitting down on the edge of it, but before I could cry out, Simon put his hand over my mouth and spoke softly. “Be quiet. I want you to come with me. Get dressed quick as you can, and I’ll meet you by the kitchen door. No apron or cap.”
I nodded, and he was gone.
I dressed, took my time going down the stairs, thanking the wind for covering any sounds I might make, and reached the kitchen door without rousing Hugh or Rachel.
Simon was waiting in the dark just outside. He took my hand and led me out toward the pasture where Rachel’s sheep were huddled in the lee of the low walls.
I started to speak, thinking we were far enough from the house, but he squeezed my hand, a signal to be quiet.
I could see the white bulk of the coast guard station now. We were passing on the inland side of it, some distance from it and the road.
The night was overcast, I could hardly see my hand before my face, and the ground underfoot was uneven and hummocky. But Simon seemed to have no difficulty finding his way. And then I realized that the shape looming to our right must be Ellen’s cottage. Simon stopped.
After what seemed like several minutes, there was a flickering light in one of the windows—someone flashing a torch around a room. It moved on to the next room, then vanished, as if whoever it was had gone into a passage.
“Who?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.”
We went closer, taking care with every step. I nearly stumbled over a stone, but Simon’s hand steadied me. By the time we’d reached the cottage and stood near one of the windows, we couldn’t see the torch at all.
“Gone?” I breathed.
Simon shook his head. And after a time, the torch appeared in the room nearest us. Edging closer to the wall, we raised our heads ever so slowly, only to eye level with the room. But I couldn’t tell anything about the person holding the torch—the light was too bright for my night vision.
I heard Simon swear under his breath, and I knew he’d had the same problem.
He ducked, and I did the same, then he led me around the house to the front door. It was standing wide.
Simon pressed himself against the wall a few feet from the door, and I moved beside him. After a while, which seemed like hours to me, we could hear footsteps coming toward us from inside the cottage. Simon dropped my hand and tensed.
A figure, darker than the darkness around us, came through the doorway, and Simon leaped.
They went down rolling, and I heard Simon grunt as his opponent landed a blow on his wounded arm.
The fight didn’t last long. Simon was taller and stronger, and more accustomed to using physical force. But it was as vicious as it was short.
I was feeling around for the man’s torch, my fingers moving lightly over the ground until they touched it. I picked it up, and flicked it on. The beam caught two faces staring at me. Simon and someone I hadn’t seen before.
He was of middle height, slim, and quite pale. I realized after staring at him that it wasn’t just paleness but that odd milky whiteness of someone who seldom went out into the sun. Or, I revised that quickly, someone who hadn’t been in the sun for some time.
Simon was asking, “Who are you? And what were you doing here?”
The man said, “I could ask you the same thing. Looking for the bloody silver too, are you?”
“It’s gone,” I said, lowering the beam away from their faces. “Ellen learned that before she died.”
“You’re wrong. The old man had hidden it well. She just didn’t know where to look. She was tearing out the walls and flooring. He wouldn’t have been so stupid.”
“Bess?” Simon spoke out of the darkness.
“I’ll just have a look.” I turned and went into the house, ignoring the bloodstains where Ellen had been lying only that morning, as I went from room to room. But there was no sign of a cache of silver anywhere.
I came back to the door. “There’s nothing I can see.”
“You’re wrong,” the man said again, his voice strained. “It has to be there. I’ll share it with you. If you let me go on looking. I need it. I’ll find it, if you give me a chance.”
“There’s no silver here.”
“I tell you you’re wrong. I can find it.” He was agitated, beginning to strain against Simon’s grip. “He was rich. He had to be. He’d robbed that coach. Everyone said so. I need that money. I can’t stay here any longer.”
I could just see Simon’s grim expression.
“Take him to the house,” I said. “Maybe Rachel can tell us who he is. He’s wearing only a light coat. He can’t have come far.”
“No. I tell you, no.”
He was struggling now in Simon’s grip.
“Find some rope if you can,” he told me.
I hurried back into the house and swept the torch beam around each room except the bedroom with its bloodstains. In the kitchen there was a hemp rope that appeared to be half rotted. I picked it up and it fell apart in my hands. In the short passage leading to the back garden door, there was a shorter length of rope in a bucket. That was sound enough, and I carried it to Simon.
The man fought him, but Simon succeeded in binding his hands behind him.
“What’s your name?” Simon asked, in the voice that raw recruits quickly got to know.
“Tom. Tommy,” he said defiantly. “Let me go.”
I stared at the man.
Oh dear God, not Hugh’s brother—! And I remembered what one of the Welsh miners had said to me. Much of the year we never see the sun. We’re down in the pits before ever it comes up, and we walk home after it’s set.
“No. Not to Rachel’s house,” I said quickly. “To the rectory.”
It was a long cold walk back up the incline. Simon’s arm must be hurting like the very devil, I thought, as he dealt with the man’s efforts to break free. When we reached the rectory, Mr. Wilson thrust open a window and called out, “Who needs me?”
“Come down. There’s trouble,” Simon answered, and the window shut. After several minutes, Mr. Wilson came to the rectory door and peered out into the darkness.
“Sister Crawford?” he asked, surprised. He stepped out of sight, into the entry, and we heard a match strike before a lamp bloomed into brightness. He came back with it in his hand and looked from me to Simon and then to Simon’s prisoner, who had turned his head away.
“Tom?” he said in a shaken voice. “Is that you? I thought you were dead—we all thought—the memorial service—the brass plate on the south wall—” He turned back to me. “I don’t understand.”
“We found him in Ellen’s cottage. Searching for her grandfather’s silver,” I told him.
“She’s dead. What does it matter to her if I take it?” Tom demanded then. “I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of living in the dark. The war is over. I want to go away.”
“Did you kill her?” I asked him. “Did you kill Ellen Marshall? Before the police could come in and question her?”
But he turned to glare at me, refusing to answer.
“Did you attack Oliver Martin? Or Mr. Stephenson?”
No answer.
I stood there, torn. How was I to tell Hugh that his brother was alive? And a murderer? And my next thought was, did Rachel know?
Oh dear God . . .
She’d been right. I should have stayed out of this. I should have left the village that first night, before dinner, before Mr. Morgan had been frightened in the night and fled. As soon as Hugh told me that it wasn’t safe here . . .
It would have been better for everyone if I had.
Mr. Wilson was saying, “What are we to do? If the police find out, they’ll turn him over to the Army. He’s a deserter, he’ll be shot.” He was shivering in the cold wind. And wishing himself back in his warm bed. I could see it in his face as the lamp flame danced and flickered.
Simon spoke. “I don’t have any choice in the matter. I must report him.”
“You can’t,” I began, thinking of Hugh. And Rachel.
“I can’t let him go,” Simon told me. “What’s more, there are questions to be answered. If he’s behind these assaults, he’s dangerous. Something has to be done.”
And if he’d killed Ellen, he had to be held to account. She hadn’t deserved to die at his hands.
But better than the hangman.
I made a decision. “Go and get your motorcar.” I took my little pistol out of my coat pocket. “I’ll keep him here. We’ll drive straight to Swansea, and let the police deal with him. It’s for the best, Simon.”
A voice spoke in the darkness beyond the lamp’s pale circle of light. It was low, rough, and I couldn’t identify it straightaway. A Welsh accent. Mr. Griffith—or Hugh, in time of great stress?
“I’ve a shotgun says he’s not going anywhere.”
Mr. Wilson backed away, his eyes terrified, taking his lamp with him, and shut the rectory door. The lamp went out in the same moment, not even a glimmer through the glass of the door to help us.
I whirled, turning on the torch in my hands. The battery was fading, but it swept across the face of the man holding the shotgun, and with a surge of relief, I recognized Mr. Griffith.
