The Sudbury School Murders clrm-4

by Ashley Gardner

  I had reported to him about what I had learned from Sebastian and his family. His reaction was similar to mine-surprise and annoyance. He agreed to watch over Belinda Rutledge and also to continue investigating in my absence.

  I sent a message to Marianne explaining that I was traveling to London and that Grenville was remaining. I half-hoped she would seek out Grenville while I was gone and confess her troubles to him. Neither of us could predict what Grenville would do, but in all fairness, I ought to give him a chance. So should Marianne.

  I had planned to go post, but Grenville insisted I take his traveling coach, and I did not argue with him too heatedly. So, at five o'clock in the morning, Bartholomew and I departed Sudbury and rode in luxury to London.

  Grenville, as always, had stocked the coach well. A compartment held port and crystal glasses, and Bartholomew had procured a bit of roast from the Sudbury School kitchens in case we grew hungry on the road.

  He also reported to me what the constable had discovered, that the knife that I had found in the brush had come from the kitchens of the school. The cook, a very fat woman of about fifty years, was most distraught. Knives, she'd snapped to Bartholomew, were very dear, and why did the Romany have to steal one from her kitchen?

  The information was useful. Sebastian had never been allowed on the grounds outside the stables, and no one, Bartholomew said, had ever seen him near the kitchens. A point in Sebastian's favor if I could get Rutledge and the magistrate to believe it.

  Bartholomew and I ate and talked, drank and rested through the long ride. By the time we reached London later that afternoon, the roast was a bone and the port gone.

  Grenville had insisted I spend my visit to London in his house in Grosvenor Street. Bartholomew charged inside when we reached it early that afternoon, shouting orders to get rooms ready for me. To my discomfiture, the maids and footmen scurried about the place as though the Prince Regent had come to call.

  Bartholomew took me to the huge guest room that I had used once before, unpacked my clothes, shined my boots, and told me that Anton, the chef, was creating a midday meal especially for me. I resigned myself to sleeping in a soft bed and eating fine food, though I felt a bit of a fool eating by myself in the palatial dining room while a maid and two footman hovered near to serve me.

  After I thanked them and showered compliments on the chef, I at last persuaded the eager staff that I had to go out.

  There was nothing for it but that I use Grenville's town coach, they said. This I did refuse, preferring to be inconspicuous on my errands. The servants looked bewildered, but Bartholomew assured them that I was investigating and needed to be cautious, and so they at last let me depart.

  My first visit was to Sir Montague Harris in Whitechapel. Sir Montague, a man I'd helped earlier that spring with the affair of the Glass House, greeted me effusively. Sir Montague was rotund and had silver hair which he wore in an old-fashioned queue. I had written him, outlining the situation at the Sudbury School and keeping him informed of what I'd discovered. He began discussing things even as his servant bustled around to bring us coffee.

  "A pretty problem," Sir Montague said, his eyes twinkling. "You will make yourself unpopular if you champion this Romany, you know."

  "I am already unpopular," I said dryly. I accepted the coffee, sat down. "But I have found no connection between Sebastian and Middleton except that they worked together in the stables. The Roma's evidence shows that Sebastian was with his family on the barge when Middleton was getting himself killed. They could, of course, be covering up for him, I cannot deny that. Also, Sebastian swears he did not quarrel with Middleton."

  "That quarrel seems odd to me," Sir Montague said. He sipped his coffee and dismissed his servant. "Only one of the stable hands heard it, no one else. If Sebastian is telling the truth, then either the stable hand Thomas Adams was mistaken, or Adams was lying, and why should he?"

  "Unless Adams murdered Middleton and is attempting to thrust the blame onto Sebastian," I suggested. "Adams could have killed him, I suppose. The stable hands were fast asleep. Not one of them can confirm when Sebastian returned to the stables. Thomas Adams could easily have slipped out."

  Sir Montague looked thoughtful. He leaned back in a chair whose wooden arms had spread to fit his bulk and whose seat sagged in a perfect U. "Or perhaps Sebastian and his people did not like that Middleton was in on a scheme to expand the canal. So they killed him." He looked at me, waiting to see what I made of that.

  I shook my head. "An expanded canal system means the Roma could travel farther, though they'd have more tolls to pay. No, I can see no reason for Sebastian to hate Middleton, unless it was personal-for instance, if Middleton were impertinent to Miss Rutledge. But I have heard no evidence to this end. From all I gather, Middleton and those in the house rarely interacted."

  "Ah, but Miss Rutledge came to the stables to ride. She managed to steal moments with Sebastian, did she not? Perhaps Middleton knew this, threatened to tell her father."

  I sat back comfortably, thought this over. I liked talking to Sir Montague. He could steeple his fingers, put forth every argument, logical and illogical, and force me to counter them. He approached things without emotion, with only academic interest in a problem. I, who tended to approach everything with emotion, appreciated that he tried to make me think clearly.

  "Sebastian seemed more bewildered by the man's death than satisfied," I said. "I never sensed that he had any anger toward Middleton; in fact, he was grateful to the man for letting him work in the stables."

  "But you discovered that Sebastian was a liar."

  "True. I am not happy with him for keeping the truth from me. I do not believe that he clearly understood what not being open right from the start would do to him, but I believe it is dawning on him now."

  "The case against young Sebastian, then," Sir Montague said, "is that he and Middleton supposedly quarreled, perhaps about Miss Rutledge, Sebastian followed Middleton and killed him. He is young, he is fiery, he is Romany, and therefore, likely to be violent." He paused, studying the ceiling a moment. "However, if Miss Rutledge and Sebastian's family are both telling the truth, the timing is all wrong. Sebastian would not have had time to meet with Miss Rutledge, lure Middleton down the canal to the spot where you found the knife, kill him, get his corpse into a boat, row up the canal, deposit the corpse in the lock, row back down, get rid of the boat, wash himself and change his bloody clothes, and then meet with his family. Time would have had to stand still, or half a dozen people would have to be in on the lie. Possibly, yes; probably, no."

  "You see that," I said. "The task is to get the country magistrate to see that. I did not want to involve Miss Rutledge, but it may be unavoidable."

  "Unless you and I can decide what truly happened," Sir Montague said smoothly. "Which is why you are here, is it not?"

  I admitted that it was. Sir Montague grinned at me. "Who else, then, would want to see Middleton dead?" he asked. "He worked for James Denis, then retired and became a groom at a boys' school in the country. A man like that could have murderous enemies from his past, of course, one of whom trailed him to the school."

  "But surely a stranger would be noticed in a small place like Sudbury," I argued, remembering what Grenville had said about gossip in small towns. "Someone would mention a mysterious stranger who arrived, and then disappeared after the murder."

  "Yes, mysterious strangers are always convenient. But alas, we do not have one in this case." He made a motion of dusting off his hands. "Therefore, we must look among the people of the nearby towns and the school. You describe them well, you know," he remarked, eyes merry. "Not in a way they'd find flattering, I'd imagine. Take Mr. Rutledge himself. Driven to run the school on the tightest discipline, a violent man in his own right."

  I absently ran my thumb along the handle of my cup. "I have not ruled out Rutledge. If I can imagine anyone grabbing a large man like Middleton and slicing his throat, it is Rutledge. But as far as Rutled
ge's servants contend, Rutledge did not leave his bed that night."

  "But you say that Rutledge grew angry and worried when you told him of the connection between Middleton and James Denis. Perhaps he knew of it already. Perhaps Rutledge feared Middleton for some reason-Middleton blackmailed him, Middleton was watching him for Denis-and Rutledge, in a panic, decided to do away with him."

  "I will be asking James Denis if there is any connection," I said. "Denis professes that he is unhappy about Middleton's death."

  Sir Montague eyed me shrewdly. "There is not many a man in England who can simply decide to question Mr. Denis. You are unique, Captain. I do hope you will tell me what he says."

  I gave him a nod. "Of course."

  Sir Montague tapped his forefinger. "So… there is Rutledge. Next is, who? Mr. Sutcliff is seen by Mr. Ramsay, who swears he ran after Middleton. What about Mr. Sutcliff? Why would he want Middleton dead?"

  I shrugged. "I have no idea. He's a nasty bit of goods, though. None of other boys can stick him. Ramsay is so terrified that the lads will think he's cut from the same cloth that he is willing to put snakes in my bed and smoke cheroots behind the wall with the others." I thought a moment. "I have no idea why Sutcliff would kill Middleton, but he is a large enough lad. He could do it if he took Middleton by surprise. However, I have it that Sutcliff spent that night in bed with his mistress in Hungerford. The timing is wrong for him, as well. My actress friend tells me he was with Jeanne Lanier all night."

  "Did she see him?" Sir Montague asked. "Or only hear him?"

  "That is a point," I conceded. "Marianne is shrewd enough to realize the difference, but I will ask her."

  Sir Montague nodded, then continued. "There are plenty of others. The lockkeeper himself, who never heard a body being pushed into his lock. The stable hand, Thomas Adams, who manufactures a quarrel to point to the Romany."

  "The lockkeeper lives alone," I pointed out, "so he has no one to vouch for him. And again, the stable hands noticed nothing all night. So either he or Adams could have done it."

  "And the tutors? Fletcher, the Classics tutor?"

  "Fletcher is not very big. Middleton could easily have fought him off, even if he took Middleton by surprise. And I cannot imagine him being brave enough to lure Middleton to that remote place by the canal. The same with Tunbridge, the mathematics tutor."

  "Tunbridge, you say, often went riding."

  "Yes. A tenuous connection, if any. As far as I can see, Tunbridge spends his time schooling his favorite pupil, a sixteen-year-old boy who is apparently quite brilliant. He gives the lad private lessons." I'd heard a few of the other boys sniggering about those private lessons, but I'd not yet formed my own opinion.

  "Well, it looks as though you need to find out much more about Middleton," Sir Montague said. "The canal maps are interesting. Why should a man like Middleton keep false maps of the Kennet and Avon Canal? You found no other papers?"

  "No. Anything that could explain the maps had either never existed or been taken away."

  "Indeed. I have come to respect your opinions, Captain. There is definitely more going on at the Sudbury School than meets the eye." His eyes twinkled. "I might fancy a holiday in the country."

  My heart lightened. I'd hoped he'd be interested. Sir Montague was a busy man; I could not think how he would escape his duties to come to Berkshire, but I was happy that he would make the attempt.

  "Now then," he said, "I suppose you're off to do what every uncorrupt magistrate in London wishes to do-question James Denis."

  My good humor dimmed. "He allows me to question him only because he knows I can do nothing against him."

  Sir Montague's look turned wise. "Can you not?"

  "I do not see what," I said irritably. "He tells me he finds me a threat, but I believe he exaggerates."

  "Do you?" Sir Montague smiled. "Well, I do not. I believe that Mr. Denis is a very intelligent man. Very intelligent, indeed."

  I left Whitechapel and took a hackney to Mayfair, arriving at James Denis' Curzon Street house as darkness fell.

  I did not have an appointment, but Denis seemed to expect me. The correct and cold butler who opened the door took me upstairs to Denis' study without asking for my card or telling me to wait.

  As I entered Denis' elegant but rather austere private study, James Denis put aside whatever letter he was writing and rose from his desk.

  James Denis was a fairly young man, not much more than thirty. His face was long and thin, but handsome, or would have been were it not so cold. His hair was brown, and he was tall, almost my height. His blue eyes were flinty hard, as though he'd viewed the world for a long time and found it wanting. If an old, jaded man had been reborn and decided to take the world by its heels the second time around, that man would be James Denis.

  He did not offer to shake my hand. The butler brought a wing chair across the room to the desk, and I sat, grateful, in truth, to ease my leg. The ride in the hackney had been chilly, long, and jostling.

  The butler then brought a tray with a decanter of brandy and two crystal glasses, poured us each a measure, and silently departed.

  We were not left alone, however. As usual, two large, burly men had taken up stations, one at each window, to watch over Denis and his guest. Once upon a time, Middleton had shared this task. What must it be, I thought suddenly, to have so many enemies that one could not sit alone in a room in one's own house?

  I let the brandy sit untasted, although Denis took up his glass and sipped delicately.

  "Oliver Middleton left my employ voluntarily," he said, as though we were already in the middle of a conversation. "He'd tired of the city and wanted the simple life of the country."

  "So might many a man," I agreed.

  Denis opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a folded paper. "Middleton spied you the moment you arrived, you know. He wrote me of it."

  He handed me the paper. It was a letter, addressed in a painfully neat hand, the creases soiled. I unfolded it. The note was short and to the point. "That captain's come. Should I do anything?"

  I raised my brows and slid the paper back to him. "How did you respond?"

  Denis dropped the letter back inside the desk. "I wrote him with instructions to leave you strictly alone. He agreed. He said he would avoid you in case his temper got the better of him."

  "That explains why I never saw the man in the stables."

  Denis did not change expression. "Did you know that Middleton had received threatening letters?"

  "No," I said, surprised. The school's prankster had sent letters in blood to a few students, so Rutledge had told me, but I had not heard that Middleton had received any.

  Again, Denis dipped into his desk and pulled out a stack of letters. I wondered whether he had kept all Middleton's correspondence near at hand in anticipation of my visit.

  "The letters implied that the writer knew who Middleton was and that he had once worked for me," he said. "Middleton sent me the bundle and asked me what to do about it."

  He let me leaf through the letters. Each were printed in careful capitals, and each held a similar message. "You cannot hide your past misdeeds. Retribution is at hand," one said. Another: "You came to find peace. Hell has followed you."

  "A touch gruesome," I said. "I would not have liked to receive them."

  "They did not worry Middleton, particularly," Denis said, gathering the letters and refolding them. "He was a very practical man. He did not fear words. At first, he reasoned that the letters were from one of my enemies, a threat to me in general." He dropped his gaze. "He assumed I would take care of it. It bothers me that I failed him." He folded the last letter with unnecessary firmness, the first time I had ever seen anything but coolness from James Denis.

  "A moment," I said. "You said that he thought the threat a general one, at first. Did he change his mind?"

  Denis pushed the letters aside with long fingers. "He did. He sent me another message, saying that he'd discovered who had wri
tten the threats. The tone was one of irritation. He informed me that he would take care of the matter."

  "And he did not say who?"

  "No." He looked up at me, eyes quiet with anger. "If he did take care of the matter, I never heard. He was killed first."

  Denis was bothered. I had never seen him so bothered. Uncharitably, I wondered whether his concern came from fellow feeling or the fear that he'd be perceived as weak if one in his employ was harmed. Both, possibly.

  Denis lifted the last of Middleton's correspondence and handed it to me. I read the letter, which was brief and terse and said exactly what Denis had told me it did.

  "From his tone," I said, "he seems to have decided the culprit weak and easy to dispatch."

  "Yes, he is contemptuous."

  I considered. "He could not mean Rutledge. Rutledge would rather bellow threats than write them in letters, and I cannot think of Rutledge as weak and easy to dispatch. Nor would Sebastian, the Romany arrested for his murder, be. Also, Sebastian cannot read, or so he claims."

  "A tutor," Denis suggested.

  "Or a pupil." I thought of Sutcliff. Was he the sort of young man who would threaten people from afar? Or would he, like Rutledge, prefer to bellow at them face to face? "But what on earth would anyone gain by threatening Middleton? He had no real power at the school. He had a connection to you, but you tell me he'd retired."

  I studied the letter again. It also included a line that Middleton had something of interest to speak to Denis about, and hoped he could do so when he next visited London. "What had he intended to tell you? Was he involved in something for you?"

  Denis twined his fingers before him. "I must assure you, Captain, that I am as in the dark as you in this matter. Middleton was no longer working for me. He was not young any more, he was tired, he wanted to work with horses again. I found him employment in the stables at the Sudbury School."