An Unwilling Accomplice

by Charles Todd

  She caught sight of me, rushing at me, beating me with her fists and shouting, “I hate you, I hate you!”

  Mary was calling to her. “Miss, he’s all right, Mrs. Chatham says he’s sleeping.”

  But she didn’t heed anyone or anything. Breaking away from me, she ran up the stairs, disappearing down the passage as Maddie stepped into the foyer. He looked tired, old, as if the night had been more than he could face.

  “Sister Crawford?” he said, surprised to see me. “The motorcar . . .” He didn’t finish what he was about to say, turning slightly, as if to ask Mary to see to the horses.

  To my astonishment, Sergeant Wilkins walked unsteadily through the door.

  He was haggard, and I guessed his head must be splitting. Very like that of the man lying in the bedroom under Simon’s eye.

  “Why is he here?” I asked Maddie, although I couldn’t imagine what else he could have done with the sergeant, given what must have been Miss Percy’s frantic pleas for him to attend what she believed, given all the blood, was a man on the verge of dying.

  “He couldn’t ride, even though we could have taken Mr. Tulley’s other horse. Mr. Warren has allowed us to borrow his cart.” Maddie smiled slightly. “He was grateful for the effort to protect his mill.”

  It was Maddie who had rung the fire bell.

  “Why didn’t you simply tie him to the table, as I’d done?”

  “He was persuasive,” Maddie said. “And nauseated.”

  Not unexpected with concussion.

  From the passage above, I could hear Phyllis screaming at Simon. Turning, I ran up the stairs. Behind me, Mary shut the door as Maddie started to climb after me. I glanced down to see Sergeant Wilkins standing there, staring after us, as if he was uncertain what he should do. Was he really so dazed still? Or was it an act? Like the nausea, perhaps?

  He was a clever man. And the unattended miller’s cart was still just outside the door. So was Simon’s motorcar.

  I stopped, leaning against the balustrade.

  “You wanted to come here. You wanted to see if Simon Brandon had killed him for you. Isn’t that what brought you here, when you can barely stand on your own two feet?”

  It was severe and, in the view of the others who overheard me, uncalled for. I could feel their gaze swinging toward me, Maddie just below me on the stairs and the maid, still standing by the door. But I knew I had to do something to keep the sergeant from leaving while our backs were turned. It worked.

  Sergeant Wilkins looked as if I’d slapped him.

  Reluctantly he walked toward the stairs, casting a glance over his shoulder toward Mary. Then he started up the steps, stumbling again, as if he couldn’t focus his eyes. Maddie waited for him, and together they followed me.

  Drawing a breath of relief, I hurried on toward the room where I’d left Simon. Phyllis Percy was now sitting in the chair I’d used, head in her hands, crying. The man on the bed was trying to sit up. Simon, his face like a thundercloud, stood by the window.

  I paused in the doorway. “Miss Percy?” I said, just as Mrs. Chatham came running down the passage from a room at the far end to see what the commotion was about.

  “Phyllis? My dear, what’s happened? He can’t be dead. Surely not!”

  She pushed past me into the room. Maddie had reached the top of the stairs now, his arm half supporting Sergeant Wilkins, who looked as if he were about to be sick. As Mrs. Chatham demanded answers, I saw Wilkins break away from Maddie’s grip, and stand, swaying, in the middle of the passage.

  “No,” he said savagely. “I won’t go in there. I refuse. Whatever you wish to say.”

  The man on the bed, hearing his voice, swung his feet to the floor and sat up. Too quickly, for he too looked ill now.

  “Keep him out of here,” he demanded, turning to Simon. “Keep him away. He’ll kill me.”

  “Why should I?” Simon asked coldly. “You’ve been wanting to kill each other. You blocked the door of that hut and tried to burn him alive, then shot at him. It’s his turn.”

  Both Mrs. Chatham and her sister cried out in alarm, taking him at his word. It was Miss Percy who bent over the bed, fiercely protective.

  “You’re lying,” she exclaimed. “This is my fiancé. He’s been lost for years. Hunted, hounded, and he’s done nothing to deserve it.”

  “You’re engaged?” I asked Miss Percy. She must have been very young when she accepted this man’s proposal. Perhaps too young to see clearly. Perhaps trying for a little happiness while it seemed to be in their grasp.

  Maddie moved past me into the room, carrying his worn leather satchel. He gently set Miss Percy aside and leaned over the patient. Straightening up, he turned to me. “The bleeding has stopped,” he said, approvingly. “He’ll have a nasty headache, nothing more. Who was firing the revolver? Did the Major do this? Did he also set the fire?”

  “It was this man,” I said. “The Major couldn’t have walked that far. It was also this man who struck the sergeant with a stone.”

  “Gentle God. Then I shouldn’t have brought the sergeant with me.”

  “It’s too late now.” Sergeant Wilkins spoke from just behind me. I moved aside, and he stepped into room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE MAN ON the bed stiffened.

  “Hello, Jeremy,” the sergeant said, his voice strained and weary. Then to Simon and me, he gestured. “My dead brother.”

  “Brother?” both Simon and I said nearly at the same time. We looked from one man to the other. I thought at first there was no resemblance between them. Sergeant Wilkins’s hair was much lighter, his eyes a clear blue. And yet when I looked more closely, it was there in the structure of the face. In a photograph, where there was no certainty about the color of the hair or eyes, the similarities would have been striking. Forehead, nose, chin, even the shape of the cheekbones.

  “Four men died during a training exercise out on the Hoo Peninsula,” Sergeant Wilkins was saying. “Another five or six were wounded. It was rather nasty, bodies everywhere. The sergeant in charge, the man responsible for the accident, was rattled, and he mixed up the names of the dead and the wounded. Jeremy was sent to hospital under another man’s name. When he was well enough, he simply walked away. I didn’t discover he was still alive until two months ago.”

  “But why did he want to kill you?” I asked. “And why were you stalking him? I don’t understand.”

  Jeremy Wilkins pointed a shaking finger toward his brother. He seemed to be in great distress. “He’s a killer. I knew if he found me I was a dead man. I want to live, I want to marry Phyllis. I’ve found her again, I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Your brother is being sought by the police. Why not send for them?” Simon asked, moving from the window.

  “I don’t exist,” he answered sharply. “I can’t go to the police or anyone else. I had to do this myself. The war is finished. I can start a new life.”

  “I still don’t know why he should wish to kill you,” I retorted.

  “If I’m dead, he can blame that killing in Ironbridge on me. Don’t you see? He can claim he succeeded in catching me where everyone else has failed. He’ll be a hero. Again.”

  “I should think you had a better reason for killing Henry Lessup than your brother did.” I was very aware of Sergeant Wilkins standing close to me—within reach. If he wanted to escape, he could use me as a shield. Simon wouldn’t shoot if I were in the way. I moved slightly, out of his reach.

  “He was my older brother, he always tried to protect me. But now he’s got to choose between me and himself.”

  “Ask him why,” the sergeant said, his voice suddenly stronger, making me more wary still, “if I’m a killer, he struck the first blow. Then came after me to burn me alive.”

  Jeremy Wilkins reached out, pleading. “He’s got it wrong. He was shooting at me.” He touched the long groove in his scalp. “The war has changed him. I don’t know who he is anymore.” He looked around the room for su
pport, trying to explain to Miss Percy and her sister. “Sergeant Lessup was the man responsible for what happened in that training exercise. Hoo is isolated, marshy, nearly surrounded by water. Ideal place to test trenches and trench warfare, trying to find the best way to end the stalemate in France. The Army took more than half the peninsula for it. Only, Lessup was eager to make training as real as possible. He told us it was for our own good. That we wouldn’t be as nervous when we faced the real test, in France. He was ambitious, was Lessup. He wanted to be seen as the authority on trenches. There were good men there on Hoo. He wasn’t one of them. He used live ammunition without warning us. It was a shambles, a bloody, stupid shambles.”

  “You’re both deserters,” Simon put in. He moved again, this time to the hearth, standing with his back to it. From there he had a field of fire taking in the entire room—and the doorway. I stepped farther away from the sergeant. “If the Army had its way, the two of you would be shot.”

  “Yes, well, I’d done my bit for King and Country, hadn’t I?” Jeremy retorted bitterly. “I nearly lost my life. My foot is twisted, ugly. I walk with a limp, I always will. There are scars on my hip and my back as well. That’s what machine-gun fire can do. I moved, just as the chaplain was giving me last rites. He called me Paul something, I didn’t quite grasp it. I didn’t have the strength to care. And that’s when Jeremy Wilkins ceased to exist. It was the Army’s mistake, not mine. When I was discharged from hospital, I had my orders for France. As Paul Addison. It was then I tried to find Phyllis. The house in London was closed—I didn’t think to look here. And then one day when I was desperate, I came here, half afraid Mrs. Chatham wouldn’t let me in. A ghost with no name. Besides, I don’t think her late husband approved of me.” He smiled at Mrs. Chatham. “I was wrong. When I fainted almost on your doorstep, you welcomed me. Phyllis couldn’t believe I was alive. She laughed and cried for two days.”

  It was a well-told story. Phyllis Percy and Mrs. Chatham accepted it. They were hanging on every word. I found myself disliking Jeremy Wilkins.

  Almost as if he’d read my thoughts, Sergeant Wilkins spoke from near the doorway.

  “You were always one to know which way the wind blew, Jeremy. The only reason I might have killed Lessup was in revenge for what happened to you. Why should I want to do such a thing, once I learned you were very much alive and looking for him yourself?”

  “You couldn’t have known such a thing. It’s impossible.”

  “Remember Corporal Benton? He was in the same ward when you were in hospital. He’d also known Paul Addison. He couldn’t see you, he’d been gassed and his eyes were bandaged. But he could hear you. He didn’t think your voice sounded like Addison’s. And when you didn’t rejoin your unit, he couldn’t believe Addison would have deserted. But he kept his mouth shut, went back to France, and was wounded a second time. He thought at first I was you, when he came to Shrewsbury. We sound enough alike, after all. When he realized his mistake, he told me about Paul Addison. He wanted to know if Addison was a cousin.” Wilkins turned to Simon. “The Army won’t give us a chance in hell. I don’t want to hang. I’d rather be shot.”

  “You should have thought about that in London, before you dragged Sister Crawford into your plot.”

  “I didn’t think—I wanted to believe she wouldn’t be in any trouble. I had to find my brother. I went to warn Lessup, but he was already dead when I got there. I saw him hanging from the bridge. It was just before dawn. And I kept walking, all the way to Wolverhampton before I dared take a train.”

  “There’s someone who can sort this out. My father. The Army will listen to him,” I said. “We’ll take both men to him.”

  “You will not take this man from my house,” Mrs. Chatham said.

  Phyllis, her face twisted by fright, asked, “Why did you have to come here? Why didn’t you leave us alone? It’s cruel, what you’re doing. We’re to be married at Christmas. The war will surely end before Christmas.”

  But we’d thought the war would end before Christmas in 1914, and we’d been wrong.

  Jeremy Wilkins got out of bed and walked unsteadily toward Mrs. Chatham. His face was strained, his gaze never leaving her face. I could see, through his stocking, the twisted, damaged foot. “I’m ready to face anyone. I’m telling the truth. Just give me a chance to prove it, that’s all I ask.” He turned and lightly kissed Phyllis Percy. “I love you. Remember that, whatever happens to me.”

  It occurred to me suddenly that while he was speaking to Mrs. Chatham, Simon was well in range of Jeremy Wilkins’s peripheral vision.

  Without warning Jeremy Wilkins lunged halfway across the room, shoved me hard, in the direction of Mrs. Chatham, and I stumbled against the chair next to her, effectively blocking Simon’s view.

  Before I could recover, Jeremy Wilkins was out the door, racing for the stairs as fast as his bad foot would allow him. And Sergeant Wilkins was on his heels.

  Picking myself up, I collided with Phyllis Percy as I ran to the door, shouting to Simon, “The miller’s cart—your motorcar—they’re both there.”

  She had taken a death grip on my apron, trying to prevent me from following. I heard it tear as I broke away, nearly tripping myself on the trailing edge. Simon was right behind me, and Maddie had come forward to take Miss Percy’s arm. She turned on him, fighting him mercilessly.

  Out in the passage, I heard the two men struggling at the top of the stairs, one of them shouting, “You can’t want me to hang—”

  Then they were falling. I reached the railing where the passage overlooked the hall just in time to see them strike the last few steps before landing hard on the bare wood floor below.

  They lay there, tangled in each other’s arms, not moving.

  “Maddie!” I cried, and started down the stairs. Simon caught my arm and pulled me back.

  “Wait here.”

  I could hear Phyllis Percy screaming as she ran after us, Maddie, older and slower, just behind her.

  Simon had reached the two men, was kneeling beside them, putting out a hand to feel for a pulse. After a moment he called up to us, “I think they’re both alive.”

  I caught Miss Percy’s arm, letting Maddie go ahead of us.

  “Wait,” I said sternly to her. “You’ll do more harm than good.” But she didn’t want to listen. Pulling me with her, her will stronger than her body, she went down the stairs after Maddie.

  I let her go. Simon was there to deal with her.

  I looked around, expecting to find Mrs. Chatham behind me as well. But she hadn’t left the bedroom.

  The Widow of Windsor, denying she had any part of the world her husband no longer inhabited. I thought it coldhearted.

  Mary was coming out the kitchen door, drawn by the racket and Miss Percy’s screams, while other servants pushed out past her to stare.

  Maddie had managed to untangle the two brothers. He was lifting the eyelids of first one and then the other, then running his hands down their limbs and their bodies.

  Phyllis Percy was kneeling beside Jeremy Wilkins, begging him to speak to her.

  Looking over her head to where Simon waited, Maddie said, pointing to Sergeant Wilkins, “This one has a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist. Just as well his shoulder took the brunt of the fall, and not his head. The other—Private Wilkins—has a broken leg. Badly broken, I’m afraid. There may be more injuries—internal ones. I can’t be sure.”

  I called down to Mary. “Bedding, quickly. And pillows. We must make them comfortable where they are for now.” Maddie wouldn’t let them be moved until he was certain about the internal injuries.

  He was already busy, with Simon’s help, setting the shoulder while Sergeant Wilkins was unconscious. Then he looked at the wrist. “A nasty break.” Turning to me, he called, “My satchel.”

  I hurried back to the bedroom. It was lying on the floor where he’d set it while examining Jeremy Wilkins.

  Mrs. Chatham was still sitting where we’d left her.
She looked at me, but didn’t ask any questions.

  I said, “Both men are still alive but badly hurt. We can’t move them. I’m afraid they’ll have to stay where they are.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, although I didn’t think she cared either way.

  Rising, she walked to the door, with me but apart from me. I stood back to allow her to go before me, thinking she would be going down to see to her unwelcome guests. Instead she turned toward the end of the passage, intending to shut herself away again.

  And then she stopped, showing the first sign of compassion I’d seen in her.

  “Phyllis loved him, and that was all that mattered to me. I was happy once, I know how it feels to be happy.”

  And then she was gone. She hadn’t even asked if we knew yet which brother had been a murderer.

  I hurried back to Maddie with his satchel. Mary had brought bedding and pillows, another maid took chairs from one of the nearby rooms and brought them to us. Delicate brocade, delicate chairs intended to be sat on quietly while sipping tea. I asked her to take them back and find more comfortable ones. We went to the attics and discovered cots, and with Simon’s help brought them down along with tables to put beside them.

  Phyllis Percy sat beside Jeremy Wilkins, holding his hand, whispering to him. Both men had come around but neither tried to speak.

  By the time I had organized a sickroom here in the spacious hall, and we had carefully lifted both men to their respective cots, it was close to dawn, although the sun hadn’t yet crept over the hills that marked the Dysoes.

  Simon stood by the door. I thought he must be very tired by now, and I asked Mary to bring tea and whatever the kitchens could provide in the way of sandwiches.

  He and I helped Maddie set Sergeant Wilkins’s wrist, then simply splinted his brother’s leg. We had no access to an X-ray. That would have to come once they were moved to hospital. Phyllis Percy collapsed from sheer exhaustion, and was taken to her room. I went up as well, found the key, and locked the door from the outside.