A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

by Charles Todd

  “Have you ever lived there?”

  He blinked, staring at me. “Of course not. Until the war I was rector of a church outside of Bury St. Edmunds. What business is it of yours?”

  “Then you can’t possibly tell me how well the plumbing works or if there’s worm or dry rot in the attic. Or if the chimneys draw without smoking so badly it chases everyone out of a room. And there are the drains. Do they smell, in the servants’ hall? Not to mention the state of the roof, which I can see for myself. How do you expect to sell a house you yourself consider to be a barn of a place?”

  The poor man didn’t know what to say. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Simon trying to smother a grin.

  “I never met the Caswells,” I went on. “I didn’t even know their names until just before the sexton bore down on us and nearly drove us from the churchyard. Did he tell you we were staring at the graves? I happened to notice that here was a family who died on the same day. You don’t often see that unless there’s plague or cholera or typhoid. I couldn’t have told you the name of the previous owners of that house of yours. But now I know it. Because everyone is behaving as if Simon and I have come here to make trouble. Well, we haven’t. So go away and let us drink our tea in peace.”

  I’d succeeded in reducing the tension between the two men. I wasn’t sure that a chaplain would have resorted to his fists, but I wasn’t going to chance it. Tall as he was, he was several inches shorter than Simon, and his reach was shorter as well. Simon could have floored the man without turning a hair.

  The chaplain stared at me, mouth open, uncertain what to say.

  “Since you’ve insisted on joining us,” I said while he was still at a loss for words, “you might as well have a cup of tea.”

  I nodded to the man who had just served us, asking for a third cup. When it arrived, accompanied by a wooden expression on the server’s face, I poured three cups of tea and passed the honey as well as the small jug of milk.

  By this time the chaplain didn’t know where to look. He had come here with artillery and cavalry in his eyes, and now he was discovering that he and they were in full retreat.

  “Tell me about these people, the Caswells,” I said. “Are they related to you?”

  “I—no—that’s to say, not directly. The house went to my uncle when they—er—when the Caswells died. I’m his late wife’s nephew.”

  “But you’ve been trying to sell the house, without any luck.”

  “I can’t afford to live there. I hope to return to my church in Bury, when the war’s over. Or to one like it. What I earn wouldn’t keep that house for a month, much less a year. I tried to have it turned into a clinic, but even the Medical Board refused to accept my offer. That was at the start of the war. My uncle died in August 1914, just after the Germans marched into Belgium. My aunt had died the year before. She had never liked the place, not after what had happened there. And when I came to stay for a school holiday or the like, she always insisted that I lock my bedroom door. She’d come, after she thought I was asleep, to test it.” He drank a little of his tea and grimaced. It was still too hot. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because you haven’t been able to tell anyone else,” I suggested. “Not if you wanted to sell the property. How did they die, the Caswells? Was it illness, as I’d expected?”

  “They were murdered. All three of them. In cold blood, in what my aunt always referred to as the drawing room. It was shut off. I wasn’t allowed to go in there. I doubt she ever used it. But then she was elderly when she came to Petersfield, and she probably had no taste for curiosity seekers. They came in droves the first few years, she said. And then the story was half forgotten. Until July, before the war started. One of the London papers brought up sensational murders. Jack the Ripper, that sort of thing. And they included the mysterious deaths at The Willows. There’s a brook across the back of the property with willows along the banks. Very pretty in the spring. Long pale green fronds dipping down to the water. There were horses then, and they spent much of their time in the meadow across the brook.”

  “Were the deaths so mysterious?” Simon asked.

  “The man who killed them got away. Scot-free. He was never found.”

  “And there was no motive?”

  “The Caswells were upstanding members of the community. You could ask anyone and they would tell you the same.”

  “Was it a random killing? Or did the murderer know the family?” I asked.

  The chaplain absently took one of the sandwiches when I passed the plate to him. He was a lonely man, tormented by a responsibility beyond his powers to cope, and there was a permanent frown between his eyes. I wondered if the house really disturbed him so much or if it was a means to put aside what he’d seen in France. But that was a question I couldn’t ask.

  “God knows,” he replied. “I don’t think anyone else did, even at the time. I asked my uncle once if he knew anything about what had happened, but he didn’t. They were shot, point-blank range. They didn’t have time to duck or run out of the room. My uncle said that even after he’d moved in, you could still see the stains in the carpet. He got rid of it. Burned it in the back garden.”

  “Yes, the only thing to be done,” I agreed. “I’m surprised he was willing to live in the house.”

  “He had just retired. And he wanted to leave London. I don’t think he asked my aunt what her thoughts were in the matter. But then he was a doctor, he’d seen death firsthand. As have I. My aunt hadn’t. I think she must have been afraid every day she lived there.”

  I thought of the housekeeper, his cousin, who was there now. “Does someone live in the house full-time? If you’re selling up, surely you’d need to have someone to answer the door and show prospective buyers around.”

  “My cousin is here for a month. I gave the estate agent a month to sell it. Then I have to go back to France. My leave will be up.”

  “Were you wounded?” I asked, gesturing to the sling.

  But he shook his head. “Not—wounded.”

  I guessed then that he’d been given leave before he broke under the strain of his duties. Chaplains saw men at their worst—frightened, in pain, panicked, facing death or amputation. They comforted and they supported, and they must have struggled to hold on to their own faith while they were about it.

  I had finished my tea, and Simon rose to order a fresh pot. But our uninvited guest seemed to come to himself as Simon moved.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, stumbling to his feet as well. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have told you all that I have. It was wrong of me. I don’t even know you.”

  Simon had given his name when we encountered this man by the house gates. Now I said, “My name is Crawford, Elizabeth Crawford. And you are—?”

  But he was staring at me again, this time as if I’d suddenly grown two heads. “Crawford?”

  “Yes—”

  “That was the name of the officer who wrote to my uncle. From India. He told my uncle that the man Scotland Yard was searching for had died in some pass or other out there. That there was nothing more to be done. I found the letter in my uncle’s desk, after his death. He always believed that the Army had lied about what happened to the murderer. I’ve seen it for myself, they protect their own. If you’re any relation of that officer, then you ought to be ashamed of what he did. That killer should have been brought back, tried, and hanged. That would have finished the matter in everyone’s eyes. It would have gone a long way toward lifting the cloud from that house. And from my family.”

  He knocked his chair over as he turned to go, and it clattered loudly in the quiet room, shocking the people sitting at the other tables. They stared, I could see their gaze turn from him to me and then to Simon.

  Simon, infuriated by the man’s outburst, started after him as he marched self-righteously toward the door.

&n
bsp; I caught Simon’s arm. “Let him go,” I said quietly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  But I knew it did. The man had assailed the Colonel Sahib’s honor, and by extension, the honor of the regiment, and insulted me as well.

  The door to the inn slammed shut. I could just hear footsteps walking unevenly away, as if the chaplain were drunk.

  I could feel the muscles in Simon’s arm where my fingers held him back. They were taut, hard as iron. I didn’t know what Simon might do to the man, cleric or not. And so I held on.

  And then he was sitting down, after lifting the fallen chair from the floor and setting it back where it belonged at the other table.

  By that time Simon had himself under control again. “Your great-great-grandmother couldn’t have sorted him out any better,” he said, smiling. But it hadn’t reached his eyes, that smile.

  My great-great-grandmother had danced the night away in Belgium, keeping up a pretense that all was well, while her husband and his regiment marched to stop Napoleon at a place called Waterloo. Keeping the townspeople and any spies from guessing where the English had gone.

  We didn’t linger. After a moment Simon got up and paid for our tea, his face grim. There was a brief exchange of words with our waiter, and then Simon was back, collecting me.

  And we walked out of the inn, back to the motorcar.

  Simon didn’t speak until we’d been on the road north for nearly an hour.

  “Gates,” he said then. “His name is Gates.”

  And that was all he said until we had reached Somerset and he had seen me safely inside the house. I heard him drive my motorcar around to the shed, and then could follow him in my mind’s eye, through the back garden, along the path that crossed the wood, and down the lane to his own cottage.

  But I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what he did. As angry as he was, he might have walked until he was calm enough to sleep.

  It had been at my request that we’d gone to Petersfield. I hadn’t left well enough alone.

  My sensible self reminded me that I could hardly have anticipated running into Reverend Gates.

  Still, I went to bed carrying a large case of guilt with me.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, before I was quite awake, Simon was at the door, asking Iris to tell me that he was waiting for me.

  I threw on clothes and went down, expecting to find him in the same dark mood of last night.

  But he wasn’t; he was standing in the dining room, lifting the covers on the sideboard, then helping himself to eggs, toast, and a rasher of bacon.

  “Good morning,” he said with more cheer than I felt.

  “Good morning,” I answered, pouring myself a cup of tea.

  “I’m here to apologize. I was hardly a pleasant companion yesterday.”

  “It was hardly a pleasant journey,” I retorted. “I spent most of the night wishing I’d never set foot in Petersfield.”

  “Yes. I understand. But it’s done, Bess. We must close the door and go on.”

  Perversely, given the opportunity to do just that, I found myself resisting. I said, “I don’t know what more we can do.”

  “Precisely my point.”

  And so we spent my last day taking a picnic to Glastonbury Tor.

  We had finished our sandwiches and were putting things back into the basket when Simon said, out of the blue, “Bess, do you remember when you were a little girl and Cinnamon went missing?”

  I was instantly transported back to that moment of discovery—when I came down the stairs to find my little spaniel not in his bed, not in the house, not even in the garden. Nowhere, in fact, that I looked. Frantic, I went to Simon, for my father was away, and we searched everywhere. I was convinced that one of the grooms had taken him, out of spite for a dressing-down he’d incurred on my account. In the end, we found the dog in the stables, cowering in a dark corner, terrified of the mare looming above him. She was an even-tempered mare, not at all likely to hurt him, but he didn’t know that. He knew only that he’d wandered where he didn’t belong and was now about to get his comeuppance. When Simon brought him to me, the spaniel lavished kisses on my face until my chin was red, and never strayed out an open door again. Afterward that groom came to me and swore he had not touched the spaniel, and even when I told him I believed him, he didn’t believe me. Six months later he left our employ and went to work for a neighbor.

  “I do, very well.” I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up at Simon. “What on earth brought Cinnamon to mind?”

  “Petersfield,” he said slowly. “Those murders were ten years ago, Bess. They should be ancient history as far as the people involved are concerned. But the sexton went to find Reverend Gates to tell him that we were poking around in the churchyard. And Gates was almost beside himself because he was afraid our raking up of the past would surely put paid to any hope of selling the house.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Scotland Yard came to Petersfield and scoured the town and the outlying houses and farms looking for the Caswell family’s killer. With no luck. Then someone reported seeing Wade in the vicinity, and the Yard went after him. But Wade had already left for India, and the inquiry was passed on to the Army. The Yard could do no more, Wade was beyond their reach.”

  “That’s true.” I nodded, quick to see where Simon was going.

  “And so as far as the village is concerned, there was no conclusion to the case. The inquest most likely ended with an open verdict, person or persons unknown. Wade was in India, fled from the MFP, and was never brought to trial. Whether he was guilty or not was never determined. The case was simply closed. And that village was left to wonder if the Yard had got it right—or if there was still a murderer lurking in their midst.”

  “Scars that haven’t healed,” I agreed.

  “Yes. Exactly that. I found myself wondering if Gates even suspected his uncle might have had a hand in it. A man looking to leave London for the country, and here’s the perfect house, suddenly handed to him in a will. It would be interesting to know just why the uncle was eager to retire. I expect Gates must be aware of something in his uncle’s past that he doesn’t want to examine too carefully.”

  “I remember when Cinnamon went missing, I was ready to blame the neighbors’ mastiff, to accuse that groom, to be angry with the maid who left the door to the gardens standing wide, even to blame the bustards down in the wood on the other side of the village. Anyone. Anything. Because imagining what had happened to my pet was more horrible than finding out the truth.”

  Cinnamon had lived to a ripe old age, of course, none the worse for his adventure. But I could understand the fears and suspicion that must have swirled around Petersfield in the aftermath of such a terrible crime.

  Simon carried the picnic basket to the motorcar while I shook and folded the picnic rug.

  “And then when a newspaper brought it all up again four years ago, it just served to make everyone anxious again,” I added as I handed him the rug.

  “All the more reason not to go wandering about there on your own. Promise me.”

  “Yes, that makes sense,” I said. “Since it will probably have spread through the town that I’m a Crawford, and my father was responsible for losing Lieutenant Wade. At least in their eyes, not knowing the whole story.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I sighed as I settled myself into my seat, glancing back over my shoulder at the long shadow the Tor cast over the hillside. “I’m glad my father doesn’t know. He did all he could.”

  “I was there,” Simon said harshly as he turned the crank. “I know it for a fact.”

  I left for London the next morning, with Simon driving me to the station. In my kit I had freshly laundered and pressed uniforms, thanks to Iris, and a small jug of honey for my tea, which Cook had tucked in the basket along with sandwiches
to speed me on my way.

  “I’ve missed seeing my parents,” I said as we waited for my train to come in.

  “They’ll be sad they missed you.”

  And then my train roared into the station with vast clouds of steam hanging in the damp air. Simon put me aboard and I was soon on my way back to France.

  It was happenstance. My sharing a cabin with a Sister from Haslemere on the crossing. I’d met her before—in fact we’d worked together in 1917 for about two months off and on. Her name was Molly Fullerton, the daughter of a doctor. She was a very fine nursing Sister, and I’d shared a tent with her for a fortnight.

  We caught up on news, asked each other about patients we’d attended, and talked about our recent leave. Hers had been longer than mine, and she had seen her younger sister married to a solicitor who had just been invalided out of the Army. The bride had contrived a sling for his arm that matched her wedding gown, and he had come down the aisle to applause.

  “They’ll be very happy,” Molly told me, smiling and nodding. “I couldn’t be happier for her myself. I’ve never seen two people so in love.”

  It wasn’t until we were about to disembark, our kits already collected, that I thought to ask.

  “Haslemere isn’t far from Petersfield, is it?”

  “No, not far at all. We sometimes went there on market day. My mother likes one of the farm loaves the baker there makes.”

  “I was in Petersfield two days ago. A friend was interested in a property for sale just outside the town, only he was told there was a mystery about a triple murder in that very house some ten years earlier. You were too young to remember anything about it, I’m sure. But your father might, and I could set my friend’s mind at ease. The present owner was evasive about it—he hadn’t lived there at the time, of course, that might explain his unwillingness to discuss the past. He probably knew as little as anyone did.”

  “That’s intriguing,” Molly exclaimed. “I knew nothing about it. What was the family’s name?”