A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

by Charles Todd

  “Lieutenant Wade isn’t the only gentleman who enlisted in the ranks.”

  “Very true. How many of them were once officers as well?”

  “You could be right.”

  We rode in silence for a while. Then I broke that silence, saying, “You aren’t known in Petersfield. Perhaps we can put that to good use.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  It was my turn to smile. “I really don’t know what I’m saying. But we’ll think of something.”

  The light rain that had followed us from London vanished a few miles from Petersfield. I pulled over at a muddy farm lane where we could stop for a few minutes.

  “We can turn around. It isn’t too late.”

  My mother took a deep breath. “We’re here.”

  “So we are.” I pulled back onto the road, and in a matter of minutes we were driving into Petersfield.

  A funeral was in progress, the hearse standing to one side of the churchyard, the mutes just opening its rear door. But only a handful of mourners were there, and the rest of the square was empty. It was a forlorn picture, surely repeated many times over throughout England. My heart went out to the family.

  “Another victim of this dread disease,” my mother said, looking back over her shoulder. “We’re all beginning to be afraid. Your father had a cough last week. It terrified me.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” I accused her.

  “No, it was just the smoke he’d inhaled in some test or other on Salisbury Plain. But one’s first thought . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  We had reached The Willows, and I slowed down.

  “Can you see the house, just there, through the trees?”

  “Yes. Quite old, isn’t it? And you said, early Victorian inside?”

  “I don’t think any changes have been made for decades. It’s dreary.”

  “And that makes it harder to sell, surely? Here with the war still on—”

  She broke off as someone came rushing toward the gates. I realized it was the housekeeper, red-faced and distraught.

  My mother was already out of the motorcar, hurrying toward Miss Seavers. She had caught her arms by the time I reached them and was trying to penetrate the hysteria to find out what was wrong.

  All I could really be sure of was that Mr. Gates had had an accident.

  We didn’t bother with the motorcar. I ran for the house, and as I got closer, through the open door I could see him crumpled on his side on the hall floor.

  The first thing that met my eye as I dashed inside was the frayed length of rope that lay across his left arm, and then the improvised noose around his neck. Quickly glancing upward, I realized that there was a gap in the balusters where the stairs turned at the landing. Just beyond the body were two broken balusters with more rope still attached to them.

  My hands were already busy at the noose by the time my mother knelt beside me, and with her help, I freed it and then put a hand to his throat to look for a pulse.

  “He’s alive,” I said, and began to examine him. Miss Seavers was standing over us, wringing her hands piteously and crying in an uneven wail.

  My mother said briskly, “He will need hot tea, you must go at once and make it. Do you understand?”

  For an instant I thought she would fail to get through the woman’s frenzy of worry, and then the housekeeper threw her apron over her mouth and ran for the door to the kitchen downstairs.

  Blessed silence fell.

  I could see the heavy rope burn along one side of Mr. Gates’s throat, and it appeared that his right shoulder was dislocated. I kept working and discovered that his left leg was almost certainly fractured just above his ankle. He must have climbed on the banister. And if the rope had held, his neck would have snapped before he choked to death.

  He was still unconscious, and there was the possibility of a concussion as well. But that would have to wait. I set about resetting the shoulder while he was out of his senses. I made certain that neither his collarbone nor his arm was broken, and then tested the use of his arm before putting it back into place.

  Mr. Gates cried out with the pain and began to wake up.

  My mother, rocking back on her heels, said, “Is there anything in your kit that would help him?”

  “Until I’m sure there’s no concussion I dare not. I can feel a large lump in his hair, above his ear where his head would have struck.”

  “Poor man,” she said simply.

  There was nothing I could do about the ankle, except to wrap it against the swelling. I sent my mother upstairs to find linens I could use, and while she was gone, Mr. Gates came fully to his senses and cried out as he tried to move.

  “Stay still—please—you’ve hurt your shoulder and your leg and you mustn’t try to get up,” I urged, pressing him back.

  But he surged to a sitting position, looked wildly toward the stairs, and saw the broken balusters.

  “My God. I’m not dead—I thought—oh, dear God, what am I to do?”

  I turned away from the anguish in his face, looking instead at the rope. He must have found it in one of the outbuildings, and while it was thick, it was also raveling in places where the strands had rotted with age. Tormented, half mad with whatever had driven him to hang himself, he had only seen what he wanted to see—a rope. His weight was too much for the balusters, and when they and the rope broke, he had fallen hard.

  Mostly on that ankle and then his shoulder and head.

  My mother came back down the steps carrying two sheets.

  “These were in the linen closet. Help me rip them up.”

  Holding his arm and fighting against his pain, Mr. Gates frowned. “Who is she?”

  “A friend,” I said, not wanting to tell him that her name was also Crawford. We began to tear the sheets. It was easier than I’d expected. They were yellowed, thin, but clean. She must have found them, I thought, in the very back of the linen closet, but they would be far easier to manage than newer ones.

  The door to the downstairs opened and Miss Seavers backed into the hall, the heavy tray in her hands. It held an entire tea service, not just a pot and a cup. She walked toward us, saw the strips of cloth, and exclaimed, “What are you doing?”

  Mother rose and took the tray from her, setting it on a table by the stairs.

  “Do sit down, my dear, and let me pour you a cup. We’re making bandaging, that’s all. Poor Mr. Gates has broken his leg. Do you know where to find the doctor?”

  “Dr. Collins? Yes—yes, of course.”

  “Then drink this up and you can show me.”

  I said to my patient, “I’m going to wrap your ankle. It will keep the swelling down and that will make it easier for the doctor to set when he comes.”

  Mr. Gates wanted no part of having his ankle touched, much less bound. Perspiring from the agony, he shook his head. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want the doctor. Go away and leave me alone.”

  I got to my feet. “You can’t walk, and Miss Seavers can’t possibly carry you up the stairs to your bed. Or even into a sitting room,” I said, in Matron’s brisk voice. “You will do as you are told.” But he shook his head. Turning, I gathered up the rope and the broken balusters. There was nowhere to put them, and in the end I opened the drawing room door and set them behind a chair. The doctor would see the missing balusters and the rope burn around the rector’s neck and draw his own conclusions, but it was best to have the proof out of sight.

  Mr. Gates refused the tea I poured for him, and so I set it next to him. Sitting awkwardly on the hard wood of the floor must be agonizing, for there was no way he could find a comfortable position.

  I saw my mother set the housekeeper’s empty cup on the tray. “Do you have a shawl, Miss Seavers? It’s damp from the rain. I’ll fetch it for you, if you’ll tell me where to look.”

  “Y
ou aren’t—you can’t possibly leave him here alone?” she asked, staring from me to her cousin.

  I was direct. “He can’t go anywhere, and he needs a doctor. The sooner we bring him here, the better it is for Mr. Gates.”

  She got to her feet and walked over to her cousin. I thought at first she was going to try to help him rise and limp to a more comfortable place, but she surprised me.

  “I’m heartily sick of your posturing, Harold. Let them bind your ankle while I go for Dr. Collins. You’ve just made trouble for yourself and much unnecessary work for me.”

  He turned to look at her as if the furniture had suddenly attacked him. It was the first time she’d shown any hint of spirit, to my knowledge, and from her cousin’s expression, it was the first time ever.

  And she set off up the stairs, hesitating only briefly at the spot where the balusters had broken away.

  My mother raised her eyebrows in silent comment.

  Two minutes later Miss Seavers came back with a shawl, her umbrella, and a pillow. She handed that last to me and said, “He might have to lie down while you work.”

  And then she was out the door, and my mother hurried after her.

  But when I approached Mr. Gates, he still refused my help.

  I sat down on the bottom step of the staircase, the ankle unbandaged, and Mr. Gates ignoring me. He was huddled into himself, biting his lip against the pain. He hadn’t touched the tea. There was nothing I could do but wait.

  “Please.” His voice was just a thread. I turned toward him. His face was so pale I thought he must be on the verge of fainting.

  I went to him at once, arranged the pillow to ease his shoulder, and still he couldn’t lie down. I found more cushions in the sitting room, and with their help and mine, he finally lay back and put his good arm across his eyes, as if to shut out what I was about to do.

  Easing off his boot, I could see that the swelling had begun in earnest, the bruising already extensive, but I wrapped the ankle to stabilize it as much as possible. From what I could tell it was a simple fracture some three inches above where the bone met the ankle joint. He couldn’t bear to have me touch his foot, but he clenched his teeth and suffered in silence.

  When it was done, I poured out his lukewarm tea and gave him a hot cup in its place. I was able to raise him enough to allow him to swallow a little, but his throat hurt, and after a moment I gently lowered him to the cushions again.

  “Why did you want to kill yourself?” I asked quietly. “Is it the war? Or this house?”

  I didn’t think he was going to answer. But after a time he said in a voice that was weary and resigned, “I can’t stand this house. I can’t sell it, and until I do, there is nowhere else I can go. I was told by the Army doctors that I needed complete rest to heal. How can I rest here, in this place? I can’t walk into the drawing room without seeing the dead sitting there staring back at me. I can’t sleep in the master bedroom, it’s my uncle’s room, and I feel him there every time I cross the threshold. There’s nowhere I can go to find any peace. I returned to France, and I was sent home from there, because I couldn’t carry out my duties. I would be better off dead. Why did you cut me down?”

  I realized that he was still dazed and confused enough to think we had somehow managed to save his life.

  “This house isn’t haunted,” I said quietly, and then remembered that Miss Gooding had also believed it was.

  “You don’t know,” he said savagely. “My God, you don’t live here, you don’t sleep here of a night. I can hear footsteps and there are voices too, only I can’t make out what it is they’re saying. I put the pillow over my head and they don’t go away.”

  I could think of nothing to say. He didn’t want to hear that it was just an old house creaking in the night or wind coming down the chimney or whistling around sashes that no longer quite fit the windows after all this time. Or perhaps the voices were in his head, and with them the sound of footsteps.

  Without waiting for me to answer, he went on, this time talking mostly to himself. “I was always afraid that my uncle had killed the Caswells. Whatever the police said about it. He was quite capable of it, you know. As ruthless a person as I’ve ever seen. And now I’m no better than he is. I’ve got blood on my hands too. Murder must run in the family somehow.”

  Was Mr. Gates shell-shocked? Had something happened to him in the war?

  “You were a chaplain, you couldn’t have been guilty of murder.”

  “But I was. There was no time to send me back to the reserve trenches. It happened too fast. I picked up a dead man’s rifle and shot two German soldiers at the edge of our trench. The wire was already down for our assault, and they beat us back, men dying everywhere I looked. I was angry and afraid—and so I shot them.”

  I understood now why he was unable to find any peace. It was sad, I’d seen so many like this poor man, and there was no cure of his affliction.

  I could hear voices outside, and then the door opened to admit the doctor, with Miss Seavers at his heels.

  He was a stocky man with graying hair, and he peered over his glasses at my uniform as I stepped forward to meet him.

  “And who might you be?” he asked.

  “Sister Crawford. My mother and I were driving past when Miss Seavers came running down the drive calling for help.”

  He made a sound that could mean anything from disapproval to disbelief. Getting down on one knee, grunting with the effort, he began to examine his patient. Mr. Gates lay there with his eyes closed, but I could see the workings of the muscles in his jaw. He wasn’t able to face the doctor.

  “While he was unconscious I took the opportunity to set his dislocated shoulder,” I said, but the doctor ignored me. He pulled up one of Mr. Gates’s eyelids, then ran his fingers over the lump on the side of his head. Reaching the shoulder, he ignored Mr. Gates’s muffled cry of pain and continued down his body, checking the ribs and arms before moving to the patient’s legs.

  “Who bound the ankle?” he asked over his shoulder, as if Mr. Gates might have done that himself.

  “I did, to reduce the swelling. It was ballooning.”

  “The leg is broken just there. You took a risk.”

  “Yes, I could tell it was broken. But it was not twisted, and I moved it as little as possible.”

  There was a knock at the door. I was sure it was my mother, and so I stepped forward to open it and let her in.

  But it wasn’t Mother on the doorstep. It was a well-dressed man and woman. They took in the scene before them, the doctor kneeling beside someone obviously injured lying on the hall floor while a nursing Sister was acting as housemaid.

  I heard the woman gasp as her husband said, “There must be some—we were told that it would be convenient to call today to look at this—er—at The Willows.”

  I glanced toward Miss Seavers. She stood there with her hand over her mouth, staring from me to the pair on the doorstep. “I—I forgot—it flew completely out of my mind . . .” she said faintly.

  “I must say,” the man began, but his wife was already pulling at his arm.

  “Please, I think perhaps we should go.”

  The man had seen the broken balusters now. Peering over my shoulder at the staircase and then at the man lying on cushions, he sniffed the air. “Has this man been drinking?”

  I was glad I’d had the foresight to hide the rope. Even so, it was clear that this wasn’t an ordinary fall down the stairs. Mr. Gates couldn’t have slipped through the gap, and if he’d gone down the staircase, the balusters wouldn’t have broken the way they had. I could almost hear the gossip starting.

  “Get them out of here,” the doctor said in a growl.

  “Mr. Gates has had a very serious fall,” I said, “while trying to make repairs to the staircase before you arrived. Now I’m afraid you’ll have to arrange to visit at another t
ime.” And I politely shut the door in their faces.

  Dr. Collins finished his examination and looked up at me. “I don’t know that there’s a concussion. His leg and that shoulder broke his fall, and then his head hit the floor as an afterthought. But we’ll err on the side of caution.” He got to his feet. “I’ll have to send for a stretcher. He can’t be left where he is, and I have no room for him at my surgery. There are influenza patients there. We’ve just buried one of them.” He turned to Miss Seavers. “Get his bed ready for him, if you will, and I’ll come back in the morning to set the leg. Meanwhile, I’ll leave something with you to give him for the pain.”

  Then he prodded Mr. Gates with the toe of his boot, not hard but enough to get the man’s full attention. And still Mr. Gates kept his eyes closed.

  “We’ll have no more of this, do you hear me? Whatever it is you’ve tried to do, I’ll thank you not to be so stupid as to try it again any time soon. I have people who are dying who would exchange places with you gladly. And you’ve taken me away from them to attend you. Give me your word you’ll be sensible.”

  But Mr. Gates lay there, tears squeezed out from behind his closed lids, and said nothing.

  Dr. Collins considered him for a moment. “I will accept that as a promise on your part. Now I must finish here and go.” Turning to me, he went on. “I take it you won’t be staying.”

  I said, “No, sadly, I shan’t be able to stay.” And then instantly regretted it, for Miss Seavers could hardly be expected to take on the care of her cousin on her own, and I’d have been free to explore this house to find out what it was that had make it the scene of three murders, and possibly two suicides, those of Mr. Gates and a woman he never knew, the governess who drowned herself.

  Dr. Collins was drawing Miss Seavers to one side, and opening his bag, he brought out a box of powders, giving her instructions as he did so. She cast a frightened glance in my direction, as if wishing I would change my mind and take over. But I didn’t think the rector would want me here.

  Miss Seavers listened, nodded anxiously, and then the doctor closed his bag, starting for the door. As an afterthought, he said to the housekeeper, “And keep those powders where he can’t get to them. In your room, in the kitchen, I don’t care which.”