‘How did he seem to you?’
‘He was very well, as far as I could see – perhaps a little careworn and distracted. He said he was getting sick of all the gossip about the old man who had “confessed” on his deathbed. We fell to talking about the sacrament of confession; Somers spoke of the difference between carrying one’s own sins and carrying the sins of other people.’
‘Good heavens, what a subject to while away a downpour!’
‘As you will remember, Mrs Rodd, he took the whole business very seriously.’
‘Mrs Rodd! Mrs Rodd – are you there?’
Mrs Watts-Weston came dashing along the path behind us (she ran surprisingly fast, like a well-dressed antelope). ‘Mrs Rodd!’
‘Good morning, Mr Jennings,’ I said, laughing. ‘You have my permission to flee!’
He gave me a hasty bow – and fled.
‘Good God, how time gallops! It’s no time at all since I could carry that boy on my shoulders – and now he towers over me and corrects my Latin! When did he turn into a copy of Papa?’
My brother, having eaten a gargantuan luncheon, was indulging in a little sentimentality – quite forgivably, as far as I was concerned. It was the day after my encounter with Mr Jennings and Fred was in Oxford to deliver his oldest boy, dear Augustus, to his new college, well before the beginning of term; to my joy he had chosen to read for the Church.
‘If only Papa could see him,’ I said. ‘He’d be so happy, and so proud!’
‘Gus is the son he wanted me to be,’ said Fred. ‘Sometimes he fixes me with an absolute replica of the old man’s famous disapproving look.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said, laughing. ‘I didn’t see that look as often as you did. You were a rascal from the day you were born.’
We were in a cosy private parlour at the Mitre Inn. A waiter came in to draw the cloth and Fred’s whole attention turned back to the important business of his stomach. I needed to talk to him about the murder, but knew there was no point until he was settled, and waited patiently while he ordered another bottle of claret, Stilton cheese and biscuits, and more coal on the fire.
Once his mouth was full and his ears were free, I gave a quick account of my progress so far – very quick, since I had made no progress at all. ‘Fred, I’m so dreadfully anxious about Rachel – about both of them.’
‘As well you might be, my dear old thing,’ said Fred. ‘When every fresh turn of events makes the pair of them seem worse!’ He grinned at me. ‘Looks hopeless, doesn’t it? But you know I can never resist a challenge. Though I might come to regret it, yesterday I agreed to defend Mrs Somers.’
‘Oh, my dear!’ This was such a great relief, for so many reasons, that tears came to my eyes.
‘I have one question,’ said Fred. ‘You must promise not to be cross.’
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘I want to be sure that you still believe they are innocent – that is, innocent of murder. They’re not on trial for the other business.’
‘Yes, I believe it with all my heart,’ I said at once. ‘They did not kill Arthur. And as for what you call the “other business” – they didn’t do that either.’
‘Don’t get in a bate! Obviously, I’ll tell the jury they’re whiter than the snow and therefore had no reason to et cetera et cetera. But I bet they were doing it.’
‘Fred!’ I was outraged. ‘That’s a shameful accusation!’
‘I beg your pardon for my jaded view of the world,’ said Fred. ‘In my experience, everybody’s doing it – and then lying about it afterwards.’
‘Not Rachel Somers!’
‘Stop flapping! This is only my private opinion. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I hold them to be as pure as a pair of angels.’ He refilled his wine glass. ‘How much do you know about the witnesses?’
‘Next to nothing; just what I have read in the newspapers of the inquest.’
‘Did you hear of the fight?’
‘What fight?’
Fred chuckled. ‘It happened at the haymaking dance, after you’d gone to bed. The vicar and his curate had a blazing row—’
‘But this is nonsense – wicked nonsense!’ I was horrified.
‘There are four witnesses, who claim they heard Somers shout out “Bloody Judas”, and saw him knock Barton flat on his back.’
‘It can’t be true,’ I said fiercely. ‘I would have noticed something amiss the next morning. Rachel would have told me.’ (Would she? Could I be sure of anything?)
‘Three of the witnesses can be dismissed quite easily, having admitted to being in liquor at the time. The fourth, however, presents us with a problem.’
‘Mr Arden,’ I said wretchedly.
‘It’s well-nigh impossible to turn a jury against such a man.’ Fred’s eyes gleamed. ‘As things stand, his evidence is enough to hang Barton several times over.’
‘Stop smirking!’
‘I’m not smirking,’ said Fred. ‘Merely pointing out the obstacles in front of us. It would help if you could find someone else with a motive to murder Arthur Somers.’
‘I daresay it would,’ I returned, rather shortly. ‘Until I do, however, we must work with what we have. Who is to defend Mr Barton?’
‘A young tyro from my chambers, Mr Patrick Flint,’ said Fred. ‘He’s the chap who made such a stir a few months back, in the matter of the Enfield Cesspit Murders.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I was a little more hopeful, remembering that this Mr Flint had saved a man everyone believed to be guilty. ‘And you think he’s capable?’
‘Very much so; Flint has a way of sinking his teeth into an argument.’ Fred paused to cut himself a slice of Stilton. ‘You’ll meet him when you’re back in London. He has no social graces whatsoever, but you mustn’t mind that.’ He leant over to tug briskly at the bell. ‘Let’s have another bottle’
‘Another?’
‘You got most of the last one.’
‘Frederick Tyson, that is a bare-faced lie!’
It was impossible to carry on being serious with Fred when he was tired of seriousness, and I burst out laughing, quite against my will.
Sixteen
The account of the fight filled me with dismay. I had taken it for granted that clergymen could not possibly behave in this manner. Especially Arthur. Yes, I had seen for myself Mr Barton’s quick temper and readiness with his fists, but – Arthur! Gentle Arthur, whom my husband once described as ‘the epitome of the word “milksop”’. I longed to talk to Rachel again, but before I could get Blackbeard’s permission, both defendants were carried off to London, to await their trial at the Old Bailey. There were one or two things I had to do before I followed.
Mrs Bentley sent me a letter that had come to Hampstead; it was waiting for me on my plate at breakfast. Mrs Watts-Weston eyed it so beadily that I felt obliged to open it immediately. It was from Mr Harold Mitchell, the attorney who dealt with the affairs of Jacob Welland.
‘Bad news, Mrs Rodd?’
‘Nothing unexpected,’ I said. ‘Poor Mr Jacob Welland has died at last.’ (And Mitchell requested a meeting with me, regarding a ‘confidential matter’, but I kept that to myself.)
‘Dear, dear!’ sighed Mrs W-W. ‘Such a sad end to a sad story! Cedric, my dear.’
‘Hmm?’ Her husband raised his scholarly nose from his book (he brought a book to every meal if he could get away with it; the Warden was a dapper little egg of a man, round and bald and amiable, and I could not imagine how he had ever got up the gumption to propose to his whirlwind of a wife).
‘My dear, Jacob Welland is dead,’ said Mrs Watts-Weston. ‘Joshua’s older brother.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ said the Warden. ‘I always felt that Joshua’s history was a stain upon this college. When you told us of his death, Mrs Rodd, I was mostly dismayed by the wanton waste of a good brain. The fact that he died in such abject poverty—’
‘I can’t get hold of Mr Jennings for all the details,’ interr
upted Mrs W-W. ‘I positively think the man is avoiding me! Cedric, if you see him skulking about in the common room you must send him to me at once.’
‘Yes, my dear.’
‘There would be a lot more talk about it, if not for the murder, which is all anybody can talk about these days. And that reminds me, Cedric—’ She glared at her husband. ‘Some very impertinent young men were singing that horrid song about the cup of cold poison, right underneath my window! I know who it was – the Parrish boy, and that grubby youth who is always with him—’
She launched into a tirade of complaints about certain undergraduates who were particularly offensive to her, and I allowed my attention to wander. The letter from Mitchell pricked my curiosity; had Jacob Welland sent me one final message?
‘—and I’m sure you’ve heard the latest rumour, Mrs Rodd.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Mrs Watts-Weston tutted impatiently. ‘About the incident at Banbury Fair!’ She smiled to see my blank face, for she lived to be first with news. ‘Apparently, Mr Barton was seen fighting a man there.’
‘Oh,’ I said faintly, trying to hide my horror. I had heard nothing of this.
‘People are now saying this man had some connection to Arthur Somers; a most unsavoury connection. Well, it’s quite clearly blackmail – for the usual reasons that cannot be uttered before servants and children.’
‘Caroline!’ the Warden protested.
‘Oh, fiddlesticks! We’re all people of the world. I know of such a case in the history of my own family! One of the tales that circulated about Sir Christopher Warrender was that he was being blackmailed by a local ploughboy.’
‘My dear!’
‘Mark my words, this blackmailer will turn out to be the murderer,’ said Mrs Watts-Weston happily. ‘More tea, Mrs Rodd?’
‘No, that’s all wrong.’ The Warden snapped his book shut and spoke with a sudden forcefulness that took me by surprise. ‘What would be his motive? It would not be in his interest to murder a reliable source of money. The scandalous side of all this is simply a most unfortunate distraction, and the love of scandal is making people look in the wrong places.’
I was intrigued, for the Warden had shown no sign of particular interest in the case, and he had touched upon one of my own deep-seated fears. ‘Where would you look?’
‘On his doorstep,’ said the Warden. ‘I don’t mean his wife and curate; as a clergyman, Somers was witness to all the essential dramas in the lives of the local people. Consider the fuss he stirred up when he heard that man’s so-called confession. Somebody was clearly afraid that he knew some secret or other – whether or not it was so – and that is the most convincing motive we have seen so far.’
‘Nonsense!’ declared Mrs W-W. ‘Anyone can see that this amounts to far more than some crude village scandal!’
‘I really doubt it,’ said the Warden mildly. ‘You are too fond of melodrama, my dear.’
He opened his book and his attention left us, like a light being extinguished.
His wife tutted and shrugged and refilled my teacup. ‘Don’t listen to him, Mrs Rodd – melodrama, indeed!’
I don’t know what I said in reply, for the Warden’s intervention was deeply unsettling, and made me think of Inspector Blackbeard and his three motives for murder – love, money or the fear of being found out. We had all been so caught up with motive number one that we had scarcely bothered with number three.
Fear of being found out.
Could we all, in our love of melodrama, have overlooked what my brother called ‘the stark and the staring’?
Someone had daubed the word ‘Whore’ on the wall of the barn at Hardinsett, in whitewash letters a foot high. The word hit me like a slap and I stopped Mrs W-W’s dashing little chariot rather sharply. The fine September morning was utterly spoiled.
It was in the process of being scrubbed off by two labourers with long brushes and pails of water.
‘Mrs Rodd, good morning.’ One of the labourers turned around and I saw that it was Mr Arden, unfamiliar in his shirtsleeves.
He dropped his brush and came to my side, before I could decide how I felt about him. I could hardly treat him as an enemy, when he was scrubbing the foul word off Rachel’s barn with his own hands.
‘This is very good of you, Mr Arden.’
‘I took it on myself to remove it as soon as possible. It’s a disgraceful piece of cowardice.’
‘I quite agree,’ I said warmly. ‘Nobody around here would dare to insult Mrs Somers openly.’
‘It’s one thing I can do for the poor woman,’ said Mr Arden, very earnest. ‘And with all my heart I wish I wasn’t involved. Please understand, Mrs Rodd, that I’m a very unwilling participant in this matter. But I can only tell the truth.’
‘Naturally I understand.’
‘I have a great liking for Barton, and I don’t for a second believe that he is a murderer. I cannot deny, however, that I made the poison and saw Barton put the bottle into his pocket. And I’m very sorry for it.’
‘Yes, that fact is particularly awkward.’ I could not keep the exasperation from my voice. ‘Why on earth did you make it, anyway?’
‘As a remedy for an eye-complaint,’ said Mr Arden. ‘Two drops of atropine in a half-pint of distilled water. And I distilled the atropine myself. I am an enthusiastic amateur chemist. To my eternal regret I left the bottle on my desk, one of the boys got hold of it and Barton very properly took it away from them. That’s all.’
He was absolutely sincere and I softened in spite of myself. ‘I’m not blaming you for telling the truth, Mr Arden. The sad fact is that, in this case, I don’t like the truth when I hear it.’
‘You should have more faith,’ he said, smiling. ‘Once the truth is properly revealed, it is always beautiful.’
‘Oh – yes—’ (I had no idea how I should respond to this sudden piece of mysticism, and was a little depressed to think how a jury would enjoy it; oh, why did this man have to be on the other side?) ‘But I’m sure you did not reveal the truth to your boys.’
‘Certainly not!’ Mr Arden was startled, and then amused. ‘You’ve unmasked me as a hypocrite, Mrs Rodd. I told the boys that Barton had gone away on a long visit. They’re devoted to him.’
‘They must miss him.’
‘Very much,’ said Mr Arden, his face glowing and youthful as it always was when he spoke of the twins. ‘You saw how quickly he won the trust of those wild creatures, and their progress has been marvellous. He managed to stop them running off in the middle of lessons, which I never could. And they had a habit of stuffing food into their pockets for “the man in the woods” – whom I assumed to be a figment of their riotous imaginations, until they suddenly announced that the man had “gone away”—’
‘Joshua Welland!’ I exclaimed.
He nodded. ‘It must’ve been Joshua; they described his big cloak and long beard and so forth, and it could hardly have been anyone else.’
‘But where on earth did the twins meet him? Did he come into your garden?’
‘He would not have needed to do that.’ Mr Arden was a little sheepish now. ‘My estate is a large one, and I’m afraid I gave Jack and Ferdy too much freedom to roam about – as I did myself when I was a child. Barton very tactfully explained to me that a genteel upbringing must be far more restricted.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘Shades of the prison-house must close about my growing boys.’
‘This is very curious, Mr Arden,’ I said. ‘What else did they tell you about this mysterious man? I don’t believe Joshua ran into the boys by chance – but what could he want with them?’
‘Whatever it was, he has taken the secret to his grave,’ said Mr Arden. ‘The twins said he told them stories. When we heard of Joshua’s death, it was Barton’s opinion that they should be encouraged to forget him as quickly as possible. He’s determined to lick my cubs into shape – or he was before he was arrested for murder.’
‘Do you think he did it?’
‘No,’ said Mr Arden. ‘I do not. And Mrs Somers is utterly blameless. Believe me, I’d be overjoyed if you find out something to clear their names. Let’s pray that justice will be done; we are all in God’s hands.’
‘Indeed we are,’ I said, suppressing an impious wish that the Almighty would move in his mysterious ways a little faster. ‘I’m on my way to the rectory now, to talk to the servants.’
‘I’m afraid Mrs Richards is the only servant still to be found there. The others all ran off.’
‘Never mind,’ I said stoutly. ‘Mrs Richards will do very well.’
‘I wish you luck, ma’am, if that is allowed.’
‘Thank you, Mr Arden.’
We exchanged bows and I drove off along the lane towards the vicarage, feigning a confidence I did not feel, wondering where I should start digging for the choicest village scandals.
It was sad to see that charming house with all the blinds drawn and an air of neglect. I stopped the carriage in the gravelled drive, and while I was tying up the horse, Mrs Richards emerged from the front door.
With many apologies, she led me through the hall into the kitchen. ‘All the other rooms are shut up; it’s not so tidy as I’d like, but there’s a nice fire.’
‘You are very good to stay here by yourself,’ I said.
‘Someone had to,’ said Mrs Richards. ‘I can’t leave the place empty.’
‘It must be lonely for you, especially at night.’
‘I don’t mind it, ma’am.’ She gave me a cautious half-smile. ‘There’s a story going about that the place is haunted, and I encourage it because it keeps the children away.’ She placed a Windsor chair in front of the range. ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’
It was the powerful ‘country’ tea that I liked so much. We sat a little too near the fire; I was almost too comfortable. There was no danger of drowsiness, however, for Mrs Richards was more talkative than I had ever known her.
‘This is a sad sort of return for you, ma’am.’
‘The saddest possible!’
‘And it all happened so quick, I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels.’ She eyed me cautiously. ‘Have you come to help Miss Rachel?’
Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar Page 12
