A Casualty of War: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries)

by Charles Todd

“If that’s all, Inspector, I have other matters to attend to. Thank you for informing me of Captain Travis’s escape from the clinic. I expect to be leaving shortly for my own home in Somerset. My father, Colonel Crawford, has asked Sergeant-Major Brandon to escort me there.”

  When he didn’t respond, I walked to the inn door and went outside, pulling on my coat against the chill. I could feel my stomach churning. And I expected Inspector Howe to stop me at the door, or at least order me back into the inn.

  A cab was standing next to Simon’s motorcar, just beyond the door, but I walked past it and continued down the High, moving briskly—and aimlessly.

  I’d seen the state that Captain Travis was in; I knew how desperate he was to escape the clinic. But where could he go? Certainly not to Suffolk, almost two hundred miles away. He had no money, unless there were a few pounds in the orderly’s pocket. It wouldn’t get him far. And he was physically in no condition to travel. That only reinforced my suspicion that he intended to kill himself.

  I should have left well enough alone. I should never have gone to see him, or asked the staff to give him more freedom. I had thought to help. Instead I could very well have the Captain’s blood on my hands.

  A motorcar slowed behind me, and I turned quickly, thinking that Inspector Howe had finally decided to come after me.

  But it was Simon. He pulled to the verge.

  “Bess? What’s wrong? Who were the policemen there in The George?”

  I caught my breath on tears that wanted to fall, and kept my voice steady with an effort.

  “It’s Captain Travis. He’s disappeared from the clinic. The staff remembered that Ellis, Ellis and Whitman had shown an interest in his whereabouts.” I told him the rest, and why I had walked away.

  I had stopped there on the street, and he got down to walk over to me.

  “That’s worrying. You believe he’ll kill himself, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I looked up at the clouds over our heads. “It’s likely, isn’t it?”

  “It’s far more likely,” he said bracingly, “that he’s coming to find you—and James.”

  “He’s not able to do that. It’s not possible.”

  “From all you’ve told me, he’s a determined man. He’ll try. He will try.”

  I shook my head. “He has only his uniform and the clothing he took from an orderly. Where would he find the money to go anywhere? And he’s been confined to his bed for weeks. With the best will in the world, his leg muscles are weak and won’t support him for very long. And he won’t turn back to the clinic. He’d rather die than let them take him back.” My voice almost broke. “He begged me to help him tear up his sheets and give him enough time to end it. I don’t think I told you that.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder and said gently, “I have never met Captain Travis. But I believe you’re wrong about that. Now that he’s free.”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I felt the responsibility of my actions. And I didn’t think Simon, who always understood so much, could quite grasp that.

  When I didn’t say anything, he went on. “Get into the motorcar, Bess. You left without your gloves or a scarf. Your mother will have my head if I bring you home with pneumonia.”

  I smiled at that, as he’d intended, and finally got into the motorcar.

  “At least,” I said, leaning back against my seat, “the police don’t know about Mr. Spencer. They would probably accuse me of shoving him down the stairs.”

  I was wrong about that too.

  Simon drove on almost to the gates of Travis Hall before turning back to the village, to give the police time to leave The George.

  But as we pulled into the space in front of the inn, I looked toward the doctor’s surgery, intending to suggest that we go there while we were out, and saw that the cab from Bury that had been sitting by the inn’s door was now stopped in front of the doctor’s door.

  “Do they think Mr. Spencer is Captain Travis?” I exclaimed.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Simon replied, looking in the same direction.

  “He’ll have a time proving he isn’t,” I said. “With a guilty conscience of his own.”

  “And sedated as well. You’re right, he’ll be dazed and not very convincing. Poor devil.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Stay out of it.”

  I knew he was right, but I sat there for several minutes, waiting for the police to emerge from the surgery.

  “What if they find those papers, Simon? If he’s not really awake, they might ask to look through his belongings.”

  “It’s possible. But not likely.”

  “No.”

  And still they didn’t come out the doctor’s door.

  My feet were freezing, but I refused to take notice.

  It seemed like hours, but it was only another ten minutes or so before we saw the door open—and the three policemen stepped out, still talking to someone I couldn’t see. The doctor? It must be.

  Then they turned toward the cab. The surgery door closed, and the local Constable stood there, speaking to Inspector Howe, then listening intently to what his superior had to say. Instructions? I was sure of it.

  And then the second Constable got into the front of the cab. After a moment, Inspector Howe got into the rear seat.

  “We shouldn’t be seen sitting here, watching,” I said urgently, and we left the motorcar and got ourselves through the inn door before the cab had come out of Church Lane and joined the main road.

  From behind the curtains at the inn’s window, we watched them drive out of sight.

  “I don’t think it’s a very good idea to go to the surgery just now,” Simon said quietly.

  With a sigh I turned and began to climb the stairs.

  The owner of the inn stepped out of the dining room. “May I ask? Are you leaving today?”

  “Not today,” Simon informed him curtly and followed me up the stairs.

  I sat at my window, looking out toward the green and the tea shop and the bend in the road where the village houses began to straggle toward the outskirts, just beyond my line of sight.

  I was torn about what to do. Return to Wiltshire and help in the search for Captain Travis? Stay here, even though my hands were tied? Or return to Somerset and wait for news? But at home I’d only fret.

  I was fairly sure the Inspector had warned Dr. Harrison to be on the lookout for a man who might be in need of medical care by the time he reached Suffolk. How much more he’d told the doctor I couldn’t guess. About Simon and me?

  At least the cab had turned toward the Bury road, rather than continuing to The Hall.

  An hour later, there was a tap at my door.

  Thinking it was Simon, I said, “Yes, come in.”

  It opened, but Simon wasn’t standing there on the threshold. The Vicar was.

  Rising from my seat by the window, I found myself thinking that news traveled in this village faster than it had ever done in the trenches of France, where it seemed to fly on the wind.

  “Sister Crawford? May I come in?”

  “Yes, please do.”

  “I shouldn’t be speaking to you here in your bedroom. Forgive me. But if I’d asked for you to come down to the small parlor, we’d likely be overheard.”

  I thought of Betty, and wondered if he also knew she was a gossip.

  “I understand. Please, be seated.” I gestured toward the chair by the hearth.

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  I went back to the window and stood there, waiting. I wasn’t sure just what he wanted.

  As the silence lengthened, he looked down at the hat in his hands and said, “Would you like to tell me what all this is about?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly, “what you are asking me.”

  “To begin at the beginning, then. Are you, in fact, Sister Crawford? Or a Sister at all?”

  Stung, I countered, “Why do you doubt that I am?”

  “Because I cannot believe t
hat Sister Potter would behave as you have done since you came to this village.”

  “I have done no harm.”

  “I’m not sure about that. And the young man with you? Is he in fact Captain Travis?”

  “Good heavens, no.” I was suddenly angry. “My father is Colonel Richard Crawford,” I said, and gave him the name of the regiment he had commanded. “Sergeant-Major Brandon was asked to accompany me to Suffolk.” I went to my kit and took out my identification, handing it to him.

  He read it carefully, then gave it back to me. “I’m sorry. But Mrs. Travis is alone in the world now, and I must act on her behalf if I feel that she is in some fashion being used by unscrupulous people.”

  “She is not precisely alone,” I retorted. “There is Mr. Ellis.”

  His eyebrows went up in surprise. “You know who he is? Yes, of course you do, you would have worked out such details before coming here.”

  “I am not an ‘unscrupulous person,’ Vicar. Nor am I here to use Mrs. Travis. I left a man lying in his bed in a clinic, being told he is raving mad and being kept strapped down without exercise or even a book to read. I found that horrifying.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but this was not the time, I thought, to worry the Vicar even more by telling him that no one knew where Alan Travis was at this moment. For all I knew, he’d been found and returned to the clinic by this time. Or . . . found dead. “My concern is with him. I treated him in France. As the war drew to a close, we tried to do our best for the wounded, but sometimes even with the best of intentions, we miss a diagnosis. I strongly believe that is what we’re dealing with in Captain Travis’s case. I can’t very well go to Barbados and speak to his family there. I came here, instead, hoping to find someone to speak for him.” I crossed to the door and held it open. “I’d like you to leave, now, if you please.”

  He stayed seated. “I fear we’ve been at cross-purposes, Sister Crawford. Perhaps we should begin again. Will an apology convince you that I am trying to find my way through this morass, just as you are?”

  I stood there, the door open, looking him in the eye.

  Our voices must have reached Simon. He opened his door, saw me standing in mine, then his gaze went beyond me to the Vicar, by my hearth.

  Closing his own door, he stepped into the passage.

  “May I join you?” he asked quietly, as if talking about a tea party, but his voice was cold.

  “Yes, please.”

  He came into my room then. It was getting crowded, I thought as I shut the door and went back to the window.

  “Mr. Caldwell has come here on behalf of Mrs. Travis—”

  He interrupted me. “May I clarify that? I am here because I am concerned about Mrs. Travis’s welfare. She has not asked me to come; she isn’t aware that I’m here. But I have been informed about the visit that an Inspector Howe paid to you and to Dr. Harrison’s surgery.” He turned to Simon. “I believed you were Captain Travis. But now I have been told that he had walked away from the clinic where he was being treated. I wanted to find out what was going on. And if you are a danger to Mrs. Travis.”

  We were indeed at cross-purposes.

  I glanced at Simon, still standing by the door, a big presence in this room.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, if you will in turn tell me what is happening in Sinclair,” I said before Simon could answer.

  Mr. Caldwell gave that a moment’s consideration, then nodded.

  And so, with some trepidation, I explained what had happened to Captain Travis.

  The Vicar frowned. “I had no idea. You say he’s convinced that James, Lieutenant Travis, tried twice to kill him? But that’s impossible. James has been dead for over a year.”

  “Which of course makes Captain Travis’s claims appear to prove that he’s not in his right mind.”

  “But what—who—did he actually see?”

  “I don’t know. Neither does he, you see. Head wounds can be difficult, Mr. Caldwell. I believe he saw someone turn and fire at him, and in that split second, he thought the man seemed familiar. Afterward, in casting about to remember who the shooter reminded him of, he became convinced it must be James Travis.”

  “Yes, it’s possible. We all have look-alikes, they say. I was in school with two boys who might have passed for brothers, but they weren’t.” He amended wryly, “At least, we had no reason to believe they were.”

  “Your turn,” Simon reminded him.

  “Yes, all right,” he said, reluctant even though he’d promised. “When her son was reported killed, Mrs. Travis was ill for some weeks. Not—physically ill. She grieved in her own way, sitting in her son’s room, among his things, remembering. But I had asked the staff to tell those who came to offer their condolences that she was not well. Mr. Ellis had driven over from Bury several times, wishing to read James’s will, as it was his duty to do. I don’t believe Mrs. Travis could bear that so soon, and she put him off. It has a—final—ring to it, hearing a will.”

  I nodded, understanding. She had not been able to bury her son, to take comfort from the service and the sympathy of friends and neighbors. The truth was, she had no idea where his body had been buried. It would be easy to pretend that the telegram had been wrong, that some mistake had been made, and another would soon follow, listing him as missing or captured. But alive. She still had hope . . .

  “When Mr. Ellis could be put off no longer, she received him and listened stoically as the will was read. I don’t know, truthfully, what it was she expected her son to do. But when Mr. Ellis informed her that James had left everything to a distant cousin who lived in the Caribbean, she was shocked. Horrified. She knew nothing about that branch of the family, you see, except that they were anathema to her husband and his parents before him.”

  “I don’t follow you. Why?”

  “I had to refer to the Vicar at St. Mary’s before me. He remembered being told by James’s grandfather that the island branch of the family had left England in disgrace. There had been a falling-out over a woman—which brother was married to her, I can’t tell you. Suffice it to say, there were hard feelings that were passed down through the family. I don’t know if James himself was aware of the family history. His parents may not have told him. I don’t know if he realized that this man you say James met in a railway carriage in Paris was related to him. I don’t know if he made inquiries to find out. Certainly neither Mr. Ellis nor anyone in the firm had been asked to take on such a task. No one, not Mr. Ellis nor Mrs. Travis, understood her son’s choice in the matter. You may not know, but his will came home in his belongings. Ellis never had a copy of it. For some weeks, there was a possibility he’d died intestate. When it did come, and his mother heard the contents, she claimed it was a forgery, even though it had been properly signed and witnessed by his commanding officer.”

  I could see that Mrs. Travis might have felt that this island cousin might well have taken advantage of her son’s good nature. After all, she didn’t know then how or when they had met.

  “Mr. Ellis had no idea how to find this man. I don’t believe he knew where that branch of the family had gone. And we were in the middle of a war, with military communications given priority. He was under the impression that they had immigrated to Australia. That inquiry went nowhere, of course. It took quite some time to discover that Alan Travis was from Barbados and a serving officer in the British Army, posted to France.”

  I wondered if Mrs. Travis had deliberately led Mr. Ellis astray, suggesting Australia to buy time. Time, perhaps, to learn that her son wasn’t dead.

  Perhaps James himself had never made inquiries of his own. Perhaps he believed in his own sound judgment of the man he’d met so briefly.

  We’d probably never know.

  Mr. Caldwell was saying, “When Mr. Ellis informed Mrs. Travis that he had located the heir, she forbade him to contact Captain Travis. She demanded instead that he do everything in his power to find someone with a closer English connection to the family.”

&n
bsp; “And did he?”

  “Yes. He too was a serving officer in the British Army. A man by the name of Carlton Travis.”

  Chapter 12

  I sat there staring at Mr. Caldwell.

  “But one can’t simply change heirs in a will to suit a grieving mother.”

  “She refused to countenance Alan Travis as her son’s heir. She felt her son had somehow been—persuaded—to do this by a man who saw his chance to avenge his own great-grandfather by taking over the English estate.”

  “Surely she doesn’t believe that her son would do such a thing.”

  Simon shook his head. “She doesn’t need to believe it, Bess. It’s what she wants, and what she’ll insist on.”

  “If Captain Travis is considered not to be in his right mind,” the Vicar pointed out, “it would go far to convince a judge that James had been misguided.”

  “And when I came here, asking questions about James Travis and his will, alarm bells went off all over the village.”

  “I wouldn’t say all over the village,” the Vicar corrected me. “But word traveled back to Mrs. Travis, and she was not happy.”

  I turned and stared out the window, trying to sort out all that I’d just heard.

  Behind me, Mr. Caldwell said to Simon, “What is your opinion of this man Captain Travis?”

  “I haven’t met him. When Sister Crawford went to the hospital in Wiltshire, they were reluctant to allow her to see their patient. When they finally agreed, I was asked to wait.”

  “And from what she has said, she barely knows him herself.”

  There was a note of hopefulness in the Vicar’s voice. Perhaps I had also been taken in by this man . . .

  I turned. “I expect you will find, if you have the opportunity to speak with him, that Captain Travis is not interested in being heir to The Hall.”

  “He may not be interested in keeping The Hall. His aim might well be to sell up and take the funds back to Barbados. I daresay he could live like a king there, with such an income.”

  “For a vicar,” I said then, “you have a very poor view of your fellow man.”

  “It’s not my view. Mrs. Travis has no one else to protect her. And so I must do my best to see that she doesn’t find herself in the hands of a scoundrel.”