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

by Charles Todd

  As our headlamps swept over his motorcar I could see him huddled in his seat, a rug pulled up to his chin.

  Simon was silent until we’d passed through the gates and turned toward the village.

  “I think,” he said slowly as we drove through the night, “that that man is the one who shot Captain Travis.”

  Lost in my own thoughts, I sat up and turned to stare at Simon. “Are you quite serious?”

  “Never more so. I brought the conversation around to the last days of the war. Bess, he served in the same sector as Alan Travis. He had no idea I knew the Captain. He described that retreat in detail. I’ve spoken to the Captain about it. I know where it was. The machine gun, the ditch, the barn wall. From what I could tell, Bonham was in the same action where Travis had been shot in the head.”

  “But he doesn’t look anything like James,” I protested. And yet, standing there with his back to me, I had thought he was Captain Travis . . . and I’d never met James.

  Simon would know the questions to ask, would recognize where on the war map both men were, and he would have found a way to put the pieces together.

  I was still uncertain. “It doesn’t mean that this man shot the Captain. He wasn’t the only officer in that mêlée.”

  “He told me he’d got separated from his men.”

  I remembered something else. Captain Travis had gone back to his sector, had asked everyone if they’d seen Lieutenant James Travis. And of course they hadn’t. Because he hadn’t known the right name . . . What if he’d known to ask for Bonham instead?

  “There’s only one way to be sure, you know that. We must find a way to bring these two face-to-face.”

  “Not very likely, with Travis in Bury gaol, and Bonham on his way back to London.”

  “Then we must pray he stays the night at The Hall.”

  I’d had no appetite for dinner. I asked for a bowl of soup to be sent up to my room with a pot of tea, and as I ate, I sat by the window from which I’d seen the figure on the green the night I’d found Captain Travis in the churchyard. The rain was still coming down.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Simon. If he told me that it was Lieutenant Bonham who had tried to kill the Captain, then chances were that he was right.

  But why? If the two men had never met, if there was no other connection between them beyond the common factor of knowing James Travis, what could possess the Lieutenant to shoot the Captain? Surely neither realized the other’s connection to Lieutenant Travis. They hadn’t even spoken before the shot was fired.

  I worried that, like a dog with a soup bone, trying to think it through. But nothing made sense. And the man I’d just seen with Mrs. Travis hadn’t given me any reason to think he could be a killer. It wasn’t unusual for men who had served together to take the time to visit the families of their comrades. Especially when one had been killed in action. I’d seen it myself, in my father’s regiment. It was what one did for a fallen friend.

  Simon had trained men, he had learned long ago to find their strengths and their weaknesses very quickly. Young as he was, he understood how they would face enemy fire, and which ones would need a word before the fighting began, to bolster their courage or to calm them down before they did something rash. I’d watched him manage men.

  Unsettled still, I set my tray outside my door—and saw the lamp still burning in Simon’s room, the line of brightness under his door a telltale sign. I nearly tapped on the paneling, to see if he was awake, to ask him to explain what it was that had made him question Lieutenant Bonham. But I lowered my hand instead, went back into my room, and closed my door as quietly as I could, so as not to alert him that I too was still awake.

  Banking the fire so that it would keep the room reasonably warm until I was asleep, I went to bed.

  My dreams were mixed.

  I woke to a gray dawn, rivulets of water running down the High, tree limbs and eaves dripping heavily past my window. I remembered such days in the forward aid stations, mud everywhere, the tents and canvas sagging as rain weighed them down, trying to keep my hands warm so that I could bandage a wound without fumbling or hold another one together while the doctor sewed. Worrying about having enough blankets when men shook with fever or keeping them dry on the way to an ambulance.

  It hadn’t dawned on me fully that the war was over . . .

  I built up the fire and dressed quickly in the little warmth it offered, but there had seldom been fires in many of my quarters at the Front.

  Shaking off this mood as best I could, I put my hair up beneath my cap, found a shawl to throw over my shoulders, and went down to breakfast.

  Simon was already there, looking tired, and I recalled seeing the light under his door when I put my tray out.

  “Good morning,” he said as he held my chair for me.

  “Another fine day,” I agreed, and gave my order to Betty. Her hair was still damp, straggling about her ears, but she was full of news.

  “Such goings-on,” she said brightly. “The Vicar’s wife, Mrs. Caldwell, taken up by the police. A murderous fugitive caught in Mrs. Brentwood’s back garden. And that poor man killed in a pool of his own blood right there in the doctor’s surgery.”

  I said, “Mrs. Caldwell is at the Vicarage.” I’d tapped at her door before coming down the stairs, but the room was empty, the bed tidily made when I looked in. “She was merely helping the police with their inquiries. I saw her myself, last evening.”

  Chagrined that one of her best bits of gossip was not true, she took herself off to bring us our tea.

  Simon watched her pass through the door into the kitchen, then said, “The town crier.”

  I smiled. “I wonder what they’ve been saying about our return to the village.”

  Then soberly, I asked, “What are we to do, Simon? Where is the cavalry you sent for? I’m a QAIMNS nursing Sister, you’re a Regimental Sergeant-Major, and between us we have no particular authority to demand Captain Travis’s release. He’s no better off where he is, and if he’s tried and convicted, he faces the hangman.”

  “I’ve wondered about the cavalry myself. The evidence against Travis is circumstantial, but a local jury might find it compelling.” He broke off as Betty came back with the tea tray. When she had gone, he continued, “It strikes me that the real question here is not what we’re to do about the Captain. Let’s view it a different way. If Travis had never escaped from the clinic—or if he had, but only went to London to find his banker, shall we say—would Spencer have lived, or died?”

  I nodded, seeing where he was leading. “If the murder had to do with the papers he was carrying, yes, he would have died anyway. The problem is, the murderer didn’t take them with him. And those papers weren’t all that damaging—in fact, Mrs. Travis might have been delighted to discover a very good reason to contest the will. Captain Travis might want to conceal any reference to Wiltshire, but if he killed Mr. Spencer to keep those papers from becoming public knowledge, he’d have had to kill Mr. Ellis as well—after all, the information was on his letterhead.” I smiled wryly. “That doesn’t leave us with many suspects.”

  “We’d told Mr. Ellis and Mrs. Travis about the Wiltshire clinic. And so this would only have been news to Mrs. Caldwell.”

  I gave that some thought. “What have we overlooked? There must be something we haven’t considered.”

  “There’s this: It would be difficult to kill Mrs. Caldwell, to stop her from doing what her conscience might convince her was right. Better to kill Spencer, the stranger in the village, before he could tell her what he’d discovered.”

  “Still, what could she do, even if she learned that the Captain was in Wiltshire? She might have decided to visit him, might even have tried to make his conditions better, but the Vicar wouldn’t have allowed her to confront Mrs. Travis or tell her she was foolish to stand in the Captain’s way.” I put down my teacup. “The Vicar. He owes his living to Mrs. Travis. This is the church he wants to keep at all costs. If he’d fo
und out about the Florian Agency, he might not have intended to kill Spencer, he might have only wanted to stop him from involving his wife in Mrs. Travis’s obsession about Captain Travis and the will.”

  “And things got out of hand—or Spencer tried to call Dr. Harrison, and the Vicar panicked.” Simon thought about it. “Caldwell is a weak man, a follower. Sometimes they’re all the more dangerous because of that. Especially when something they care about is threatened.” Then he shook his head. “Still, I find it hard to believe that he’d try twice to kill Spencer.”

  I had to agree. I could see him screwing up his courage to face Spencer once, but not twice.

  “And Mr. Ellis,” Simon went on, “isn’t a likely candidate for murderer. He could have had Mr. Spencer up on charges of theft if Spencer had broken into his chambers and stolen that report. He needn’t kill the man.”

  “Yes, there’s the question of the break-in. We can’t overlook that.” Our food had come and I waited until Betty had served us and gone away again.

  Looking after her as she went back into the kitchen, Simon commented, “Too bad we can’t ask her opinion. I’m sure she has one.”

  “Or Miss Fredericks, who sees answers in dreams.” I was dipping my spoon into my porridge when a thought struck me. “Simon. Do you really think Mr. Spencer took those papers from Mr. Ellis’s office?”

  “The only other possibility is that Ellis gave them to him, through a request from the Florian Agency for information about Captain Travis. But given the timing of Spencer’s arrival here and the break-in in Bury, I’d say it was worth considering. After all, he lied about the train, didn’t he?”

  “What if—what if it wasn’t the papers he took that mattered? What if there was something else in that file or on Mr. Ellis’s desk or in the clerk’s office that he shouldn’t have seen? What if we’ve been so worried about the Captain and Mrs. Travis and that will, that we just assumed the break-in had to do with their affairs? When, in fact, it had to do with something else entirely? If Mr. Spencer was an investigator, he might have realized the importance of what he saw. And the only reason he hadn’t done anything about it was that fall down the stairs.”

  I didn’t feel like eating.

  Simon, watching me, said, “Bess.”

  I smiled wryly. “I know. Mother has always told me that a good breakfast is a good start to the day.” I turned to my porridge and ate as much as I could. It settled like a lump of coal in my stomach.

  “Do you think my father is in France? There’s been no word from him.”

  “I sent telegrams to his club and to Somerset.” Seeing my alarm, he grinned. “And no, there was nothing in the telegram to alarm your mother.”

  “A telegram from you will be alarm enough.”

  He laughed, then was serious again. “What are we to do about Bonham?”

  “There’s nothing we can do. I could stop in at the Vicarage and tell Mrs. Caldwell that the Lieutenant is visiting at The Hall. And that we aren’t sure what his motives are for coming. For that matter, that’s all I can say to her. I can’t tell her that you believe he tried to kill Captain Travis. But if he did, why is he here? Do you think he’s looking for the Captain?”

  “I don’t see how he could have discovered where Travis is. I think he told the truth, that he came to see Mrs. Travis for her son’s sake. What happens when she tells him the Captain is here?”

  “That could become a problem.”

  We finished our breakfast, went upstairs to fetch our coats, and drove to the Vicarage. Neither Mr. Caldwell nor his wife was at home. I tried the church next, but it was empty, although I called to her several times.

  We were just getting back into the motorcar when I said, “Simon. I want to stop by the surgery. Mr. Spencer’s things are there, unless the police took them along with the papers that came from Mr. Ellis. Has anyone notified his firm? Has anyone thought to find out if he’s got a family in London, wondering what’s become of him?”

  “Bess, it’s not your responsibility.”

  “Possibly not. But there might be something in his valise that the police overlooked, thinking it wasn’t pertinent to their case.”

  Reluctantly he agreed, and we drove on to Dr. Harrison’s surgery, at the top of the green.

  We had nearly reached the house when the door opened and Mrs. Caldwell stepped out, saying something to a woman we couldn’t quite see from where we were.

  And clutched in her arms she had a man’s coat, hat, umbrella—and valise.

  Chapter 19

  I was about to call out to Mrs. Caldwell, but she gave me a tiny shake of the head.

  “Drive on,” I told Simon, and he did as he was asked, leaving her to carry Mr. Spencer’s belongings all the way to the churchyard, juggling her umbrella and the valise.

  We circled the green, and as we were coming back up the High, I saw that Mrs. Caldwell wasn’t carrying her burdens to the Vicarage, as I’d expected, but through the churchyard toward the south porch doorway.

  “That’s odd,” Simon commented.

  “We should leave the motorcar at The George and walk up the back lane,” I said quickly.

  He tucked the motorcar into a space on the far side of the inn, then got the umbrella out of the boot, and we started toward the lane. Walking up it, we let ourselves into the churchyard through the back gate, then made our way through the wet grass to the porch door, keeping close to the apse wall. I wasn’t sure why it was necessary to be so careful, but Mrs. Caldwell had felt it was. That was enough for me.

  Simon left his umbrella by the porch door, and we stepped into the damp chill of the nave, looking around for Mrs. Caldwell. I was just about to call to her when I saw her, half-hidden by the tall pulpit.

  We hurried toward her, and she gave us a smile of greeting. “It occurred to me last night that it would be charitable of me to take this problem off the good doctor’s hands and see that poor Mr. Spencer’s belongings are returned to his family. Really, it was Constable Simpson’s responsibility, I think, but never mind. This at least gives me a chance to look through them.”

  “Very clever,” I said, but she shook her head.

  “Mrs. Harrison was glad to be rid of them. She didn’t even ask the doctor. So, here we are. All that’s left of Mr. Spencer—at least here in Sinclair.”

  She searched his coat pockets as we watched and found the omnibus schedule and ticket, just as Simon had done. Then she opened his valise.

  Boots fell out, and she looked at them. They seemed somehow forlorn as she set them aside. I noticed that one sole was more worn, as if the owner dragged that foot. Of course, I’d never seen him walk, but it was likely that foot had also caused Mr. Spencer to trip on the inn stairs.

  Taking out the layers of clothing one at a time, Mrs. Caldwell inspected each item, refolded it, and set it aside. So far there was nothing of interest. Shirts, trousers, braces, stockings, underclothes, ties, handkerchief. Enough for a brief stay in the country, calling on his client.

  “You had the same thought we did,” I said as we folded another shirt and carefully put it back into the valise.

  “Yes, I’d hoped there might be something here. I expect the police are finished with these things and have already contacted the Agency, if they know about it. If they haven’t, someone in London ought to be told. I feel responsible, somehow.”

  I remembered Mr. Spencer clutching his valise to his chest, in spite of his pain, afraid that someone would take it from him. And then . . . then it hadn’t been in the room with him when he was killed . . .

  Why had he been fearful of letting it out of his sight at one stage, but let it be set aside later?

  I reached for his extra pair of trousers and felt in the pockets. Nothing. I took out his boots again and felt inside. The first one was empty. The second one had something stuffed into the toe. I reached down, fingers probing, and came up with a stocking. That, I thought, was curious—the others were neatly folded. I reached down again and thi
s time pulled out a small notebook, the sort that would fit comfortably in the palm of my hand.

  “Ah!” Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed and reached for it. I let her have it.

  Even so, I could see it was a diary, a collection of names and addresses and sometimes notations beside them.

  “Here’s my name,” she said, turning the diary to show me. “And Captain Travis’s, with a question mark beside it. Oh, and here is Mr. Ellis’s firm.” She peered at the entry, then gave up. “Such tiny print,” she said, passing the book to me.

  I looked at the tiny writing, all capitals. “There’s Mr. Ellis’s name too. Then the Captain’s name a second time, with another question mark next to it.” I glanced at Simon. “I expect he hadn’t had time to make any new entries before he fell. And here’s James Travis. What’s that below the name?” I peered at it. “Just one word. Ledgers.” I looked up at Mrs. Caldwell. “Did you also ask him to look into James Travis’s will?”

  “No, of course not, I had no right to pry into that. But the firm of Ellis, Ellis and Whitman has always been above reproach. Most of the village use them for any legal matters. Well, to be perfectly honest, I don’t care much for this Mr. Ellis. His father was a much more approachable man, kind and avuncular. You could tell him anything and not feel a fool. This one takes after his mother. I have always felt that it must have been a love match, for she was the opposite of her husband. Blunt, no charm, and lent little to the firm’s social life.” She shrugged ruefully. “The Vicar’s wife should have no opinions about people, much less speak ill of the dead. But I’m afraid I can’t help it when it comes to the late Mrs. Ellis. I was always glad she lived in Bury and not here.”

  There was nothing else in the diary of interest to us, although I was sure Mr. Spencer’s firm would recognize other names, other clients whose work the Agency had handled or Spencer himself had dealt with. Just looking at the entries, I couldn’t make head nor tail of them, but there were cryptic remarks after most names.

  Reluctant to stop looking, I went through the pages again, and this time I found Mrs. Travis’s name. She had used the Florian Agency once, and here the notation was. But it offered no more information than I already knew: False heirs.