When Falcons Fall

by C. S. Harris

  “They were in Ludlow at first,” Rawlins was saying. “Then Bonaparte bought an estate just to the east of here, near Worcester. I’ve heard they’re having some repairs done on the house this summer, which is why they’re staying with Lady Seaton.” The Squire hesitated. “It was Bonaparte’s son Charles who found Emma Chance’s body this morning.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Ten, I believe.” Rawlins turned the page to reveal another sketch, this one of an open-faced, half-grown boy, his expression rapt as he watched an oriole take flight from a nearby tree branch. “That’s him. Crazy about birds, he is. That’s what he was doing down at the river this morning—looking for birds.”

  “Poor lad. Must have been a shock,” said Hero.

  Martin McBroom crinkled his nose and let out his breath in a harsh expulsion of air. “Pssssh. He’s a Bonaparte—nephew to the Beast himself. Ain’t no cause to go feeling sorry for him, my lady. Save your pity for the millions who’ve died because of that lot.”

  Sebastian flipped quickly through the remaining pages. The book contained nothing except portraits, followed by blank pages.

  He looked up. “You said Emma Chance was on a sketching trip through Shropshire?”

  Rawlins nodded. “That’s right. She was drawing all the historic buildings around here—the church, the priory ruins, old houses—everything.”

  “So why are there only portraits in this book?”

  “I can’t imagine. I know for a fact she drew the Grange—she showed me. She must have had another sketchbook.”

  Sebastian’s gaze met Hero’s. “Where is it?”

  They searched the room again, so thoroughly this time that Martin McBroom finally wandered off muttering beneath his breath. After a while, Hero heard Simon howling and went to see what he was fussing about. And still Sebastian and the young justice of the peace searched.

  But neither the dead woman’s second sketchbook nor her reticule was anywhere to be found.

  “She must have had them with her when she was killed,” said the young justice of the peace, slumping into the worn, ladder-backed chair and scrubbing his hands down over his face.

  “Probably,” agreed Sebastian. “So then the question becomes, why didn’t the killer leave them to be found with her body?”

  A step in the hall brought Sebastian’s head around. A mousy, painfully thin woman appeared in the doorway, her hands twisting in her apron. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, her face sharp boned, her pale gray gaze shifting uncertainly from Sebastian to Archie Rawlins and back again.

  “Mr. McBroom says there’s a justice of the peace who’s wishful of speakin’ to me about Mrs. Chance?”

  Rawlins scrambled to his feet. “I’m the justice of the peace. You’re Peg? Emma Chance’s abigail?”

  “Yes, sir.” The abigail dropped a quick curtsy. “Peg Fletcher, sir. Only, I don’t rightly know how much I can tell you about the lady. Haven’t been with her above a week, I haven’t. She hired me in Ludlow, right before she come here.”

  The young Squire glanced at Sebastian, who said, “Who recommended you to her?”

  “I suppose you could say I recommended myself. I mean, I was working at the Feathers, where she was staying. Offered me a whole five pounds to come here with her and be her lady’s maid, she did. Said it was only to be for a week or two, though I wasn’t supposed to let on to nobody that she’d only just hired me.” The abigail sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “Now that she’s dead, I reckon it’s all right to tell. Ain’t it?”

  “You must tell us everything you know about her,” said Rawlins.

  Peg stared at him, her eyes wide in a plain, colorless face. “But I don’t know nothin’ about her. Truly, I don’t.”

  Archie Rawlins threw Sebastian a helpless glance.

  Sebastian said, “Did she ever talk to you about her life? Where she came from? Her family? That sort of thing?”

  Peg screwed up her face in thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, sir. I don’t recollect ever hearing her talk about nothing like that. She weren’t one to chatter the way most ladies do.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, sir. She said she was going out sketching and probably wouldn’t be back till near sunset.”

  Rawlins looked horrified. “Yet you didn’t become concerned when she never reappeared?”

  The abigail took an uncertain step back. “Well, I suppose I did, a bit. I mean, I thought it peculiar. But how was I to know what was usual for her and what wasn’t? When it started gettin’ dark and she still hadn’t come back, I went to bed. I reckoned if she wanted me, she’d get me up.”

  “And this morning?” said Sebastian.

  Peg shrugged. “I figured she must be having a bit of a lie-in. I mean, stands to reason, don’t it, if she’d been out late?” Again she glanced from Sebastian to Archie, as if seeking approval or at least understanding for her behavior.

  Sebastian studied the woman’s pale, frightened face. “You said she went out sketching yesterday afternoon. Do you know what she did yesterday morning?”

  “Well, she said she was gonna draw the church. But whether she did or not, I can’t rightly say. She was always sketching.” Peg sucked in a deep breath and set her jaw. “The thing I wants to know is, now that she’s dead, how’m I to get back to Ludlow?”

  “I’m afraid you won’t be able to go anywhere for a few days,” said Rawlins. “At least not until after the inquest.”

  She stared at him. “But . . . how’m I to eat? Who’s gonna pay my reckoning here at the inn?” Her voice rose to a panicked pitch. “How’m I to get the five pounds what’s owed me?”

  It was obvious from the expression on Archie’s face that he had never given a moment’s thought to the predicament faced by a servant left destitute and far from home by the unexpected death of a mistress. “Well . . . I suppose we can consider your claims against Mrs. Chance’s estate after the inquest. In the meanwhile, I’ll have a talk with Mr. McBroom.”

  Peg looked doubtful.

  Sebastian said, “Can you tell us anything at all about Emma Chance—anything that might help make sense of what happened to her?”

  Peg’s eyebrows drew together in a wary frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What was she like as a mistress, for instance? Was she harsh? Demanding?”

  “Oh, no, she was right kind, she was. Always saying please and thank you whenever I did anything for her. And she was never one for putting on grand airs, the way some do.”

  “Yet you’ve no idea where she came from?” asked Archie.

  The abigail shook her head. “She was more’n a bit secretive, if you know what I mean?”

  “Secretive about—what?”

  “About everything. If you ask me, there was something havey-cavey about her, for all she was so nice. There’s more’n once I’ve found myself wondering if I made a mistake, agreeing to come here with her.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Sebastian.

  “Well, for one thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if her real name ain’t something other than what she claimed it was.”

  “Good Lord,” said Archie. “What makes you think that?”

  “She didn’t answer to it natural-like—I mean, not the way a body does with their own name. And there was one time I asked her somethin’ about Captain Chance, and she acted like she didn’t know who I was talking about. Weren’t till I said, ‘I mean your late husband, ma’am,’ that she twigged what I was sayin’. Acted right peculiar, she did. Mind you, I’ve no notion what her real name was. But it’s pounds to a penny that it wasn’t Emma Chance!”

  “Do you think it’s possible the abigail could be right?” Rawlins asked Sebastian some half an hour later over a pint in the Blue Boar’s public room. “That Emma
Chance wasn’t actually that unfortunate woman’s real name?”

  Sebastian leaned forward on his bench, one hand cradling the tankard on the table before him. “It seems rather far-fetched. Yet at the same time . . . it’s an odd thing for the woman to have imagined if it weren’t true. And Peg Fletcher doesn’t strike me as particularly fanciful or imaginative.”

  “No, but . . . why would anyone do that? I mean, why claim to be someone she wasn’t? The name ‘Chance’ means nothing to us here.”

  “I suspect that if Peg is correct—which is still only an if, after all—then the woman’s main concern was to conceal her real name rather than to claim to be someone she was not.”

  The young Squire’s cheeks darkened. “Oh, yes, of course. I should have thought of that.” He drank long and deep from his ale, then swiped the back of one hand across his foamy lips as his eyes widened with a sudden thought. “If it is true—that her name isn’t really Emma Chance—then maybe the killer knew who she really was. Maybe that’s why he murdered her. I mean, for whatever reason she was using a false name.”

  Sebastian looked at him in some amusement. “Such as?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They drank together in thoughtful silence for a time. Then Archie said, “So how do we go about finding out if Chance is—was—her real name?”

  Sebastian drained the last of his ale. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Archie Rawlins looked startled for a moment, then gave a soft laugh. “So what do we do?”

  “You might begin by asking around town. Try to discover who saw Emma Chance yesterday afternoon, and when. In the meanwhile, I think I’ll go have a talk with the vicar.”

  “Reverend Underwood? But . . . why him?”

  “Because according to Peg Fletcher, her mistress spent yesterday morning sketching the church. Which means it’s a place to start.”

  The young justice of the peace chewed his lip. “What if no one saw her?”

  “In a village this small? Someone will have seen her—and they’ll remember it.”

  Chapter 6

  The aged, golden-hued sandstone church of St. Thomas was nestled into the side of the hill overlooking the village green and high street. Reached by way of a narrow lane that climbed past the Blue Boar and a rambling vicarage, the church boasted a bulky western tower pierced by twin round-topped windows almost as small as arrow slits, and a side porch with a gabled roof and a strong, nail-studded door that suggested the church had been built as much for defense as for worship.

  The vicar of St. Thomas’s was a tall, lanky man in his late forties, his straight black hair thinning with the passage of the years, his sky blue eyes fanned by laugh lines. He had a way of wincing when he touched upon painful subjects, and he winced as he spoke of Emma Chance, his breath easing out in a long sigh.

  “She was in the churchyard when I first saw her, studying one of the old family crypts near the apse. You know what she said when I went to ask if I could help her? She said, ‘Oh, thank you, but I’m not looking for anyone in particular. I simply enjoy reading old tombstones. I like to imagine the lives of the people whose names are engraved there, and think about the love they must have had for each other—husbands for wives, mothers and fathers for children.’” The Reverend Benedict Underwood sighed again and shook his head. “That poor woman. The poor, poor woman.”

  Sebastian had come upon the vicar planting sprigs of rosemary near the lych-gate. He’d apologized for his dirty hands and pushed quickly to his feet when Sebastian introduced himself. But Sebastian found he had no need to explain the reason for his visit; news of both Emma Chance’s death and the young Squire’s request for Sebastian’s assistance was all over town.

  “What day was this?” asked Sebastian.

  “Friday, I believe. She’d only just come to the village.”

  “Could you show me which tomb she was looking at?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s this way.”

  They turned toward the sunken path that ran along the side of the nave. The churchyard was surprisingly vast and crowded, given the small size of the village. But then Sebastian reminded himself that Ayleswick had once been a much larger place.

  “Did she come here again yesterday, to sketch the church?”

  The Reverend walked with his dirty hands held awkwardly out at his sides. “She did, yes. In the morning.”

  “You saw her?”

  “I did. When I was on my way to visit old Jeff Cook. He’s not well, I’m afraid.”

  “What time did she finish? Do you know?”

  “Sorry, no. She was gone by the time I returned.”

  “And when was that?”

  “About half past eleven, I should think.”

  “Did you speak to her at all?”

  “Yesterday morning, you mean? Only briefly. I believe I called out, ‘Lovely day now that the rain has cleared!’ and she looked up and smiled.” The Reverend shook his head and let loose another of his soulful sighs. “She was such a charming, polite young woman. Not at all forward or fast in the way one might expect, given the somewhat unorthodox nature of her reason for visiting the village.”

  “Her sketching expedition, you mean?”

  Underwood pulled a face. “Yes. Not the sort of thing I’d care to see one of my own daughters doing—if I had daughters, which unfortunately I do not.”

  “Did she ever say anything to you about her family?”

  The Reverend looked thoughtful. “Not that I recall, no. Although she may’ve said something to Mrs. Underwood.”

  “Your wife spoke to her?”

  “Oh, yes. She came to the vicarage for tea.”

  “Did she happen to mention where in London she lived?”

  “Was she from London? I don’t believe she ever said, actually. We mainly spoke of the village. She was most interested in the history of the place. It makes sense, I suppose, given her interest in our historic structures.”

  Sebastian stared up at the heavy stonework of the church’s ancient Norman tower. “Did this used to be part of the old monastery?”

  “Oh, no, St. Thomas’s has always been a simple parish church. What’s left of the old Benedictine priory lies to the west of the village, beside the stream that now feeds the millpond. It was quite a magnificent place in its time, and the ruins are well worth a visit, if you’ve the chance.” The Reverend hesitated. “You’re certain . . . I mean, you’re quite certain it’s murder?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The vicar sucked in a pained breath. “Well, for the sake of Emma Chance’s soul I must be grateful to know that she did not take her own life. But the realization that someone living amongst us—one of our own—killed her . . . Well, I can’t deny it’s disturbing. Most disturbing. Although I suppose it’s always possible she was killed by someone passing through?”

  Sebastian doubted it, given the elaborate way Emma Chance’s body had been arranged to give the impression of suicide. But all he said was, “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Here we are,” said the vicar as they paused beside a weathered mausoleum engraved with the name BALDWYN. “It was the Baldwyns who built Maplethorpe Hall, to the east of the village. They died out toward the end the last century.”

  Sebastian studied the lichen-covered, neglected tomb. According to the inscription, the last burial was of a middle-aged man, John Baldwyn, who died just three weeks after his wife, Alice, in 1788. Their daughter, Marie, had died six months earlier at the age of eighteen. Was it simple curiosity that had drawn Emma Chance to this tomb? Sebastian wondered. Or something more telling?

  He glanced over at the vicar, who was now surreptitiously wiping his dirt-covered hands on a handkerchief. “Do you know an elderly woman named Heddie Kincaid?”

  The vicar’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes, of course; she’s one of my pari
shioners. Although not,” he added ruefully, “as devout as one might wish.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “She has a cottage up the road from the Blue Boar—right before you come to the millstream and the footpath that leads to the priory ruins. She’s blind, you know—has been for years. Although until this spring I’d have said she was in fairly good health.”

  “What happened in the spring?”

  “Her grandson died down in London. He was something of a favorite with her, and his death hit her right hard.” The vicar tucked away his handkerchief. “Surely you don’t think Heddie could have something to do with this killing?”

  “No, not at all. My interest in her is purely personal. I knew her grandson, and I’ve brought her something he wanted her to have.”

  “Ah. Well, she’ll be glad to receive it, no doubt. She’s had a hard life, I’m afraid. Buried three husbands and a good half dozen children—not to mention a shocking number of grandchildren.” The vicar paused, his lower lip bunching and protruding as he stared thoughtfully at Sebastian. “You say you knew Jamie Knox?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  The vicar gave a nervous laugh. “I didn’t know him well myself, mind you—he took the King’s shilling as a lad not long after I was given the living here in Ayleswick. But . . .” He broke off and colored faintly.

  “Yes?” prompted Sebastian.

  “Oh, nothing, nothing,” said the vicar, nervously clearing his throat as he looked pointedly away.

  Sebastian suspected he knew exactly what was suddenly troubling the vicar. But there weren’t many with the courage to tell an earl’s son that he bore an uncanny resemblance to a Bishopsgate tavern owner who had begun life as the illegitimate offspring of a Shropshire barmaid.

  Chapter 7

  Carrying a small box with the mechanical nightingale under one arm, Sebastian followed the narrow, rutted road that wound westward from the village toward the wild, purple-hazed mountains of the Welsh border. The hedgerows here were a fragrant tangle of sun-warmed dog roses, bryony, and traveler’s-joy; the sky above a fierce, clear blue; the fields golden with ripening wheat.