The Sudbury School Murders (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #4)

by Ashley Gardner

  "I am pleased to hear it. I am offering you friendship, Marianne. It is all I have to offer. You may take it or leave it alone, as you wish."

  She turned away and remained silent while I got myself awkwardly mounted, and boosted her once more into the saddle.

  She said, her voice sour, "You must have had a fine upbringing, Lacey, to be so damn obliging."

  "I had a terrible upbringing," I said, turning the horse to the road. "But I am determined to be nothing like my boor of a father. You will simply have to bear the brunt of it. You have forgotten your bonnet, you know."

  She touched her hand to her bare, golden head. "Leave it," she said. "I hate the bloody thing."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  I took Marianne all the way back to Hungerford. We were silent most of the way. Mist hugged the canal, and we rode along the towpath through a hazy world of water and greenery.

  We reached Hungerford's High Street and went on to the lane at the end. Before we reached the house, Marianne said, with some of her usual acerbic manner, "By the bye, Mr. Sutcliff visited again last night. He was not pleased to discover that you had spoken to Jeanne Lanier."

  "You heard him say that?"

  "Certainly, I did. He said so at the top of his voice. The scullery maid in the kitchen must have heard."

  "What did Jeanne say to that?"

  "I could not hear her as well. But she tried to soothe him, from the sound of it. Said things like, ‘it does not matter’ and ‘you must not take on so.’"

  "I wonder," I mused. "Was he speaking in jealousy, or was he afraid she might have revealed something to me?"

  "Well, I cannot tell you," Marianne said. "I could not press my ear to the door, because Mrs. Albright was standing in the hall. She was listening, too, if I am any judge. Neither of us heard enough to satisfy our curiosity."

  "Did he stay long?" I asked Marianne.

  "Most of the night. That is, if the creaking of the bed frame was any indication. I had to sleep with my pillow over my head again."

  I did not wish to think about Sutcliff in bed with the gracious Jeanne Lanier. I murmured, "I wonder how long it creaked on Sunday night?"

  Marianne shrugged. "All night, hard and long, as far as I know. And her gasping and moaning. I don't know when he left, but I could find out if you like. Mrs. Albright is a nosy old body; she likely knows. Or I can ask Jeanne directly. Women like to chat about their men, you know, either to claim theirs is better or to disparage him."

  I tried not to shudder at the thought of ladies sitting nose to nose comparing the faults of their gentlemen. "Very well, but have a care."

  "I always take excellent care of myself, Lacey."

  We reached the house. She slid from the horse. In the polite world, she would have invited me in for breakfast or coffee, but this was far from the polite world, and doubtless she wanted me to leave her alone. Revelations about one's inner secrets can be rather embarrassing.

  As the door closed behind her, I spied Jeanne Lanier looking out of a window in the upper story. Tree branches grew against the house, and she peered through them as though wondering who had ridden to the door. When she caught my eye, she smiled and nodded a greeting.

  I tipped my hat to her, then turned and took my leave.

  I rode back along the canal, preferring the quiet, cool green of the towpath to the main road where I'd have to dodge the mail coaches and other wagons. More boats plied the canal now, floating silently along the smooth trail.

  When I approached Lower Sudbury Lock, I heard argument. The lockkeeper stood on the bank, hands on hips, and directed his invective to a boat beyond the lock. I rode past on the towpath to look.

  A narrow boat had sidled up to the lock from the south and west. This one was full of people, children with brown faces, women who covered their heads with gaily covered scarves, and one young man who lounged in the stern smoking a long-stemmed pipe. A goat stood tied in the bow, nibbling in a bored manner on straw.

  An older man, his skin brown with sun, his steps slow and sure, led a fat horse along the bank

  The man leading the horse stopped at the lock. The barge continued its forward momentum until it bumped the gates. The lockkeeper was glaring at the bargeman, not moving to turn the cranks. "Best go back," he spat. "Don't want you up here. Your kind have already done enough."

  The Romany man simply stared at him, black eyes enigmatic.

  "Let him through," I said on impulse.

  The lockkeeper glared at me. "Rutledge wants them cleared out." He curled his lip as though to say I ought to have known that.

  "I will explain to Rutledge. I wish to speak to them."

  The lockkeeper looked as though he'd like to hurl me into the canal and let the Roma fish me out. He settled for a black stare, then turned to the pumps.

  The lock gate slowly opened. The Romany led his horse forward, and the boat coasted gently inside. While the lock filled with water, lifting the boat, women, children, goat, and all, I asked the Romany man point-blank whether Sebastian D'Arby was his relation.

  He looked at me. Intelligence glinted in his eyes. "He is my nephew."

  He must be the uncle who so disliked Sebastian working at the Sudbury School. "You know that he has been accused of murder," I said.

  "I heard," the man responded dryly. "I knew that no good would come of him mixing with the English."

  "You told him so," I said. "Did you not? On Sunday night. You spoke--or rather, argued--for a long time."

  "Aye." He did not ask how I knew.

  "Where did he meet you?"

  "Down past Great Bedwyn. We moored there for the night."

  "What time did he reach you?"

  The man shrugged. "The Roma are not interested in time. We know morning, afternoon, night."

  I gave him a skeptical look. He caught my gaze, and his lips twitched. "Perhaps half past ten," he said.

  "How long did he stay?"

  "It is important, is it?"

  "I wish to help Sebastian," I said impatiently. "I seem to be the only person in Sudbury who does not believe he murdered Middleton."

  The Romany looked me up and down. He looked neither angry, nor pleased. "He stayed a good long time. Until just before sunrise."

  "Sunrise? Are you certain?"

  Sebastian had told me he'd returned at two o'clock, long before sunrise. He'd sworn so on oath to the coroner.

  "Aye," he said. He smiled, showing brown teeth. "I do recognize sunrise, English man."

  I ignored that. "What did you do when Sebastian left you?"

  He shrugged. "Pulled up our mooring and started west. I was angry at young Sebastian, did not much want to see him. So we went back down, toward Bath."

  "We didn't," said a voice behind him. "We didn't right away."

  We both turned. A woman stood on the deck of the barge. She was younger than the bargeman and wore a bright blue shawl around her shoulders. "We did not turn to Bath right away. We floated Sebastian up toward Sudbury, at least as far as Lower Sudbury Lock."

  She had a fine voice, soft and contralto. The voice did not match her face, which was quite plain. She had thin lips and a narrow nose, nothing remarkable. Her dark eyes, however, reminded me of those of ladies in Spain, who watched soldiers march by and promised them delights if they turned aside.

  "At sunrise?" I asked.

  The older man scowled at her. She gazed back at him, undaunted. "Just before. It was still dark, the sky just gray."

  "You did not call the lockkeeper to open the lock for you?" I asked.

  "We had no need. Sebastian stepped off the boat, and we went back the other way. The next lockkeeper down let us through."

  So they had been at Lower Sudbury Lock at sunrise. And the lockkeeper had not heard them? Nor had he heard Middleton's body being deposited in the lock.

  "We move like ghosts," Sebastian's uncle said. He smiled again.

  The lockkeeper bent over his wheels, cranking them to shut
off the pumps. He turned the gear to open the gates. "Bloody Romany," he muttered.

  The Romany moved the horse slowly forward, pulling the barge into the canal. I turned my horse next to his.

  "Then you were at the site of the murder," I said. "Tell me what you saw."

  The Romany raised his grizzled brows. "Nothing to see. Canal quiet, land waking to the day. Nothing more."

  "A shadow," the woman said. Again Sebastian's uncle glared at her; again, she took no notice. "A shadow by the lock gate. Someone staying hidden. I could not see who."

  Not Sebastian. The murderer? Why the murderer, though? The doctor had said the body had been deposited at least four hours before it was found, and it was found at six o'clock, just after daybreak. Why should the murderer linger?

  "If Sebastian was with you at sunrise, according to your evidence, he could not have placed the body in the lock," I said. "He could not have killed the groom. Will you tell the magistrate this?"

  The Romany spat. "Will the magistrate listen to me?"

  I thought of the magistrate and his treatment of Sebastian. I thought of Rutledge and the constable. They all believed the Roma to be liars. Sebastian's uncle was no fool. "I know a magistrate who might," I said slowly.

  I was thinking of Sir Montague Harris, the magistrate of the Whitechapel house in London. He had intelligence, and he actually listened to my ideas, as farfetched as they were.

  Sebastian's uncle faced me, angry. "Sebastian has forsaken us. He does not like Romany ways. He would rather be a slave to Englishmen and lust after a girl with pearl-white skin. What need has he of us?"

  The woman looked sad. "Must we abandon him?"

  "He has abandoned us," the Romany said fiercely. The children on the boat had gone quiet, watching their elders with large eyes. "He has abandoned you."

  I tried to placate him. "I am certain Sebastian does not mean to desert you entirely. He seems fond of you all."

  "Does he?" The Romany looked me up and down, black eyes snapping. "Then why does he refuse to return to us? That night I argued with him long, yes. And he agreed to nothing. Not anything I said could persuade him, nor could his spending the rest of the night with his wife."

  I stared at him, dumbfounded, while his last words struck me. "His wife?"

  The Romany jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and I looked again at the young woman standing patiently on the deck. "Aye. Young Megan. She is Sebastian's wife."

  *** *** ***

  I left the Roma on the bank of the canal. I forgot all about breakfast and charged back to Sudbury to persuade the constable's housekeeper to let me see Sebastian.

  Sebastian looked slightly better but still gazed longingly at the door when the plump woman let me in.

  I called Sebastian a bloody fool, and then told him why. He flushed and would not meet my eyes. "It is true then," I said. "She is your wife, and you were with her that night."

  "She is not my wife," he growled. "We were never married in a church, with an English license. My uncle decided she should be my wife about one year ago and brought her to live with us."

  I remembered the first time I had visited Sebastian here, remembered the constable's housekeeper telling me that a Romany woman had tried to see Sebastian. Sebastian had blushed and said it had been his mother. I knew now that the visitor must have been Megan. She must have come to see whether he was all right. A wife who loved her husband would do that.

  "And you spent all of Sunday night with her?" I asked. "On your family's boat?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Then why the devil did you not say so?"

  He looked at me as though I'd gone mad. "In the magistrate's court? With Miss Rutledge's father looking on, to take her the news of all that happened?"

  I let out a sigh. "So you lied because of Miss Rutledge. I take it from your reluctance that Miss Rutledge does not know about Megan?"

  "No," he said.

  "Good God, Sebastian. You cannot have it both ways."

  He looked at me defiantly. "That is why I took the post at the Sudbury School. To work and have money so that I no longer have to be Romany."

  "Megan seems to care about you."

  "Megan is an obedient woman. She does what her father tells her, she does what my uncle tells her."

  Belinda Rutledge, on the other hand, must seem like a tragic heroine to him, a pretty young woman dominated by her father and chafing at her bonds. Why settle for dutiful kindness when one can have passionate devotion?

  "Megan said that she would be willing to tell the magistrate that you stayed with her," I said. "That you did not return to the stables at two o'clock, but left your family at sunrise."

  Sebastian's brows knit. "I do not wish her to."

  "You would prefer to hang for a murder you did not commit?"

  He shook his head, a little desperate. "No."

  "You are the most stubborn young man I have ever met, Sebastian. I like you, but your head is in the wrong place."

  He gave me a pleading look. "The magistrate will not believe Megan, in any case. She is Romany."

  "That is possible. What you need is an independent witness." I thought a moment about the shadowy figure Megan had seen hovering near the lock. I had some ideas about that. I also thought about Megan and her patient eyes. Sebastian was an idiot.

  "You are a fool, Sebastian," I told him. "Did you plan to elope with Miss Rutledge? Even if you managed to marry her, your family would never accept her, and her family would banish her. Life is long, my young friend. Do not make it more difficult than it already has to be."

  He, of course, did not believe me. "I love Miss Rutledge," he said stubbornly. "I would die for her."

  "Perhaps. But would dying for her do her any good? Duty is difficult, and well I know it. But sometimes it is all we have."

  Sebastian studied his strong, brown hands. I was asking him to chose between losing his life and losing the woman he loved. To him, at twenty, each choice was equally foul. To die in ignominy or to live in wretchedness must seem the same to him.

  "I believe Megan will try to make you happy," I suggested.

  He looked up at me, a rueful smile on his lips. "Then you do not know her."

  I was puzzled. "She did not seem a shrew to me."

  "No. She is quiet and obedient, as you say."

  Still his eyes held a glint of something I did not understand. I conceded that I knew little of Megan save my brief conversation with her. But perhaps I'd grown jaded and bit cynical about love. A quiet, plain woman determined to do her duty seemed a restful choice over storms of emotion.

  Sebastian looked at me across twenty years, and did not agree.

  I tried another tactic. "If you take the blame for the murder, Sebastian, then the true killer will go free. He could be at the school, right now, or in the village of Sudbury. Do you think Miss Rutledge will be safe? What if he decides she knows you did not kill Middleton and wishes to keep her from speaking? Or what happens if he decides your family is a danger?"

  Sebastian looked at me in alarm. "You must look after Miss Rutledge. You must tell my family to get away."

  "I cannot be everywhere. And I cannot live at Sudbury the rest of my life."

  He looked away, eyes troubled. "The magistrate will not believe me, or my uncle, or Megan."

  "Leave that to me," I said. "Now, tell me the truth this time, when you arrived at Lower Sudbury Lock, did you see any person, or any activity out of the ordinary?"

  He shook his head. "I wished only to reach the stables before the others stirred. I never noticed."

  "A pity, but never mind." I rose, leaned on my walking stick in the low-ceilinged room. "If you truly love Miss Rutledge, you will let her go. Let her marry a gentleman who will take her to live in a dull house and talk of dull things. She will be cared for, in that way."

  He looked at me, eyes full. "You are wrong. Her father will marry her off to a man just like him, one who will make her miserable."

  Sadly, I s
uspected he was right. If Rutledge allowed Belinda to marry at all, he'd likely find someone as bullying and tyrannical as he was.

  I sighed, put on my hat, told Sebastian good morning, and let myself out of his cell.

  *** *** ***

  Upon my return to Sudbury School, I found breakfast just ending and tutors and pupils scurrying to lessons. Grenville emerged from the dining hall among the crowd and hailed me.

  "I breakfasted with Rutledge in the dining hall," he said. "Fletcher was there." He nodded toward the lean man who stalked down the corridor to his lecture hall. "He spoke to no one. Mr. Sutcliff still seems subdued. In my opinion, Sutcliff needed the thrashing."

  "I have no doubt he did. But I wonder what provoked it."

  "I could not get close enough to Fletcher to ask." Grenville looked me up and down, taking in my muddy boots and breeches. "What did you get up to this morning? Rutledge demanded I tell him your whereabouts, and I was forced to answer that I did not know. I must say, it has been a long while since a headmaster called me on the carpet."

  "I found the Roma," I said evasively. "Sebastian stayed with them the night of the murder. I would tell you more, but Rutledge is glaring." I tipped my hat. "I will see you at dinner."

  Grenville looked annoyed, but he could say no more. He would simply have to wait until I could tell him the tale.

  In Rutledge's study, I removed my hat and gloves, seated myself, and gave myself to my duties. Rutledge entered soon after I did, gave me a long, loud-breathed stare. He strode to his desk and sat down.

  "You missed breakfast," he observed.

  "I was riding."

  He said nothing. He opened ledgers, shuffled papers. Presently, he said, "I plan to sack Fletcher."

  I stopped writing, raised my brows. "Does he deserve that?"

  "Of course he does. Getting his books burned in the quad, losing his temper with a pupil who can make a large difference to this school."

  I wondered suddenly if Sutcliff had demanded that Fletcher be sacked.

  Rutledge glared at his ledger. "Damn difficult to find another Classics instructor. Fletcher at least knows his subject."