“I should greatly appreciate it if you did.”
“Well then.” With that rather unceremonious goodbye, he took his leave of us and began trudging up the hill. The manor house was no more than a hundred yards ahead.
“Into the coach, gents, and I’ll take you to the house,” called the new driver.
“No,” answered Mr. Sarton, ”I’ve a wish to talk with Sir John. Take the coach up to the house, and turn it round. Then you may drive me back to Deal.”
“As you wish, sir.”
And so saying, he started the team up the driveway, and in a few moments he was out of sight. Only his companion, whom first we viewed emerging from the wood with Sir Simon, remained behind; and he, it seemed, was returning to that spot in the wood where we had been but minutes before. No doubt he had been told to keep a vigil over the body.
Sir John kept his right hand upon my left arm, which I held bent at the elbow. And beyond him, on his left side, walked Mr. Sarton. Thus we went three abreast up the rise along the circling driveway. I was eager to hear what the two men would say one to the other about the scene in the woods, for by that time I had formed impressions and opinions of my own. For a moment or two they seemed to hold back; each seemed to be wishing the other would start. Yet in the end, of course, Sir John initiated the conversation. He never was one to stand upon ceremony.
“I must congratulate you, Mr. Sarton, upon your observations regarding the corpus. It was both sound and clever the way that you proved-conclusively, to my way of thinking-that the victim had been murdered elsewhere and his body simply dumped where it was found.”
“For that I thank you, sir. There is no man alive from whom I would rather hear such praise.” The young magistrate hesitated: ”But … well … I daresay Sir Simon did not take kindly to my suggestion. I don’t know why. I fear I’ve lost a friend.”
“Young man, Sir Simon is not your friend.”
When Mr. Sarton heard that, the look that came upon his face was not one of anger or indignation, but rather one of terrible disappointment. He seemed quite crushed by Sir John’s rather emphatic suggestion.
“It would seem,” said he at last, ”that I have not many left. But why? How did I offend him?”
“He was rather vague on that,” said Sir John, ”but it seems it all has to do with your unwillingness to take his advice and follow his tips on subsequent landings of the smugglers.”
“That was on the advice of another-indeed, the same individual I hope to introduce you to on the morrow.”
”Well, I shall look forward to seeing you then.”
As Sir John realized with that sixth sense of his, we were quite near the entrance to the house. The coach had been turned round, and Mr. Sarton was about to take his leave of us. Therefore, Sir John’s next words to the young magistrate had the sound and sense of a speech of farewell.
“Were I you,” said he, ”I should not worry overmuch whether or not you have the friendship of Sir Simon Grenville. The nature of our work is such that we are not allowed many friends, and those few we have must be those worthy of trust. I do not feel that Sir Simon is altogether worthy of trust, do you?”
Mr. Sarton sighed. ”No, I suppose I do not. If I put great value upon his friendship and support, it is because he is a very powerful man in these parts.”
“Well, it has been my experience that those who have power are most interested in keeping and increasing it. All their plans, all their activities, even their choice of friends-all are directed toward those ends. If Sir Simon once offered you his friendship, it was no doubt because he thought that you could be of use to him. You may take that from an old cynic such as myself, for it has thus far in my experience proven to be so.”
Albert Sarton smiled a rather crooked smile. It seemed to give him a mischievous look. ”I shall do that, sir,” said he. ”And I look forward to our meeting in the morning.”
I saw this as my last opportunity to say to him something I felt needed to be said. Clearing my throat and lowering my voice (that the waiting driver might not hear), I said to Mr. Sarton: ”Before you go, sir, there is something I heard from Will Fowler whilst riding beside him that I think you should know.”
“Then tell me by all means, young sir,” said he.
“I learned from him that he was not alone when he found the body. Mistress Clarissa Roundtree, who traveled from London as one of our party, was with him.”
”She is our ward, more or less,” Sir John interjected. ”Lady Fielding employs her as her secretary.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sarton. ”Well, by all means bring her along. I should like to hear her version of the event.” He paused then just long enough to bow a proper bow to Sir John and me. ”I thank you both,” said he. ”Until tomorrow.”
And with a wave of his hand, he was gone.
Though greatly interested in my meeting with Dick Dickens, and of all that Constable Perkins had to say of his former employer, rather than discuss it at length, Sir John chose to retire to bed for a nap. He admitted he had tumbled to the floor of the coach when Will Fowler had made that wild stop, but he insisted that he was in no wise crippled by the fall.
“You, as I,” said he, ”must allow that as I grow older my body seems to need greater rest.”
“Nevertheless, I do believe, sir, that you have pain in a particular place. Now, where is that?”
“Oh … my hip, if you must know, my left hip. It was there I hit the floor of the coach.”
“Well then, I agree that a rest is in order-and perhaps later, a doctor should be summoned to have a look at you.”
“No doctors,” said he, ”no surgeons, no provincial saw-your-bones. If I have need, I shall wait till we return to London and put myself at the mercy of Mr. Donnelly. He’s the only doctor I trust.”
And that, reader, put an end to the discussion. There is a certain tone of voice adopted by Sir John when he wishes to make it plain that he will brook no argument, and that last, ”provincial saw-your-bones” speech was spoken in that tone. I said nothing more, helped him undress, and assisted him into bed. Then, remembering to take with me Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, I tiptoed out of the room, convinced that he was already asleep. Then did I most quietly close the door behind me.
The room across the hall, which I recognized as Clarissa’s, had attracted the attention of a maid at the time I accompanied Sir John to our door. She was just finishing up with her broom when she spied us. Of a sudden she did drop her broom and deliver a curtsey with a brightly spoken, ”Good day to you, sirs.”
So taken aback was I by this that I could only think to say, ”Good day to you and … carry on.”
Having said that, I did throw open the door to our room and show Sir John the way inside.
I had all but forgotten the incident when I stepped out into the hall. I was reminded of it only in noting that the courteous maid was no longer about. My original intention was to go to the library where I might read for an hour or two before looking in on Sir John. But having noted Clarissa’s door, I wondered if I might not visit her and hear her story of the discovery of the body. There could be no harm in it, I told myself, so long as there was no such foolishness as last evening’s kissing games.
Assuring myself that there would be nothing of the kind, I knocked softly upon her door. For some several moments there was no sound beyond the door. It occurred to me that she, too, might have taken it into her head to go down to the library. But no: there was a sound and another and another. Clarissa was inside, right enough, and she was coming to the door.
“Who is there?” she asked. But was it Clarissa? The voice I heard seemed lower, huskier, than hers.
“It is I, Jeremy,” said I and waited-yet there was no move to open the door. ”Let me in.”
“I cannot,” said she.
“What do you mean? Why not?” Was she ill? Not properly dressed?
”The door is locked.” It was suddenly rattled from the other side. ”There, you
see?”
I grabbed the latch and tried the door myself. It did not budge. I rattled it, and it still did not budge. Yet between us we had loosed the key from the keyhole. Big as it was, it dropped with a clang to the floor.
“Wait a moment,” said I. ”There is a key.”
“Well, use it, you dolt!”
Sharp-tongued as ever. I’d a notion to drop the key in my pocket and walk away, leaving her to shift for herself-but I did nothing of the kind. No, I jammed it into the keyhole, turned it, and threw open the door. As it opened inward, I managed somehow to bestow a bump upon her forehead. (Thus, without quite willing it so, I had my revenge upon Clarissa.)
“Ow!” She clapped a hand to her head.
“Sorry! Truly, I am sorry!”
“Such twaddle! If you were that regretful, you would come up with phrases that would comfort me more.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not my place to think them up. Men are supposed to have such phrases always upon their tongues.” Such notions came from her constant reading of romances. ”Why don’t you?” she demanded.
“Because I do not read the same books as you do,” said I proudly.
“No, I suppose you don’t. Well, the least you can do is throw your arms about me and comfort me with a few gentle pats upon the back. I’ve been weeping, you know.”
Kicking the door shut, I stepped close and took a good look at her face. Ah yes, her eyes were red and a bit puffy; her nose was sniffly; and her voice had, as previously noted, grown husky.
“So you have,” said I. ”But why?”
“Why? The heroine always weeps when she is imprisoned.”
”You weren’t imprisoned,” said I. ”Someone simply turned the key in the lock by mistake-probably that little maid who was so well-mannered.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, never mind. But here now, this is all the consolation you’ll get from me.”
So saying, I wrapped my arms awkwardly about her and delivered a few perfunctory pats. As I did so, I happened to look over her shoulder at the carpet upon which we stood. Its dark pattern was interrupted by crisscrossing marks of white. I had stared at them curiously for a bit until I realized that the marks were, in fact, footprints, and the white was the same chalk white which covered the soles and heels of the dead man’s shoes in the wood. Releasing Clarissa, I turned her round and pointed down at the carpet.
“Are those your footprints?”
“Yes, they are. I’m afraid I’ve made a mess here. It’s chalk, you know.”
“Indeed I do know. Mr. Sarton, the magistrate here, pointed that out to us when we viewed the remains of the victim. Chalk was all over the shoes of the poor man. Yet the odd thing was that there was no place thereabouts that he could have picked up the chalk on the soles of his shoes, and so he came to the conclusion that the body had been moved.”
“But that’s nonsense,” cried Clarissa.
“No, I thought it was quite reasonable, and so did Sir John.”
“Yet it is only so if you did view the body in another place from that where I found him.”
“You found him? You mean where you and Will Fowler found him, don’t you?”
“No, I found him first, and then I took Mr. Fowler to see.”
“Just a moment,” said I, ”perhaps, Clarissa, you had best tell me the story from the beginning.”
”But where shall I start?”
“As I said, at the beginning.” I fear that the exasperation I felt at her higgledy-piggledy lack of all sense of logic was made much too plain by my tone of voice. Yet I recovered sufficiently to suggest that she might start at the point where I left her and her guide, Will Fowler, and headed for the library.
“Oh, well enough, well enough,” said she, ”now let me see. When you went off to the library, Mr. Fowler took me to a room that is kept as a kind of picture gallery. Oh, you should have stayed with us, Jeremy. Some of the paintings were quite wonderful, especially those of an artist named George Stubbs-all sorts of animals. A zebra! Can you imagine? He painted the most wonderful picture of a zebra. Can he have gone to Africa to do that?”
“Really, Clarissa, I have no idea. Do get on with your story, won’t you?”
She sighed. ”Well, all right. Oh, but whilst we were there in this gallery room, Mr. Fowler began to tell about the ghost. You remember? Sir Simon talked about him at dinner? Well, Mr. Fowler’s version was much more complete. For one thing, the spirit which haunts this house is that of the first Baronet of Mongeham, Sir Roger Grenville, who received his title over a hundred years ago! There was something familiar about the features of the face in the portrait.”
“Please, Clarissa, get on with it.”
Well, obviously her way of telling a story is not my own. If there is a byway or a digression in sight, then she will take it, no matter where it leads. And indeed, in spite of my urging that she get on with her tale, she supplied all manner of extraneous detail on the arrogant cook, Jacques Dufour, and his most impressive kitchen belowstairs; then, too, she gave me Will Fowler’s account of Sir Simon’s courtship of the present Lady Grenville, which was presented down to every last particular. And so on.
Since I am sure, reader, that you would prefer that I dispense with all such minutiae, I now offer you my version of the discovery of the body purged and abridged of all but what is relevant to this narrative. Let it begin with Will Fowler’s offer to show her about the grounds upon which the house was situated.
Having given her a good look at the kitchen, he showed her out the rear door of the house and into the garden. (This did surprise me, for I did suppose that in order to reach the place where the murdered man had been found, they would have exited by the front door.) In any case, Mr. Fowler did show her about the garden, proving himself knowledgeable regarding the varieties of flowers and other plants which were laid out in the space in chaotic profusion. They walked the garden path which led out past some outbuildings and ultimately into the thick woods which surrounded the house on three sides. She asked Mr. Fowler where the path led, and he said that there was an old, deserted chalk mine higher up the hill and nothing more. Just then Mr. Fowler was hailed from the house by the cook, Jacques, who demanded that he return to settle a disagreement with one of the porters. Reluctantly, he made to go, but Clarissa asked if she might not stay on there in the garden, and he, thinking it would take but a short while to settle the matter, granted her wish and suggested that should she grow weary of the garden and wish to rest, she might sit upon the bench near the brook, ”a favorite place of Lady Grenville’s.”
As it happened, Mr. Fowler was detained longer than expected. Clarissa grew bored with inspecting flowers; and not one to rest content sitting in one place, she chose rather to follow the path which led out of the garden and up the hill. The out-buildings which she passed were quite unlike the stables which lay off to the far side of the house: they were intended for human occupancy and were evidently indeed occupied; she heard rough, male voices issuing from one and moved swiftly and quietly past it that she might not be detected.
Once beyond, she turned and looked back at the house, half hoping that she might see Mr. Fowler below, beckoning her to him. Yet, not seeing him, there seemed naught to do but plunge onward up the path and into the woods. Glancing down, she happened to notice a peculiarity in the pathway: it was heavily dusted with white, and there were many footprints. It was not so below in the garden-of that she was certain. But then she recalled that Mr. Fowler had said there was a chalk mine up on the hill, but he had described it as a ”deserted” chalk mine. Evidently he was wrong about that. Apparently the men who lived in those buildings worked in the chalk mines. But surely Mr. Fowler would have known about that, wouldn’t he? After all, he seemed to act as a sort of majordomo in the Grenville household. She was puzzled, but fueled now by curiosity, she picked up her pace and made her way swiftly up the path.
She saw the entrance t
o the mine plain enough, though not until she was a scant ten yards away, so dark was it in that part of the wood. But having come so close, she noted that the chalk dust was specially thick in that space, and that there were all manner of prints to be seen in it-and not just bootprints. For, contrary to what Will Fowler had implied, the path did not end at the entrance to the mine; it led beyond and farther up the hill. But just before the entrance, it intersected a wagon track which led off to the right-that is, in the direction of the stables. There at the crossing, hoofprints and wagon tracks cut back and forth in the chalk dust. There could be no doubt that there had been a good deal of sustained activity in that wide space. It would seem that, far from being deserted, the mine was working briskly once again.
She was moved to explore the mine in order to confirm this. On the other hand, she was curious as to what lay above the mine and where the path she had followed truly led. And would it not be good to know where the wagon track terminated? Perhaps at the stable, where she had supposed; but perhaps, too, somewhere beyond it at some secret intersection with the main road. Yes, secret-all of this was most curious and most secret.
As Clarissa stood before the mine entrance, casting her eyes this way and that, trying to decide what her next move might be, her glance did fix upon something in the underbrush, something that looked, as near as she could tell, like a human hand. She was drawn to it immediately. Hastening to the spot, kneeling, though not touching the hand, she looked closely beyond it and saw, thank God, that it was attached to a whole body, one hidden among the plants and bushes that provided a kind of carpet beneath this mighty forest of oak and pine. She pushed the bushes aside and flattened the plants, and then she had a proper look at him. He was dead, of course. She expected that. A man does not climb in amongst the vegetation to take himself a nap. No, this was not the place for it. The young man’s wound did give her pause, however. Looking down upon the cut in his throat, she saw that he had lost much blood. The lower part of his neck was quite drenched with it, though it had caked and darkened and looked more like dirt than blood. She shivered at the sight, quite in spite of herself. (It may have been that the nature of the wound brought back the memory of a time when a knife was held against her own throat, by that villain, Jackie Carver, and a threat was made to inflict just such damage, as you, reader, may recall from an earlier narrative.)
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