by Rebecca King
“It sounds like the thefts here, doesn’t it?” He froze and stared at Jeb in horror. “Do you think -?”
Jeb nodded. “It’s one of the reasons why I was allowed to leave the investigation to come here,” he admitted. “Usually, we are not authorized to go anywhere during an investigation but, given the similarities between the two sets of thefts, I was asked to look into what has been going on. It is safe to say now that I have reason to believe the thefts here were committed by someone unconnected to the London thief.”
“Oh? Have you found the culprit here then?” Algernon looked at him hopefully.
Jeb paused.
“Who is it?” his father demanded when Jeb didn’t reply.
“I am not going to say until I have some more proof.” Jeb knew he had made the right decision when he saw a tell-tale flash of anger in his father’s eyes.
“The thefts sound the same.” Algernon tapped the broadsheet for emphasis.
“Yes, but there is one significant difference,” Jeb replied calmly.
“What?” Algernon was clearly not prepared to be appeased easily.
“Some of the items taken recently have been returned.”
“What?”
Jeb placed his father’s trinket boxes onto the table before him, and watched astonishment flood his father’s face.
“Good Lord, where did you get them from? Who took them?”
Jeb smiled. “I cannot say right now, but I have managed to retrieve several stolen items. At the moment, I need to focus my attention on who murdered Tabitha, because I suspect they are still in the area somewhere. Once that has been dealt with, I will make sure the thefts stop, and that should be the end of it. Then, and only then, I will tell you what I intend to do about the future.”
“Is it likely to be based here?”
Jeb smiled at his father and nodded. He was touched when his father beamed, and knew he had just bought himself the time needed to deal with the stolen goods, the murder, and Delilah.
A companionable silence settled over them while they finished their breakfast.
“Well, I’ll be off,” Algernon announced half an hour later. “I have a meeting with Everson in a minute, and need to see the farmer about the rent on the cottage. I will be back in time for dinner.”
“By the way,” Jeb called when his father had reached the door. “Where is the girl now?”
“Oh, she has been taken to the church where it was cold, but her body has already started to decompose because it has been outside for so long. I understand it is not a pretty sight.”
“I will go and take a look,” Jeb said anyway.
He knew from the dour look his father threw him that he wouldn’t like what he would see, but this was Jeb’s job. He had to face things most people shied away from. Once he was finished with his breakfast, he left the house and made his way over to the church.
“I am sorry,” the vicar said softly when he opened the door to the church. “The smell is a little noxious I am afraid. While I am more than happy to accommodate God’s children in their hour of need, I have had to arrange for her to be moved to the store room at the back of the vestry. Are you sure you want to see her? It is a little disturbing I am afraid.”
The vicar looked at him as though he had lost his mind when Jeb nodded.
“It is all part of my job. I need to see her to find out how she died,” he explained.
“I understand from the magistrate’s men that you are here officially so please, be my guest.” The vicar waved a hand vaguely toward the back of the church but made no attempt to accompany him.
“How did she die?”
“She was murdered, poor soul,” the clergyman replied somewhat hesitantly.
“I know, but was she stabbed, knifed, suffocated?” He saw the horror build in the cleric’s eyes and offered him a commiserating smile. “I am sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. It is the investigator in me talking. I need to establish a cause of death to be able to get some idea of what kind of person took her life. Please, you don’t have to come with me if you find it too distressing.”
“Oh, thank you,” the vicar gushed suddenly looking intensely relieved. “I was waiting for Mrs Banks to come. She is usually excellent with matters like this, but she hasn’t appeared yet which is most odd.”
He turned away with a frown, still mumbling about how uncharacteristic it was for such a stalwart lady used to her daily routine not to turn up on time.
Jeb let him go, and opened the door to the store room.
The smell hit him first. Whoever had placed her in the room had, thankfully, had the foresight to open the window, but the gentle breeze that swept through the room did nothing but stir the odour. Blocking out all thought of his roiling stomach, Jeb approached the body and lifted the sheet.
He began his search at the top of Tabitha’s head, prepared to make his way down the body until he established how she died. He didn’t have to search for long before he came across numerous ligature marks and dark bruising around the girl’s neck.
“Strangulation,” Jeb murmured aloud as he stared at the marks.
They looked startlingly similar to those on the corpses of Samson and Balgravia. They had been members of the aristocracy who had been murdered recently in London, and left hidden in parks to be found once the stench of rotting flesh became noticeable.
“It can’t be. This is nothing but a coincidence,” Jeb tried to reassure himself. Inside, though, he was less than convinced.
In a quest for answers, he ventured further down the body, and noted the clawed hands, most of the nails on which had been broken during her desperate struggle for life. He suspected from the mottled state of her flesh, and the fact that her limbs had gone limp again after rigor mortis, that she had been killed as soon as she had disappeared several days ago.
An hour later, he covered the body and quietly made his way out of the room. He came across the vicar standing beside the main doors, wringing his hands anxiously.
“What is it?” Jeb asked with a scowl.
Right now, he desperately wanted to see Sophia. He needed her sunny warmth and pleasant smile to chase away the lingering memory of what he had just witnessed, but it seemed that Fate, and the vicar, had other ideas.
“I am worried about Mrs Banks. It is so unlike her not to come to help out. The cleaning ladies will be here any moment and I need to go through their tasks with them so I cannot go to check on her,” the vicar fretted.
Jeb heaved a mental sigh. He knew what the clergyman was asking, and knew it would be churlish to leave him to worry.
“Do you want me to go and check on her?”
The vicar looked immensely relieved. “If you wouldn’t mind, that would be most helpful. There is nothing to say she has not had a fall, you see? Her house is so far out of the village that nobody would hear her cries for help. I wish I hadn’t done some paperwork in the office before I came here. I just assumed she would be here.”
Sensing he would be a while if he didn’t get away soon, Jeb interrupted. “I will go and see her. If there is anything wrong, I will summon help and send word to you. If you don’t hear anything it is because she is not at home and has undoubtedly been waylaid somewhere. Alright?”
“Of course. If you are sure it is not putting you out too much? It would be a welcome help indeed.” The vicar threw him a grateful look.
Jeb took his leave before the vicar could launch into another explanation about the reliability of Mrs Banks. With the desperate need to see Sophia nipping at his heels, he hurried through the village toward Mrs Banks’ house.
“A completely wasted trip,” Jeb grumbled when he saw the house, and smoke billowing steadily from the chimney. However, to appease the vicar he continued to the house and knocked on the front door.
When his knocks received no answer, he made his way around the side of the house to the back door. He froze, and knew immediately that this was not a wasted trip at all.
Something
was terribly wrong.
“Mrs Banks?” he called as he eyed the open door at the back of the house with a frown. There was no sign of a struggle, but Mrs Banks was not in the garden, and no sound could be heard from inside the house. “Mrs Banks?” He yelled louder this time. “Are you home?”
When he still received no reply, he pushed the back door open and cautiously entered the kitchen. Fire roared in the fireplace, but he barely paid it any attention.
“Mrs Banks? Can you hear me?” Silence greeted him.
Glad that he had remembered to bring his gun, Jeb crept into the property. The rooms at the rear of the house were all empty. He glanced upstairs but couldn’t see anything untoward. The dining room at the front of the house was also devoid of life. He ventured across the hallway to the sitting room. As soon as he entered, he saw the back of a dark head resting against the back of a chair in front of the empty fireplace. Although her back was facing the door, he recognised the person in the seat as Mrs Banks.
He didn’t call out her name, partly for fear of scaring her, but partly because he knew that it was a waste of time. Mrs Banks had gone far beyond anybody’s reach. Bracing himself, he sidled around the outskirts of the room until he could see her face.
“Jesus,” he swore when he saw the mottled colour of death on her face. “Not you too.”
He studied the stiff features and suspected she had been dead for several hours. Rigor mortis had settled in and had yet to release its frozen grip. With her head tipped back to rest on the back of the chair, he could see the now familiar burn marks around her throat caused by the ligature that had killed her.
A dark frown scarred his brow. He hurried into the kitchen and stared at the heavily laden fireplace roaring away heartily.
“Now, if you have been dead for several hours, how in the world did you manage to light that?”
He knew from the fact that most of the wood in the grate had only just started to burn that this fire had been lit within the last hour, but who by? If someone knew there was a corpse in the house they wouldn’t light the fire, not least because going about such an everyday task was a tad disrespectful. Besides, any idiot knew it was best to keep a dead person cold.
Within minutes, Jeb had completed a search of the rest of the house, but found no sign of anyone. There was nothing out of place. The bed was neatly made, but Jeb doubted it had even been slept in. He suspected Mrs Banks had been murdered late last night and had not even made it to bed, or had been killed before dawn while still fully dressed.
Once he had helped himself a bedsheet, he draped it over the unfortunate widow, dampened the fire, and returned to the village to summon help. He didn’t want to leave the house at all, not least because he suspected that whoever had lit that fire had seen him coming, and was probably waiting for him to leave so they could go back.
Rather than head straight to the church, he stopped off quickly at the posting office and scribbled a quick note to Barnaby in London. He needed his colleagues’ help now, and the sooner they got there the better because he suspected the murderer wasn’t done killing yet. While he was perfectly capable of finding the killer on his own, he now had a rather personal stake in what happened in the village. In particular, to one of its somewhat temporary residents. Sophia. The thought that she was in danger simply by being in the village made him want to tear his hair out. Protecting her was now his top priority.
As he made his way to the church, he thought about the man she had noticed staring at her in the village. Was Sophia the killer’s next intended victim? The very thought made Jeb’s blood run cold.
“Not on my patch,” Jeb growled, using one of Barnaby’s sentiments fervently.
At the end of the road, he had two choices; go to Sophia’s house or the church.
Jeb eyed the church tower in the distance and shook his head. He knew that as soon as he notified the vicar, and summoned help, it would be many hours before he was free to call upon the woman who had captured far more than his interest. With that in mind, he had to see her to apologise, and explain that he couldn’t go for a walk as promised. He could then at least take the opportunity to warn her to remain at home and keep the doors locked.
“Hello,” he murmured minutes later once Sophia had opened the door. She positively beamed at him in such welcome that he couldn’t help but sweep her into his arms for a very thorough kiss.
When he did finally lift his head he glanced around the hallway. “Is Delilah not up yet?” he whispered.
Sophia shook her head. “She came back about one o’clock, and isn’t likely to be up this side of luncheon. She will remain in bed until it is time to take tea and prepare for tonight’s frivolities.”
“Oh? Where is that?”
“Delilah is attending a soiree at Mrs Dalentree’s house down the road. I am not going.”
“Good,” he murmured. “I will come and keep you company while she has gone.”
Sophia frowned at his hesitation. “What is it?” she whispered.
Daringly, she reached up and ran a finger over the deep crease on his brow. She sensed that something had left him deeply disturbed.
Jeb revelled beneath that tender caress. He had never felt anything like it before in his life and, for a moment, struggled to know what to say or do. Tenderness was such a vague and sadly lacking part of his life that he had never really noticed how badly lacking in kind and loving gestures he was until now. That single caring touch was all it took. He was hooked. He wanted more, and as often as possible, but only from Sophia. Even with her problems, she still had the generosity of heart to worry about him, and that endeared her to him even more.
“You look pensive,” she murmured gently when he didn’t immediately tell her what was wrong.
“I am afraid I have some bad news,” he began cautiously.
He struggled to find a way to tell her without replacing her wonderful smile with a frown. Still, he was here for a reason. He had to stay focused on something other than the delectable curve of her lips he wanted to lose himself in just to forget his awful morning.
“Is it about the thefts?” she asked cautiously.
“No, it isn’t. At least, I hope not.” Jeb sighed and ran a weary hand down his face. “Tabitha’s body was found last night.”
“Where is she?” She gasped.
“She has been strangled. Her body is at the church now.” Jeb held her hand to comfort her.
“Oh, good Lord,” Sophia murmured. She looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. “You don’t think it has anything to do with that man I saw loitering in the village the other day, do you?”
She felt hot, she felt cold, and sick at the thought. She clutched Jeb’s hand tighter.
“I am not sure, Sophia,” he replied honestly. “Can you remember what he looked like?”
She nodded and rattled off his description in surprising detail.
“Excellent. Well, that gives me something to go on.”
It sounded to Jeb like he was the same man who had set on him in the street the other night, but why was he watching Sophia or the butcher’s shop? Had he been waiting for someone? Sophia was incredibly beautiful. Was he watching her the same way any man would observe a strikingly beautiful lady go about her business? Jeb frowned at that but when Sophia tensed beside him, having picked up on his worry, he forced himself to relax.
“There is more,” he added cautiously.
Sophia gulped and remained tense while she waited. She didn’t expect what he said next and, for a moment, was flummoxed to know what to say.
“Mrs Banks is dead.”
“Dead?” she repeated. “How? When?”
Jeb squinted at the fire. “Sometime last night, I think. She was strangled, just like Tabitha.”
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “Are you sure?”
Jeb nodded. “Yes, I am afraid so. She was still sitting in a chair downstairs. I don’t believe she made it to bed last night.”
He didn’t tell her that so
meone had helped themselves to the property since. It didn’t seem relevant to Sophia.
“Why, though? Why Mrs Banks?”
Jeb sighed. “I wish I knew. One could ask, why Tabitha? I'm not sure yet, but I am going to find out. Until I do, please do not go out anywhere by yourself. With your permission, I shall call by here each morning and escort you anywhere you wish to go each day. Do not venture anywhere by yourself; not even to the village. Also, make sure the doors here remain locked at all times, especially when you are here alone. Once it has gone dark, draw your curtains. With the lights on and the curtains open you are visible to anyone standing outside in the darkness. You won’t see them because they will be hidden but they will know the exact moment you have gone to bed. I don’t wish to scare you,” he added hastily when he read the fear in her eyes. “I just want you to be safe, Sophia. I cannot bear the thought that something might happen to you because you didn’t take the proper precautions.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, deeply touched by the concern on his face.
It didn’t dawn on her to question his instructions. As far as she was concerned, if Jeb wanted her to draw her curtains at night then draw her curtains at night she would. The very thought that someone might be able to watch her from outside without her even noticing left her quietly horrified.
“Poor Mrs Banks,” she whispered sadly. “I cannot say I knew the woman all that well, but nobody deserves to die like that.”
Jeb nodded. “Just stay safe, Sophia. There is a killer in the village somewhere still.”
“You don’t think they have left then?” She asked hopefully.
Jeb shook his head. “No. I am sure they are around somewhere. I intend to find them.”
“Please, Jeb, take care yourself. This person is dangerous, and won’t like you challenging them. Please don’t risk ending up like Mrs Banks, or Tabitha.”
“I won’t, I promise,” he murmured.
Jeb drew her into his arms and held her for several long moments. While she absorbed his strength, he marvelled at her tenderness and concern. It was wonderful to have her worry about him. To know she might reciprocate the unfamiliar emotions coursing through him helped ease his concerns over the depth of the feeling he had for her.
