by Robin Paige
“I believe I can guess,” Charles replied dryly.
5
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate.
—LORD BYRON
Don Juan
“I am sorry to trouble you with this request, Charles,” Constable Edward Laken said apologetically. “But the villagers are quite up in arms. And the poor fellow died outside your gate.”
“I quite understand, Ned,” Charles said, regarding his old friend with a sober affection. “The servants here are unhappy, as well. It was an unfortunate occurrence.”
Charles and the constable had known one another as boys in neighboring East Bergholts, across the River Stour, where Charles had come to holiday with his aunt and uncle. The two had ranged up and down the Stour, climbing across the locks, snaring birds, rafting on Jacques Bay. Now, Laken was the local constable, and Charles had had occasion to renew their friendship over the course of one or two recent criminal investigations.
“I don’t know that there’s anything to be done, since the man apparently died of natural causes,” Laken said. “But it might quiet wagging tongues if I could speak with your servants.”
“By all means,” Charles said. “Speak with whomever you please, although I fear you will hear only rumor.” The death of Old Jessup, a tenant of nearby Thornton Grange, had been on the servants’ lips since breakfast—a dozen different versions of it. “It is not true, then—I hope it is not—that the man was struck and killed by Marsden’s Daimler?” Charles had heard that version from Thompson the gardener this morning, although he had not believed it.
Laken shook his head. “There were no marks on the victim’s body, but Dr. Bassett will conduct an autopsy. Old Jessup was fond of his pint or two, and Bassett suspects apoplexy. But that aside, another of the village residents reports that she was nearly run down by a motorcar a few minutes before she discovered Jessup’s body beside the road. That would have been at a few minutes before eight.” He eyed Charles. “Lord Marsden was here last night?”
Charles frowned. “He and his sister and their houseguest arrived here just before eight, by motorcar. I cannot think, however, that they could have struck someone and concealed that fact for the entire evening. If they were involved, it must have been unwittingly.”
“Young Jessup, the old man’s son, is insisting that the Daimler was involved. He says that he himself saw the car, and that it was driven by Marsden’s houseguest. Quite recklessly, he says.”
“That would be Charlie Rolls,” Charles said. “The Honorable Charles Stewart Rolls.”
“Thank you,” Edward said, and made a quick note. “Young Jessup saw the car traveling at a high rate of speed, and without a walking attendant—spewing great clouds of dust, he said, and making an intolerable noise.” He paused. “He says he wants the driver charged.”
“With what?” Charles asked. “Breaking a law that Parliament has already repealed?” The old law imposed a speed limit of four miles an hour in open country and required that a man (wearing a hat with a red band marked “Locomotive Attendant”) should walk twenty yards in front of any self-propelled vehicle. Under the new law, the attendant was no longer required and the limit had been raised to twelve miles an hour.
“The old law has been repealed, indeed,” Laken said, “and although the new statute does not go into effect for thirty days or so, I doubt that the magistrate would impose a fine. Even under the old law, the maximum penalty is ten pounds for breaching the speed limit and an additional ten pounds for failing to provide an attendant.” He sighed. “But these are not the charges Young Jessup has in mind.”
Charles raised his eyebrows. “What then does he want, Ned?”
“He wants the driver charged with murder,” Laken said.
“Murder!” Bradford Marsden rose from his chair so abruptly that it fell over backward. “That is patently ridiculous, man! Why, we never laid eyes on that poor old fellow! We certainly did not strike him.”
“I agree that making such a charge appears irresponsible,” Edward Laken said quietly, “at least at the moment, and I doubt that a coroner’s jury would bring a true bill on it. I tell you because that is the way feeling is running in the village with regard to your motor vehicle, and I thought you should like to know.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Bradford muttered, feeling that he wanted to know nothing of the sort. “But the villagers must be made to understand—” He pressed his lips together. “Do you know yet how the old man died?”
“Dr. Bassett believes that he may have suffered an apoplectic stroke. If such is the case, his son, I understand, intends to assert that it was occasioned by a great fear—fear of being run down by your motorcar. He seems to hope for a verdict of manslaughter through the reckless operation of a speeding vehicle.” The constable paused. “I understand that the Daimler was driven by your houseguest, the Honorable Charles Rolls.”
Bradford nodded numbly. What if his father, already furious about the exhibit, should hear of this latest affair and come storming home? Bradford was over thirty, but he still had a healthy fear of the old man’s anger, especially since the senior Lord Marsden controlled the family purse.
“Then I should like to speak with Mr. Rolls,” the constable said.
Bradford stood. “I believe you will find him with my sister in the conservatory.” He rang a bell. “Peters will show you the way.”
“Thank you,” the constable said. “I trust you will be prepared to answer the coroner’s summons, should you receive it, Lord Bradford. The inquest will take place early next week.”
“Of course,” Bradford said. When the constable had gone, he sank back into his chair, trying to think what to do.
“Murder!” Sally Munby said to Bess Gurton, thumping her chum with great energy. “I’ll say ‘twas murder! Pore Ol’ Jessup, mean as ’e was to ’is Tildy, didn’t deserve to be run down like a dog. Next ye know, it’ll be me, or you.”
“But ’e weren’t run down,” objected Sally’s daughter Martha, who was peeling potatoes for the noon meal. “There weren’t a mark on the old man.”
“Well, then, ‘e was scarit t’death,” Sally said, with an air of having the last word. “ ’Tis all one to ’im now, pore fellow.”
Bess Gurton sighed heavily. “‘Twas almost me,” she said, recalling the event with a shuddery thrill. “If I ’adn’t dove into that ditch—”
“Lor’, Bess,” Sally said, “ye must’ve bin some frightened. That motorcar, bearin’ down on ye out o’ the dark wi’ eyes—”
“Like a dragon,” Martha prompted helpfully.
“Like a great mad dragon,” breathed Sally. “An’ a roar like a—”
“Like a steam locomotive,” Bess said.
“A run‘way steam locomotive, barr’lin’ down the tracks.” Sally rolled her eyes and thumped her chum again. “Lor‘! Ye’r a brave wooman, Bess. A brave wooman! If ye ‘adn’t dove into that ditch, ye’d‘a bin murdered too!” The thumping paused, and Sally’s voice took a different tone. “Bye the bye, Bess, ’ave ye seen the Widow Jessup’s new black bonnet, with all the ribbons?”
Bess acknowledged that she had.
“Very strange,” Sally mused, shaking her head. “Ve-ry strange, i‘deed. It come from Colchester, I ’eard, an’ cost at least a guinea. Don’t ye think that’s strange? Why, Tildy Jessup ‘asn’t ’ad a new bonnet since she were a bride, an’ that was more’n twenty years ago. Wot I wants to know,” she added in a conspiratorial tone, “is where that guinea come from. Wot d’ye think, eh? Where’d she get it?”
The conversation having shifted from her own narrow miss to the widow’s new bonnet, Bess lost interest. She took her leave and walked up the High Street toward the Rushton house, which served as the village post office. Along the way, she received the best wishes of several acquaintances, who (like Sally Munby) expressed their pleasure to see her among the living. Crazy Mick, sweeping the steps in front of the Marlborough Head, called out to her in a voice like a grating mill-wheel, “Lucky ye’
r alive, Bess Gurton, an’ not murdered, like Ol’ Jessup, pore fellow!”
And Rachel Elam, coming out of the apothecary shop with a bag on her arm, remarked with a dark look on the imminent danger in which they all stood at every moment, with horseless carriages and steam lorries snorting like wild devils down the High Street, charging into the very houses, “murtherin’ innocent wimmen an’ childem in their sleep.”
And when Bess reached the steps of the post office, she encountered another and far grander personage, Squire Thornton, who also had views upon the subject.
“Mistress Gurton, is it not?” the squire asked. He was a tall, lean man with graying hair and thick gray eyebrows. His eyes were sharp and clear and his nose straight, but a mean mouth and thin lips robbed these features of their nobility.
Bess, astonished to be so greeted by such a man, dropped a faltering curtsey. “Good mornin’, Squire,” she croaked.
The squires of Thornton were the first commoners of the district, and the estate of Thornton Grange had been a main-stay of the parish of Dedham for several hundreds of years. In a time when the Marsden baronets had found it necessary to sell outlying parcels of land in order to protect the central holdings of the Marsden estate, Thornton Grange remained intact and well-managed, and the Squires Thornton, thoroughgoing Tories who had passed the landholdings from father to son, from uncle to nephew, without subtracting so much as an acre, gained much respect thereby. This respect had been enlarged over recent generations by the ascendancy of the Thornton stables, which commanded the esteem of knowledgeable men beyond the bounds of the district.
But respect did not equal affection, and the Thorntons in their various generations had never been greatly loved in the parish. To a man, they had been unyielding and hard, just only by the lights of their own justice, prone to having their own way and rising to sudden and impetuous ire when thwarted. Yet it must also be said that they were not ungenerous, for they did their part and more in parish charity and supported their tenants in times of difficulty. And when they chose, they could be considerate and thoughtful. At this moment, it seemed, Squire Roger Thornton so chose.
“I understand that you very nearly suffered injury in a motorcar incident, Mistress Gurton.”
“Ay, sir, that I did, sir,” Bess replied earnestly. “ ’Twas a ’orrible thing, sir. The fright o’ me life.”
“I can well imagine. The motorcar is a dangerous invention.” The squire’s tone was grave and solicitous. “The incident occurred on the same road where Old Jessup lost his life, poor fellow?”
“Ooh, yessir. Very near, sir. To tell truth, sir, I was the one ‘oo found ’im dead, jes’ after.”
“You reported to the constable that you were nearly run down?”
Bess lifted her chin. “Yessir, an’ so I wud say to anybody ’oo asked.”
The squire’s thin lips shaped themselves into a smile. “Very good,” he said. He inclined his head, opened the door, and passed into the post office, where Bess heard him inquire as to the feasibility of sending a telegram to Nice. Then he turned and left again, but not before nodding once more to Bess, who returned the nod with another curtsey.
With respect to automobiles, the postmaster, Mr. Rushton, took a more judicious, but no less prejudicial, point of view. “The lanes are no longer safe for any of us,” he pronounced, frowning down his long nose as he moistened the stamp and placed it precisely in the corner of the envelope Bess was sending to her cousin in Ipswich. “I wonder at Lord Christopher, permitting his son to own one, indeed I do.” And with that, he took Bess’s penny and deposited her letter in the canvas mail sack, which would be carted to Colchester, in time for the night mail train to Ipswich. “Poor Jessup,” he added sadly. “Poor old fellow.”
Mr. Rushton was a fussy little man with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. He kept the post office, which occupied the small front parlor of the Rushton home, with punctilious care, making sure that Mrs. Rushton inserted each piece of mail into the proper pigeonhole of the oaken cupboard, marked A to Z with gleaming gold plates. But Mr. Rushton permitted no one but himself to dispense the penny- and half-penny stamps from the official cardboard-leaved book, and no one else was allowed to count out the change, or even to open the cash drawer, with its three wooden bowls for gold, silver, and copper. It was also (and only) Mr. Rushton who sent and received telegrams, for he had passed the Post Office examination in Morse code. With this grasp of technology, he was respectfully regarded as the most up-to-the-minute person in the village, the only one in constant contact with developing events in the outer world. It was therefore quite something, Bess felt, to see him shake his head and hear him say that motorcars were dangerous inventions, and not to be trusted.
And while Bess believed that Mr. Rushton put too fine a point on most things, she fully agreed with him (and with Rachel Elam and Crazy Mick and Sally Munby and Squire Thornton) with regard to the dangers of motorcars. What if, instead of herself alone, there had been schoolchildren in the narrow lane? Or Dr. Bassett and his fat gray pony, or the vicar wobbling along on his safety bicycle, or the baker’s boy with a load of loaves? They could all have been killed by the rampaging motorcar, and what then would have been the charge? Hardly murder, but mayhem, certainly, or massacre! Bess could scarcely wait until the day of the coroner’s inquest, when Harry Hodson would call her to testify, and she fell to wondering how she might add a bit of lace to her best dress to make it fit for such a momentous event. In fact, she was so intent upon this addition to her wardrobe that she almost stepped out in the lane in front of Young Jessup, who was driving a shiny new gig.
Coroner Harry Hodson was a great, burly bear of a man who had for some years served as the Queen’s coroner in the rural district encompassing Dedham and a dozen other small villages. He had been a country physician in the earlier part of his career, but had married a widow of substantial means and promptly retired. Harry enjoyed his office and competently upheld the oath he had taken when he assumed it: “I will diligently and truly do everything appertaining to my office after the best of my power for the doing of right and for the good of the inhabitants within the district.” But he was a peaceful man at heart, and much preferred having nothing particular to do after breakfast and lunch.
On the afternoon of Old Jessup’s funeral, Coroner Hodson met with Dr. Braxton Bassett, Constable Edward Laken, and Sir Charles Sheridan at the square deal table in Dr. Bassett’s consulting room at the rear of Mr. Crosby’s apothecary shop. Around them were the accouterments of a village doctor: a glass-fronted case of leatherbound medical books, a grinning skull upon the windowsill, a table of chrome-plated surgical implements partially covered with a folded white cloth, a small stove topped with a steaming kettle. It was a convenient room, one oaken door leading to Mr. Crosby’s apothecary, the other to Dr. Bassett’s surgery. All that was needed was close at hand.
When all four men were settled in their chairs, teacups and biscuit plates before them, the coroner turned to Dr. Bassett and, in a formal tone, asked for his opinion in the matter of Old Jessup’s death.
The doctor, a man of middle age, with sharp, clear eyes and regular features, cleared his throat and announced that it was his belief that Old Jessup had suffered an apoplectic stroke. “It is scarcely surprising,” he added, “since the man was much given to drink. Had he died at The Lamb, where he spent so much time, or in his garden or his bed, there would be no mystery about his death, poor old fellow, and no commotion.”
Harry Hodson shifted his bulk in his chair. “But he died in the vicinity of a motorcar,” he said, tenting his fingers under his chin. “An untoward event.”
“I have examined the motorcar and found no damage consistent with its striking a pedestrian,” Edward Laken said. “I have also questioned the driver, the lady passenger, and Lord Bradford, the owner. All three seemed genuinely surprised to learn of the incident. I do not believe they saw the old man.”
“They were guests at Bishop’s Keep th
at evening,” offered Sir Charles. “If they had been involved in any way with a fatality, I am sure they would have spoken of it. In fact, I daresay we would have spoken of nothing else.”
Harry Hodson drained his cup. “They did not see Bess Gurton, either, but she claims to have been nearly run down by the vehicle shortly before she discovered Old Jessup’s body.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said the doctor, getting up to fetch the kettle. “There was not a mark on him, Harry. Jessup died of a stroke, and that’s all there is to it.”
Harry Hodson suppressed a belch. “It would be, Brax,” he said sourly, thinking of the work required to collect and impanel a jury, “if it were not for the dead man’s son.”
“Yes,” said the constable. “He has made a deal of noise.” He sighed. “And the villagers—even those who did not particularly like his father—are greatly upset about the old man’s death. Most believe that if the motorcar did not strike the old man, it frightened him to death.”
While the doctor filled his cup, the coroner turned to Sir Charles. “You have looked into the matter with the constable, I take it. What do you think?” Harry had had occasion to call Sir Charles to testify in an inquest into the death of a constable and had a high regard for his opinion.
“I think,” Sir Charles said gravely, “that it is a great pity—both the old fellow’s death and the villagers’ reaction. But I do not think that anyone is responsible, under the law.”
“You are suggesting that there might be some other sort of responsibility?” the doctor asked, sitting down once again with an expression of interest.
“We do not understand the impact of the changes that are occurring in these modern times,” Sir Charles said, “and neither, for that matter, does the law. But that, as you say, is neither here nor there. The fact is that the old man died of natural causes, and there are no eyewitnesses or physical evidence that would suggest either a motoring accident or foul play.”
