My mouth dropped opened as the whole scenario fell into place. Given her use of his first name, she and the gentleman—and I used the term based solely on the cut of his tweed—were obviously well acquainted. Just as obvious, they had been meeting in the clearing. Had she been the one Trevor and I had heard in the hallway at night?
I checked my uncle to see if he had come to the same conclusion. He still held the pistol pointed at Miss Bowen’s…Richard.
“Uncle Ernest,” I said. The man didn’t move, so I spoke up a little more. “Uncle, I believe you can put away the pistol. These are not dangerous criminals. Miss Bowen is a guest in our house, and Mister…Richard is her acquaintance.”
After a glance at the two, he dropped the pistol to his side. “What are they doing skulking about in our woods? I-I might have shot them.”
“Perhaps we should all return to Underbyrne? I believe Mother and Father will want to hear their explanation as well.”
Following a deep breath, he nodded. “Most definitely. Come along then. And don’t forget I’m armed.”
I retrieved the rifle from the tent, and my uncle and I followed the couple through the woods.
Miss Bowen and Richard, whose last name we learned was Dunn, sat on the edges of two straight-backed chairs placed by the fire in Father’s office. Uncle Ernest, Mother, and I sat across from them in leather armchairs. Father, in his dressing gown, paced between the two groups toward and away from the fire, hands gripped behind his back. From the whiteness of his knuckles, I knew he was restraining his fury. For my part, I was grateful it wasn’t aimed at me. Although I was almost certain some amount of it would be once his decision with respect to the couple was completed. He’d muttered something about recklessness and weapons after I’d awakened him upon our return to the house.
After several minutes of pacing, he stopped and faced the two. Both shrank under his glare, dropping their gazes to the floor.
“Look at me.” All five of us raised our heads. “I want to be quite certain I understand the details. Miss Bowen here has been secretly meeting with this Richard Dunn for…how long?”
“A-a-almost two months, s-sir,” she said. “We met at your sister’s—Mrs. Fitzhugh’s. Richard—I mean Mr. Dunn is an employee of her husband, and they had a party—”
He waved his arms as if to clear the air of her words.
“I don’t give a d—er, drat about any party. What I want to know is how you considered it appropriate for a woman of your status to be traipsing about in the woods to meet some man. Given the mixed company we have at the moment, I won’t even ask what you were doing in the tent.”
Scarlet crept up the woman’s neck into her cheeks, but Dunn spoke up for the first time. “See here. We have conducted ourselves quite appropriately. Nothing untoward was going on. Yes, we used the tent, but only to keep from being found out by accident.”
“It’s cold,” she said. “All we did was…cuddle.”
My father’s hurrumph suggested he didn’t believe them, but Mother spoke up for the first time before he could say so.
“I suppose it is up to your sister to determine Miss Bowen’s fate, and Mr. Fitzhugh, Mr. Dunn’s,” she said. “But not tonight. Poor Iris is just now showing signs of improvement following her shock, and I don’t think it makes sense to share this mess with her now. I suggest we confine Miss Bowen to the house, and Simpson can escort Mr. Dunn to the train station in the morning.”
The two opened their mouths, most likely to protest. I almost considered adding my own to theirs. Miss Bowen’s departure would mean no one would be in charge of Trevor. Even if he did follow me around quite a bit of the time, his governess kept him occupied with lessons and other activities so that his tagging along wasn’t all that constant. I wasn’t sure how I’d survive his visit without her. Father raised his hand, however, and all three of us remained silent.
“Someone will see you out, Mr. Dunn,” he said and rang for a servant. “And there’ll be someone at the train station to see that you board it in the morning. Do not attempt to set foot on Underbyrne again. I will warn my staff. We would be in the right to shoot trespassers.”
The two exchanged glances and rose to leave. Before they moved, however, Mother spoke again.
“Just a few quick questions. Did either of you see anyone else in the woods?”
“Do you mean the man from the barn?” Miss Bowen asked.
“You were afraid he was Mr. Dunn when they first found him?” Mother asked, and she nodded in reply. “That’s why you watched them bring him around for the others to see before he was taken away.”
“How did you—?”
“I saw you. In the upstairs window.”
I’d almost forgotten the person in the window that night, but Mother hadn’t. And somehow, she’d determined it was Miss Bowen. In hindsight, I could see the process she had used. Who else would have been on that floor at that hour?
“I hadn’t seen the man before. Nor anyone since.”
“I have,” Mr. Dunn said. When we all turned to him, he cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. Dropping his gaze, he continued. “I mean, of course I’ve seen village people using a path through there. Used it myself once I found it, and that’s when I had the idea of the tent. But there was one gent I saw once or twice that—he caught my eye, you see. He didn’t seem to belong there. Not like a villager at all.”
“You said ‘a gent.’ Do you mean he was older? Or just how he was dressed?” Mother asked, her voice shifting slightly from troubled and annoyed at the governess’s behavior to excitement at this bit of news. While most might not have caught it, having heard her in all her moods, I detected a slight shift in the speed of her speech. I glanced at Father. He frowned and his jaw muscles tightened. He’d sensed the change as well and was none too pleased with it.
“Both, actually,” he said. “Older. Dressed in good clothes. I was on the way to the clearing when I saw him get on the path and head toward this house.”
“What was he like? Tall? Short?” she asked.
“I couldn’t rightly say too much. It was dark, you know. But he was about average.”
I weighed what he had said and eliminated most of the servants. Besides, if they had found such an encampment, surely they would have reported it? And besides—
“Then how do you know he was old?” I asked. “You said it was dark, but you knew he was old.”
He touched the top of his head. “A branch knocked his hat off. I could tell his hair was white.”
Uncle Ernest drew in a sharp breath. When he exhaled, he muttered a name with it: “Herbie.”
My father must have come to the same conclusion as I that the colonel was behind it. His face darkened as his neck muscles formed thick cords. He managed to force out a few words between his clenched teeth. “I should have known.”
Before any of us could comment, Mrs. Simpson stepped into the room. She still wore her nightcap and robe. “You rang, sir?”
“Wake your husband and have him take this…this man into town. Then tell Constable Gibbons to have one of his men escort him to the train station and make sure he’s on the first train to London in the morning.”
Our housekeeper’s mouth formed a thin line as she waited for the man to exit and followed him out of the room.
After the door closed, Father spun about to face Miss Bowen. “As for you.”
The woman paled, her lips and chin quivering. She appeared to be on the verge of falling off the chair in a dead faint.
“You are confined to this house until Mrs. Fitzhugh determines your fate.” She bobbed her trembling chin in response. “You are dismissed as well.”
After the door closed for a second time, Father strode to the fireplace and stared into the flames. He took several deep breaths, but even from my view of his back, I could tell his neck muscles had never relaxed.
“I was going to discuss this in the morning, but I suppose we might as well consider it now. A telegram arrived t
his evening. A response to my inquiries at the War Office regarding our Colonel Williams,” he said to the logs glowing bright red at his feet. He turned to face my uncle. “They say Colonel Williams retired from the army in 1860. Seven years ago.”
Uncle Ernest leaped to his feet. Crimson rose in his face, almost matching Father’s color earlier. “What of it? They aren’t denying his service, are they?”
“No, but you tell me what the man has been doing for the past seven years. And why did he show up the same night that a man was murdered in our stables?”
Ernest clenched his fists at his side, and I drew in a breath and held it. I truly feared they might come to blows. Never had I seen the two so at odds. They’d disagreed and shouted in the past, but the tension in the room was almost visible. Mother stepped between them, and I released the air now burning to escape my lungs.
“Mr. Holmes. Ernest. It has been a long night, and obviously everyone is tired. I agree this is most distressing news, but we do not have to deal with it tonight. I believe we can all agree we need to speak with Colonel Williams, and I would suggest it best to do so in the morning. When all is fresh. At times, situations appear less…grim in the light of day.”
Miss Bowen and Mr. Dunn’s secret meetings did not appear quite as resolved in the morning as they’d appeared the previous night.
Before I descended for breakfast, the governess joined Trevor for his. Her red-rimmed eyes and distracted manner were apparent even to my young cousin. When he asked if she was all right, I excused myself and hurried downstairs. I feared I wouldn’t be able to maintain my feigned ignorance of her clandestine activities. I had recently determined Trevor had uncanny observational skills at times and didn’t want to be caught off guard.
When I arrived at the breakfast room, I could tell from Father’s frown his mood had only improved slightly from the previous night. I chose to finish off my toast and tea—my own unease had curtailed my appetite—and retreat upstairs, only to pause before I reached the second floor. I had no interest in returning to the third floor, nor tiptoeing around Father. I had almost decided to pass the time on the stairs when Constance appeared.
“What are you doin’ just standin’ there?” Before I could answer, her mouth thinned to a straight line. “You forgot again, didn’t you?”
I swallowed several times but found my mouth dry despite my efforts. I’d forgotten about our scheduled rehearsal and lesson. She crossed her arms when I hesitated in my response.
“I’m sorry. I truly am. But you see, a lot happened last night.” I quickly summarized finding the camp, encountering Miss Bowen and Mr. Dunn, and learning about Colonel Williams’s fabrications. I concluded with, “I know what Father extracts from Colonel Williams will be important, and I just wish I could hear it for myself.”
She tilted her head and studied me for a moment. “Where do you think he’ll speak to him?”
“His office, most likely. That’s where we took Miss Bowen last night.”
“It’s next to the library?”
“Yes, but how do you—?”
“’Cause the servants talk. That’s why. Emily and Father, they talk sometimes in front of me.” She snorted as if the thought was distasteful to her. “Like I wasn’t there.”
“Talk? About what?”
“About what goes on here.”
“You mean they spy on us?”
“Not necessarily spy, but they do know a lot of what goes on here. Just like they don’t always see me, your family doesn’t always see them. Of course, sometimes, they know how to hear what goes on in one room by bein’ at a certain place in another. Like there’s a spot in the library where if you stand there, you can hear what’s goin’ on in the office.”
In response to my wide-eyed stare, she shrugged her shoulders. I wasn’t sure whether I was more surprised at her revelation of our servants’ eavesdropping or that she was aware of it.
Constance and I squeezed next to each other in a space at the end of a bookcase next to the outside window. The velvet forest-green curtains, pulled back to allow the weak winter sunlight, hid us from anyone’s view. Because the library and the office shared a window (at some point, a former Holmes had created the two rooms by adding a wall), conversations in one could be heard in the other. The curtains usually muffled such sounds, but someone had stumbled onto this fact and now the staff seemed to know.
We’d sneaked back down using the servants’ staircase and slipped into the library after observing Father, Ernest, and the colonel cross the foyer from the breakfast room. Just as I had been excluded, my father had chosen not to include Mother either. I knew she would consider the action a direct slight, but at the same time, without her audience, the men might speak more freely. At least, I’m sure that was the argument he would have used with her.
Now, in such close contact with my friend, I found it somewhat difficult to concentrate on what was happening in the other room. In addition to the dust from the curtains and the aroma of lemon oil the servants used to treat the wood paneling, the tang of the soap used to wash Constance’s clothes and the scent of winter’s sharp wind in her hair called my attention to her instead of the disembodied voices drifting in from my father’s office.
With a concerted effort, I forced myself to ignore her presence and concentrate on imagining the scene in the adjacent room. I started with the furniture arrangement. Similar to the placement of Miss Bowen’s and Mr. Dunn’s chairs the previous night, Colonel Williams would occupy a straight-backed chair next to the fireplace. Next, I focused on the voices of the other two men to determine their positions in relation to Williams. Given the ebb and flow of his voice, Father appeared to be pacing. I imagined him moving about in front of the colonel. My uncle appeared to be stationary, most likely flanking his seated friend.
“I received some very disturbing news yesterday,” Father said. I could imagine him pausing, arms crossed, to give the man a steady stare as he would a defendant brought before his court. “In response to my inquiry, the War Office has informed me they do not have a Herbert Williams currently serving in India or anywhere else for that matter. Do you care to explain your audacity in presenting yourself as such?”
“Do you truly think,” the colonel said, “that the army would acknowledge a spy, regardless of where he is found?”
Constance gave a little gasp, and I poked her to remind her not to reveal our hiding place. She put her hand over her mouth, as if prepared for the next revelation.
She didn’t have long to wait. Having shared that first bit of news, the colonel appeared to be primed for sharing even more. He discharged his words in a belligerent staccato.
“I have been since the rebellion. Even before. Information is vital to maintaining peace. Keeping an eye on those who would usurp us.”
Now Ernest drew in his breath and released it with two words. “The surveyors.”
“Yes, and you almost destroyed that as well.”
“I don’t understand,” Father said.
“Some of the local men were recruited and trained to take measurements of various areas of the country to map it,” Ernest said. “But there was more to it than just noting mountain heights. They traveled with caravans, recording the terrain and the peoples. Where settlements were and the sentiments of those who lived there.”
“But we weren’t the only ones collecting such information. The local princes had their own network of observers who reported information back to them. We were able to get some in the household to then share that information with us,” said Williams. A chair creaked. He must have shifted to get a better view of my uncle. “When you courted Susheela, you put that whole operation in jeopardy.”
“You mean, she was a… No, I don’t believe it.”
“Why do you think she was able to make it out to see you? We’d developed a secret exit for her. Of course, she used it to see you as well. When her father discovered her treachery, he almost killed her—not to mention uncovering what she had
been doing for us. It was only by some manipulation on our part that neither occurred.”
“Instead, you sent her away. From me.”
My heart went out to my uncle. His voice cracked on the last word, his heart breaking all over again.
“You would have preferred her dead?”
“No.” He sneered the word into a snarl. “But of course, you put her where you could continue to use her.”
The blood pounded in my ears. The venom in both men’s voices made it clear they were on the edge of a physical confrontation. Father must have seen how volatile the situation had become.
“We can discuss the past later. Sit down, Williams. Parker, step away.”
Another creak of the chair. In the silence that followed, the men’s heavy breathing drifted across the divide.
“You contend, then, you’re running some sort of ring of spies,” Father said. “And you expect us to accept your word. When even the War Office denies your existence.”
“I explained why they report they have no record. I’ve been posing as a merchant the past few years, overseeing a group of men working as traders who passed information—maps, the presence of foreigners, any talk of dissent—back to me.”
“The man in the barn, Captain Vincent Rogers,” my uncle said, his words crisp and emotionless, “helped Chanda escape from her father. Was he one of your men?”
“How did you—?” his old friend asked and then sighed. “Chanda, of course. She had no reason not to share with you. The man was one of the best. Great at disguises. He’d taken another ship to England. Advance guard, if you will. They were going to start a new life here. When we received word we’d been followed, I was the one who thought of hiding out here. We sent word through the newspapers of the change in plans. His last order was to set up a post in the woods to protect us from a distance.”
I willed my uncle to watch his words. He’d already shared too much from our discussion with Chanda. The only proof of Colonel Williams’s true reason for being here was his own explanation. My opinion of the man’s true nature had slipped quite a bit since his arrival. His deceptions went beyond the misrepresentation of his military position or the secret messages in the newspaper.
The Adventure of the Murdered Gypsy Page 15
