She took a deep breath and admonished herself for her foolishness. How idiotic to be overcome with grief after so long! She had so much to be thankful for, she reminded herself sternly, forcing herself to read on. And slowly, as she read her father’s words and absorbed his quiet, steady faith, her voice strengthened and she was calm again.
‘God has given two great gifts to his people: the first is his Son for us; the second is his Spirit to us. After he had given his Son for us, to become incarnate, to work righteousness, and to offer an atonement—’
“‘That gift had been fully bestowed’,” her mother said, her voice a mere thread, “‘and there remained no more to be conferred in that respect.’”
“Mama? Oh, Mama!”
“Why have you stopped, Annie? Read on, dear one, read on. I do so love this sermon. One of your poor, dear father’s best, I think. If only he had lived just a little longer, he would have made such a name for himself. Oh dear! Where is my handkerchief?”
Smiling, Annie handed her mother her own handkerchief and helped her to mop the tears. Her mother had returned.
28: Considering Pistols
Annie assisted her mother down the stairs and settled her in the peacock chamber. Then, over tea and Bath buns, she told her all that had happened since the news of Adam’s arrest had had such a catastrophic effect on her. Or rather, she tried to tell her, but Mrs Dresden could not be brought to accept that she had been rendered virtually unconscious for three entire days. Consequently, the dramatic events of the intervening period confused her so much that Annie was forced to give it up.
She had lapsed into frustrated silence, while her mother, her mind still on the sermon, murmured gently about the manifold virtues of her late husband, when Annie heard the distant sound of approaching hoof beats. Knowing that all the servants were at church, she left her mother to her cogitations, and went to the great hall. Her hand was actually on the ring that opened the door when she remembered Adam’s advice to check who the visitor might be first. For who would come to call on a Sunday?
Clambering onto the wooden settle, she peered out of the window at the man outside, just as the bell jangled. His horse stood a few yards away, pawing the ground and tossing its head. She was no judge of horseflesh, but she thought it was rather a fine animal. But his rider, frowning and gazing all around as if someone might miraculously appear, was a man she recognised. Major Corbett, the man brought in to examine Rupert’s wounds, who had declared that he had been shot at close quarters.
Scrambling down from the settle, she rushed to open the door. “Major Corbett! Do come in, although I fear that everyone else is at church.”
The frown lifted. “Ah… Morning Prayers, of course. I should have realised. But Captain Edgerton’s message was most insistent that the matter was urgent, and I thought…”
“How kind of you to come out on a Sunday! You are most welcome, Major. I am afraid the groom—”
“—is at church. Yes, of course. Merely direct me to the stable, and I shall take care of my horse myself.”
Not liking to leave her mother alone, when he returned from the stable Annie led him into the peacock chamber, where he fell upon the remaining Bath buns as if he had not eaten for weeks, while Annie related all that had happened in the last few days.
“Adam Huntly?” he said, with a deep frown, as she told him about the arrest. “Hmm. I would not have thought it of him. He seemed an open sort of fellow.”
When Annie began to describe her meeting with the woman, the major abandoned the Bath buns, listening intently.
“Is it possible?” she said. “That a woman would be able to shoot in that way? I have never heard of a woman handling a gun, or wanting to.”
“It is unusual, certainly, but I have known several women who could shoot as well as a man. I even taught two sisters. Their father planned to take them travelling to wild parts, and wished them to be able to defend themselves. He bought them each a pair of very dainty little pistols, small enough to be concealed in a reticule or muff.”
“Was Rupert killed by small pistols of that type?”
“No, the ball was of a size used in standard duelling pistols.”
“Would that be essential for a woman, a pistol of the smaller size?” Annie said. “For this woman was very small and perhaps firing a man’s pistol would be beyond her strength.”
“Interesting question,” the major said. “I confess, I had not previously considered the possibility that the murderer was a woman. In fact—”
He was interrupted by a babble of voices from the great hall. Moments later, the door burst open and Jerome’s excited face appeared.
“Cousin Annie, you missed a famous sermon! Mr Popham was so angry, there was never anything like it. ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ Luke Chapter Six. And he looked directly at Sir Leonard as he spoke.”
“Sir Leonard looked fit to burst!” Edwin said, peering over his brother’s shoulder. “The rest of the sermon was about righteousness in judgement… I forget the text, now.”
“Leviticus?” Annie said. “‘In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.’ Was that the one?”
“It was!” Jerome said. Then, catching sight of the major, he said, “Oh, a visitor. Who are you?”
“Manners, you obnoxious child!” Benedict said, rumpling Jerome’s hair. “You are an affront to civilised society. Pray forgive my unruly brother, Cousin Annie. Mrs Dresden! Good morning, madam. So happy to see you up and about again. Jerome, Edwin, make your bows to Mrs Dresden.”
Annie smiled at the brothers affectionately, and as the rest of the church party arrived, she performed the introductions, and steered everyone gently to the buttery for a late breakfast, where the younger Huntly brothers regaled the company with the full details of the sermon. Mr Popham tended more to the soporific style of preaching, and Annie was rather sorry to have missed him in his magnificent wrath, rebuking Sir Leonard from the pulpit for arresting Adam on such flimsy grounds. It would not change Sir Leonard’s mind, but the vocal support of the church in the case was most welcome.
Amongst the ladies, Mrs Dresden’s sudden recovery was exclaimed upon as a great wonder, and after breakfast she was borne away triumphantly by Judith and Cecilia to visit the nursery, where her advice was sought for a difficult tooth of Isobel’s.
The men drifted away to the hunting room, and Annie followed, being far more interested in pistols at that moment than Isobel’s tooth. Major Corbett had brought all the notes he had taken as he examined Rupert’s body, and Captain Edgerton examined the papers with professional interest, while Mr Willerton-Forbes, Benedict and Cecilia’s husband interjected questions of their own.
Annie sat quietly listening to them, impressed by the major’s attention to detail. He had measured every conceivable length and angle, and all noted down in a neat script, with several pages of his thoughts and conclusions after more leisurely consideration. Edwin and Jerome sat together in a corner, saying nothing but just as fascinated as Annie in the intricacies of murder. It was not gruesome, she discovered, when discussed in so impartial and scientific a way.
The major had also brought a pair of duelling pistols with him, of a size that he considered likely to have been used by the murderer. Mindful of Annie’s questions on whether a woman could have handled such a weapon, he asked her to hold the two guns, to determine whether her fingers could have fired them. They were heavy, she found, but they were so well made that she had no difficulty in holding them steady or positioning her fingers in the correct places.
“How much practice would be required to achieve competence with such devices?” she said, as she handed them to Jerome to try with his smaller fingers.
“Not much for close quarters work, as with Mr Huntly’s killing,” the major said. “If the pistol were already loaded, I could teach you in five minutes. It is the cleaning and loading that is the greater skill.�
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“The lady would have had to acquire the weapons, too,” Mr Elkington said. “Once she had set her mind to commit murder and settled the method, she would have needed to buy the pair and the necessary ammunition, and then learn the proper safe use of them, as well as practising shooting. Given her background, it is unlikely that she already had such items to hand, or the necessary skill.”
“She inherited her present home from a gentleman, so he might well have had a pair of pistols,” Annie said. “Any gamekeeper would have the knowledge to instruct her in their use.”
“Possibly,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “Nevertheless, it is something we might enquire about around Grantham, whether a lady bought pistols, or wished to learn how to use them.”
They moved on to discuss how the murder had occurred, examining Captain Edgerton’s sketch of the location. Annie and Jerome resumed their seats, watching and listening, while Edwin admiringly caressed the discarded pistols.
When the gentlemen began to consider how the murder had been planned, Annie listened intently. It was a question to which she herself would like answers. It was clear that the crime had been long in the planning, and when the perpetrator had been thought to be a man, she could well imagine an unsavoury character lurking about the estate, sleeping rough in the boat house and waiting for his moment. But the woman she had met was harder to fit into such a picture. Although she was not exactly a lady, despite the trappings of wealth, neither was she the sort of low-class woman who would sneak about unnoticed.
“I do not quite see how this woman could have known that her victim would pass along the riverside at that exact time,” Major Corbett said. “These meetings were irregular, I believe you said, Captain, and Mr Huntly never walked along that path at any other time. He took the carriage to church, for the convenience of the ladies, and on his pleasure walks within the estate, he was accompanied by Mrs Huntly. Yet on the one occasion when he walks to Wickstead, and is quite alone, the murderer is lying in wait.”
“There is no difficulty there,” Captain Edgerton said. “We know that the murderer spent some time hidden within the estate, sleeping in the boat house, which is not in use and therefore a safe hiding place. She would then have been able to emerge at will to secretly observe the comings and goings of the household. She would have had every opportunity to discover the times of the Vestry meetings.”
Annie frowned at this summary. It was as she herself had once thought, but now she was not so sure. “No…” she said quietly. “No, I do not think so.”
They all turned to look at her.
“Go on,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said.
“The woman I saw yesterday was too clean, too unrumpled to have slept in the boat house overnight.”
“Not on this occasion, perhaps, but—” Captain Edgerton began.
“Not at any time,” Annie said with growing confidence. “She is not a person who sleeps in disused boat houses, Captain, nor can I see her hiding behind bushes for days or weeks on end to watch everyone coming and going. When I first told Adam about the blankets and candles in the boat house, he said that anyone wandering about the estate would surely be noticed, sooner or later. I did not give his words the weight they deserved at the time, but now I believe he was right. And consider, too, that one would need to be close enough to overhear conversations in order to know of the Vestry meetings.” Annie smiled suddenly. “I have just remembered — she said something odd yesterday, that I was taller than she had expected. She had never seen me before! No, I do not believe that this woman lurked about the estate or slept in the boat house at all. After all, there was no food there, no equipment for cooking, no spare clothes, nothing to suggest anyone living there.”
“But the blankets?” the captain said. “Candles, an empty wine bottle? Someone has been using the boat house secretly.”
The major laughed. “This is surely not related to the murder, Edgerton. Blankets and wine? Can you think of no less sinister explanation for those?”
“Oh…” The captain looked abashed. “I take your point. But this woman could still have been watching the house, perhaps staying at an inn nearby.”
“Michael, we asked at every inn within a ten mile radius and—”
“I know, I know,” he said. “No strangers, nothing unusual. But if no one hid away in the boat house or watched the house, how then did the murderess know where Huntly would be?”
“Someone told her,” Annie said quietly.
Captain Edgerton’s intake of breath was audible. “A local? Someone from Wickstead? Or… Good God, not one of the servants?”
“It must have been,” Annie said. And she knew exactly who it was. “Davy.”
“The gardener’s boy? But—?” The captain’s face changed from puzzlement to a fierce certainty. “Of course! She came yesterday with the specific intention of seeing you, Mrs Huntly, and someone had to ensure that you were by the river at the right time. We must talk to him at once.”
Without another word, he strode out of the room, while the rest of the men talked in low voices. Jerome quietly moved his chair nearer to Annie’s desk, where the major’s notes had been left, and spread the papers out to examine them.
When he was brought in, Davy looked nervous, twisting his hat in his hands, and looking anxiously at the men clustered to one side of the room. “Madam?”
“Davy, tell us about the woman I saw at the river yesterday,” Annie said.
“I didn’t see no woman, madam.”
“But you know about her, because she paid you to ensure I was there at the right time.”
He gave a little laugh, but his assurance was undented. “Nobody paid me, madam.”
“Davy, that woman killed Mr Huntly, and she—”
“No!” he cried, eyes opening wide. “No, she never! She’s a kind lady who…” He stopped, biting his lip, realising that he had admitted his involvement.
“She killed Mr Huntly, and you helped her to do it, Davy. That is a very serious matter.”
“It is a crime,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said gently. “Anyone who helps a murderer could be hanged.”
“I… No, I… She said… she told me… there was nothin’ about killin’ in what she said. Just to see the river, she said… and today she wanted to see you, madam, that were all, honest. I never knew nothin’ about anythin’ else, and that’s the truth, as God’s my witness.”
“How did you meet her, Davy?” Captain Edgerton said.
“I were pickin’ wild strawberries down near the gate by the bridge… you know the one, the lane that goes out to Durran House. She were outside the gate, and she called me over and asked if I could let her in so she could see the river. Well, I don’t have the key, but I climbed over to talk to her. She seemed so friendly, like. She had a flask of gin and we shared that. Then she asked if I could get a boat for her… just borrow it, she said. I was to leave it tied up just upriver from Wickstead, a little way off the Bath road, so she could go downstream with the current. She’d leave it at the Durran House bridge, she said, but she never did, so I don’t know what happened to it. And then on Friday, it were my half day when I go and see my ma at Wilton, she were there and told me to get another boat and then to bring you out to the seat, madam, and to say I never saw nothin’, but I swear I knew nothin’ about her doin’ no murder and I think you must be mistook on that, madam, because my lady’s very kind and wouldn’t hurt no one.”
“She told me herself that she killed Mr Huntly,” Annie said, “so I think we must believe her, would you not agree?”
“Oh, madam, please don’t let them hang me! My ma would be that upset, so she would.”
“It is not within my power to determine your fate,” Annie said sadly. “You have been very foolish, Davy, but the law must deal with you now.”
Davy wept and protested his innocence, but he was handed over to Sheffield, to be kept locked up until Sir Leonard Fairbrother could talk to him.
“Well, Pettigrew?” Captain Edgert
on. “Is it enough, do you think? Surely Fairbrother must now admit that he has arrested the wrong person.”
“Yes, we must take the fellow to court tomorrow. His testimony will support Mrs Huntly’s story and must surely convince Sir Leonard.”
“He will not believe it,” Annie said. “He believes that I invented this woman to save Adam from the hangman, and he will think the same of Davy. He is in my employ, after all, and may be supposed to be open to bribery out of loyalty to the Huntly family. It helps, but it is not enough.”
“Then we shall just have to find this woman and bring her to justice,” Captain Edgerton said.
“But that could take months!” Benedict cried.
“Nevertheless, it can and will be done,” the captain said.
Jerome coughed. “May I ask a question on trajectories, Major Corbett?”
“For Heaven’s sake, Jerome!” Benedict said. “No one wants your stupid questions. This is serious!”
“No, let him speak,” Annie said. “He has such an original way of looking at things, that there is no knowing whether he might not spark an idea and send everyone’s thoughts in a new direction.”
“Thank you, Cousin Annie,” Jerome said gravely. “I only wished to understand the angle at which the shots from the pistols entered the body, because—”
“Morbid child,” Benedict muttered.
“—it seems to me that there was a distinct angle.”
“Indeed there was,” the major said. “That is not at all unusual.”
“And the pistols were about two feet away from Cousin Rupert.”
“Quite correct. That is what my investigations show.”
“So at what height would the pistols be held normally?”
“Really, Jerome, what has that to say to anything?” Benedict said, impatiently. “Adam is in prison and all you care about is measurements.”
“Measurements are important!” Jerome said in offended tones.
“Indeed they are, very important,” Major Corbett said. “I confess, I am not sure I understand where these particular measurements are leading us.”
The Apothecary (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 3) Page 28
