A Duty to the Dead (16 page)

I didn’t draw attention to either house but watched Peregrine as he gazed from one to the next. Let any flicker of memory be his and not a reflection of my knowledge. But I thought perhaps this was where the murder had occurred, and wondered what might be stirring in Peregrine’s mind.

Peregrine looked about him with a frown on his face. “The trees in the square are different—”

“It was probably early autumn, when the trees were in leaf.”

“Yes. Of course.”

There was no one about at the moment, and we had the street to ourselves.

We strolled around the square as he sought to find something familiar.

“I don’t think this is the right place,” he murmured to himself. And then as we went around for a second time, he said, “I should be in an upstairs bedroom looking out. At this level, nothing is the same….”

“I don’t think we would be welcomed—”

“No.”

We had come back to Number 17. Peregrine stopped to gaze up at the chimney pots of the house across the square.

A constable strolled into Carroll Square and came toward us. I could feel the tension that gripped Peregrine Graham at the sight of him.

Did he have that pistol with him? My throat was suddenly dry.

Peregrine said under his breath, “If you do anything to attract that policeman’s attention, I’ll kill him.” There was no emotion in his voice. I believed him.

We walked on, two people enjoying a companionable silence. I could feel the smile plastered on my face begin to crack from the strain of keeping it in place. But the constable looked at us anyway. I realized that I was a respectably dressed young woman, while the man at my side was wearing a suit that didn’t fit him and his face was still pale, with dark circles under his eyes.

Oh, my God. Does he look like a convict—or someone just escaped from an asylum?

Or will he pass for a wounded soldier in civilian clothes he’s outgrown?

The constable walked on, in spite of the second glance he’d given Peregrine. I started to breathe again.

“If we’re to promenade around London like this, you must have decent clothes,” I said, my voice angrier than I’d intended. But I
could see again in my mind’s eye how that constable had stared, and if he’d stopped us, it didn’t bear thinking of.

Peregrine turned to me, amusement in his eyes. “You don’t care for the good doctor’s taste in clothes?”

I retorted, “If you attract attention to yourself because you don’t appear to belong in a neighborhood like this one, it won’t be my fault.”

He looked down at his clothing. I don’t believe he’d given a single thought to his appearance, except for the beard.

“I have told you. I have no money. There’s nothing to be done about it. Can we go into the square? It has benches. I need to sit down.”

“Only the residents have a key to the gates.”

“Ah.” He did look exhausted. “All right, I want—” He stopped. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, and suddenly the windows on the far side of the square were lit as if from within by the golden light. “Look!” His exhaustion vanished in his excitement. “I remember now. That chimney pot, the one on the left side—see, there’s a missing tile, and when the sunlight hits it just so, the shadow resembles a small dog.”

I couldn’t see it. But he crossed to the square, the better to see Number 17 and stare up at its windows, as if expecting to find himself at fourteen gazing down, then he positioned himself on the walk, and turned toward the house opposite.

“They’ve painted the door a dark green, but it was black once. As were the shutters. But, by God, this is the right street!”

“There must be others just like this one.”

“No, I’d stake my life on this.”

Across the square, the constable stopped to speak to a housemaid just coming up from the tradesmen’s entrance. Then he turned our way and began to stroll back toward us, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Come away, Peregrine, please! We’ve loitered here long enough. Please, before that constable catches us up.”

Peregrine seemed not to hear me, his mind on something else. Then he turned, took my arm, and we walked on, toward the corner. I wanted to hurry, to look back over my shoulder, but I dared not draw attention to us again. At the corner we turned away from Carroll Square, and I felt my heart begin to beat normally again.

Peregrine’s grip on my arm tightened until his fingers felt like they were bruising the skin. “How did you know?” he asked. “Who told you where to find that house again?”

Surprised by the unexpected attack, I said, “It was Mrs. Clayton—”

“I don’t remember anyone of that name. You’re lying.”

“No, truly, I’m not.”

“Did you live here before, is that it? Is that why you came to visit the Grahams? I asked you if you were Arthur’s wife. You told me he was dead. Why were you in Owlhurst?”

“Peregrine. Mr. Graham. I was the nursing sister with Arthur when he died onboard
Britannic.
I came to visit Mrs. Graham, to—to talk to her about the day Arthur died. He had asked me to. It was his dying wish.”

“He wouldn’t have asked you to come to Owlhurst. Unless there was more to your relationship than nurse and patient.”

“You aren’t required to judge any relationship of mine,” I retorted coldly. “I’m helping you because you are here, you are armed, and I have no choice.”

“You saved my life,” he said sardonically. “And your letter gave me a place to hide in London. And you must have been asking questions about me, or you wouldn’t have known about a house my family lived in for only a few weeks nearly fourteen years ago.”

I could feel myself turning red, and not from the cold wind.

“I admit to some curiosity. Arthur Graham told me he had three brothers, but he said almost nothing about them. When I arrived in Owlhurst, there were only two, and no one told me anything about you. When you were being carried to Owlhurst, and I’d volunteered to attend you, your mother explained in the briefest terms what I
was getting myself into. I should have trusted my instincts and let you die!”

He chuckled. It was the oddest sound, coming from a confessed murderer. I hadn’t expected a sense of humor and looked up at him, startled.

“Some curiosity, indeed,” he repeated, mimicking me.

We were standing on Radcliffe Street, waiting to hail a cab.

I felt a touch on my shoulder. “Miss?”

I turned, alarmed, and found myself face-to-face with the constable we’d seen in Carroll Square.

“Constable?” It was all I could manage. Peregrine’s fingers were still digging into my arm, their iron grip biting through the cloth of my coat and my sweater.

“Is this man annoying you, Miss?”

My eyes moved to Peregrine’s face. He had turned toward the constable, and was waiting for me to answer.

“His name is William,” I said in a voice I knew wasn’t my own but prayed the constable would think I was shrill as a rule. “He worked for my family before the war. He wanted to see where his—his brother had been in service before volunteering for the army.”

“He’s not in the army himself?” the constable asked.

“I’m home on leave,” Peregrine answered. “Pneumonia. Not as glorious as dying, is it?”

The constable nodded. “You oughtn’t be out of uniform,” he admonished Peregrine.

“It’s just for today.” He indicated his cuffs and the shortness of his trousers. “I’ve outgrown them. My mum says I’d added an inch since I’ve been in the army.”

The constable smiled. “Good luck to you, son.” He touched his cap to me and walked on.

Before I could fall down in relief, I caught the eye of a cabbie coming toward us and hailed him.

“I see what you mean about the clothing,” Peregrine said after I’d given the man the address of Mrs. Hennessey’s house. “Will you buy
me a new suit of clothes, for your sake and the sake of the police? I have no money. I can’t pay you back.”

There was the shop where my father bought his clothes and had his uniforms tailored. I leaned forward and told the cabbie that I’d changed my mind and wished to go to Oxford Street. He nodded, and we turned toward Piccadilly.

Peregrine sat back and closed his eyes. His face was gray with fatigue.

I sat there counting the lies I’d told to the police. I’d be an accomplished liar before Peregrine Graham and I were done.

I leaned a little forward. Where was the pistol? In his coat pocket? If he was being measured for a new suit of clothes, he’d have to remove that heavy coat….

When we arrived at Gladwynn and Sons, I was grateful to find that young Mr. Gladwynn, who knew my father very well and who must be nearing eighty years of age, was not in the shop that morning. The clerk who greeted me, a Mr. Stanley, informed me that Mr. Gladwynn would regret not having seen me and would surely wish to know how my father fared.

“Very well,” I said. “He’s in Somerset at the moment. Meanwhile, I have brought a friend who finds he’s outgrown his prewar clothes. This is Mr.—Philips, and he’s in need of something to finish out his leave.”

“We’ve a backlog of uniforms on order,” Mr. Stanley informed me, and my spirits plummeted. “But,” he went on, eyeing Peregrine like an undertaker eyeing his next customer, “I think we just might have something to fit his size….”

I sat down in the chair before the tier of mirrors, and Mr. Stanley went off to find whatever he had in mind. He was a thin man, with thinning hair, and close to sixty. I wondered what tale would get back to my father.

Peregrine stood there, ill at ease. It occurred to me that Peregrine had never come to London to have his clothes fitted. He’d either been shut away at home or shut away in the asylum, everything he
needed ordered for him. I felt a wave of pity for the child, if not for the man.

Such shops as this one have an air of their own. The smell of wool blended with the beeswax polish that gave a rich luster to the wood of counters and a wall of drawers containing everything from collars to buttonhooks to handkerchiefs. The bolts of cloth on the other side were mostly khaki now or in the colors of various dress uniforms from scarlet to naval blue. Someone had just been fitted with the dress uniform of a Highland regiment, and there were trays of buttons and braid ready to go back into their respective shelves. The tweeds and woolens from before the war were sadly missing, and there were only a few civilian hats to choose from, the rest being military caps of various ranks and services. They were lined up above the bolts of cloth with the precision of Old Mr. Gladwynn, who was legendary.

Mr. Stanley came back, wringing his hands in apology. “I fear there’s nothing in civilian clothes to match the gentleman’s height,” he said. “But I have uniforms that might fit. Alas, they were ordered by someone who died on the Somme. What regiment is the gentleman?”

The gentleman, I informed Mr. Stanley, was in my father’s old regiment and held the rank of lieutenant.

Half an hour later, Peregrine and I walked out into Oxford Street again. Mr. Philips had been transformed into Lieutenant Philips, and I wondered if I would be shot at the Tower for making it possible for him to impersonate an officer.

But the streets were filled with officers and men, and as long as Peregrine remembered when to salute and when not, we had a good chance of getting by with this charade. And a young lady in the company of an officer would attract no attention at all. Such couples were everywhere.

I found us a cab as quickly as possible and wondered how I would smuggle my officer past Mrs. Hennessey.

I
NEEDN’T HAVE
worried. She was out, and the flat was still, blessedly, empty of my flatmates.

While I removed my hat and coat Peregrine sat down in the nearest chair and leaned his head against the cushion. It had been a long morning for him, and I hoped he would sleep the sleep of the ill. I hadn’t had an opportunity to search his coat pockets while he was being measured. He had carefully hung the coat in full view. His stolen clothing had been neatly boxed up by Mr. Stanley. I could tell from the man’s expression that he thought it should be put out of sight as quickly as possible. The good doctor had an unknown tailor.

I made tea and sliced bread for sandwiches, but tired as he was, Peregrine Graham slept with one eye open. The box was under his feet, and when I touched it with my foot, he was alert on the instant.

“Sorry,” I said, moving a small table closer to his chair. I brought a tray with his food on it and sat across the room from him.

As he ate, I asked, “Did seeing the house again rouse any memories?”

He shook his head.

“It’s going to be a hopeless task, Peregrine. What will you do then?”

“I still have the pistol,” he said, and I shivered.

“Please, not here—” I said before I could stop myself.

He stared at me, then shrugged. “One place is as good as another.”

“Do you remember the name of the dead girl? It might help if we could find her family,” I said into the empty silence.

“Lily. She told us she was named for Lillie Langtry. I was laughed at because I didn’t know who she was.”

Peregrine looked across at me, surprise in his gaze. “I couldn’t have told you that yesterday. I couldn’t remember her name. I’d blotted it out, somehow.”

“And her last name?” How many hundreds of girls had been named after the Jersey Lily, once the mistress of Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, and so famous for her beauty that even her lackluster acting skills brought her fame and fortune?

But it was no use. Peregrine couldn’t bring it back. He’d said something about powders they’d given him when he was first put in the asylum. Surely they hadn’t kept him drugged all these years? But then there were the powders he hadn’t taken but had used to keep the doctor quiet while he escaped.

We ate our sandwiches in silence. Clearing away afterward, I said, “You’ve found the house. Or so you believe. What are we to do now?”

“I have no idea.” He put his head back against the cushion again. “I’ve got to get some rest. Remember what I told you. Betray me, and others will pay the price for it.” He lifted his shod foot and placed it on the box with the doctor’s clothing. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

If I could find a telephone, and call my father, he could alert the police—but even as the thought formed, I knew I wasn’t about to do it. I’d survived so far, and I was beginning to think that if I waited Peregrine Graham out, he might return to the asylum of his own accord. Where else was there for him to go?

He was watching my face as the thoughts passed through my mind.

I found it difficult to judge him. His brain appeared to be clever, able to connect events and reason his way through a problem. I couldn’t put my finger yet on what it was that was wrong with him, what his tutor had seen, what Mrs. Graham might have used as an excuse to keep him segregated from his half brothers.

“What was the Christian name of your tutor?” I asked just as Peregrine was drifting into sleep. Appleby was a fairly common name, surely.

Rousing himself, he said, “His name was Nathan Appleby.”

How would I go about finding someone who had been a tutor fourteen years ago and might be anywhere now, including in his grave?

I sat there thinking as Peregrine slept. I had no idea where else to turn for information Peregrine Graham needed. For that matter, I had no idea whether he would be satisfied if he learned what he’d claimed he wanted so badly to discover.

And then I remembered the journals that Rector Montgomery’s predecessor had kept. But how to get to
them?
And what excuse could I use to go back to Owlhurst?

It would surely arouse suspicion….

Well, then, who could I send? Mrs. Hennessey wasn’t up to traveling that far in midwinter. Could I ask Dr. Philips to bring the journals to me in Tonbridge?

I was going around and around in my head, trying to see my way through the problem, when the door opened and Diana James, who was another of my flatmates, came in with a smile and a cry of welcome.

“Bess! How good to see you. And how is the arm?”

Before she could reach me to embrace me, Peregrine was on his feet, his eyes wild and his hands clenched.

I leapt into the breach, taking Peregrine’s arm as I said, “He couldn’t find a room anywhere. I had to smuggle him past Mrs. Hennessey. You won’t give him away, will you?”

Diana looked from Peregrine’s face to mine.

“He’s wounded, Diana.” With my free hand I touched my forehead, and after a moment she relaxed.

“As long as he isn’t sleeping in my bed,” she said. “Hallo, Lieutenant.”

“Philips,” Peregrine answered. “Lieutenant Philips. Sorry. I was asleep when you came in.” His hands were trembling, but he stepped back and sat down in his chair again, as if his legs were unable to support him.

Diana brought in her valise and said, “I hope there’s something to eat. I’m starving. The train was so crowded coming up from Dover I could hardly breathe.”

“Yes, there’s food. How long are you here, Diana?”

“Four days. Worst luck. Ralph isn’t here, he’s been sent back. I’d hoped we’d overlap for a day or two.”

I made her a sandwich as she sat down across from Peregrine. “Ralph is my brother,” she was saying. “Where were you wounded, Lieutenant?”

“The Somme,” he said. It was the battle Mr. Stanley had mentioned. “I don’t remember much about it, I’m afraid.”

“Not surprised. Head injuries are the very devil.” She went on, unwinding as she described working at the dressing station along the Ypres line. “Frostbite, trench foot from all the rains, dysentery, fevers, rat bites, lice, even a case of measles. And that’s not counting the wounded.”

She rattled on, a pretty girl with tired blue eyes and blond hair that she had refused to cut even when ordered to do so. It was pulled tight into a bun at the back of her neck, but anyone could see how lovely it was. She’d maintained that the men she treated liked looking at it. I didn’t doubt it.

Peregrine was pale with exhaustion, but he kept up his end of the conversation as best he could, falling back on his head injury when pressed about something he had no way of knowing.

Diana ate her sandwich with zest and asked me about
Britannic,
and I told her briefly what it had been like. Then she handed me her empty plate and her teacup, saying, “Would you mind if I left you to wash up? I’m going to fall flat on my face if I don’t get a few hours of sleep.”

I sent her off to her bedroom, then said in a low voice to Peregrine, “She won’t be difficult, and she won’t be here very long. And she might be able to help us.”

“Why should she?”

“Because she owes me a favor. Will you be willing to go back to Kent? Will you risk it?”

He watched my face, as if trying to see beneath skin and bone into my brain. “I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you.”

“The sooner you’re satisfied, the sooner I’m rid of you,” I said. “I protected you when you were ill. But I can’t condone your escape from the asylum—you aren’t trying to make amends for what you did, you aren’t even trying to start life anew. You want to relive it.”

“I don’t want to relive it,” he said, his voice tense. “I want to understand it.”

“I’m going back to Kent. There are some things I must do, information I must find. Will you stay here with Diana, and not harm her? She’ll do your marketing, and she’ll be my hostage, if I betray you.”

“I can’t sit here waiting. I’ll go with you.”

“If you do, and you’re recognized—”

“I’ll chance it,” he told me grimly.

And so that evening we set out for Kent again. When we reached Tonbridge, I found a hotel on a side street, bespoke two rooms, and asked if there was anyone who could take me to Owlhurst in the morning. They found a man who was willing, and after breakfast, I left Peregrine cooling his heels in his room while I set out, wondering what I was going to say to anyone.

I watched the villages come and go in silence, for I hadn’t slept well, worried about Peregrine taking it in his head to walk away. He was two people, the sick man I had watched over day and night for nearly a week, and a man obsessed with a bloody moment in his childhood.

I tried to shut out Peregrine, but he was there, a dark figure in the back of my mind. I turned to the middle-aged man driving me. His name was Owens.

“Do you know Owlhurst?”

“Oh, yes. My Aunt May lived there for a time,” he said. “I visited her often enough, boy and man.”

Oh, dear.
Mind your tongue,
I warned myself.

“Did you know an Inspector Gadd?” It was the first name that came to me, other than the Grahams and Dr. Philips. After all, the man had been dead for some time. It should be safe enough to claim acquaintance there.

To my surprise, Mr. Owens replied, “He lived next house but one to my aunt. Taught me how to ride my first bicycle. Shame about his dying so young. A good man.”

“Yes. Er, do you know if his widow is still living in Owlhurst?”

“She went to stay with her brother in Rye. She couldn’t bear that house afterward.”

Rye.

I said hastily, “Will you take me to Rye instead?”

He turned to look at me. “You said Owlhurst.”

“Yes, but that was before I knew Mrs. Gadd now lived in Rye. Will you take me there, and bring me back again?”

We settled on a new price for his trouble and were soon on our way south to the small town that had once been a Cinque Port, one of the five major harbors during the great days of the wool trade.

It was a journey of several hours by motorcar, but I soon found myself at the foot of a high bluff on which sat a gray stone church. We looked for the local police station, and I went in to ask the desk
sergeant if by chance he knew where I could find a Mrs. Gadd. Oh, yes, he said, he knew her well.

“Go up to the church, Miss, and turn to your right. At the corner of the churchyard, turn left, and at the next corner, turn right again. You’ll have a lovely view of the water from there. Her house is on the left, the small one with black trim and an anchor for door knocker.”

I thanked him, went back to the patient Mr. Owens, and passed the directions on to him. We climbed the hill, went around the large, gray stone church, and found ourselves on a street that seemed to be eager to run straight down into the sea. From the heights, we had a wonderful view of gray water, rough with the turning of the tide. I located the house easily and told Mr. Owens to find himself tea and something to eat while I went inside.

“Knock at the door before I go,” he suggested. “She might not be to home.”

Good thinking. If I was as brilliant in questioning Mrs. Gadd, we might actually accomplish something, I told myself ruefully.

Using the anchor, I tapped briskly. After a moment someone came to the door. She was not young, perhaps in her middle fifties, but her hair was still fair, and her face unlined. She’d been a pretty woman in her youth, and that hadn’t faded with time.

Before I could speak, she peered over her spectacles at the man in the motorcar. “Is that you, Terrence Owens?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Gadd, it is. How are you faring? I haven’t seen you in a good many years.”

“Well enough. Harry died, you know.”

“Your brother? That’s sad news. My aunt is gone as well.”

“Oh, my dear. I’m sorry to hear it. Won’t you come in?”

“I think this young woman would prefer to speak to you privately. But I’ll step in when I come to fetch her.”

“Fair enough.” She turned to me, frowning. “I don’t believe we’ve met, my dear.”

“My name is Elizabeth Crawford. I’ve come to speak to you about something that happened in the past. While you were living in Owlhurst.”

There was the briefest hesitation.

She knows what I’m here to ask her
….

“Do come in out of the cold, then. The wind is brisk here on the bluff.”

Indeed it was. I followed her inside, and after she had taken my coat and gloves, we sat by the fire. My fingers and toes were instantly grateful for the warmth.

“I was a nurse on
Britannic,”
I began, “and one of the men in my care was Arthur Graham. You probably remember him as a child. I knew him as a man, a very brave one. He died of his wounds, and I was with him until the end. I spent some time in Owlhurst until a week ago. A guest of the Graham family, in fact. What I’ve learned about Peregrine Graham during my visit has been confusing—contradictory. I didn’t like to ask his family more than they were willing to tell me. But it has become rather important to me to understand about the murder of the girl called Lily.”

Mrs. Gadd spread her hands to the fire, and at first I was sure she wouldn’t answer me. Then she said, “Is it just idle curiosity that brings you here?”

“No. You see, I carried a message from Arthur Graham to his brother. No one told me what the message meant, but I came to believe it might have something to do with Peregrine. And I had the strongest impression that the family chose to ignore what amounted to Arthur’s last wish. Were they right to do so? I’ll tell you something else in confidence. While I was visiting the Grahams, Peregrine was brought to the house suffering from pneumonia. I nursed him back to health. He was so different from what I’d expected—I couldn’t—he seemed normal. As normal as Arthur or Jonathan or Timothy Graham. That troubled me.”

“What will you do with this knowledge, once you have it?”

“I’ve come back to Kent, and now here to Rye, to settle my own conscience. I have no right to pry, and I respect the possibility that you have no reason to confide in me.”

I’d tried to be honest—just leaving out the fact that Peregrine had fled from the asylum and only I knew where he was.