Ann Granger (28 page)

‘Indeed,’ I agreed thoughtfully.

‘So he could have guessed she’s in the country and set off here, then?’ asked Sergeant Morris.

Our visitor’s distraught state rendered him temporarily dumb before he managed to croak, ‘As you say, Sergeant. He knows my sisters live at Shore House. He could indeed be here and awaiting his opportunity to contact my niece. He knows he wouldn’t be welcome at the door. He’ll try to contact her secretly and spirit the poor child away, that’s what he’ll do! Craven could be hiding out somewhere a stone’s throw from us and we don’t know of it.’

Roche’s despair echoed in his voice and had transformed his usually florid, self-confident features. He even forgot himself so far as to lean forward and grip the lapels of my coat. ‘He must be found, Inspector! He must be found before he does more mischief!’

If he hasn’t done some already, I was thinking, but didn’t say.

Roche disengaged himself with apologies for taking hold of me. ‘My dear sir…’ he mumbled several times, ‘so many troubles, and all at once. I hardly know what I’m doing. Nothing seems to be going right…’

I told him briskly to bear up and succeeded in drawing his attention back to the main matter. We had a long discussion as to what was best to be done. I pointed out to Roche that Mrs Craven must be told immediately. To delay would cruel. He was vehemently against this at first; but in the end I made him understand that if he didn’t tell her, I would. My own brain was buzzing. The news introduced an entirely unforeseen element into the business. I’d have to ask the lady if she’d seen anything of her husband or if he’d contacted her.

I was also thinking I’d have to warn Lizzie to keep an eye open.

In the end, when Roche had got his breath and composure, we set off all three to walk to Shore House. The potboy had been directed to bring Roche’s bag after us a little later.

When we got to the house, we left him to go in and tell his sisters and niece the news. I would dearly have liked to be there when he did but he turned down that suggestion flat. So Morris and I walked round to the back of the building. Our intention was to ask any member of the domestic or outdoor staff we encountered if they’d seen a strange young man of gentlemanly appearance, possibly travel stained. We had learned from Roche that Craven had not visited the house before, although he knew of it, so was not known to the staff by sight. It was unlikely they would guess who he was, even if they sighted a stranger. They all knew he was in China, or supposed to be.

‘He’ll have kept out of their way,’ said Morris. ‘A stranger hereabouts sticks out like a sore thumb. Look at the way they all turned out to see us!’

‘Miss Martin saw someone hiding beneath the yew tree in the churchyard,’ I reminded him. ‘And someone put a posy on the infant’s grave. There was also someone, she thinks, camping out on the shore. She saw a campfire. So he may well be here. But thanks to Lizzie’s – I mean Miss Martin’s – attendance on Mrs Craven, he hasn’t been able to get his wife alone.’

Morris looked doubtful but at that moment, I heard my name called and saw the stable boy hurrying towards us. His expression suggested he had a message and was carrying it with all the urgency of the news of the imminent arrival of Blucher’s Prussians on the field of Waterloo.

‘It’s in Fred’s shed!’ he announced in a hoarse whisper, with much jerking of his head in a vague direction behind him. ‘Mr Greenaway has just this minute sent me to fetch you, sirs. “Be quick about it, Joe,” he said to me. So I’ve come running. But here you are, anyway.’

‘What’s in the shed?’ demanded Morris. ‘Stop twitching, boy!’

‘The cat,’ retorted the stable boy indignantly. ‘Fred dug it up, just like Inspector Ross wanted him to. It’s nothing but bones,’ he added, ‘I seen it.’

‘Take us to the shed,’ I ordered him. ‘And not a word about this, mind.’

It was only a very small potting shed and we all gathered in it: Morris and Greenaway, Callow the gardener and myself. The stable boy squeezed himself in despite being ordered to stay outside and knelt on the floor peering between Greenaway’s legs. At our feet on a piece of sacking lay a sad little skeleton. It appeared to be complete and I thanked Callow for the care taken in disinterring it.

‘What do you think?’ I asked Morris.

‘Head smashed in,’ observed Morris lugubriously.

The damage to the skull was the more noticeable for the good state of the other bones. The spine had split, but Callow admitted that had happened when he lifted it out of the ground. The skull was quite crushed.

‘Could two dogs fighting over their prey have done that?’ I asked the two local men. ‘What’s your opinion?’

Greenaway and Callow exchanged glances. Callow cleared his throat and observed that the terriers had powerful jaws. ‘Little beasts, but when they get a grip, they don’t let go, sir.’

Greenaway mumbled assent.

From between his legs, the stable boy observed that he thought it pretty difficult for a small dog to do that sort of damage.

Greenaway moved his foot and contrived to give his underling a kick. ‘You keep quiet and mind your manners, Joe Prentice. You don’t know anything.’

‘When you came upon the dogs tugging the cat’s corpse between them,’ I asked Greenaway, ‘did one of them hold the cat’s head in its jaws?’

‘I don’t rightly mind,’ said Greenaway. ‘It might have done. They were worrying at it, tugging it all ways.’

‘But it was dead?’

‘Oh yes, sir, it was dead. It hung limp and made no sound. I couldn’t have rescued it.’

‘Very well, then,’ I said, ‘that’s all. Thank you again, Callow.’

‘What shall I do with it now, sir?’ he asked.

‘Bury it once more,’ I told him. ‘And not a word to anyone about this, is that understood?’

The gardener and groom exchanged glances again and Greenaway shrugged.

‘Right you are, then,’ said Callow.

I stooped and called out to the stable boy in the dark corner, ‘Do you understand, Joe?’

‘Yessir, I won’t tell no one!’ came back a voice at knee level.

‘He won’t tell anyone,’ growled Greenaway in confirmation. ‘Or he answers to me, hear that, Joe?’

‘I hear you, Mr Greenaway!’

Morris and I left the shed; when we were out of earshot, I asked him, ‘What do you think?’

‘Someone smashed it over the head with a blunt instrument,’ returned Morris promptly. ‘That’s my opinion. Something like a spade or a brick, say, even a really big stone. Smashed it and kept on smashing it in a rage or a frenzy. The dogs may have found the body and had some sport with it. But I reckon that cat was dead when they did so.’

‘Someone has a violent temper,’ I observed.

Morris asked the question hovering in my mind. ‘Could the little lady, Mrs Craven, have done that, sir? To her own pet?’

‘She could have done it,’ I replied. ‘But why should she? Why should
anyone
? Why, to take it a step further, should some rational human being kill an itinerant rat-catcher of no importance to anyone – and with a knife taken from this house?’

‘How about an irrational one, then, sir?’ asked Morris, with a sideways glance at me.

‘Lucy Craven, you mean?’

‘Well, she doesn’t seem quite right in the head, sir. I mean, the way she goes on insisting her baby isn’t dead, though Dr Barton confirmed it and signed the death certificate. I’m not saying he’s the best doctor ever walked this earth, but he’d know a dead baby from a living one. I’m sorry, though, that he didn’t examine the child closer.’

There was a long and awkward silence, neither of us wanting to make the accusation that lingered unspoken in our minds. At length, Morris began to speak again.

‘I remember, sir, when I was just a young constable. I hadn’t been a year wearing the uniform. There I was in my smart new blue frockcoat and proper top hat like we wore then, no silly helmets. Well now, I was patrolling my beat when a woman came running from a house and declared a girl living there had murdered her baby. So I went to investigate and found a young female, very distressed, tearing of her dress and wailing, sitting on the staircase. The woman who had fetched me hurried me past her into a downstairs room. There lay a dead baby, not above two or three months old. The woman told me the girl on the stairs, who was the mother, had smothered the infant deliberately. She’d been found bending over the crib with a pillow in her hands. The other woman had snatched the child up and run downstairs with it to try and revive it but in vain.

‘It was decided, sir, that matters were as the woman described, but the mother was unfit to plead, being not in her right mind. Doctors declared she had never recovered from the birth. It had been an uncommon difficult one. She had nearly died, taken the fever, never fully recovered and behaved strangely ever since. She had two or three times been prevented from doing the child harm, although at other times she seemed uncommon fond of it. The child being under one year of age, sir, the charge would’ve been infanticide. But they took her to the madhouse instead of to the prison and there, for all I know, she still is, although it’ll be twenty years ago.’

I couldn’t help but suppress a shiver. ‘And you think, Sergeant, young Mrs Craven may have smothered her baby or otherwise done it harm? That the doctor, the nurse and the family have conspired to hide the fact? That the rector who conducted the funeral service was duped? As for the mother, her mind has refused to accept the horror of her action and she’s persuaded herself the child is still alive somewhere?’

‘I’m only saying, sir, that such things do happen from time to time and the law, in its wisdom, takes account of them.’

I shook my head firmly. ‘It still doesn’t explain why she should attack the rat-catcher. No, no, Morris, I can’t believe it. We are trying to fit together pieces of some puzzle, but a vital one is missing. When we have it, we shall find all this is linked together.’ I heaved a sigh born of frustration. ‘But as yet I don’t know how.’

‘Think we shall find out, sir?’

‘Believe me, Sergeant,’ I told him sharply, ‘we have not come all this way to be fobbed off by people who put reputation above justice.’

We walked on in silence for some minutes. ‘However,’ I said at last, ‘I have ordered a cat to be dug up and, if it seems necessary, I’ll request permission from the Home Office to open up that child’s grave in the churchyard here, and ask a police surgeon to examine the remains.’

‘Family won’t like that, sir.’

‘Nevertheless, if I think it necessary, I shall do it.’

Part Three

Chapter Nineteen

Elizabeth Martin

‘LIZZIE, LIZZIE!’ I heard my name called outside my door, followed by an urgent tapping at the panels.

After returning from the church and churchyard, Lucy and I had gone upstairs to our rooms to take off our hats and shawls and get ready for luncheon. Lucy had also declared herself exhausted after her talk with Ben and wanted to rest before joining any company.

‘Of course I understand that,’ I told her, ‘but be of good cheer, Lucy. It was a difficult interview but it’s done now. Doesn’t that feel better than being in a panic and refusing to meet the inspector?’

‘Oh, I suppose it is,’ sighed Lucy, putting a hand to her brow, ‘but I’m sure my poor head aches after all the fuss and bother. Still, he is a nice man, just as you said … and it’s my opinion you should marry him, Lizzie.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed, thoroughly taken aback. So Lucy had not had her mind entirely on their conversation about the rat-catcher!

‘He’s so taken with you, Lizzie, anyone can see it. Now, I’m going to rest. Let’s hope Williams doesn’t sound the gong early.’

With that she left me gaping after her in the corridor outside her room. I stared at her closed door. The child was like quicksilver. Just when I thought I was beginning to know her character, she slipped through my carefully constructed understanding of her; and brought it tumbling down.

I made my way to my own room. I’d just about tidied myself, and was listening out for the gong, when I heard her voice again outside my door. It was clear from the tone that something unexpected had happened. I hurried to open it and find out what was amiss. As soon as she saw me, and before I could say a word, she grabbed me by the wrist and towed me along the corridor until we reached the first-floor landing.

‘Down there!’ Lucy pushed me forward with such force I tilted alarmingly over the banister and was glad she still gripped my arm. ‘Do you see? It’s Uncle Charles!’The last words were hissed right in my ear.

She was quite right. To my astonishment Charles Roche stood below us in the hall, handing his hat to Mrs Williams. The housekeeper, looking unusually flustered, was doing her best to welcome him and answer his questions as to where his sisters and his niece were.

‘The ladies are in the drawing room, sir. They will be very pleased to see you. If we had known you’d be here, sir, Cook would have prepared something extra for lunch. Let me put your stick in the stand, sir.’

‘How are they?’ demanded Roche in a low, urgent tone, settling his coat lapels and adopting the stance of a man about to face some sort of ordeal.

‘Bearing up, sir, very well, but it has been a very difficult time. The police are still about the place and it doesn’t help, sir, even if it’s necessary.’

‘Yes, yes,’ mumbled Roche. ‘But there have been no further alarms?’

They exchanged a glance that seemed to me one of complicity.

‘No, sir,’ said Mrs Williams in a steadier voice. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Roche murmured, ‘Good…’ but didn’t look much reassured.

He could hardly have been looking forward to facing his sisters, but his sudden arrival raised several questions. He hadn’t come when the first news of Brennan’s death on the premises reached him. He’d written to his sisters, I knew that. I’d wondered what excuse he’d given them for his absence at a time of crisis. I was certain they hadn’t expected a visit today. There would have been some sign of it. Williams would certainly have been informed. There would be a bedroom to be prepared; a discussion about the day’s menu; increased bustle on the part of the maids. Surely I’d have noticed some air of anticipation on the part of his sisters? Even if, for whatever reasons of their own, they hadn’t wished to tell their niece of his impending arrival. What on earth could have happened to bring him down from London at this moment without a word of warning sent in advance? What about Lefebre? Had he known Roche was on his way?