Death at Dartmoor (20 page)

“Good afternoon, Vicar,” she said. “I was just admiring your church. It is quite lovely.”

Hurriedly, the vicar lifted his hat. “Oh, yes, indeed, Lady Sheridan,” he said, making a bow. “Thank you for the compliment. It is a fine building, especially given the remoteness of the place.” He replaced his hat and added, half to himself, “We
are
so out of the way here.”

She fell into step beside him as they went around the back. “It must be rather lonely for you,” she said in an encouraging tone. “A man of your refinement, I mean. I imagine that it is difficult to find friends among the moor dwellers.”

The vicar sighed heavily. “Yes. I do my best, of course, to be of service to my little flock, but I must confess to a certain loneliness. I have been here only since last October, but this is my first living, you see, and not being married—” He broke off.

She stole a glance at him, thinking that he was indeed very young, certainly not thirty yet, and inexperienced. No wonder he felt flattered when someone like Lady Duncan, who must be one of the moor's few gentry, chose him as her confidante. But Mr. Garrett did not appear flattered at the moment. He was obviously distressed.

“Forgive me for remarking on it, Mr. Garrett,” she said gently, “but you seem ... uneasy.”

“I am troubled,” he said simply. “There has been a ... tragic death in the parish, and it is my unhappy task to impart the sad news to the widow.” He suddenly stopped and turned to face her. “I wonder if your ladyship would do me the favor of agreeing to accompany me. This sort of thing...” He bit his lip. “It requires a lady's touch. I dare-say that your presence will bring comfort to the grieving.”

Kate was surprised, until she reflected that he had perhaps not had an occasion to break such unhappy news to the bereaved during his short time at Saint Michael's. “I am complimented by your request,” she replied, “truly I am. But I should scarcely be of comfort to someone with whom I am not acquainted. I fear this is a task that you yourself must—”

“Oh, but you
are
acquainted!” the vicar exclaimed. He dropped his voice. “Dear Lady Sheridan, I regret very much to tell you that Sir Edgar Duncan was found on the moor this morning, most dreadfully murdered. It is Lady Duncan who must be informed and comforted.”

“Sir Edgar?” Kate was now completely astonished. “Then it was his body I saw being brought in on the wagon! Killed by the escaped convict, the constable said—the one who is still at large.”

As Kate spoke, she thought of Mrs. Bernard, who had whispered the word
murder
during the first séance, and who had fallen into a faint after having been visited by the spirit of Sir Edgar during the second. Kate was seized by a violent shiver. Had the poor man been lying dead at that very moment? Had Mrs. Bernard seen an actual apparition, or—

“Sir Edgar may have been killed by the convict, yes,” the vicar said soberly, breaking into Kate's chaotic thoughts. “But Dr. Lorrimer reports that he was shot to death, and it seems unlikely that the escaped man has managed to procure a gun. Unless, of course, an accomplice provided it to him,” he added. “That is the current line of thinking, I believe.”

An accomplice? And now Kate's thoughts flew to the odd behavior of Mattie Jenkyns, who, she could almost swear, had some connection to the escaped man. Was it possible that Mattie had somehow placed a weapon at his disposal, and the man had encountered Sir Edgar on the moor and shot him to make good his escape?

“But there is no need to worry,” the vicar added reassuringly. “Mr. Doyle has been put in charge of the case, at Mr. Delany's suggestion, and Lord Sheridan has agreed to assist him. To be his Watson, as it were.” He managed a small smile. “I have every confidence that they shall be able to sort out the essential facts and bring matters to a quick resolution.”

This information put quite a different face on the question before her, Kate realized. If Charles were playing Watson to Doyle's Holmes, he would certainly be in need of any information she might bring back from Thornworthy.

“I should be glad to go with you, Mr. Garrett,” Kate said in a decided tone. “I need only to stop at the Duchy and leave a note for his lordship, so that he won't expect me for tea.”

Fifteen minutes later, Kate and the vicar were in his gig, bowling smartly along the road out of Princetown. As they drove, the vicar related the events that had transpired at the Black Dog—as many as were fit for a lady to hear, that is. He stopped frustratingly short of revealing all the pertinent details.

“If the victim's face was unrecognizable,” Kate inquired delicately, “how was he identified?”

“Lord Sheridan pointed out a scar on the dead man's left hand. I believed that I recognized it, and Mr. Delany confirmed that the body was that of Sir Edgar.” The vicar was silent for a moment. “I confess that I found it difficult to believe at first, because I understood from a letter Sir Edgar wrote to his wife that he was...”

He stopped and said nothing more for a moment, as they passed a slower-moving hay cart being pulled by a moor pony. When they were safely by, he continued slowly, “I am reluctant to confide this to your ladyship, since it was communicated to me in confidence. But I believe you should understand the entire situation before you speak with Lady Duncan, in case she might mention it.”

“What is it that I should know?” Kate asked, her curiosity aroused.

“Sir Edgar apparently did not intend to go up to the city as he told his wife. Instead of driving to the station at Okehampton to catch the up train to London, he drove in his gig to Yelverton, I suppose to take the train to Plymouth. In point of fact, he posted a letter to Lady Duncan from Yelverton, telling her that he was leaving Thornworthy and would not return. He was leaving with another woman. I read the letter myself, yesterday,” he added. “Lady Duncan asked me to give her my spiritual counsel, and in the process, shared the letter with me.”

“Oh, dear,” Kate said, and thought again of Mrs. Bernard, but this time in a rather different light. Was it possible that
she
was the woman? “How very dreadful, for all concerned! Did the letter mention the woman's name?”

“No, it did not. But Lady Duncan realized immediately that this was the betrayal of which the spirit of her sister Charlotte had warned her during the seance, and which we all heard.” He paused, and a note of something like satisfaction crept into his voice. “That is, Charlotte's prediction has come true—further testimony, I feel, to the power of Mr. Westcott's spiritual control.”

Kate wanted to retort that it was testimony to the terrible capacity of humans to hurt one another, but the vicar was continuing.

“Two terrible blows in as many days,” he said, lifting the reins to hurry his horse. “It will be no wonder if poor Lady Duncan breaks down under the news.”

A
t Dartmoor Prison, Charles introduced Doyle to Major Cranford. After the obligatory exchange about Sherlock Holmes (Charles could see why Doyle might become quite irritated at continually being associated with his fictional detective), the conversation turned to the manhunt for the missing convict.

“It is our practice to discontinue the roadblocks forty-eight hours after an escape,” Major Cranford told them. “If the escapee has not been found within that time, we assume that he has left the moor, so we widen our search to Exeter, Torquay, and Plymouth. We have done so in this case, too, and we've put a watch on the docks.” He paused, frowning slightly. “Which is not to say that we've slacked up on our search of the moors. The off-duty guards are armed and out on horseback, looking. If he's still on the moor, he'll be found.”

“They've been warned not to use those arms, I hope,” Charles said uneasily, remembering an incident in the North, where an escaped prisoner was gunned down by his pursuers when he attempted to surrender.

“They've been cautioned,” the major said. “But this murder—it's put everyone on edge. In a situation like this, it's hard to tell what will happen.”

“How do the searchers know who they're looking for?” Doyle asked. “Do you have photographs of the man?”

“We have a set of photographs taken when he arrived,” the major replied. “Prisoners at Dartmoor have been photographed since '71, using a Gandolfi camera. We take a full-face view with hands held in front of the chest and a profile view with the man posed before a mirror. Copies of these photographs have been given to the searchers.”

“But a man's appearance can be altered to the point where photographs serve no purpose,” Doyle objected, frowning. “Does the prison take measurements according to the anthropometric system? Bertillon's method of identification is by far the most accurate yet devised.”

The major shook his head. “As you no doubt know, Mr. Doyle, the success of anthropometry depends on the accuracy and consistency of those making the measurements.” He smiled dryly. “All well and good for an intellectual genius like Bertillon or Holmes, but far too complicated a system to delegate to ordinary prison warders.” He cleared his throat. “However, we are in the process of developing a fingerprinting system, which the Home Office expects to be much more reliable.” He turned to Charles. “Do you recall whether Spencer was among the men fingerprinted before the escape?”

“No, he was not,” Charles replied regretfully. “But if you'll excuse me for a few moments, I will see what I can do.” He glanced at Doyle. “Would you like to come with Constable Chapman and me to the prisoner's cell?”

Doyle's eyes went from the fire to the laden tea tray, which had just arrived. “If it's all the same to you,” he said, “I believe I'll stay and chat with Major Cranford.”

Charles left the two men in the warmth of the major's office and went with the constable to Spencer's cell. It seemed even colder and darker than it had at his first visit, the air even more foul and oppressive, if that were possible. He could not blame Doyle for preferring to stay where it was warm. He could not even blame the prisoner for preferring the open moor to this awful place. If he had been in Spencer's shoes, no doubt he'd have made a break for it, too.

At Charles's request, a paraffin lamp was brought and set on the floor, and he and the constable went about the task of searching the place carefully.

“If you don't mind my askin‘, m'lord,” the constable said, frowning, “what're we lookin'for? A weapon?”

“We are looking for
this,
first of all,” Charles said. He pointed to the handleless tin cup that sat on the corner ledge that served as a table. “Other than the cup, I'm afraid I don't know. I should like to have a look at anything that seems out of the ordinary, I suppose.” He could tell that the constable was not sure about the purpose of their search and suspected that he would rather be out on the moor going after the escaped man, whom he clearly believed had killed Sir Edgar. “Let's just see what we can find, shall we?” he added, in an encouraging tone.

The cell was small, and there were few places of concealment in it. In a few moments, they had pulled apart and searched the mattress and bedding, examined the walls and floor for possible carved-out stones or niches, and laid out the prisoner's pitifully few belongings on the wooden bed boards: a Bible; a volume of Shakespeare's plays, inscribed “To Samuel, from his loving brother, M.”; a cheap printing of Oscar Wilde's “Ballad of Reading Gaol”; and three items—the mirror, the sepia-toned snapshot, and the black-bordered obituary notice—taken from the wall above the ledge.

While the constable paged carefully through the Bible and the books, Charles carried the photograph to the lamp, where he took a hand lens from his pocket and examined it. The snapshot was that of a young man in his twenties, leaning with nonchalant grace against a palm tree, a shock of dark hair falling into his eyes, an ironic smile on his handsome, somewhat dissipated face. Dr. Spencer himself, at a younger age? There was a distinct likeness, Charles thought, although it might be a family likeness. When he turned it over, the name written in faded ink on the back of the photo was
Malcomb.
The date 10 July, '96, the place Algiers.

Who was Malcomb? The question was answered when Charles took up the black-bordered obituary notice. The body of Malcomb Spencer, he of the dark hair and the sardonic smile, had been pulled from the Thames on 27 February, 1900. Drowned, presumably by accident. Next of kin, the victim's wife Clementine and daughter Rachel, his sister, Evelyn M. Spencer, and his brother, Samuel Spencer.