Hawke's Tor (15 page)

‘Where did you and Kerensa meet to discuss her problems – and to hand over the money you say you gave her?'

‘Up on the moor, close to Hawk's Tor. There's an old mine not far from there that I spent some time inspecting. It was abandoned before it had a chance to come good and I thought of reworking it. I used to pass by the tor on my way home, but after giving Kerensa the money I took to coming home a different way and, like I said, on the night she was murdered I was many miles away, in North Devon. I'll give you the address so you can check I'm telling the truth….'

 

Riding back to Bodmin on his way from the home of Jowan Hodge, Tom thought over what the successful miner had said about the relationship between Kerensa and her husband. That they were not the happily married couple Horace Morgan would have the world believe was becoming increasingly evident. Had the Trelyn land agent seriously believed Albert was not his son it would have given him a powerful motive for killing both
mother
and
baby. The reason for murdering Jed Smith was less clear, but that would no doubt be established in due course.

Equally certain was that if Jowan Hodge's alibi held up – and Tom had little doubt it would – it left only two known suspects and of the two Morgan was emerging as the more likely murderer.

However, Tom decided he would try to put Morgan out of his mind until he had been to Gassick Farm to speak to Zillah and collect the drawing she had made of baby Albert's missing shawl.

Zillah seemed pleased to see him and he felt she would have liked him to stay for a while, but it was not long before the murder of her father was mentioned and her grandmother, a normally cheerful woman, who had been extremely fond of her gypsy son-in-law broke down and this upset Zillah so much that Tom reluctantly decided it would be better if he left both women to comfort each other.

Although disappointed there had been no opportunity to talk to Zillah alone, he left Gassick with the drawing of the shawl Zillah had made for baby Albert safely placed in his saddle-bag.

Urging his horse to a lively trot, he hoped to reach the Bodmin police headquarters in time to compare notes with Amos on the progress, or lack of the same, in their respective inquiries.

I
N AMOS'S OFFICE a few days later he and Tom were discussing the murder case when the sergeant in charge of the front office entered the room. He carried an envelope in his hand and explained, ‘The mail has just arrived, sir. This letter is addressed to you and marked “Urgent, Private and Confidential”. I thought I should bring it up to you right away.'

‘Thank you, Sergeant.' As the policeman left the room, Amos looked at the envelope and said, ‘It's from London, Tom, it must be from Verity.' Hurriedly cutting the envelope open with a bone-handled paper-knife that had been a present from Talwyn, he took out a number of pages filled with small, neat handwriting.

‘It
is
from her,' he said, excitedly and began reading.

Waiting for more information, Tom felt increasingly frustrated as he watched Amos's expression undergo a number of animated changes as he read.

Putting the first page to one side and moving on to the second, Amos added to Tom's frustration by saying, ‘I think we may have him, Tom. Verity has unearthed a motive … a motive we could never have imagined in a million years!' Tantalizingly, Amos broke off what he was saying as he began to read the second page of the long letter.

When he reached the foot of the page and turned to the third, Tom could contain himself no longer. ‘What does she say—?'

He stopped abruptly as, instead of replying, Amos held up his hand to silence any further questioning and Tom was obliged to curtail his growing impatience until Amos had read the entire contents of the letter.

Finally placing the last page face down on the others, Amos leaned back in his chair, his thoughts seemingly far away for a few moments. Then, coming back to the here and now and tapping a finger on the letter, he said, ‘Verity has come up trumps once again, Tom. She has not only filled in much of Horace Morgan's Indian background for us but given us a much stronger motive for killing Kerensa and baby Albert than any we could possibly have discovered for ourselves, here in Cornwall.'

Biting back a question, Tom waited for Amos to explain … and the explanation was not long in coming now.

‘It would seem that Colonel Trethewy's estate steward is reticent about his life in India for a number of very good reasons, not least of them being that he has a wife and children there!'

This was startling news indeed and Tom said, ‘You mean he married Kerensa bigamously?'

‘Most probably, although whether we could ever prove it in an English court is debatable. His wife there is an Indian woman named Shabnam and although the East India Company records have her recorded as his wife, Verity has been unable to ascertain whether they had a Hindu or a Christian church wedding. Whichever it was, Morgan and Shabnam have two children, a boy and a girl.'

‘If Morgan had left them there and started a new life back here in Cornwall why should he want kill Kerensa and his baby son?'

‘That's where his story becomes even more interesting, Tom.
The mutiny broke out in India, in 1857 and Morgan's family were living in Cawnpore when it was besieged by a very large army of mutineers. They, together with about four hundred other women and children took refuge in the hastily fortified army barracks, protected by some four or five hundred men, many being invalid soldiers and civilians. Despite this, and against great odds, they held out for three weeks. Desperately short of food and water their suffering must have been unimaginable until eventually they were driven to accepting terms of surrender from the mutineers who offered them safe passage from Cawnpore. But, instead of being led to safety, they were turned upon by their besiegers and all the men and many of the women and children were killed. The survivors were kept in appalling conditions until a British relief column was drawing near, when they too were cruelly murdered.'

‘But if everyone was killed then Morgan didn't commit bigamy with Kerensa, he was a widower … but how did he escape?'

‘Ah, this is where it all becomes very interesting, Tom! Morgan's story to the East India Company after the event was that when Cawnpore was sacked by mutineers he escaped and hid for days before making his way to Allahabad, further down the Ganges River, where he fell in with the British army column making its way to Cawnpore to rescue the women being held there. Unfortunately, the soldiers arrived too late to save any of them. His story was checked but there was such chaos in the country at the time that the East India Company had no alternative but to accept his story and because he was thought to have lost his family he was given a great deal of sympathy. When he expressed a wish to leave the company and return to England they repatriated him and awarded him a company pension.' Pausing and leaning back
in his chair, he said, ‘This isn't the story he told to Verity when they spoke at Trelyn, possibly because he didn't want to be questioned too closely about what
really
happened there.'

‘You say he was only
thought
to have lost his family?'

‘That's right. Apparently – and just how isn't known – his wife and the two children survived. Shabnam was Hindu anyway and both the children were dark-skinned, so with the help of one of the low-caste garden servants they made their way to the south, away from the area controlled by the mutineers, helped along the way by friends and family of the gardener. Shabnam eventually made her way to her parents' home. They are very wealthy and she and the family are now living with them.'

‘But didn't she look for her husband when the mutiny ended?'

Searching through Verity's letter, Amos found the page he was looking for and replied, ‘Shabnam explained that in view of the wholesale slaughter of Europeans in that part of the country she assumed he was one of the victims. The mutiny ended in 1858 and then the British Government stripped the East India Company of its powers and took over the running of the country. As you can imagine the affairs of the company were in turmoil, with so many of its employees dead, and property and documents destroyed, it was impossible to discover exactly what had happened to anyone. Morgan believed his family had been killed, and his family believed him to be dead. It was not until last year – two years after the end of the mutiny – that her father met up with someone who had known the Morgans in Cawnpore and was told that Horace Morgan had
not
been killed but had survived and returned to this country.'

‘What did she do about it?'

The story related by Amos had brought Tom to the edge of his seat and he asked the question eagerly.

‘She wrote to the East India Company, here in this country, telling her story and asking for information about her husband. She said that if the information about his survival were true and he was alive, her father was willing to pay for her and their two children to take passage to England to be together again and that they could either make their home here or return to India where Morgan could be assured of living a very comfortable life with her wealthy family.'

‘When did Morgan receive the letter? It certainly gives him a very strong motive for doing away with Kerensa – and the baby too, especially if he had any doubts about being its father!'

‘That's where there is considerable confusion, Tom. Because the clerk who received the letter was an alcoholic and had allowed his paperwork to get into an impossible mess, no one can say for certain whether the information about his wife being alive was ever passed on to Morgan, especially as the letter itself is still in the East India Company's office and there is no record of when it was received, or whether or not Morgan was informed about it.'

‘But we do know Morgan received letters from the East India Company since coming to Cornwall,' Tom pointed out. ‘The letter carrier has delivered letters to him with the company's seal on the envelope.'

‘True, and the chances are that Morgan
did
know his wife and family had survived in India, but he could always say the letters he received were something to do with his pension. Until we get hold of the actual letter telling him they are still alive – or a certified copy of it – we can't actually confirm the motive, let alone prove he killed his wife and baby because of it. We need to build up a cast-iron case against him for killing not only them but Jed Smith too, and make certain he doesn't have a watertight alibi
for his whereabouts on the night of the murder. We'll go over everything we've done so far and push some people a little harder, Tom. Jowan Hodge, for instance. Try to learn whether he really could have fathered baby Albert and, if so, was it possible Morgan somehow learned of it. Landlord Kittow might be able to help with that. Discover what his customers in the Ring o' Bells were saying about it and whether Morgan could possibly have heard the rumour there. I'll be happier when we have the letter sent by Morgan's Indian wife to the East India Company in our hands too, but our job isn't over, even when we have it in our possession. However strong the motive might be, we still have to prove the case against Morgan in court, Tom. We must gather every scrap of information that comes our way about Kerensa and Jed Smith … whether it incriminates Morgan or not.'

A
LTHOUGH AMOS FELT there was as yet insufficient firm evidence on which to arrest Horace Morgan for the murder of his wife, baby Albert and Jed Smith, Colonel Gilbert, Cornwall's chief constable was not in agreement with him when the two men met later that day.

‘I feel you have sufficient evidence to bring him to Bodmin for questioning, at least,' the police chief said.

‘That was my first thought,' Amos explained, ‘but Morgan is estate steward for Colonel Trethewy and in view of Trethewy's well-known opposition to us I felt it might be better if we left bringing him here until we had a watertight case against him.'

‘If the information you have about Morgan's Indian family is correct – and in view of its source I am in no doubt about it – then he could run off to India at any time. This is an investigation into a number of very serious murders, Amos, and our duty is to bring the perpetrator to justice. At this moment Morgan is a suspect … a very strong suspect. I appreciate your concern about Colonel Trethewy, but leave me to deal with him. When the Cornwall Constabulary was formed, Trethewy and a few other die-hard “country gentlemen” made our work very difficult. Indeed, they posed a threat to our very existence. Fortunately, due in no small measure to the efforts of yourself
and my other senior officers, the force has proved its value to the county and its people. Colonel Trethewy is now part of a fast dwindling minority who still show antipathy towards us. I will not allow him to hamper our investigation, whatever the outcome may be. Bring Morgan here to headquarters for questioning. '

Both men knew that Colonel Trethewy would be furious at the arrest of his land steward on suspicion of murder, but Amos realized Chief Constable Gilbert intended this to be a show-down between himself and the constabulary's most bitter and powerful opponent.

He would have preferred to be in possession of conclusive proof of Morgan's guilt before arresting him, but there
was
sufficient evidence to justify bringing him to Bodmin for questioning. Besides, Gilbert had always supported his policemen when criticism had been levelled against them during the early, difficult days of the force's existence, no matter how influential the complainant. He had earned the opportunity to hit back at one of his most virulent critics.

Horace Morgan would receive no special treatment because of the position he held at the Trelyn estate, but Amos realized
he
would need to be the one to make the arrest. He could not ask Tom to face the wrath of the Trelyn magistrate, although he would be accompanying him.

 

The two policemen left Bodmin for Trelyn early the next day to bring Morgan to Bodmin. Tom had expected they would be taking the light carriage kept at the headquarters station but Amos felt it would be quicker if they took riding horses. It would enable them to take a shorter route across the moor instead of needing to keep to the roads.

Morgan would have the use of an estate horse and be able to use it to return to Trelyn when their questioning came to an end. As Amos pointed out, unless Morgan actually confessed to carrying out the murders they would not be able to charge him.

They had been riding for a little more than an hour when Amos asked, ‘Isn't the farm where your gypsy girl is staying somewhere near here?'

The question startled Tom because at that very moment he was thinking that he had not seen Zillah for a few days and wondered how she was coping on the remote moorland farm.

In spite of this, he said, ‘If you mean Zillah Smith, yes, her grandmother's farm is only a mile or so south-east of here, across the moor.'

‘Well, why don't we take a ride there and see how she's getting on? We're still early and the last time I saw her she was very upset at the death of her father. I'd like to see how she is.' Aware that Tom was smitten with the girl despite all his attempts to hide it, Amos added, mischievously, ‘I've no doubt you would, too.'

In truth, just lately Tom had found himself thinking of Zillah with a frequency he found disturbing, but he had no intention of admitting this to Amos … or to anyone else and, ignoring Amos's final remark, he said, ‘I can't think of anyone bothering her right out here. Gassick Farm is as isolated a place as you'll find anywhere, but there's always the chance she will have remembered something of help to us, so as we're so close it won't hurt to call in to see her.'

Amos felt he had known Tom for long enough to know how he really felt about Zillah Smith, and he felt deeply sorry for him. Tom was a lonely man and she was a very attractive girl, but Amos believed it was a relationship that could have no happy ending. Romance between the two of them stood as much chance
of success as, say, a romance between his sergeant and Verity Pendleton!

 

Much to Tom's disappointment Zillah was not at home when he and Amos reached the Gassick farmhouse, her grandmother, Blanche Keach, explaining that she had ridden off after completing the housework and feeding the livestock kept on the farm.

‘Aren't you worried about her going off on her own knowing there's still a killer on the loose out there somewhere?'

Amos put the question to Blanche as he and Tom stood with her, watching their two horses drinking from a granite water trough in the farmyard.

‘Of course I'm worried,' the elderly woman replied, ‘but Zillah's a girl with a mind of her own. She doesn't take kindly to being told what she should or shouldn't be doing, for all that she's a good girl and does more than her share of the work about Gassick. But it's not what a young girl wants to be doing, especially one who's used to the gypsy way of life.'

Inclining her head in the direction of Tom who had walked away in order to lead both horses to a nearby hitching rail, she added, ‘When she brought him to Gassick I had hopes she'd found someone she'd settle down with but I didn't know he was a policeman then. The good Lord should never have put gypsies and policemen in the same world, they're like oil and water, they don't belong together.'

Blanche had only put into words what Amos had thought, albeit for differing reasons, but he made no comment, saying instead, ‘Do you have any idea in which direction Zillah went?'

‘None. I wouldn't even have known she'd gone if I hadn't seen her riding off on that pony her father brought in off the moor a
year or so back. He taught her how to break it in and so she did, although there's still no one but her as can ride it. I reckon the pair of them suit one another.'

‘Well, thank you for allowing us to water our horses, Mrs Keach, we'll be on our way again now. I am sorry not to have seen your granddaughter, but please tell her we are doing everything in our power to catch the man who murdered her father.'

Riding away from Gassick Farm, Amos looked across at his companion and said, ‘You look gloomy, Tom, are you disappointed at not finding your gypsy girl at home?'

‘I enjoy talking to her,' Tom admitted, cautiously, ‘but then I enjoy talking to a great many people.'

Remembering how Blanche Keach had spoken of her granddaughter, Amos said, ‘You'd be wise to keep your relationship with her that way, Tom. I had a chat with her grandmother while you were tying up the horses and according to her Zillah is very much a free spirit.'

Tom stiffened perceptively, but Amos continued, ‘She likened the girl to the pony she's riding. Zillah broke her in, but Blanche Keach says they are both more than a bit wild and not yet ready to conform … but let's press on and get to Trelyn Hall, find Horace Morgan and do what needs to be done. Even if he's not guilty of murder it should be interesting to hear what he has to say about the double life he seems to have been leading.'

 

Riding out on the moor, enjoying the freedom she felt there, Zillah had seen the two riders earlier and would have given them a wide berth … but then she recognized Tom. The recognition gave her a thrill of pleasure although had she troubled to analyse her feelings she would have told herself it was merely
because she had spoken to no one but her ageing grandmother for many days.

Flushed and exhilarated as a result of the headlong gallop, she pulled her pony to a restless halt when she reached the two policemen. After merely glancing at Amos, it was Tom to whom she spoke. ‘Hello, I didn't expect to meet up with you today. Have you come out here to see me … to tell me you've arrested someone for killing Dado?'

‘Not yet, but we're getting closer. Superintendent Hawke and me are on our way to Trelyn and North Hill now to speak to someone and look into one or two things.' Hoping he had successfully hidden the pleasure he felt at seeing her again from Amos, he added, ‘You really shouldn't be riding about the moor on your own like this until we've caught whoever is responsible.'

Working hard to control her pony which still had a great deal of energy left after the gallop and was uneasy in the presence of the two policemen and their horses, Zillah said provocatively, ‘Well, you could always come along to keep me company!'

‘I'm serious, Zillah, you could be in danger, I've told you that before.'

‘I know and I
do
appreciate your concern, Tom, but much as I love Grandma Keach she's a bit of a fusser and I just have to get away from her sometimes or she'd drive me mad. I don't think I've spoken to anyone else since I last spoke to you!'

Amos had not missed Zillah's use of Tom's first name but, making no comment he said, ‘Sergeant Churchyard is right, Zillah, you really shouldn't be riding about the moors on your own. It's not a good idea at the best of times and right now you really could be in danger.'

Aware that Amos's use of Tom's rank and surname instead of his Christian name was an indication of his disapproval, Zillah
looked at him for a few moments before saying, ‘Then I'd better not stay here wasting your time but let you get on with catching whoever it is I'm in danger from.'

With this she nodded at Tom, pulled her horse's head around sharply and, kicking her heels into its body, set off at a wild gallop once more.

Giving his companion a wry smile, Amos said, ‘You've found a feisty one there, Tom, I should hate to cross her! But let's press on and get to Trelyn Hall, find Horace Morgan and see what he has to say for himself.'