Sheri Cobb South (14 page)

The young man’s lips twisted in a singularly unpleasant smile. “What else could it mean, when a man sets out alone for India and comes back four years later with an infant boy in tow?”

Strangely, horribly, it made sense. The youth’s golden brown skin and thick black hair could easily be the result of a union between an Englishman and a native woman.

Pickett’s eyes narrowed. “What is your name?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I don’t have one.”

“The gypsies must call you something.”

“Will,” the youth admitted grudgingly. “I’m called Will Huggins, after my foster father.”

“How do you know this? About Mr. Danvers bringing you to England from India, I mean.”

“You’re a regular Nosey Parker, aren’t you? If you must know, my mum told me, right before she died.” A shadow crossed his face, and for a moment he looked more like a confused boy than an angry young man. “I know she wasn’t really my mum, but I don’t know what else to call her.”

“When was this?”

He shrugged. “Two, maybe three years ago. Dates don’t matter much to the gypsies. I always knew the Hugginses weren’t my real folks, Mum nor Dad, neither. They were both fair and short and plump, and I’m—well, look at me. I think my mum knew I’d always wondered, and that’s why she decided to tell me, before it was too late.”

“What, exactly, did she say?”

Again that shrug, half careless, half defiant. “What I just told you. That Danvers had come back to England after four years in India, bringing a babe almost two years old. That he left me with them, seeing as how they’d lost their own child to the croup, and sent them money twice a year to care for me.”

“You say Mrs. Huggins is dead now. What of your foster father?”

“Aye, he went first of all.”

“And so you joined the gypsies.”

“Why not? There was nothing for me in Little Neddleby anymore. It cost me everything they had left just to bury them proper.”

“So you joined the gypsy camp in order to reach your real father.”

“Maybe. But I never spoke to him, nor approached him in any way,” he added hastily. “So if you’re thinking I killed him, you’re wrong. I had a couple or three chickens off him, but nothing more.”

“I saw you in the ruins of the vicarage,” Pickett reminded him.

“Well, and what if I was? If anything survived the fire, wasn’t it rightfully mine? Not that I need have bothered,” he said bitterly. “There was nothing left but a few pots and pans.”

“And a poker,” said Pickett. Seeing the youth’s sullen expression give way temporarily to puzzlement, he explained, “I tripped over it, trying to catch you.”

“You wouldn’t have done it, anyway,” the lad said with simple pride. “I’m that quick on my feet.”

Pickett, who had chased down his share of London’s criminal element on foot, smiled but said nothing. A moment later, Miss Susannah Hollingshead joined him, full of rosy prophecies for her future.

“She says I shall marry a rich man and live in a fine house,” Miss Susannah informed Pickett as they retraced their steps through the woods. “But I think she may tell everyone that, for she said the same thing about Emma, and
she
says she will marry Cousin Colin or no one.”

Pickett, for his part, found it difficult to work up much enthusiasm for the futures of either of the Hollingshead sisters; he was too distracted by thoughts of the gypsy youth’s extraordinary tale. Here, certainly, was a more compelling motive for murder than the curate’s star-crossed love for Miss Hollingshead. Suppose Will had, in fact, confronted Mr. Danvers, and had been rebuffed? An idealistic young man, imagining a loving reconciliation and a permanent home, might well react violently to so bitter a disappointment.

Nor could Will’s youth excuse him: Pickett had known younger lads to kill and to hang for it. He would not soon forget the sight of a fourteen-year-old going to the gallows sobbing for his mother. While Will was well past the age of fourteen, something about the lonely youth reminded Pickett of the boy he had once been. He found himself hoping someone,
anyone,
else would prove to be the guilty party. He could hear Mr. Colquhoun’s most magisterial voice in his head, cautioning him against becoming too personally attached to the subjects of his investigations, and ruefully acknowledged that he was treading dangerously near that fine line. He took some small comfort in the knowledge that, on at least one occasion ten years earlier, Mr. Colquhoun had failed to follow his own advice.

* * * *

Some time later, Pickett confided his discovery to Lady Fieldhurst in the privacy of her ladyship’s bedchamber.

“It seems the good reverend Mr. Danvers was a man with a secret.” He paused, grimacing at the sound of his own words. “I’d best have a care about the company I keep. I’m beginning to sound just like Madame Rosa!”

“Who, pray, is Madame Rosa?” asked the viscountess, all at sea.

“A gypsy fortune-teller.”

Lady Fieldhurst gave a delighted crow of laughter. “Did you truly have your fortune told, then? I was certain you must be roasting me!”

“I did, but only as an excuse to go nosing about the gypsy camp.”

“And what did Madame Rosa tell you?” the viscountess urged.

Pickett, receiving the full force of her ladyship’s sparkling blue eyes and eager smile, had no difficulty in recalling the crone’s words.
There is something you want very badly, something just out of your reach ...

“That’s neither here nor there,” said Pickett hastily. “What’s more to the purpose is that there is a young hothead in the camp who claims to be Danvers’s bast—er, illegitimate child.”

“Is there indeed? How very ironic!”

“Ironic? In what way?”

“On the night he died, Mr. Danvers complained at dinner of gypsies stealing his chickens. He had even provided himself with a weapon to frighten them off—the gypsies, I mean, not the chickens.”

“I think I saw it,” said Pickett, recalling the charred remains of the fowling piece over the mantel. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

“I merely thought it ironic that, having assured Lady Kendall that night that he had no intention of harming the gypsies, he appears to have been harmed by one of them instead.”

“Maybe,” Pickett said slowly, “and yet I don’t think so.”

“Why not? You cannot deny the young man—we are speaking of a man, are we not? I cannot quite picture a female in the role of gypsy hothead.”

Pickett smiled. “We are, indeed. Only I would hesitate to call him a man. I daresay Will is still in his teens.”

“And you so ancient as you are!” she retorted, returning his smile. “No, no, I am only funning, so pray do not rip up at me about your four-and-twenty years! Tell me instead why young Will could not have killed his natural father.”

“I never said he
could
not have done so, only that I don’t think he did. As for my reasons—” he hesitated, searching for words. “Call it intuition, if you will, but it seems to me the fellow’s asking to get caught. He can’t quite bring himself to knock on the front door bold as brass and introduce himself, so he pinches a chicken or two in the hopes of forcing a confrontation the only way he knows how.”

“I see,” Lady Fieldhurst said slowly. “Mr. Danvers catches the thief and threatens to haul him before the magistrate, and young Will reveals his true identity. At which point the vicar clasps the prodigal to his bosom, and father and son are reunited, nevermore henceforth to be parted. Yes, it is just the sort of romantic story one is inclined to fancy when one is young. But what if Will had, in fact, contrived just such a scenario, only to be rebuffed? Might he not have struck the vicar in anger?”

“He is certainly the sort to react foolishly, possibly even violently,” admitted Pickett. “But I think he would stop short of murder.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Because,” said Pickett, gazing pensively into the fire, “if he kills Mr. Danvers, he kills his last hope. So long as his father is alive, there is some chance, however slight, for a reconciliation.”

Lady Fieldhurst found herself wondering what had happened between John Pickett and his father to put that faraway expression in his eyes. “Very well,” she said softly, “I concede Will’s innocence.”

Pickett was immediately recalled to the present. “I never said he was innocent,” he reminded her with a wry grin. “He’s a chicken thief, by his own admission.”

“So, if Will didn’t kill Mr. Danvers, who did?”

“I wish I knew. I can’t help thinking Will’s paternity is mixed up in it somehow, though. If Will found out about it, who’s to say someone else hasn’t?”

“Do you think Mr. Danvers was being blackmailed, then?”

“Something like that. But in that case, it would have been more likely for the blackmailer to be murdered by the victim, rather than the other way ‘round.”

Her ladyship frowned thoughtfully. “It would seem so. And yet, whatever his youthful indiscretions, Mr. Danvers seemed to be a good man. What if he had determined to make a public confession of his past sins? Not only would the blackmailer’s source of income be eliminated, but his own reputation would be ruined, should the vicar make public that particular aspect of the story.”

“An interesting theory, my lady,” observed Pickett. “Unfortunately, we’ll need solid evidence to make it stick, and most of that appears to have burned up in the vicarage fire.”

“What of the blackmailer?” asked her ladyship, pondering a new possibility. “Would he not keep records of payments received?”

“Very likely, if we knew where to look.” He noticed her arrested expression. “You’ve thought of something.”

“I think perhaps I have,” she said with great deliberation. “At dinner that night, Mr. Danvers asked Sir Gerald if he might speak to him on a matter of some importance. Sir Gerald agreed to see him but, as I recall, changed the subject rather abruptly.”

“So you think Sir Gerald may have been the blackmailer, and the vicar intended to tell him the game was up?”

She shrugged. “It makes as much sense as anything else we’ve come up with.”

Pickett was silent for a long moment, then asked, “Tell me, does Sir Gerald employ a steward?”

“No, he is very much the country gentleman and takes great pride in managing the estate himself. Why? Does it matter?”

“It means he could record income from blackmail payments without having to worry about awkward questions from his steward,” he explained. “Whether he actually did so or not remains to be seen. Do you know where Sir Gerald does his bookkeeping?”

“He doesn’t have a study, as far as I know, but there is a locked desk in the library. I daresay that would be the most likely place to keep important papers.”

“What time does the household usually settle down for the night?”

“Around midnight usually.” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “John Pickett! Tell me you don’t intend to burgle the library!”

He met her accusing look with one of utmost innocence. “I’m not going to
steal
anything.”

“You will be careful, won’t you?”

“I’ll try,” he said, crossing the room to the service door. “If I’m not serving at breakfast tomorrow, you’ll know I was discovered and thrown into the nearest roundhouse.”

He pushed open the panel. As he stepped through the opening, Lady Fieldhurst called, “Oh, John?”

“Yes, my lady?”

Her blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “You never did tell me what Madame Rosa said.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?” he retorted, and disappeared down the narrow stair.

* * * *

On evenings when there were no dinner guests, the Hollingsheads kept country hours. Dinner was served promptly at five o’clock, and by eight, the household staff had not only finished its own meal, but had washed, dried, and stored away the dishes, down to the last teaspoon. Pickett, having completed his daily duties, was left to while away the remaining hours until midnight as best he might. He retired to his tiny bedchamber in the attic, withdrew his notebook from its hiding place beneath the mattress, and began to make notes.

Having at last committed the curious story of Will’s parentage to paper, he flipped back over the previous pages. They were depressingly few. He wished he had not been quite so hasty in agreeing to Lady Fieldhurst’s request that he keep his identity secret; it was woefully difficult to gather information when he could not question any member of the household directly. Common sense demanded that he end the charade and inform Lady Fieldhurst that he could not possibly investigate a murder under such a constraint. Unfortunately, his common sense seemed to be in remarkably short supply where her ladyship was concerned.

Gradually, a faint scratching at the door penetrated his consciousness. He snapped the notebook closed and reached for the edge of the mattress, but he was too late. Before he could secret it away out of sight, the door swung open on creaky hinges, and Miss Susannah Hollingshead swept into the room clad in nothing but her white linen nightrail.

“M-Miss Susannah,” said Pickett, striving to appear unconcerned, “to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“Miss Grantham is being tiresome, so I thought I would come and talk to you.”

“Miss Grantham no doubt expects you to be in your bed,” Pickett pointed out, casting a wary glance at the half-open door.

If Mrs. Holland should happen to hear feminine accents issuing from the footmen’s quarters and come upstairs expecting to catch him and the predatory Molly
in flagrante delicto,
and instead discover him alone with the younger daughter of the house... He shuddered, his brain recoiling from a scenario too horrendous to contemplate. “It is quite late, you know.”

“Pish tosh!” declared Miss Susannah inelegantly. “It is only eleven o’clock. Emma is allowed to stay up much later, and when she goes to London she will stay out every night dancing until dawn!” She punctuated this statement with a series of whirling steps, arms outstretched.

“Very possibly, but Miss Hollingshead is rather older than you. Your day will come, but in the meantime—”

“Hullo, what’s this?” asked Miss Susannah, reaching for the notebook lying on the bed.

“Nothing!” said Pickett, snatching it from her probing fingers. “That is, it’s a sort of diary.”