A Duty to the Dead

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A MR. FREEMAN agreed to conduct us to the home of Melinda Crawford.

She was a connection on my father’s side, her ancestors army officers who’d fought at Yorktown with Cornwallis, followed Old Duro through Spain, and danced with my own great-grandmother-so the story went-on that fateful eve of Waterloo.

As a child in India she had lived through the siege of Lucknow, where the British were nearly wiped out during the Great Indian Mutiny. She had seen death and disease close-up, and survived to marry her own cousin against all advice-and been extraordinarily happy with him. When he died, she returned to England by a roundabout route that would have made the hardiest explorer blanch to contemplate. At least those were the stories I’d been brought up on, and I’d believed them. When one knew Melinda, one did.

With that past, I was hoping she’d accept an escaped lunatic with equanimity if not precisely with enthusiasm.

I’d omitted the polite telegram signaling my imminent arrival. She just might take it into her head to telephone the Colonel Sahib and ask him if he knew what his errant daughter was up to.

She still might.

But it was worth the risk. No one would think to look for Peregrine Graham in Melinda Crawford’s lair, and if they tried, she was more than capable of dealing with them.

Her house was closer to Tonbridge than to Rochester, but I was wary now of Tonbridge, after our encounter with Jonathan Graham there. Better a long drive across Kent than the worry of a confrontation at the train station or the hotel.

A cold rain had started again as we set out, and the countryside, winter bleak, was colorless and dreary: muddy roads leading through brown, fallow fields, apple trees raising twisted limbs to the gray sky, sheep huddled wherever they could find shelter. And any people out in the weather were hurrying about their business with heads down.

Not far from Marling, we found the turning that led to the Crawford house, and shortly after that, the stone gates with their elephant lanterns loomed through the mists. As the drive wound up the knoll, the views were shrouded in rain.

I had heard many British exiles in India describe the “cottage” they would have when at last they could go home. Roses and daffodils and wisteria and all the beauty that the brown and tan and cream shades of Indian dust made impossible out there. Melinda’s gardens were beautiful in season, and she indulged herself with arrays of color. Not for her single beds of pinks and red, beds of yellow and gold, beds of blues and lavenders. Here flowers mingled in rampant glory, a rainbow of blues nodding to cream and yellow, lavenders touching rose and pink and dark blue, golds indulgently shoulder to shoulder with white and purple and red, all striking to the eye and visible from every window. Now of course the beds were dormant, but a bank of holly trees and a dramatic cedar and the leathery green of rhododendron softened the scene.

To a child, coming home on leave from India, this was heaven.

All the way here I’d debated with myself what I should tell Melinda Crawford, and how to explain Peregrine. Nothing believable came to mind.

We rang the doorbell, huddling close under the small porch. I had paid off the driver but asked him to wait until we were certain someone was at home.

The door opened, and in it stood Shanta, the Indian woman who had served Melinda for so long she could speak her mind without reprimand.

Now she took one look at the orphans of the storm on her doorstep and raised her eyebrows.

“I do hope,” I said, mustering a smile that had more of Cheshire cat in it than I’d have liked, “that Melinda is at home. It’s been a wretched drive!”

“Miss Elizabeth,” she said severely, “if you are eloping, you can go home now and be sensible.”

Thank God I’d warned Peregrine that the household was a little eccentric, but still I felt myself flushing.

“I’m not eloping. The lieutenant here is a patient, and he has nowhere to go. Er-the zeppelins destroyed his flat in London-”

He did look every inch the wounded hero-his eyes dark-circled and tired, his shoulders thin from fever, and his skin without much color. I found myself thinking that as my choice for eloping hero, he was off the mark.

“If that is the case, come inside and be warm.”

I turned to wave good-bye to Mr. Freeman and followed Shanta inside, taking Peregrine’s arm and ushering him ahead of me. I could feel his silent resistance-the muscles in his arm were corded bands.

We were taken to the study, where a fire blazed on the hearth and the room was suffocatingly hot. Melinda Crawford’s blood still yearned for the heat of India, and I could remember as a child thinking that all old people must be on the verge of freezing to death. Two other widows my father had visited over the years, wives of officers who had died out there, lived in the same tropical environment. They were the only people I knew who kept roaring fires in high summer. One had suffered from malaria on and off and was always feverish.

Melinda was seated in a chair, draped in lovely silk Paisley shawls, and she registered no surprise at seeing me in her doorway. I wondered why.

“I’ve had a letter from your mother,” she said, rising to kiss me. “She was worried about you. She said you haven’t been the same since you went to visit the Grahams.”

I kissed her cheek and smelled the scent of sandalwood and roses in her hair.

She was tall and straight, with the bearing of a soldier.

“And this is…” She turned to Peregrine and held out her hand like an empress greeting a new and interesting courtier.

Before I could stop him, Peregrine gave her his real name.

She turned to me again. “I thought the Graham boy you were so fond of died aboard Britannic?”

I could feel my heart fluttering into my throat. “This is his eldest brother,” I said, trying to appear nonchalant.

Melinda nodded. “Welcome to my house, Lieutenant Graham. Come and sit by me. I see you’re in the colonel’s old regiment. My husband’s as well. Wounded in France, were you?”

We sat down as far from the fire as was polite.

The room hadn’t changed much, crowded as it was with Melinda’s Indian souvenirs as well as objects she’d discovered on her travels. There was a tall porcelain Russian stove in the left corner of the room, a gigantic ceramic affair in blue and cream that she’d seen in Leningrad and shipped home. A samovar from Moscow-often used to brew her tea-stood on a table between the windows, and above it were two great African elephant tusks that curved around a Garuda mask from Bali.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Peregrine made of it all. If he’d thought the Prince Regent’s Pavilion intriguing, this must seem exotic in the extreme.

Melinda was asking him how much action he’d seen, and he was answering, “More than I care to recall,” and she nodded, satisfied.

“What brings you here, my dear girl?” she asked me next. “Your mother says your orders have been cut and should arrive at any moment. And I’ve yet to thank you for the letter you sent from Athens. Most reassuring, let me tell you.”

I said almost bluntly, “Peregrine needs somewhere to stay. Would you mind? He doesn’t wish to go home, and there are no beds to be had in London. He’s good company, and as soon as he’s well enough to manage on his own, he’ll be rejoining his regiment.”

“Of course he may stay. We’re a quiet house. If he doesn’t heal here, he never shall.”

I felt distinctly uneasy. Had she heard about Peregrine’s escape? Surely not. Truth was, I’d expected more resistance on her part. Damn Peregrine for not remaining Lieutenant Philips.

It was much later, after a light luncheon, that Peregrine was shown to his room by Shanta, leaving Melinda to cross-examine me at her leisure.

“Child, what are you playing at? The truth, if you please!”

“There’s nothing-”

“Balderdash. I’m not senile yet, Bess Crawford, and I’ll thank you to give me credit for knowing you well enough to see through your happy little charade. I do read the papers, you know. That man’s an escaped lunatic, and here you are roaming the countryside in his company.”

“He’s escaped from the asylum, but he’s not mad-you have talked with him for two hours or more, Melinda. Tell me you believe he’s crazy, much less a murderer!”

“What I believe is beside the point. There’s his family to consider. The world believes he must be dead. You can’t leave them to grieve. It’s unconscionable.”

“No, it isn’t. Not when everyone is glad to be rid of him at last. I don’t think he killed anyone. Did you know his father? Ambrose Graham? He was twice married, and Peregrine is his son by his first wife…”

I found myself telling her everything, trying my best to make what I’d done seem reasonable and logical under the circumstances. And all the while her dark eyes seemed to bore into my head to look beyond my words and find the truth.

“So you now think it must have been Arthur who did these terrible things? Except for the fact that someone else died after Arthur himself was dead.”

“I don’t know. It must be one of the sons. Everyone else was away that evening. Robert Douglas had accompanied Mrs. Graham to a dinner party. Lily Mercer was still alive, then. As she was when the tutor left the house. Peregrine feels he was persecuted by his stepmother after he found her in bed with her cousin Robert. I think she took Peregrine to London because she was afraid to leave him at home. Not because he was dangerous, but because someone might discover that he wasn’t what everyone thought he was and perhaps believe what he had to say. He was angry and violent sometimes, I’m sure, but not in that way-more frustrated and unhappy than mad or murderous. And I strongly suspect he was drugged part of the time he was in London, to keep him quiet. Especially between the time of Lily’s death and his arrival at the asylum.”

“So you would like very much to believe.”

“What else is there to believe?”

She sat there, thinking it over.

“Did it occur to you, my dear, that Peregrine was taken to London to die?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

“Yes, I know. But consider. He was desperately unhappy, his brothers were being treated to the sights, and he was left alone with a staff no one knew well. What was to prevent him from walking out the door and disappearing? But in London, without money or friends, where would he go and what would become of him? His chances of surviving were not good. How long would they have waited before calling in the police? Do you think this Robert Douglas could be counted on to see that Peregrine’s disappearance was permanent?”

I shook my head. “No. Robert is easily led, but he isn’t cruel. He lets things happen without demur, but he doesn’t initiate such things.”

“Then he must love Mrs. Graham very much indeed. Or know which of her children he fathered. Another point. Why was the maid Lily left in charge that fatal night? She was young for such responsibility-she couldn’t have been much older than Peregrine. Add to that, she was angry, rude to the young gentlemen, and she retired to her room, rather than remain belowstairs on duty, as she should have done. Peregrine could have been gone for hours before anyone noticed. It’s the only explanation, you see. But Lily went too far in her rage at being left in charge, and she was murdered. What a shock for Mrs. Graham, to come home and find Peregrine still there. You must ask Peregrine, indirectly, what his thoughts are about this view. It could be enlightening.”

I was still trying to digest her comments. I wanted to go straightaway and speak to him. But she put her hand on my arm and said, “No, let him rest. Is there no one else you could ask about events in London?”

“The tutor. Mr. Appleby. He was in London with the family. He must know more than he was willing to tell me earlier.”

“Well, of course, you must visit him again,” Melinda said.

“I let Mr. Freeman go-”

“I have my own motorcar, my dear, and Ram Desikhan to drive it. Leave Mr. Freeman and his like out of this.” She looked at the little watch she wore on a diamond brooch pinned to the left shoulder of her gown. “Too late today to make the journey-it will be dark soon. But tomorrow you shall go to Chilham and ask him. But carefully. Remember that.”

“But who killed Lily? If it wasn’t Peregrine?” I told her about events this morning in the butcher shop, expecting her to be as horrified as I was.

She said, “It’s an old trick. Carried to extremes here, of course. I remember once on the Northwest Frontier that a Pathan rebel was led to believe he’d killed one of his own family by mistake. It saved a feud, you see. The eye that offended was his, not ours. My husband was very pleased with the outcome. He was rid of two birds with only one bullet, as it were.”

“What became of the Pathan rebel?” I asked, intrigued.

“He went home and kept to his tent, like Achilles at Troy. They said his first child after that incident was born deformed and lived only a few hours, and he believed it was his curse for killing his own blood. He put away his wives, went into the hills, and died many years later as a hermit.”

“But surely there was someone to take his place?”

“Sadly there always is. But the point remains, my dear, that the brain can be fooled. I’m not saying it was in Peregrine Graham’s case, but if you introduce a horror that the mind can’t cope with, it runs away.”

“Shell shock,” I said, thinking of Ted Booker.

“Precisely. There were women at Lucknow who weren’t right in their heads afterward. We all thought we were going to die, but what was far worse, we knew it would be a ghastly death, an insupportable horror.”

Like watching the lifeboats being sucked into the screws of Britannic, and knowing that it could be one’s own fate as well. I shivered.

“I will keep your Peregrine Graham here. But this situation must be resolved. Tomorrow morning, go and see this tutor. If he can’t help you, then you must go home and leave your black sheep with me for the duration. You can’t take him to Somerset, and you can’t avoid your duty when your orders come. You owe your parents a little time with you, with no worries.”

It was early when I set out for Chilham. Ram, Melinda Crawford’s majordomo and chauffeur, was tall, graying, and very protective of his mistress.

He said over his shoulder as we turned into the main road, “This man you have brought, he is no danger to the Memsahib?”

“I wouldn’t have brought him if he was.” But Peregrine still possessed his pistol…

“It’s as well to ask. There is something in his eyes.”

We drove in silence after that, and as I watched the countryside pass by, I thought about the fact that Peregrine Graham was the heir to his father’s estate, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to buy a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes. I’d leave money with him, if I had to go. Whether he wished it or not.

We drove into Chilham late in the morning. I couldn’t send Ram into The White Horse for tea. He wouldn’t be welcomed there. But I brought him a cup and asked him to wait while I went to speak to Mr. Appleby.

“I shall be here in the car, if anything untoward happens. You have only to call,” Ram reminded me.

I thanked him and went down the lane between the pub and churchyard, trying to decide how best to approach the Grahams’ tutor.

And met him coming out his door as I started up the walk.

He wasn’t best pleased to see me.

I said, “Mr. Appleby. If you would walk with me for a little? In the churchyard perhaps? We won’t distress your wife.”

“I have told you, I have nothing more to say to you, Miss Crawford.”

“I’ve learned a great deal more about the events that put Peregrine Graham into Barton’s Asylum. I think it might be wise to hear me out.”

He had no choice but to fall in step with me as he turned the way I’d just come. At the head of the lane, he saw Melinda’s Rolls, and the Indian driver.

“Who is that, and what is he doing here?” He stopped short, staring.

“Waiting for me.”

“I see.” We continued into the square and paced toward the Jacobean manor house at the opposite end. “What is it you want to know, Miss Crawford? And why?”

“I’m just trying to understand the sequence of events that led to Lily Mercer’s death. Mrs. Graham and her cousin were attending a dinner party. You were given the evening off-”

“I was given no such thing. It was my usual day and evening free.”

“I see. And the servants were also given the evening off, since there was no one to dine at home except the four boys. Is that true?”

“Yes, yes, what’s your point?”

“It seems rather odd, to leave four active boys in the house with only a young housemaid to supervise them.”

“She had merely to serve their dinner, which was already prepared, and draw their baths. They weren’t small children, Miss Crawford, in need of tucking in and a bedtime story. They could see to their own needs. They were the sons of a gentleman, after all, not barrow boys.”

“But one of them, Peregrine, was known to be-difficult. He was fourteen, not ten, and Lily couldn’t have been more than eighteen?”

We had reached the gates of the manor house and turned to walk the other way. Even in the dreary light, the lovely Tudor houses gleamed white and black.

“It was Mrs. Graham’s decision to make, not mine. It was my usual free day.”

“Peregrine could have walked out, rather than attacking Lily. He could have gone anywhere. Anything might have happened to him. He wasn’t used to being on his own.”

Appleby stopped short.

“You are pressing your luck, Miss Crawford. We can’t change the past. Why rake through it? I should think that you would find the subject unpleasant enough to leave it.”

“You didn’t like Peregrine very much. You punished him at every opportunity.”

“Who told you that?”

Oh, dear…how to answer?

“It was rumored in Owlhurst.”

He turned away from me. “Peregrine was the most difficult pupil I’ve ever encountered. It took all of my skill and most of my patience to teach him. You have no way to measure what I endured.”

“You could have quit. You could have walked away.”

He turned to face me. “I liked the three younger sons. Why should I refuse to teach them? Why should I punish them for their brother’s deficiencies?”

“That’s rather arrogant, don’t you think?”

“Not at all. I’m a good teacher.”

“What if I told you that it’s very likely that it wasn’t Peregrine who killed Lily Mercer, although he was judged and punished for it. If you were such a good teacher, why didn’t you question his guilt? Why didn’t you see through the tangle of evidence and realize that it was not Peregrine, that it couldn’t have been him. Couldn’t you tell that he was drugged while he was in London? Surely there were signs, some indication in the character of one of the other boys that warned you to look in his direction. And what about that visit to a specialist, who could help Peregrine? There had been excursions to the zoo and the Tower, why hadn’t there been time to take Peregrine for examination?”

“I was well paid to educate four youths,” he retorted angrily. “I wasn’t paid to tell my employer that one of her sons was deficient in character-”

“Then you did doubt Peregrine’s guilt.”

“Not for an instant. I walked in the door, found the police in the house, and Peregrine Graham spattered with the girl’s blood. It was the most shocking experience of my life, let me tell you. The atmosphere was highly charged. Mrs. Graham was very emotional, on the verge of breaking down. The police were as shocked as I was. And Peregrine stood there with a dazed expression, not a word of regret, not a word in his own defense. Robert Douglas was a rock, I stood in admiration of his quiet ability to keep the household calm. I wasted no time on doubt, I saw the proof with my own eyes.”

“Perhaps not then. But later. Later you wondered. If you were a good judge of young people, as a teacher should be, you began to question what you’d seen and been told. Other things happened, to cast doubt on Peregrine’s guilt. Why didn’t you do something?”

A flicker of acknowledgment crossed his face. For the first time I saw the truth exposed-he couldn’t hide it, however much he tried. It was gone in a flash. And then rage took over. I thought for an instant he would strike me, he was so furious. I wondered how much of that fury was shame, because he hadn’t liked Peregrine, and at first had been glad to be rid of him. And later, he still said nothing, because he enjoyed his comfortable position with the Graham family too much to jeopardize it.

I wanted to ask him which of his charges was a murderer, but I didn’t dare.

He walked away from me, his shoulders so stiff with his anger that he seemed to strut. But I thought it was more the desire to lash out at me, held in check because I was a woman and this was a very public place.

I waited, in the expectation that he might turn, that he might get himself under control and protest that I’d got it wrong. But Mr. Appleby knew he’d already betrayed too much. He wasn’t going to risk betraying more.

I went back to the motorcar, drawing in a deep breath as I took my seat.

Ram said, “That man was very angry indeed.” He turned, his eyes anxious. “Is all well?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Take me home, if you please.”

We drove sedately out of Chilham, down the hill and toward the road west. I had stirred up a hornet’s nest. Pray God I wasn’t the one who was stung as a result.

We stopped on the way back to the Crawford house. I wanted to make sure that Peregrine had all he needed for a visit there.

It took me three quarters of an hour to find everything on my mental list, and I was rather pleased with the result. I’d had no luck in finding evening dress, but then Melinda had never been a stickler for dressing for dinner. She would accept Peregrine’s uniform.

Ram was waiting for me near Rochester Castle, and I paid the boy from the haberdashers a shilling for carrying my bundles and packages for me. He had struggled up the hill under his burden and was breathing hard by the time we’d stowed them safely in the motorcar.

He stared at Ram and said, “Who’s that, then?”

“My driver. He’s from India.”

“Does he have an elephant?”

“Once upon a time, he may have.”

Satisfied, the boy ran off.

Ram chuckled. But I was struck by something else.

Melinda Crawford’s driver must be unique in Kent… I should have insisted on hiring someone else. Someone who attracted no attention.

I settled back for the drive to Melinda’s house. It was too late to worry about today, but tomorrow I’d do things differently.

As we turned up the drive, I realized that I’d missed my lunch and was looking forward to tea.

Shanta greeted me and took my coat and gloves.

“Ram has packages that belong in Lieutenant Graham’s room,” I told her.

“Memsahib is in her sitting room. Will you have your tea now or later?”

“Now,” I said, and walked on to the sitting room. I discovered our tea had already been brought in.

“Peregrine will be down shortly. He was asleep when Shanta went to his room. Are you sure he’s well? That he doesn’t need to see a doctor?”

“I think he’s surviving on his will alone. But he’s not coughing as much, and I don’t think he’s feverish. Sleep is the best medicine, and good food.”

“What did you accomplish today?”

“I made Mr. Appleby very angry,” I said. “When I suggested that, after Peregrine had been dealt with and the household had returned to nearly normal, he had doubts about what had been done so quickly and without fuss.”

“But he gave you no feeling for which boy he suspected?”

“Sadly no. He’s an arrogant man, he takes great pride in being a good teacher, but I agree with what someone else said-he’s really second-rate. I don’t think Mrs. Graham wanted a sharp mind seeing through-”

I could hear the rasp of the door knocker.

“Who can be calling at this hour?” Melinda demanded testily. “No, don’t get up, my dear, Shanta will send them away.”

“My father-”

“-is in Somerset, I should think.”

But the sitting room door burst open, and brushing Shanta aside, there stood Jonathan Graham, backed by two burly police constables.

The raw, puckered scar across his face accentuated his determined expression. He knew what he wanted, and he was set on getting it.

“I’ve come to fetch my brother,” Jonathan said.

Melinda drew herself up to her full height and said, “I beg your pardon. Constable Mason, what is the meaning of this abrupt and very rude intrusion?”

I stood there, astonished, unable to believe my eyes. And then I collected my wits.

He’s guessing-he’s not sure-

The Colonel Sahib firmly believed in a sharp counterattack when the enemy began a tentative probe.

And so I did just that. “Your brother is dead. So I’ve been told. If you wish to know why I’ve been asking questions about what happened in London fourteen years ago, it’s because I’m not convinced that the real murderer was ever caught. Then there’s Ted Booker’s suicide-I have a strong feeling that he was murdered. It’s not remotely possible that Peregrine killed him, is it? And what about all those other deaths in Owlhurst-Inspector Gadd, Dr. Hadley, the rector? Peregrine was in the asylum during that time, was he not? This begins to shed new light on Lily Mercer’s murder, wouldn’t you agree, Lieutenant Graham?”

That rocked him back on his heels.

Constable Mason, the older of the two uniformed policemen, ignored me and said to Melinda, “It was reported, ma’am, that there was a dangerous murderer in this house, and we’ve come to fetch him before any harm comes to you or your staff.”

“And why should I entertain a murderer under my roof, pray? I don’t know this officer, Constable, and I’ll thank you to escort him out of my presence before I make a formal complaint to the Chief Constable. He dined here on Saturday last, and I can assure you he wouldn’t have done so if I consorted with murderers, dangerous or otherwise.”

I thought we’d carried it off. I thought we had between us put the fear of God into the constables and rattled Jonathan Graham.

Jonathan had looked from Melinda to me as she spoke of the Chief Constable, and there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

I said, into the silence, “Constable, if you wish to search the house, of course you may. Lieutenant Graham has been misled, maliciously at a guess-”

Just at that moment, Peregrine Graham came unwittingly down the stairs and turned toward the sitting room.