Instruments of Darkness

4

Mrs. Westerman was lost in thought as they followed the path back to Caveley. Crowther looked about him at the thick and heavy hedgerows, fat with new growth, fists of Queen Anne’s Lace and curls of white bindweed. He wondered how his old lands were thriving under a new master. He had never met the man who bought the estate. He knew from his former agent that he was a brewer who, having established a fortune and married his daughter to a lord, now wanted some slice of convenient country to call his own. The agent had quoted him: “A true Englishman will never count himself truly happy till he has a bit of land to feed his children from.” Crowther had been glad to be rid of it. It was never supposed to be his, like the title, until the hanging of his elder brother. The ground would recognize a better master and flourish under a wise hand rather than an old name.

He realized they had turned up toward the copse where Brook had been discovered and glanced at his companion, wondering if the direction of her steps was unconscious or the result of some plan on her part. She caught the look and the question without him having to speak it.

“I was wondering if there were anything we could learn from the scene of the first murder. We would not have noticed the ashes of the letters by the witch’s cottage if Rachel had not seen the fire.”

Crowther considered a second.

“You think we may at least find Mr. Thornleigh’s cigar end, if he waited as he said?”

She nodded. “It would prove nothing, of course. But I might feel more like trusting him if we were to find it.”

They reached the spot and Mrs. Westerman went to the little bench in the clearing and took a seat as if waiting for an appointment there. She then bent far forward and turned the dry leaves at her feet over with her gloved hand. He stood to one side watching her. She worked with delicate and precise attention widening the arc of her hand with each sweep, softly biting her lower lip in concentration.

“Ah!” She straightened, the fat brown squib of a smoked cigar held between thumb and forefinger. He approached and took it from her, and held it up to his long thin nose as she dusted her hands clean.

“Yes, I think so, Mrs. Westerman.” He placed it in his palm and poked at it with one fingernail. “I would say this has not been here long, and that it was a good smoke in its time.”

“So Hugh did sit here awhile.” She looked at the view, with her hand cupping her chin. “However, Brook was surprised, so Hugh is unlikely to have sat here waiting for him in full view-if he was the murderer.”

“And the fact that the ring was left on the body would suggest the murderer had no time to search it when the killing was done, so it is unlikely he took his ease, having murdered Brook.”

“Unlikely, but not impossible. Hugh may have forgotten all about the ring, and wished to compose himself before returning to the house.”

“Indeed.”

Crowther took out his handkerchief and wrapped the stub in it, unsure why he did so, only thinking that it seemed disrespectful to her efforts in finding it to throw it back onto the ground. She looked out into the view again. The leaves of the oak on the slope before them stirred in the wind, the dense flowers of green shifting forward and falling back again.

“I would give a great deal to see those notebooks of Wicksteed’s,” she said to the air.

“Do you think it likely he will have written down what he knows? No one has told us he is an imbecile.”

Crowther took a seat beside her, but facing away toward where Brook was found. She did not reply for a while. The quiet of the place, its comfort, began to reach into his bones. He was as far above it as the clouds. He looked up to where they swelled and towered in the blue and amongst the leaves. She spoke again, as if there had been no gap in the conversation.

“I think he is an intelligent man, and a ruthless one. But I suspect myself: perhaps I still do not wish to call Hugh a murderer. And whoever killed Brook must have been in at the death of that poor woman also. I could not forgive myself if a man whom I had trusted had had a hand in the hanging of a middle-aged woman. I must think of her, and it makes my blood cold. She fought, and no help came.”

Crowther let the picture form in his mind. The older woman … was she tricked into going to the cottage of her own free will with the letters in her hand? Perhaps-but by whom? He could not think of anyone but Hugh with whom she could have made such an appointment. It was he who had been searching for Alexander. Surely if she had decided to reveal her supposed secret knowledge of Alexander’s whereabouts, she would have gone to him. Whoever she had agreed to meet, she had come in trust and been attacked. She must have realized that whoever she had met had meant her harm, for she had struck out, caught someone.

“Was the Thornleigh family at church this morning?” Crowther asked suddenly.

“Yes. Lady Thornleigh came in on Hugh’s arm. She likes to give the populace a chance to admire her from time to time and we do. It is impossible not to.”

“And Wicksteed?” She nodded. “I take it you would have mentioned to me by now if anyone attending had scratch marks apparent.”

She did not look at him, but he could hear the dry smile in her voice.

“Yes, I rather think I should have done.”

“If not the face, then it is most likely the arms of the attacker that are scratched.” Crowther pictured a man, waiting for the nurse in the cottage with the rope standing by, removing his coat in preparation for the heavy, physical work of killing another human being. The scene shifted in his head. The woman with her wrists bound, struggling, watching the rope being slung over the beam.

Harriet spoke. “She must have been gagged.”

No ride to Tyburn with all the crowd hooting and leering could be more terrifying than lying in that cottage on a summer afternoon, wrists tearing at the rope, gagging at the fine linen in one’s throat. He looked deep into the wood.

“I know you are not looking for comfort, but remember that blow to the back of her head. She may have been unconscious from that injury when her murderer put the rope around her neck.”

Harriet kicked at the ground beneath her feet.

“Perhaps. The wound was bloody, but the skull was not broken. It is as likely the blow was to stop her struggling while her wrists were tied, and she woke straining against them.”

Crowther could feel the cold earth of the ground against his cheek, the aching head, the desperate pull at the wrists. He could see the gloom, a gentleman’s boots stepping in and out of his range of vision as the slow preparations were made. He felt terror run through under his skin as if it had been injected into his bloodstream like mercury, slippery and cold.

“That is as likely, Mrs. Westerman.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “We should ask the squire to make a search of Thornleigh Hall. Check everyone in the household for scratches. Do you think he would dare?”

She shifted a little in her seat to look at him, her head to one side.

“Perhaps if the coroner finds the case to be one of murder, but I doubt it. Even if he found something suspicious, such scratches could be explained away, and the unpleasantness could be extreme.”

Crowther nodded slowly and got to his feet.

“Then we must find it ourselves-and quickly. In three or four days any wounds Nurse Bray left on her killer will have healed, and the moment be lost.”

Graves felt his heart sink. Having persuaded Susan and Miss Chase back to the table on which the black boxlay, and lifted up the first armful of papers it held, he found only faulty copies of old scores. His stomach lurched. He had not realized what faith he had put in the contents of the box. He stood to hide his emotion from the ladies and walked over to the window to stare down into the street-only to find himself looking directly into the upturned face of Molloy. He moved away again sharply.

Miss Chase had taken a handful of papers and was carefully turning them over in front of her, when she said, “Mr. Graves, I think I have found something.”

He took a seat opposite her and she slid a letter over to him. It was written in a simple, careful hand-female, he would guess-and dated some four years in the past. Above the date was written simply Thornleigh Hall, Sussex. He looked across at Susan, who blinked widely at him, and began to read aloud:

Dear Mr. Adams,

I have been received into the household with much relief. The people here have no experience, I think, in dealing with such an illness as the earl’s. He has lost his powers of speech almost entirely, and they fear the noises he makes. I believe he is just as he ever was behind his eyes though, and am happy to offer the poor gentleman what comfort I can. My lady visits from time to time, and I think it pleases him to look at her. I admire her devotion in remaining in residence. She has asked if he might ever be able to travel, and gave him a bitter look when I said I thought it not advisable. I think the earl must have missed the look though, for he continued to seem very content. They say that Mr. Hugh Thornleigh has decided to return from the wars in America to take charge of the estate in a few months, as soon as he can take passage over.

I should like to thank you again, Mr. Adams, for putting me in the way of this position, which I think shall suit me very well, and for your kindness in fitting me out for the journey. I shall continue to write every six months as we agreed, and of course keep quiet about how I happened upon this place. I would of course respect your wishes in these regards without your continued generosity.

Yours most sincerely, Madeleine Bray

Graves ran a hand across his forehead. “What can this mean? Who are these people? Have you heard of them, Miss Chase? Do you recognize any of the names, Susan?”

The little girl shook her head and looked afraid. Graves was worried he had spoken with more heat than he had intended.

Miss Chase took hold of the little hand and patted it. Then she said slowly, “Was there not an earl who married a dancer a few years ago, then fell ill within a year?”

Graves frowned at the tabletop in front of him, trying to pull the threads together.

Miss Chase continued: “Perhaps Alexander had family at the house. He was an educated man. I remember once hearing of a gentleman who was brought up very well in a country house. He was the son of the steward, got a thorough education and was raised to take his father’s place. He fell out with the family as a young man though, wanted to go and make his own fortune rather than look after that of another man.”

Mr. Graves looked at his fingernails, then curled them into his palms.

“What became of him?” he asked.

“He became rich and bought an estate of his own. That is the way of the world these days, I think. Good men can make their own way, if they keep their courage.” She looked at him with a gentle smile and he felt his heart lift a little.

Susan turned another letter toward Graves, her smooth forehead drawn down into a rather fierce frown.

“This is a funny letter! From the same lady, I think. Will you read it, Mr. Graves? I am not sure I understand it.”

He took it from her and cleared his throat.

Thornleigh Hall, Sussex

Dear Mr. Adams,

All continues here much as in my last. Mr. Hugh Thornleigh and Lady Thornleigh are not very friendly, and it is a shame when a family cannot comfort each other in such times, do you not think, Mr. Adams? I have learned however that the eldest son, Alexander, Viscount Hardew, has been missing from this place some years-indeed, I had the opportunity to see a portrait of that gentleman in his youth while cleaning some miniatures with the housekeeper and heard the whole story. I would tell it to you now, sir, but I suspect you know it already! I do not wish to give you any disquiet, Mr. Adams. Your secret, I swear, will never be won from my lips, nor will I ever make allusion to it again.

Yours, Madeleine Bray

Graves stopped reading, and there was a heavy silence in the room. He looked cautiously at the little girl, trying to guess if she had understood.

Susan stared hard at the tabletop; she could feel nothing but the gentle weight of the ring around her neck. A lost son? An Alexander? Her father was Alexander and a gentleman, but could he be so grand? She had seen earls while walking out in the park. They had none of them looked like her papa, and they had none of them seemed comfortable to her. Her mouth was dry. She blinked and looked up into Graves’s dark blue eyes.

“Might my papa have been the son of this sick man?”

Graves wet his lips and looked down a little hopelessly at the paper in his hand.

“This Miss Bray seemed to think so! It all seems very strange, Susan. Did your father ever say anything to you, that might have suggested …”

Susan shook her head vehemently. “No. Only when he asked about carriages and dresses the other evening.”

“There must be something else here.” Graves reached into the box again. “Let us go through the pages one by one.”

They set to work on the box again, each apparent offcut of score turned over, every bundle shaken to check nothing hid within.

It was Miss Chase who found it-a trio of papers concealed within a bundle of music Graves had previously put aside as mere camouflage.

“Here! Oh here, Mr. Graves.”

She spread them out on the table. A marriage certificate and two others registering the births of Susan and Jonathan. The names on the marriage were Elizabeth Ariston-Grey and Alexander Thornleigh. The children were Susan and Jonathan Thornleigh.

They stared at the writing until Graves was sure he would be able to recall the penmanship on his deathbed. He looked at the little girl.

“It seems …” His voice cracked and he swallowed as the little girl stared up at him, her eyes wide. “It seems Alexander always wanted you to have the means to return to the Thornleigh family, if you wished it, Susan. There is no doubt. These are your true names.”

“So I am not Susan Adams at all?”

“You are your father’s daughter, and he was too honorable a man to deny you what he chose to deny himself.”

He looked up, feeling Miss Chase’s eyes on him. She smiled at him and nodded. Susan’s hand suddenly flew up and covered her mouth with a little cry.

“Oh! But we must not say, we must say nothing! I do not think they are good people!” Her eyes filled with tears.

Miss Chase took her hand and held it between her own. “What is it, Susan? Why are they not good people?”

Susan turned her head from one to the other a little wildly.

“The man, the yellow man, said it was a message from the Hall! That’s what he said: ‘a message from the Hall.’ That must be this Hall, mustn’t it? If we say anything, they may send another man to kill Jonathan and me.”