Missing Susan

CHAPTER 13

HAY-ON-WYE

SUSAN COHEN WOULD forever think of Hereford Cathedral as an obstacle on the way to the used book mecca at Hay-on-Wye. She trotted through the morning tour of the Gothic cathedral with ill-concealed impatience, barely glancing at the cathedral’s pride and joy, the Mappa Mundi, a thirteenth-century map of the world. So great was her disdain that she did not even bother to liken the church or its exhibits to any comparable wonder in Minnesota. She fidgeted through the tour of the sanctuary and had to be nudged to remind her to stop tapping her foot while the guide was speaking.

Elizabeth MacPherson, unable to discover any murders, witch-burnings, ghosts, or other sensational items connected with the stately old church, shared Susan’s restlessness. The lunch stop, Hay-on-Wye, had both a famous murderer and used bookshops.

At last, the serious-minded members of the group finished inspecting the Mappa Mundi, the ancient books chained to benches in the library, and the carved choir seats. Rowan, for once, had little to add to the information supplied by the cathedral guide, and the tourists hurriedly resumed their places in the coach and headed for the green hills of Wales.

The A4338, a pleasant road with sweeping views of meadows, forests, and picturesque farms, took them out of Hereford and Worcester-and into the Welsh province of Powys. Only Bernard’s announcement, “Coming into Wales now!” indicated the change of country.

“How very odd,” said Elizabeth, studying the landscape. “Since England and Wales fought bitterly for centuries, I expected some sort of major barrier between the two. A great river, perhaps, or a forbidding chain of mountains. I come from Appalachia, where the customs and the accent are different from the rest of the South, because the mountains kept the cultures separate. But here there seems to be no geographic barrier. How did the Welsh maintain their separate customs and language, and why did they feel so different from the English?”

“I don’t know,” said Rowan. “They were Celts, of course, rather than being Angles, Saxons, Normans, and so forth, but I see what you mean. One would think that they’d have been intermarried out of existence years ago. Emma might have a theory. It’s a great pity she isn’t here.” For more reasons than one, he thought sadly.

“Of course, the different regions of Britain do have their individual characteristics,” Elizabeth mused. “Cameron and I have a tea towel at home that says: There were the Scots, who kept the Sabbath and everything else they could get their hands on. Then there were the Welsh, who prayed on their knees and their neighbors. Thirdly there were the Irish, who never knew what they wanted but were willing to fight for it anyway. Lastly, there were the English, who considered themselves a self-made nation, thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility.” Rowan smiled. “A generalization, of course, but arguably accurate. What about Cornishmen?”

“Much like the Welsh, I expect, judging from the tales you tell of smugglers and wreckers.”

Susan Cohen yawned and looked at her watch. “How long until we get to Hay-on-Wye? Welsh people speak English, don’t they? And the money’s the same?”

Rowan suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “Wales has been part of Great Britain for considerably longer than Minnesota has been a state,” he told her. “You may recall that the Prince of Wales is a close relative of the Queen.”

Susan blinked. “Charles? Is that what that means? I thought him having Wales in his title was just a coincidence; you know, like Mars candy bars and the planet Mars.”

Deciding that a dose of remedial history was in order, the guide turned on his microphone and said, “Perhaps I ought to explain the origin of the royal title. In the late thirteenth century, King Edward the First defeated the Welsh prince Llewellyn and made Wales part of his kingdom. Legend has it that the Welsh demanded a Welsh-born ruler, who spoke no English, to be their prince, and Edward promised them such a prince. At Caernaryon Castle he brought out his own infant son, who met the conditions of the request: he had been born in Wales, and he didn’t speak English-or anything else yet. Since that time, the heir-apparent to the throne has always held the title of Prince or Princess of Wales.”

“Typical of the English,” said Maud. “Phony islands, carbonated lemonade, and now royal impostors.”

“We’ll be coming into Hay-on-Wye soon, Rowan,” said Bernard, making a turn off the main road. “There is a tourist welcome center just south of the village, with a proper car park beside it. It’s the best place to leave the coach if you don’t mind a quarter-mile walk or so into town.”

“Will we be able to see Mayfield?” asked Elizabeth MacPherson eagerly.

“Is that Herbert Armstrong’s house?” asked Rowan. “I don’t know. Would you recognize it if you saw it?”

“I doubt it,” Elizabeth admitted. “I suppose it would be uncouth to ask at the tourist center?”

Alice MacKenzie laughed. “The Chamber of Commerce won’t want to promote their local murderer, I’m sure.”

“How long ago did he live here?” asked Frances Coles with a little shiver. She preferred her murderers to be fictional.

“About 1920,” said Rowan. “Armstrong was a major in World War I. He moved here to become junior partner to the local solicitor, who conveniently died as soon as Armstrong learned his way about the firm.”

“Armstrong was such a stick!” said Elizabeth. “In the picture I’ve seen of him, he looks like a horse with rimless glasses and a mustache.”

“His wife was rather fiercely plain as well,” said Rowan. “Of course, she had money. And he did have a girlfriend, so perhaps he didn’t mind. He wrote cagey letters to his ladylove, hinting that should his wife pass away, he would be in the market for a new missus.”

“I suppose he killed his wife?” asked Alice with a disapproving frown.

“Oh, yes. Arsenic in the champagne. He might have got away with that one, but then he tried to poison the other local solicitor, and he was found out. The man noticed that every time he went to tea with Major Armstrong, he became ill. Armstrong was actually carrying a packet of arsenic when they arrested him.”

“How did he explain that?”

“He said he used it to kill dandelions on his lawn.”

Nancy Warren laughed. “I wonder if I should try arsenic on our dandelions, Charles?”

Her husband shook his head. “I don’t think it would work on them, dear.”

“No,” Rowan agreed. “But it did put Mrs. Armstrong under the dandelions, so to speak. She was a tiresome woman, by all accounts. She banned another solicitor from local society because he came to one of her parties wearing flannel trousers. Despite this great provocation, her husband was hanged for doing her in, of course.”

“Why are murderers so stupid?” sighed Maud Marsh.

“I rather think that most of them aren’t,” said Rowan, trying not to take the question personally. “Crime experts will tell you that only a small percentage of killers are ever caught. Most murders are passed off as accidents or natural causes. The trick is to stop with one. When lots of acquaintances begin to die, people tend to ask questions.”

“Do you think murder is habit-forming?” asked Elizabeth. She was looking at him thoughtfully.

“For madmen it is,” said Rowan, turning pale as the question hit home. “But I suspect that scores of people commit one prudent little murder and live happily ever after.”

“Surely their conscience torments them terribly,” said Frances Coles.

“Yes, of course,” said Rowan. He thought nothing of the sort, but to say so would be unwise.

“Hay-on-Wye,” Bernard announced, swinging open the doors of the coach. “Two hours for lunch. And don’t get so caught up in shopping that you forget to eat. It’s a long way to Ruthin Castle!”

Two hours later, the tourists returned to the coach, laden with souvenirs emblazoned with the red dragon of Wales, carved wooden courting spoons, and paper bags of old books. Rowan and Bernard, impervious to the commercial lure of the village, had spent the two-hour lunch break in the local pub, enjoying ploughmen’s lunches and a pack of cigarettes between them.

Susan Cohen arrived at the coach with such a stack of books that Bernard had to open the luggage compartment to allow her to stash them away.

“How will you ever get these back to the States?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Ship them,” she replied. “I’ll get back before they do. They had some pretty good stores. Of course, we have better ones in Minneapolis, but ours are more spread out.”

Elizabeth MacPherson boarded the bus waving a battered green volume from one of the bookstores. “Look what I found!” she called out to Rowan. “A book on the Constance Kent case.”

“Oh, good,” said Rowan. “Is it Iseult Bridges’ Saint With Red Hands!”

“No. The bookseller mentioned that one, but he didn’t have a copy. This is an anthology of nineteenth-century murder cases.”

As the coach rumbled down the country lane and onto the main highway, the tourists settled back in their seats to enjoy the pastoral scenery or to read their newly purchased books. Susan took her usual afternoon nap. With a smile of amusement, Rowan Rover watched Elizabeth MacPherson poring over her crime volume. “Reading about Constance again?” he asked.

She nodded without looking up from her reading.

“Well? Did she or didn’t she?”

Elizabeth looked puzzled. “She confessed. Her nightdress was missing. She was admittedly jealous of her stepbrother. It seems very clear-cut and yet it doesn’t sound right somehow. The throat-cutting bothers me. Women poison; they may even strangle; but throat-cutting is very rare indeed. And a helpless baby whom she knew!”

“She didn’t confess at the time,” Rowan reminded her. “Four years later she said she did it.”

“Conscience?”

“Perhaps,” said Rowan. “Or she may have felt that suspicion was hanging over the family. And she offered herself as a scapegoat to remove suspicion from the rest of the household.”

“If she didn’t do it, who did?”

“Let’s leave that for a bit,” said Rowan. “Did you read the newspaper accounts of the initial police investigation?”

“Yes. The police were allowed to search the servants, but not the family.”

“There’s more to it than that. When the officers first arrived at Road Hill House, Mr. Kent offered them something to eat. He showed them into the kitchen and gave them plates of food.”

Elizabeth stared. “Victorian hospitality? Not even my aunt Amanda would be that gracious with a murder in the immediate family. I speak from experience,” she added.

“There’s more. When the Trowbridge policemen had finished their meals, they got up to continue the investigation, and found that the kitchen door was locked. No one let them out for two hours.”

“Good God!” said Elizabeth. “That wasn’t Constance’s doing. No one would let a teenage girl get away with that if they really wanted the murder solved.”

“Well put,” said Rowan carefully. “If they really wanted the murder solved. Indeed.”

She considered the implications. “They were hiding something. Then it couldn’t have been one of the neighbors or a marauding tramp, could it?”

“I think not.”

“One of the family, then. And you think Constance was protecting the killer?”

“Or the family was protecting Constance,” Rowan suggested. “Let us be open-minded for now.”

Elizabeth was silent for a few moments while she digested this information. Then she began to reason it out, speaking slowly and ticking off the suspects on her fingers. “Not the stepmother. There was no love lost between her and Constance. Not the nursemaid. Why should Constance bother to help a servant? One of her sisters perhaps?

“I doubt it,” said Rowan. “Constance had the most spunk of any of them. Besides, all that you said about teenage girls not being able to lock up policemen applies equally to them.”

“Daddy!” whispered Elizabeth. “She’d have confessed to save Daddy!”

“Most daughters would. And Samuel Kent certainly ruled the roost at Road Hill House. If he locked the constables in the kitchen, no one would have dared to let them out.”

“But he wouldn’t kill his own baby son,” Elizabeth protested. “It was such a violent murder.”

Rowan raised his eyebrows. “Well?” he drawled. “Was it?”

She flipped through her notes. “Oh, wait. The throat-cutting was done postmortem, wasn’t it? For effect. And the child was actually smothered in his bed. We know that because the impressions were still there on the mattress.”

“Yes,” said Rowan, nodding approvingly. “So Constance might have gone in during the night and smothered the sleeping child, but that would be a risky sort of murder, wouldn’t it? The nurse was sleeping nearby, of course. Why not take the child out for a walk one afternoon and drown it in the river when no one was around? Much safer.”

“Yes. Why didn’t she do that? Why would anybody kill a child in a nursery with two other children and the nursemaid present? Why would Mr. Kent do it?”

The guide contrived to look innocent. “Why would he be there in the first place?” he said casually.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Well, he fooled around with the first nursemaid, didn’t he? We know he did, because he took her for carriage rides while the first Mrs. Kent languished in her bedroom. And when his first wife died, he married the nursemaid! Mary Pratt, who was baby Savile’s mother. So you think he was up to his old tricks again?”

“I can see how it might be habit forming,” said Rowan, thinking of various escapades on his boat.

“Okay.” Elizabeth nodded, following the sequence now. “Mary Pratt Kent is asleep. Samuel gets up and goes into the nursery to fool around with the new nursemaid Elizabeth Gough. Baby Savile wakes up and sees them. Perhaps he starts to cry, which might wake the household-and then their little tryst will be discovered.” She was staring off into an expanse of blue sky, picturing the scene in the dark nursery at Road Hill House. “Samuel Kent just wants the child to shut up. He tries to make him stop crying, but he doesn’t know anything about child care or he’s too excited to be cautious, so he slams the baby’s face into its mattress and holds it. A little too hard, a little too long.”

“It wouldn’t take much,” Rowan pointed out. “Children are more fragile than adults. A minute. Not much more.”

Elizabeth shuddered. “The child suddenly goes limp and he realizes he’s killed it. Elizabeth Gough knows, though, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but what can she do? It’s 1865. If she admits she was having it off with her employer, her character is ruined and she’ll never get a husband or another job. She might even be charged as an accessory to the murder.”

“And instead of thinking about his poor dead son, Samuel Kent worries about his own reputation. He wraps the child in the crib blanket and carries it out of the house.” She flipped through her notes again. “Which is why the housemaid found the door ajar at five A.M.! And then to make it look like an outside killing, he cut the baby’s throat.”

“Murderers have done that sort of thing,” Rowan remarked. “In the 1970s the Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald killed his wife in an argument, and then murdered his two toddlers to make it appear that a band of drug-crazed hippies had killed the family.”

Momentarily distracted from the Road Hill murder, Elizabeth smiled. “Any band of hippies that would kill two babies and a pregnant woman, and then leave a husky Green Beret soldier with only a scratch, would have to be on a ton of drugs. I don’t think there’s that much stupidity in the world.”

“No, but he nearly got away with it. It took ten years to get the civilian trial that convicted him. And Samuel Kent got away with it, too, didn’t he? He was an upstanding man, well-to-do, and obviously sane. Although people did suspect him, they were finally persuaded to believe the confession of an unbalanced adolescent.”

Rowan pointed to Elizabeth’s newly purchased crime book. “Did you find a transcript of Constance’s confession in there?”

“I remember seeing it,” she said, leafing through the pages. “Here it is. Shall I read it? Okay, this is in 1865, after she’s confessed to her half brother’s murder, and everybody wants to know why she did it. Her lawyer, Mr. Coleridge, asks the court’s permission to say two things on Constance’s behalf:

“ ‘First, solemnly in the presence of Almighty God, she wishes me to say that the guilt is hers alone, and that her father and others who have so long suffered most unjust and cruel suspicion are wholly and absolutely innocent-’” With a thoughtful expression Elizabeth looked up from the book. “You think that’s why she confessed, don’t you? Because suspicion was still lingering over the household, perhaps damaging her father’s career. The tension of continuing scandal was probably very hard for a young girl to bear. Maybe she thought she had the least to lose.”

“And the second part of her statement?”

Elizabeth ran her finger down the page. “Here it is. ‘Secondly, she was not driven to this act, as has been asserted, by unkind treatment at home, as she met with nothing there but tender and forbearing love…’ What a crock! So she supposedly had no motive at all for killing her young half brother? Just a whim, huh?”

“So she would have us believe,” said Rowan in a carefully neutral voice. “Let me see the book. I’ve been told by a fellow crime buff, a Mr. O’Connor, that we will find her explanation of the crime most informative.” He skimmed the pages of the chapter on Constance Kent, paying special attention to the blocks of print in smaller typeface, denoting a quotation from court documents or other primary sources. “This must be it,” he said. “Dr. John Charles Bucknill, the physician who examined Constance by order of the government to determine whether she was of sound mind, published an account of her confession in several newspapers, supposedly at the prisoner’s request.” Rowan considered. “Well, perhaps she did ask him to publish it. If her intention was to divert suspicion from the rest of the family, she would need to convince as many people as possible of her own guilt.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Go on. How does she say she did it?”

Rowan adjusted his glasses and began to read in carefully measured tones. “ ‘A few days before the murder she obtained possession of a razor from the green case in her father’s wardrobe, and secreted it. This was the sole instrument which she used. She also secreted a candle with matches, by placing them in the corner of the closet in the garden, where the murder was committed.’ ”

Elizabeth looked up sharply. “It was not!” she declared. “The police investigation said that the child was smothered in his own bed! The throat-cutting was postmortem. Why should she lie about that?”

“Why indeed,” murmured Rowan. “Let us continue. ‘On the night of the murder she undressed herself and went to bed, because she expected that her sisters would visit her room. She lay awake, watching, until she thought that the household were all asleep, and soon after midnight she left her bedroom and went downstairs and opened the drawing room door and the window shutters.’ ”

“How very premeditated!” said Elizabeth sarcastically. “Why, there’s mafia hit men who are less thorough than that. And this is a sixteen-year-old planning to kill a baby for no particular reason. Sure!”

Without comment, Rowan resumed the narrative. “ ‘She then went up into the nursery, withdrew the blanket from between the sheet and the counterpane, and placed it on the side of the cot. She then took the child from his bed and carried him downstairs through the drawing room.’ ”

Elizabeth interrupted again. “What about the suffocation?”

“She seems unaware of that detail, doesn’t she? Where was I?-‘Having the child in one arm, she raised the drawing room window with the other hand, went round the house and into the closet, lighted the candle and placed it on the seat of the closet, the child being wrapped in the blanket and still sleeping, and while the child was in this position, she inflicted the wound in his throat. She says that she thought the blood would never come-’”

“It wouldn’t if he was already dead,” said Elizabeth. She looked thoughtful. “But she says nothing of having smothered him in his bed.”

“No,” Rowan agreed, “in fact, she says that the child was not killed, so she thrust the razor into its left side, and put the body, with the blanket round it, into the vault.”

“What?” cried Elizabeth. “She claims that she stabbed Savile with the razor? I’d like to have seen her try that!”

“Yes, it is hard to stab someone with the blunt tip of a straight razor, isn’t it? Slashing, yes. But puncture wound? No, I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Well, this is rubbish,” Elizabeth declared. “If I were going to confess to a crime, I believe I’d endeavor to know more about the circumstances than this poor girl did.”

“Perhaps she was doing her best,” Rowan pointed out. “Some of it may even be true. If the child had been killed in the nursery, she could have carried him down as she described and inflicted the postmortem injuries to divert suspicion from the household. And I suppose that such an act might prey on her young mind as much as an actual murder.”

Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, contemplating the evidence. “She had no reason to lie,” she said at last. “If she was admitting to murder, she might as well tell how it really happened. Since she got it wrong, we can assume that it was because she didn’t know what actually occurred on the night of the murder. She was taking the blame for somebody else.” She sighed. “You’re right, Rowan. Your version is the only one that makes sense. Daddy is fooling around with the nursemaid, when the child wakes up and starts to cry. In trying to hush the boy, Mr. Kent accidentally smothers him, and then-perhaps with Constance’s help-he takes the child to the privy and cuts its throat to make the killing look like an outside job. Constance may be guilty as an accessory after the fact, but she didn’t kill the child. Why didn’t the authorities realize it at the time?”

“It was an unsolved case of four years’ standing,” Rowan reminded her. “I don’t suppose they wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth. I myself think that there was a certain amount of religious hysteria involved in her confession. Since the crime, Constance had been living at Brighton in a religious institution, and it was to the minister in charge that she first confessed. Why not? The crime had blighted her life anyway. What marriage prospects would she have with her family under perpetual suspicion of butchery? And what else could she hope for in that era? Not a job as a governess, surely?” He smiled at the absurdity of it.

Elizabeth took back the crime book and turned to the end of the chapter. “What happened to Constance? It says here that at her trial she was condemned to death, but that sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. I wonder how Mr. Kent felt about that.”

“A regrettable but necessary sacrifice,” said Rowan, in his best imitation of a Victorian patriarch.

“She served twenty years, then was released from prison. Oh, damn! This book says that no one is certain what became of her after that. That’s not fair! I want to know.” She looked suspiciously at the guide. “You know, don’t you?”

Rowan shook his head. “No, but I suspect that the answer is known these days. Scholars of Victorian crimes are like bloodhounds, and that’s just the sort of puzzle that would send them off baying through the courthouses on three continents.”

“I don’t have time to do that,” said Elizabeth, frowning.

“Here,” said Rowan. “Give me one of those mawkish postcards you’re always buying. Yes, that one of Glastonbury will do.” He pulled out his fountain pen and wrote on the back in his nearly legible scrawl: Please send information on final whereabouts of Constance Kent to Dr. Elizabeth MacPherson, c/o Mountbatten Hotel, Seven Dials, London. He addressed the card to Kenneth O’Connor in Yorkshire. “There,” he said cheerfully. “That will give you something to look forward to at journey’s end. Kenneth will know the answer to this, if anyone does.”