The Sudbury School Murders

Chapter Six

I found myself plagued on all sides the rest of that day and into the next. I rode back to the school, annoyed at what I'd learned at the inquest, that Sebastian had quarreled with Middleton. I wondered why Sebastian had omitted this crucial fact when he'd told me his story, and I wondered why I had not heard the stable hands speaking of it. I supposed the stable hand could have invented the quarrel-Sebastian had seemed surprised and adamant that it had not happened. But why should the man, Thomas Adams, invent the altercation? I had no answer. I also had no satisfactory answer as to why Sebastian had not told me of it.

My thoughts bothered me, and so I was in no frame of mind to contend with all that came next.

The first plague to set upon me was Rutledge. As soon as I entered the quad after leaving my horse at the stables, Rutledge bellowed to me.

I forced myself to turn and meet him. He came striding through the gate, plowing through boys in their dark robes like a cat scattering sparrows. He stepped up to me and spoke in thunderous tones.

"Damn you, Lacey, why did you not tell me about James Denis?"

I sensed the lads' curious stares all around us. I said to him, "Perhaps we should speak of this privately."

Rutledge opened his mouth to roar again, but just then young Timson strolled by, his mild brown eyes fixed on us with obvious interest. Rutledge noted him, snapped his mouth shut, and commanded me to follow him to his rooms.

Once in the study, Rutledge commenced shouting. I sat down, relaxing my stiff leg, and balanced my sword stick across my knees. I waited until he ran out of breath before I attempted to speak.

I said, "I had not met Middleton here until this Sunday afternoon. And I could not be certain he was the same man I'd seen in London. Before I had time to discover anything, he was dead."

"You ought to have come to me at once," Rutledge growled. "How did you know him in London? Were you in league with the man?"

"I did not know Middleton in any sense," I said impatiently. "I had seen him during my dealings with James Denis. That is all."

Rutledge's face grew still redder. "James Denis is not a gentleman with whom another gentleman has dealings. That you do speaks volumes. I cannot fathom why Grenville never mentioned this. He has sorely deceived me."

"Perhaps he did not think it relevant," I said.

"Not relevant? Denis is…" He spluttered. "He has a foul reputation. No one can deal with him and maintain his respectability. Why the devil did you seek him out?"

"I did not," I said. "He came to me. You flatter me if you believe I can afford his services."

"He came to you?" Rutledge gave me an incredulous look. "Explain what you mean."

"I cannot explain. He has assisted me in several small ways and sometimes requests my assistance. I avoid the man as much as possible, believe me."

"He asks for your assistance?" Rutledge exclaimed.

"Yes."

In fact, Denis had once told me, in his cold, calm way, that he wanted to own me utterly. He wanted me in his power, under his obligation, wanted me bound to him. Needless to say, I resisted with all my might. Still, he had manipulated me more than once to do what he wanted. It was a tense game between us.

Rutledge was looking at me as though he needed to reassess me. The look in his eye, I was delighted to see, was one of trepidation, almost fear. I wondered very much whether he had crossed James Denis in the past.

Rutledge did not press me. He told me to go away in his usual irritable manner, but his tone was wary.

My second plague was Belinda Rutledge. She accosted me, or rather her maid Bridgett did, and bade me follow her.

Bridgett led me up several flights of stairs to a darkened hall, the servants' quarters, I surmised. She took me to a servant's room containing two plain bedsteads and a washstand.

Belinda sat on one of the beds. She rose when I entered. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face wet.

"Miss Rutledge," I began, trying to sound severe. Her insistence on meeting me in clandestine places would not help matters.

"They arrested him." She sniffled. "They arrested him, Captain. You said you would help him."

I grew irritated. "I cannot simply make the coroner or the magistrate do as I like, Miss Rutledge."

She looked at me, wide-eyed, then her face crumpled.

I tamped down my annoyance and gentled my voice. "I told you that I would assist you, and I will. I am putting things in motion even now. I assure you that we will have him free before the assizes."

My voice rang with confidence, but even I did not much believe it.

"He cannot bear to be confined," she whispered.

"I know. But you and he must be patient. I have friends in London who can help."

"My father wants him hanged. He hates Sebastian."

I had to admit that had Sebastian cast his eyes at my daughter, my attitude toward him would not be as benign as it was currently.

"Many do not like the Roma, Miss Rutledge. You must be prepared for that." I paused. "I suggest that even when I do get him released, you steel yourself to send him away."

She looked up at me, eyes wide, tears on her face. I saw, though, behind her immediate pain and worry, that she knew I was right. Though Belinda was downtrodden by her father, she was not stupid. She knew that an association with Sebastian would ruin her. Her hesitation in sending him away would only put off the inevitable.

"Think hard on it," I said. "Imagine yourself at my ancient age and decide what would have been best."

She sniffled again, gave me a watery smile. "You are not ancient, Captain."

I would have been flattered, had I not suspected she spoke out of pity. "I will do what I can, Miss Rutledge. And I will let you know of any outcome. Do not seek me out again. Your father will not like it."

Her misery returned. "It is difficult to wait and do nothing."

"Yes, but it must be done." I made her a bow. "Good afternoon."

Bridgett made to lead me back downstairs again, but I told her I'd find the way. I left her to comfort Belinda and made my way back to the lower floors.

Boys were pouring up the east staircase when I strolled down it. I spied Sutcliff the prefect giving a dressing down to one of the younger boys, who listened in sullen resentment.

Sutcliff, turning away, saw me, and gave me a curious look. Then he moved his lanky shoulders and swung away down the hall, his black robe billowing behind him. I had not forgotten Ramsay's conviction that Sutcliff had followed Middleton the night of the murder. I wanted to speak to him and moved to follow him, but I lost sight of him in the sea of boys.

The third plague did not come upon me until the next morning. I woke early, determined to continue my investigations. I wanted to find Sutcliff and ask him why he'd followed Middleton-if indeed, Ramsay had been correct. I wanted to find Sebastian's elusive family, and I wanted to question the stable hand Thomas Adams myself about the quarrel he'd overheard.

I downed some bread and coffee and set off for the stables through a thick white fog. Thomas Adams was not in the yard when I arrived. A younger stable hand was there to help me saddle the brown gelding I usually rode.

"Did you hear them?" I asked him. "Middleton and Sebastian arguing?"

The young man looked phlegmatic and shook his head. "I was round t'other side. Drawing water. Didn't hear a word."

I questioned the other two stable hands, but they, too, had not heard the quarrel, neither of them having been in the yard at the time.

I gave up, mounted my horse, and rode off.

The fog became denser as I approached the canal, but the towpath was clear. I followed this path past the Sudbury lock and the lockkeeper's house. The lockkeeper was just opening the gates for a barge heading south, toward Bath. Several men stood on the deck of the narrow barge, but they were not Roma, not Sebastian's family.

The countryside was quiet, the muddy path muffling my horse's footsteps. The silent canal flowed on my right; high hedges and trees lined the path to my left. Sometimes the hedges broke, allowing me to glimpse green fields brushed by tendrils of fog. Sheep wandered across the greens, trailed by spring lambs.

As I neared Great Bedwyn, the trees became larger and more evenly spaced, the terrain flattening somewhat. I began to pass boats drifting up from Great and Little Bedwyn, the bargemen and their families continuing their journey toward Reading and the Thames.

When I reached Great Bedwyn, I saw, on a flat path on the other side of the canal, the woman I'd seen in Hungerford, the one I'd mistaken for Marianne. She wore a bonnet, and her was head bent so that I could not see her face. The gathered curls at the back of her neck were bright yellow, and her dress was fine, too fine for muddy walks through the Wiltshire countryside.

At the next bridge, I turned the horse across the canal and urged him into a trot. The woman glanced over her shoulder and saw me. She hurried off the road and into a stand of trees.

Marianne or not, her mysterious behavior intrigued me. I slowed my horse and ducked under the trees. There were enough saplings and overgrown brush here to make going precarious. I quickly spied the woman, and she spied me. She broke into a run.

"Stop," I called. "You will injure yourself."

She did stop. She stooped to the ground, dropping her basket. She came up, her hands full of mud and pebbles, and she flung them at me.

I swore. The horse, struck in the face, bucked and bolted. I strove to hold him, but my injured leg gave, too weak to help me. I lost my balance and fell heavily to the ground.

I found myself on my back, the wind knocked out of me. The horse trotted off, empty-saddled, my walking stick hanging from its pommel. As I struggled for breath, the woman loomed over me, her hands filthy, her eyes wide with alarm.

"For God's sake, Marianne," I gasped.

Under the bonnet, Marianne Simmons' doll-like face was as sharp as ever, her pretty eyes wary. "Lacey! What are you doing here?"

I pushed myself into a sitting position. My left leg throbbed and hurt. "I ought to be asking you that. I have taken employment at Sudbury. Did you not know?"

"Yes," she snapped. "I have heard the full details from him. I thought that if I bought myself a deep bonnet and only went about in the small hours of the morning, I could avoid you. I might have known."

"Why should you avoid me?" I demanded. "And why should you be here at all?"

She looked away. "I have told you so many times, Lacey, it is none of your business where I go and what I do."

"At least assist me to rise, please. Else I'll have to crawl all the way back to Sudbury, to the ruination of my trousers."

"They are already ruined," she said, unsympathetic. But she reached down to help me stand.

Once I was on my feet she said, almost contrite, "I would not have flung the mud if I'd known the horse would throw you. I thought I'd killed you for a moment."

"He did not throw me," I said. "I fell off."

"There is a difference?"

"Yes."

Even a very good horseman could be thrown by an unruly horse; an incompetent one simply toppled off. The horse had not been that frightened.

"I will have to lean on you," I said.

"Oh, very well." She retrieved her basket and allowed me to drape my arm across her shoulders. Surprisingly, she snaked her arm about my waist, supporting me while I hobbled painfully out of the trees and back toward the path. My horse, sadly, was nowhere in sight.

"I suppose you will rush home and write to him of this," Marianne said. Her words were muffled by the huge bonnet. "And tell him where I am."

"I do not report to Grenville," I said. "He will arrive in Sudbury soon in any case, because he wants to know all about the murder."

"Yes, I heard of it, and of the arrest of the Romany. My landlady in Hungerford speaks of nothing else."

"Things are not as straightforward as the landlady in Hungerford believes." I glanced down at her. "Did you walk all the way here from Hungerford? I must ask why."

"To confuse you," she said.

I professed myself confused. "Grenville is worried about you. He is on the verge of hiring a Runner to look for you. He will likely choose Pomeroy, my former sergeant. Your fate is sealed if that is the case."

She stopped walking, her eyes sparkling with anger. "I will return to London and to him when my business is finished. Why can he not let me be?"

I tried to mollify her. "I do agree that he should not try to keep you confined. But I must wonder, Marianne. He has been kind to you. In return, you treat him callously. He is a very powerful man, and he could make your life miserable if he chose."

"He treats you kindly," she said. "And some days you can barely bring yourself to be polite to him."

I had to acknowledge that. "He does like to control people and events, I admit. But at least he is benevolent."

"Is it benevolence?" she almost spat. "To have me dragged back to London by Bow Street? What happens if he decides to bring suit against me-accuse me of stealing from him or-or perhaps he'll force me to pay for the house and the clothes and the meals he's given me."

"I very much doubt that," I began, then broke off. I'd seen Grenville angry only a few times. He was a man who held himself in check, hiding his emotions behind a cool facade. His sangfroid made him enviable, and even feared, among the haut ton — a gentleman could lose the respect of others forever at one quirk of Grenville's eyebrow. I held such power in disdain, but I could not deny that he had it.

"You see." Marianne looked triumphant. "You cannot be certain what he will do. You must help me."

"Tell me what you are doing here."

"Damnation, Lacey."

My exasperation rose. "My help has been begged in the past several days by people who refuse to tell me the truth. If I am to assist, I must have complete candor. That is my price."

She glared at me. "And I could simply leave you here to take root in this meadow."

"Marianne, Grenville will hire a Runner, though I advised him not to. I imagine he has done so already."

Marianne bit her lip. I had never seen her look so anguished, not even when I'd spoken to her in Grenville's house a few weeks ago, where he had more or less confined her and assigned a maid and a footman to dog her footsteps. She'd been angry then, but now, she looked frightened. "I am not certain I can trust you."

I hid a sigh. "You will have to trust me. Who are you in Berkshire to meet? A man?"

"No. I've told you."

I shook my head. "You quite baffle me, Marianne. Any money Grenville has given you has disappeared with nothing to show for it. If you do not give it to a man, what becomes of it?"

She held up her hand. "Stop. Cease questioning me. I am not certain what to do. I must think."

She was trembling. I tried to conjure sympathy for her, and I really did wish to help her. Marianne struggled through life even more than I did. Grenville had offered to become her protector, to give her every luxury, but she fought him. Marianne loved her freedom, even if it brought her penury.

We walked for a while in silence. The path led behind the hedges and trees that screened us from the canal. I wished we could come upon a bridge over which to cross back to the towpath, which would be much easier to traverse. The track on this side was little used and often plunged right into undergrowth.

Marianne was lost in thought, and so was I, so neither of us at first heard the curious drone that came from behind a clump of brush. When I did hear it, I stopped, puzzled.

Marianne gave me an impatient look. I stepped away from her, walked a little off the track, and parted the grasses. I froze.

"Whatever is the matter, Lacey?" Marianne asked. I heard her behind me, then she peered past me, and gasped.

A horde of flies and other insects buzzed about a knife that was half-buried in the grass. It was long and serrated, the kind a butcher might use to cut up a carcass. The blade and the mud and grasses around it were caked with brown stains. The flies swarmed around it all.

I looked up. The canal was not five feet away, but thick scrub and trees screened it from view. We were perhaps half a mile from Sudbury in one direction, and half a mile from Lower Sudbury Lock. "Middleton was killed here," I breathed.

Marianne's hand went to her mouth. She looked green. "How awful."

I reached down and lifted the knife. I had no doubt that Middleton's lifeblood stained it. The killer had lured him here. Or-thinking of Middleton's past-perhaps Middleton had been the one who lured his killer to this spot, then the tables had turned.

Ramsay had told me that Sutcliff had run after Middleton in order to meet him on the road to the village. But this spot was in the opposite direction, south of the lock. What had made Middleton come this way?

The brush was much broken here. I stepped over the bloodstained grass and slipped and slid down to the bank of the canal.

A barge was drifting past the far bank, on its way to Lower Sudbury Lock. The man at the tiller stared at me curiously as I came plunging out of the brush, but lifted his hand in a courteous greeting.

I waved back, but my heart was beating excitedly. No wonder we'd found no signs of the body having been dragged through grass or mud near the Lower Sudbury Lock.

"He was taken to the lock in a boat," I announced to Marianne.

Marianne looked puzzled. "You mean a bargeman obligingly gave a murderer and his corpse a ride to the lock? Or do you think he was murdered by a bargeman himself?"

I climbed back to her. "Not a barge. A rowboat. There are ample places to tie a rowboat at the bank. The man murdered Middleton, tipped the body onto his boat, rowed up the canal, and heaved him into the lock. Then he could row back down to Great Bedwyn, hide the boat, and go about his business, or even portage around the locks so the keepers would not see him. He could be far, far away by now."

Marianne gave me her hand to help me to the top of the bank. "Surely someone would have noticed."

"Not in the middle of the night. It would be dark as pitch along here. Most barges tie up for the night near towns, not out here. This stretch would have been empty, and were it foggy, I doubt that anyone would even see a boat go past. No, he had perfect cover."

Marianne's face was still white. "It is gruesome."

"I know." I wrapped the knife in my handkerchief. "I must take this to the magistrate in Sudbury."

"Which you could do if I hadn't frightened away your horse," she said, looking chagrined.

"If I'd been on horseback, I'd never have found this spot."

I borrowed Marianne's handkerchief, tied it to the closest tree to mark the place, and then we resumed our slow progress up the trail.

"Why would he not take the knife away with him?" she asked as we made our way along. "If he took such trouble to remove the corpse, why not the knife?"

I considered. "Perhaps he was too agitated. Or perhaps he dropped it in the dark and could not find it. But do you see, Marianne, no matter what he did with the knife, that the rowboat is significant?"

"The rowboat you think he used," Marianne corrected me. "Why should it be significant? "

"Because it means that the meeting was planned. They either rowed here together, or they met here. It is unlikely anyone would chance upon each other in this bleak spot in the middle of the night. The boat was brought so that the murderer could get away without leaving a trail."

"I suppose," Marianne said doubtfully.

"Middleton did not meet a man on the road, quarrel with him, and fight to a deadly end. This knife is large-it's a butcher's knife, not a paper knife or a cutting knife that a man might just happen to have in his pocket. Someone fetched it specially. Just as they fetched the rowboat specially. So you see," I finished, "the murder was thought out, not done on the spur of the moment. That means that the idea that it was a continuation of Sebastian's quarrel with Middleton in the stable yard will not wash."

Marianne raised her brows. "You sound certain."

"I am certain. Someone knew Middleton, wanted him dead. Someone he was not afraid to meet in the dark on the side of the canal."

"He was a fool then," Marianne observed.

"He was not afraid. But perhaps, working for James Denis, he'd become confident that he could face any man who challenged him."

Marianne shook her head. "The Romany man could have done it, Lacey. Easy for him to steal a boat and a knife and arrange the meeting."

I disagreed. "Sebastian is big and strong and young. Even Middleton might think twice about confronting him alone in an isolated spot. Besides, they worked in the stables together-why would Middleton agree to meet somewhere else in the middle of the night? No, it was someone who did not want to be seen at the stables, and someone Middleton considered weak." My heart chilled as I spoke the words. "Such as one of the students."

"Or a tutor," Marianne said. "I've seen some of them. They look a bit spindly and colorless."

"Or a tutor," I glumly agreed.

"But would a lad or a spindly tutor have been strong enough to kill him?"

"Possibly, if they took him by surprise. The boat points to a person not as strong as Middleton. That person already knew he could not carry the corpse away, and so provided the boat."

"You are on flights of fancy, Lacey," Marianne said skeptically. "Why not simply slide the body into the canal and have done?"

"To point attention away from the spot, perhaps to incriminate someone else. The lockkeeper, for instance, is a large and strong man. The body is found in the lock-there is the strong lockkeeper living next to it. Probably the constable was supposed to suspect him. But Rutledge muddied things by insisting that Sebastian had committed the crime."

Marianne did not answer, merely kept her head bent, her gaze on the trail. When we at last turned onto the narrow track that passed the lockkeeper's house and led to the stables and the school, Marianne stopped.

I looked at her. "You will come no farther?"

"No, thank you."

She looked so downcast, so worried, that I wanted to pat her shoulder, but I knew she would not accept such a thing. "Grenville will be here soon," I said. "You must decide whether you will let him see you, and what you will tell him. If you wish to speak to me of it, or wish me to help you, send word to me.

"It is not a simple matter, Lacey."

"I see that."

She gave me a belligerent look. "I know you will tell him. You are loyal to him. Why should you be loyal to me?"

"Marianne," I said impatiently. I was much more interested at the moment in getting the knife to the magistrate than in her feud with Grenville. "I am beginning to believe that you and Grenville are a pair of fools. I give you my word I will say nothing to him until you give me leave. But I wish you would confide in him. It would, at the very least, make things more comfortable for me."

Her glance turned ironic. "And certainly I wish nothing more than to make you comfortable." She sighed. "I will send for you-perhaps."

She began to walk away.

"Where do you lodge?" I called after her.

She turned to face me, walking backward a few steps.

"Shan't tell you."

She swung around again, skirts swirling, and tramped on toward the canal.

I found my horse, the sensible beast, in the stable yard. Thomas, the stable hand, was just pulling off the saddle.

"A moment," I said. "I must ride on to Sudbury."

Thomas blinked once, twice, then fastened the saddle back in place without a word. I was in a hurry, but I took the time to ask Thomas about the quarrel he claimed he'd overheard between Middleton and Sebastian.

"It were him," he insisted, when I suggested he'd been mistaken.

"Where were you standing?"

Thomas pointed. At the end of the yard, a door led to a tiny hall and a stone staircase that led to the rooms over the stables. A small window broke the wall above the door. I peered at the dusty pane which overlooked the yard below.

"They stood by the gate," Thomas said, motioning across the yard. "Shouting. Could hear them clear as day."

"It was dark. You could not have seen them clear as day."

Thomas looked impatient. "Mr. Middleton was tall, wann't he? So is Sebastian. The tallest men in the stables. No mistake."

He was certain. I knew a suggestion that it had been another tall man, not Sebastian, would not be welcomed. I let it go and had him boost me onto the horse.

I rode to Sudbury and the magistrate's house. He and the constable were as excited as I to see the knife and hear what I'd told them about the spot near the canal. We went together back to the place I'd marked, the constable on foot, the magistrate driving himself in a one-horse cart.

The two men speculated over the crushed, bloodstained grass, and I showed them exactly where I'd found the knife. I told them my theory that the murderer had taken the body up the canal in a small boat. They were less inclined to believe that, but agreed that they could see no evidence that the body had gotten into the lock any other way.

They also agreed with me that the knife was made for butchering or cutting up meat for cooking. The constable was given the task of wandering through Sudbury and the nearby villages inquiring who had lost a knife.

I could do little more than point them to the spot and tell them what I thought. They were much interested in the area, less so in my opinions.

I left them, rode back to the stables, deposited my horse with the lads, retrieved my walking stick, and made my way back to the school.

When I reached the quad, I found commotion. The morning was fully upon us, light flooding over the eastern wing of the Head Master's house. In the middle of the quad stood Simon Fletcher. His brown hair was awry, his robe kilted back on his shoulders. He stared down at what lay in the middle of the circle of curious boys.

It was a pile of books, Fletcher's, I guessed by the look on his face. They were charred and still smoldering. The wind stirred sparks that whirled in tiny, bright flashes.

On the cobbles next to the pile of books was a placard, ill-printed, containing a foul-worded invective against boys learning Latin.

Fletcher lifted an anguished gaze to me. "My books," he mourned. "My entire library. Gone. I'll never replace them."

He kicked aside a scorched tome, scattering sparks and blackened paper.

At that moment a cultured, well-bred voice said coolly from the arched portico, "Good lord. Have I arrived at a bad time?"