A Bitter Truth (13 page)

He nodded. “Sad to say.” And then he surprised me. “You didn’t sleep in your bed last night, I’m told. Nor did the Lieutenant.”

I could feel the color rising in my face. Who had been talking out of turn? “I have no idea how Lieutenant Hughes spent the remainder of the night. As for me, I’ve just returned from France, and sometimes I find it difficult to rest. We’re accustomed to long hours and very little sleep.” It was not quite true—I had learned to sleep anywhere, whenever I had the chance. But I could hardly tell this man that Lydia had been crying herself to sleep in my bed and I hadn’t wished to disturb her. He would begin to wonder why she hadn’t slept in her own. And that would lead to more questions that I didn’t want to be the one to answer.

Changing the subject without warning, he asked, “How did Mrs. Roger Ellis come by the bruises on her face?”

“I wasn’t here when that happened. However I heard her husband tell his dinner guests that she had run into a cupboard door. It takes some time for such discoloration to fade.”

“It doesn’t appear to be that sort of bruise. My guess is that someone struck her with the back of his hand.”

“Then perhaps you should ask her.”

“I did. She refused to discuss it. Her view was that it had nothing to do with Lieutenant Hughes’s death.”

“There you are, then,” I agreed.

“When did you know that Lieutenant Hughes was missing?”

This was another minefield. “The first inkling we had was when one of the maids asked if she should continue to hold breakfast for him. We went to Wych Gate Church to look for him—apparently it was a favorite walk of his.”

“Why did you go in the station carriage, when there were motorcars available?”

“Mrs. Roger Ellis wished to take the train to London. But she was in no hurry.”

“It seems odd that Mrs. Ellis was so insistent on finding the Lieutenant.”

“He hasn’t been well. She treats him more or less the same way she treats her own son. As I understand it, she has known him all his life.”

“Why did the two of you—Mrs. Ellis and you—decide to go down to the stream?”

“I don’t really know,” I told him. “We were just being thorough. I remember she said something about her son and the Lieutenant playing there often as boys.”

“Mrs. Ellis insisted on walking as far as the stream.”

“I don’t remember her insisting.” I had a feeling Lydia had told him that.

“It seems to me that she searched until she found the body. As if she had known it was there.”

I wasn’t going to be drawn into speculating. “I was there with her. I saw her shock when she realized that something had happened. It appeared to be genuine to me.”

He changed direction. “Odd that you and the younger Mrs. Ellis should be returning to London with the house still full of guests.”

Exasperated, I said, “The guests, as you call them, are members of her family.”

“How well did you know Lieutenant Hughes?”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “To my knowledge, I’ve never seen him before this weekend.”

“And yet he came to the sitting room to speak to you late last evening. After everyone else had gone to bed. I’m told you were still dressed in your evening clothes this morning.”

“To be perfectly honest, he came into the room looking for the brandy decanter. He found me there and retreated without it. I hardly consider that a late-night assignation. He had a reputation for drinking more than he ought.”

He closed his notebook. “I would advise you, Sister Crawford, not to make any new plans to return to London at this time.” Rising, he walked to the door and held it open for me.

I stared at him, shut my lips on the comment I was tempted to make. But it was obvious that someone had been telling tales, and I suspected it might be Gran, whose tongue was not always guarded. She could even have pointed a finger in my direction to keep the police from asking too many questions about her grandson’s relationship with George Hughes.

After all, I was the stranger here.

Was she afraid that her grandson had killed his friend?

I suddenly remembered the accident before Lieutenant Hughes had arrived.

Or was it?

It would certainly make more sense to kill George Hughes before he could mention the child in France than to murder him after he had blurted out the fact of her existence.

Still considering that, I went up to my room to change out of my traveling clothes and for a moment stood there, looking down at my luggage where it had been brought back into the house and placed in front of the wardrobe. Someone had opened the valises and gone through them, I was sure of it. I hoped it was the police. But what could they have been looking for?

A murder weapon?

Chapter Seven

T
he day dragged on, the hours creeping around the clock with a pace that was maddening. I had the strongest feeling that people were avoiding me. Lydia, blaming me for taking so long packing and then agreeing to help Mrs. Ellis look for George Hughes, which in the end prevented us from making it to the station in time for the train, had disappeared. I learned later that she had locked herself into the small room above the hall, the one with the long windows. According to what Margaret had told me when we were making beds together, when Juliana was alive, Gran used to read to her there in the afternoons. But she had refused to set foot in it after the child’s death.

Lydia never knew Juliana, and so the room would hold no memories for her.

Thus far it appeared that the police hadn’t learned of the exchange between Lieutenant Hughes and Roger Ellis. It could very well supply the motive for murder that they had spent the afternoon searching for. On the other hand, once the story about the child had come out, why kill him? Unless of course someone feared that he was planning to search for and claim that child for his own.

Once she was in England, anyone could see for himself or herself how much the child resembled the dead Juliana.

Had someone been listening at the door after all? Or had George Hughes talked to someone else after he left me?

The problem was, the family couldn’t hope to keep the child a secret for very long.

The doctor and his wife as well as the rector and his sister had been present in the drawing room. How much would they confide to the police? I had a feeling that the rector would be circumspect, but Dr. Tilton was a very different matter.

Only the family had heard Roger Ellis quarrel with his mother over inviting George Hughes to Vixen Hill for the weekend.

It kept coming around to Captain Ellis. Or—his mother, if she were intent on protecting him.

I wished that someone would tell us how Lieutenant Hughes had died.

A very harassed Daisy appeared at my door. “There’s a caller for you, Miss. The gentleman who brought your other valise.”

Simon?

I should have known he would appear sooner rather than later.

Very likely my father had run him to earth and passed on to him what little I’d been able to say about finding the body. We hadn’t known then that it was murder. But the Colonel Sahib was not one to take chances. He’d have come himself, but he was probably in Somerset, while Simon was very likely still in London and therefore closer to Sussex. I was wrong. I discovered later that it was my mother who had sent Simon post haste, when she had finally cajoled my father into telling her why he’d been frowning after his conversation with me. And if my mother asked him for help, Simon would have flown here if he could have commandeered an aircraft.

I walked into the hall to find him standing there looking as much like a regiment as one man could.

That’s when I knew that somehow he’d already discovered more about this business of Lieutenant Hughes’s death than I knew. And he was already aware that I was one of the suspects.

“Are you all right?” he asked at once, making no pretense that he’d come merely to collect my party dresses.

“Yes, of course I’m all right.”

“You look tired.”

“I am, a little. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Why?”

Until now, we’d had the hall to ourselves.

The door opened, and Margaret came in, pausing on the threshold.

“I’m interrupting,” she began. I hastily made the introductions.

“Not at all,” said Simon, for all the world as if we’d been discussing the weather. “I’ve come to drive Miss Crawford to her parents’ home, but I’ve just been told she’s not free to leave. Meanwhile, she’s offered to show me the grounds.”

I opened my mouth to deny it and instead said, “I’ll just fetch my coat.”

I was back in two minutes. Margaret pointed to the door. “Mr. Brandon has already stepped outside. Such a nice man,” she added, and I knew he’d done his best to charm her. When Simon did that, it usually meant he was worried.

And I was beginning to be, myself.

I thanked her and found him waiting for me on the steps. Without a word spoken, we set out across the lawns.

“This is godforsaken country,” he commented at last, looking out over the blighted landscape. “I wouldn’t want to defend it.”

“It’s said to be much nicer in spring and summer.”

“It could hardly get much worse,” he replied.

We walked on, well out of hearing of anyone in the house. He stopped at the edge of the lawns, where I could see that the gorse and heather were already creeping toward this outpost of civilization. I shivered, turning my back so that I was looking at the house, not at the heath.

“Who is this man Hughes, and what is he to you?” Simon finally asked.

“You sound like my father,” I said, annoyed at his tone of voice.

“In fact, it’s one of the questions the Colonel instructed me to ask you.”

With raised eyebrows, I studied Simon’s face. “You telephoned him as soon as you realized that I could be a suspect. Even before you came to Vixen Hill.”

“That was another of the instructions I was given.”

“Well, yes, I’m technically a suspect, I suppose, but I had nothing to do with the poor man’s death. I only met him this weekend. I had probably addressed no more than a dozen or so words to him in all of that time, until last evening. And I was there when the body was found, but that was only because I didn’t feel that Mrs. Ellis—Roger Ellis’s mother—ought to go exploring down that twisting, overgrown path on her own. I didn’t expect her to find the Lieutenant dead. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been too drunk to walk. No, that’s not true. I had a feeling from the start that something was wrong. That’s why I went with her to the church. I know, she’s lived here most of her life, still—” I shivered. “This forest is—I don’t know—not haunted, but most certainly, it broods. I expect one eventually learns its moods, but that sense of—dying all around you is disturbing. I’m beginning to understand why Lydia came to dislike it so.” I shrugged. “It isn’t at all like Rajasthan, is it?”

“No, I agree with you there, Bess. What possessed you to come here in the first place?”

I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do about Lydia. She had a concussion, Simon. I’ve tried to keep an eye on her.” I launched into an account of the past three days, holding nothing back. I told him about Juliana, about the child in France, about the new breach between Lydia and her husband. And I told him the lies that had been circulated about my having spoken to George in the middle of the night.

Simon whistled. “Small wonder the man was killed.”

“What’s more, no one will tell us how he died. It might help me sort out what happened. When I saw the body, it appeared that he’d drowned.”

“According to pub gossip, he was struck over the head and then dragged a little way to lie with his face in the water.”

“Oh, dear God.”

“Quite. It could have been a woman or a man.”

“Which means I’m still a suspect.”

“Which will not please your parents.”

“Simon, twice last night George Hughes and I thought someone might be listening at the door. And for all I know, he encountered someone after he left me. But that was no later than three o’clock. He probably left the house somewhere around five, as far as I can decide from the questions the police are asking. It was still dark then. Where was he going? And why did he make his bed and pack his belongings before he walked away? Was he planning to leave before anyone was awake? That would have been terribly rude—and cowardly. And he didn’t strike me as a coward.”

He swore under his breath. “If he didn’t meet someone else, then very likely you’re the last person to see him alive before he left Vixen Hill. I’m not surprised that the police are looking at you as a suspect.”

We turned and walked back the way we’d come.

“Why did Mrs. Ellis think he might be at Wych Gate Church?” Simon asked then.

“Juliana is buried in that churchyard, and George Hughes remembers her almost as clearly as Roger Ellis does. I’ve seen the marker for her grave. It’s a lovely marble figure of a kneeling child, and her face is touchingly beautiful—just like the painting of her in the drawing room. He may have wanted to say good-bye. But then why didn’t he simply drive there, on his way back to London? It wouldn’t have taken him far out of his way. Oh, and there’s another odd thing. This morning, Captain Ellis told his mother that this story about the child is really a manifestation of shell shock. And she seemed to believe it. Then why her anxiety over Lieutenant Hughes’s whereabouts?”

“Shell shock? It’s hardly that.” He considered what I’d told him. “Bess. Is there any possibility that the child was murdered?”

“Murdered?” I was horrified. “The one in France?”

“No. Juliana.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure there isn’t. There’s no one—it’s impossible!”

“I don’t mean in cold blood. If she were suffering, someone might have taken measures to end it. Watching a child in great pain with no hope of recovery would drive anyone to end it.”

“He was too young at the time to have witnessed anything like that,” I replied slowly. “No, it’s the living child that must be behind this murder.”

“I don’t like the idea of your being a suspect. The Colonel will have an apoplexy if you’re arrested on charges.”

“They’ll let me go shortly. I do think the police will try to discover if I knew George Hughes in France. But Dr. Tilton is a gossip. He’ll tell the police about the child, and when he does, they will lose all interest in me. I’m surprised he hasn’t already made a statement.”

“Don’t count on anything, Bess. Look, I’m staying at The King’s Head for now. I won’t leave until you’re free to go with me.”

It was comforting to know that. But I protested that it wasn’t necessary.

“And do you think,” Simon Brandon asked, “that I could return to Somerset and tell your mother that I’d abandoned you to the tender mercies of the police and their logic?”

I had to laugh. “She’d drum you out of the regiment herself, if you weren’t already retired.”

“I’m serious, Bess. Don’t make light of this.”

“I’m not,” I told him, sober again.

We were nearly back at the house.

He said, “There’s something else. If someone at Vixen Hill is a killer, I want you to take this.” Reaching for my hand, as if to help me over a small depression in the winter-dead grass, he put something into my palm.

I didn’t need to look at it to know what it was. A small, two-shot pistol, little bigger than a derringer. Hardly deadly, but still better than no protection. I’d practiced with it occasionally when Simon or my father taught me how to shoot and care for weapons.

“Not a great deal of stopping power,” he said apologetically, “but it’s loaded, and it fits better into your pocket than a revolver. Keep it there. Don’t leave it lying around.”

“Yes, I will,” I promised him. “But I think I’m safe enough.”

“Unless the killer believes Hughes told you something he shouldn’t have, when he found you in that sitting room.”

I hadn’t considered that possibility.

We were on level ground again, and he relinquished my hand. I shoved the little pistol into my pocket a few steps later, and felt the weight of it, bumping against my hip as I walked. It was suddenly comforting.

“Perhaps the police have made a mistake,” I said hopefully. “I don’t want to believe anyone here killed George Hughes.” But I knew as I said it that it was wishful thinking on my part.

Simon didn’t waste breath telling me I was foolish. Instead he warned me, “Keep your eyes open and your wits about you. If I hear anything I’ll see that you know it as soon as possible. Remember this, there may be something else that George Hughes knew. And if he blurted out one secret, he was very likely to blurt out another.”

We had reached Simon’s motorcar. I said, “What other secret?”

“If I knew that,” he said, bending to turn the crank, “I’d have told the police long before this.”

And he was gone. I stood there, watching him out of sight.

Turning, I looked up at the house, and in the long windows above the great hall, I saw Lydia’s face staring down at me. She was angry still, I could tell that even at this distance, and I thought it odd that her anger was directed at me, not at Roger. Even if we’d managed to catch the morning train to London, we’d have been brought back to Ashdown Forest. Surely she must know that.

But people in pain seldom think logically.

I felt a rush of sympathy for Lydia. I’d never been married, I’d never wanted a child with such desperate longing, I hadn’t been faced with a truth so bitter it could very well have ended my marriage.

Gran was at the hall door, calling my name. “Your young man isn’t staying?”

“He’s taken a room at The King’s Head,” I replied. “And he’s not my young man. He was sent here by my parents.”

Ignoring my answer, she said, “The police wish to speak with you again.”