Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch (21 page)

“Did you hear Elspeth, everyone?” I said. “We don’t have to search the porch, the scullery, or the sunroom. Since they didn’t exist in Gamaliel’s time, he couldn’t have used them as hiding places.” I sensed impatience in my troops, but I was determined to impose method on their madness, so I hurried on. “Similarly, if he didn’t enter a room, he couldn’t have hidden anything in it, which brings me to my next question: Would a visiting clergyman have access to the entire house or would some rooms be off-limits to him?”

“It depends on the purpose of the visit,” Lilian answered knowledgeably. “If it were a casual call, I imagine the Reverend Gowland would be entertained in the parlor.”

“Lilian and Amelia,” I said, “you search the parlor.”

“If he came for a meal,” Lilian went on, “he would be invited into the dining room.”

“Grant and Charles, take the dining room,” I said.

“If his purpose was to visit a sick family member or to administer
the last rites,” said Lilian, “he would most likely be taken to the ailing person’s bedside.”

“How many bedrooms are there?” I asked Elspeth.

“Two,” she replied. “Both upstairs.”

“I’ll take one bedroom and Bree will take the other,” I said. “So far, we’ve covered the parlor, the dining room, and the two bedrooms…What about the kitchen, Lilian?

“I doubt he’d be welcome in the kitchen,” said Lilian. “The family might spend most of their time there, but it wouldn’t be considered a suitable place to entertain a man of rank. The same would hold true for the attic and the cellar. It would be almost impossible for a clergyman to enter the less public areas of a parishioner’s house without arousing comment.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll set aside the kitchen, the attic, and the cellar for now, but if we come up empty everywhere else, we’ll return to them.”

“There’s the upstairs lavatory,” Elspeth suggested. “It wouldn’t have been there in the Reverend Gowland’s time, but it was inserted into a space that had been a part of a bedchamber.”

“You search the upstairs lavatory, Elspeth,” I said decisively. I held up the old book bag containing my tool kit. “If any of you have trouble reaching into a narrow crevice or seeing into a dark corner, come to me. I may have an implement that will help you.”

Bree shouted “Bravo!” and began to applaud, but I wasn’t finished yet. For my grand finale, I opened the book bag and removed from it seven scrolls I’d made by rolling up pieces of notepaper. I kept one dummy scroll for myself and handed one to each member of the search team.

“Put yourselves in Gamaliel’s cassock,” I advised them. “You enter a room with a scroll of parchment and you leave without it. Ask yourself where you would—and could—hide it.”

“I say, Lori,” said Charles, examining his scroll appreciatively. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“I seriously doubt it,” I said with a modest smile, “but we won’t know what I’ve forgotten until we need it, so let’s get started. Good luck, everyone.”

Bree snapped to attention, saluted, and ran upstairs, laughing uproariously, but the others wished me good luck in turn before moving to their designated search areas.

Elspeth and I were about to follow Bree up the steep, narrow staircase when the doorbell rang. Elspeth bustled over to answer it and found Opal Taylor standing on her doorstep.

“Good morning, Elspeth,” said Opal. “Amelia told me last night that she’d be here today to hunt for the rector’s memoir, so I thought I’d come along and volunteer my services.”

“Thank you, Opal,” Elspeth said sweetly, “but your services aren’t required. Lori has everything under control.”

“Another pair of eyes won’t hurt, surely,” Opal protested. “As you know, the first page came from my cottage. It could be said that I have a personal interest in finding the rest of the pages.”

“It could also be said that too many cooks spoil the broth,” countered Elspeth, folding her arms. “We have all the volunteers we need, thank you, Opal.”

“But Elspeth…”

I sensed that Opal’s attempt to horn in on the search would be quashed by Elspeth, who had no intention of sharing the spotlight Willis, Sr., had shone on her. Experience had taught me that Opal wouldn’t give up easily, however, so I left the two ladies to fight it out on the doorstep and went upstairs.

Since Bree had already claimed the larger of the two bedrooms, I settled for the one that had lost nearly a third of its floor space to the latter-day lavatory. It was a snug little guest room, simply furnished
with an iron bedstead, a small chest of drawers, a tidy bookcase filled with books about the Cotswolds, and a modern but unobtrusive wardrobe that had in all likelihood been assembled after traveling up the staircase in a flat pack.

The room was full of character. Chunky rafters crossed the low ceiling, a chimney breast protruded from the wall opposite the door, and the oval rag rug glowed in a splash of sunlight coming through the gap between the checked curtains hanging in the dormer window.

I placed my tool kit on the floor and opened the curtains all the way, then faced the room and held my fake scroll at arm’s length. I gazed at it unblinkingly, hoping for inspiration, but my attempt to concentrate was foiled by a new set of noises coming from the ground floor.

I heard the front door close and the sound of Elspeth’s step upon the stairs, but before she’d reached the halfway point, the doorbell rang again. Elspeth gave an irritable sigh and a moment later Millicent Scroggins’s voice drifted up to me.

“Good morning, Elspeth. Amelia told me all about the goings-on here today. May I be of assistance?”

“Thank you, Millicent,” Elspeth replied in exasperated tones, “but—”

“Elspeth!” Selena Buxton sounded out of breath, as if she’d rushed to catch up with Millicent. “Have you started without us? No matter. I’m sure you’ll find something for us to do.”

“As a matter of fact,” Elspeth said forcefully, “there’s
nothing
for you to do. I appreciate your willingness to help, but—”

“’Morning, Elspeth.” Dick Peacock’s voice was unmistakable. “We heard you might need a hand today.”

“Always happy to chip in,” said Henry Cook.

“Have you found anything yet?” asked George Wetherhead.

“Have I found anything?” Elspeth expostulated. “I haven’t been given the chance to look! If you’d
please
go about your business…”

I suspected that Elspeth would spend the rest of the morning
fending off a host of helpful friends and neighbors, so I closed the guest room door and resumed my meditations.

I had no idea how the guest room would have been furnished in Gamaliel’s time, but if Lilian was right, it would have been occupied by someone in dire need of prayer—a feverish child, a fading grandparent, a mother worn out from giving birth too often. I wondered if Mistress Meg had administered her potions near the spot where I stood, and whether the man of God had given her his blessing or cursed her as an unholy hag.

Though the visiting rector might have been left alone in the parlor or the dining room, it seemed to me that a sickroom wouldn’t have afforded him much privacy. A sleeping child, grandparent, or mother might wake at any moment, so Gamaliel would have been compelled to use a hiding place he could reach quickly. It would have to be a place that wouldn’t be dusted or used for storage or altered easily, I reasoned, a place that wouldn’t be discovered until long after Gamaliel’s death.

My gaze traveled up to the rafters. Though I was relatively short, I could lay my palm against them. A man of average height could have curled his hand over them to feel for spaces that might exist between the ancient beams and the plastered ceiling. I peered upward for some moments, lost in thought, then took two thick volumes from the bookcase, stacked them one atop the other on the floor, and, after conscientiously removing my shoes, stood on them to examine the rafter nearest the chimney breast.

The wood was as hard as iron and beautifully textured, with the grain running in frozen wavelets along the length of the beam. I saw no holes or cracks large enough to conceal my faux scroll, but when I looked several feet to my left, a slight bend in the otherwise straight timber caught my attention. Since it was beyond my reach, I stepped down from the books, glanced guiltily over my shoulder, and stood on the bed.

I slid
my hand into the space created by the rafter’s curve, felt along the top of the beam, and gasped as my questing fingers encountered a hollow no deeper than a shallow bowl. The carpenter who’d constructed the cottage’s framework had concealed the minor flaw by turning it upward and away from discerning eyes, but the rector seeking the perfect hiding place had spotted it.

My fingers trembled as they touched parchment that had not been touched for more than three hundred years.

Nineteen

“I 
’ve found it,” I whispered. I stuffed the faux scroll carelessly in my pocket and lifted the real one from the bowl-shaped hollow as if it were made of glass. Like the scroll we’d found in the bell tower, it was tied with a black ribbon, but it was thicker and more tightly rolled, as if the third part of Gamaliel’s story were longer and more involved than the previous parts. For a moment I could do nothing but stare at the scroll in awed silence. Then I threw back my head and hollered, “I’ve found it! I’ve found the third page!”

Bree burst into the room as I hopped down from the bed.

“Where was it?” she asked.

“In the rafter,” I said, pointing to the ceiling.

Before I could conceal the liberties I’d taken with Elspeth’s guest room, Elspeth herself appeared in the doorway. She looked from my stockinged feet to the stacked books to the rumpled bedclothes and appeared to draw the obvious conclusions, but instead of scolding me for behaving like a hooligan, she smiled.

“Thank you for removing your shoes, Lori,” she said graciously. “Did your gymnastics produce the desired result?”

“Yes,” I said and handed the scroll to her. “You should be the one to present it to Amelia. Without you, I never would have found it.”

“Lori?” Grant called up the stairs. “Did I hear you correctly? Have you found the third page?”

“Yes,” I called back. “Wait for me in the parlor. I’ll be down in two ticks.”

I smoothed the bedclothes, returned the books to the bookcase, stepped into my shoes, picked up my completely pointless tool kit, and followed Bree and Elspeth down the stairs.

Charles, Grant, Lilian, and Amelia had assembled in the parlor, but they weren’t the only ones awaiting developments. The rejected volunteers—Opal Taylor, Millicent Scroggins, Selena Buxton, Dick Peacock, Henry Cook, and George Wetherhead—were standing just outside the large front window, looking in.

Elspeth scowled when she caught sight of the onlookers, as if she resented the hoi polloi witnessing an event she’d hoped to savor with a select few.

“Well, really…,” she said through tightened lips. “Of all the nerve…”

“It’s their village’s history, too,” Amelia said gently. “It’s only natural that they should take an interest.”

“Half the fun of making a discovery is sharing it with others,” said Lilian.

“They’ll hear about it anyway,” Charles muttered.

“Why don’t we give Lilian a chance to translate the scroll,” I proposed, “then read it aloud to anyone who cares to hear it?”

“It would be a generous, inclusive gesture,” Grant observed.

“Educational, too,” Bree put in craftily.

The word “educational” must have resonated with Elspeth, because she took a deep breath and swallowed her disappointment.

“My parlor is too small to accommodate such a large number of people,” she said. “The schoolhouse would be a better venue. We won’t even have to set up the chairs. Mr. Barlow neglected to put them away after the Guy Fawkes Day committee meeting.”

“Mr. Barlow is the church sexton,” Lilian reminded her. “He is not responsible for stacking chairs after committee meetings.”

“Be that as it may,” Amelia interceded smoothly, “the schoolhouse seems an ideal place for our purposes. Shall we reconvene there in an hour? Two hours?” She looked inquiringly at Lilian.

“Give me an hour,” said Lilian. “I’ve been boning up on my Latin.”

“Elspeth?” I said. “If you would do the honors?”

Elspeth lifted her chin, held the tightly rolled sheet of parchment out for everyone to see, and took three stately steps toward Amelia. I’d never suspected Elspeth of having a theatrical streak, but she was certainly putting on a show for her uninvited audience.

“William guessed that the glyph was an olive branch,” she said in a voice that had once paralyzed wrongdoers in the far corners of crowded classrooms, “Charles linked the olive branch to Dove Cottage, and Lori discovered the scroll in my guest room. It is my privilege, Mrs. Thistle, to present the third page of the Reverend Gamaliel Gowland’s secret memoir to you.”

Amelia, as if sensing Elspeth’s need to milk the moment for all it was worth, took the proffered scroll, kissed Elspeth on both cheeks, and thanked her formally on Alfred’s behalf as well as her own. She then presented the scroll to Lilian.

“Good luck with the translation,” she said. “We’ll meet you at the schoolhouse in one hour.”

Bree and I spent the hour with Grant and Charles, who’d invited us to lunch at Crabtree Cottage. While Charles whipped up a cheese soufflé and Grant showed Bree the proper way to clean an oil painting, I telephoned Willis, Sr.

I wanted to tell my father-in-law that I’d found the third page and ask him what he’d said when he’d telephoned Elspeth Binney in London, but he’d given Deirdre strict orders to hold his calls.

“He really means it this time,” she told me. “He’s been locked in his study since four o’clock this morning. I’m allowed to bring him meals on trays, but other than that, he refuses to see or to speak with anyone.”

“Has he eaten the meals you’ve brought him?” I asked apprehensively.

“I think he’s licked the plates,” she replied. “There’s nothing
wrong with William’s appetite, Lori. He’s just very,
very
focused on his work.”