Death at Gallows Green (15 page)

Well. Her father had been loving, and far kinder than her friend Baxter's father, who fell to flogging his unfortunate wife and children when he got home from the pub on a Saturday night. Betsy had no doubt that a fair and incorruptible God would assign him a premier place in heaven, where he could enjoy his pipe and the view in comfort.

But Betsy was less certain about her mother's welfare, and it was that which led her to rethink her position on the matter of prayer. Her mother's seventeen pounds ten a year was not to be dealt out by God, but by the Standing Joint Committee of the County Police Constabulary. A skeptical realist whose experience as the daughter of a policeman had early introduced her to the darker side of human nature, Betsy did not trust the committee's good will. Not only that, but last Sunday's “O put not your trust in princes” still echoed in her mind. So she decided to call God's attention to the matter of the pension while there was still time for Him to have a hand in things without having to flex a great deal of divine muscle, and went to church to lay her petition before Him.

But it was not to St. Mary's in Dedham that she was going, her collie dog, Kep, trailing after. The God who lived in such a lofty church might be too grand or too busy to be bothered by the difficulties of small people. So that morning, she followed instead a winding lane that led away from Gallows Green in the direction of the River Stour, to a very old, very plain church built of red brick and flint rubble. She and Kep and Mr. Browne had explored the building and its adjacent cemetery quite often, although this was the first time she had come on official business. She left Kep at the door and went in. Inside, it was chilly and dim, the only light coming through the narrow windows of the nave and the rose window above the altar. She went down the north aisle to the tiny Lady Chapel, where she slipped behind the rood screen, knelt at the undecorated altar, and said what was on her mind.

“God, I wish You would keep Your eye on the people who are supposed to be giving Mother her pension, because it looks as if they are trying to cheat her out of it, which would be a very bad thing. Amen.”

Having thus succinctly put her case, she remained still for a minute, waiting to see if God planned to give her some sign that He had heard—a dove, perhaps, or even a pigeon. When nothing happened, she stood. She had done what she could. The rest was up to the Almighty.

K
ate pulled up the pony and she and Bea sat gazing a little church, quiet in the morning sun. “It's very odd,” she said.”Aunt Sabrina donated a large sum to help shore up the tower, but it still needs work.”

“Churches always want shoring up, don't they?” Bea observed realistically. “Our vicar is continually asking for money to keep the tower from falling down.” She climbed out and took a heavy bellows camera and tripod from the gig. “Is there a particularly good view?”

“Over there,” Kate said, pointing to a little knoll from which could be gained a picturesque vista of church, meadow and estuary. “But let's look inside first. There are one or two inscriptions I want to show you, and the north aisle has some very nice stone detailing.”

Inside, they spent several minutes examining the carved inscriptions around the stone baptismal font and a commemorative plaque set into the wall. Kate was leading Bea up the north aisle for a better look at the stonework when they both startled by a sudden apparition: a small girl in stiff tails, pumpkin-coloured shirt, brown corduroy trousers, muddy boots.

“Oh!” Bea exclaimed, stepping back. “Betsy!”

“Why, hello,” Kate said. “What are you doing here?”

“Praying,” was the crisp answer. “What else do people do in churches?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Kate said. She wanted to ask what Betsy was praying for, but she thought she knew, and the little girl's face did not invite casual inquiries.

“Did you come to pray?” Betsy asked, with more interest now, as if she might enlist the two of them in her petition to the Divine, whatever it was.

Kate smiled. “We came to see what we could see. And we're very glad to see
you.”

“Yes,” said Bea. “How is your mother? We will be stopping there to visit later this morning.”

Betsy's
I-suppose-she's-all-right-but-not-quite
shrug was perfectly comprehendible. “I can show you around,” she offered, with a proprietary air. “There's a sundial and some very old gravestones. One's a pirate.”

“We'll see the pirate,” Kate said. “But first, let's look at the stonework.”

A few minutes later, having admired the interior of the church, they went outside and were met by Kep, who escorted them to the back of the cemetery. The pirate's headstone bore an engraved name, a ship, and a cryptic bit of doggerel.

“I suppose,” Bea said thoughtfully, “he really
must
have been a pirate.”

Betsy turned to look out across the estuary, calm and gleaming in the late morning sun. “There's lots of pirates around here.”

“There used to be, you mean,” Bea said, bending over to examine a clump of silvery fungi. Kep looked at it with her, sniffing to see if it might be something he should remember and come back for later.

“No,” Betsy said. She clearly did not appreciate contradictions. “Now.”

“I really don't think there are pirates anymore,” Kate remonstrated gently. She thought of Beryl Bardwell. “Except in novels, of course.”

Betsy gave her a stony look. “You really don't
know
.”

“How do
you
know?” Kate returned. “Have you seen them?”

“Of course.” Betsy folded her arms across her chest. “Two nights before my father was killed.” She pointed across the field in the direction of a stone barn, a half-mile away. “Over there. At Highfields barn.”

“At night?” Kate frowned. She didn't ask
What were
you doing out here at night?
for she wasn't Betsy's mother. But the question did cross her mind.

“Mister Browne was hunting.” Betsy said. “It was mizzling, so I came with him. He sometimes catches baby rabbits on mizzly nights, and I take them away from him.”

Kate frowned, trying to imagine who Mr. Browne might be and why he was so interested in baby rabbits that he'd go out on a rainy night to look for them.

Bea laughed at Kate's mystified look. “Mister Browne,” she told Kate, “is Betsy's owl. I met him when we went looking for Jemima Riddle-Duck.”

“Oh,” Kate said. “I see.” She looked at Betsy. “What were the pirates doing?”

Betsy turned to gaze out across the meadow at Highfields Farm. Kate followed her glance. The barn was only one of several buildings clustered together. Some distance away was a farmhouse with smoke coming from the chimney.

“They were drinking rum,” Betsy said. She frowned. “But they weren't pirates exactly. They were more like smugglers. There were five of them. They whispered the whole while, drank rum out of a bottle, and they had horses and a wagon. But it wasn't loaded with dead men's chests. It was loaded with sacks. They drove it down to the river and carried the sacks onto a boat.”

“But smugglers smuggle things
into
a country,” Bea objected. “Not
out.”

“Maybe they plan to smuggle them into Spain,” Betsy said.

“Why Spain?” Kate asked.

“Because,” Betsy said, “one of the men was a Spaniard. They called him Juan. He drank the most rum.”

Kate looked at the little girl. “Did you recognize any of the others?”

“They had their hats pulled down because of the wet. But one was very thin and had a pointy chin and red whiskers. The other one had the same name as yours.” Betsy looked at Bea.

“Beatrix?” Bea asked, surprised.

“Of course not.” Betsy's tone added
you ninny
. “B-E-E, ‘How doth the little busy bee.' Mister Bee.”

Bea looked at Kate, her eyes wide. “Red chin whiskers? It must be Mr. Tod, the bailiff!”

“And Mister B. might be Tommy Brock,” Kate said. This morning, at breakfast, Mudd had reported to Kate and Bea what he learned at the pub the night before: that Tommy Brock (Mr. B. to his friends) seemed to have access to a large supply of shillings, which was quite remarkable since he had not worked since the last harvest, when he was employed by Mr. Tod. If Betsy were correct in her identification, the source of those shillings might be the pirates or smugglers or whatever they were, of whom Tod was one.

She frowned. It certainly looked as if Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod might be involved in something illegal—theft or smuggling, or both. But did that mean that they were connected with the death of Sergeant Oliver? And were the two of them involved with the theft of the emeralds as well? Or was that an altogether separate matter, unconnected to this one? And what of Lawrence? What was his role in all of this?

As Kate and Bea drove on to Gallows Green that morning, they had a long list of unanswered questions to discuss. But their discussion brought them no nearer to a solution.

E
leanor Marsden Fairley was in a dilemma. She had arrived at Marsden Manor the evening before in the company of her husband (the rather dull company of her husband, it had to be admitted). She had come with the full intention of laying her discovery of the theft of her mother's emeralds before Sir Charles Sheridan, whom she knew to be a man of great logical ability and an acute observer of human nature.

But this proved to be impossible, for when Eleanor had come downstairs to dinner that night, she learned that Sir Charles had gone to Dedham to spend the evening at the vicarage. Frustrated and feeling that she could no longer carry the knowledge by herself (the
guilty
knowledge, for she had by this time convinced herself that if she had not accidentally left the safe unlocked, Lawrence would not have yielded to temptation), she took the opportunity to approach her brother, Bradford, after Papa and Mama and Ernest had gone upstairs to bed.

Bradford, ten years Eleanor's senior, was an extremely handsome man with large blue eyes, blond hair and side-whiskers, and a charming smile. But the smile and charm were singularly absent just now. He was standing in front of the fireplace in the library, staring at the flames, with his hands in his pockets and a dark, brooding look on his face.

“I need to speak with you, Bradford,” Eleanor said, “on a matter of great importance.”

She spoke diffidently. Since the events of the week before, she and Bradford had not been on the best of terms. She had been dreadfully sorry that Ernest had refused Bradford's request for a loan, because it had seemed quite reasonable to her. But the money was Ernest's, of course, and Bradford should not be angry with her merely because she had been forced to convey her husband's refusal.

But then Bradford had seemed distant and angry a great deal of late. She did not expect him to share his feelings with her, however. The two of them had never been close. They were too distant in age for that, and Bradford had been sent away to school while Eleanor and her younger sister, Patsy, received their desultory and piecemeal education from various governesses. And of course Bradford was a son, the only son, and had always known that he would carry on the Marsden baronetcy and the Marsden traditions. He hadn't seemed to welcome that responsibility, and for over a decade had resisted his mother's efforts to find a suitable wife for him. But he must come to his senses soon, Eleanor knew, and seek a bride.

And if her suspicions were accurate, his choice had fallen upon Kate Ardleigh. Eleanor was sure she was right, for she had seen him look at Kate with speculative interest when they were together. From her brother's point of view, it would seem a good match: Kate was a lovely woman—a bit old, perhaps, at twenty-seven, but still quite pretty, with all that russet hair—and wealthy enough, now that she had inherited Bishop's Keep. Her estate bordered the Marsden lands along the north and would extend them considerably. And from Eleanor's point of view, the match was a romantic one, for Kate was her friend, and an American, and quite the most lively and adventurous woman Eleanor had ever known.

But it could not be Kate that Bradford was thinking of just now, for there was a fierce look in his eyes and his brows had come together. Love did not make a man look so stem.

“What is it, Ellie?” he growled.

“I . . . have discovered something dreadful,” she said. “I should have told Mama or Papa straightaway, but I didn't, and now I wish I had. But I shall tell you, and perhaps we can decide what to do.”

Bradford scowled at her. “Whatever are you carrying on about?”

Eleanor pulled in her breath. “It's Mama's emeralds. They're missing.”

Bradford stared at her, his scowl deepening. “How do you know that?” he demanded brusquely. “Have you been snooping in her safe?”

“No, no, of course not,” Eleanor said too quickly. She had not been snooping, exactly, although she admitted to having browsed through Mama's diamond and pearl cases, admiring the stones that would one day be shared between her and Patsy. “She had loaned the emeralds to me, and I returned all but the tea ring. When I opened the safe to return the ring as well, I discovered that the box was gone.”