Death at Gallows Green (33 page)

“You're sure?” he asked. “You're quite sure?”

Her only answer was a sleepy nod.

Kate looked at him. “What does it mean?” she asked. When he told her, her eyes widened.

Agnes gave an incredulous gasp. “You don't suppose she was dreaming, do you?” she asked. “Or that she saw something and invented the rest? She's given to making up stories, you know.”

“No,” Edward said softly. “Betsy did not invent the man. He's quite real. Quite real indeed.”

T
he Live and Let Live, which had been crowded at the inquest into Sergeant Oliver's death, was jammed to the rafters now, several days after the murder of Russell Tod. Three chairs had been set up at the far end of the room, in front of the trestle table that would serve as a desk for Coroner Harry Hodson. With deference to the women and the girl-child who were expected to be seated in those chairs, the coroner had ordered Russell Tod's coffin placed out-of-doors, where the jury could view it before they took their seats on the long benches arranged at right angles to the table.

Sanders the publican, in his usual too-short trousers and heelless slippers, his bald pate gleaming, was briskly clearing away the last of the glasses and bottles from the bar. His fat wife was collecting the remains of the beef and mutton pies that had graced the tables and promising,
sotto voce,
that more would appear as soon as the inquest ended, sooner, if the suppliant would walk to the kitchen.

Outside, above the babble of voices and the clatter of horses and harness, came the rusty voice of Old Willie Hogglestock. Old Willie had discarded his apron for the occasion and donned a green corduroy waistcoat as long as a groom's, buttoned to the throat with brass buttons. Much to the dismay of the publican's wife, Old Willie had pulled up his cart directly over the way and was plying not only his regular trade of fish, fruit, and vegetables, but offering as well ha‘penny slices of pineapples, ham sandwiches for a penny-ha'penny, and baked potatoes from a brass potato can that was hung over an iron fire-pot, the whole contraption ingeniously suspended from the back of the cart. Beside him, cleverly stationed to bask in the reflected glory of the brass potato can, was a young boy with a basket of walnuts, lifting his brown-stained fingers and crying in a musical voice, “Fine wamuts! Sixteen a penny, fine war-r-nuts.” And beside him, cross-legged on a blanket surrounded by pairs of old shoes, sat a swarthy man, a gypsy with a red neckerchief and blue-checked shirt calling, “Boots fer tuppence, fourpence a pair. Buy boots!”

It was into this jangle of sights and sounds that Kate came with Agnes, little Betsy wide-eyed between them, Edward close behind. Bea had wanted to attend, but her cold had prohibited her, as well as the prospect of possible newspaper publicity.

“It would not do to have my father read my name in a newspaper in connexion with a murder,” she had told Kate. “For all he and Mama know, I am safely at Long Melford, sketching squirrels.” Edward had discussed the matter with the coroner and both agreed that Bea's presence would not be required so long as Kate would testify to the discovery of Tod's body.

As Kate pushed her way among the crowd of people outside the Live and Let Live, she made mental note of the sights and sounds that turned the ordinarily quiet Lamb's Lane into a bustling fairground, intending to tell Bea about it in detail. She was not surprised at the commotion, for the village of Dedham and the hamlet of Gallows Green had been humming with speculation about the manner of Tod's death and his possible connexion with Sergeant Oliver's murder and Betsy's kidnapping. The expectation that all would be revealed had lent to the inquest the electric excitement of a magic lantern show. The villagers, to a person it seemed, had turned out for it.

Inside, the spectators opened a corridor for Kate and Agnes to pass through. The publican, acting as both host and bailiff, showed them to the chairs in front of the table. They were barely seated when a wispy clerk perched on his stool and silenced the din with his shouted “Gentlemen, the Coroner!”

Magisterial in girth and manner, Harry Hodson appeared, seated himself in the oak chair, and signaled the clerk to read the proclamation. Upon its conclusion, the coroner began to call aloud the names of the jurors who were to be empaneled. It would be sufficient, Kate knew, for a verdict to be returned by twelve men. Owing to the importance and opacity of this case, an extra four had been summoned. One of the four did not appear, and the coroner, without regard to any excuse he might offer, levied a forty-shilling fine. Of the remaining fifteen, a white-bearded elderly man named Walter Dutton did not appear willing to participate.

“Sir,” he said, in answer to the name that had to be twice shouted at him, “my presence here is purposeless. I am deaf, sir. Stone deaf.”

Harry Hodson did not hesitate. “Then you are excused,” he whispered, in a voice so low that Kate hardly heard it. The deaf man rose from the bench and made for the door.

The coroner pounded his gavel on the table. “Mr. Dutton!” he roared, “take your seat or stand in contempt!” Chagrined, Mr. Dutton sat down once more and the coroner administered the jurymen's oath. Meanwhile, Kate sat nervously, her gloved fingers clutching the folds of her sedate dark-lavender dress.

“Do you go first?” Betsy whispered.

“Perhaps,” Kate said, looking down at the pale, freckled face. Since she had discovered the body, it was likely that she would be the first to testify.

“Are you afraid?”

“A little. Are you?”

Agnes had not wished Betsy to appear in open court, especially in view of the fact that she alone was able to identify Tod's killer. In fact, for the days since Betsy's safe return, Agnes had not let her daughter out of her sight, and Edward himself had forsaken his other duties to stand guard over the house. But Coroner Hodson had required the little girl's presence, and Edward reluctantly endorsed his decision. Confronted by the coroner's authority and Edward's concurrence, Agnes could not refuse.

“Ye-e-s,” Betsy said, apprehensive. She glanced over her shoulder as if she were looking for someone.

Kate took her cold hand. Tom Brock sat sullenly in a chair not fifteen feet away, on one side of P.C. Bradley. His hands and feet were manacled and he wore such an ugly look that Kate shuddered when she looked at him. On Bradley's other side sat the thin, anxious-looking man she knew must be James Napthen.

“You don't need to be afraid,” she said reassuringly to Betsy. “Your mother and I are here with you, and Uncle Ned is just over there.” Standing by the wall with Sir Charles, Edward lifted his hand to them. Betsy smiled shakily and waved back.

The inquest did indeed begin with Kate's testimony and she was called to sit in the witness chair at the coroner's right hand. The clerk, bearing a leather-bound Testament, got down off his stool and came around the table to administer the oath in a sing-songy voice.

“The evidence which you shall give to this inquest on behalf of our Sovereign Lady the Queen touching the death of Russell Tod shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God.”

Kate assented, and the coroner began his examination. His questions about the circumstances of her discovering the body were not new to her; they were the ones she herself would have asked had she been the coroner. She answered them simply, clearly, and with dispatch. Nevertheless, she was glad to be done and excused.

“There, you see?” she whispered to Betsy when she returned to her chair. “It was not so bad, after all.”

“Not for you,” Betsy said tremulously. She looked around once again. “You didn't have to say who it was that killed him.”

S
tanding beside Charles against the wall, Edward scanned the crowd, watchful, on his guard. Tom Brock had already been arrested and was sitting with P.C. Bradley, whose handsome face was strained. After today's inquest, Brock would be duly charged and brought to arraignment for his crimes. James Napthen sat on the other side of Brock, similarly manacled. Betsy, pale and apprehensive, was seated between her mother and Miss Ardleigh, in front of the coroner's table. The police surgeon was just stepping off the stand, having followed Miss Ardleigh in the order of testimony. Inspector Wainwright, more nervous and melancholy than usual, was standing at the end of the bar wearing a weary look, for he had been quite busy in the last few days. Chief Constable Pell was with him, smiling and grand, his blue uniform brushed to a farethee-well, his brass buttons shining proudly. Even Inspector Wainwright's sergeant, Battle, was among the throng, as were several other carefully-chosen men, all watching the proceedings with an air of nervous anticipation. But of them all, only Edward, Charles, and Wainwright knew why they had been summoned.

Harry Hodson looked up at Edward and gave an almost imperceptible sign. Edward stepped forward, thinking that he was gladder now of his relationship with the man than he had ever been before. He and Harry had not been boyhood chums, as had he and Artie, nor manhood friends, as he and Charles had grown to be; they were instead acquaintances whose professional relationship was based upon respect and admiration, each for the other's abilities. He had more than once seen Harry handle a difficult courtroom situation where justice and a man's life were suspended between a lie and a half-truth, and had watched him tease out the knot of fact that eventually unraveled the whole story. After Edward and Charles had worked out their theory of the present crime and the two of them had laid it before Harry, it was only a moment or two before the coroner said, in his gruff, blunt way, “Right, then. Let's get on with it, boys. Demmit, what the deuce are we waiting for?”

So now, when Harry summoned him to the witness chair, Edward stepped forward smartly, saluted, and gave his name and rank. Then, in simple language chosen to make the complex matter easier for the jury to understand, he told the story of Tod and Brock and the grain thefts, confirmed by the confession taken by P.C. Bradley from the prisoner James Napthen; of Artie's discovery of the grain stored in Napthen's barn at Highfields Farm and of his murder there; of the argument at Tod's cottage between Tod and an asyet-unidentified man, with whom he was last seen before his death.

“It would appear,” Edward said in careful summation, “that it was this unidentified man who murdered Russell Tod, or who has at the least withheld from the police material information regarding the cause of his death.”

There was a stir along the bar, a subtle shifting of space and bodies as men rearranged themselves. A feeling of expectation began to rise in the crowd, as it does when the spectators of a chess match sense that checkmate is near, or the audience of a play feels the denouement draw near. Edward kept his eyes fixed upon Harry Hodson, who straightened the papers on the table before him and spoke with a judicious frown.

“But even if this man were to be identified, Constable Laken, it would appear that any accusation of him would be entirely circumstantial. Is that not the case?”

“Not entirely, sir,” Edward said. “There was a witness to the argument, one who can identify the man whom we are seeking.”

The room quieted, and Edward was suddenly conscious of how stifling it had become. In the front row, Betsy's face was white as paper, her mouth pinched and frightened; beside her, Agnes clutched the child's hand as if both of them were drowning. Someone at the bar fell suddenly into a fit of coughing and moved a pace or two toward the door to get some air. But several others closed against him, pressing for a better view of the coroner's table, and he was pushed back, still coughing.

“A witness,” the coroner said musingly. He consulted his papers. “Would that be the child Elizabeth Oliver?”

“It would, sir,” Edward said.

“Thank you, Constable,” Harry replied. “You are dismissed. Call Mistress Elizabeth Oliver,” he said to the clerk.

The clerk stood beside his stool and raised his tinny voice over the stir of the crowd and the rasping cough of the afflicted man, who had made yet another frustrated effort to push his way through the crowd to the door. “Call Mistress Elizabeth Oliver!”

Edward stood down. An earnest Betsy was sworn and took his place, her white ruffled pinafore neatly starched over a blue gingham dress, worn black boots carefully buttoned and polished with Edward's own boot black.

The coroner smiled in a kindly way over the half-rounds of his gold-rimmed spectacles. “P'rhaps it'd be best, Mistress Oliver, if you were to tell me what you saw, from the beginning. If I am unclear as to what you have said, I may interrupt you with a question, but I will endeavour to do that as little as possible.” He leaned back and tented his pudgy fingers under a fold of chin. “You may begin.”

Betsy began, in a thin, piping voice, to tell the story of her night-time ratting expedition to Highfields barn, accompanied by Mr. Browne. (“My owl, sir,” she explained, in answer to the coroner's question.) While the crowd listened, riveted by her narration, she related what had happened to her: how she had been suddenly sacked and trussed and tossed into a wagon and later into a mound of hay in the shed; how she had heard the smith's boy proclaim her drowned an instant before the constable and Sir Charles Sheridan were about to liberate her; how she had been visited by Jemima Puddle-duck, whose maternal longings had led her to build a nest in the very same shed; how the sharp-chinned man with copper whiskers had got into an argument with the man with black whiskers and—