Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (35 page)

A
scurrying graze across his exposed toes brought Tom’s torch in a swift downward arc, exposing for an eyeblink a panicked rodent before it hurried into the void. Involuntary disgust shot up his spine, and he cast his light over the tunnel’s rough brick walls and earth floor, seeking its nasty little mates. Creatures great were generally preferable to creatures small—rodents among them. Even if the Lord God did make them all, He wasn’t obliged to share propinquity, as humans were. He—the Lord God—never awoke in bed of a morning to the unpleasantness of a dead mouse nestled in the folds of His duvet, courtesy of vicarage cats.

Nasty little mousy mates there appeared to be none, mercifully, and the others—Jane, Miranda, and Max, who walked ahead of him—evinced no awareness of other commuters. Still, Tom anticipated journey’s end. Scarcely higher than he was tall, room abreast for only two at a time, red-brick walls
flaming and flickering with monstrous shadows in the flare of four passing torches, the tunnel brought to the edge of consciousness primal fears—entrapment, suffocation, death—which no prayer seemed powerful enough to allay. The dampish, earthy smell amplified the oppressive feeling, and he pitied the servants obliged to make their way by candle lamp. Water glistened in shallow poolings here and there, and glimmered in spots along the walls. The subterranean labyrinth, twisting like an intestine under Eggescombe’s grounds, seemed ramshackle, faintly dangerous despite its centuries of use, but Hector assured them a recent engineer’s report declared it sound: He had been reviewing developing the tunnel as an additional visitor attraction to cement Eggescombe Park PLC as the very model of a modern manor house attraction.

“Here.” Max’s voice echoed preternaturally loud in the tight space. He aimed his torchlight low along the wall where a few pieces of brick jutted as though squeezed by a great weight. Below those were black gaps in the wall, and on the floor directly beneath a small midden of cracked bricks.

“Then it wasn’t simply lying here on the floor, as if it had been dropped,” Tom said, guessing the answer. The brick midden appeared disturbed.

“No, Daddy,” Miranda responded. “One of the bricks looked put back, so we pulled at it—”

“Thinking there might be
trésor
?” Jane asked.

“And,” Max said, “blow me if there wasn’t a tie!”

“Someone had to have known the tunnel well enough,” Jane murmured.

“And be carrying a torch,” Tom added.

“Onwards and upwards?” Max didn’t wait for an answer.

After several moments they reached the bottom of a set of stone steps which travelled up into darkness, a thin line of light testifying to an opening of some nature at the top. Tom groaned inwardly at the thought of manoeuvring more stairs, but hobbled ahead nevertheless. Max pushed through a door in the thickness of the wall that led them into a scintillation of dust-moted light. From the evidence of racks of saddles and horse trappings hanging in shadow, Tom recognised a tack room. He took a deep breath, glad for healthier, pungent air redolent of leather and linseed oil and saddle soap. Had whoever come this way early Sunday morning felt the same relief? Or had open air brought fear of exposure? And where might he or she have travelled from here? He glanced at Jane, noting her pensive expression, guessing she shared his worried thoughts.

“What say you, Mr. Christmas? Do you think Uncle Oliver’s murderer came this way?” Max tilted his pith helmet back on his head.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Tom replied reluctantly, unwilling to voice in front of the boy the question that rose in his head: Who at Eggescombe Park lived nearest this tunnel exit? Dowager Lady Fairhaven, Max’s beloved grandmother, did—with her protégé Roberto Sica, a man with no affection for Oliver fforde-Beckett. The thought was discouraging.

“Perhaps there are clues here, Daddy.” Miranda bent to lift the lid of a wooden trunk.

“Perhaps. But we’re best leaving the work to the police.” Tom hobbled forward. “Shall we …?”

“To your grandmother’s?” Jane addressed Max, who was eyeballing the space. “We’re expected for tea before very long.”

“Oh, look, maybe that’s a clue.” Max gestured to a corner of the room.

“I think that’s a person,” Miranda corrected. They all peered through the shadow at a figure reclining on what looked to be a pile of horse blankets assembled on the floor.

“Oh, bother, it’s only Anna.” Max sounded disappointed.

“Anna?” Jane glanced sharply at Tom.

“Anna … Phillips, I think,” Max answered unnecessarily. “Nice girl. She cleans for Grandmama.”

But Jane had already advanced to the figure who, evidently, was no longer asleep, if indeed she had been. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

“We met this morning.” Tom stepped forward, noting the girl’s hesitation as she rose to greet them. “This is Jane Allan,” he added by way of introduction. “And my daughter, Miranda.”

But Anna had eyes only for Jane—who, studying her with frowning intensity, said:

“We’ve met before.”

But Miranda interrupted, “Are you hiding?”

The question seemed to startle Anna. “I’m keeping out of the way.”

“Why don’t you two,” Tom interceded, noting Miranda’s furrowed brow, “go on to Lady Fairhaven’s and help her sort out the tea.”

“Isn’t it appalling”—Max turned to Miranda—“how adults try to fob us off, as if we were six-year-olds? Really, Mr. Christmas, cousin Jane, if you wish to speak to Anna in private you have only to say so. Miss Christmas and I can entertain ourselves quite adequately.”

“You could give the horses their tea,” Jane suggested.

“Capital idea. We’ll do that. Come along, Miss Christmas. Don’t be long,” he called back airily. “It’s rude to be late, and I am feeling a tad peckish.”

“Have one of the horse’s apples to tide you over,” Jane called after him, turning back to Anna, who regarded her uncertainly. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you. And I’m sorry, too, for your recent loss. Tom said he’d talked with you this morning and told me …” She paused. “Anna, look, I’m sorry to be blunt, but of course you knew John, my brother-in-law, in Tullochbrae.”

Anna nodded.

“Is he living with you? Now? In Abbotswick?”

“No, I live with John Phillips.”

Jane’s lips thinned. “Tom tells me after Scotland you moved to Bournemouth and settled your brother into a school there. I’m curious why you would then relocate to a little village in Devon?”

“Village life suits me. And there’s a school here similar to the one in Bournemouth.”

“Yes, the paper mentioned the one at Buckfastleigh. Tell me”—she frowned as Anna bent to the floor to lift the top horse blanket, a tartan of blue and green—“a little about John Phillips.”

“There’s not much to tell.” Anna began folding the blanket into neat lengths. “A good man.”

“But physically. Short? Tall? Dark? Blond?”

“Jane,” Tom cautioned, startled at her intrusiveness.

“Tom, I simply don’t believe this. It would be strange if John Phillips
wasn’t
John Allan. Anna, you must know that
my husband and I—John Allan’s whole family—are anxious to find him. We thought we’d done so last year in Thornford, but then he slipped from our fingers. Why are you keeping him from us? Why are you protecting him?”

Anna’s busy hands stopped. The blanket, forgotten, slipped from its folds, as she passed assessing, cautious eyes from one to the other. Something of the agony of indecision rooted her, Tom thought, as at last she responded to Jane’s provocation:

“You never believed John—your John, John Allan—killed William—Boysie—did you?”

“No,” Jane replied, her voice touched by surprise. “Not for a minute. Why? Did you?”

“I did. John said he did. The court said he did. And then—after a long time—I didn’t believe. I knew he hadn’t.”

“Why,” Jane pressed. “Why did you change your mind? What made you realise John hadn’t killed his brother?”

“Because …” Anna’s face seemed to bleach suddenly with misery. “Because my brother saw the killer.”

“What?” The word came from Jane like a cry of despair.

Tears pricked Anna’s eyes. “He didn’t know what he had seen. And when
I
realised what he had seen, it was too late.”

“Too late?”

“Too late to help John.”

A groan rose from Jane’s throat, as Tom asked, “And what had your brother seen?”

But Anna was concentrated on Jane. “You knew what Will Allan was like.”

“Yes, Boysie was …” Jane hesitated. “… arrogant, nasty, snobbish. I tried in vain to like him. He didn’t like me. He thought I was some sort of gold-digging colonial.”

“And he was vile to my brother.”

“What? Because he was mentally handicapped?”

Anna nodded, wiping at her eyes. “He would tease David for his flapping hands and taunt him for having big ears and the like—and do it in a cunning way when he thought no one was witness. This from an adult! It would put my brother in a terrible, anxious state, and when he was anxious he could explode in a temper—which became worse when he reached puberty. On the afternoon of William’s … death, he had been getting at my brother. Davey was particularly volatile in the wake of our father’s passing and then the guests and excitement around your wedding.” She paused. “You knew William had been staying at Aird Cottage at Tullochbrae.”

“Yes. Jamie stayed with him the eve of our wedding, while I remained at the castle. But of course, Aird Cottage is where Boysie died.”

“Davey, I understood later—much later—had gone to the cottage to … protest? I’m not sure what—to William. I’m not sure why with his social anxiety he chose that occasion, of all occasions, but he did. It was not locked, the door was open, and … it was he who found your brother-in-law’s body.”

“David? But—”

“I know, I know,” she said softly. “But you also know what John was like.”

“Mirror opposite to his eldest brother.” Jane looked to Tom.

“He was enormously kind to David,” Anna continued, the blanket limp in her hands. “Including him in activities during school breaks and such. John had witnessed the exchange between Davey and William—”

“There was little love lost between the two brothers,” Jane murmured, taking the blanket from Anna’s hands and setting it on a nearby rack.

“—and followed David to Aird Cottage.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” Jane looked up sharply.

“John came upon David with the fireplace poker in his hand in one of the bedrooms. David was confused, frightened—”

“You mean …”

“John told David to run back to our cottage, making him promise to say nothing. I was in the village shopping and running errands. I wasn’t back until late. By then the estate was in pandemonium. In the confusion, I barely noticed that David was even more anxious than usual. But then it was not always easy to understand his thoughts.”

“John took the blame for his brother’s death,” Jane intoned, adding with rising indignation, “I’m sorry, Anna, but that is just simply above and beyond—”

“I know.”

“But surely John knew that David, as an adolescent, would be treated less harshly by the court.”

“But he would be completely separated from me. He wouldn’t thrive.”

“But he really made this terrible sacrifice for you, didn’t he?” Tom had been observing her face, which contorted.

“Yes. Though I had no idea at the time.” She paused, lifting another blanket from the pile and folding it. “We had been lovers that summer, briefly—secretly, but when he declared he had murdered his brother, I thought underneath he must be like William. I simply had to leave Tullochbrae, to go. That’s why I left. I couldn’t face life there as it had become.

“David was uncommunicative for a long time. His version of moody adolescence, I thought. He kept his promise to John, but then, a few years ago, provoked by I don’t know what, he began to talk about that day at Tullochbrae. Strangers would find my brother a little difficult to communicate with, but I can—could—usually understand him, and after a while it dawned on me that he had been at Aird Cottage that afternoon, and had seen someone. I thought at first he meant he had seen John, and that that explained some of his mood right after William’s death.

“But it wasn’t John he’d witnessed. It was a ginger-haired man. A ginge, he insisted. But of course, as you both know, John isn’t ginger-haired.”

“No other details?” Jane’s voice was urgent.

“None helpful. People with David’s disability aren’t at their best in recognising faces, although …” She took the folded blanket from Jane. “All I could gather was that David glimpsed this ginger-haired man slipping through the French doors. If you remember Aird Cottage—”

“After John’s sentencing, my father-in-law in his grief had it knocked down, but I do remember, yes. The French doors in the bedroom led to a terrace near a stand of pines.”

“David didn’t follow. I can only imagine his confusion. At some point soon after, he must have picked up the fire poker—”

“Which is when John came into the room,” Jane finished the thought.

“But did this ginger-haired man see your brother?” Tom asked.

Anna’s lips pinched. “David didn’t seem to know, but I was frightened that this man might have, and I thanked my mother’s
genes that I had obscured our origins and made it difficult for anyone to locate us.”

“But most of the change was to your name,” Tom pointed out.

“Yes, that’s true. But David is so common a name, I thought it would easily escape notice. There might be thousands of Davids and Annas sharing homes in England, fewer Davids and Rhiannons. In addition, David wouldn’t have been able to keep to a name change for himself. And I’ve always been Ree to him. Always was,” she amended.

“But once you had an inkling Boysie’s killer couldn’t be John,” Jane began, “surely you—”

“I did,” Anna replied, anticipating her. “But I wanted to be sure before going to any authority. And I was frightened for my brother, what any press attention might do, whether the ginger-haired man would be put on alert and … I wrote to your mother-in-law, Jane, asking for John’s address, that I might write to him, and she very kindly supplied it, without question. By then, he had been transferred from Scotland to an open prison—”