The Weeping Ash (70 page)

This news distressed Cal deeply. “I daresay the trouble he confided to me may have hastened his end; he told me that guilt and remorse had kept him from sleeping for many weeks.”

“Guilt and remorse for what, my dear boy?”

“He told me that he was the person who threw Thomas's child down the well.”

“
Goble
was?” exclaimed Egremont, very much astonished. “Good God! Bless my soul! Why in the world did he do that?”

“He told me that he had seen the ghost of Paget's brother, twenty years ago, in the Petworth jail, crying out for vengeance. Ever since, it had preyed on his mind, and one day when he was in the garden, he told me, ‘something come over him and he took and heaved the baby down the well.' Then he was sorry for what he had done, but it was too late. So it was a relief to him when the baby was rescued. But he began to worry more and more, in case fate still intended him to punish Thomas in some other way.”

“God bless my soul,” Egremont muttered again. “And he told you all this?”

“Yes, it came out, bit by bit, on snowy days in the stable. I think,” Cal said seriously, “that he began to confuse me in his own mind with this younger brother of Thomas who died in jail.”

“Looked up Wilshire's case,” Lord Egremont muttered. “Lost all his money at Goodwood races—drunk and disorderly—clapped into Petworth jail till his friends could pay his debts—contracted the jail fever and died. Before we built our new prison that was, of course. Poor stupid young fellow. Not a bad sort, I daresay. But come, now, let us have your deposition, let us get that over with.”

The deposition, however, as Lord Egremont soberly said, did little more than bear out Goble's previous testimony.

“We know the snow stopped falling at three. We have the night watchman's word for that. We know the child's burial place was covered with snow; therefore the murder must have been committed at least a half hour to an hour previously. You found Goble in the garden at half past three, you say—you do not think that he had committed the murder? Repeating his previous act?”

“No,” said Cal, very positively. “His remorse over the previous act was too real. Also—as far as I know—Goble had but the one suit of clothes. I never saw him wearing anything else. And there was no blood on him—not a speck.”

“I am afraid we are not advanced much further,” Lord Egremont was saying disappointedly, “after fetching you all the way back from Acre, too!” when the Rev. Martin Socket was announced.

“Mr. Socket informed me that it was a matter of some urgency, my lord,” said the footman.

“In that case, show him in.—Well, Martin, my friend—what can I do for you?”

Mr. Socket did indeed appear quite agitated. He had another man with him, who carried a canvas parcel.

“Giles Fewkes, eh?” said Lord Egremont, recognizing one of his tenants. “What's all this about then, eh?”

“Lord Egremont, Farmer Fewkes, here, has made a discovery which we think may be of considerable importance in the case of the Paget baby. We thought it best to lay the matter before you without delay.”

“The Paget case?” Lord Egremont suddenly looked very alert. “Now
there's
a coincidence for you. But what is this discovery, then?”

The Rev. Mr. Socket, glancing at Mr. Fewkes, who appeared tongue-tied, continued with the story.

“Six weeks ago, you see, sir, as—owing to the splendid hay harvest last year, I had more than enough provender for my three horses and two milch cows—I sold the contents of my smaller barn, the one in the valley, to Mr. Fewkes, here; and he sent a couple of men with a wagon to cart it all over to one of his empty Dutch barns, in two big loads, rather than waste time going back and forth every time they wanted a truss of hay to feed his heifers.”

“Yes? But what has this to say to anything?” demanded Egremont, somewhat puzzled.

“Patience, sir; I am just coming to the point. The hay was removed in two wagonloads and the barn—which, as you know, is halfway down the slope below the Hermitage—was left empty. This, as it happened, was on the day following the Paget baby's death.”

“Oh-ho? Indeed?”

“Mr. Fewkes has been feeding the hay to his cattle, sir, truss by truss, and today discovered in the middle of a bundle this jacket, which we have brought to you.”

Here Farmer Fewkes, undoing the canvas parcel, revealed a stiff, dusty, dirty-looking garment, with tarnished brass buttons, which could just be recognized as a pea jacket. It was stained dark brown, and flecked with stalks and seeds of hay. Rolled up in it was a short sword, which at first glance looked to be rusty, but on closer inspection appeared stained with the same dark substance as the jacket.

“Good God!” said Lord Egremont, staring at these exhibits. “That looks like one of the Petworth Troop issue swords. And that jacket—”

“I have seen that jacket—or one very like it,” said Cal quietly. “It resembles one worn about the house by my cousin Thomas.”

Lord Egremont stood up and, without touching it, carefully inspected the handle of the sword, which was made of plain metal, bound with wire to give it a better grip. “Look there, what do you see?” he said to Cal.

Cal scrutinized it likewise.

“I see the print of a three-fingered hand,” he said.

Egremont began to mutter to himself. “He
knew
the house and grounds would be searched. He wore his wife's nightdress over his jacket to catch the blood. That was why Goble thought he was a ghost. But even so the jacket was soaked. He had to get rid of it. He left the nightdress and a razor in the privy to incriminate his wife—he made a mistake there. The child was stabbed as well as slashed. You cannot inflict a stab wound with a razor. He buried the child—that was before the snow had stopped falling. By the time you came into the garden the loose earth had been screened by snow, and he was in the valley, hiding his jacket and the weapon. An hour earlier, and you would have caught him digging.”

Cal shuddered. “I must confess, sir, I am just as glad we did not. What a sight!”

“He hid the jacket in the barn, probably intending to return at a later time and burn it, after the Bow Street runners had completed their search. But, when he did go back to the barn, the hay had all been removed. He must have wondered where it had gone. He must have been horrified—”

“Why!” exclaimed the rector. “Paget did come to me—three or four days later! He told me his hay supply was running low and asked if I had any to spare. I told him that I had none left, save for my own use.”

“He must have been on tenterhooks to know where your hay had gone,” Lord Egremont said grimly. “Did he not ask you?”

“No—I suppose he was afraid his interest might seem too particular.”

Egremont rang vigorously for a footman.

“Pringle: see that the constables are brought here directly. And—wait; as a magistrate and lord lieutenant, I can order the release of Mrs. Paget from jail; Frank, write this order from me to the governor of the prison of Chichester—Talgarth can take it over. Don't go, Socket, my dear fellow, or you, Fewkes, we shall want your depositions for the constables—Where is Paget gone off to, now? I suppose he is weary from traveling and needs to rest. Now then, Frank, take this down: ‘I hereby authorize the immediate release of Mrs. Frances Paget—'”

Cal had not, in fact, gone to rest but was making his way across the Bartons' graveyard to the Hermitage. By now, after his weeks at sea, he was quite nimble on his wooden leg, assisted by a heavy cane which he carried with him everywhere.

Entering the Hermitage garden, he noticed, first, the difference that the changing season had made since he was last there: the snow was all gone, the daffodil stalks were sprouting, slim and green, the cherry and apple trees were in bud.

Cal glanced through the garden-room window. The place was empty, so he swung his way across the lawn to the house.

The door was opened by Mrs. Strudwick, who gasped in astonishment.

“
Master Cal!
We never looked to see you back!”

“Is your master—is Captain Paget in?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, sir—he's in the dining room—shall I say you're here?” she added doubtfully, evidently recalling the quarrel. “He's in a very strange, twitty mood these days, sir.”

“Don't trouble, Mrs. Strudwick, I will announce myself. Where are the young ladies?” he added, for the house seemed strangely silent.

“They've gone, sir; their sister, Miss Martha, come and took them away. Master's all on his own now.”

Cal entered the dining room where Thomas, having evidently finished an early and solitary meal, was sitting in the half-light as if he had not the energy to get up and move to another place. A gruel bowl and a plate with a half-eaten piece of bread stood before him.

Cal was startled at the difference that the intervening weeks had made in his cousin. Thomas looked as if he had aged by ten years. His brow was wrinkled, there were deep furrows in his sallow cheeks, the hair above his eyes had turned completely white, and the patches by his ears were grizzled with gray. He looked gaunt and dry, like some half-starved old bird of prey, huddled on its perch, with rusty feathers, its head hunched between its shoulders.

When Cal walked in Thomas, who was staring unseeingly at the shuttered window, did not turn his head, but said harshly:

“Get out, woman, and do not come troubling me. I said that I wanted nothing more.”

“It is I, Thomas,” Cal said.

Even then Thomas did not move at once, but Cal caught the white gleam as his eyes slid sideways. After a moment he slowly turned his head—again reminding Cal of a bird tilting its poll—and, looking up sidelong, muttered:

“You? What the devil are
you
doing here?” And, after a pause, irritably, “Leave my house!”

“No,” Cal said. “It's all up, Thomas. Your run of luck is over.”

“What are you talking about? Get out, I say!”

“Your jacket has been found. The one that you hid in the hay. And the sword—the sword that you used. Lord Egremont has them.”

Thomas remained silent for so long after these words that Cal almost began to wonder whether he had grasped their import. But then he suddenly stood up. In the dusk he looked taller than his real height.

“What have you come here for?” he demanded.

“I have come—because I left with our business half-finished! Because, at that time, I dared not tell you what I thought of you, as I knew it would only rebound on
her
. I have to tell you what a detestably base, cruel, miserly wicked
brute
I think you are! You treated Fanny abominably—she was a thousand times too good for you! Only a monster like you could conceive the notion of killing your own child and attempting to pin the blame on her. But your plan has misfired, I am happy to say. The constables will be here soon to arrest you. But before that I have come to demand satisfaction for that cowardly blow you gave me—I will fight you in any way you choose!”

“The constables,” Thomas muttered, more to himself than Cal.

“Will you fight?” demanded Cal. “Come on, you cur,
figh
t
! I am not afraid of you—even though I have only one leg!”

“Why, you stupid puppy!” growled Thomas. “What do I care for you? With your poetry and all your talk?
I
saw that you were in love with Frances, but you didn't even have the guts to
do
anything about it! I hate you for that! All you were fit for was to write verses—”

“Wait till I get my hands on your throat!” cried Cal in a passion, and he swung himself around the corner of the table.

Thomas stepped swiftly back.

“Oh no, you don't! I am my own master—I do not choose to engage in fisticuffs with
you
.”

Calmly, without haste, he picked up a pistol which had been lying on a chair beside him, out of Cal's line of vision, and discharged it, at practically point-blank range. Cal staggered, and fell headlong on the floor.

Mrs. Strudwick came running and screaming. As she entered at one door, Thomas, still without haste, made his way out of the other. Mrs. Strudwick took one look at Cal and flew out of the front door, shrieking for Jem to fetch the doctor.

When Lord Egremont and the constables arrived, they met her in the lane.

“Oh, sirs,” she cried distractedly, “mind what you're about with the master, he's dangerous. He've killed Master Cal, and now he's outside somewhere!”

The party of men stared cautiously around the dusk-filled garden.

“How'll we ever find the fellow in this light?” grunted one of them. “He might be lurking in any bush.”

“More likely gone over the meadows and escaped,” said another.

But they did not have very far to search for Thomas. He had pushed a wheelbarrow under the weeping ash, thrown a rope over one of its boughs, and, with a skill probably remembered from his naval days, made a couple of slip knots. Then he had thrust the barrow away.

By the time they found him he had stopped kicking and was hanging motionless, almost directly over the spot where he had buried his son. His cousin Cal, who had succeeded in crawling out of the house before dying, lay beneath him, against the trunk of the tree.

* * *

“I
still
do not understand,” said Lady Mountague. “Why should he kill the child? And why bury it under the ash tree?”

She focused her keen, nearsighted gray eyes on those of Fanny and repeated, “Now why should he do a thing like that!”

In fact, Lady Mountague had a perfectly clear notion as to the motives behind Thomas's actions, but she was not going to allow Fanny to brood in silence; let the child cry her heart out at night if she must, but in the daytime the history of the past few months was going to be thoroughly dealt with and disposed of, until it was completely aired, disinfected, and made harmless.