A Question of Honor (28 page)

“Do you think this man shot the Subedar? Bess, he’s a conscientious objector.”

“He doesn’t want the past brought up again. He avoids Captain Bingham. He thought he recognized Lieutenant Wade, although he was confused about just where he’d seen him. And both times Lieutenant Wade had been very ill. But Teddy won’t let it go. And in the end, he’ll remember.”

Simon commented, “There may be something else in his past that he doesn’t want to remember. Not necessarily The Willows.”

A slight change in his voice made me wonder if there were memories that Simon himself didn’t want to recall.

But I didn’t pursue the thought, and neither did my mother.

B
y the time we reached Petersfield the next day, the market was in full swing. This time in place of the charity stall was one decorated with bunting and flags, and behind the counter were two pretty girls supporting the same cause we had contributed to last night. We went over to put coins into the large earthen jar set between them, and we were told that if at the end of the day, anyone guessed the amount collected, he or she would win a prize.

The prize was sitting in the back of the stall for all to see. It was a rectangular lacquered box on brass feet with squared corners and trimmed in gold. Across the top galloped a hunt, beautifully etched in gold with a fine brush. High grass encircled the sides, and in it lurked the prey the hunt was chasing, well concealed and watchful—gazelles and tigers, deer and wild boar. Only these huntsmen were mounted on horses and elephants, followed by beaters and servants and musicians on foot. It was exquisite Indian workmanship, and I realized who must have donated it.

My mother said as she dropped a pound into the earthen jar, “What a lovely box that is. Could I see it?”

“We aren’t supposed to let anyone touch it.”

“Then perhaps you would lift the lid for me so that I could see inside,” she said sweetly.

Reluctantly one of the girls lifted the top, and I could see that the inside was covered in what appeared to be gold leaf.

It was also empty.

Mother thanked the girls and we strolled on. “I was hoping there might be letters or some such inside.”

“Someone must have emptied it before donating it to the sale.”

“And tossed any letters into the fire. Worst luck.”

Simon was waiting outside the square on Church Street, and we drove on to Miss Gooding’s house.

She took to my mother immediately, as most people did, and while Simon was once more filling the coal scuttle, I made tea in the tiny kitchen. Remembering Miss Gooding’s straitened circumstances, I had brought a little of our precious store of tea, a small jug of honey, and a tin of biscuits.

I could hear the conversation in the front room, and I knew when the framed photograph came out of the covered basket we had carried it in.

Miss Gooding was telling my mother that she had just such a one as that by her bed, and my mother said, “They were the dearest children. Here’s Tommy Wade, and there’s his sister Georgina next to Gwendolyn. That’s such a pretty frock Georgina is wearing, isn’t it? And that must be the little Mayfield child, who died so young. He’s standing next to the Bingham boy, who joined the Army like his father before him. That must be Alexander Hughes, the one with the limp after hurting his foot trying to ride Gwendolyn’s horse. The other girl is Hazel, isn’t it? The children used to tease her and call her Witch Hazel. But she married a baronet, didn’t she? He’s an equerry to one of the Princes. She’s quite fashionable now. And the last child—Teddy . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I do believe I’ve forgotten Teddy’s surname. Isn’t that awful?”

I peered into the front room. Miss Gooding had leaned forward to follow my mother’s finger across the photograph. Squinting, she said, “That’s Theodore Belmont. He was afraid of his own shadow, poor lad.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

I nearly leapt out of my skin as a hand closed around my arm. In the same motion, Simon’s hand closed over my mouth before I could cry out. Pulling me back into the kitchen, he let me go and beckoned toward the kitchen yard and the back garden. There were vegetables in a bed that was slowly losing ground to the weeds, and a pair of sheds by two old apple trees.

Following him, my heart still beating twice as fast as normal, I waited until we were out of hearing. “What is it?”

“I did a little poking around. You’ll never guess what I found.”

I followed him to one of the sheds. There were chickens penned next to a coop, and the rooster flew up at us as we passed. Inside the shed were tools from a generation gone, and cast-off household items from broken crockery to worn-out pans and a table that had lost a leg. A large vinegar jug with a crack running down to the base stood in the darkest corner. Simon reached down to lift the jug, and I thought surely it would break apart. But it was thicker walled than I expected. He turned it around and I could see that the back was out, as if something heavy had knocked against it.

But it was what was inside the hole that made me stare.

It was a revolver that appeared not to have been cleaned for years. It was standard service issue of the late Victorian era.

As I reached for it, Simon caught my hand. “It’s still loaded. Be careful.”

I leaned over, wishing I’d brought a torch with me. But as my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I realized that three of the cartridge chambers were empty. And three were still loaded.

“Simon—what on earth?” I straightened up. “Are you telling me—is this the
murder
weapon? The revolver that killed the Caswells?”

“Very likely.”

“But where did it come from? How did it get here?”

“Either the killer left it behind and Miss Gooding took it for reasons of her own or the killer has hidden it here. He couldn’t very well keep it, could he?”

“There’s the third possibility,” I said, not wanting to put it into words. “Miss Gooding killed the Caswells. While everyone else had the day off.”

“It’s entirely possible.”

From the house came the familiar whistle of the teakettle. “I must go. What shall we do with it?”

“I think it would be best if we take it.”

I was already running toward the house as he answered me. I got to the kettle before the steam had reached fever pitch, and rinsed out the teapot before spooning in the tea and then setting it to one side to steep.

And all the while, the question was running through my mind
. Had whoever left the revolver in the shed also changed that photograph in the frame in Miss Gooding’s bedroom upstairs?

My mother’s voice was coming from the front room, and I heard Miss Gooding reply, “Yes, that’s true. But the money they’d come into didn’t last forever. They had decided to take in children again. There were already two queries from their advertisement in the
Times
. One from South Africa and one from India.”

There was a motive for murder if I’d ever heard one. Killing them before they took in more innocent children and turned their lives into wretched misery.

“But surely—”

“Who was there to stop them? I ask you.”

I peered around the door again. Mother was putting the photograph back into Miss Gooding’s blue-veined hands. “I should think any one of these children would have moved the earth to stop the Caswells from resuming their cruelty.”

“Not Hazel Sheridan. She came back once. Did you know? After the murders were in all the newspapers, and she paid me to tell anyone nosing about that there was no such person as Hazel Sheridan who once lived at The Willows. I held out for more, because I’d lost my position, you see. And she paid up without a word of argument. I wouldn’t have said anything now, but you already knew her name.” She gestured around the room, indicating the cottage. “It made it possible to live here, you see.”

“Did she indeed? Er—I understood that she was friends with the sexton. How did that come about?”

Simon had come in with the coal scuttle, and the tea was ready to pour.

We reached the front room, Simon with the coal scuttle and I with the tea tray in my hands.

Miss Gooding was saying, “Hardly friends. Barney Lowell? He was the gardener’s son at The Willows. A troublemaker. The Caswells let him go, and his father set up as a nurseryman. They did well, much to everyone’s surprise.”

My mother glanced up at me as I set down the tray. I knew what she was thinking—that if Miss Sheridan bribed one person to remove her name from the list of children, why not two? I wondered if it was Lowell who had wanted to buy that photograph from me. It would make sense, if he’d intended to purchase it and I got there first. Still earning his keep from Miss Sheridan. He’d told Mr. Gates about Simon and me in the churchyard to cause more trouble. Had he put the gun in the shed?

Had he used that gun?

As I handed Miss Gooding her cup of tea, I said, “I can’t remember just when Miss Sheridan was married.”

“It was just before the Caswells were murdered. I know, because Miss Gwendolyn was angry about not being invited to the wedding. She’d written a letter to Miss Sheridan. I heard her tell her mother what she’d done. Mrs. Caswell laughed. But Miss Gwendolyn was set on going to a fashionable wedding.” Miss Gooding chuckled. “She should have thought of that ten years before, and so her father told her, from behind his newspaper. If looks could kill, he’d have fallen dead where he sat. I had just come into the room to tell them Cook was better. She’d had an attack of gallstones.”

She sipped the tea and smiled. “Honey. I don’t know how long it’s been since I tasted honey.”

“The Caswells had lost their money,” I said, taking my own cup. “It’s why they took in children in the first place. But then they came into money again. Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know.” She helped herself to another biscuit. “We talked about it sometimes, below stairs. The general view was that Miss Grant—the governess, you see—inherited a little money from her fiancé, and put together with what she’d saved, Mr. Caswell was able to make an investment, and it did well for some years. But he wasn’t very clever with money, and in the end, he lost more than he was earning.”

“He had no right to that money,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Who was there to tell him he didn’t? I ask you.”

Servant gossip was often on the mark. They were invisible, and the family often talked in their presence without thinking twice.

Miss Gooding began to nod off soon after that, unused to company.

My mother gestured to the tea things and I took them to the kitchen to do the washing up. After a moment she joined me and helped dry.

“I’ve sent Simon out to the motorcar. When you’ve finished here, we’ll take our leave.”

“Did Simon tell you what he discovered in the shed?”

“He showed me. I gathered it could be the murder weapon?”

“Possibly. Simon remembers that was part of the evidence against Lieutenant Wade. According to the MFP, he’d taken it with him.”

“Just so.”

She returned to the front room. When I followed her there she was just saying farewell to a drowsy Miss Gooding, thanking her for the tea.

I thanked her as well, and she smiled. “Come again,” she said. “I always enjoy having guests.”

Simon had already cranked the motorcar and was standing beside it, ready to hold the door for my mother.

On our way into Petersfield, Simon glanced over his shoulder at me. “If I turn the revolver in to the police, I shall have to tell them where I found it.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. We can’t have them descending on Miss Gooding, demanding to know how it got there, in the shed.”

“I didn’t think to ask her if there was a weapon in the Caswell house,” Mother said.

“The police must have asked the staff at the time.” Simon slowed, finding a place to pull over.

“True, of course. There’s certainly no way to connect it to this man Lowell.”

“I’d like to talk to him again,” I said.

“It’s too dangerous,” Simon interjected.

“Not in broad daylight in the churchyard. He must live in one of the houses overlooking it. He always seems to appear without warning,” I said.

Reluctantly Simon agreed, but only if Mother went with me. “And I’ll find a spot where I can watch, unobserved.”

When we reached the square again, Mother and I got down, and Simon drove on. We were to give him ten minutes to leave the motorcar and circle around behind the church. Meanwhile, Mother and I strolled through the market, looking at the wares for sale. When we came to the garden stall, which featured a wooden arbor that shaded the offerings from the sun, we paused to look at the healthy array of perennials.

It was then I saw the discreet sign behind the counter where a young woman was explaining to an elderly couple where and how to put in the wisteria they were buying.

LOWELL AND SON

Judging from the display, the former gardener’s boy had done very well indeed. Certainly he or someone had a knack for growing healthy plants.

Had the money the former Miss Sheridan paid him helped him to build his business? Just as it had helped Miss Gooding live in her cottage?

The elderly couple walked on with their young wisteria, and we walked up to the counter in our turn. “You have such lovely plants,” my mother said effusively. “Who has the green thumb?”

“Mr. Lowell,” the girl said shyly. “He’s a wonder with anything green, and his grafting is amazing. Ornamental trees, fruit trees. It’s an art, you know.”

My mother did know, because her grandfather had grafted grapes and apple trees and even roses, as a hobby.

“Yes, that takes a great deal of skill. I used to know a Lowell here in Petersfield. He had a son named Barnaby, as I recall.”

“That would be Mr. Lowell’s father,” she said, nodding.

“Was the father by any chance in the Army?” I asked. “I seem to remember something about that.”

“He was in South Africa until he was invalided out. My mother was his housekeeper and he had malaria something fierce. She said she’d never seen anyone sweat like that.”

Another customer came up, a pot of pansies in her hand, and we stepped aside.