Death at Gallows Green (19 page)

“We thought they might be pirates,” Bea put in excitedly, “Or smugglers!”

“But smugglers usually move goods into the country,” Sir Charles said, “to avoid the tariff.”

“Yes,” Kate replied. “The question is, what were they doing? And what is the connexion between their activity and the death of Sergeant Oliver?”

“Precisely,” Sir Charles said. “And you suspect that the poaching—”

“Might be merely a device to divert attention from the real crime to something else. A red herring, as it were.” Kate sipped her lemonade. “How did Constable Bradley come to discover the poaching equipment and the animals in the Olivers' shed?”

“It was a tip, an unsigned letter.” Sir Charles looked at Kate, his eyes intensely bright. “A red herring,” he said thoughtfully. “Indeed, Miss Ardleigh, you could be right.”

“If I am,” Kate reflected, “then it is of vital importance to discover the writer of the unsigned letter. Were you able to examine it?”

“I was,” Sir Charles said. “I was also able to make a copy.”

“A copy!” Bea clapped her hands. “How fortunate!”

“It would seem, then, that we are pursuing the wrong quarry with this poaching business,” Sir Charles said. “A quite different scheme is afoot. But I should tell you that the murder has nothing to do with stolen emeralds, which have turned out not to be stolen at all.”

“So I am informed,” Kate said. She looked at him. “It seems that Mr. Marsden has taken the necklace for repair. Is that your understanding?”

Sir Charles coughed. “Something of the sort,” he said.

It was obvious to Kate that Sir Charles had a different idea about the emeralds, but she did not pursue it. “Well,” she said, “if poachers are not our quarry, who is?”

“I have not the slightest idea,” Sir Charles said. “Perhaps you would agree to examine the copy of the letter Constable Bradley received and give me your opinion on the matter.”

Kate looked at him, her head to one side. Was it possible that he was actually taking her seriously? Then perhaps he would be willing to listen to her other ideas.

“I would indeed,” she said. “And there is an additional matter to consider. I wonder if you examined the sergeant's jacket—the one he was wearing when he was murdered.”

“Yes,” he replied, “in a rather cursory way. I recall that there was a small amount of grass seed intermingled with the dried blood on the front of the jacket, around the entry wound. There was no grass at the site where the body was found. It would appear that the sergeant fell face down onto a grassy area and lay in that position for some little while before he was moved.”

“Did you look in the pockets?” Kate asked.

“I did not.” He looked at her. “I suppose, from the tone of your voice, that you have done. But how did you come into possession of Artie's coat?”

“Agnes gave it to me, together with her husband's other clothing, to deliver to the vicar. I kept the coat, however, thinking that there might be more to learn from it. Perhaps if you were to examine the contents of the pockets under a microscope—Do you happen to have a microscope with you on this visit?” He had mentioned at one point that he usually traveled with a microscope.

“I do.” Sir Charles pushed back his chair and stood. “I shall dispatch Lawrence with the copy of the letter this evening, and he can fetch the coat to me.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, standing also, and feeling a deep satisfaction. She had come today feeling that she might have to force Sir Charles to listen to her ideas. She was leaving with the sense that he had not only heard them with respect, but welcomed and valued them highly.

Bea got up. To Sir Charles, she said, oddly, “It has been a revealing afternoon.”

“Indeed.” Sir Charles held her glance for a moment. “You will remember your promise?”

“Yes,” Bea said. But from the look on her face, Kate guessed that she was not pleased by the pledge which Sir Charles had extracted from her, whatever it was.

L
awrence must have hoped that his trip to Bishop's Keep would serve more than one purpose, for when the valet returned that evening, he was deeply perturbed. Charles, who was clearing off the small table in his bedroom where his microscope sat, smiled a little.

“You have seen the fair Amelia, I suppose?”

Lawrence held out a brown-paper parcel. “Hit don't bear talkin' about, sir,” he said with dignity.

Charles took the parcel, regretting that his question had been so lightly and unfeelingly phrased. “Were you prevented from seeing her?”

Frustration was written across Lawrence's face, mixed with disappointment. “Hit's the 'ousekeeper,” he growled. “Missus Pratt. She don't want Hamelia seein' me.”

“On account of what happened the last time you were together?”

Lawrence's lip curled slightly. “On haccount o' Missus Pratt's a narrow-minded ol' misery wot cares more f'r happearance than f'r wot's true.”

“I know Mrs. Pratt a little,” Charles said. “My impression is that of a woman intent on doing her duty. Perhaps if I spoke with her. or better—” He paused, considering. “Or better, with Miss Ardleigh. Under the appropriate circumstances, there might not be any objection to your seeing the girl. With supervision, of course.”

Lawrence shook his head sadly. “No disrespect, sir,” he said, “but ‘ow wud ye like t' do yer courtin' wi' some sharpeyed ol' woman lookin' on, allus tellin' ye t' mind where ye put yer 'ands?”

Charles sighed. He was not likely to be doing any courting at all—at least, not in the immediate future. Miss Ardleigh seemed to have a surfeit of suitors. But Lawrence's point was well-taken. “I'll see what I can do,” he said.

Lawrence thanked him and was leaving the room when Charles thought of something and called him back. “Do you happen to know Tommy Brock?” he asked. “The brother-in-law of McGregor., the assistant gamekeeper?”

Lawrence's face grew dark. “Ol' Tommy? Sure I know 'im.'Ee's a bugger, is Tommy. Ye don't want t' run afoul of 'im on a dark night.”

“Is that right?” Charles asked with interest. “What can you tell me about the man?”

What Lawrence could tell, it turned out, both was and was not material to the matter at hand. He and Tommy Brock had been acquainted before Lawrence came to work at Marsden Manor, when he was a man-servant in the home of a certain Mr. Dalton, a wealthy ship owner in Manningtree. Tommy Brock was an agent in Dalton's shipping business. He was given to gambling at cards and had covered his losses from Dalton's receipts. When the money was discovered missing, however, there was not sufficient evidence to take him before the magistrate, so he was discharged with a stem warning. He had remained in the area, doing whatever work he could find and applying frequently to his sister for assistance.

“Do you know where he lives?” Charles asked.

Lawrence shrugged. “Mayhap McGregor knows. Or Mrs. McGregor. Or ye might ask after ‘im at th' Live an' Let Live on a Sattidy night. 'Ee's usually there.”

When Lawrence had gone, Charles laid the parcel on the bed and opened it. Inside, neatly folded, was the jacket Artie had been wearing when he was shot, the bloodstain on the front left breast still matted with seeds and what looked like bits of grass stem. But when Charles scraped off a sample and looked at it under the microscope, he saw that what he had taken to be grass stems were the broken pieces of thick, golden stems of wheat. The seeds were most certainly threshed grains of wheat.

He went back to the jacket to investigate further. There were pockets, one on each side and one on the right breast. When he carefully turned each one out onto a sheet of paper, he found a great deal more grain: so much, in fact, that he could only conclude that it had not got into the pockets when Artie was shot and fell to the ground. It looked as if Artie had deliberately scooped a handful of grain into each pocket. Why would he do such a thing? What was there about the grain that made it worth keeping?

Charles spent the next few minutes with his microscope, giving a cursory examination to the grain from each pocket. What he saw both puzzled and intrigued him. The material in each sample—mostly wheat seeds, a few other seeds, and some chaff—appeared to differ substantially from the material in the other two samples. Artie had somehow managed to acquire samples from three different sources. How had he done this? Why? Did this material hold any clue to the reason for his death, or to the identity of his murderer?

These questions intrigued Charles to such an extent that he spent the next several hours, until well after midnight, performing what he was accustomed to call a “population analysis,” a technique he had developed in his work in paleontology. In studying different rock strata, he had learned that the populations of different organisms varied from strata to strata. The strata could be compared by identifying and counting the organisms. Using the same technique, he carefully sorted the grain, seeds, and other materials—mostly bits of grass and stem. When he had finished and recorded his results, he had a profile of each sample: so many grains of wheat; so many round, brown seeds; so many pointed yellow-green seeds; so many tiny burrs; and so on.

And when Charles compared the material in each sample to the other two, he discovered something equally intriguing. The grains of wheat from Artie's breast pocket were fuller and more round than the grains of wheat from his right pocket, while the grains from the left pocket were much darker in colour and heavier. In one sample, there were yellow-green seeds and no burrs; in another, many burrs and no yellow-green seeds. The conclusion was clear. Artie Oliver had carefully filled each of his three pockets with three very different samples of grain: so different, in fact, that the contents of each pocket might have come from a different field, perhaps even a different farm.

For a moment, Charles stood staring down at what he had found. What on earth was Artie doing with all this grain in his pockets? Where had he got it?

But the grain yielded no answer, and the longer Charles stared, the less distinctly he saw. And when he finally lay across the bed and fell asleep, he dreamed of Artie Oliver, tramping from field to field, filling his pockets as he went.

“I
should like,” Kate said to Bea at breakfast the next morning, “to make an excursion. It is time we talked to Mrs. McGregor.”

“What can she tell us?” Bea asked from the sideboard, where she was serving herself a generous portion of Mrs. Pratt's scrambled eggs and herring from a silver dish.

“She is the sister of Tommy Brock. The mysterious Mr. B.” Kate said, spreading marmalade on toast. “She ought to know where he is to be found.”

Bea added some stewed apples to her plate and sat down at the table. “But what would we do once we have discovered his whereabouts?” She paused, and after a moment, added, uneasily, “Do you intend that we should actually confront the man?”

Kate added another spoonful of marmalade to her toast. Bea had lived her entire life with a father who oversaw her every move and a mother who continually fretted about her health, and welfare. Seen in that context, her decision to visit Bishop's Keep, alone and without their permission, had been a brave and daring act. Kate did not want to push her to the point where she might regret her adventure. Beryl Bardwell might be all for bearding the elusive Mr. Brock in his den (wherever it was), but Kate had to take her friend's nervousness into account.

“Well, then,” Kate replied, “perhaps we could enlist the aid of Sir Charles.”

“A capital idea,” Bea said more comfortably. “We can discover where to find this Tommy Brock, and Sir Charles can take the matter from there.” She looked at Kate. “It isn't that I'm not brave, of course.” She laughed a little. “Or is it?
You
were brave enough to confront a killer.” Kate had told her about her encounter with her aunt's murderer. “Perhaps I am simply too timorous.”

“No, no,” Kate said. “Looking back, I shudder at what I did. It strikes me as incredibly foolhardy now, although at the time it seemed quite necessary.” She busied herself with the teapot. “But I have another idea. What would you say to a nocturnal expedition in addition to our morning excursion? Please say no straightaway if you wish,” she added hurriedly.

“A nocturnal excursion?” Bea smiled. “Now, that's something to which I
am
accustomed. My brother Bertram's ferret—quite a fascinating creature, really—had been trained by his previous owner to hunt rats. At night, after Papa and Mama had gone to bed, Bertram and I often took Filbert into the alley behind Bolton Gardens so that we might observe his behaviour. Bertram is quite as taken with animals as am I.” Her eyes shone with mischief. “Poor Mama. She would have perished with fear had she known that I went ratting with Filbert and Bertram.” Her face darkened and she shook her head, sadly musing. “Poor Mama indeed. I doubt if she has ever been abroad at night after nine, except to go with Papa to the opera.”