Death at Gallows Green (25 page)

The rooster crowed once again.

K
ate was at her rolltop desk in the library shortly after ten that morning, ostensibly to write the second chapter in Beryl Bardwell's
The Corpse in the Garden.
But even though she was pleased with the plot, featuring as it did grain thieves and midnight excursions into the fog-shrouded countryside, she was not making much headway in the writing, for her attention was distracted by the prospect of Bradford Marsden's call that afternoon. She had already mentally composed three or four pretty speeches of rejection and rejected them all. She was at work on yet another when Mudd came into the room with the dignity he affected when he was carrying out an official duty. He bore an envelope on a silver tray.

“A message, mum,” he said, “just arrived from Marsden Manor.” He bowed and took a backward step, waiting to see if there was an answer.

The envelope was sealed with red sealing wax embossed with the Marsden crest. Inside was a five-line note scrawled in a hasty hand. “My dear Miss Ardleigh,” it said. “I very much regret that I will not be able to call this afternoon. I have been summoned to London upon extended business and am unsure when I shall return. Please accept my sincerest apology for any inconvenience I may have caused you.” The note was signed, “Yr humble servant, Bradford Marsden.”

Kate's eyebrows went up and her mouth quirked. It wasn't hard to guess what had occasioned the writing of the note. If the situation had been as she had suspected, Bradford had most likely spoken of his call to his mother or father and found them in whole-hearted opposition to it, as they should be. He was destined for a Society match, and Bishop's Keep was not enough of a bait to attract Lord and Lady Marsden.

She stood and went to the fireplace to drop Bradford's note into the flames. “There is no reply,” she said to Mudd.

“Very good, mum,” the butler replied and withdrew.

Kate stood for a moment staring at the flames licking the note, savouring the relief of knowing that she would not after all have to make excuses to Bradford Marsden. Briefly, she wondered whether losing so advantageous a match ought to make her unhappy. Most women would regret the loss, of course, particularly unmarried women of her age. But she was not most women, and the thought of living singly the rest of her life held no terror for her. She had meant what she said to Eleanor at Melford Hall. She valued her freedom to come and go as she pleased, to defer to no one's opinion, to respect no one's authority but her own. Singleness was a gift she would not readily relinquish unless . . .

Kate leaned her head against the mantle as Bradford Marsden's note disintegrated into flimsy black ash and fell through the grate.
Unless she truly loved the man.
She thought of Sir Charles Sheridan and admitted to herself—reluctantly, because it seemed almost traitorous to her independence—that she could love
him.
Sir Charles was a man of great intelligence and intensity, devoid of guile, one who kept himself to himself, who did not give himself easily or frivolously. It was that very privateness, that depth and substance, that drew her to him, for in it she felt a call to her own depths.

But that privateness was a wall, as well, and the person behind it was remote and complex. He had many dimensions, many strengths. The woman whom he loved (if he ever allowed himself to love or be loved, which Kate somehow doubted) would have to be as strong as he to hold her own against him, and as multi-faceted as he to hold his interest. Would there not be a constant conflict between two such persons? Would not their relationship be a battle of wills from the very beginning, eventually abrading away the affection that drew them together?

Kate pulled her shawl around her shoulders. The questions were academic, as least as far as she was concerned, for Sir Charles had obviously concluded that she was a meddlesome woman who pushed her way into matters that did not concern her. She would not be the one to whom he gave his heart—and against whom he tested his mettle. It was time to stop thinking of such things and return to her typewriter.

But when she sat down to her desk, she found herself considering, not the fictional murder of the surly gamekeeper in Beryl Bardwell's thriller, but the real one she had been occupied with for the past days: the slaying of Sergeant Arthur Oliver in Highfields Barn. It was a sad death, and she could only feel a great relief that the truth of it had been discovered and the nonsense about poaching finally laid to rest. The case could not be solved until the killers had been apprehended and brought to justice, of course, but Edward and Sir Charles would see to that. Far more important was the fact that Agnes's pension was now secure, and she and Betsy could be assured of a comfortable life.

Beryl Bardwell turned to the typewriter and rolled in a fresh sheet of paper. Across the top of the page, in capital letters, she typed the words GRAIN THIEVES IN THE BARN. It was time to begin a new chapter.

 

While Kate and Beryl Bardwell were wrestling with marriage proposals and murders, Beatrix was in the kitchen, toasting her toes before the fire. It was a rare privilege for her, and one she greatly treasured. At home at Bolton Gardens she was never allowed in the kitchen for fear of antagonizing Cook, who ruled below-stairs with an iron fist and whose kitchen was sacrosanct. Mrs. Pratt had, to be sure, a quite similar demeanour, but she also had a strong affection for Kate. This affection was extended to Beatrice in the form of an invitation to visit the kitchen whenever she liked.

To Beatrice, the kitchen at Bishop's Keep was exactly what a kitchen should be. Every morning since her arrival, Beatrice had taken her sketch pad and pencils and gone to sit beside the fire to watch Mrs. Pratt and Harriet, the sweet little scullery, go about their homely work—washing up the breakfast dishes, preparing the luncheon soup, rolling out dough for a sweet tart, and readying the evening joint for an afternoon in the oven. While they worked, she sketched the cave-like fireplace hung with iron pots and copper-bottomed kettles; the red and green braided rugs on the stone floor; and the cupboards filled with neat rows of jam pots, mustard jars, and—topping the whole delightful display—a rose-sprigged china biscuit barrel.

While she sketched, Beatrix soaked up as much of the cozy warmth as she could and thought wistfully of the kitchen she coveted in her very own small cottage somewhere in the North, perhaps near Sawrey, where she had gone several times with her father—not a cottage to share with a husband or child, but a cottage of her own, where she could keep her animals and study fungi and write little books and have tea whenever she pleased.

But to break away from her parents and obtain the cottage, Beatrix knew that she must have an independent source of income. She had hoped that perhaps her botanical work, particularly her paper on the spore germination of the
Agaricinea,
might open the door to recognition in the world and to freedom. Besides, it was a subject in which she was passionately interested, and which she had studied so deeply that she knew more about it than any botanist in England. But her work looked to be going nowhere, even with the help of Uncle Henry Roscoe and Sir Charles. There was too much opposition from the scientists—and not even valid opposition, at that. It was not the merit of her research that they seemed to find wanting, but the merit of her person, her sex. Even Uncle Henry said so, and angrily too, for he was offended at their cavalier attitude toward her paper.

At any rate, she was forced to conclude that botany was not to be the career that would set her free. But the stories—She bent her head over her sketch with renewed energy. If only her stories could earn money, as did Kate's. She was still amazed when she thought of Kate's writing enterprise. It was no secret that women actually earned money by writing, but
she
had never known one who did, and the thought of it gave her courage and a renewed determination. For some time, she had been thinking of a story about a cat called Tabitha Twitchett. Mrs. Pratt's stove polished to a jetty brilliance that must have required pounds of blacklead, would perfectly illustrate one of the scenes in Tabitha's story.

Mrs. Pratt herself was humming over her paste-board and rolling pin at the table, Harriet was peeling a pot of potatoes in the stone sink, and the kettle was whistling merrily on the back of the stove. There was a sharp rapping at the back door. Beatrix looked up.

“ 'Tis Old Willie Hogglestock, the peddler,” Mrs. Pratt said, not pausing in her attentions to the tart. “Tell him I'll be out in a shake, Harriet.”

Beatrix followed Mrs. Pratt and Harriet out into the flagged dooryard, under a leaden sky that threatened rain. Old Willie Hogglestock was a man of nearly sixty, with a white beard and a lank figure covered neck to knees in a white apron. His cart was laden with quite an amazing stock of fruit and fish: lovely rich grapes and pears and peaches and oranges, and fish in mother-of-pearl colours and queer shapes—John Dorys, and Yarmouth bloaters, and cod, and haddock, and live eels—and tomatoes. Beatrix enjoyed tomatoes, both the scarlet and the yellow, and they often had them at Bolton Gardens. But Mrs. Pratt scorned them: “tommytoes,” she called them, “proper rubbish,” and wouldn't have any. There was a lovely basket of field mushrooms too, but she turned those down quite as sharply.

Mrs. Pratt completed her purchase of cod and grapes and gave Old Willie a smile with her shillings. “You'll sit fer a cup, will you?” she asked.

“I'll ‘ave th' cup, thank‘ee,” the old man said, “but not th' sit.” He looked up at the sky. “Got t' be on t' th' Manor afore th' rain begins i' earnest.” He went with them into the kitchen, where he leaned his lank self against the wall and accepted a cup of tea. “Ye've heard th' news, I reckon,” he said.

“What news?” Mrs. Pratt asked, picking up her rolling pin. “We've had no news from the village yet this mornin', only a messenger from the manor.”

Beatrix went back to her sketching with a secret smile. The messenger from the manor had made a stop in the kitchen, and now all the servants knew that Mr. Marsden would not be calling today. Beatrix, to whom Kate had confided her thoughts about the call, was pleased at this outcome. Whether Mr. Marsden had lost his enthusiasm for the match, or his parents had voiced an opposing opinion as to its suitability, or Sir Charles had somehow acted to stop him, she did not know. But however it had come about, one of Kate's suitors had departed the field, leaving only Constable Laken standing between Sir Charles and Kate. And while the affections of the constable were certainly to be respected, Beatrix knew that Kate's heart leaned toward Sir Charles, as his toward hers. The only problem she now faced was getting the two of them to recognize the truth.

Old Willie had been staring mournfully into his teacup. “ 'Tis sad news,” he said, “from Gallows Green. Pore Agnes Oliver is beside ‘erself worryin'.” He sighed. “As well she might do,”

“Agnes Oliver!” Beatrix exclaimed, looking up. “Why?”

“Why? Because lit'le Betsy's gone missin',” Old Willie said. “That's why.”

“Betsy!” Beatrix and Mrs. Pratt exclaimed in unison. Harriet dropped a potato on the floor and it rolled under the stone sink.

“Aye,” Old Willie said sadly. “A second trag‘dy, fallin' on th' same 'ooman in such short time. Wot's th' pore thing t' do, I'm sure I doan know.”

If the old man knew other details, Beatrix did not wait to hear them. She spilled her sketching materials on the hearth and flew to the door. Where was Betsy? And poor, poor Agnes, what was she feeling?

She and Kate must go to Gallows Green, straightaway!

 

The Dedham gaol was only a mile or so from Highfields Farm, but Edward was officially off the case, and Charles knew it wouldn't do to haul James Napthen there. The next nearest gaol was in Manningtree, and since P.C. Bradley was heading the investigation, that was the logical place to incarcerate the man. Edward tied Napthen's hands, and they loaded him into the fly. They made the five-mile trip to Manningtree without event, save for a drenching. The rain was beginning to come down rather hard, and Charles wished earnestly for his mackintosh.

“James
who
?” Bradley asked, looking from one to the other as the three of them dripped puddles onto the floor. In front of him on the desk were the greasy remnants of an early luncheon—a parcel of fried fish, a slice of heavily buttered bread, and a baked potato—which had no doubt been sent down from the pub on the High Street. He cast about for something on which to wipe his hands and failing to find it, wiped them on his trousers and then looked guilty, as if he wished he had not. He stood up and hastily buttoned his uniform coat.

“James Napthen,” Edward repeated patiently, “of Highfields Farm. Oliver's murder took place in his barn.” He coughed. Charles could see that the stove was not drawing properly. The air was smoky, and every now and then a blue cloud puffed out around the door.

“It was a grain-stealing ring, you see,” Charles said, feeling some sympathy for Bradley. The P.C. had buttoned his coat crookedly, and it gave him the look of a boy who had been caught out by the upper form. “Sergeant Oliver got onto it and was surprised while taking samples. They shot him in the barn, loaded him into a wagon, and dumped him in McGregor's garden.”

Bradley pushed his blond hair back with his fingers, leaving a trace of oily grease across his forehead. His toilet completed, he became more confident. “Oliver was poaching,” he said. “I collected the evidence myself. Two hares and a net. There's the note, too, of course.”