Death at Gallows Green (30 page)

But his relief was mixed with a ragged frustration and a profound regret. Alive, Tod had held the key not only to the father's death but also to the daughter's disappearance. Now that the man was dead, would they ever know for a certainty how Betsy had died—in the struggle by the stone wall or in the cold river? He thought of the little girl and was almost overwhelmed with sadness, not only for her but for her grieving mother. If this question were not answered, its long shadow would darken Agnes's heart for the rest of her life.

E
dward Laken frequently encountered death in the course of his duties, and he had learned to hold himself apart from it—from its violence, its pathos, its pain. But this time, he reveled in the grim satisfaction that churned in the pit of his stomach as he stood beside Tod's contorted body, arms and legs flung wide as if he had been thrown from a horse, The man was a thief. He was implicated in Artie's murder—was most likely the murderer himself. And in Edward's mind, he was the man responsible for what had happened to Betsy. The only thing the least bit wrong about his death was that justice had not administered it. Now that it had come, though, Edward was glad of it, and glad that Agnes would be spared the brutal business of a trial.

Still rejoicing, he bent over the twisted body. Russell Tod's head—mouth open, eyes staring—was flung back and to one side, pointed chin tilted upward, face colourless in the grey light, coppery hair and side-whiskers rain-slicked. The man had died, it appeared, from a blow to the left side of the head: the skull had a queer, caved-in look, the depression badly bruised and discoloured. There was blood, although not much of it, at the nostrils and at one corner of the mouth. Perhaps he had been thrown from his horse and struck his head on a rock, or had ridden under an overhanging tree limb. But there were no trees in the vicinity, nor any rock substantial enough to have inflicted that damage. More likely, he had been kicked in the head by his horse.

Edward turned as Charles came up, camera in one hand, tripod over one shoulder.

“Ah, Charles,” Edward said, relieved to see him. Standing alone beside Tod's body, so close to the man who had wrecked Agnes's life, was a dangerous business. There was a maelstrom of feeling inside him, an ungovernable flood of it, capable at any moment of sweeping him away. “So we've come to the end of it,” he said, with a half-guilty, ill-concealed satisfaction.

“Perhaps,” Charles replied somberly. He set down his gear. “But perhaps not. How did he die, do you think?”

“Kicked by his horse, it would seem.” With an effort, Edward shut out the feeling. “No sign of the horse, though. No report of it, either.” He didn't say so, but it did seem a bit odd. In this area, where the country people knew animals and respected them, a saddled, riderless horse would be caught and penned and immediate word sent to the owner.

Charles said nothing, only bent to the body.

Edward looked down at his friend and shook his head. He knew himself to be a good policeman. He kept the Dedham peace by being the kind of man the villagers could respect. He cautioned the rowdies at the pub and hauled them off for a night in gaol when a cautionary word did not suffice. He kept a watch on the nomad gypsies that ranged his rural district and on the scores of casual labourers that thronged the village at harvest time. But while Edward was ambitious, there was almost no opportunity for the kind of real detective work that Charles relished, even if he had been trained to it. The great bulk of the crimes that happened on his patch were crimes of passion or opportunity, not crimes of stealth, and the criminals were easy to identify.

Under other circumstances, Edward might have been on his knees beside Charles, peering at the body. Now, more than a little guilty for having been glad of Russell Tod's death and anxious to go to Agnes and tell her that her pain was ended, he shifted from one foot to the other and scowled. Russell Tod was dead, and only Mary Dayle would mourn him. His death had ended the anguish, the sorrow, the unimaginable heartache of Betsy's loss, of Artie's death. There was no point in dragging it out by this inch-by-inch. hair-by-hair investigation in which Charles was so deeply engrossed. Nothing more was to be learned than what they could see with their eyes, unaided.

Finally, Charles stood up. “I doubt it was a horse, Ned.”

“A stone, then,” Edward said quickly. “He fell.”

“No. The area of discolouration and depression is far too small. The object that caused this death was little more than an inch in diameter. The man was killed when he was hit by something the size of a poker.”

Edward closed his eyes and wished he could close his ears, wished, irrationally, that he had not summoned Charles to the scene. But that was wild foolishness. He was a policeman, and his job was to see that justice was done, fall upon whom it might. He opened his eyes and said, “You think he was murdered, then?”

“Most probably,” Charles said. “What did you find when you searched the area?”

Edward looked at him. “I haven't.”

Charles's nod was sympathetic. “He's dead. That's something.” He paused. “Death always comes too early or too late. Pity he can't tell us about Betsy.”

“Yes,” Edward said. He looked down at the body. “Murdered to keep him from telling what he knew, d'you think?”

“Someone higher up, perhaps, in the ring of thieves.” Charles was thoughtful. “I wondered at Tod, a simple bailiff, being able to arrange for a boat to receive the grain.”

“Napthen, then. He worked on the docks in Harwich. He'd know how to arrange it.”

Charles shook his head. “Not Napthen. He spent the night in the Manningtree gaol.”

“Then Brock.” Edward looked at the sprawled body, trying to imagine how it might have happened. A falling-out of thieves, angry words, an impulsive blow. The body loaded into a cart and flung out, so that the murder could be mistaken—by a policeman anxious to bring an end to the business—for an accidental death.

“Perhaps,” Charles agreed. “Yes, perhaps Brock.” He bent to examine the ground around the dead man, found something that interested him, and studied it carefully. “Who discovered the body?” he asked.

Edward chuckled dryly. “Who do you think?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Miss Ardleigh, of course.”

“Ah, yes.” Charles turned, eyebrows raised. “I might have known. The woman is ubiquitous.”

“Indeed,” said a wry voice.

Edward turned, startled. “Good afternoon again, Kate. I thought you and Miss Potter had gone home.”

“We had.” Miss Ardleigh stepped off her bicycle, leaned it against Edward's cart, and crossed the ditch toward them. She was wearing the same remarkable tweed costume she had been wearing when Edward arrived on the scene, summoned by the neighbouring fann boy whom she had dispatched with the news of her gruesome discovery. Edward had to confess to being nearly as stunned by the sight of her ankles as he had been by the sight of the dead man. Even now, his glance was drawn inexorably to her lower limbs, and he had to wrench it away, feeling his face colour.

“Miss Potter has a dreadful cold,” she went on. “I took her back to Bishop's Keep, saw her to bed, and organized her tea.” She looked down at the body, frowning. “But I could not get this . . . this business out of my mind. I came to see what you had learned.”

“I wonder,” Charles said, “if I may examine your boots.”

Miss Ardleigh looked at him for a moment before speaking. “I hope you don't think
I
killed the man.”

“I doubt it,” Charles said evenly. “Did you?”

“No,” she said. Her mouth tightened and she glanced at the body with something like the fierce satisfaction that Edward himself felt. “But I must say that I'm glad I wasn't given the opportunity.”

Edward thought he had given up being surprised by Miss Ardleigh. But he could not help being surprised now. She bent down, unlaced her stout black boot and pulled it off, balancing on one foot in an altogether unladylike posture. He averted his eyes from her slender black-stockinged foot, a part of the female anatomy that he had seen only once or twice before in his life and found, to his dismay, inordinately provocative. She handed the boot to Charles, who dispassionately inspected its broad, flat heel and handed it back.

“Did Miss Potter approach the body?” he asked.

“No,” Miss Ardleigh said. She bent over to lace up her boot again. “She remained in the gig.”

“Did you see any woman in the vicinity?”

“No,” Miss Ardleigh replied. She straightened, her grey eyes puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

Edward frowned. A woman? What reason could Charles have to think that a woman had anything to do with Tod's death?

Charles did not directly answer the question. “I should like to cast your boot heels in plaster,” he said to Miss Ardleigh. “I have some back at the manor, for the field work I plan to do in fossils.” He turned to Edward. “Your heels too, Ned.”

Edward nodded. “But I should like to know,” he said slowly, “why you have taken such a sudden interest in shoes.”

“Because of this,” Charles said, pointing to a deep, round indentation, a half-inch in diameter, in the soft earth. “And this.” He pointed to another. “And this.”

Chagrined, Edward bent to look. He was here on police business. He should have seen the indentations himself. But he had been so swept up by his feelings that he had not paid even a routine attention to the site, and scarcely more to the body. He had not even gone through the pockets.

Miss Ardleigh bent over. “Heel prints!” She straightened, her eyes widening in an expression of surprise. “A woman's prints! You don't suspect . . .” She stared at him and her voice trailed off. “Do you?” She was clearly frightened.

Edward stiffened. A woman's prints! Was it possible that—?

No, no, of course not. Whatever else the shoe prints meant, they could not mean
that.
He drew in his breath and controlled his feelings with an effort. Agnes was too calm, too composed, too level-headed to have done something like this. And besides, she did not know the details of her husband's murder, nor suspect that Betsy's drowning was anything but an accident. Without that knowledge, she had no reason to kill Tod. He frowned, thinking back to the conversation in Agnes's kitchen, when Tod's name had been mentioned within her hearing.

But she hadn't been listening—had she?

Charles shoved his hands into his pockets. “There's not enough evidence to suspect anyone, man or woman, at this point.” He did not look at Edward. “But I think it a good idea to preserve these prints after I have taken photographs of the body. And also to cast the heels of the three of us, for purposes of comparison, and of anyone else who may have been near the body.”

Miss Ardleigh was pale. She stood still for a moment, then said, with the air of a woman who had just made up her mind to something, “I'll ride to the manor for your plaster, if you like.”

Edward was too deeply engrossed with the questions running through his head to question her intention. But Charles's quick smile lightened his sober face, and his voice was teasing.

“You'd let Lady Marsden see you cycling, in that get-up?” Miss Ardleigh tossed her head. “I am sure that Lady Marsden already believes me unredeemable,” she retorted. “A bicycle and a bit of ankle won't make her think any the worse of me. And since I intend to wear this comfortable ‘get-up' regularly, everyone had better become accustomed to it.”

Charles chuckled out loud. “Right, then. The plaster will be found in my science kit, on the table in my bedroom. Lawrence can get it for you.”

“I'm off,” Miss Ardleigh said briskly, and left them.

Charles unpacked his camera, set up the tripod, and took a half-dozen photographs of the body and several more of the puzzling round prints. Finally he finished, repacked his gear, and straightened up. He looked at Edward and spoke for the first time since Miss Ardleigh had gone. His words went straight to the heart of Edward's worry.

“I don't see how Agnes might have killed him, Ned.”

Edward felt a relief wash through him, so great that his knees actually felt weak. “No, no, of course not. She knew nothing about Tod's connexion to—She had no motive.” He cleared his throat loudly, too loudly. “I'll search the body now, if you've done.”

Charles stepped back. “It's yours, Constable.”

Edward knelt beside the body and ran his hands into the pockets of the jacket, the dark trousers. He found nothing except a few shillings, a small silver pocketknife, much worn, and a grimy handkerchief. But when he pulled out the handkerchief, tied into the corner was a gold coin with a nick in the edge.

“Artie's gold sovereign,” he exclaimed, holding it up. “That corks it!”

“I suppose it does,” Charles said. “Now all we have to do is find the person who corked
him.”

Edward pocketed the sovereign, the knife, and the handkerchief. “If you're done with your picture-taking, you can help me load the body into the cart. I'll take it to the police surgeon at Colchester, and make my report while I'm there. I'll telegraph Bradley, too.”

“Right,” Charles said. “I'll wait here for Miss Ardleigh, and cast the heel prints. God knows we can't go peering at every female boot in the county, but the casts may come in handy.”

It wasn't until he was halfway to Colchester, the body wrapped in a canvas and angled awkwardly in the back of the cart, that Edward realized what Charles had really said, and felt as if he had just driven into a cloud of icy, roaring blackness.