Murder on a Summer's Day (12 page)

He hesitated. ‘Do you want your eggs back?’

‘No. You keep them. But I want to walk through the wood.’

He recognised a bargaining position, and gave way.

I asked no more questions. He volunteered no information. We kept pace, in what I hoped was companionable silence. A squirrel dashed across the path a little way ahead and scaled an elm. We walked into a patch of sunlight. The river murmured gently. The peace of the wood might drive away his bad dreams, though the poor lad might have nightmares for the rest of his life after what he had seen. My own early morning dream came back to me. The image of the dead man rising was vivid enough, but more dramatic still were the words spoken aloud by an unseen presence: ‘He is too young.’

Who was too young? My first thought had been of Prince Narayan, a still young and handsome man. Osbert Hannon was too young to drown in the Wharfe at age twenty-one. My husband, Gerald, missing in action in the last year of the Great War, was too young to leave this world. Was it one of them, all of them, or someone else? Isaac Withers was not too young to have suffered a stroke, but here was his son Joel, forever a child in his muddled mind.

The Wharfe grew noisier as we neared the Strid. Joel became agitated. ‘It’s laughing. The river is laughing.’

The roar of rushing water filled my ears. I turned to look and moved a little closer, mesmerised by its power. Huge perpendicular masses of grey rock hemmed in the torrent that then forced itself through a gap with a great whooshing force. At the point where a young man might leap, the ledges of rock reached out, as if wanting to be joined once again after their ice-age sundering.

He hung back.

My eyes were drawn to a small, plodding figure on the other side of the river. A young woman eased herself onto a rock, holding tightly to her apron. When seated, she stared into the water. If she noticed me, she did not acknowledge.

Joel called to me again.

I walked back to him. ‘Who is that?’

He would not look.

After several minutes, the young woman slid from the rock and took a few unsteady steps towards to the fast-flowing water, still holding her apron. I recognised her. It was young Mrs Hannon, Osbert’s widow. My God, was she about to throw herself into the river? I opened my mouth, ready to call to her, but my voice came out too softly and was drowned by the rushing current.

Joel came nearer. ‘It’s Jenny. Osbert’s Jenny.’

As she drew closer to the edge, she put her hand in the bunched up apron and drew out flowers, throwing them into the water, repeating the action until the river was strewn with buttercups, daisies, rosemary and meadowsweet. She stood and stared into the water. Finally, she turned and stepped away. With the burden of her apron of flowers gone, she walked steadily back up from the rocks to the path. Slowly, she disappeared from view.

After that, we walked on in silence, under a sky now filled with clouds.

Eventually, Joel turned as one path led from another. ‘It’s round here.’

Moments later we arrived at a stone cottage with a lopsided door and neglected thatched roof.

He hesitated. ‘I’ll be all on my own.’

‘Be brave.’

Having changed from my boots, I drove to the railway station. What would the stationmaster be like, I wondered. He was a man with a respected position. Osbert had promised to marry his daughter, had married another, and yet still dallied with Rachel. Protection of a daughter’s honour was a powerful motive for murder.

More mundanely, I would learn the arrival time of the London train. I could also enquire about any strangers who may have been seen in the area during the week, or whether there had been any unusual activity.

A curious dog barked as I passed a neat cottage garden. A curtain twitched. This was not a place where a stranger would go unnoticed. I rounded the bend and there was the station. As I climbed from the car, the powerful stench of paint hit my nostrils. Obviously the station had to look its best for important visitors. A porter, brush in hand, called out to me to be careful of wet paint. I walked through the gate sideways, not having brought sufficient changes of clothing to risk paint smudges.

The railway lines gleamed in the sunshine, as if they knew an important train was expected. Planters filled with begonias, geraniums and lobelias were arranged with military precision along the wall. Stillness reigned, the silence broken only by distant birdsong.

Through the clear circle in the opaque glass of the stationmaster’s office door, I watched as a rotund, florid-faced man stared into a small looking glass as he clipped his short grey moustache with nail scissors.

I stepped to one side, to be out of his view, and waited several moments, long enough for him to finish attending to his facial hair.

When I looked again, he was examining a roll of red carpet that stood in the corner of the room. I knocked.

He put on his cap and opened the door.

I introduced myself.

‘I heard you were here, madam, looking into things. And you’re the lady got poor old Isaac into the hospital.’

‘I would like to take credit, but that was the doctor’s doing.’

‘You were there, madam. A gentleman always does the right thing in the presence of a lady.’

I felt sure he was wrong about that, but now was not the time to argue about the doctor’s integrity.

‘Mr Simpson, would you be so good as to tell me the timetable for today.’

He puffed up a little at my use of his name. If he asked me how I knew it that would give me an opportunity to mention his daughter. He did not. I would have to find some other way of introducing that topic and testing out his feelings about Osbert Hannon.

‘A special train is on its way from Kings Cross, to Leeds, to Skipton scheduled to arrive here at 7 p.m.’ He consulted a sheet of paper. ‘There will be three first-class carriages and five third-class carriages for staff. The duchess will travel in the first compartment with the two maharanis, wife of Maharajah Shivram Halkwaer, and Maharani Indira, who is the unfortunate widow. Her young son, Prince Rajendra is with them. They will be accompanied by a maid or maids. Prince Jaya will join the royal train at Leeds. In the next carriage will be the Right Honourable James Rodpen and aides-de-camp. A fleet of Bentleys will be here to meet the train and take the party to Bolton Hall.’

‘What about the Duke of Devonshire and the senior maharajah?’

‘They will be arriving by aeroplane.’

‘Goodness, I would never have expected that.’

‘Nor me neither, madam. But that looks like the future. God help the birds is what I say.’

‘Are you expecting many other visitors today?’

‘Oh no. Today’s sightseers are being turned back at Skipton. They’re being told that Bolton Abbey is closed to visitors today.’

‘Tell me, have there been any other Indians arriving by train this week?’

‘Only the servant. He came with a little placard, giving details of his destination, and in charge of a tremendous amount of luggage.’

It would have been too good to be true that another Indian had arrived. But there were other stations. ‘Mr Simpson, has there been very much activity at the stations along your line this week?’

He shook his head. ‘No more than usual. The mail arrives, the mail is despatched. People take their goods to Skipton market to sell and others go to Skipton market to buy.’

‘Have any strangers arrived here, or at your neighbouring station?’

‘No. Not here, and not at Holywell.’

His curiosity was aroused. ‘You’re thinking of that story madam, started by Deakin.’

Was there no news that did not travel faster than I? ‘It was just a general enquiry, Mr Simpson. I am trying to establish a pattern for what life is normally like in this very peaceful spot, so that we may reassure the Indian family.’

It was as if I had not spoken. He saw straight through my words.

‘I understand, madam. That Deakin, he sees all sorts when he’s in his cups, which is most of the time, and he’ll tell any tale to ease a pint out of a body. Mind, I’m not criticising him, due to the war he had. It takes some people down a certain path if you follow my meaning. My wife counts every bag of cobs and nutty slack that man delivers.’

So Deakin was regarded as a drunkard, and a cheat who gave short measure in his coal deliveries, and was generally disliked. But was he lying when he said he saw an Indian, or when he said he did not?

Mr Simpson stroked his moustache thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if I might ask you a question, madam?’

‘Of course.’ Was this the moment when we could discuss Rachel and her love for Osbert?

He pointed to a couple of trunks labelled Miss Lydia Metcalfe, Dorchester Hotel, London.

‘The trunks?’

‘No. The red carpet next to them. I am debating with myself whether it is appropriate, under the circumstances, to roll out the red carpet. We don’t run to black you see, and given the tragic accident, red may seem a little tasteless.’

‘It’s a dark red, and it will be most suitable I’m sure. I notice that the maharajah’s valet has laid out his master’s body without regard to our usual mourning rules. They do things differently I believe.’

‘That is a relief. Then we shall lay the red carpet. The senior maharajah and his lady have been here with Prince Jaya, for the grouse-shooting, and so it will be just the same as always, in spite of the tragic accident to the maharajah.’

Tragic accident. I wondered whether those were his own words, or what he had been told by someone.

‘Mr Simpson, about the other death, the one that is closer to home.’

He grimaced. ‘Has my Rachel been blubbing at her work?’

‘She has been very brave.’ I sighed, hoping to convey a great deal of sympathy rather than nosiness. ‘I have the impression that Osbert broke more than one girl’s heart.’

He saw through me. ‘I’ve heard that you are a detective.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, madam, there is nothing to detect in relation to Osbert’s death. A good hiding was on the cards for him, but not a murder. He was the only support for his mam, and for the foolish lass who wed him. I would have sooner sent my Jenny out of harm’s way to live with her gran than have her take up with a young philanderer so light in his ways. But we should not speak ill of the dead. Perhaps he would have made a good father and husband had the lord spared him.’ He stopped, and gulped. ‘I hope nobody says I’ve done away with him?’

‘Is anyone likely to think that?’

‘Nobody would be so foolish. But there’s a lot of loose talk in a village. If they’re slandering me, they’re leaving Metcalfe alone.’

‘The farmer?’

‘Aye, and I can vouch for both of us, myself and Tobias Metcalfe, there’s no truth in it.’

‘What are they saying?’

He bit his lip. ‘You hadn’t heard. I should’ve kept my gob shut.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No father would want his lass to take up with a foreigner, but he wouldn’t have shot the man for it.’

‘Then who is saying he did, and where are they saying it?’

‘Oh you know what men are like when they’ve had a drink. The Indian hadn’t been missing five minutes. It was in the Elm Tree. But I know Tobias Metcalfe and he’s no such fool. Folk don’t want to believe there could be two tragic accidents falling out of a clear blue sky. But it has to be that, because otherwise the finger points at one of us.’

Those words again; tragic accident.

Back at the hotel, I availed myself of the telephone in Mr Sergeant’s office and put in a call to my housekeeper. It was clear from my conversation with the stationmaster that what little gossip swam to the surface here came from men in public houses. If anyone was likely to catch a good bite, it would be my able former policeman assistant, Jim Sykes.

As I waited for the connection, I glanced at this week’s
Craven Herald
, open at a page giving an account of the maharajah’s visit to Yorkshire.

Moments later, Mrs Sugden’s familiar voice assailed my ears. ‘You didn’t pack enough clothes and you’re regretting that shabby costume.’

‘Well all right, yes I am, but that is not why I am telephoning.’

‘What’s up then?’

‘Please take a message to Mr Sykes. Tell him he would very much enjoy a fishing break at the Devonshire Arms, Bolton Abbey, and today would be an excellent time to begin.’

‘I’ll go round there now. And I’ll ask him to fetch another suitcase for you.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Sugden.’

‘Oh and your mother telephoned yesterday. She has heard that your cousin is coming to Yorkshire.’

Panic rose. Whenever my mother hears I am investigating in a picturesque place, she feels the urgent need to make an immediate excursion to that particular spot.

‘If she calls again, tell her I know all about James’s visit and it is to do with work. I have to go now.’

I straightened the
Craven Herald
. There on the front page was an advertisement, announcing that Mr Deakin, Coal Merchant of Embsay, would supply cobs and nutty slack by the hundredweight.

It was high time for me to discover whether Mr Deakin really had seen an Indian on Bark Lane last week.

As I drove away from the hotel, Cummings appeared in the doorway, his jacket undone. That man must spend an inordinate amount of time undoing and doing up his buttons. He waved to me. Perhaps he was hoping for another half a crown, even though he had not earned the first one.