Chapter 51
J
acob Lovelock and Amos Kidd arrived at the scene a few moments later to find Thomas crouching over Lavington, the large stick still in his hand. As they drew closer they saw, too, the smears of blood on the doctor’s shirt.
Thomas looked up at the men, dazed and unsure. They returned his gaze, but the difference was they were certain of what they saw.
“Dr. Silkstone!” exclaimed Kidd.
Still stunned, Thomas looked at the men, then at the thick branch he held in his hand. He let it drop to the ground. “Oh no,” he said, shaking his head. “No, I did not.... He was like this. I found him like this.”
Lovelock and Amos remained silent for a moment, stunned by what they saw.
“Did you see anyone?” pleaded Thomas. “Search the woods.” But the men remained rooted to the spot. “The murderer must be nearby!” he shouted.
“Yes, he must,” replied Kidd, fixing a stare on the doctor.
“ ’Twas self-defense,” chimed in Lovelock. “We know that, sir.”
Thomas shook his head. “No. No. I found him like this. Look at his skull. Someone hit him. Someone hit him with ...”
“With this?” said Kidd, holding up the heavy stick that Thomas had just dropped.
“There was a fight, sir,” intervened Lovelock, trying to ease the tension.
Thomas looked at him incredulously. “There was no fight with me. He was murdered, I tell you. Someone hit him from behind.”
“But where did the murderer go, sir?” asked Lovelock. He pointed ahead to the high stone wall that ran around the perimeter of the estate. “He could not have scaled the wall and he didn’t come our way.”
Thomas swallowed hard. “You think I did this?” The reality of his situation dawned on him for the first time.
“You better come with us, sir,” said Kidd, stepping forward and taking Thomas by the arm, but he fended them off in a gesture of defiance.
“I can give a good account of myself, gentlemen,” he told them. “I do not need restraining.”
Back at Boughton Hall Lydia and Sir Theodisius waited for news in the drawing room. By this time Francis Crick had also arrived and was helping to comfort his cousin when Kidd and Lovelock arrived with Thomas.
Seeing Thomas’s shirt ripped and muddy, with blood on his face and shoulder, Lydia began to rush forward, but Francis prevented her, taking her by the arm.
“No, Lydia,” he said firmly.
“But Thomas, what is happening?” she cried. “Where is he? Where is Lavington?”
“He is dead, my lady,” said Thomas slowly.
“Dead?” echoed Sir Theodisius.
“Murdered,” said Kidd.
Lydia gasped. All eyes turned on Thomas. “But who ... ?” she cried.
“I found him. His skull had been struck from behind,” Thomas told her.
Kidd and Lovelock both looked at him accusingly.
“So who is responsible for this crime?” intervened Sir Theodisius.
“I have no idea, sir,” retorted Thomas. “I saw no one.”
Aware that his version of events lacked credibility, Thomas stumbled to find an explanation. “He can only have been dead two or three minutes before I found him, sir.”
“And yet you neither heard nor saw anyone else in the wood? Nor did these men?” ventured Sir Theodisius.
Thomas closed his eyes momentarily, hoping to awake from this nightmare when he reopened them. Instead he saw Kidd hand the heavy stick that he had found in the woods to Sir Theodisius.
“Dr. Silkstone was holding this when we saw him. Hunched over the body, he were,” he said.
“Is that true?” asked the coroner, perplexed.
“Yes, sir, but ...”
It was Francis who came to the doctor’s rescue. “Perhaps we should carry on this investigation in the study,” he suggested. Thomas looked at him. He had not seen him for a few days and his whole demeanor seemed changed. He appeared more confident in the way he conducted himself, as if the events of the past weeks had made him grow in wisdom and character.
Thomas watched him usher Lydia into the study, followed by the coroner.
“Please, sir,” he said, showing Sir Theodisius to a seat. The young student then proceeded to sit next to his cousin on the chaise longue and took her hand in his in a gesture of comfort.
“Pray tell me what is happening,” pleaded a distressed Lydia.
Sir Theodisius looked grave. “This is a serious situation, Doctor,” he said. “You give me little choice.”
“I do not understand,” replied Thomas.
“Dr. Silkstone, by the power invested in me by His Majesty King George III, I am arresting you for the murder of James Lavington.”
“ ’Tis not true!” shouted Thomas. Kidd came forward to restrain him once more, but Sir Theodisius called him off.
“Who else could have killed him, Dr. Silkstone?” quizzed the coroner. “We all saw you fighting with him before. You had the wherewithal and,” he said, pointedly looking at Lydia, “it seems, the motive.”
“Motive?” questioned Thomas.
Sir Theodisius shook his head. “I am not blind, Dr. Silkstone. Your hatred of Lavington was obvious.”
The young doctor darted a look at Lydia, then hung his head in exasperation, but just as he lowered his gaze to the floor, he noticed Francis Crick’s shoes. They were spattered with mud. What especially caught Thomas’s eye, however, were some other gray deposits that clung to the student’s stockings.
“Perhaps you should ask Mr. Crick what he was doing while I was going after Mr. Lavington in the woods,” ventured Thomas, his voice suddenly more assured.
All eyes now moved to Francis, who shifted awkwardly.
“Well, Mr. Crick,” urged the coroner.
“I came up from London this morning, sir. I arrived just as Lady Lydia returned from the chapel.” His voice was slightly indignant.
“So, why are your shoes and stockings so dirty, may I ask?” pressed Thomas.
Francis looked uneasy. “It was raining, sir, and I had to walk from the carriage to the door,” he replied.
“My cousin arrived not more than ten minutes after I came back,” interjected Lydia.
Sir Theodisius nodded. “That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable explanation,” he concluded.
Thomas nodded. “Indeed it is, sir, until you ask him how he came to have that grayish powder on his stockings.”
Sir Theodisius peered down at Francis’s legs and clearly saw the strange substance to which Thomas referred. “What is the meaning of this?” he quizzed.
The young doctor stood up and walked over to Sir Theodisius. Holding up a flap of his torn shirt in front of the coroner, he said: “You see this?” Sir Theodisius scrutinized the piece of linen. “That gray powder resembles the powder on Mr. Crick’s stockings, does it not?”
The coroner nodded. “It appears so.”
“It is beech lichen. Otherwise known as
enterographa elabo-rata
.”
Sir Theodisius sniffed. “What of it?”
“It grows on the trunks of ancient beech trees,” explained Thomas. “I picked it up in the wood just now.”
Sir Theodisius was becoming impatient. “Very well, Dr. Silkstone, but where is all this leading?”
Thomas looked at Francis Crick, whose cheeks had suddenly lost their entire color. “It is exactly the same beech lichen that is on Mr. Crick’s stockings.”
Lydia turned and stared at her cousin, a look of mistrust etched on her face.
“You were in the woods, Francis,” said Thomas softly. “And you killed James Lavington.”
At this accusation Francis darted up from the chaise longue. “How dare you, sir?” he cried.
Sir Theodisius interjected. “What can you say in your defense, Mr. Crick? If you were not in the woods, how do you explain the lichen?”
Francis grew increasingly agitated. “What motive would I have to kill Lavington?” he blurted defensively.
“Money. Power. Love. I could go on,” taunted Thomas.
“Explain yourself, Dr. Silkstone,” barked Sir Theodisius.
It had been Dr. Carruthers who had first drawn his attention to it. “What did you say that young earl’s name was?” he had asked one evening after dinner a few weeks ago. When Thomas replied, somewhat puzzled, that it was Crick, his mentor had clapped his hands gleefully.
“I thought so,” he replied.
When Thomas enquired why that particular fact should be of significance, the old anatomist leaned forward in his chair. “I remember now,” he whispered enigmatically.
“Remember what?” urged Thomas.
“I remember two or three years ago, when I could read the newspaper for myself, there was an engagement announced between a Crick and another Crick in the court pages of
The Universal Daily Register
. I remember it particularly because the father of the boy was a patient of mine, until he drank himself to death.”
Using this snippet of information, Thomas had visited the offices of the newspaper and asked to look at their back issues. Sure enough the engagement of Lady Lydia Sarah Crick to Mr. Francis Henry Crick had been announced on May 30, 1775.
“You were betrothed,” said Thomas.
Francis suddenly began to tremble. “Yes.”
Lydia lowered her head in embarrassment. “We were young and foolish,” she mumbled.
“Foolish?” repeated Francis. “Foolish?” He looked at her incredulously. “Is that what you call it now? We had everything planned. We had your parents’ blessing. How can you say our union would have been foolish?” Thomas watched the young student grow more tense. “If anyone was foolish it was you, leaving me for that Irish wastrel.”
Lydia’s elopement with Farrell had been exposed in court, but what only a few people knew or remembered was the fact that she and Francis had been childhood sweethearts.
“Your mother always wanted us to be together, you know that.” Francis was staring at Lydia reproachfully now. “I was the one you were meant to marry. I was the one who was meant to take on all this.” He waved his hand in a grand gesture that suddenly took on a poignant impotence.
“You did not need to kill for it, Francis,” cried Lydia.
He clenched his fists and brought them up to his chest in a gesture of frustration. “I could not let Lavington have you, after all we had been through,” he sobbed.
“So, you confess to his murder?” interrupted Sir Theodisius.
Francis took a deep breath and drew himself upright, as if he were proud of the confession. “That I do, sir, just as I would have killed Silkstone if he had taken her away from me.”
“Then, Francis Crick, I arrest you for the murder of James Lavington.” At these words Lovelock and Kidd marched forward and took hold of Crick. He made no attempt to resist, but simply looked forlornly at Lydia. “I will always love you,” he whispered before they marched him out.
“I owe you an apology, Dr. Silkstone,” admitted Sir Theodisius graciously as he was about to leave.
“No need,” replied Thomas, proffering his hand. “No doubt we will see each other again in court,” he said.
As soon as the coroner left to return to Oxford, Thomas walked over to where Lydia was sitting, a glazed expression on her face. Sitting beside her he took her hand in his. She flinched and turned away momentarily.
“Oh my dear Lydia,” Thomas began. “Look at me, please.”
She turned to face him slowly. “Mama wanted us to marry so badly. She could see no future for Edward, but Francis was always her favorite.”
Thomas stroked her cheek. “And because Francis was family it did not matter he had no other inheritance.”
Lydia jolted upright. “You knew?”
Thomas nodded. “I could tell that Francis was not called to medicine by some greater good, but by necessity. Then I found out his father was a drunkard and a gambler and had squandered his only son’s inheritance. Francis had to work for his living, until he saw a way of marrying the woman he loved and inheriting her fortune. He may not have killed the captain himself, but his execution would have suited his purpose.”
Lydia now stared ahead of her, as if she could see the scenario played out before her.
“So, it was Francis who sent you that threat and who had you attacked?”
“Yes,” said Thomas. “But he had not bargained on Lavington’s designs on you.”
Lydia thought for a moment. “Is it possible that he killed Edward, too?” she asked, almost childlike.
“No doubt he will be questioned,” replied Thomas.
At that moment Lady Crick flounced into the room, wearing a bright straw bonnet and a woolen shawl.
“Where is Francis?” she asked. “I thought I heard Francis. He promised to take me out.”
Thomas and Lydia eyed each other awkwardly. “He was called away on urgent business,” said Thomas quickly.