Death at Gallows Green (10 page)

“Lawrence!” Kate exclaimed, remembering Eleanor's suspicion. “And Amelia?” Could she be involved in some kind of wretched jewel-robbing scheme?

“I trust you won't make it hard for the girl. She and Lawrence meant no great mischief.”

“I think. Sir Charles,” Kate said grimly, “that you had better tell me exactly what they
were
up to.”

An apologetic look crossed his face. “I am afraid,” he said, “that they discovered a dead man.”

Bea gasped. “A dead man!” Kate exclaimed, forgetting all about the emeralds.

“Yes,” Sir Charles said soberly, and told them.

“Oh, how appalling!” Kate cried, clasping her hands. “Poor Agnes Oliver!”

“You know the widow, then?” Sir Charles asked.

“I do,” Kate said. “I met her at St Mary's Church. She has helped me carry on Aunt Sabrina's work.” Kate was Irish and had grown up in an Irish family, but she had given up attending Mass years before. Under the gentle influence of Vicar Talbot, the Episcopal vicar in the nearby village of Dedham, she had continued her aunt's practice of giving generously to the support of needy people in the surrounding villages and hamlets. “I must call on Agnes tomorrow,” she said. “How very dreadful! And whatever will the poor woman do to earn a living?”

“She is to be given a police pension, I understand,” Sir Charles said. “Fifteen pounds a year, and two-and-ten for the child.”

“This Sergeant Oliver,” Bea said tremulously, “this friend of yours—you said he was
murdered.
Sir Charles?”

“I'm afraid so,” Sir Charles said. “The coroner's inquest was held yesterday. The jury returned a verdict of homicide.”

“Does Constable Laken yet have an idea why the sergeant was killed?” Kate asked. The death of the constable and the loss of the jewels seemed to her unusually coincidental. Perhaps they were connected. If so, the constable would soon discover it. She pulled herself up short. No, he wouldn't, for he couldn't know that Lady Marsden's emeralds were missing. No one but she and Eleanor—and the thief—knew that. She would send a message to Eleanor immediately and let her know what had happened. Lady Marsden must be told about the theft, and the constable informed. The business was very possibly connected to the murder

“Laken has been taken off the case and the investigation handed over to some bureaucrat in Colchester,” Sir Charles said. “Some ridiculous political thing, no doubt. Ned's terribly upset by it, of course, for he was Oliver's friend. But his hands are tied.”

“I don't suppose,” Kate remarked, thinking that Lady Marsden might find it easier to talk to Sir Charles about the missing emeralds than to the constable, “that
your
hands are tied.”

A smile flickered briefly across Sir Charles's face. “You are right,” he said. “I intend to find out who killed Arthur Oliver.” He went back to his horse and stepped into the saddle, and Kate thought that his eyes seemed to linger on her. “I am sorry to have been the bearer of bad news, Miss Ardleigh, so shortly upon your arrival.” He shifted his glance to Bea with a smile. “I won't forget those lichens, Miss Potter. We must talk soon.”

As she said good-bye to Sir Charles, Kate was thinking about Agnes Oliver and her daughter Betsy, and whether they needed help. And Beryl Bardwell—the irrepressible Beryl, whose imagination was fired by even the slightest of mysteries—was deeply intrigued. Why had Sergeant Oliver been killed? What did his murder have to do with the theft of the emeralds? Was Lawrence involved in either, or both? And what of Amelia?

As Kate turned to go up the stairs to Bishop's Keep, her mouth firmed. She had work to do. And she knew exactly where to start.

“A
melia,” Kate said firmly, “I am not overly concerned with the impropriety of your leaving the party to walk in the lane with Lawrence. What I am concerned about is the fact of the sergeant's death, and any connexion Lawrence might have had with it.”

Amelia's tear-filled eyes widened. “Lawrence! Oh, miss, there's no connexion, none! He didn't even
know
th' pore man! He was told later, by Constable Laken an' Sir Charles.”

Kate eyed her maid narrowly. She knew Amelia for a truthful girl and a good one at heart. Kate was sure that she was telling the truth. What she could not be sure of, however, was how much of the truth Amelia might not know. Lawrence, with whom Kate was little acquainted, might be very devious and canny. Perhaps he had murdered the constable when he was discovered with the emeralds, then disposed of the body and arranged to stumble on it himself, in the company of an innocent witness. He would thereby avoid all suspicion of guilt.

Kate softened her tone. It would do no good to frighten the girl, or alienate her. “How long have you known Lawrence, Amelia?”

“A few months, miss,” Amelia said nervously. “Since the magic lantern show.”

“And you have become well acquainted with him?”

She ducked her head. “Not to say
well
-acquainted, miss. We ‘uv got t' be friends.”

“How long has he been with the Marsdens?” No, wait. She knew the answer to that. Eleanor said he had been in their employ for seven years.

Amelia was shaking her head. “I can't say, miss. All I know is that he's th' footman, an' well-liked. But he's valetin' fer Sir Charles right now.”

Kate looked up sharply. “For Sir Charles?”

“Yes, miss.” Amelia shifted. “Sir Charles didn't bring a valet. Lady Marsden give him Lawrence.”

“I see.” Kate thought for a moment. “Do you and Lawrence have future plans, Amelia?”

Amelia went rosy. “Oh, no, miss,” she said, flustered. “I'm sure I—I mean, he hasn't . . .”

“If you were to marry, would he stay in service?”

Amelia looked shocked. “Of course, miss! How else would we live? Service is how we earn our living.”

“Thank you, Amelia,” Kate said. If Lawrence had made off with the emeralds and planned to use them to finance a new start in life, he had not told Amelia, of that Kate was certain. But Beryl Bardwell's imaginative mind did not for one second take that to be a guarantee of the man's innocence. He wouldn't be the first man to fly with his booty and leave both his service and his sweetheart behind.

Still, Kate had discovered something interesting from her questioning of the maid: Lawrence, it seemed, was temporarily serving as Sir Charles's valet. Eleanor had said that she planned to inform Sir Charles about the theft of the emeralds. Kate wondered whether he might have some immediate impression of Lawrence as a possible thief—or murderer. For Beryl Bardwell. was persuaded that there was a link between the two.

So as Kate directed the maid's unpacking, she had something else to think about: the conversation she planned to have with Sir Charles regarding Lawrence, the emeralds, and the dead police sergeant. She sat down at her desk to write him a note and ask him to call tomorrow—in the afternoon. For in the morning she must offer her condolences to Agnes Oliver.

At the thought of Agnes, Kate felt a deep sympathy. How hard it must be for her to be left in the world without the one she loved and depended upon for her livelihood. But at least she had her pension, Kate reminded herself as she sealed the note to Sir Charles and rang for Mudd to arrange for it to be sent. When a woman lost her husband she was very likely to lose everything else, as well.

D
udley Pell turned in his chair and contemplated the detailed map of the County of Essex that hung on the plaster wall of the borough office in the Colchester Town Hall. On the map, each of the county's boroughs was outlined in red: the half-dozen smaller ones, like Braintree and Bishop's Stortford, and the larger ones, Chelmsford and Colchester. Within each borough, the police districts were outlined in green, with clusters of coloured pins to represent each location of the constabulary. He had risen from humble beginnings as a simple constable in the District of Great Baddow—a black pin, as it were—to the position of chief constable of the Colchester Borough—the
only
green pin. And he now had the enviable and useful authority of deploying and overseeing two red pins (inspectors), five blue pins (sergeants), and forty black pins (constables). Forty-seven pins in all, the entire borough force. His contemplation of the map was coloured with a certain justifiable pride.

The success that had come Chief Constable Pell's way in the last two decades had not been without cost. His leg, but more than that, his time and energy, leaving him with none to spare: he spent it all in work, one way or another. Much of this expenditure was invisible to those beneath him, who imagined that what he did in this office—signing his name to papers, drinking tea, speaking with his subordinates—was all that he did. They had no imagination. They couldn't conceive of his
real
work: all that went on in this office and outside it, beyond the formal perimeters of the job, as it were.

For of course the four hundred pounds a year plus fifty in allowance that the borough paid Dudley Pell did not come close to providing the kind of life—the house, the servants, the carriage—desired by his wife. Upon their marriage, she had brought him a meager but potentially profitable family interest in marine transport, which interest he had expanded over the years so that it now made up the difference between his salary and his wife's expenditures, with a nice bit left over for his own pleasures. This enterprise required that he spend the latter part of each afternoon at the quay at Wivenhoe, below Colchester, an altogether profitable activity, taking the long view of it. And even if his several undertakings did not require his full attention, he would have found something to keep him away from home. No matter what luxuries he bought her, Mrs. Pell grew more pettish every year, no joy after a long day at the office, on the quay or in the field. So the chief constable was in the habit of spending even longer days doing the various things he did, and very little time lounging in slippers and shirtsleeves at home, where Mrs. Pell could set upon him.

Chief Constable Pell withdrew his attention from his private affairs and looked again at the map, pulling at his black whiskers. At the moment, he was faced with a problem in the deployment of manpower. Sergeant Arthur Oliver, of the district of Gallows Green, had unfortunately gotten himself killed. Most unfortunately, for his was a record of exemplary service to the force. But there it was, he was dead, and Chief Constable Pell must assign his replacement. For the time being, P.C. Bradley from Manningtree could take on the district of the deceased in addition to his own, for Gallows Green and Manningtree were contiguous. Bradley was young and inexperienced, to be sure, but not unsuitable for the chief constable's purposes, for he was ambitious and had a young family to support. Superintendent Hacking had been set on Edward Laken, whose Dedham district also adjoined Gallows Green. But Laken would not do at all, and Pell was glad to have succeeded in bringing the super around to his way of thinking. It was Bradley, then. Pell would keep his eye on the boy and see how he got on.

Pell turned to his desk and picked up his pen to execute the appropriate order. He had just dipped it into his inkwell when there came a knock at the door. Upon his bidding, it opened, and P.C. Nutter put his head through.

“A gentl‘man t' see ye, sir,” he said respectfully.

“On what business?” Pell asked, not looking up. He signed the order with a flourish, blotted it, and held it out. “Take this and see that it's taken care of.”

“Yessir.” P.C. Nutter took the order. “ 'E says 'tis th' business o' Sergeant Oliver's death, sir.”

Chief Constable Pell pushed his lips in and out, considering. “Oh, very well, then,” he said at last. “Show him in.”

The man who came through the door had the easy, unconscious grace of a gentleman, but he did not wear a gentleman's clothes. His shapeless brown jacket was missing several buttons, his boots were muddy, and his brown felt hat a ruin. The chief constable, who required those about him to be neatly turned out, was not impressed.

“Well?” he demanded, leaning back in his chair. “What's this about Oliver?”

The man sat down and took off his wreck of a hat. “My name is Charles Sheridan. I am an old friend of Artie Oliver. I took the photographs of the body.”

“Photographs?”

“Of the body,” Sheridan repeated distinctly. “Entered in evidence at the inquest.”

“Ah, yes,
those
photographs.” Pell had little use for the camera as part of a policeman's kit. A sharp eye, that's what was wanted. He regarded the man. “Well?” he asked.

Sheridan's lips tightened. “I have come on the widow's behalf to ask about your plans for the investigation of her husband's death.”

“Ah, yes.” Chief Constable Pell gave a heavy sigh. “Poor woman. I understand she has a child.”