Death at Gallows Green (7 page)

“Thank you,” Bea said. “She's a washerwoman, you see. All my animals have one profession or another.” She pulled out another sketch, this one of a frog dressed in a mackintosh and galoshes, with a fishing rod and basket. “The children like my stories better when I write about what the animals do—fishing or ironing clothes—and show them doing it.”

“You're a writer!” Kate exclaimed happily, as Beryl Bardwell recognized a kindred spirit. “As well as an artist.”

“No,” Bea said sadly. “I'm afraid I am neither. I have begged to be allowed to submit a story or two for publication. But unhappily for me my father is actively opposed, and my mother agrees to everything he says. I've only managed to sell a watercolour for a calendar and a few humourous Christmas cards, and I've illustrated some terrible doggerel that a German firm printed on cards at fourpence-ha'penny.” She sighed. “When Papa discovered what I was doing, he set up such a horrid fuss that now I only put my pictures in letters. I write for the little Moores, you see. They're the children of my former governess. They like my stories.”

Kate looked back at the drawings. “But you're so enormously talented. How can you let your parents deny you the opportunity to develop your art?” She didn't add,
and on top of that, you're a grown woman, and ought to be doing as you like.
But she thought it.

Bea gave a melancholy shrug. “How am I to do otherwise? I am entirely dependent on their financial support. I am expected to live with them in Bolton Gardens until I am married.” She smoothed Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's furry ears. “And that becomes less likely each year. They discourage friendships, you see, with men and with women.” She twinkled, and the corners of her mouth turned upward. “Not that I mind so dreadfully being a spinster. I have not yet met a man I wanted to marry, and I am perfectly content to live singly. But it is difficult, since I am allowed away from Bolton Gardens only in my parents' company.”

Now Kate understood why Bea had spoken so triumphantly about her solitary railway journey. “I wonder that they permitted you to come here alone,” she said.

“That's because the Hyde-Parkers are cousins and we are frequent visitors here.” Bea opened a large wicker hamper with its own little food and water dishes and set Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle inside. “Papa and Mama planned to make the trip, but Mama fell ill with a cold and I begged to be allowed to come alone. Not that I like Melford all that much,” she added, pouring a handful of hemp seeds into the hedgehog's dish. “It's grand and imposing, but rather boring, except for the squirrels in the park. Still, it's a chance to be on my own, and I intend to make the best of it. I have brought my sketching materials and Papa's second-best camera, and when the rain stops, I shall go out and see what I can find.”

“You are a photographer, then?” Kate asked, thinking of Sir Charles, whose other passion, besides mushrooms and bats, was photography.

“Yes,” Bea said. “I enjoy it, but I must confess that I took it up as a means of getting away from Mama when we are on holiday.” Her plain face was transformed by a brilliant smile. “She detests driving through the bracken in a pony cart, stopping in the cold wind to photograph a growth of
Peziza
or a gigantic
Cortinarius.”
She laughed a little. “Poor Mama. She wearies me so at times, but I do pity her. I could not live confined, as she does.”

“I see,” Kate said, suddenly struck by the marked contrast between this shy young woman and gay, exuberant Eleanor. But in a way that seemed startlingly clear to Kate's American eyes, these two British young women were very similar. Eleanor married as her parents expected, Bea stayed home. Both did as they were bid, and both were docile enough on the surface; yet both exercised whatever subtle means they could find to resist coercion, to establish their own separateness, their independence. For Eleanor, it was her husband's fortune that gave her a measure of freedom. For Bea, it was her eccentric love of animals, and the art that it inspired.

Kate looked up. An idea was forming in her mind—a most wicked idea. “Do you never travel anywhere except to Melford in the company of your parents?”

“Only occasionally with my brother Bertram, and last year to my cousin Caroline, at Harescombe Grange.” Her smite was pensive. “After visiting Caroline, I have become dreadfully anxious for more travel. I do love the countryside, and gardens full of flowers, and cottages, and walking by the water.”

“Then perhaps,” Kate said, “you would like to come to Bishop's Keep for a few days. It is near Dedham, in Essex, about forty miles from here. There are gardens and cottages, and miles and miles of countryside, and a lake and a river—the River Stour—and an estuary, where the Stour flows into the sea. And it is all very beautiful, now that spring is here. The house is large, and you and your friends”—she looked at Peter on the hearth, and Hunca-Munca in her cage—“your many friends could be quite comfortable.”

Bea's blue eyes were round. “But I am expected to remain here for at least a week! The Hyde-Parkers would not object, certainly. But whatever should I tell Papa and Mama?”

“Do you have to tell them anything, at least right away? If you are wanted, the Hyde-Parkers could telegraph to Dedham and you could receive the message straightaway. And when you returned home, you could as easily take the train from Colchester. Your parents would be none the wiser.”

There was a moment's silence. Bea's face was wistful, then thoughtful, and at last determined. “I think,” she said, in a small but steady voice, “that it is a splendid idea.”

“Wonderful!” Kate exclaimed. “We shall leave on Monday morning, by carriage, and be home in time for tea.” She was halfway to the door before she thought of something, and turned. “How funny,” she said. “I didn't even think to ask your whole name.” She laughed a little. “Or perhaps it is a secret. Perhaps I should simply call you Bea, and not ever know who you really are.”

“Oh, it's no secret. I forgot, that's all.” Bea laughed. “Mama would be scandalized at my manners.” She sat down at the table and took up her sketch pad again. “My name is Beatrix,” she said. “Beatrix Potter.”

T
he Live and Let Live, the only pub on Lamb's Lane, was little bigger than a cottage. Its low-ceilinged main room, beams blackened with smoke, was crowded with farmers and villagers, jammed against the walls and the long wooden counter that usually served as a bar. Both windows were open so that the sounds of the lane—the
baa
ing of a passing flock of sheep, the roll of wheels, and the clatter of hooves—were mixed with the indoor drone of voices and punctuated by the occasional loud remark. But the sweet May air could hardly contend with the overpowering scents of sweat and horse and leather jerkin.

At the farther end of the room was a small trestle table, like a desk, and behind it a scarred oak armchair. This seat was reserved for Coroner Harry Hodson. At one end of the table was a stool for the clerk, with paper, pen and ink, and blotting-paper; at the other end was a chair for witnesses. Directly in front of the table, on the plank floor, was a closed pine coffin. Two long benches were arranged at right angles to the coffin for the jurors, who after some commotion at the door and shouts of “Let 'em pass, by Gawd, so they kin earn their two shillings!” were ushered through the crowd to take their seats. At two shillings, the jurors were not overcompensated for their work, for their attendance could be enforced for the entire day if need be. Still, the event gave the day distinction, and those summoned were willing to spend it serving the Queen and her coroner.

It was into this gloomy cave that Charles Sheridan made his way, carrying a leather portfolio. He paused to let his vision adjust from the noonday glare to the inner darkness, and then pushed through the crowd until he found a place to stand not far from the coroner's table. He caught sight of Edward Laken leaning against the opposite wall and waved a greeting, thinking that Edward looked pinched and pale and unhappy. Arthur Oliver had been his good friend.

A moment later, a wisp of a man came through the rear door, perched on the stool like an eager bird, and shouted “Gentlemen, the Coroner!” Anybody who was sitting down stood up until Harry Hodson, who had nearly doubled in girth since Charles had last seen him twenty years before, took his seat with due ceremony in the chair of honour and nodded at the clerk to proceed.

The room became suddenly silent and the wispy man began to recite in a rapid sing-song: “Oyez, oyez, ye good men of this district summoned to appear here this day to inquire for Her Sovereign Majesty the Queen when, how, and by what means Arthur Oliver, Sergeant of the Essex Constabulary, came to his death, answer to your names as you shall be called, every man at the first call, upon the pain and peril that shall fall thereon.”

That done, the coroner read from his list the names of the jurors, each one answering with “Present, sir,” meekly or assertively, according to his temperament. Then followed the administering of the oath, in which the jurors promised to render a true verdict without fear or favour, affection or illwill, to the best of their skill and knowledge, so help them God. The oath taken, the coroner told the jurors that they were to consider three possibilities: homicide, suicide or misadventure, and if they were not satisfied that the evidence warranted any of these, they must return an open verdict. The coffin lid was then raised, and the jurors filed soberly past it and once again resumed their benches. The coffin was closed, and the inquest began.

“Lawrence Black,” the coroner called. Charles leaned against the wall as Lawrence, splendid in yellow-checked trousers and visibly impressed by his importance in these court proceedings, took the oath, kissed the Testament, and began, in response to the coroner's questions, to relate his discovery of Artie Oliver's body. Everything went as Charles might have expected until the coroner said, “I understand that you were not alone when you discovered the body, Mr. Black.”

Lawrence's handsome face, which to this point had been animated, went blank. “Sir?” he said.

“I understand,” the coroner repeated patiently, “that you were accompanied through the hedge by a certain young woman. Is this true?”

A titter ran from one side of the room to the other. Lawrence turned to Edward. “D' I 'ave t' answer?” he asked in a loud whisper.

Edward stepped forward and leaned over the table. “If you don't mind, Harry,” he said quietly, “it'd be best for the girl if she were left out of this. I've questioned her, and she can offer nothing new. Her testimony would simply corroborate Mr. Black's.”

“Disregard the question,” the coroner said, and a disappointed sigh followed the titter around the room. Lawrence Black was excused and stepped down, to be followed by the police surgeon, who reported that death had resulted from a bullet being fired from a revolver into the heart. “It was at close range,” he added. He had ascertained this fact from powder burns on the uniform jacket, entered now in evidence, along with the fatal bullet.

Edward was called next. He filled in Lawrence's rather vague description of the location of the body with a more careful account, and offered the speculation that Sergeant Oliver had been killed elsewhere and the body conveyed to the site by a vehicle along the adjacent lane and then through a gap in the hedge. From Edward, the jurors also learned that the victim was thirty-two years old, married, with one young daughter, Betsy, and a wife, Agnes. Oliver had served with distinction in the Suffolk parish of East Bergholt before being promoted to sergeant and posted to Gallows Green. When Edward had completed his testimony, Charles was called.

“I understand, Sir Charles,” the coroner said when the oath had been administered and Charles was seated in the witness chair, “that you are a photographer.”

“I am,” Charles agreed.

“And that on the day in question you received a summons from Constable Laken to photograph the dead body of Constable Oliver at the place where it was found.”

“I did,” Charles said. “If it please the Court, I have brought enlargements of the photographs with me,”

There was a curious stir in the room as he took the prints out of his leather portfolio and offered them to the coroner. For the past twenty or so years in England, photographs had been used in an attempt to identify criminals, with very limited success. Scotland Yard had 115,000 faces in its rogues' gallery, but the collection was in chaos because of the criminals' tendency to give false names. No reliable means of matching a photograph to its real-life subject had yet been developed, and no other uses of the camera were officially contemplated. So it was that Charles's photographs were little more than objects of curiosity to Coroner Harry Hodson and his twelve jurors. Even so, they were passed around and examined and wondered at, as was the triangular piece of red cloth discovered in the hedge, and Mr. McGregor's coat, which Edward brought forward and laid on the table.

At that point, Sir Charles was excused, and Mr. McGregor, wearing a stiff suit of dark-brown corduroy and a red-and-yellow neckerchief knotted under his ear, was summoned and sworn. His testimony was listened to with interest but proved to be of little consequence. That the triangular cloth bit had been ripped from his coat was clear, but it was, after all, his hedge and any fool knew that a man went through his own hedge a dozen times a week. Mr. McGregor's wife's brother's missing pistol was mentioned but not pursued, the police surgeon having determined from the shape of the recovered bullet that it could not have come from a weapon of that type. In answer to the question of whether he had noticed anything suspicious in the neighbourhood, Mr. McGregor offered the same opinion he had offered to Charles and Edward, with a slight but significant variation.