Death in the Valley of Shadows (30 page)

“Superb,” said John, when she had finally finished, and applauded with the others.

But the efforts of the day and memories of the strange affair in the Long Gallery had not been far away, and soon he had started to yawn with genuine fatigue. At this, Serafina had risen from the harpsichord and suggested that they have one final drink before retiring.

“For surely you are off tomorrow,” she had said.

The truth had hit John hard. While he had been away entertaining himself in secret and getting thoroughly lost, Emilia had been packing. He turned to his wife and she nodded.

“Oh darling, and I left all the arranging to you,” he said remorsefully.

She smiled. “Not for the first time.”

“And not for the last. Oh these men, these men!” said Serafina, but she was smiling as well and John felt more at ease than he had for a long time.

Yet the minute he got into bed all his old tension returned. He only had to close his eyes and he relived those times he had endured when he had been locked behind the portrait. He sat bolt upright, eyes wide open.

“Why the devil did I say locked?” he asked the room aloud.

“Um? What?” said Emilia, already deep down in sleep.

“Nothing, darling.”

But he knew then what had been at the back of his consciousness ever since he had stepped through the hidden door and out into the glade. He had been locked in that terrible room, he was certain of it.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he next morning was too confused for any clear thoughts to emerge and it wasn’t until later, after Irish Tom had drawn the equipage away from the delightful villa in which dwelt Serafina and her family, and had his party well on the road to London, that they began to crystallise in John’s mind. The first thing was that he had been locked into that mysterious room by a person unknown. The second thing was - and here John paused in order to get his thoughts in order - the openness with which Jocasta Rayner had displayed her lack of grief. Because, though she had wept openly at the loss of a father, she had done little more than shed a tear at the departure of her sister.

And this brought him, much against his will, to Samuel. Had his friend intervened in the matter? Had he offered a shoulder to lean against? John sat grimly, chewing over the facts and making something of a face as he did so.

“John, whatever are you thinking about? What is it that gives you such a horrid mouth? Why, you look as if you’ve swallowed a packet of pins.”

The Apothecary returned to earth with a crash, his thoughts flying in all directions. “What? Oh, sorry. I was miles away.”

He was looking directly into Emilia’s eyes which at this precise moment were very far from angelic.

“Boo!” John added, and smiled.

She did not smile back, and he felt his heart sink. In fact he was just preparing an elaborate excuse when Emilia suddenly snatched his hand and gazed into it. Worried, John said nothing. Eventually, his wife came out with, “I wonder what she could really see, that old woman.”

Suddenly, it was all clear to him. “Oh, you mean Serafina. When she dressed up.”

Emilia gave him a deep look. “I don’t think so. I thought she was genuine. An old beggar woman who haunted their kitchens.”

A thread of that evening’s strangeness came back to pluck at John’s heartstrings but he pushed it away angrily.

“No, it was Serafina. Why, she was laughing when she came back in.”

“That was more than likely about something else. I’m telling you John, that old woman was genuine.”

Remembering the oddness of the entire event the Apothecary saw off his desire to convince Emilia that it was Serafina all along and, instead, remained silent. After a while Emilia dropped his hand and herself sat saying nothing. John decided that the best way he could regain his thoughts was by feigning sleep. So, pulling his hat well down over his eyes, he closed them. Instantly he was back in that room, picking his way round that huge grate, surprise and bewilderment coming with the thought that somebody had recently lit a fire there. But who had it been? Surely Millicent was too cautious a person to have thought of doing such a thing. And yet… Slowly and carefully the Apothecary forced the image of her face into his mind. He remembered her look of astonishment, followed by something else. Her eyes had seemed so nervous temporarily, just as he vanished from view. Had Miss Millicent been guilty? Or was she as astonished as he was by the whole incredible scene?

John let his thoughts rove on, returning briefly to the problem of Jocasta. Had her lack of guilt been entirely because she was happy with Samuel or had there been another, darker, purpose? Had…

He opened his eyes suddenly as the coach dropped speed and realised that he was in London, or what passed for London, driving through the leafy lanes of St. George’s Fields, prior to turning off for Westminster Bridge. Guiltily, John turned to his wife and Dorcas but saw that they and the baby were all three fast asleep. Leaving them where they were, he stared out of the window, once more immersed in deep thought.

An hour later they were within doors, the women waking in a flap, only Rose Rawlings regarding them all with a discerning eye.

“Oh my dear,” said Emilia, “what a to-do.”

“Nonsense,” replied her husband forthrightly. “I’ll take Rose for a little walk and when I get back you and Dorcas will have organised everything.”

So saying, he had Rose in her bassinette and out of the house almost before a voice could be raised in objection. Anyway he was longing to get out and about having been stuck in the coach for nearly a day. Thus, father and daughter, leaving the house quite quickly, turned into Gerrard Street, then into Macclesfield Street, to get to St. Ann’s, Soho, where he thought to show her the place in which he had been married. But just as the church was coming into view so, too, came a figure. A figure which as it drew closer revealed itself as Lieutenant Mendoza.

“I see we meet again,” said the Apothecary, stepping directly into the Lieutenant’s path and giving the curtest of bows.

“Sir, I owe you an apology,” came the reply.

“You do indeed.”

“I thought you were one of the common herd and put my hands about you. I was mistaken and I humbly ask forgiveness.”

“What has brought this about if I might ask?”

“I saw the error of my ways,” the Lieutenant answered humbly.

And something else beside, the Apothecary thought. Someone has spoken to him. But who? Aloud he said nothing, waiting for the Lieutenant to come to the point.

“And whose is this delightful child?” Mendoza continued, holding out a hand to Rose, who grabbed a finger and held on tight.

“Mine,” said John, and surprised himself at the terrific surge of pleasure that saying such a thing could bring about.

“I should have guessed. She will be a great person,” the Lieutenant continued. He straightened up. “Shall we sit in the church for a while?”

“Why not?” answered John, but within he was almost bursting, certain that the military man had been coming to see him with the express intention of unburdening himself.

They made their way inside and sat down in a deserted pew near to the front. Looking round, John saw that several people were busy about the place but nobody had taken any particular notice of them and they were going to be left alone. “You’d best tell me why you wanted to see me,” he said.

The Lieutenant gazed at him. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Everyone says that. So why not start at the real beginning.”

Mendoza looked blank. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite follow.”

“Oh, you follow well enough. Tell me about the woman you’re in love with.”

“Louisa? Oh, she’s adorable, she’s an…”

“No. I mean the other woman in your life.”

The angry look was beginning to come back in the Lieutenant’s face. “What other woman?”

“Mrs. Trewellan,” John said quietly.

“Ah, therein lies a big confession.”

“I guessed as much. Tell me everything.”

“Well, what does one say? How does one put it?”

“I’m hoping you’ll show me.”

The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “You know, of course, that she has kept our relationship entirely hidden from the world.”

The Apothecary looked wise.

“Which, of course, has given rise to certain questions,” Mendoza continued.

“Has it?” asked John, more than a little surprised. He frowned, not seeing at all where any of this was leading.

“I was born just a fortnight before her eighteenth birthday.”

“To whom?” asked John, totally perplexed.

“Well, to her, of course,” said Lieutenant Mendoza. “Mrs. Trewellan is my mother.”

There was a profound silence into which Rose farted loudly.

“Good God!” exclaimed the Apothecary. “And there was me thinking … Are you telling me that…?” But his voice died away and John Rawlings hung down his head. “I feel my mental powers are on a parallel with that noise my daughter has just made.”

After a second’s silence, the military man suddenly put his head back and gave a laugh, though with rather a bitter undertone.

“I must never tell my poor mama,” he said, “and neither must you.”

The Apothecary couldn’t raise a smile. He sat, head bowed, taking in what should have been obvious from the start. That Mrs. Trewellan and the Lieutenant were mother and son was so glaringly clear that now he knew the fact he couldn’t think how he had missed it. But still it remained that he had and, worse, had been caught in the act. John could not remember a more embarrassing moment in his entire life.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Mendoza sat laughing dryly to himself, though still with little humour.

Rapidly John thought over everything the young man had told him, fitting the story in with the new information. It all made sense, of course. The boy brought up by his uncle, his real father dying at the age of nineteen, the redoubtable Mrs. Trewellan not mentioned, but then neither had there been any pretence. Who the Lieutenant’s actual mother was simply hadn’t been discussed.

Still, the Apothecary felt deeply ashamed of himself. “Look, I’m terribly sorry to have made such a foolish mistake,” he said.

“Nonsense, nonsense.” The Lieutenant was brushing the whole matter away with his hand. “I suppose it was easy enough. None the less, I would like to have been thought a little more selective. Not…” he added hastily, “… that there is anything wrong with my dear mama, but I would have considered her fractionally old.”

“Oh yes, oh yes,” the Apothecary agreed. “Far too old.”

It was only then that he realised how everything he was saying was making the situation worse. With an enormous effort of will, he changed the subject.

“Tell me,” he said pleasantly, “what is it you actually wanted to see me about?”

The Lieutenant’s smile vanished and he suddenly looked wary. “Someone suggested to me that I should talk to you.”

“Someone who?”

“Ah, that would be telling. I promised to keep their secret. No, it is just with all these murders going on that I felt I should apologise.”

“Only that?”

“That, together with a belief that you and I should see ourselves on the same side.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re tired of this carnage and believe that it should come to an end.”

John had the inescapable feeling that the conversation was going round in circles. “Look,” he said, “how much do you know about Foxfire Hall?”

Lieutenant Mondoza positively stared. “Very little,” he answered. “Why?”

“No reason really, except that I believe our murderer has a certain knowledge of the place.”

The Lieutenant gave him an odd glance. “Oh? Why is that?”

The Apothecary decided on the side of discretion. “Just one or two things I have seen that is all. So, just to remind me, why did your mother turn Aidan Fenchurch down?”

“Because of Sperling. He hated Aidan with a burning, childish hatred, probably caused by jealousy as much as anything. Anyway, she told Aidan that he would have to wait until Sperling was off her hands, then she would reconsider.”

“But it never came to that.”

“No,” said the Lieutenant, with something that resembled genuine sadness in his voice, “it never came to it.”

John paused, wondering quite what he should say next, and at that moment Rose woke up and started to cry. It really was, the Apothecary thought on a whimsy, as if they were working together on this case. He turned to Lieutenant Mendoza and gave his second best bow.

“My dear Sir, I see where my duty calls me. It has been a pleasure to catch up with you. Forgive me but my daughter insists that we go.”

With that he bowed again and they parted company. Strangely, as soon as the Lieutenant was out of sight. Rose stopped crying and the journey home was conducted in harmony. That is until John went through the front door. Almost immediately a footman hovered by his elbow.

“Sir, Mr. Jago is here to see you. I have shown him into the library.”