Home by Nightfall (30 page)

The last person they visited, Miss Harville, lived alone in a set of rooms on the High Street; she stood up after Edmund had spoken, poured herself a glass of sherry, drank three-quarters of it, and then stood by the window, looking out at the town hall, whose spire was visible from her window.

As they left her house a few minutes later—promising as they had to all the women that she would have the protection of their silence, offering her whatever help they could—Edmund said, “There. Now that's done.”

“Mm.”

“What an unforgivable thing to happen in Markethouse.” He stopped and shook his head, his face illuminated by the silvery light of the moon. He pulled his pipe out of his pocket and jammed it moodily with tobacco. Then he turned to his brother. “I know it's late, but I propose we walk home. So much has happened tonight. A walk might clear our minds.”

“With pleasure,” said Charles.

“Stevens, damn him. I wish I had known years ago. I would have been tempted to kill him myself.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

At the breakfast table the next morning, Lenox, Jane, Toto, and Edmund gathered, a little later than usual perhaps—only Lenox among them at all fresh or lively, because he had risen early to go out on a horseback ride, and returned just in time for a bath and a bite to eat. He would fall to earth again later in the day, but for now he was full of energy.

The other three were not, and the responses Jane and Toto made to the brothers' inquiries about Liza Calloway were first sluggish, then obstinate. This came to a head when Edmund asked if they knew, at least, what Clavering's night had been like, and Toto stood up from the breakfast table, stormed across the breakfast room, and speared a few kippers angrily onto her plate.

“Stop asking so many questions!” she said.

Lenox adopted a conciliatory tone. “Please,” he said, “you must understand how hard we've worked—and how intimately it's of interest to Edmund, particularly, who lives here.”

Jane and Toto exchanged a glance, and he saw both of them relent. “Our worry is that she's still not safe,” said Lady Jane.

“Why not?” said Edmund.

“She's going to London first, to collect her husband's legacy in a lump sum.”

“Jane!” said Toto. “We promised!”

“We gave our word that nobody would follow her if we could prevent it. Will you set the law after her?” Both Lenox and Edmund hesitated, and Jane shook her head gravely. “Only two men could equivocate after the story we heard. I suppose there's a limit to what you can understand of how it is to be a woman.”

“I won't set the law after her,” said Lenox.

“Oh, how decent of you,” said Toto.

“On the other hand, I am more experienced than you are when it comes to things of this kind, and I can assure you that setting a killer free—even with the best intentions—does not always have a happy sequel. I lost the arrogance of thinking I knew when to do it a very long time ago.”

“Well—that's fair,” said Jane. “But you won't tell?”

“I won't.”

And so Jane and Toto explained. After Lenox, Edmund, and Pointilleux had left the night before, they said, the people remaining in the room had hurried into action. Elizabeth Watson and Claire Adams—largely silent while the two men were present—became the leaders, more or less, of the initiative: Where would she go? What would she eat? What would she do?

As Jane and Toto described it together, the plan emerged fairly easily. The two of them could provide her with enough money to survive for a while, long enough to claim her husband's legacy in a lump sum, hopefully a bit longer. Adelaide Snow's father had a small house in Shepherd's Bush, in London, and when they returned to gather her things, Adelaide would give Liza Calloway the key and an address.

She had also offered to go along with Liza, in fact, Jane recounted with admiration. (“I think she's a very warmhearted and bright girl. I'm going to ask her to tea. When we asked her about Stevens, she said he was only a bully, and hadn't had his way with her—and then added that all she'd had from him were a few bruises, which only lasted a week, and which she refused to let settle in.”)

Elizabeth Watson, however, had said that she wanted to be the one to go to London with her niece. It had been ten years: ten years since her sister's death, too, two lights gone out of her life simultaneously. Her husband, her sons, and Mr. Hadley could survive a week without her.

“Is it clever to stay in Shepherd's Bush and leave a link to Adelaide Snow?” asked Lenox. “Mr. Clavering may not be very savvy, but I fear the case will attract wider attention than the local police force.”

“We thought of that,” said Toto. “She'll only be there a day. Then she hopes to move on.”

“To where?”

Somewhere, was the answer. She didn't quite know herself. Her only question had been whether she could be allowed to write to her father and Adelaide (it was safe enough, they had all decided together), and her only request that she be allowed to take the dog with her to London.

“Wonderful, a dog thief, too,” said Lenox.

“The farmer kicked the dog!” said Toto.

“Farmers do kick dogs,” Lenox replied.

With Liza's plans settled, Claire Adams had gone down to the kitchens to cajole a packet of sandwiches out of them for the journey, Elizabeth Watson home to pack her things into a carryall, and Adelaide and Liza to Adelaide's father's house, where they would act as if they were simply returning from the ball. (Her father had known only that his daughter had a friend she wished to claim as a cousin—and was too besotted by his child to question her judgment, said Lady Jane.) Jane and Toto had given them ready money and devised a plan by which they could all credibly contend that she had slipped away unnoticed; both had also offered help farther down the road, should she need it.

The whole thing filled Lenox with trepidation, as he sat there sipping his coffee, the sun rising to cast its pale morning light over the hills—but with respect, too. Here were two maids, two aristocrats, and two women somewhere of the middle, for Liza Calloway's father had some distinction of birth, while Adelaide Snow's had none, but did have a great deal of property.

So perhaps it was the case that the country, too, could push people together, force them to know each other. In extremity, anyhow.

“She gave you no hint of what she might do after she leaves London?” asked Lenox.

“I doubt she knows. I think she's had the worst year of her life,” said Jane.

“Do you know what she told me as I put her into the carriage?” said Toto. “She said she'd always wanted to be an actress. I told her to go to Edinburgh and look up Madame Reveille at her theater—to use my name, if she liked, as a reference.”

“Did you really?” said Edmund.

“That's where I intend to picture her,” said Toto, a piece of toast held meditatively in her hand. “At least until we hear from her again. The wretched thing. Fourteen!”

At that moment Pointilleux came in. He had been up very, very late—and from the looks of it had made an excellent time of the ball—and after greeting them all he asked, eagerly, what had happened.

“Oh, we've just been over it,” said Lenox. “I'll tell you later.”

Pointilleux scowled. “I am miss everything,” he said.

“Get married, then you can be Mrs. Everything,” said Toto.

That afternoon, Edmund and Charles made the rounds of Markethouse, tidying all the stray details of the case.

First they went to see Hadley and told him that they had confirmed their suspicions about the odd incidents at his house: He was not their target, but an accidental victim of the circumstances that had eventually led to the death of the village's mayor. He nodded gravely and thanked them again; they gently declined his offer of a tour through his gemstones, explaining that their time was still not their own. He saw them out himself—Mrs. Watson, he said, had been called away unexpectedly, a damned nuisance, but she was generally very reliable … and if they needed their lives insured, the Dover Assurance, gentlemen, first-rate service, honest and reliable service, he was happy to wait on their needs at any time …

Their next stop was to see Mickelson and tell him that his dog had been stolen. He was sitting in the Bell and Horns—being a practitioner of that certain variation of professional farming that involves mostly sitting at the bar, telling loud stories—and he took the news philosophically, though he added that it was a shame, because he had drowned a litter of puppies not a week before, and he would have held one back had he known.

Then it was Stallings. Lenox wanted to hear about the details of Stevens's death, though to his disappointment, the mayor had never spoken.

“He revived a little before evening, but then fell comatose again,” the doctor reported, “and by nightfall he was scarcely breathing. Indeed, my assistant called me in three times, certain that he was dead. At last he stopped fogging the mirror at just after eight o'clock.”

“His wounds killed him?”

“If his clothing or the knife was unclean, his internal organs may well have become infected—a case of sepsis, as the medical journals have begun to call it now, from the Greek. I plan to be present at the autopsy.”

Their final visit was to Clavering. This was the one they had both been anticipating unhappily, given that they would have to deceive him.

As it happened, however, he was ahead of their news. “She's gone,” he said, greeting them. Calloway was still in the cell behind him, and Clavering gestured toward the old man. “His daughter. Fled. Adelaide Snow's already been in to tell how it happened.”

“We heard,” said Edmund, and indeed several people had stopped them to tell them the news.

“And I can't blame her,” said Clavering grimly. “Not with what's passin' about—the word about Stevens.”

“The word?”

It was the day of the market, and there were stalls and sellers in the square, chattering; a small village could never half-keep a secret, Lenox supposed, it was either buried, or everyone knew. Who had spoken about it to whom, igniting the chain of gossip? One of the women they had visited last night? Another one of Stevens's victims?

Clavering's face was black with anger. “At least he's dead.”

“Amen,” said a voice from the cell—Mad Calloway.

They looked at him. “Would you like to speak to us now?” asked Clavering. “Take back your confession?”

Calloway shook his head firmly and decisively. “On the contrary, I stand by it. I killed him. I hope I have a chance to say as much to a court under oath.”

Lenox, a father, understood—and glancing over at Edmund, he saw that his brother also did.

Apparently Clavering understood, too. He took the key to the cell from its peg and said, “I suppose you might as well stay at your cottage until it's all sorted out, Mr. Calloway. We can't spare the staff to stay overnight any longer. You won't leave Markethouse?”

“I will not.”

“Very well, then. On with you. There's market today, if you haven't kept track of the days. I'm sure your garden is a right mess, too, before you can sell anything. I'll have my eye on you.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

They all spent the morning at the market together, where there was every kind of gossip running up and down the little lanes of the village. A little bit after noon they returned to Lenox House with a whole variety of parcels: oranges in brown paper for Sophia, a small silver mirror that Toto had bought for herself, a basketful of vegetables Lady Jane had acquired.

When they came into the front hall, Lenox saw straightaway that waiting on the silver tray was a letter, its return address visible, from James Lenox, Edmund's older son.

Edmund spotted it a beat later. He turned pale, took it, and without a word went to his study. He was there for nearly an hour before Lenox decided to knock on his door.

“Come in,” Edmund called.

Lenox entered and saw his brother staring out of the window, a hand at his chin. The letter lay across a small card table next to him.

“How are you?” asked Lenox.

“I think James is the kindest soul that ever lived. He expresses a great deal of concern for me, which of course is unnecessary. Anyhow, better still—the best news I've had in a long time—he's returning here for a visit, as soon as he's handled a few small matters in Kenya.”

“That's wonderful.”

“I think he may be home in time for Christmas, with any luck from the wind,” said Edmund, smiling.

He looked younger—and Lenox realized, knowing Edmund as he did, that it wasn't simply the news that James would return home. It was the letter itself. What did it mean to be left alone to take care of the children, when it was two of you who had brought them into the world together? It was a part of Edmund's burden that Charles hadn't quite considered; he had thought of the companionship that was gone, the love and care, but less of how solitary and grave Edmund's responsibilities as a father had become.

James would be all right. That was why he looked so relieved.

“That will be a treat,” said Lenox.

Edmund sighed and smiled wanly. “Yes. Only Teddy to tell, now. And who knows, James may be able to tell him with me. Teddy's always looked up to his brother.”

“I know it. So have I!”

“Oh, shut up.”

Lenox hadn't been joking, but he let it pass.

The supper that evening was the nicest one they'd had yet. Atherton came, and afterward the five of them played cards in the convivial blaze of fire and candlelight, drinks and small biscuits on the table with the cards, the dogs sleeping on the thick rug, and Toto losing so steadily and spectacularly that she owed them a theoretical fortune by the end of the night.