Into the Valley of Death (10 page)

Yes, it certainly had. Before it, she had not had a single name in her head as a possible murderer. Now she had at least two.

But a moment later a new element was added to the scarcely sorted facts in her mind.

“Unwin,” Vilkins whispered as soon as they had set off.

She felt on her cheek the little shower of spittle that had always accompanied Vilkins’s whisperings, even when they had been helpless children together.

“Yes, dear?”

“I got somethink to tell. Important.”

“Then tell.”

“Can’t.”

Vilkins jerked her head back with immense significance towards the groom sitting sleepily watching the pony trot his way along the familiar lane.

Miss Unwin nodded agreement to this silence, though she suspected that anyone sitting back-to-back with herself and Vilkins could hardly overhear whispered words. Nor could she help wondering, a little disloyally, whether when they arrived at the Rising Sun Vilkins’s revelation would not turn out to be a damp squib.

But it did not.

No sooner had the groom wheeled the dogcart round and set off again for the Hall than Vilkins seized her by the arm.

“Unwin,” she said. “Guess what I heard.”

“My dear, just tell me. I long to get to bed. I am altogether exhausted.”

“Ah, but this is important. What you call vital.”

“Well, then?”

“I was doing what you said, Unwin. Going about where I ’ad to, keeping me lug-holes well open. An’ it was a good thing I did.”

“Yes?”

Waves of tiredness pounded through Miss Unwin’s head. Bed, bed, bed, she thought.

“Well, I’d been sent to take a glass o’ lemonade to a lady what was in the conservatory, an’ all of a sudden I ’eard voices.”

“Voices? Whose?”

“That Mrs. De Lyall was one. You couldn’t never mistake ’er, sort o’ foreign-sounding as she is.”

Miss Unwin’s tiredness melted away. “And the other?” she asked.

“Well, is there a gentleman name o’ something like Bash’em? Capting Bash’em?”

“Captain Brackham? Is it Captain Brackham?”

“Yeh, yeh. That’s it.”

“You heard Captain Brackham talking with Mrs. De Lyall? And saying something that seemed important?”

“Oh, it was important, all right. No question.”

“Then what was it, Vilkins dear? What was it?”

“Well, it was like this, see. I was taking that lady ’er lemonade, an’ you knows we ’as to take it on a salver, silver salver. Well, I don’t know as ’ow anyone manages to carry anything on one o’ them slippery things. Why, you can’t just take the glass in your ’and and—”

“Vilkins!”

“All right, all right. I’m coming to it. Well, it so ’appens as I spilt a bit o’ the lemonade. Couldn’t ’elp it. So I stops to give that there salver a bit of a wipe with me apron. An’ where I
stops, just inside the conservatory, is where one o’ them little windows is a bit open, it being the warm night it is.”

“And you heard something through it?”

“Clever monkey. Yes, I did. I heard that Spanishy lady say, ‘No, no, I knows you’re worried,’ an’ the chap as was with ’er sort o’ growled a reply that ’e was not. But she goes on an’ says it again, an’ louder. An’ then ’e says to ’er,
‘Sssh
. ’But she says,
‘It’s all right, there’s no one to ’ear.’
An’ ’e repeats, still growly-like, that there ain’t nothink amiss. Then this is what she says, an’ I give it to you gospel true. She says:
‘It’s that female detective. You’re worried by ’er, aren’t you? Worried sick, I know it.’
An’ ’e mutters,
‘Damn you
,’ something or other, an’ off ’e goes, crunch, crunch, crunch on the gravel o’ the path. An’ a moment later into the conservatory comes that Capting Bash’em, so I knows as it was ’im she was a-talking to. Now, that’s important, Unwin, ain’t it? Ain’t it?”

“Yes,” Miss Unwin said. “It is important, very important.”

But, overwhelmed with tiredness once more, all she could do was to say a quick good night, take the bed-candle left out for her, and almost stagger up to her bedroom.

Within minutes she was sleeping as deeply as ever she had.

She woke at her usual early hour, however. For a few minutes she lay where she was, looking dazedly at the clear morning light pouring in through the thin cotton curtain of the little low window and listening to the chorus of birdsong outside.

Then she began to think.

Three days now. Three full days only before Jack Steadman would be taken from the condemned cell and marched to the waiting gallows. And what had she achieved in her fight to save him? Something. Yes, in justice to herself she must admit that something had been achieved. By firmly taking the view that Jack Steadman was not guilty, she, with the unexpected assistance of Mr. Heavitree, had at least
raised the clear possibility that someone else was responsible for the death of Alfie Goode.

But that was only the first step along the way. What lay next was the harder task of proving herself right to the satisfaction of the Chief Constable, whose men had seized on the easy option of arresting Jack Steadman when he had been so obviously left as the murderer. She had to show Major Charteris that someone else had not only murdered Alfie Goode but had deliberately made it look as if his killer was Jack Steadman.

And she was still far from achieving that, unless what Mr. Heavitree had found out about the lying witness, Farmer Burch, could be made to lead to the truth. Unless she herself could in the course of the day ahead frighten Arthur Burch into confessing who had persuaded him to give his false evidence. Would it prove to be Captain Brackham, as seemed most likely after what Vilkins had overheard at the ball? Or was it perhaps, after all, General Bickerstaffe, about whom she knew so little? Or was it even someone else?

She thrust aside the bedclothes and got up.

Little more than an hour later, she was marching, cotton parasol in hand, along the narrow, dust-thick lane leading to Arthur Burch’s isolated cottage among the green open fields sloping steeply down the sides of the Valley of Death. She had dressed herself with care, despite the shortness of time. If she wanted her quarry to believe he was speaking to a lady magazine writer, it was essential that she look the part.

Fearing that, in this lonely spot, she might already be under observation from an upper window in the ugly little square-built stone cottage she could see at the lane’s end, she began peering about her this way and that as if the countryside was something unfamiliar to a lady from London.

A cow on the far side of the hedge suddenly gave a low moo, and, delighted with the chance, she put on a show of starting back in dismay and then scurrying by on the opposite side of the lane.

Soon she had arrived at the gate to the patch of ill-kept garden surrounding the cottage. She opened it and, passing by a scatter of garments draped on a bush to dry and looking as if they had been left there all night, approached the door. A heavy, rust-covered iron knocker embellished it. She lifted it with difficulty and brought it tapping down politely.

She had to wait much longer than she had counted on before she heard heavy steps inside, and the passing minutes took from her much of the assurance she had set out with.

At last the door was creakingly opened by the man she recognised from Mr. Heavitree’s description as Arthur Burch. He was not an attractive person. His clothes were old and bore plain traces of the farmwork that brought him his meagre living. His round, sullen-looking face was unshaven and his thatch of dark hair uncombed.

In a moment the rank smell of sweat assailed her nostrils.

She swallowed. “Good morning,” she said with all the brightness she could muster. “I trust I have not called too soon in the day, but I imagine countryfolk are early risers.”

“What d’you want?” Arthur Burch grunted, seemingly by no means impressed by this show of sweetness and light.

Miss Unwin gave a small ladylike cough. “My name is Shaw,” she said. “Miss Henrietta Shaw, and I represent the
Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine
. My editress, Lady Bolsover”—the invention had come to her in a flash—“has commissioned me to come to Chipping Compton to write an article on the effects of a murder on those connected with the affair. And I am approaching you, as one of the principal witnesses at the trial of that dreadful man Steadman, to ask if I may have your impressions.”

“You cannot.”

But Miss Unwin had been prepared for a rebuff at the start.

She drew in a breath. “Now, Mr. Burch,” she said, “perhaps you do not realise that I am empowered by Lady Bolsover to make some payment to any persons willing to give me their valuable time. I am sure that a farmer like yourself
has many calls upon him, so of course the compensation I would offer would be correspondingly large.”

“How much?”

Miss Unwin was left at a loss. Though she had thought on her way to the cottage that she might have to dangle a reward, she had not at all considered figures.

“That would depend,” she replied quickly, “on what you have to tell me.” Then, raising her closed parasol till its point seemed to be directed at the farmer’s legs, she spoke more sharply. “Had we not better go inside?”

Arthur Burch backed away a pace, and Miss Unwin stepped across the threshold.

Quickly she looked about. The passage onto which the door of the cottage opened led only to a flight of dark stairs. To left and right there were doors, the one on the right wide open, leading into a gloomy kitchen where on a large deal table a scatter of dirty dishes could be seen. The door on the left was open only by two or three inches, and as the farmer saw her glancing towards it, he stepped forward till he nearly pushed himself into her and closed it with a bang. Miss Unwin got just a glimpse inside. But she thought the bed she saw was hung with curtains a good deal cleaner and fresher than anything else in the neglected-looking house.

So, did Arthur Burch have richer tastes than seemed likely? And, she asked herself, did that mean he needed more money than his small tenant farm brought him?

“You’d best step into the kitchen,” he grunted now. “It’s none so tidy. But my old mother’s all I’ve got to look after me, and she’s failing.”

“I quite understand, Mr. Burch,” Miss Unwin answered, doing her best to twitter. “So sad when our dear parents begin to show the passing of the years.”

She looked round the kitchen, which was decidedly lacking in tidiness, and spotted a chair that seemed rather more clean than any of the others. Hastily she sat herself on it by way of making sure of her right to stay.

“Well, now,” she said, “I believe that it was you, Mr. Burch, who had the dreadful task of giving the most telling evidence against that man at the assizes.”

“I don’t know about that,” Arthur Burch answered surlily.

“Well,” Miss Unwin said, inventing hastily again, “I had the privilege before I came down to Chipping Compton of hearing the opinion on the trial of a very devoted friend of Lady Bolsover’s, the eminent Queen’s Counsel, Mr. Lionel Gathergate. And he was quite clear that it must have been your evidence that was decisive.”

“I only said what I had to.”

“Well, yes, of course. But that must have been a dreadful experience for you, to realise that on your word alone a man might hang.”

Arthur Burch’s dark, unshaven face took on a look of smouldering rage. “That’s a damned lie,” he said.

Miss Unwin did her best to look like a lady trembling with the offensiveness of that “damned.”

“I really think, Mr. Burch,” she gasped, “that you should not doubt the word of a lawyer as eminent as Mr. Gathercole.”

“Gathercole?
Gathercole?
You said his name were Gather
gate
. A damned odd sort of a name, I thought.”

“Why, why, yes, I did. It is Gathergate,” Miss Unwin replied, contriving some agitated movements of her hands. “I cannot think why I should have said
Gathercole
. One makes these mistakes, you know. Silly though they are.”

“I dare say.”

Miss Unwin breathed more easily.

“Well, I was asking: Did you not feel dreadful when you came to give your evidence?”

Was this what Mr. Heavitree would have wanted of her? He had said that the more Arthur Burch was made to dwell on his lies, the better. But was she going too far?

Certainly the farmer did not seem happy. He was standing and shuffling from one mud-smeared foot to the other.

“Dreadful?” he said at last. “I don’t see why you say that. I spoke the truth, you know. I spoke the truth.”

“I’m sure you did, Mr. Burch. I’m sure you did. But what I would like to know, for the purposes of the article I am writing, you understand, is: What were your feelings as you spoke that truth?”

“Feelings? I don’t know as I go in for feelings.”

“But you must have felt something. Something, when the thought came to you that a man, perhaps an innocent man, was going to be hanged on your word alone.”

“Innocent? What do you mean, ‘innocent’?” Arthur Burch was shouting now. He cast a furious glance round and suddenly darted off towards a far corner of the gloomy room.

What was he doing? Had she now gone too far at last?

The answer came a moment later. From the darkest corner of the dark, cluttered room Arthur Burch had snatched a shotgun. And now it was pointing directly at herself.

Miss Unwin looked at the shotgun aimed squarely at her and at the glowering man behind it.

“Mr. Burch,” she said, “don’t be silly.”

She put all the command she could into the words. No use now in playing the twittering lady writer. Only a show of absolute confidence would save her, much as in very different circumstances her governess’s authority quelled rebellion in the schoolroom.

For several long seconds the barrel of the gun stayed unwaveringly pointing. Then, slowly, it was lowered.

“Mr. Burch,” Miss Unwin said, firmly as before, “if you do not wish to speak of your evidence at the assizes, you have no need to do so. There are others in Chipping Compton who can supply me with the impressions I require for my article.”

“Well, I’m damned if I’ll supply you with mine,” Arthur Burch growled.