Into the Valley of Death (22 page)

“A good many of us have felt the same,” General Pastell said with unexpected gentleness.

“Very well. But none of you broke as I did, did you? You none of you went running to the enemy. To the enemy. And were only saved from utter degradation by a corporal who seized hold of you and dealt you a blow that left you unconscious.”

“So that was it?” Miss Unwin murmured.

“Yes. And when I recovered a few minutes later, the corporal had gone and I thought I would have to surrender after all. Until, just at that moment of all moments, the note of the Russians sounding retreat came floating through the air as a breeze lifted the smoke. And I—wild with relief—I leapt up and shouted out that stupid hunting call “Stole away.” And, damn it, at that instant my colonel rode up, and afterwards he told the story again and again, with Lieutenant Charteris capturing that Russian gun as the start of it. And then—then after the war Her Majesty wanted to give me the Cross.”

“You could at least have refused,” Miss Unwin said.

“Yes, I could have refused, and, oh, I should have, I know. But I saw that medal as my path out of mediocrity.” He turned to General Pastell. “You purchased your commission and your promotions, General, I suppose?” he asked.

“I did. I hope I earned them afterwards, but, like many another, I bought each promotion step by step.”

“Well, I had no family with money to do that. I knew that if
nothing intervened I would hardly rise above a captaincy and would end my days a wretched half-pay officer. But the Cross changed all that, as I knew it would. Would you, as a magistrate, sir, have considered me for the post of Chief Constable of this county without those letters ‘V.C’ after my name?”

“Perhaps I would not. No, I would not have done. I admit it.”

“So you see why I did what I did. I believed no one, no one on this earth, knew what had really happened. I thought the corporal who had struck me down for my own honour had been killed, and I believed no one else had seen anything. And then … Then after twenty years that man Goode appeared here. Apparently he had been lying and skulking nearby at the battle and had seen it all. So he extorted money from me, telling me by way of precaution that he had as witness to my behavior that very corporal who had struck me. It took me months to worm the fellow’s name out of Goode, but then I was ready to deal with him. He was bleeding me white, with less pity by far than I had when I made that wretched man Burch furnish that room for me. I ought to have turned him out of the farm he was so mismanaging as soon as I set eyes on him.”

“And you went on to force him to give evidence against Corporal Steadman?” the General asked.

“Yes, yes. Of course. It was my plan. And then when this hussy came on the scene, he had to go. So I killed him, too. Yes, there it is. Now take me to the hangman.”

Then, with no warning, the murderer of Alfie Goode and Arthur Burch pitched forward onto the grass in front of him.

Miss Unwin started back in alarm.

“No, it’s all right, my dear,” General Pastell said. “The fellow’s only fainted. Loss of blood. Good thing, on the whole. I’m not as young as I was, and keeping my sabre point at the ready was beginning to be more than I could manage. But
Inspector Whatmough and his men should be here before long.”

The General coughed then in the darkness, with something of a note of apology.

“There’s something more about this that perhaps you can enlighten me over, Miss Unwin,” he said. “And, please, my dear, don’t hesitate to tell the whole truth.”

“What is it, General?” Miss Unwin asked, though she had more than an inkling of what it was the old soldier wanted to know.

“Mrs. De Lyall,” he said. “It was her that Charteris used to meet in that cottage, wasn’t it? You understand, I don’t want to blacken the lady’s name, but the truth of all this must come out sooner or later.”

“Oh, yes, I’m afraid it was she,” Miss Unwin said. “But I realised that only when she came to try to chase me from the town. It was when she did so a second time and pretended then to have no liking for Major Charteris that I began thinking. She was altogether too vehement. And then it didn’t take me long to see that it must be the Major whom she was trying to protect and who therefore must be the man masquerading as one Mr. Sutter at the cottage.”

“I see,” the General said. “But all the same, how did you go on to work out that the business in the Crimea was at the back of it all? To tell you the truth, I thought until now that female detectives existed only in the pages of sensational novels. But you’ve given me an altogether different impression of them. I mean, have you really studied those eight volumes of Mr. Kinglake’s history of the campaign?”

Miss Unwin smiled. “No, General,” she said. “I have been consulting quite another work. You see, sir, your disbelief in the existence of female detectives is, for all I know, quite justified. Certainly, I am no such person. I am no more than a simple governess, and it is to nothing more erudite than the Rev. C. P. Wilkinson’s
Heroes of the Crimea
, told for boys, that I owe my knowledge of what happened in the days of the real Valley of Death.”

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © H.R.F. Keating

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ISBN: 9781448203222
eISBN: 9781448202898

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