A Bitter Truth (16 page)

“The sermon was probably written several days before he dined here.”

“Well, then, have the good sense, and the good manners, to change it. He saw us sitting there.”

“He was as uncomfortable as you were.”

“It was a mistake to go. What’s that in your hand?”

I was still holding the scrap of paper. “I’m not sure,” I began, but she came quickly across the room to where I was standing by the lamp, holding out her hand.

“Where did it come from? Was it here, in the house? Surely not—”

“It was in the umbrella Mrs. Ellis and I were using. I don’t know why it hadn’t fallen out before. But as I was opening it again when we arrived at the door, it must have shaken loose.”

She took it from me. “The ink has run. Can you read it?” She peered at the letters, sounding them out. “Meet me. Is that what it says? Who wrote it?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Then it must have been for me. Davis? Was he in church, do you know?”

“I didn’t see him. But he could have been there,” I said doubtfully. Simon had told me that the police were interested in speaking to him, and he had disappeared.

Was that why he wanted to meet Lydia? To tell her what had happened? But then why not tell her where this meeting should take place?

Unless of course she knew already.

She began to pace. “I must go into Hartfield. If this is from Davis, he must know something—heard something the police haven’t told us yet. You must want to leave here as much as I do. And it’s my fault, really, that you’re here. Help me do something to free both of us.”

She was persuasive, but I shook my head. “Um—you don’t want to draw him into this inquiry. You’ve done enough harm already, seeing him yesterday morning.” I couldn’t tell her he was under suspicion without giving Simon away.

“If you asked to go in to The King’s Head to speak to Simon Brandon, I could go to show you the way. You wouldn’t care to be lost on the roads around the Forest, would you?”

I refused outright to be a party to such foolishness. But when she finally threatened to go alone, even in the rain and on her bicycle, I relented, against my better judgment.

And if Davis wasn’t at the cottage, then she wouldn’t see him anyway.

When I asked Mrs. Ellis for the use of one of the motorcars, she said, “Lunch will be served in a very few minutes. Afterward, I’ll be very happy to go with you.”

I couldn’t argue that Lydia ought to be the one accompanying me.

Lydia, waiting in my room, turned anxiously toward the door as I came in. “What did she say?”

“She asked me to wait until after lunch.”

Relief washed over her face before I could add, “Lydia. She suggested that she go with me. I didn’t know what to say.”

The relief vanished. “No, I was supposed to go. Why didn’t you try to convince her that I should drive with you?”

“I was asking a favor. How could I press her?”

She turned and paced to the window. “We have to do something. Tell her—tell her you don’t wish to put her out, that she’ll want to spend the time with Margaret and Henry.”

“Wait until after lunch. Then I’ll see what I can do.”

“I should have asked her myself,” she said pacing back.

“I think,” I said slowly, remembering the way Roger’s mother had scanned my face, “she believes this is a ruse. That you’re still intending to leave for London.”

“Well, I’m not. Much as I’d be tempted to do just that. But I know the police would just find me and send me back, and that would be worse. Convince her if you can.”

In the end, we ate our meal in a stiff silence, and then the problem of Mrs. Ellis accompanying me was resolved when Inspector Rother arrived and asked to speak to her.

Lydia, almost giddy with relief, said, “Oh, thank God,” as she hurried out the door after me, and all but leapt into the motorcar.

I didn’t tell her that I’d had to promise Mrs. Ellis to bring her back with me.

“I trust you, Bess, to see that Lydia doesn’t do anything rash,” she’d said, lines of worry already etched deeply around her eyes.

I drove with care, not knowing the tracks, expecting sheep to block our progress around every bend, and remembering too George Hughes’s trouble with something in the road. But this time I came upon a line of cows moving stoically through the rain, as if they knew precisely where they were going and how long it would take to get there.

The rain had left deep puddles on the unmade road, and there were times when I could almost believe I was driving in France, we bounced and shuddered so ferociously.

We came into Hartfield in another shower of rain, and I made my way through the town toward the inn. I said, “You can hardly march up to Davis Merrit’s door and ask him if he sent you a note.”

Lydia had been quiet the last mile or so. “I don’t know. It seemed so easy at Vixen Hill. Do you see him walking along the street? It would seem natural if I got down and spoke to him then.”

“I haven’t seen him so far.”

She was craning to look first this way and then that. “If he did send a message, where do you think he meant for me to meet him?” She turned to me in alarm. “You don’t suppose he was waiting near the church, or in the churchyard?”

“Hardly there, in full view of the entire congregation, not to mention Roger,” I reminded her. “It would have attracted even more attention and gossip.”

“Yes, of course, you’re right.”

We could see the inn just ahead. “Would Simon go across and ask Davis to come to the inn? If you asked him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you want me to knock on Davis Merrit’s door?”

She bit her lip, then shook her head. “No. He doesn’t know you. He might deny everything.”

“He doesn’t know Simon either,” I pointed out.

“But Simon’s a man. No one will think twice if he calls on Davis. Please, ask him, Bess.”

I left the motorcar in the inn yard, and we hurried into The King’s Head under our umbrellas, leaving them by the door as we stepped into Reception. I walked to the desk and asked if someone would kindly tell Mr. Brandon that Miss Crawford was here.

The young woman working on accounts looked up with a smile. “Certainly, Miss Crawford, I’ll send someone to his room.”

She suggested that I wait in a parlor just down a passage, and I thanked her. We opened the door to the small room. It was a little stuffy but otherwise quite pleasant, with windows overlooking the side street. It was furnished with comfortable chairs and a table for tea. I said to Lydia, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Yes. I’m here. There might not be another chance. We’re so isolated at Vixen Hill. I’ll go mad waiting.”

The door opened and Simon walked in. “I saw you drive up,” he said. “What’s happened?”

“That’s what we came to ask you,” Lydia said at once. “Inspector Rother was at St. Mary’s this morning. He wished to speak to Janet Smyth, the rector’s sister. Now he’s talking to my mother-in-law at Vixen Hill.”

“Is he?” He glanced at me. I couldn’t read the look. “I’ve tried to find out what the police are looking for. But even in the pubs, truth is thin on the ground, and gossip is feeding on itself.”

I took the scrap of paper from my pocket. “Did you write this?” I asked.

“No. Where did it come from?”

I told him about the umbrella. “Lydia thinks it might have come from Davis Merrit. She’d like to ask him. But it isn’t that easy. Could you step across to Bluebell Cottage and ask him to come to The King’s Head?”

Simon hesitated. Then to my surprise, he agreed.

“I’ll feel like such a fool if Davis didn’t send the message. But then who else could have?” Lydia asked.

“We’ll know soon enough.”

We sat down, and waited. The minutes crawled by. Lydia said, “What’s keeping Simon?”

“I don’t know.” Five more minutes passed. I was beginning to worry as well. Bluebell Cottage was just across the street from The King’s Head, a walk of no more than two minutes, even if Simon had had to stop for a funeral procession to pass by. “Wait here,” I said finally.

“No, don’t leave me, Bess!”

“I’m just walking to the door, to look out and see if Simon is at the cottage.”

Grudgingly, she let me go. But although I stepped out into the now mistng rain, there was no sign of Simon or Davis Merrit. I thought there was a lamp lit in the cottage, but I couldn’t even be sure of that, for the curtains were drawn, and it wasn’t yet dark enough for the lamplight to show clearly.

Simon and half the regiment could be in Bluebell Cottage and I had no way of telling. With a sigh, I turned and walked back into the inn and rejoined Lydia in the parlor.

She rose from her chair as I came through the door and shut it behind me. “Well?”

I said lightly, “If he’s in the cottage, I can’t tell. The curtains are drawn.”

“Then Davis must be talking to him. Why didn’t he come across to The King’s Head and speak to me himself? If he sent me that note, there must have been a reason.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t want to be seen speaking to you. I’m sure after your visit with him the other morning, the police questioned him.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

Another fifteen minutes passed before we heard Simon’s footsteps on the wooden floor outside the parlor, and then the door opened.

He said, shutting it behind him, “I couldn’t find Davis Merrit.”

Lydia said, rising, “He wasn’t in his house?”

Simon was choosing his words carefully. “No. I went up and down the street. The shops are closed, it’s Sunday after all.”

She turned to me. “I told you he could have been waiting at St. Mary’s. We must go back there straightaway.”

Simon quickly stepped between her and the door. “I don’t believe he’s at St. Mary’s, Mrs. Ellis. The police are searching for him as well.”

“For Davis? Dear God, just because I went to see him yesterday? No, you’re just trying to frighten me away because Bess doesn’t want me to see him!”

“Your visit will probably prove to be his motive for murder. But what they are curious about now is how he came by George Hughes’s watch.”

I was surprised by Simon’s tone of voice. Cold and blunt.

“Murder?” The muscles in her face tensed, making it look more like a mask than flesh and blood. “What watch?”

“It was actually his brother’s watch, I’m told. It turned up in the possession of a man the local people call Willy. He appeared in Hartfield one day, muddled and half starved. No one knows his real name or where he came from. He begs for coins, and people feed and clothe him out of kindness. No one knows where he sleeps. But during the day he’s on the street, waiting for someone to put a few coins into his hand.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen Willy on the streets, I know who he is.”

“Someone noticed that he was carrying a watch, rather an expensive one, and mentioned that to the police. When they examined the watch, they saw the name engraved on the reverse. When asked how he’d come by the watch, Willy told them it had been given to him by a friend. I don’t know how they persuaded him to identify this friend. But when they went to look for Davis Merrit, he was not in his cottage. He hasn’t been seen since.”

Lydia cried, “Surely they can’t believe—not Davis! How would he even find George? Or kill him?”

But I could see that she remembered telling me that George Hughes and Davis Merrit had met in France. She turned frantically to me. “Do the police—does anyone think that Davis killed George—for my sake? No, he would never do that.”

I said quietly, “You told me you didn’t love him. But perhaps—because of your kindnesses—he was in love with you.”

“I don’t believe you. And even if I did, why would Davis take George’s watch—and give it to Willy, of all people?”

“So that you would know what he’d done for you?”

She walked to the window, looking out at the side street. “This is Roger’s doing. It couldn’t be anyone else’s. He’s rid himself of George and of Davis as well.” She put out a hand, stroking the folds of the curtains, not even aware of what she was doing. But the smooth velvet must have been soothing. “I hope they hang him!”

“You don’t mean that,” I said sharply. “You don’t know the whole story. Neither do I. Or Simon.”

“It doesn’t matter. This is the only thing I can think of that would explain what has happened. Willy is lying. He has to be made to tell the truth.” She turned from the window. “Take me back to Vixen Hill, Bess.” There was a hardness in her face that hadn’t been there before. “Thank you, Simon. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

She walked past him and out the door. “Are you coming, Bess?” she called anxiously over her shoulder.

“Yes, yes, in a moment.” I said to Simon, “Is that all you’ve been able to learn?”

“Inspector Rother has been busy ascertaining that Hughes had his watch at Vixen Hill. He spoke to someone at the church today, I’m told, who remembered seeing it. That must have been the rector’s sister. She has no reason to lie. Did you see it?”

“No. I don’t think I did. But I had no reason to notice it. Wait, yes, he had it that first evening, I think.”