An Unwilling Accomplice (23 page)

I had a moment to glance at the Major’s face. He was, mercifully, unconscious.

As we finished cleaning up the wound, then bandaging it afresh, I said to Maddie, “Who is this man? Is he the one who wrote to Sister Hammond? You must tell me. There’s a woman in Derbyshire who thinks this man might be her missing cousin. It would be a comfort to her to know whether to hope or not. Harry Cartwright has been suffering from a head wound, and he’s wandered away. He hasn’t been seen for weeks.”

Maddie turned to me, anger in his face as I began to wash my hands again.

“I don’t know. I’ve been told his name, but whether it’s his or not, I can’t say. I have had another patient with a head wound. There was little I could do for him either. To try would be worse. At least the Major is here where he’s well looked after. Miss Neville swears he’s her fiancé, and I have accepted that.”

“But it’s possible—” I began, but Maddie rounded on me.

“I heal those I can. I don’t pry. A wounded body is one thing, a wounded mind another. It’s not as simple to save.”

“He begged me to take him away—just now, before you came in. He said he couldn’t stand it any longer.”

“Was he speaking of his wound? Or his circumstances?” Maddie demanded.

“I don’t know.” There was nothing more I could say.

Simon spoke then. “The man we’re after has committed cold-blooded murder. It’s possible he could kill again. That’s something to remember when you choose not to pry.”

While he was distracting Maddie, I began to smooth the sheets on the bed, drawing them up to cover the patient. And without haste, I ran my fingertips over the left shoulder of the unconscious man.

It was as smooth as the flesh of my own shoulder. I did the same on the right side, in case Miss Cartwright had it wrong. But there were no ridges and lumps where a wound had torn the shoulder open and it had healed with difficulty.

“He shouldn’t be disturbed. I won’t allow it.” Maddie glanced my way as he began to clear away the stained bandages and basins of water, preparing them for the housemaid to take downstairs. I was already bathing the Major’s face in fresh water.

“Leave him now,” he said. “I’ll stay awhile, to look in on him in an hour.”

It was dismissal. I began to remove the apron I’d been given, watching Maddie reach into his satchel once more to take out a powder that he mixed with a little water in a glass. Holding up the Major’s head to prevent him from choking, Maddie got him to swallow the mixture. “That will keep him quiet. One of the housemaids must sit with him through the night. He shouldn’t be left alone. And that wound must air.” He arranged the bedclothes again to his satisfaction, then turned. “I understand your motives,” he said slowly. “But you must understand this. We live here. The Nevilles and the Warrens, and everyone else in Upper Dysoe. Don’t meddle.”

With that he crossed to the door, gave his instructions to the waiting housemaid clearly and concisely, then asked her to repeat them. Nodding, he turned back to us.

“Thank you once more for your assistance. I think it best if we leave the patient to rest.”

With that he ushered us out of the room. There was nothing more I could do but follow.

We walked down the ornate staircase together, and Maddie nodded to us before going off to find Mrs. Neville.

Simon started for the door. I was on the point of following him, when I looked down. I had taken off Maddie’s apron, but I hadn’t remembered to put on my own.

I turned quickly toward the stairs and began to run lightly up them.

“Bess, don’t do this.”

“It’s my apron,” I called over my shoulder.

I hurried down the passage. No one was in sight.

I put my hand on the knob and swung the door open.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

M
ISS
N
EVILLE WAS
just drawing up a chair to the Major’s bedside.

Whirling, she said angrily, “How many times must I tell you to knock?”

Breaking off, she stared at me.

“What are you doing in my house?” she demanded, her face flushing as her anger turned to fury. “Get out. Or I’ll have you taken up for trespass.”

I’d been told she was away. How had she arrived without our knowing it? Was it while Simon and I were with Maddie?

Of course it would be natural for her to come at once to the Major’s room to look in on him. Someone must have told her Maddie had been sent for, that he was even then cleaning the wound.

I said, “I’m so sorry, Miss Neville. My apron.” I pointed. But the apron wasn’t where I’d set it. She’d moved it and taken that chair for her vigil.

All at once I remembered that the letter from Sister Hammond must still be in the apron’s deep pocket. Had she noticed it there and taken it out to read? Had there been time?

As I caught it up, I pressed my hand against the pocket and felt the letter safely in place. But that still didn’t tell me whether she’d read it or not.

As I stepped out into the passage, it occurred to me that her sudden flare of temper might well have been the realization that she’d nearly been caught with the letter in her hand.

She was still glaring angrily at me as I swung the door shut.

I hurried down the stairs. No one else was in the Great Hall, and I was glad. I let myself quietly out the door. Simon had already cranked the motorcar and was waiting for me.

The drive back to the gates seemed to be twice as long as it had when we’d come down it little over an hour before.

“Miss Neville was in the sick room when I went back. She wasn’t especially happy to see me.”

As we pulled away from the gates, Simon spoke. “You touched his shoulders. What did you feel?”

“Nothing,” I said. “If there’s a wound on either shoulder, it’s healed well.”

“Then this man isn’t the missing Harry Cartwright?”

“Sadly, no. Or perhaps I should say, the odds are against it. I could wish he were, for his cousin’s sake. Of course I couldn’t see, I might have been pressing in the wrong places. But if the wound was as bad as Miss Cartwright described, I’d have felt something.”

“It’s been two years since the Somme.”

“Still.” I took a deep breath, glad to put Windward behind us.

“Was it Sergeant Wilkins? If it wasn’t Cartwright.”

“Yes, it could very well be. How long has it been since I’ve seen him? But England is full of fair men, Simon.”

“His hands, then.”

“I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. If he’s engaged to Miss Neville, why did he want me to take him back to hospital? Why had he written to Sister Hammond?”

“He was delirious, you can’t judge him there.”

“The words were so similar to those in the letter. And I think Maddie would have posted a letter for him, if the Major had asked. Simon, the letter was in my apron pocket. Miss Neville moved the apron when she took the chair over to the bed. She must have guessed it was mine. She might even have read the letter. She’d know his handwriting, surely.”

“And what will she make of that, I wonder. I wouldn’t wager on a happy marriage if she has.”

“No, nor I. Especially if the Major fully recovers. And he very well could, given time.”

I glanced across at Simon’s profile, but it told me nothing. Simon Brandon could be inscrutable when he wished to be.

“You haven’t told me your opinion. Have we found Sergeant Wilkins?”

“Maddie mentioned another patient with a head wound.”

“Sister Hammond told us that Sergeant Wilkins didn’t have one.”

“At the mechanic’s shop back in Shropshire we were told that the man asking for a lift to Kenilworth had a fresh head wound that looked rather nasty.”

“That’s right, I remember.”

We drove straight through Upper Dysoe to the town where we’d stayed the night, just beyond Biddington. We stood there in the yard, trying to decide what to do.

I recalled something else. “Simon, did you hear? Mrs. Neville told me the Major’s name was Findley.”

“If I were in London, I’d look him up in the rolls.”

“But we aren’t,” I replied absently, my mind elsewhere. “Simon. What if it wasn’t Sergeant Wilkins who killed that man in Iron Bridge? Everyone assumes it must have been. The description is close enough to match. But that description is vague, isn’t it. A man of such and such a height and build, such and such a coloring, no distinguishing marks or features. It would fit the Major—it would fit Harry Cartwright—and how many more men?”

“That’s for Scotland Yard to determine. There was a witness, remember?”

“Yes, of course. All the same, I was drawn into this whole affair, an unwitting and unwilling accomplice, if you will. It was Scotland Yard that told us the murderer in Ironbridge was Sergeant Wilkins. A man
was
murdered there, the witness thought he resembled the photograph she’d seen of the sergeant before the audience with the King. But she had the briefest of looks at him. What if we’ve followed a killer? But not Sergeant Wilkins?”

Simon was exasperated. “Why are you so ready now to believe he’s innocent?”

“I expect,” I said slowly, “what worries me is that the sergeant has eluded the Army and the police. That’s quite a feat. What if like poor Harry Cartwright, Sergeant Wilkins might be dead? No one has found either of them, and it could well be for the same reason. And if we can’t, either, how will I clear my name? I need Sergeant Wilkins to be alive. Yet he might be at the bottom of the Thames. Or an unidentified corpse found in a field. What will I do then?”

“You mustn’t give up hope, Bess,” he said more gently. “It’s not like you.”

I tried to clear away the cobwebs. “Simon, I think the first order of business is to find a telephone and see if a Major Findley exists on the Army rolls. And what’s become of him. In Biddington there’s a nicer inn, we passed it just now. Leave me there to see what I can discover. Someone somewhere must have seen a strange man lurking about.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone, without any means of getting out of here if you needed to.”

“There’s no reason why I should need to leave here in a hurry. And it’s probably just as well that I can’t return to Upper Dysoe on my own. How long will it take you to find a telephone and reach the proper person in London? A few hours? A day?”

It took some persuasion, but in the end, Simon agreed to search for a telephone.

We had an early lunch in Biddington after Simon had inspected the inn there and seen my accommodations for himself. Shortly after one, he set out.

I watched his motorcar disappear in the direction of Stratford-on-Avon with a feeling of unease. It had seemed a very sensible thing to do when the two of us were discussing it. And quite another to realize how completely on my own I was. I felt quite conspicuous in my uniform while many of the other women in the town wore the drab clothing of a country at war, no bright new hats, no new styles, only what they could contrive to look a little different, enough to lift the spirits for one more day or week or year. It wasn’t market day, but people were in the shops and on the street.

The feeling of unease soon passed as I strolled down the High Street, stopping first in the small post office to buy a few stamps, striking up a conversation with the postmistress, and from there to the pretty little stationer’s shop, where I found a box of fine writing paper. At the milliner’s I bought several ribbons and a small bunch of feathers for a hat. At the greengrocer’s I purchased apples, and in the cheese shop a slab of cheese, from the baker’s a half loaf of bread. And all the while I was gossiping.

It turned out to be rather easy, as Windward was the only grand house in Biddington’s small world, and I had only to mention that a dear friend had been at school with Barbara Neville to begin a conversation.

Very few people here actually knew the Nevilles, but they most certainly knew of them. I heard stories about Barbara Neville’s father and mother, listened to a harangue over her stepmother’s peculiar view on the evils of the Industrial Revolution, and found myself in the midst of a circle of women wondering if it was true that she was soon to be married and whether there would now be parties and weekends at the house, or if she and her husband would choose to live in London. This was of some concern, as it could mean a drastic change in the running of Windward and therefore less money in the pockets of those who were purveyors of goods to the house. The general view was that her fiancé was quite mad and ought to be shut up in an asylum. Bits of information embroidered by rumor and envy.

The baker’s wife raised her heavy eyebrows when talk turned to the Major. “A wild man,” she told me. “I can’t understand why she hasn’t broken off her engagement. Imagine going around shooting at people.”

“Why should he do such a thing?” I asked. “Surely not!”

“He’s mad.” She nodded. “Oh yes, quite mad, they say. He talks to goats and brings them into the house to sit at table. I have it on good authority. The miller’s lad delivers our flour. He’s often at Windward with theirs.”

I wondered if Mr. Warren, the miller, knew that his lad told such tales.

It wasn’t until I was sitting on a bench by the church, eating a ploughman’s lunch of bread and cheese and apples, that I learned anything truly useful.

A man was scything the grass between gravestones, and when he stopped to rest, he nodded to me and asked what brought me to Biddington, if I’d brought someone home.

I explained that I was on leave and looking for my brother, who had walked away from the hospital where he was recovering.

“No strangers in Biddington that I’ve heard of,” he assured me, leaning on the handle of his scythe. “I’d learn soon enough if there was. My wife cleans the church every week, and the committee ladies bringing in the flowers gossip freely.”

Laughing, I asked if he’d heard all the talk about Barbara Neville’s fiancé

“There’s two schools of thought there,” he said, casting a glance toward the Rectory to be sure he couldn’t be seen chatting with me. “One says Miss Neville brought him home one day without a by your leave and announced she was going to nurse him back to health.”