An Unwilling Accomplice (26 page)

Turning, I saw that there was a round stone embedded in the hardened mud of the rut, just about where my head had landed. Not large enough to do serious damage, but large enough to make its presence felt.

I stood there for a moment, to be certain that I was all right, then as I turned toward Upper Dysoe, and the pub, my hip told me I’d landed on it as well.

I smiled ruefully. I hadn’t taken a tumble like that since—India? And then I’d come down squarely on the sunbaked sand, only knocking the wind out of myself.

Simon had leapt off his horse and knelt beside me, calling my name as I gasped for breath, then picked me up and carried me from the horse lines to the house where the Colonel Sahib and my mother were living at the time. Before the pair of us could alarm the servants, I got my breath back and he put me down, holding on to my shoulders until he was sure I was all right. And then he’d told me furiously not to do that again.

Well, in fact, I had not.

I walked the knot out of my hip, but my arm was a little stiff by the time the pub came into sight. I took stock of myself, this time to be certain that my cap and my apron and skirts were tidy. The borrowed boots were rubbing my heel as I opened the door and went into the pub, hoping to find someone there who could take me back to Biddington.

Just then I heard someone shouting my name, and I turned and went out again.

It was Tulley, and his face was red with fury.

This time it wasn’t Simon who lectured me, it was Tulley.

Molly, it appeared, hadn’t galloped all the way to Biddington. A frequent enough visitor to Upper Dysoe to feel right at home there, she had trotted around to the pub yard. There someone had seen her without a rider and gone in to tell Tulley, who went out to investigate. He must have thought I’d simply dismounted, without calling anyone to unsaddle her and rub her down.

I stood there, listening to him, thinking that he was more concerned about the wayward horse than he was about a woman who’d just been violently thrown. By this time the lump on my forehead was sizable and painful. I was about to cut him short and tell him that it was I who had come to harm, not the precious mare, when something he was shouting got through to me.

“I
what
?” I demanded. “I never touched her with a whip. I didn’t have a whip with me. What’s more I had no need of one.”

“Come and see for yourself,” he retorted and reached out to take my arm—unfortunately the right one—and I cried out.

Just at that moment, Simon drove into the pub yard.

The motorcar skidded to a stop in a spray of dust and small stones and bits of hay. He was out of it almost before it had stopped rocking.

“Take your hands off her,” he all but snarled at the man pulling my arm to drag me away.

Tulley stepped back, startled, as Simon Brandon bore down on him.

He must have seen the quail egg on my forehead and the state of my clothes, and jumped to conclusions.

I quickly stepped into Simon’s path and put out a hand to stop him before he could reach Tulley.

“It isn’t what you think, Simon,” I said hurriedly. “It’s all right. I hit my head when I was thrown from Molly—the mare I borrowed from Mr. Oakham in Biddington.” I pointed to my riding boots, dusty from walking back. “As you can see. Tulley has just accused me of taking a whip to the mare. But I hadn’t. We were about to go and find out what he’s talking about.”

I wasn’t sure whether Simon was satisfied or not. But he stopped and said grimly, “Then let’s have a look at this mare.”

A much subdued Tulley led the way around the pub to the shed in the back. Molly was standing in front of it, her saddle already removed, while the reins dragged in the dust of the yard.

I put my hand on the mare’s neck, patting it gently before running it down her side toward her left flank, where Tulley was pointing.

There was a cut in Molly’s hide, narrow, bleeding a very little, not serious enough to harm her but quite noticeable. And it did look as if I’d used a whip. I flicked a fly from the raw wound and said, “I didn’t do this. I give you my word. Take her to Maddie to clean it.”

Tulley was about to argue, but one look at Simon’s scowl, and he bit back what he was going to say, instead nodding curtly. He collected the reins and walked away, his back stiff with suppressed resentment.

Simon watched him go, then turned to me. “Now tell me what happened.”

I did. Simon listened to me, his gaze holding mine as I talked.

“What made the mare rear, then buck?”

“I don’t know—I really didn’t think about it at the time. Now? A horsefly? A bee’s sting? But that’s not what the cut looks like, does it, Simon?”

“Come with me.”

We went back to the motorcar, and I got in while Simon bent to turn the crank.

Driving back the way I’d walked just a few minutes before, I went over what had happened. I’d been sitting on the horse, looking at the brambles and undergrowth for the goat, then I had turned toward the ruins, hadn’t I?

Simon stopped the motorcar well short of the barn ruins, and we got down.

“Show me where you fell.”

That was easier said than done; the road was so furrowed from traffic in rainy weather that one rut looked very much like the other. Bending over to see better made my shoulder and head hurt, but I persevered.

“Ah—that round stone.” I straightened and tried to judge both sides of the road, getting my bearings. “I think that’s the one my head struck. If it isn’t, then it’s near enough like it to be twins.”

“Stay there.”

Simon walked past me about the length of the horse and knelt to study the dusty track that here in the Dysoes was called a road.

He spent a good ten minutes scouring the place, then moved on another foot or so.

As far as I could tell, no one had come along this road since I’d reached the pub. But what was Simon looking for? Then I realized what he suspected. That someone had deliberately startled Molly, causing her to rear and buck.

The question was, how had it been done without my seeing someone?

I joined him, scanning the road surface. And we had no luck at all.

“Simon, we can’t find it.”

He stood up, looking toward the barn. “If someone threw something at the mare from that side of the wall, it had to be heavy enough to fly to the middle of the road. We must keep looking.”

I walked back to the motorcar, then started forward once more. Perhaps I’d been wrong about the round stone.

And then I saw it. A bit of wood from the roof that must have escaped the fire. There was a broken nail protruding from it

“Simon, here!” I called, and he came at once. “Why would someone deliberately hurt my horse?”

He took the bit of wood and examined it, then hefted it in his hand. Satisfied, he turned and went toward the side of the barn. “Mark the place where you think you fell,” he called, and I hurried to stand by the spot.

“I’ll hit you,” he said. “Move away.”

“You need the flank of the horse to aim for,” I said, refusing to budge.

He took his aim, then hurled the bit of wood toward me. It sailed through the air in an arc, and then losing momentum, it began to come down, landing just at my feet.

“Was it meant for me—or the horse?” I asked now, as he came back to join me.

“You said you’d stopped and were looking for the goat. You might have turned and ridden toward the barn next. Whoever it was, he couldn’t take the chance. There’s no place to hide, come to that. At least not enough concealment left to escape detection. He decided to startle the mare into bolting and take your mind off the ruins. Only his aim wasn’t as good as mine.”

“Then why did I find it so far from where I fell?”

He picked up the bit of wood and held it out. “The nail dug into the mare’s flank. Enough to make her buck, and then it fell off as she raced back to the pub. That wasn’t a deep cut, remember? Tulley wouldn’t have accused you of using the whip if it had been deeper.”

I tried to remember what I could from the moment the mare reared.

“I think you’re right. She went up on her hind legs at first, startled—then bucked to dislodge whatever had stung her. Only it wasn’t a fly. It was that nail. Poor Molly, she didn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily.”

“I don’t think he intended to hurt the mare. Still, we’d never have thought to come back here if it hadn’t been for that telltale cut.” Simon went back to search the barn, but there was very little to see. A few bent stems of blackened stubble and that was all. “He must have heard the mare coming and took shelter here until you’d passed.”

“It couldn’t have been the Major,” I said, and told him about my visit as we walked back to the motorcar. “He would have had his work cut out for him to nip down those stairs, much less walk this far.”

“I thought you were staying in Biddington. When I didn’t find you there, I came at once to Upper Dysoe.”

And found me being threatened by Tulley. No wonder his anger had exploded into near violence.

We rode in silence back to Upper Dysoe, where Simon mounted Molly and I drove the rest of the way to Biddington, which did little for my still aching shoulder, but I said nothing about that.

It was necessary to explain the wound on Molly’s flank to her suspicious owner, but after viewing the small cut, he shook his head. “The Broughton lads,” he said. “They’re always up to some mischief or other. The constable will have a word with them.”

“I don’t think it was the Broughtons,” I began, not wanting to get them into trouble. “This was on the far side of Upper Dysoe.”

Frowning, he said, “I’ve not known them to wander that far. Still, father’s at the Front, mother can’t manage them. There’s a first time for everything.”

“Do you know if there are any strangers about? Here in Biddington or in Upper Dysoe?” Simon asked.

“Now that you mention it, one of the miller’s sons—young Matt—was telling people he saw a drunken soldier lying by the verge of the road this side of Lower Dysoe. Disheveled and dirty, he was. Matt was uncertain what to do. He took the sacks of flour on to the general store in Lower Dysoe, then came back to do what he could for the soldier. But the man had gone. He told his pa, but when they went back, they couldn’t find any sign of him. Warren sent word to the constable here in Biddington, who thought the man might be a deserter, but the Army didn’t have anyone from this area on their list. Warren wanted to believe he’d fallen on hard times, no work and no hope of finding any. He’d have taken him in and seen him right. He has boys of his own. One will be of an age to enlist soon. I reckon that worries the miller of nights.”

I was reminded of the gardener’s boy, asking me about the war.

“When was this?” A wounded man could appear to be drunk. Or an exhausted and hungry one.

Mr. Oakham scratched his chin. “Let me see. It was after the Goldsmith twins were born. We wet their heads in the pub that very night, best we could with the little beer I could manage to find.” Nodding, he gave Simon the date.

It was five days after the murder at Ironbridge.

Could Sergeant Wilkins have got as far as Lower Dysoe by that time? It was possible. Just. With a lift from the lorry driver. Much would depend on how far he’d come before he’d lost the bay.

Simon and I exchanged glances.

Unless, of course, I suddenly remembered, it was the Major on one of his brief forays away from the house.

I didn’t want to believe it was the Major.

Simon thanked Mr. Oakham, and we went back to the motorcar.

“What do you think?”

“I’d like it to be Sergeant Wilkins.” But I told him about the Major’s wanderings all the same.

“Let’s have a talk with Warren’s son. This could very well explain why someone wanted to startle the mare. If you nearly came upon Wilkins, Bess, he’d not want you to find him. You’re the only one in these parts who could recognize him.”

We went to the mill. Warren was sitting on a three-legged stool, supervising the sacking of flour. Clouds of white dust rose high on the still air as the flour was shoveled into bags by two boys of about fourteen and fifteen who looked enough like him to be his sons.

He nodded to us, and then recognized me. “Sister,” he said, trying to stand. It was awkwardly done with his shoulder still taped.

“No, please don’t get up,” I said quickly, not wanting him to fall on my account. “I just wanted to see how you were faring.”

“Maddie tells me it’s healing well enough. Deep wounds take their time, he says. And I’m to learn to spare it when I do start to work in the mill again. The muscles will have knit, he says, but they won’t be strong so soon.”

“And he’s right,” I agreed. “It was a close-run thing.”

“Aye. ‘Don’t tempt the Lord,’ ” he said, mimicking Maddie’s quiet tone of voice. “And I haven’t. You can see the lads doing most of the work.”

“Speaking of your sons,” Simon asked, “which one is Matt?”

“The taller of the two. Matt? Take a minute and come down here.”

Matt willingly left the sacking to his brother and came down to his father. He was liberally coated in white flour dust, save for his lively gray eyes. Nearly as tall as his father, he had shoulders already widening into manhood. Another year, and he’d be enlisting.

“Yes, Pa?”

Simon spoke instead. “You were the one who found the drunken soldier along the roadside near Lower Dysoe?”

“I did indeed, Sergeant-Major. I felt that sorry for him, and I’d have helped him then and there but for the flour in the cart. There was no room for him. When I came back, he was gone. I did look.”

“Did you tell anyone in Lower Dysoe what you’d seen?”

“I thought about it. But the shop owner in Lower Dysoe, Mr. Dedham, was in a hurry, and I didn’t like to annoy him. Short-tempered, Mr. Dedham is. Pa can tell you.” He looked to his father, who nodded. “So it was left to me to do something. I would have said he was too far gone in drink to move, and I couldn’t have been away more than twenty minutes at most.”

“What was the man’s rank?” Simon continued. “Could it have been Major Findley?”

“I never thought about the Major,” Matt answered, surprised. “This man wasn’t an officer, but I was so worried for him I didn’t look for his rank. I expected to come directly back, didn’t I? This ’un was the worse for wear. Disheveled, like, and one side of his uniform was covered in burrs and twigs. As if he’d rolled down Dice Hill.”