An Unwilling Accomplice (37 page)

We were no more than a hundred yards from the lane leading to Chatham Hall when Simon pulled to the verge. “Better to walk from here. Are you game? Or would you rather wait in the motorcar?”

“I’ll go. If you lose him, I can return and drive on to Chatham Hall while you search. We still need to warn those two women.”

We got down, starting toward Lower Dysoe. Soon enough we saw the wall ahead of us, and by silent agreement we stopped there to look for Sergeant Wilkins. We could see no one down the lane toward the Hall, and no one ahead of us on the street. He’d disappeared.

And that was worrying.

“I’ll go back to the motorcar,” I said in a whisper.

“Do you have your pistol?” Simon asked softly.

I took it from my pocket and put it into his outstretched hand. His fingers were warm, mine icy. I had forgot my gloves. They were in my kit in Biddington.

I was about to turn back when a figure detached itself from a deep-set doorway near the end of the village. And almost at once, it stepped swiftly, back into the shadows.

“He’s seen us,” I said. “Still, we’ve found him.”

“Stay where you are.”

Someone was emerging from the farm lane that led to the tenant cottages.

Beside me, Simon quietly retrieved the pistol from his pocket. It was no good at long range, but he could move fast if he needed to.

The figure from the lane came toward us. He was taking his time, searching the shop fronts and alleys between shops and cottages.

Without warning the man who was in the doorway stepped out. He’d have been seen sooner or later, but he chose the element of surprise, forcing the other man to stop in his tracks.

They stared at each other. We weren’t close enough to tell whether they were speaking or not.

I stood on tiptoe to whisper in Simon’s ear. “He spoke to the man on the bridge. They talked
first
.”

Simon broke into a run, with me at his heels.

But before we could reach the two men standing in the middle of the road, the one from the farm lane moved, his arm swinging up fast.

I cried out, “
No,”
certain that he was about to shoot. “Please, no.”

Instead he struck the other man, putting his shoulder into the blow, and his victim dropped like a stone at his feet. Turning on his heel, he raced for the shelter of the trees and the farm track.

It had happened so fast. Simon got there first, kneeling over the fallen man. He looked up at me as I reached them.

“He’s unconscious. There’s a pulse.”

“There’s blood on his chin,” I said, pointing to a dark, wet patch just below the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll stay here. Go fetch the motorcar,” Simon told me. “Hurry.”

I set off at a trot, very glad that the motorcar was closer, but I was out of breath by the time I’d reached it. Bending to turn the crank, I prayed it would fire on the first try.

Driving as fast as I dared, I reached Lower Dysoe to find Simon holding a small crowd of men at bay, talking to them. He looked up, clearly relieved as I came into view, and as I stopped, pulling up the brake, he was saying, “You can see she’s all right.”

They turned to stare at me. I could tell they were local men, and they had stuffed their nightshirts into their trousers, hair still tousled from sleep, to rush to the scene.

“We heard a woman cry out,” a square-set man in his forties said. “Was it you?”

“Yes.” I didn’t know what Simon had been telling them, but I hazarded a guess. “We saw this man here being set upon, and came to his rescue.”

“And what were the two of you doing walking through the village at this hour?” another man demanded.

“I told you,” Simon said, his voice weary, as if he’d repeated the same story over and over again. “We’ve been searching for my brother. If you don’t believe me, ask Mrs. Chatham. Or Miss Neville. They will vouch for us.”

I wasn’t all that certain about either of them.

“Who was it set upon him?” someone asked. “There’s no one else here.”

“I don’t know, I tell you. He disappeared. It could be any one of you.” That brought a growl of protest. “Or someone bent on robbery. He came from there.” Simon turned to point to the farm lane into Chatham Hall.

We could be here most of the night, arguing. There was no constable in Lower Dysoe to settle matters.

The man on the ground was moaning, coming round. I said, in Matron’s firmest voice, “He needs a doctor. Sergeant-Major, lift him into the motorcar, if you will, and we’ll take him to Maddie.”

That gave them something to think about.

Two men stepped forward to help Simon put our victim on the rear seat of the motorcar, while the others stood back, watching, still of two minds.

I covered him with the rug Simon handed to me and came around to my seat. Simon thanked the men who’d assisted him and walked around to his door.

Then, as a parting shot, he told them, “If I were you, I’d make sure none of the shops have been broken into.” The suggestion worked.

That sent several men running to look, one switching on a torch to examine a door.

We turned the motorcar in the muddy street and drove sedately out of the village, only picking up speed when we were well out of sight. Simon stopped just short of Middle Dysoe, pulled to the side of the road, and got out. I heard him in the boot, searching for something. He came back with rope in his hand and opened the rear door.

Our passenger was still dazed, but he roused as Simon leaned in and tied his hands together, looping the rest of the rope around the man’s ankles. I could see the whites of his eyes as he watched.

“A precaution,” Simon told him briskly. “Until we know what we’ve got.”

He said nothing, just lay back against the seat as if he felt sick.

“Who are you? Why did you and that other man argue?” I asked, trying to get a better look at him. But it was hopeless, the shadows in the motorcar too deep, and the man, whoever he was, refusing to open his eyes again.

I said to Simon, “Bring the torch, will you?”

But our prisoner cried out, and Simon answered, “We’ll be at Maddie’s soon enough.”

We drove on to Upper Dysoe, and it was Simon who knocked on Maddie’s door.

I’d expected him to be asleep, but a light shone in the window, and when he came to the door almost at once, fully dressed, I saw that he’d been sitting at the table he used for his surgeries, reading. The book lay open, the lamp beside it, and a pair of spectacles marked his place on the page. I had a feeling that he often stayed up late, unable to sleep.

He said at once, his voice carrying, “What’s the trouble? What do you need?”

“We have a head wound,” Simon told him, and came back to help our prisoner, first freeing his ankles.

The man moved reluctantly from the rear of the motorcar, stumbled, resisted Simon’s arm for a moment, and then leaned heavily against him, as if his head was spinning.

I was just behind them, and I closed the door, shutting out the night. Maddie was removing the lamp to a tall stool on the far side of the table, folding his spectacles, and setting them with the book on a shelf by his bed. He placed a clean sheet over the tabletop and went to the dry sink where there was a pitcher and basin to wash his hands. Meanwhile Simon was lowering our patient onto the table, removing the rope and neatly coiling it.

“A precaution, to keep him from hurting himself,” Simon said blandly.

I moved to one side for a better view. As Simon stepped away from the table, I gasped, feeling shock ripple through me.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

I
HARDLY RECOGNIZED
the man lying on the sheet. As Maddie lifted his head to place a pillow beneath it, I stared.

He had closed his eyes, as if to shut out what was happening to him. I could see the bloody knot and scrape on his chin, and my first thought was that it hadn’t been made by a fist, but by a heavy stone held in a hand.

Although he was fairly clean shaven, his hair was poorly cut, as if he’d tried to do it with a knife. He wasn’t in uniform, wearing instead a heavy jumper over a flannel shirt and dark brown corduroy trousers, both of them well worn. What struck me was how thin he was, as if he had had very little to eat for a very long time. Dark smudges below his eyes told of pain and weariness.

I realized all at once that he was gazing at me. He tried for defiance, failed, and simply shut his eyes again.

It was Sergeant Wilkins. We had found him at last. And, thank God, before he could kill again.

A wave of relief swept me, and I felt vindicated for the days and nights spent away from my family and all that was so dear to me. For keeping Simon beside me, and accepting his help in my determination to find this man.

Maddie was bending over him, testing the jaw, frowning as he reached for a wad of cotton wool and deftly bathed the still weeping scrape.

Simon, watching him, was silent.

“There’s a bit of dirt and grit here,” Maddie said, showing us the cotton wool. “Was it a stone that struck this man?”

It was an echo of my own thought. I told him about the confrontation and the blow that had knocked the sergeant down. “I don’t know what was said between them, but it ended then and there. The other man simply walked away.”

“It’s a wonder the jaw isn’t broken,” he went on. He didn’t ask what we were doing in Lower Dysoe at that hour.

Maddie’s question brought the scene vividly back to me. I hadn’t seen Wilkins’s attacker stoop to pick up a stone. He couldn’t have known that Wilkins was there waiting. Yet he’d come prepared for trouble. A stone against a revolver.

But why had he left the house at all? To protect the women living there?

And where was the revolver? What had become of it? Looking down at the sergeant, I couldn’t see anything as bulky as a weapon hidden in his clothing. Simon must also have looked for it while he was tying the man up, but he hadn’t mentioned it. I turned and went out to the motorcar, thinking he’d managed to hide it there. I couldn’t find it. But then he’d hanged Lessup. He hadn’t wanted to give him an easy death. Was he planning to do the same with this victim? There were enough trees in the park . . .

I came back in, and as Maddie worked, I said, “Sergeant Wilkins? Can you hear me?”

He didn’t answer.

Maddie glanced up at me as he finished cleaning the wound and reached for antiseptic powder and a dressing. Then he bent over his patient and lifted an eyelid. “Was he unconscious for very long?”

It was Simon who answered, “Yes, I was beginning to worry.”

“Rightly so. He’s concussed.”

I could see for myself the onset of bruising. Dark red for now, but black and blue soon enough. It had been a heavy blow, even without the stone.

As Maddie finished cleaning the wound and prepared to dress it, enough of my shock and euphoria had subsided that I began to ask myself what we were to do with this man, now that we had him.

We weren’t the police. We’d brought him to Maddie for treatment, but we couldn’t hold him prisoner. Take him to the nearest constable? All the way to Inspector Stephens in London or Inspector Jester in Ironbridge? Hand him over to the Army? If so, Simon could take him in charge. No, not the Army, he must have a trial where he could defend himself, if he could muster any defense for murder. And clear my name once and for all.

But there was still what remained of the night. Was the sergeant fit to be taken anywhere?

That left me with the constable in Biddington. But what facilities were there for a prisoner who was hurt?

Simon was standing at the foot of the table, between the patient and the door as I worked with Maddie. Now he met my glance, and I knew he was also considering the problem of what to do with the sergeant.

I said to Maddie, “We must turn this man over to the police as soon as possible. Will he be able to travel as far as Biddington? I’d send for Scotland Yard, but there’s no telephone closer than Warwick or Stratford.”

Maddie’s hands were busy, and he didn’t look up. “I thought
he
was the victim here.”

“Yes, that’s true. The problem is, he’s also wanted for murder.”

Maddie’s hands were still for a moment. Then he replied, “I know nothing about this murder. How do you?”

“He’s the man I’ve been looking for. We’ve been searching for. I’ve told you.”

“The police have not been here. The constable in Biddington hasn’t told me this man is being sought.” His gaze was flat.

“I know, it’s a long story, it’s been kept out of the newspapers.”

I was intending to plead my case, and instead I stopped. It wouldn’t do any good to argue. I had only to look into his eyes to realize he’d made up his mind. And I remembered too that Maddie had refused to bring in the Biddington constable when the miller, Warren, was shot. I’d thought at the time it was to protect Miss Neville. She paid in coin, not kind, and he probably needed that income. But this had nothing to do with the Nevilles. Looking back I saw that he’d refused to help me discover who’d written those messages to Sister Hammond, he wouldn’t tell me who else had head wounds, he wouldn’t give me the Major’s name—the list went on.

Yes, I was a stranger, he had no reason to trust me, but I thought it went beyond that, to Maddie’s decision to bury himself here in Upper Dysoe.

He was willing to use his extensive medical knowledge and skills to heal people, but that’s as far as it went. He refused to become involved in their lives. To turn Major Findley or Sergeant Wilkins over to the police, whatever they’d done, was to accept responsibility for them.

What had so divorced him from the world that even duty was anathema to him? What had he done, what could he be hiding from, not just in a tiny cottage in this out-of-the-way hamlet, but literally in his own mind?

I couldn’t solve the enigma of Maddie. And there was still the question of what to do with the sergeant.

In spite of Maddie’s reluctance to talk to me, there were some questions I needed to ask, whether he’d answer me or not. “Have you seen this man before?” I kept my tone of voice light, curious, not probing. “He’s been in the vicinity of Upper Dysoe for some time, I think.”