Behind The Horseman (The Underwood Mysteries Book 3) (13 page)

“I am sure of it, so cease to blame yourself.”

“I will try.  Thank you.”

“Good.  Now, I must beg leave to ask you some questions.  Do you feel able to answer?”

“Of course.”

“Very well.  You told me last week that there was no entail on this property, which was why your son would have been able to sell it.  That being the case, is there a named heir who comes after Godfrey, since he will now have no issue?”

“Oh yes.  In our troubled times, it is quite usual to cover the eventuality of the heir dying without attaining fatherhood.  My late husband’s cousin, Richard Wyndham-Rogers, is the next heir.”

“And was this gentleman aware of his expectations?”

“He was, most certainly.”

“Are we likely to meet Mr. Wyndham-Rogers in the near future?”

“As a matter of fact, he has written to tell me that he will be here next week, for Godfrey’s funeral.”

“Where does he presently reside?”

“Sussex.”

“Really?  He had the news of Godfrey’s death remarkably quickly.”

“I suppose he did – but I have always found bad news has swift feet.”

“Do you think I might be allowed to meet him when he arrives?”

“With pleasure.  Do you think a dinner, with a few select guests, might be permitted?  I know I should be in full mourning, but Godfrey’s behaviour over these past years has made it nigh on impossible for me to feel fettered by convention in this matter.  I have no wish to shock society, but I refuse to be a hypocrite.”

“Quite understandable,” said Underwood emphatically, who had never allowed himself to be fettered by convention for any reason whatever, “I’m sure no one will attach the least blame.”

“Then you may expect an invitation – but I presume Verity will not be able to accompany you?”

“Unfortunately not.  She is confined to her bed on doctor’s orders – for which reason I too should be avoiding dinner parties.  We shall defy convention together.”

“Naturally I will select the guests with care – no one who would disapprove of us shall be allowed over the threshold.”  Her smile was so much warmer than when he arrived that he was able to take his leave of her with far fewer qualms about her well-being and hopes for swift and permanent recovery.

*

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

(“Mortui Non Mordent” – Dead men carry no tales – literally, “Dead men don’t bite”)

After chasing half way round the town, Mr. Gratten finally ran Underwood to earth in his own front parlour, where Mrs. Gratten was graciously dispensing tea in anticipation of her husband’s early arrival.  The constable’s greeting was customarily irascible, “Where the devil have you been, man?  I’ve wasted all the morning looking for you.”

“Were you looking for me?” asked Underwood sweetly, at his vaguest, “What a coincidence – I was looking for you.”

“Really?” was the sardonic response, “Well, let me tell you, my friend, your news cannot possibly have the importance mine does.  We have found the killer of Rogers.  He waits us in Hanbury lock-up even as we speak! Leave that stuff alone and let us be gone."

If Underwood was surprised, he declined to show it, “I suppose there is no doubt you have the right man?”

“None at all.  He has freely admitted his guilt.”

“May I ask how all this came about?” pursued Underwood, sipping his tea.

Gratten was never unwilling to reveal his own ingenuity, so he seated himself and absent-mindedly accepted the cup offered by his diligent wife, “I told you, I think, of the description of Rogers’ missing effects which I had distributed to all the local pawn shops and jewellers?”  Underwood nodded, but wisely made no comment – Gratten detested above all things to be interrupted when he was in full flow.

“This very morning I had word that a young fellow had gone into a shop in Wendmoor and tried to see a watch similar to Rogers’.  The shopkeeper made a pretext to go into the back room, where he sent his assistant scurrying off to fetch the local constable whilst he returned to the front of the shop and kept the man talking until help arrived.  Once he knew the game was up, the man went almost willingly.  Apparently he said something about being relieved it was all over.  He swore Rogers had grinned at him as he shot him, and that the killing had haunted him ever since.”

Underwood had the faintest trace of a frown between his brows, “He said Rogers grinned and put up no fight?”

“So it seems.  Perhaps the boy thought the gun was a bluff – a fatal error to have made, of course.”

“I would have said that it was most unlike Rogers to have made so basic an error.”

“The boy was drunk, Underwood.  For God’s sake, don’t start to make an issue of the matter.  We’ve found the murderer.  Let us interview and charge him.  The courts must then decide his guilt or innocence.”

Underwood allowed himself to be persuaded of the sense of this – for the present at least.

*

Patrick Carter was even younger and more frightened than Underwood had expected.  His eyes lifted to meet them as they entered the drab, barred room in which he was being held.  The two men took seats opposite the prisoner and Underwood immediately took charge, though Mr. Gratten had not asked, nor given him leave to do so.

“How old are you, Carter?”

“Seventeen sir, Eighteen next May.”

“You won’t see eighteen, my boy,” murmured Gratten, visibly moved.  He too was shocked by the youth of the captive.  He had, unlike Underwood, expected a hardened criminal type, a rough customer with few morals and no hint of humanity behind cold, killer’s eyes.  This was no more than a boy – and a terrified one, at that.  Gratten had to remind himself that murder had been done, though he could not shake off the conviction that this young man’s hanging would not be worth the life of the wastrel he had killed.

Underwood noticed Carter’s prominent Adam’s apple bob in his thin neck as he swallowed deeply before replying, “I know that, sir, and I know there’s no excuse for what I did – but I was scared witless!  I fired in a blind panic.  He jus’ kep’ staring at me, grinning.  I asked him agen an’ agen for his money, but he just stared at me.  Before I knew it, the gun was going off in my hand.”

“How came you to be there in the first place?”

“I’d heard talk in the village that there was to be a party.  That fellow – the one I shot – he was an the inn where I was drinking, braggin’ to his cronies, telling them how he was goin’ to have the biggest ‘crush’ these parts had ever seen.  He said he wanted to take over from his father with a bang.  His idea of a joke, I suppose, seein’ as how it was a fireworks party.”

“Go on,” urged Underwood, as the boy swallowed again and seemed inclined to hesitate.

“Well, I was down to my last penny.  I’m a foundling, raised in the workhouse, and when they judged me old enough, they set me on as an apprentice to a wheelwright.  The old man died sudden-like and I was out on my ear, my apprenticeship not finished, and no trade to my name.  I took to the roads, doing what work I could get, but there is little enough about with all the soldiers back from the wars and wanting jobs, and I’ve gone hungry and without a roof more often than not in the past six months.  When I heard this fellow goin’ on about the rich guests who would be at his house, and me nursing a mug of ale, bought with my last farthing, I jus’ got mad as hell.  I thought to myself that I would hang about outside the place, and rob anyone foolhardy enough to leave the house alone.  From what he said, they could all afford to throw a few sovereigns my way.  If that failed, I would wait for the party to be over, and while the household slept off the fine wines they had drunk, I would break in and see what I could find.”

“How did you know where he lived?”

“He was a loose-tongued chap, sir.  He made no secret of owning Hanbury Manor, and then it was easy enough for me to get there.”

“What about the gun?  Why did you have a gun in your possession?”

“It had belonged to the wheelwright.  He had been robbed about a year before he died, and bought the gun as protection.  When I realized I was to be turned off without a penny or a reference, I went into his workshop and helped myself to the gun, powder and shot.  No one missed it.  He never told his wife he had it, she didn’t like firearms.”

“You would have been wiser to have pawned the gun than use it, my boy,” said Gratten gruffly, trying not to show any sympathy, but feeling it just the same.

“I know that, but I tell you I didn’t mean to use it.  I was just going to wave it about, threaten to shoot, but I never thought anyone would defy me.  What kind of a fool just grins at you when you tell him you’ll blow his brains out?”

“Hard though it is to believe, Carter, Rogers was also down to his last penny.  The only real difference between him and you was he had it and threw it all away.  I can only imagine that was why he refused to hand over the little he had.  The true gambler always needs his next wager more than his next meal.”

“And it cost him his life.”  Carter buried his face in his hands, “Oh God help me!  Why in the devil’s name did he not just give me the money?”

“What time did all this occur?” asked Underwood, gently steering him back to his story.

“I don’t rightly know.  Between eleven thirty and midnight, I suppose.  I know I stole his watch, but I never looked at it.  My first thought after I shot him was just to run, but then I stopped myself and went through his pockets.  It sort of seemed the right thing to do.  I don’t know if you can understand this, but it was the least he deserved.  It would have been a waste to kill him then not to rob him.  It seemed to me that it was bad enough that he had died to save his belongings, so to kill him for nothing …”

“Oddly enough, I do understand your logic.  If I may say so, I also think you wanted to be caught.  Your behaviour from beginning to end has not been particularly intelligent, has it?  And yet you seem bright enough to tell your story well.”

“No, sir.  I’ve been a fool!  I wish I could change things, but I can’t.  And I’ll tell you something, he’ll haunt me ‘til the day they hang me.  That insane grin scared me something chronic.  As if he knew something no one else did – as if he got the whole of life and death worked out and was laughing at the folly of the rest of us.”

“Rogers may well have had some jest of his own, my boy, but the man I knew did not have a philosophical bone in his body – and, I venture to add, not a thought in his head which did not concern is own pleasure and welfare.  You may have killed the man, and you may yet have to hang for him, but don’t, for pity’s sake, let his face haunt you a moment longer.  I feel more sorry for you than you will ever know, for you were a mere instrument of fate.  If you had not killed Rogers, believe me when I state that someone else would have done so before he grew very much older.”

“Are you telling me he was a bad ‘un?” asked the young man quietly.

“As bad as they come, Carter.  I wish, for your sake, you had managed to restrain yourself.  Godfrey Rogers was not worth dying for, and you may be sure that when you go to trial, I will speak strongly in your defence.”

“I’m grateful for that, sir, but it don’t make me feel any better about killing a man.”

“I should hope not.  It was never intended to do so.  Tell me what you did between leaving the inn and going to the lane.  Did you loiter there all evening, or go elsewhere?”

“I went into the barn at the farm.  I fell asleep in the hayloft and had only been out and about for a few minutes when I saw the fellow sitting by the side of the road.”

“You never saw anyone else besides Rogers?”

“Not a soul.  I could hear the fireworks going off at the house – that was how I managed to get in and out of the farm without being seen.  They had shut the dogs up because of the party.  I think it was the fireworks that woke me, because I’d been dead to the world just before.  Beer on an empty stomach does that to me.”

“So, you have no idea why Rogers was away from the house and on the lane.  He did not meet anyone?”

“Not that I saw.”

“I find that very strange.  Why the devil was Rogers absent from his own party and on a seemingly deserted lane in the middle of the night?”

“I’m sorry, sir.  I can’t tell you that.  I only know that he was there – would to God he had not been.”

“Take heart, my boy.  I promise I will speak up for you when the time comes.”

As they walked back out into the daylight, Gratten turned to Underwood, “Did you mean what you said, my friend?”

“I did indeed.  I could never condone the taking of a life, and that boy deserves to be punished severely for what he did, but transportation surely fits the crime more than death.  He is young and foolish, but not, I think, entirely evil.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, but that must be left to the courts to decide.  Did you believe his story?”

“I see no reason not to.  His version of events is curious, I know, but he does not deny the murder, nor lessen his own responsibility for the crime, so what purpose would invention serve?”

“None whatsoever – but you are right about Rogers.  His reaction was strange.  Why simply sit there and stare at the boy?  He must have been very drunk indeed.”

“But if he were that drunk, why was he not in a stupor?  Surely he would have slumped forwards, or fallen backwards?”

“He was propped against the base of the hedge.”

“And it is certain his eyes were open?”

“Oh yes.  Carter said he saw them glinting in the moonlight – and it was a full moon that night.  Rogers had chosen a night of a full moon so that his guests would not hurt themselves wandering about the grounds when the fireworks went off, and so that they would have light by which to travel home when the time came.”

Underwood frowned over the puzzle for a few moments longer then shrugged his shoulders, as though to physically shed the problem, “Ah well, I don’t suppose we shall ever know, now.  You will keep me informed of any further developments, Mr. Gratten?”

“Naturally.  Good day to you, Underwood, and pray send my warmest regards to your wife.  I presume there is not now long to wait ..?”

“I believe not.  In fact, I have been most remiss in staying away from her for so long.  I must hasten home.  Good day to you, sir.”

*

Verity spent an extremely tedious morning, confined to her room and her bed as she was.  She had never been a woman who took kindly to inertia.  Raised in a vicarage by a widowed father, she found life too full of duty to allow her ever to welcome idleness.  She tried to read, but there was something about the warmth of the room, contrasting with the clear blue sky viewed through the window, which urged her to restlessness.  She longed for Underwood to return so that she might at least discuss things with him, but the hours ticked by unbearably slowly and of her husband there was no sign.

Mid-morning brought a visit from Dr. Russell and she was glad of his company, but there was a curious ache in her heart which none but Underwood could salve.  There was an indefinable worry hanging over her, an ominous feeling that something, somewhere, was very wrong – not with her baby, herself or even Underwood, but something.

Dr. Russell was immensely kind and she had grown very fond of him, partly because Underwood admired him, but there was a slight hesitation in her to trust him completely.  She was exceptionally fond of Gil, and had never known him to be wrong about anyone.  It was so very unlike Gil to have an aversion to another person, much less for him to display that aversion so plainly.  She wished she could talk to her brother-in-law candidly, as she always had in the past, but his preoccupation with Catherine had precluded close contact between them for quite some time – all the more so since Catherine’s illness and their recent marriage.