Behind The Horseman (The Underwood Mysteries Book 3) (9 page)

“I’m sure Dr. Herbert would find it as touching as I that you have such confidence in his abilities, my friend, but really have no need to send for him, if you feel time is of the essence.  There must be a local doctor who could examine the body for you.”

“I’m sure there is, but I prefer to work with Dr. Herbert – and I’m sure you do too.  You found a diamond there, Underwood.  The man misses nothing.”

“Very well.  Perhaps if you sent a messenger, rather than a letter, he might travel immediately.  It is only thirty miles or so to Calden.  We could have him here by tomorrow evening at the latest.”

“An excellent notion.  I shall send my own carriage, then he can scarcely fail to answer our plea for help.”

They began to walk back towards the manor, “Has anyone searched the body?”  asked Underwood presently.

“Not yet.  That was supposed to be your task.  The men just lifted the body onto a sheep hurdle and brought it back to the house.”

“I suppose twenty four hours will not make much difference, but really someone should at least check the contents of his pockets.  It would be much simpler all round if it were discovered his watch and purse were missing and we are looking for a violent footpad.”

“That is true.  I own I would prefer that explanation to the others which are crowding my brain.  God knows how many perfectly innocent people we are going to have to interview if this turns out to be murder.  His mother – God forgive me! – must head the list, followed by Farmer Broadstone and his sons.”

“Add me to the list, Constable Gratten.”

“Good God, Underwood!  Why?  I thought you were a friend of the boy.  Don’t tell me he owed you money too?”

“Not exactly,” Underwood swiftly explained his own suspicions of Godfrey’s cruel hoaxes, “After all,” he concluded, “I was at the party, and I am not entirely sure anyone could verify my whereabouts for the whole evening.”

Gratten closed his eyes as though in exquisite pain, “For God’s sake, Underwood!  I know this is your idea of a joke, but please stop.  This is going to be a nightmare.  I suppose I cannot ask you to investigate the matter if there really is any doubt of your motives.”

“I think you are quite right, my dear fellow.  But having said that, I don’t think I know of any man or woman who
does
have a good word to say about the odious Rogers.  He was the man most likely to be murdered of anyone I have ever met.”

*

CHAPTER NINE

(“Felix Qui Potuit Rerum Cognoscere Causas” – Fortunate is he who has been able to learn the causes of things)

Back at Hanbury Manor, Underwood gratefully escaped and left Gratten to gingerly search the pockets of the deceased Rogers.  He joined his brother and Mrs. Rogers in the withdrawing room.  He found a scene, not surprisingly, fraught with emotion.

Most uncharacteristically, Gil was foundering.  It was rare that he did not have some comforting platitude, but there was little he could find to say to the bereaved lady.  She was torn between grief, fear, horror, guilt and immense and undeniable relief.  Her sorrow was for the child Rogers had been, but that sadness was an old one.  The rawest wound was for the man he might have been, had he been given the chance to redeem himself.  The relief was that she would not now have to watch him sink further into depravity and perdition.

Poor Gil did not know which of these emotions to address.  He hardly knew whether to comfort or congratulate her – a circumstance which could do nothing but cause him exceeding disquiet.  His expression when Underwood entered the room spoke clearly of his feelings of deliverance.

As always, Underwood hid his own emotions – good or bad – beneath a veneer of civility.  He approached Mrs. Rogers with his hand outstretched, “My dear Madam, pray allow me to express my sincerest condolences for your loss.”  Normally he could have been expected to include Verity in these sorts of speeches, but not on this occasion.

She took his hand, but it was only an automatic reaction.  The face she raised to him was ravaged and white, “Mr. Underwood, I feel that only you can have any conception of my feelings this day.  I know your own attitude towards Godfrey was ambivalent.”

Underwood was somewhat taken aback by this direct comment, for he had always assured himself that he hid very well his detestation of the obnoxious boy who irritated and unnerved him so much.  Either he was a very bad actor, or Mrs. Rogers was an extremely perceptive woman.  He quickly recovered himself, “Too true, my dear lady, but which young man does not raise similar feelings in the breasts of his elders?  Was it the bard himself who said, in so many words, that youth is wasted on the young?  Though doubtless he had a much more eloquent turn of phrase.  So much promise come to naught, but in our naughty world, there is so very much to tempt the unwary.  It would be a very strong and unusual personality indeed to resist the urge to stray.  You must not blame the boy too much for going so badly awry.  I’m sure he was more sinned against than sinning.”

“I wish I could believe you meant a single word of that, Mr. Underwood, but I thank you with all my heart for saying it.  I don’t know why Godfrey turned to wickedness.  I swear there was nothing his father and I could do to prevent it – and believe me, we tried.  The despair of it all shortened his father’s life, and in the end, for what?  My son lies dead gentlemen, and in truth, I cannot pretend to be sorry.  God knows he was guilty of every villainy known to man, and looked set fair to invent a few of his own!  How can I regret that he is dead?  And how can I ever forgive myself for feeling so?  I want to kiss the hand which raised the gun to his breast and discharged a shot into his black heart.  May God forgive me!”

Anything either of the brothers could say after that speech would have been mere hypocrisy, so they wisely held their tongues.

Underwood took a seat opposite Gil and in the silence which ensued, their eyes met over the bowed head of their hostess.  Underwood mouthed instructions to Gil to say something consoling, but Gil shrugged helplessly, indicating his complete inability to find anything useful to say to the distraught woman.  It was therefore with some relief that they both turned automatically at the sound of the door opening.  Gratten entered quietly and, with obviously subdued excitement, he beckoned wildly to Underwood.  Unfortunately before that gentleman could make his excuses and leave the room, Mrs. Rogers raised her head and caught sight of the gesticulating constable.  He blushed like a schoolboy caught in the act of wrong-doing, “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I have need of Mr. Underwood for a few moments.”

“What is it, Mr. Gratten?  Have you discovered something which will help?”

“Nothing you need trouble yourself with, madam, I assure …”

“Pray do not seek to protect me,” she interrupted harshly, “Nothing could possibly shock of distress me any further.  Was Godfrey engaged in some perfidy which I have yet to uncover?”

“No, no, madam!  Nothing like that, at all.  It is merely the fortuitous circumstance which prompted me to search the boy’s pockets.  I am assured by his valet that his watch, fobs, seals and a small amount of money is missing from his person.  It seems that robbery was indeed the reason for the killing.  Knowing his headstrong nature, I would imagine he refused to hand over his valuables and the footpad simply shot him where he stood – foolhardy, but understandable.  Given this information, I think I can safely conclude that the Coroner’s inquest will be swiftly and satisfactorily closed.  Nothing of your son’s life need ever be made public.”

She closed her eyes, her hand covering her black-swathed breast, as though to still the beating of her heart, “Thank God for that small mercy,” she whispered fervently.

Underwood was livid with an all consuming anger at Gratten’s stupidity and his expression of horror mixed with ire left no doubt in the Constable’s mind as to his feelings.

“
What?
” hissed the older man, none too pleased to be on the receiving end of such a malevolent glare.

“Mrs. Rogers has heard enough, gentlemen.  Shall we leave her?”  The clipped tones invited no opportunity for discussion.  Gil and Gratten found themselves ushered out of the room, and wisely did not attempt to protest – indeed Gil had no wish to, for he was glad to be away from the company of a woman whom he pitied profoundly.

Once in the hall, the door safely closed behind them, Underwood turned on the constable and verbally attacked him unmercifully, “What the devil do you mean by it, Gratten?  How could you presume to tell that poor woman her suffering is nearly at an end?”

“It is,” blustered the older man, completely aghast, both at the display of anger by the usually stoic Underwood, and the intimation that his information had not signalled the end of the whole sorry affair.

“It most certainly is not!  What was the boy doing in the lane?  Until that question is answered, we can take nothing else for granted.”

“Nonsense!  He probably went out for a breath of fresh air.  What difference does it make?  He was robbed, and there’s an end to it.”

“No one wanders half a mile or more from their own party, in the dead of night, during a firework display which must have cost a small fortune to arrange.  Rogers went down that lane for a reason.  The likelihood being that it was a pre-arranged meeting, and one that evidently went very badly wrong – at least for Rogers.”

Gratten’s high colour faded as the sense of what Underwood was saying sunk into his mind, “But there is no need for any of this to be raised.  For his mother’s sake, we should all agree to say that the boy was robbed and murdered by person or persons unknown.”

“I think not, sir!”

Underwood turned on his heel and walked out of the house, leaving Gratten and Gil staring worriedly at each other.

*

Underwood went home to find his wife resting on a sofa in the vicarage parlour, a welcoming fire roaring up the chimney, an unread book in her hands.  She looked up and smiled at him as he entered the room, but he detected a lingering sadness in her expressive green eyes.  He perched on the edge of the sofa by her side, and taking her hand, his kissed it gently, “You have not been too distressed by the news, I hope?”

“Not distressed precisely.  I own I was never very fond of Mr. Rogers.  He had a way of looking at all women which made one feel rather – unclean!  But I do feel most strongly for his mother.  She is a charming woman.  I cannot even now believe that anyone was kind and pleasant could have given birth to such a rapscallion.”

“I have a notion her own feelings run in a similar direction, my dear.  I left her torn between grief and joy at his passing.”

“Poor lady!  She has had so much to bear these past months.  I wish there was something I could do for her.”

“Whilst I sympathize with your desire to comfort her, you will kindly oblige me by doing nothing for the present.  I have a feeling this matter is far from over, and there is much we do not yet know.”

“What a strange thing to say.  You are surely not suggesting some nefarious involvement of Mrs. Rogers in the death of her son?”

“Good Lord, no!  But I think the events of last night are a great deal more entangled that anyone imagines.  It is better that you rest and keep yourself well – after all, the time is fast approaching when you will need all your strength.”

She blushed slightly, as she always did at any mention of her condition, however oblique.  She felt it to be an intensely private matter which was, unfortunately, profoundly visible.

“I’m well enough – I do nothing but rest.”

“Good, I delighted to hear it.  Now, allow me to tell you something which may make you rest even easier.  I have reason to believe that it was none other than Rogers who was your tormentor.  I think his death may mean the end of your fears.”

The lifting of the expression of anxiety from her face demonstrated only too clearly how much these incidents had been troubling her, “Oh, Cadmus!  Are you indeed certain it was he?”

Even to alleviate her fears, he could not lie, “Without proof, I cannot be entirely certain, but I feel safe enough in the assumption, my dear. He was a horrid child who grew into a particularly odious young man.  Those events which frightened you had all the hallmarks of a Rogers’ scheme.”

“Then it is really over?”

“I sincerely hope so.”

                She left the matter there, for even now she could not confide the depths of her terror.  Underwood meant far too much to her for her to burden him with worries which he could do nothing to cure.  She felt she was being ridiculously sensitive to have taken such a boyish prank so much to heart.  With the gift of hindsight, Godfrey was an overly enthusiastic young man who had played a silly trick which he had imagined would have been taken in the light manner he had intended.

“Where is our guest?”  Underwood asked presently, rising to his feet and consulting his watch.  His stomach told him that it was high time luncheon was served.  It seemed many hours since his disturbed and only half-eaten breakfast.

“He went out shortly after you and Gil left for Hanbury Manor.  He did not confide his destination to me.  He seemed shocked and upset at the news of Rogers’ death and I imagined he wanted to be alone.”

“Very probably.  He appeared to be quite fond of the boy – though God alone knows why.  Well, he is a grown man, and perfectly capable of providing himself with food if he misses the vicarage mealtimes.  I am famished and don’t intend to wait on him.”

As it happened he was not called upon to do so, for Dr. Russell entered the house at that very moment, closely followed by Gil.  Underwood and Verity met them on their way across the hall to the dining room and though there were many questions waiting to be asked, there was no conversation, for Mrs. Trent bustled by, bearing a steaming tureen of soup.  The two late-comers hastily divested themselves of their outer wear and followed the delicious aroma.

No one spoke until the edge had been taken off their hunger, but thereafter things became somewhat heated.  Gil was still furious that Underwood, yet again, looked set to interfere in matters which were best left alone.  He agreed wholeheartedly with Gratten that the Coroner’s Court should speedily and quietly despatch Rogers on his journey to the grave, but he knew that whilst Underwood had a tongue to wag, that was never going to happen!  On this occasion he could not see what possibly purpose could be served by dragging out the affair.  The world was a far better place for the loss of the boy, and his assailant would no doubt quickly follow this crime with another and be duly executed for it.

Underwood was, not unnaturally, appalled when presented with this version of poetic justice from his cleric brother, “My dear Gil, you cannot possibly be hoping for another murder?”

“Do not, pray, be so ludicrous!”

“But that is what you are saying.  If we do not find this killer, he may very well claim another victim.”

“God will protect the righteous,” said Gil pompously, but without real thought, annoyed to have been bested in a philosophical argument by his brother, “And my concern now is for poor Mrs. Rogers.”

“Are you really trying to convince me that God will ensure that the murderer will only kill those who, in your opinion, deserve to be despatched?”

Having his theory put into such stark terms made Gil realize how unrealistic and unfair was his premise, but he felt he could not back down now, “I trust so,” he said weakly.  Strangely it was Dr. Russell who came to his rescue, “You are rather over-simplifying the matter, Underwood – deliberately, if I may say so, merely in order to win the argument.  Gil is quite right.  It is not for us to play God, but to leave it to the Almighty.  He has given Mrs. Rogers some hard-won peace, so who are we to take that from her?  She has been through enough.  We are not asking that you allow the murderer to go free, merely that you do not make too much of an issue of his connection with Rogers.”