Death at Dartmoor (32 page)

K
ate and Patsy met for breakfast in the hotel dining room, then made their way to Mrs. Victor's boardinghouse, where Evelyn Spencer was waiting for them. If she was surprised to see Kate, she didn't reveal it, only greeted her with a melancholy look.

“I've brought a message for you from Lord Sheridan,” Kate said. “I would feel more comfortable if we didn't discuss the matter here.” She glanced toward the door, where Mrs. Victor might be listening. “Patsy tells me that you're going for a ... walk on the moor this morning.”

Evelyn nodded. Her face was pale and drawn, and she didn't look as if she had slept well. “I've already been to the grocery,” she said in a low voice, pointing to a basket that sat on the bed. “But if you are proposing to accompany me, I don't think it's a good idea. My brother may be keeping watch, and if he sees someone—especially a woman—with me, he may not appear.” She managed a small smile. “After his wife, I doubt that he will ever trust a woman completely again.”

“I understand,” Kate said. “We'll go a part of the way, though, to keep you company. And we must talk.”

It was barely drizzling as they set out, but the path was muddy and slippery, and Kate was glad for her boots. The three of them said very little as they made their way out of town and took the public footpath across the deserted moor in the direction of the River Walkham, Kate leading and Patsy bringing up the rear. Around them the heather was brown and frosted, although the gorse showed signs of a few yellow blossoms, and the mist dipped and swirled as if it were alive.

When they were well away from Princetown and had walked for a while, they came to a pile of benchlike granite boulders beside the path.

“Shall we sit for a few moments?” Kate asked. She looked at Evelyn. “Patsy was right when she told you last night that Lord Sheridan is convinced of your brother's innocence in his wife's murder. But the scientific evidence he has assembled is not yet accepted by the courts.”

Evelyn wrapped the fringe of her scarf around her gloved finger. “I thought perhaps his lordship might be able to tell me that himself,” she said in a low voice. “It's not that I'm ungrateful to you,” she added hastily. “It's just that—”

Kate put her hand over Evelyn's, reaching for words that might help the other woman, words that could make her believe and trust. “He would have liked to talk with you, and in other circumstances he would have, gladly. But he feels he has to pursue Sir Edgar's killer, in order to be sure that Dr. Spencer is not charged with that murder, as well. It is said across the moor that—”

“Yes, I know what they're saying,” Evelyn interrupted bitterly. “I've heard them. At the grocery this morning, they were talking about it. About how Sam shot the man, then battered his face.” She lifted her eyes to Kate's and straightened her shoulders. “Please thank Lord Sheridan for his confidence in my brother's innocence. But since there is nothing to be done, Sam and I will just have to go forward with our plan and trust that—”

“No!” Patsy exclaimed urgently. “Your plan was a good one, Evelyn, and if it could have been carried out as you intended, it would have worked. You could have reached Plymouth just in time for sailing and been safely away while they were still searching the moor, before a watch was put on the ports.”

“But it's too late for that,” Kate put in as firmly as she could, knowing that before the man could be persuaded, the woman had to believe. “Lord Sheridan says that they're patrolling the docks at Plymouth and at other southern ports, and checking the identity of everyone who boards ship. You can still make the effort, of course, but the chances are very good that you will be caught. Both of you,” she added meaningfully. “And it is a felony, you know, to aid the escape of a prisoner.”

Evelyn's face crumpled. “Then what?” she whispered desperately, and Kate saw that her blue eyes seemed very dark. “What's to be done? If not Plymouth, where?” She spread out her hands as if in a plea. “How can we get away?”

“You and I will go with your brother to Okehampton,” Patsy said. “We will be three travelers who have enjoyed a long ramble in Cornwall and across the moor, with your baggage and my boxes and camera gear and the like. We'll be cousins and have a great deal to say about our relatives in the west country and be very merry. We'll make a great deal of noise about all the sights we've seen and all the places we've been together.”

“From Okehampton,” Kate put in, “you can take the train for London and then go on to Liverpool, the three of you together.”

“And from Liverpool?” Evelyn asked hesitantly. “Then what?”

“From there, you and your brother can book passage anywhere—to America, perhaps.” Kate added earnestly, “Lord Sheridan believes that Dr. Spencer is much less likely to be suspected if he is one of a group of holiday-makers than if he is alone or even one of a pair—and particularly if his disguise is good.”

“Oh, it's good, all right,” Evelyn said with a small smile. “I glimpsed him from a distance two days ago, and I hardly knew him myself.” She looked at Patsy, her expression bleak. “But if it is a felony for me to aid his escape, it is a felony for you, as well. What if we are caught? What will happen to you?”

“We won't be caught,” Patsy said easily. “We will not even be suspected.”

A gust of wind tugged at the hood of Kate's coat, and she pulled it forward. “You must convince your brother that this is the right thing to do,” she said. “He has to agree. He has to trust both of you, or it cannot be done. And he has to be able to act the part, or the plan will fail.”

Evelyn's face fell again. “I don't know if I can convince him,” she said dejectedly. “He has insisted all along that it would be a mistake to enlist anyone else in our efforts. In fact, I'm sure he would be very angry if he knew that the three of us were talking like this.” She looked from Kate to Patsy. “I have come to know you over the past few days, so I feel I can trust you—that I have to trust you. But I'm not sure that Sam will ever be willing to put his fate into anyone's hands but his own.”

“Then he will be recaptured,” Kate said decidedly. She stood up. “And you have to tell him so. You have to persuade him that his best hope is to trust us, Evelyn, just as you do.”

Evelyn stood too. “I'll try,” she said, gathering her skirt in her hand and picking up her basket. A smile flickered around her mouth, then disappeared. “That's all I can promise.”

“I'll go with you,” Patsy said. “I think I can persuade him.”

“That's ridiculous,” Evelyn said tartly. “If I can't win him over to the idea, no one can. Why, he's never even laid eyes on you! What makes you think—”

“Yes, he has,” Patsy said in a firm, quiet voice. “Your brother and I spent the greater part of the afternoon together, the day before yesterday, walking on the moor. I found him ... quite attractive. And I believe that the feeling was mutual. I think—no, I am sure that he will listen to what I have to say.”

It was as if, Kate told Charles afterward, Patsy had suddenly set off a firecracker in their midst. She and Evelyn both stared at their companion, openmouthed.

“You've
met
him?” Evelyn asked at last. “You've talked to him?” She pulled in her breath. “Then all that business last night was just a pretense. You—”

“I had no idea who he was when you and I began to talk,” Patsy said. “As I told Kate, I thought he was an engineer who was staying in Tavistock, come to Dartmoor to inspect the old tin workings. I didn't realize that he was your brother until you showed me the picture in your locket. But now I know, and I want to persuade him to let us help him.” She looked at Kate. “Evelyn and I will go on together.”

“Then I wish you both good luck,” Kate said whole-heartedly and kissed them. “Go with my love.” She watched them as they went along the path that led farther across the moor. When they were out of sight, she turned back in the direction of Princetown. The sky had darkened again, and the damp air was filled with mist. She wrapped her coat more tightly around her, thinking of the innocent man out there on the moor, the man who had to decide whether to trust his fate to a woman he barely knew, or go on his way with his sister, to almost certain capture.

How would he choose?

B
ack in her rooms at the Duchy Hotel, Kate took off her coat and stood indecisively at the window, lifting the curtain to look down at the street. She and Beryl Bardwell had been turning over several story ideas, and if they intended to do any writing, this morning was a good time.

But Kate had too much to think about to be content at her writing desk. It wasn't just the Spencers—Evelyn and her brother—who occupied her thoughts, or even Patsy's sudden revelation and her own knowledge that her impulsive young friend was probably in love with the escaped prisoner. It was what had happened the night before: Mrs. Bernard's sudden and unexpected death. And not just her death, but what Mrs. Bernard had known about Sir Edgar.

Kate dropped the curtain, frowning, and turned back into the room. How
had
she known? Had it been some sort of psychic vision? Had there been some sort of connection—a telepathic connection—between Mrs. Bernard and Sir Edgar that allowed his terrible experience to be communicated so forcefully to her that she could
feel
it? And if so, had that brutal shock driven her to the brink of death? For Kate could not otherwise understand Mrs. Bernard's dying. Other than her slight cough, she had been well, too well to die thus suddenly, thus inexplicably.

She shivered, suddenly cold, and took her shawl from the back of the nearby chair, wrapping it around her shoulders. She had added more coal to the fire and was about to pour herself a cup of tea from the cozy-covered pot when she heard a timid knock at the door. She opened it and was surprised to see two women standing in the hallway, both wrapped in long, brown, hooded cloaks, one standing behind the other.

“Jenny,” she exclaimed, “and Avis! What in the world brings you here?” Then, recollecting herself, she opened the door. “Do come in by the fire and have a cup of tea. You look very cold.”

“Us‘ns doan't want t' be a bother t' yer ladyship,” Jenny said. She turned and shut the door behind them with care, as if to make certain that the sound of it would not be heard. She glanced at Avis. “But us'ns thought... that is, Avis has something to tell ye—”

“Come to the fire and warm yourselves before you say another word,” Kate said firmly. Several moments of cloak-shedding and hand-warming and tea-pouring were required before all three were settled with their feet on the fender. But by this time, Kate's two visitors seemed to be seized by either timidity or fear, for when she turned to them expectantly, both found it necessary to gaze at each other and then at the fire.

At last, and speaking as gently as she might to a pair of skittish kittens, Kate said, “I know that whatever has brought you out this morning must be important. Who would like to begin? Avis, Jenny said you had something to tell me? Is it about poor Mrs. Bernard?”

Avis had emptied her teacup quickly, and now she looked into it as if for inspiration. When she glanced up, her eyes were troubled. She shook her head, then frowned and nodded. Jenny nudged her with her elbow, and she shook her head again. “Not ‘bout Mrs. Bernard,” she said in a low voice. She spoke slowly, as if she were weighing her answer. “Not really, m'lady. No.”

“I see,” Kate said gravely. And then, thinking that it might be easier for Avis to speak of other things first, she remarked, in a cheerful tone, “You were employed at Thornworthy, I think Jenny told me. How long did you work there?”

Avis nodded eagerly. “Since, oh, three years?” She frowned a little, calculating. “Three years come May Day, that's when 'twuz.”

“And your position?”

“Upstairs maid,” Avis said with some pride, “for th' master an' mistress.”

Kate nodded. The life of an upstairs maid was not easy, for she was responsible for making the beds, dusting the floors and the furniture, shaking out the curtains, cleaning the grates, emptying the slops, supplying the rooms with soap, candles, towels, writing paper, and anything else that might be required. But it was a respected position in the household, easier in many ways than work in the kitchen, and it meant that Avis knew something of the habits of her master and mistress.