Missing Susan (10 page)

“I’m not surprised,” said Maud Marsh. “The British are always misnaming things. At lunch today they gave me a 7-Up and tried to tell me it was lemonade.”

Kate Conway leaned forward in her seat, her pretty face the picture of bewilderment. “But, Rowan, if it isn’t a new forest, then what is
the
New Forest?”

“For one thing, it’s a thousand years old. In this country, I suppose that millennium-old things can be considered relatively new. It was the hunting preserve of William the Conqueror.”

“Him again!” snapped Alice MacKenzie. “I suppose he destroyed a few villages to make this wilderness?”

“There are rumors to that effect,” Rowan agreed. “And the preserve isn’t a forest in the usual sense of the word. It is simply a wilderness area, comprised of heath, bog, and woodland that was not to be farmed or built upon. It was a game preserve for the noblemen—and only for the noblemen.
Poachers were hanged. In fact, a commoner could have his eyes put out just for disturbing the huntsmen at their sport.”

“Then how pleasant that the king should have been murdered there,” said Elizabeth, with a republican glint in her eye.

Rowan Rover beamed. “Yes, I thought you colonials would feel that way. It was not, alas, William the Conqueror who met with this poetic justice. It was his son and successor William the Red, or William Rufus, as they called him, in lieu, perhaps, of
Junior.”

“Was he killed by a rebellious peasant?” asked Alice hopefully.

“No, it’s much more sinister than that. Are you at all familiar with the case?” They all shook their heads.

“We saw his grave in the cathedral this morning,” said Frances Coles.

“Interesting the way he ended up there,” said Rowan with a knowing smile. “Here’s what happened. On the evening of August second, in the year 1100, the red-haired King William II was finishing up a day’s hunting with his seven fellow sportsmen. Incidentally, the way the Normans hunted game is absurd.”

“Bow and arrow?” guessed Charles Warren.

“Yes, but they were complete idiots about it. For a stag hunt the band of archers would hide behind trees surrounding a clearing. When the beaters drove the deer forward into the clearing, all seven hunters would shoot wildly in the general direction of the other six.”

“That sounds more like Russian roulette than deer hunting,” said Charles Warren, shaking his head.

“It was madly dangerous. The wonder isn’t that the king was shot, but that
anybody
ever came out of such a hunting party alive.”

The group digested this information. Finally Martha Tabram said thoughtfully, “I suppose that such a system might
be useful if you were interested in arranging a number of plausible accidents.”

“Yes, I thought of that,” said Rowan. “If the king was angry with any of his henchmen, he could arrange a hunting party and tell the other six not to aim at the deer. Anyhow, on that August evening, the stag got away, and it was the king who took an arrow in the heart.”

Kate Conway, the nurse, looked shocked. “Was he shot deliberately?”

“I’m rather fond of the official story,” Rowan said with a grin. “According to the other five hunters, the king’s companion Walter Tyrrel shot an arrow at the stag; it
ricocheted off the animal’s back
—and struck the king in the heart.”

Charles Warren burst out laughing. “What a line! Did anybody actually believe it?”

“I myself consider it on a par with Woody Allen’s joke about the man who committed suicide by shooting himself from a passing car. Walter Tyrrel was not charged with regicide. That does not, of course, mean that he wasn’t guilty. It may simply mean that influential people were glad it happened. The fascinating element about the accident is that as soon as Tyrrel had killed the king, the entire hunting party fled the New Forest without a backward glance.”

“What did they do with the king?” asked Kate, frowning at this medieval example of hit-and-run. “He would have gone into shock almost immediately.”

Rowan chuckled. “So did they, I expect. They left him right where he had fallen. Several hours later a peasant passing through the forest found the body abandoned in the clearing. He loaded it onto his cart and carried it the twenty miles to Winchester.”

“They left the king’s body unattended? That seems rather disrespectful of his companions,” said Elizabeth, whose royalist tendencies were never far from the surface.

“It suggests that their loyalties lay elsewhere,” Rowan agreed.

“Wasn’t the king a nice person?” asked Miriam Angel, who evidently pictured the late king as a Dark Ages version of Prince Charles. She drew her tweed jacket close around her, as if the chill of terrorism still lingered.

“Chroniclers of the time suggest that he was quite depraved,” the guide told her. “They mention vices that delicacy forbids them to enumerate.”

“French,” said Alice darkly.

Rowan Rover shook his head. “I don’t think sexual misconduct would have upset them much, no matter what his choice of partner: choirboys, sheep, whatever. Kings were entitled to their hobbies. Besides, in those days it was religion, not sex, that scandalized decent people.”

“Religion?” said Kate.

“They think he may have belonged to some sort of occult group. I’m not an authority on such matters, though. I think we can assume that he was not held in esteem by anyone. But when one is discussing the monarchy, personal popularity is only incidental, don’t you think?”

“Somebody wanted his job,” Emma Smith said, by way of translation.

Rowan Rover nodded sagely. “Almost certainly. And they may have had excellent reasons for wanting him off the throne. Students of detection will be interested to learn that the king was killed on Thursday evening; his body reached Winchester by cart on Friday morning. By Friday noon he was buried, and that afternoon, his younger brother Henry had seized the Treasury, and was making his way to London to be crowned himself. There was no funeral for William, by the way, and no masses were said for his soul. He was simply dumped in his grave without ceremony.”

“How very odd,” said Martha Tabram with her usual air of calm detachment. “Kings are divinely appointed, according
to tradition. Surely the priests at Winchester would have been in awe of the royal person, dead or not, and would have felt obliged to give him some sort of Christian burial.”

“There are rumors,” said Rowan Rover in ominous tones. “Legend has it that the wooden arrow was never removed from William’s chest. Does that remind you of anything?”

“A wooden stake through the vampire’s heart!” cried Elizabeth.

“Something of the sort.” Trust the Yanks to know Bram Stoker better than the Venerable Bede, he thought. Rowan sneaked a look at his notes. “The coffin was opened in 1868—I’m not sure why—and a wooden shaft was found among the bones.”

“The arrow!” cried Frances Coles.

“But we still don’t know who wanted him killed,” said Kate, frowning.

“One doesn’t like to be suspicious,” said Elizabeth, who was always willing to give royalty the benefit of the doubt, “but did William’s successor seem like the sort of person who would have had his own brother killed in order to seize power for himself?”

Rowan Rover shrugged. “Henry the First? Well, he had his other brother’s eyes put out for trying to escape from house arrest.”

Alice MacKenzie nodded triumphantly. “Bad blood in that family! I’ll bet he wasn’t much of an improvement as monarch.”

“Thank God my relatives aren’t like that,” said Susan Cohen.

The guide paused for a moment with his mouth open. Finally he recovered enough to say, “As the Victorian lady said when she saw a production of
Antony and Cleopatra:
‘How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen.’ ”

Elizabeth was still considering the list of suspects. “Did
Walter Tyrrel get anything from the new king? Was he made Lord Chancellor, or archbishop, or anything?”

“Not that I know of,” said Rowan. “After eight hundred and ninety years, it’s a bit late to be checking bank balances, and testing alibis.”

Alice MacKenzie made a note in her travel diary:
Find out what became of Walter Tyrrel.
Rowan pointed to the coach windows. “We are coming into more intriguing country,” he remarked. “We have been traveling southwest and we are now between Salisbury and Bournemouth, heading for the tiny village of Minstead, in the heart of the New Forest. Has anyone read anything of Conan Doyle besides the Sherlock Holmes stories?”

They shook their heads.

“Did he write something else?” asked Frances.

Rowan Rover did not trust himself to elaborate. “He did. Sir Nigel, a character in
The White Company
, lives at Minstead. Conan Doyle himself lived east of here in Crowborough.”

“What beautiful hedges!” said Nancy Warren. “Lovely gardens—and no billboards or gas stations. You can’t tell it’s the twentieth century here at all.”

“The price of a pint in the pub will give you a hint,” muttered Bernard from the driver’s seat.

“Notice these picturesque cottages with their thatched roofs,” said Rowan into the microphone. “Don’t be fooled by all this rustic simplicity. These places cost the earth.”

Susan Cohen looked unimpressed. “If you knew what my grandfather’s house cost, you’d probably faint.” She stifled a yawn.

“A pony!” cried Frances. “Look! He’s wandering around loose beside the road.”

“It’s a New Forest pony,” said Rowan. “They’re wild. They still roam about wherever they like, so it’s just as well that these narrow roads force one to go slow.”

There was a pause while everyone in the coach waited to hear if there were wild ponies in Minnesota, but Susan had nodded off to sleep and was unavailable for comment. Rowan Rover leaned back in his seat and contemplated the hazardous possibilities of pastoral Hampshire. Fortunately or unfortunately, incompetent Norman archers no longer roamed the wilderness. It also seemed unlikely on this first day of the tour that Rowan would be able to bonk his victim on the head with a log in a peaceful forest glade without the presence of a gaggle of horrified onlookers. He knew that he could not expect to share Walter Tyrrel’s good fortune in his witnesses: this lot would not run away in terror and say no more about the incident. Trust them to fight each other for pride of place on the evening news in their eagerness to shop him to the CID. He daren’t risk anything. Rowan hunched down in his seat, oblivious to the glorious warmth of the late summer day.

   After a few more minutes of travel through country lanes scarcely wider than the coach, Bernard eased into an expanse of grass at a crossroads facing a half-timbered pub. “Minstead,” he announced. “I’m not sure that road will take this vehicle, though.” He indicated an even smaller hedge-lined road that led uphill from the pub.

Rowan Rover consulted his notes. “It can’t be far. Minstead is a small village. Why don’t we get out and walk to the church? It’s just a little way up this road.”

The tourists stood up and began to collect purses and cameras. “Should we wake up Susan?” asked Kate Conway, flashing her Bambi eyelashes at the guide.

No, let’s leave her here with the bus running and a handkerchief stuffed in the tailpipe.
Aloud Rowan Rover managed to say, “Yes, indeed. She wouldn’t want to miss seeing the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She may have heard of him.”

Bernard had opened the coach door and was waiting outside to assist the travelers as they stepped down.

“Are you coming with us?” Maud Marsh asked him as she descended.

Bernard laughed. “Not me. I’ll be having a cigarette break. Take your time, though.”

Susan, stifling a yawn, grabbed her cardigan sweater and ambled off the bus. She looked around at the thatched cottage across the road, the ponies wandering about the green, the ancient pub, and finally at the steep and narrow road that curved away through trees and hedges.

“We have to walk?” she wailed. “Can’t we get any closer?”

“No,” said Maud, tying the laces of her running shoes. “The bus wouldn’t make it up that narrow lane.”

Susan sighed. “I hope it’s worth seeing. I can’t believe we have to walk a mile to look at some pokey old church. These are Italian leather shoes I’m wearing! And it’s
uphill!”
The pathos of this statement was diminished somewhat by the sight of Maud Marsh, some forty years her senior, striding briskly along as if she were on level ground.

“What flowers are those?” asked Nancy Warren, appearing at Rowan’s elbow as they began the climb.

The guide peered over the privet hedge into a cottage garden, praying for a glimpse of a Michaelmas daisy. “It don’t know,” he said, frowning at a clump of dark pink blossoms in the direction of Nancy’s pointing. “I’m afraid I’m no gardener. Now, if you could poison someone with it, I might possibly know.”

“Impatiens,” said Maud Marsh without breaking stride as she elbowed past.

“Nancy loves to garden,” said Charles Warren. “Of course, in San Diego it’s probably easier to get the stuff to grow. Warmer climate.”

“What do you use for water?” asked Susan Cohen. “Stale Perrier? In Minnesota, we never have water rationing.”

The Californians exchanged glances that suggested they’d like to hold her head under a basin full of it.

The road ended at a wrought-iron fence surrounding the small stone church. They stood for a moment before the arched entrance to the churchyard, taking in the beauty of the weathered stone, bathed in fading sunlight, and the serenity of the grounds, dotted only with simple crosses and gravestones. They felt out of place with their cameras and running shoes.

While Rowan Rover waited for the non-Californians to make it up the hill, he took another look at his notes. “I think we’ll find Conan Doyle past the church, under one of the trees in the western part of the churchyard. Perhaps we ought to split up and have a go at reading tombstones.”

Charles Warren took a few carefully metered shots of the church, and then followed the others into the churchyard. “This is an out-of-the-way place for Doyle to be buried, isn’t it?” he asked the guide.

“Surely this is the only church at Minstead,” said Rowan. “Oh, I see! You expected such a famous writer to be buried somewhere more grand? Westminster Abbey, perhaps?”