No Graves As Yet (38 page)

She stared at him, misery and grief swimming in her eyes.

“Could he?” he repeated.

“Yes.” She nodded. “But how would he know it was there? Who killed Sebastian? I can’t believe Aidan would have, and I know I didn’t. And it wasn’t Harry, so who was it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m right back to the beginning with that. Who else could have put the gun up there? He would have to have come through the house.”

“No one,” she said after a moment. “It must have been somewhere else. Unless . . .” She blinked several times. “Unless Aidan was hiding it for someone. Do you think he would have done that, and Elwyn knew?”

“Perhaps, but why?” And the moment the words were spoken he knew the answer. It was back to the document again, but he dared not tell her that. “Of course, it depends upon other things,” he added.

She opened her mouth to ask, then changed her mind. “The police, the whole college, think that Harry killed Sebastian,” she said instead. “And that when he thought they were about to arrest him, he killed himself.” Her voice was shaking. “I wish I could prove that wasn’t true. I loved him very much, but even if I hadn’t, I don’t think I could allow anyone to be blamed for something terrible if I could prove they were innocent.”

“Then I think we had better go and tell Inspector Perth. I imagine we can find him at the police station in the town.”

She hesitated only a moment. She might never have to do anything that would cost her more than this. Once the words were said, she could not ever return to this privacy, this safety of unknowing. Then she took a step forward, and he followed her out of the room and to the front door.

They walked to the police station. It was less than a mile, and at this hour in the morning it was still cool and fresh. The streets were busy with tradesmen, early deliveries, shoppers seeking a bargain. The footpath was bustling with people and the roadway loud with hooves of horses pulling wagons and drays, delivery carts, and a doctor’s gig. There were several cars and a motor van with advertisements printed on the side, and, as always, dozens of bicycles. Only if one listened carefully did one hear a different tone in the voices or realize that conversations were not about the weather and there was no gossip. It was all news, carefully disguised anxiety, forced jokes.

Perth was busy upstairs, and they were obliged to wait over a quarter of an hour in tense, unhappy impatience. When he finally arrived, he was less than enthusiastic to see them, and only when Joseph insisted did he take them to a small, cluttered office where they could speak without being overheard.

“Oi don’t know what you want, Reverend,” Perth said with barely veiled impatience. He looked tired and anxious. “Oi can’t help you. Oi’m very sorry about Mr. Beecher, but there’s an end to it. Oi don’t know if you’ve seen the papers this mornin’, but the king o’ the Belgians has gone against his own government and mobilized all his armies. There’s a whole lot more at stake than any one man’s reputation, sir, an’ that’s something we can’t tossle about no more.”

“Truth is always worth arguing about, Inspector Perth,” Connie said gravely. “That’s why we fight wars: to keep the right to rule ourselves and make our own laws, to be who we want to be and answer to no one but God. Dr. Beecher did not kill himself, and we believe we can prove it.”

“Mrs. Thyer—” Perth began with exaggerated patience.

“You never found the gun, did you!” Joseph exclaimed. “Until it was by Dr. Beecher’s body.”

“No, we didn’t,” Perth admitted reluctantly, anger sharpening his voice. It was a failure he did not like having pointed out to him. “But he must have known where it was, because he got it back again!”

“Did you search his rooms?”

“O’ course we did! We searched the whole college! You know that, sir. You saw us.”

“There must be somewhere you missed,” Joseph said reasonably. “The gun did not dematerialize and then reappear.”

“Are you bein’ sarcastic, sir?” Perth’s eyes hardened.

“I am stating the obvious. It was somewhere that you did not look. I have spent some time considering where that could be. You looked on the roof, didn’t you? I can remember seeing your men up there.”

“Yes, we did, sir. Very thorough, we were. Not that there’s a lot o’ places on a roof as you could hide a gun. Quite a big thing, a revolver, an’ not the same shape as anything else. Not to mention that metal shines in the sun.”

“What about the bucket at the top of a drain pipe?” Joseph asked. “With the barrel pointing down and the top covered with, for example, an old handkerchief, suitably dusty, and a few leaves?”

“Very good, sir,” Perth conceded. “That could be. Except we looked.”

“How about the downpipes on the master’s lodgings?” Joseph asked. “Did you look there, too?”

Perth stood absolutely still, his face frozen.

Joseph waited, aware of Connie holding her breath beside him.

“No,” Perth said at last. “We reckoned . . . nobody’d be able to hoide anything there unless they went through the master’s lodgings to do it. Are you saying as they did?” The last was addressed to Connie.

“Elwyn Allard was in and out of the house a great deal while his mother and father stayed with us,” she replied, her voice very nearly steady. “He was there within an hour of Dr. Beecher being shot.”

Perth stared at her. “If you’re saying that he shot his brother, Mrs. Thyer, you got it wrong. We thought o’ that. Lots of families don’t get on all that well.” He shook his head dismally. “Brother killing brother is as old as the Bible, if you’ll excuse me saying so. But we know where he was, an’ he couldn’t’ve. You’d not understand the medical evidence, mebbe, but you’ll have to trust us in that.”

“And Dr. Beecher didn’t do it, either,” she said, her voice tight as if her throat would barely open. “He was with me.” She ignored Perth’s expression of incredulity. “I am perfectly aware of what time it was, and of the impropriety of it. I would not admit to it lightly, and I can barely imagine what my husband will feel if it has to be public—or what he will do. But I will not allow Dr. Beecher, or anyone else, to be branded for a crime they did not commit.”

“Where were you . . . and Dr. Beecher, madam?” Perth asked, his face sour with disbelief, and perhaps disapproval.

Connie blushed, understanding his contempt. “On the Backs along the river, Inspector Perth. At this time of the year, as you say, the daylight hours are long, and it is a pleasant place if you wish to talk unobserved.”

His expression was unreadable. “Very interesting, Oi’m sure. Why didn’t you mention this before? Or has Dr. Beecher’s reputation suddenly got so much more important to you?”

Her face tightened. She was white about the lips. Joseph could see how intensely she would like to have lashed back at Perth and withered him, but she had already given away her weapons. “Like others, I’m afraid I thought Sebastian Allard had been blackmailing him over his regard for me and the indiscretion of it for both of us,” she replied. “I thought he had killed himself rather than have it exposed, which he believed was going to happen because of the investigation into Sebastian’s murder.”

“Then who did kill Sebastian, Mrs. Thyer?” Perth asked, leaning forward a little across the desk. “An’ who put the gun down the drainpipe on your roof? You? If you’ll excuse me saying so, we only got your word that Dr. Beecher was with you. Same as we only got his word that you was with him . . . an’ he ain’t here to back you up.”

She understood perfectly, but her eyes did not waver from his. “I am aware of that, Inspector. I do not know who killed Sebastian, but it was not Dr. Beecher, and it was not I. But I believe that if you investigate a little further, you will find that Elwyn Allard shot Dr. Beecher, and you cannot find it difficult to understand why, since you yourself assumed that Dr. Beecher was guilty of killing Sebastian.”

“Oi’m not sure as how Oi do believe it.” Perth bit his lip. “But Oi suppose Oi’d better go back to St. John’s an’ ask around a bit more, leastways find out if anyone saw Elwyn near Dr. Beecher’s rooms just before he were shot. But Oi still don’t see how he could have known where the gun were if it were in the pipe from the roof of the master’s lodgings!”

“The gun was on the floor, by Dr. Beecher’s hand,” Joseph said suddenly. “Did you do any tests to see if that was where and how it would fall if dropped from a man’s hand after he was shot?”

“An’ how would we do that, sir?” Perth asked dourly. “We can’t hardly ask somebody to shoot theirselves to show us!”

“Haven’t you ever seen suicides before?” Joseph was thinking rapidly. How on earth could he prove the truth he was more and more certain of with every moment? “Where do guns fall after the shock of death? A gun is heavy. If you shoot yourself in the head”—he carried on regardless of Connie’s gasp—“you fall sideways. Does your arm go down as his was, and the gun slither out of your fingers? For that matter, were there any fingerprints on it?”

“Oi dunno, sir,” Perth said sharply. “It was plain it was suicide to me, seeing as you yourself showed us that Sebastian Allard had been blackmailing him into doing all kinds o’ favors for him, things as he wouldn’t do o’ hisself, an’ ruining his name as a professor.”

“Yes, I know that,” Joseph said impatiently. “But I’m talking about proof. Think back on it now, with other possibilities in mind! Was that how a gun would fall?”

“Oi dunno, sir.” Perth looked troubled. “Oi suppose it were a bit . . . awkward. But that ain’t proof of anything. We dunno how he sat, nor what way he moved when he were shot. Begging your pardon, ma’am. Oi’d like to spare your feelings, but you ain’t making it possible.”

“I know that, Inspector,” she said quietly, but her face was ashen.

Joseph’s mind was racing urgently. “Surely, Inspector, if we could prove that the gun was in the bucket at the top of the drainpipe on the master’s roof, that would also prove that Dr. Beecher could not have got it to shoot himself?”

“Yes, sir, it would. But how are we going to prove that? Guns don’t leave nothin’ behind, an’ if it were there, likely it were wrapped in a cloth or something, to keep it from being seen, or getting wet.”

Wet. The idea was like a lightning flare. “We had rain the day Beecher was killed!” Joseph almost shouted the words. “If there was a cloth around the gun, then the whole thing would have blocked the drain! There are barrels at the bottom of the drainpipes in the Fellows’ Garden! If one of them is dry, that’s your proof! And he would choose that side, because the other overlooks the quad, where it was far more exposed.”

Perth stared at him. “Yes, sir, if it’s clear now, Oi’d take that as proof.” He started toward the door, barely waiting for them to follow. “We’d best go an’ look now, before it rains again an’ we’ve lost it all.”

It was a short walk back to St. John’s, and they did not speak as they dodged between pedestrians on the narrow footpaths. It was already getting warmer as the sun beat down on the stone.

They went in through the front gate past Mitchell, who looked startled and unhappy to see Perth again, then across the first quad, through the archway, and across the second. Then, since the gate was locked, as usual, they hurried through the master’s lodgings into the Fellows’ Garden.

Joseph felt his pulse quicken as they passed between the flowers, the perfume of them heavy in the stillness, and stopped in front of the first water barrel.

He glanced at Connie, and she back at him. His mouth was dry.

Perth looked into the barrel. “About a quarter full,” he announced. “Near as Oi can tell.”

Connie reached out and took Joseph’s hand, gripping him hard.

Perth moved to the middle barrel and looked in. He stood still, a little bent.

Connie’s fingers tightened.

Joseph felt his heart pounding.

“It’s dry,” Perth said huskily. He turned to look at Joseph, then Connie. “Better check the last one,” he said softly. “Oi think you’re right, Reverend. In fact, seems like for certain you are.”

“If it’s dry,” Joseph pointed out, “then there was something wrapped around the gun. It might still be there, especially if there’s still no water at all.”

Perth stared at him, then very slowly he turned away and bent to peer up the drainpipe. “Reckon as there is an’ all,” he said, pursing his lips. “Come most o’ the way down. Oi’ll have to see if Oi can get it the rest.”

“Can I help?” Joseph offered.

“No, thank you, sir. Oi’ll do it myself,” Perth insisted. He took his jacket off, reluctantly handing it to Joseph, then rolled up his shirtsleeve and poked his arm up the drainpipe.

There were several moments of frustrated silence while he wriggled without effort.

Connie walked over to the delphiniums and plucked out one of the canes that held them up. She returned with it and offered it to Perth.

“Thank you, madam,” he said, tight-lipped, and extended a dirty hand to take it from her. Three minutes later he retrieved a piece of canvas awning like that used on the punts at night. It was almost a foot square, and there were smudges of oil near the middle. Perth held it to his nose and sniffed.

“Gun oil?” Joseph asked huskily.

“Yes, sir, I reckon so. Suppose Oi’d better go an’ have a few words with Mr. Elwyn Allard.”

“I’ll come with you,” Joseph said without hesitation. He turned to Connie. “I think you’d better stay here.”

She did not argue. She let Joseph and Perth out of the side gate into the quad, then went back into the house.

Joseph followed Perth across toward Elwyn’s rooms. He knew it would be desperately painful, the more so because he could understand the passion of hatred, the compulsion that had drawn Elwyn to defend his mother from grief. And perhaps also the hunger within him to do something sufficiently powerful to make her grateful to him, even if she did not know why. Then she might emerge from her obsession with Sebastian long enough to acknowledge that she still had one live son who was equally worthy of her love.

They found Elwyn in Morel’s rooms. They were studying together, discussing alternative translations of a political speech. It was Morel who answered the door, startled to see Perth again.