Sheri Cobb South (22 page)

“I trust you have sufficient evidence for such a claim?”

Pickett stiffened. “I assure you, I would not send a human being to the gallows on anything less.”

He produced the purloined manuscript pages from his coat pocket. “I understand you dined with the Hollingsheads on the evening of the murder, so I need not tell you what happened that night. I think this may explain the rest.”

He surrendered the papers to Lord Kendall and waited in expectant silence while his lordship retrieved a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, affixed them to the bridge of his nose, and examined the pages.

“An interesting theory, I’ll admit, though hardly a new one in these parts,” pronounced the Justice of the Peace at last. “Have you any proof?”

“I have.” Pickett produced a yellowed sheet of foolscap whose ragged edge testified to its having been torn from a bound volume. Lord Kendall studied the words painstakingly transcribed thereupon.

“Very well,” he said at last, shaking his grizzled head. “God knows it’s an ugly job, but I know my duty.”

For the next several moments there was no sound in the study but the scratching of pen on parchment. His duty done, Lord Kendall shook sand over the document to absorb the wet ink, then rolled it up and handed it to Pickett.

“Thank you, my lord,” said Pickett, storing it inside his hollow tipstaff. “May I leave this with you for safekeeping?” He gestured toward the torn paper still lying on the desk.

“Yes, of course. I’ll see to it until it can be restored to its rightful place. Shall I come with you?” offered his lordship. “Help out, in case it’s needed?”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Pickett again, “but I’m sure I can manage.”

“Are you quite certain? You look rather young for this line of work.”

There it was again, the inevitable reference to his age, or lack thereof. “I’ve been with Bow Street these last five years, sir.”

While this assertion was true, in the strictest sense, Pickett saw no need to mention the fact that he had been a Runner for less than a twelvemonth. Lord Kendall was evidently satisfied, for he gave a nod, shook hands with Pickett, and returned to his interrupted breakfast.

* * * *

Tipstaff in hand, Pickett trudged back through the village and down the slope to the bridge spanning the river. Although he could not deny a certain satisfaction at having solved a perplexing puzzle, he took no joy in the task which lay ahead. Arresting a killer was nothing new, but doing so after having shared the same roof with the murderer for almost a fortnight was quite another matter.

He crossed the temporary wooden bridge and followed the road up the hill and around a curve. A movement off in the distance caught his eye, and he saw Sir Gerald Hollingshead standing on the riverbank struggling with his fishing line, which appeared to have snagged in the branches of a low-hanging willow. Leaving the road bed, Pickett set out across the grass in the baronet’s direction.

“What, ho? Damned thing’s caught in a tree,” exclaimed Sir Gerald with unimpaired good humor. “Oh, it’s you—John, is it? You’d best get back to the house. Your mistress wasn’t best pleased with your absence at breakfast.”

“I daresay her ladyship will contrive to rub along well enough without me,” Pickett said with a wistful smile. “Sir Gerald, I have a confession to make. I’m afraid Lady Fieldhurst and I have enjoyed your hospitality under false pretenses. I came at her ladyship’s summons, but I am not her footman. In fact—”

“Oh, I know all about that.” Sir Gerald chuckled. “Gave my Emma a rare turn, stumbling across you and her ladyship like that, but her mama explained to her that such goings-on aren’t uncommon for a widow-woman as young as her ladyship, so there’s no harm done. Least said, soonest mended, I always say.”

“Yes, sir, but you don’t understand. My name is John Pickett. I represent the Bow Street police office.”

Sir Gerald dropped his fishing rod, leaving it dangling from the willow branches, and planted his hands on his hips. “What the—? I think you had best explain yourself, sirrah!”

“I think you know the rest,” Pickett continued, unruffled. “I was summoned here to investigate the murder of Mr. Cyril Danvers.”

Sir Gerald’s face turned ashen. “Murder? Nonsense! Danvers died accidentally, when the vicarage was struck by lightning. Everyone knows that!”

“That is certainly what everyone was meant to believe. But I examined the body before it was buried. Mr. Danvers died of a blow to his head from a heavy object—most probably the poker I found lying on the floor of the burned-out shell.”

Sir Gerald opened his mouth as if to protest, but no sound emerged.

“Sir Gerald Hollingshead,” Pickett continued, “in the name of His Majesty, King George the Third, I arrest you for the murder of Cyril Danvers.”

In his brief Bow Street career, Pickett had been cursed, kicked, sucker punched, and spat upon by those felons he was called upon to bring to justice. Sir Gerald did none of these things. In fact, his shoulders slumped forward as if grateful to be relieved of a burden too heavy to bear. When at last he spoke again, Pickett had the impression he was repeating an argument he had made many times to himself over the last few weeks.

“He didn’t suffer. He never felt a thing. I’m strong as a man half my age,” Sir Gerald said with simple pride. “One blow was all it took. He never felt a thing.”

“At first,” Pickett said slowly, “I thought the vicarage must have been set afire to destroy any evidence of murder. But that wasn’t the real reason, was it?”

“That damned book!” groaned Sir Gerald, the color returning to his face in a rush of crimson. “That bloody boring book that no one in his right mind would ever want to read! I thought I had destroyed it—and then to find out that it was under my own roof all along!”

“It was you, then, who ransacked Miss Grantham’s room?”

“Aye, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. Not that it did me any good, for I never did find the thing—although
you
appeared to have no trouble in doing so,” he added resentfully.

“Miss Grantham gave it to me for safekeeping,” Pickett explained. “Tell me, Sir Gerald, how long have you known? That you were not the true baronet, I mean?”

Sir Gerald heaved a sigh. “Not until the night of that accursed dinner. Oh, there had been talk amongst the village folk years ago, when the old woman died, but no one pays any heed to that sort of thing.”

“And on the night of the dinner party?”

“Old Danvers was blathering on about his book, as usual, and interrupted himself to tell me he wished to speak to me about a matter of some importance. I assumed he wanted a donation for repairing the roof, or restoring the bell tower, or some such thing. I brought him to my study after dinner and started to write him out a bank draft, but he turned it down, spouting a lot of nonsense about how he knew I would want to do the right thing by Mr. Meriwether. When I realized what was in the wind, well, I knew what I had to do. The bridge had washed out, and in all the confusion, I walked down to the vicarage. You know the rest.”

“It must have seemed intolerable, the idea of losing everything to your daughter’s rejected suitor,” Pickett observed.

“Harder for my wife, I think, than for me. I’ve nothing against young Meriwether, seems to me a steady sort of fellow, but my wife wants something better for Emma. That’s why I did it, you know. For Anne.”

“Oh?” Whatever justification Pickett might have expected Sir Gerald to offer for his crime, this was not it.

“She was the daughter of the Earl of Claridge. When I first met her, she was only seventeen years old, and had just become betrothed. Her fiancé was a captain of the Hussars and the heir to a marquisate.” Sir Gerald’s eyes glazed over as if reliving that long-ago meeting. “Not that it would have done me any good even if she’d been free. She was beautiful, elegant, and cultured, and I—well, I was little more than a middle-aged country squire come to the Metropolis for the first time. Why would she think of me when she could have a dashing young cavalryman in scarlet and gold lace?”

“And yet she married you, not him,” Pickett pointed out.

“Aye, she did,” acknowledged Sir Gerald, obviously taking no pleasure in the fact. “Her handsome young Hussar was killed at Gibraltar, and it soon appeared that the two of them had anticipated the marriage vows. Her family needed a husband for her in a hurry, and I was too flattered to wonder at their sudden encouragement of my suit.”

Pickett, struggling to reconcile the haughty Lady Anne Hollingshead with the eager young lover Sir Gerald described, was suddenly struck by the implications of this confession. “Then—Miss Hollingshead—?”

“No, no, Emma is mine, and so are Philip and Sukey. Anne miscarried. The midwife said it would have been a boy.” Sir Gerald shook his head wonderingly. “God help me, my first thought was relief that Hollingshead Place wouldn’t go to another man’s child. We’ve never spoken of the babe from that day to this, but I can’t go past the churchyard without seeing how carefully his grave is tended. No, she still loves her fallen soldier. Daresay she always will.”

“But you stood by her when another man might have cast her off,” said Pickett, finding himself in the curious position of having to comfort a killer. “She must have been grateful.”

“Aye, that’s what I had hoped for,” Sir Gerald confessed with a heavy sigh. “I told myself that love had been known to grow from shakier beginnings, but I reckoned without the Claridge pride. Anne thought I’d allowed myself to be tricked into matrimony, and she could never feel anything but mild contempt for a fellow she considered a dupe.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pickett, and was surprised to find that he meant it.

“The baronetcy was the only thing that made me even remotely acceptable to her as a suitor,” Sir Gerald continued. “The idea of losing it—well, it was more than I could bear. Tell me, Mr. Pickett, have you a wife?”

Pickett blinked at the sudden
non sequitur.
“No, sir.”

“I thought not. Take a word of advice from one older and wiser: never woo where you cannot hope to win. That way lies madness.”

Pickett thought of a certain midnight embrace in Sir Gerald’s own library and nodded. “I’ll remember it, sir.”

“Now,” said Sir Gerald, withdrawing a knife from his coat pocket and cutting the recalcitrant fishing line, “I daresay you and Kendall have a great deal of work to do, so we’d best be on our way.” He saw Pickett eyeing the blade warily, and returned it to his pocket. “Never fear, I’ll go quietly.”

He stepped back from the bank and turned in a slow half circle, lovingly surveying for the last time the slope of the fertile fields, the gray stone house crowning the hill, and the lush wood beyond.

“Philip never loved the land the way I did. I rode the boy hard about it—too hard, maybe—but perhaps it’s all for the best. I only wish there was some way to spare Anne and the girls.”

Pickett could think of one such way, but he hesitated to mention it. He was a Bow Street Runner, an instrument of the King’s justice. He was not at all sure he had the right—never mind the authority—to grant a condemned man’s last wish. There was no excuse, no possible justification for Sir Gerald’s actions, and yet he could not help feeling pity for this man who had loved so devotedly, and received so little in return.

Still, the question remained: what constituted justice where murder was concerned? At the end of the day, the victim would still be dead, and no trial by jury would ever bring him back. Surely Mr. Danvers was beyond caring whether his killer’s execution was public or private. Sir Gerald had already lost everything that had given his life meaning; any further punishment seemed superfluous.

“The river is still high, and the current is strong,” Pickett said at last. “Any man unfortunate enough to fall in would most likely drown before he reached the bridge.”

Sir Gerald gave him a long, steady look. “I daresay you’re right.”

Pickett turned and began walking up the slope away from the river. He heard a splash and turned back. There was no sign of Sir Gerald at all, only his fishing rod still hanging from the tree and the swift, silent waters rushing downstream toward the bridge.

Chapter 13

In Which the Truth Is Revealed

Lady Fieldhurst, having spent an interminable breakfast waiting in vain for Pickett to appear, retired to the drawing room with the Hollingshead ladies, where she spent the better part of the morning making desultory conversation with Lady Anne and Miss Hollingshead, playing halfhearted duets with Miss Susannah upon the pianoforte, and assisting Philip in the construction of a house of cards. The promise of inclement weather made outdoor activity unwise, although this had not deterred Sir Gerald from setting out with his fishing rod immediately after breakfast. It seemed to Lady Fieldhurst as if the entire household were in a state of suspended animation, waiting for something, only God—or perhaps John Pickett—knew what.

The brooding atmosphere was lightened somewhat by the arrival of Mr. Jasper Carrington, come to reiterate his pleasure in the previous day’s outing, and to express his gratitude at having been invited to participate. Mr. Colin Meriwether soon arrived, ostensibly on the same errand, although anyone observing Miss Hollingshead’s glowing countenance as his name was announced would have little difficulty in discerning the true reason for his visit. Mr. Robert Kendall’s arrival some moments later came as no surprise, although Lady Fieldhurst was somewhat taken aback to discover that his parents had accompanied him. With the exception of Sir Gerald—and, of course, Mr. Danvers—the party was exactly as it had been on the night of Mr. Danvers’s death.

Apparently Lady Anne also sensed that the party was now complete, for it was at this juncture that she instructed the butler to bring tea and cakes. He had no sooner departed on this errand than the massive front door opened one more time, and Lady Fieldhurst heard the butler address the newcomer in tones no servant would dream of assuming toward a guest.

“So
there
you are, and high time, too! First absent at breakfast, and now here you are out of livery, strolling in the front door as if you were one of the family! I hope you have an adequate excuse for your conduct?”