The Deathly Portent (44 page)

But Tillie was ahead of him, her quick intelligence already disposing of the problems that were rising in his head.

“The gun, Francis. Put it into Miss Beeleigh’s hand.”

He was already moving towards Ryde as he spoke. “You want to make it look like suicide?”

Tillie nodded. “Meldreth will not be fooled, but it will serve for the villagers.”

Francis saw her shift to the still-frozen figure of the widow Radlett and set an arm about the woman’s shoulders. The creature lifted her head at last, staring in a blank fashion at Tillie’s face. Her voice was a pitiable plea.

“I could not bear to see her hanged.”

Was that all her reason? Francis wanted to scream at the wretch, but Tillie spoke with indescribable kindness.

“Yes, my dear, I understand. Come, don’t look any more.”

Ryde handed Francis the weapon, and he bent to the corpse, lifting the limp hand and attempting the tricky task of folding its fingers about the butt.

Tillie was shifting the widow away, but despite her injunction, the woman’s gaze returned to her friend’s body, silent tears seeping down her cheeks.

“Evelina must not be found here,” Tillie was saying. “There is not time enough to get her back to her own home. Besides, she cannot be left alone. Ryde, take her to Bertha Duggleby’s house.”

The groom was instantly at her side, taking hold of Mrs. Radlett’s arm.

“You come along with me, ma’am.”

The fearful countenance left the sight of the body, its blood gleaming silver under the moon’s soft light.

She looked at Ryde, repeating, “I could not bear to see her hanged.”

“Go with Ryde, Mrs. Radlett, if you please,” Tillie said with firmness. “I will come to fetch you presently.”

“You don’t want me to stay there, do you, m’lady?” asked the groom.

“No, we need you. Also Sam Hawes.”

Francis was looking critically at his handiwork, but he glanced up at this. “Can you trust the Duggleby woman to look after her?”

Ryde was guiding Mrs. Radlett towards the back, from where Tillie had made her entrance.

“Stay, Ryde!” said Tillie quickly. “Thank heavens you mentioned her, Fan, for we need her, too! Ryde, have Mrs. Duggleby wake her daughter Jenny—if she hasn’t already come running downstairs, which would scarcely surprise me—and let the child watch over Mrs. Radlett.”

Even as she spoke, footsteps sounded from behind the smithy, and the voice of Sam Hawes was heard.

“My lord? What’s to do?” He appeared next moment and stopped short at the scene that met his eyes. “Lordy me!”

“Just so,” said Tillie. “Ask no questions now, Sam, for we are in urgent need of your help.”

“Ryde, get about your business, for the Lord’s sake!” Francis urged. “You’ve had your orders.”

“Bring Bertha Duggleby here, Ryde,” Tillie called after the groom as he shifted with alacrity, almost dragging Mrs. Radlett with him.

Her pathetic refrain was heard again as she exited the smithy. “
I could not bear to see her hanged.
” A forlorn little litany—as if it could justify firing the shot that killed her friend. Despite the untold complications she had caused, Francis felt a sliver of compassion for the wretch.

Tillie had turned to Sam Hawes. “Sam, run to fetch Doctor Meldreth, if you please. And Mr. Kinnerton. I daresay both or either may already be on their way. Go!”

Sam exited rapidly through the front of the smithy, and Francis heard his footsteps pounding along the lane. They were not, he realised, the only ones. Urgency engulfed him as he turned to Tillie.

“What else? Quick! They’re coming!”

Her gaze swept this way and that around the ruin of the
smithy, and Francis was conscious of a wave of impatience. His eye fell on the wreck of Miss Beeleigh.

“I’d best cover her. We don’t want all the fools of the village gaping.”

Tillie seized his hand as he made to grab the dummy off the floor, thinking to use its skirts for the purpose.

“No! She must lie there. And the trick we used to capture her must be wholly visible.”

Francis had bent to the dummy, but he rose again. He looked at his wife to find her eyeing his handiwork with the pistol. He had stuffed it into the slackened hand, simulating the position of the grip.

“Will it serve?”

“I think so. It looks well enough for the untutored eye.”

He noted the fretful tone. “You say Meldreth will know it is false?”

Tillie nodded. “He cannot help but do so. The position of entry of the ball into her body will tell him so at once.”

Francis moved to look at the corpse from below the feet. He glanced to the hand and saw just what Tillie meant. In order to accomplish her own death, Miss Beeleigh would have had to twist her wrist to an impossible angle.

“You will have to take Meldreth into your confidence.”

“I intend to. Also Kinnerton and Lady Ferrensby.”

A grim sliver of humour slid into Francis’s head. “But not, I take it, Lord Henbury?”

“Heaven forbid!”

The sound of running feet was building. How many? Francis went to his wife and took her by the shoulders.

“Are you enough prepared?”

A smile trembled on her lips. “No, but it makes no matter. If I fail to convince them, I have at least the satisfaction to know that there will be no more murders committed in Witherley.”

Francis pulled her to him briefly. Then, as the first steps sounded on the gravel outside, he kissed her swiftly and put
her from him, turning at her side to confront the villagers once more.

T
hey gathered in the moonlight around the edges of the scene. Tisbury, Staxton, Will the tapster, and others Ottilia did not know. Pa Wagstaff was one of the first to arrive, his cottage but a stone’s throw away.

“That Beeleigh, be it?” he said, the moment he took in the identity of the corpse with the now sluggish liquid seeping from the wound in her breast. His gaze moved to the gun in the woman’s hand, and he looked up at Ottilia, bright intelligence in his tone. “It be her, then? Her’ve done for Duggleby and for Molly both?”

“Well reasoned, Mr. Wagstaff.”

But the outburst of muttering and exclamation overrode her words.

“Bain’t so. How, if her be dead and all?”

“Where be the witch?”

“Bain’t Bertha a-lying down there, I be thinking.”

“What be that?”

“It be a dummy, fool.”

Ottilia waited for it to die down, watching the questioning looks that went from the body on the floor to the dummy, and then again to where Ottilia stood with Francis at her side, his strengthening arm at her back, one hand holding her at the waist. She was glad of it, for though her voice was steady, inwardly she trembled.

“Bertha is safe and well. She will be here at any moment.”

“Wait,” murmured Francis, jerking his head back towards the village. “More are coming.”

Several runners, by the sound of it, Ottilia thought, hoping for Meldreth or the vicar. What was keeping Bertha? Surely Ryde must have settled Evelina Radlett by now? Why was he not back with Bertha? To her relief, the villagers were all craned towards the pounding footsteps, and she dared to
hope they were too bemused at this point to pose any threat. But that could not last.

The footsteps closed in, slowing as they hit the gravel outside. Next moment, Sam Hawes entered, bringing with him both the doctor and Mr. Kinnerton. Ottilia breathed more easily. But she lost no time in bearding Meldreth. He must not be allowed to make mention of what to him would be obvious.

“Doctor Meldreth, thank heavens!” Leaving Francis’s cradling arm, she went forward as the doctor thrust through the surrounding watchers. “Pray be careful!”

He halted perforce at the edge of the corpse, and his swift gaze went about the smithy, taking in the dummy and the presence of the Fanshawes.

“What the deuce has happened here?”

As he dropped to his haunches by the body, Ottilia quickly went to join him, going down to his level, and infusing meaning into her tone.

“She shot herself, Doctor Meldreth.”

Meldreth took one look at the gun in the woman’s hand, and his frowning gaze came up to meet Ottilia’s. The moonlight gave her the question in his face, and she swiftly put her gloved hand to her lips, passing one finger across them while she stared at him the while. His frown deepened, but she thought he nodded slightly.

“Why did she shoot herself, Lady Francis?”

Ottilia heard the mockery in his tone and sighed out a breath she had not realised she was holding.

“She knew the game was up,” came from Francis behind her, holding out a hand to help her to rise.

The doctor got up and confronted him. “What game, my lord?”

“That, sir, I will leave my wife to tell.”

Aidan Kinnerton saved Ottilia the trouble as he moved into the inner part of the circle. “Was it she, Lady Francis? Was Miss Beeleigh the murderer?”

At this, the villagers broke out again.

“Bain’t so,” came from Tisbury. “For why should Miss Beeleigh take and kill Molly?”

“For why should her kill Duggleby, for the matter of that?” demanded Staxton.

“Bain’t so,” echoed Will the tapster. “It be the witch! Her’ve had a vision, bain’t her?”

Pa Wagstaff’s ancient features squirmed up at the man. “There be nowt in that head of yourn, Will. There weren’t no vision to that Beeleigh. It be Bertha as were in vision, if’n vision there be.”

With which, the ancient screwed his glance back towards Ottilia, the rheumy eyes gleaming in the ghostly white light.

“How clever of you, Mr. Wagstaff,” said Ottilia, seizing the opportunity. “There was indeed no vision. I asked Mrs. Dale to pretend she had seen Bertha hanging in the smithy. I knew Miss Beeleigh must take advantage of it.”

“Set a trap, eh, Lady Fan?”

“Just so.”

There was a fresh outburst of muttering at this, but Tisbury was the first to object. “Bain’t so. Why’d Miss Beeleigh want to do for Bertha? For what reason?”

“I be the one to tell you that.”

A new voice entered the fray, and Bertha Duggleby emerged from the darkness in the back of the forge with Ryde at her side. There was a concerted gasp from the watchers at this sudden appearance.

“Bertha?”

Shock was in Tisbury’s voice, as if he spoke to a phantom. Ottilia could scarcely be surprised, for she had herself been startled despite knowing the woman was coming.

“Aye, it be me. Nor I bain’t dead yet.”

As Bertha moved into the light, several glances went from her to the dummy on the floor, and Ottilia wondered if indeed one or two of the villagers had supposed it to be real.
Duggleby’s widow halted before them all, looking down on the wreck that had been Miss Beeleigh.

“Lie there, aye,” she said to it. “If’n you bain’t dead, it be me on the rope for sure.”

Her gaze came up and passed around the watching faces. There was fear to be seen, and the stirrings of a morbid curiosity. Ottilia could not have hoped for better. Quietly she shifted back to Francis, letting the woman take centre stage.

“A fool I be,” came from Bertha in a tone both curt and bitter. “More’n a fool to believe what Miss Beeleigh told me. Her said as Molly done for my man Duggleby. Her said as if’n I do get Molly out from the Cock quiet-like, her be going to show as Molly done it.”

“Molly bain’t done it!” Tisbury shouted. “Her bain’t!”

“No, I knows it now,” Bertha said. “Truth be I knowed it after I got Molly and her be a-going to meet Miss Beeleigh.”

“What be you saying to her? What lies be you telling?”

“Telled her as it be the witch as done it. Telled her as it be secret, but I seen as Pilton had the witch to lock-up. Telled her not to say nowt to nobody.”

Tisbury’s features crumpled. “Tricked! Molly was afeared as Lady Fan meant to have her head for Duggleby. Why bain’t her said it all to me? Why, Molly?”

Great heaving sobs wrenched out of his throat. Beside him, Farmer Staxton turned and flung his arms about the man, glaring the while at Bertha.

“Good as killed Molly you did, Bertha.”

“Aye,” was all she said, still on the same bitter note.

Ottilia thought it would be long before the wounds healed. But at this moment, Bertha had done enough. She stepped forward.

“You must remember that Bertha was grieving.”

There was no softening in the surrounding faces. To Ottilia’s relief, the Reverend Kinnerton stepped in, taking Bertha by the arm.

“I will pray for you, Mrs. Duggleby.” His glance took in the rest. “For all of you. But do not lose sight of the truth. Try to remember who began all this. Bertha is a victim of that woman’s schemes.” He pointed to the corpse.

The aged Wagstaff cut through the murmurs, addressing himself to Ottilia. “Bain’t said as why Miss Beeleigh done for Duggleby, Lady Fan.”

Ottilia drew a breath. “She had a grudge against him.” Before she was called upon to explain the nature of the grudge, she sped on. “She was only waiting her chance to have her revenge. Miss Beeleigh planned it all very carefully. She knew Mrs. Dale had seen a vision of the roof coming down on Duggleby. The night before the storm, Miss Beeleigh borrowed Mr. Uddington’s ladder—” She broke off at an exclamation in the crowd and for the first time realised that the merchant was among those present. “Yes, she meant you to be suspect, Mr. Uddington.” Several turned to locate the snowy head, and Ottilia resumed swiftly. “But Miss Beeleigh was heard both by Bessy and Mr. Wagstaff.”

“That be what you be after?”

“Just so.”

“She was also heard by Bertha,” put in Francis, taking up the tale and pointing skywards, “when she climbed the ladder and hacked at the crossbeam.”

“Only Bertha thought it was her husband,” Ottilia told them.

“She probably also tied a rope to the beam and coiled it in the roof,” Francis added.

“But she put the ladder back,” objected Uddington, and several heads nodded. “How could she get the rope?”

“Easy enough,” said Francis. “A thread tied to it would go unnoticed if she pulled it aside and tied it off at the wall. All she had to do was pull on the thread to bring down the rope.”

“On the night of the storm,” Ottilia resumed, “I think Miss Beeleigh came here under pretext of a job for Duggleby.
There were hammers enough to choose from. She waited for him to turn his back, and then she struck.”