The Sudbury School Murders (26 page)

"I imagine so," I said. "Her friend was
Fletcher, and he is now dead."

Grenville's eyes widened. "Good Lord."

"And the lady herself has vanished. Likely
with all the money. Sir Montague Harris will put the hue and cry
out for her."

"Is it over then?" Grenville asked. "The
murders?"

"No. The culprit has not been arrested, but I
have a few ideas about that. Marianne," I said abruptly. "I would
like you to go to London."

Marianne gave me an astonished look. "What
the devil for? I do not wish to, if it's all the same to you."

"I need you to," I countered. "You must
deliver some messages for me. They are most important."

"Go yourself," she answered.

"I do not want to leave Grenville alone, but
we need to put an end to this business."

Her expression turned belligerent. "Only this
morning, you told me it would be dangerous for me to leave."

"I will send Matthias with you, and you will
ride in Grenville's carriage. You will be much safer in London, in
any case."

Her mouth formed a bitter line. "Back to the
cage."

"Marianne," I said warningly.

Grenville had listened to this exchange with
a weary expression. He released Marianne's hand. "Stay there to be
safe for now. When it is over, go where you want. I no longer
care."

Marianne stilled. Grenville closed his eyes.
Marianne stared at him, looking stricken.

I thought them fools, both of them.

*** *** ***

Marianne at last acquiesced to my request. I
saw her and Matthias to the stables where Grenville’s coachman had
bunked. I knew the coachman would let absolutely no one near
Grenville's horses and coach, so I did not fear too much that the
vehicle would have been sabotaged.

Indeed, the coachman checked the axles and
braces and the harness carefully before he even let Marianne into
the carriage. I handed her in and told Matthias to not let her out
of his sight. The coach rolled away toward the Hungerford road and
the highway to London, leaving Grenville and Bartholomew and I
stranded at the Sudbury School.

I did little for the next two days. Marianne
sent me a message that she had arrived in London and was carrying
out my instructions. She also added, very like her, that she
expected large compensation for approaching the people I'd asked
her to contact. Matthias wrote also, asking to return to be near
Grenville. I knew that Grenville's other servants would watch her
well, and I consented. The lad was worried.

Well he should be. Grenville relapsed into a
stupor, and then a fever took him. Bartholomew and I took turns
bathing his face, changing his bandage, trying to force broth into
his mouth. But he could not eat and could barely drink. Bartholomew
and I watched him worriedly.

At last I put a few drops of laudanum in his
water and made him drink it. When he tasted the bitter sweetness of
laudanum, even in his languor, he tried to spit it out. I forced
him to swallow. Let him curse me when he got better.

The school went on as usual but remained
quiet. No more pranks or murders marred the routine. Ramsay, it
seemed, had taken my words to heart, at least for now.

I knew Ramsay had not burned Fletcher's
books, however. He denied that with the sincerity of a thief who is
certain of the one thing he has not stolen. I suspected the
murderer had done it, trying to destroy the evidence of the fraud.
But Fletcher, even in death, had thwarted him.

Bartholomew had at last discovered who'd
owned the knife that had stabbed Grenville. The maid who cleaned
the tutor's rooms said that Simon Fletcher had complained of
missing his knife a day or so before he died. Most helpful, I
thought. The knife that I had found in Fletcher’s room had no doubt
been used by the murderer to cut the twine that strangled
Fletcher.

Sir Montague Harris at last succeeded in
getting Sebastian released. He sent a message to me, and I left
Grenville in Bartholomew's care and traveled to the village.

Sebastian was much subdued. When the
constable let him out of his cell, his bravado had left him, and
his eyes were haunted.

"Thank you, Captain," he said as we walked
toward the school together. "I was afraid I would die inside that
place."

"Thank Sir Montague," I said. "His persuasion
far outweighed mine."

I rather believed that Sir Montague's
knowledge of the magistrate's guilty secret had much to do with
Sebastian's release, but I kept such thoughts to myself.

Sebastian shook his head. "You did this for
me." He looked about again at the rolling land and the common where
sheep wandered freely. "I never want to be inside again, I
think."

"A visit to your family might be in
order."

He stopped. We had reached the canal bridge.
Below it, the water rippled serenely, stretching to the horizon in
either direction. Beyond the canal, the peaked roofs of the Sudbury
School showed through the trees.

"I want to see Miss Rutledge," he said.

I gave him a severe look. "It might be
better, might it not, to simply go?"

"I want to speak with her. I want to tell her
good-bye."

"Then you are returning to your family?"

His dark eyes showed resignation. "Yes. My
uncle is right. I do not belong among your people. I will never be
one of you. When things go wrong, their eyes turn first to me, the
Romany." He paused and let his gaze rise to the horizon. "Megan . .
. she is a good wife."

He pronounced it like a sentence of doom.

"A wife who can share your heart," I
suggested.

He did not believe me. He had decided he must
do his duty, nothing more. I hoped that Megan would make him
realize that his duty could also be his greatest pleasure.

"I will see what I can arrange," I
promised.

*** *** ***

In the end I had to recruit Bartholomew's
help. He met clandestinely with the maid, Bridgett, who
communicated with her mistress. I felt vaguely like a character in
a Sheridan farce, in which servants handed round love notes and
lovers hid behind screens.

I planned to accompany Belinda Rutledge to
her meeting with Sebastian. Sebastian had grown much subdued during
his imprisonment, but I did not trust him to not turn around and
make a dramatic gesture, such as running off with her.

In the meantime, Grenville grew no better. He
sweated and threw off his covers, and not even the laudanum could
keep him quiet. I feared him tearing the wound further and bleeding
inside. I also feared that he'd die of the fever, which increased.
The wound, when we took off the bandage, was yellow and oozed pus
and blood. I kept washing it, not knowing if it did any good, but
wanting to see it clean.

Sir Montague Harris returned to London. He
had business there, he told me. I explained to him what I meant to
do. He did not like it, but he agreed that the killer might get
away with his crimes otherwise.

When I met with Belinda a day later to
arrange her meeting with Sebastian, Rutledge caught me talking to
her in his study.

Rutledge was supposed to have been visiting
with Timson's father all afternoon. Timson's cache of cheroots and
business selling them to his fellow students had been found out,
and Timson's father sent for. I wondered if Sutcliff's blackmail
network had begun to break down or whether it had simply been bad
luck on Timson's part.

Rutledge was not in the best of moods when he
stormed in and encountered us. He stared, mouth open, for a full
minute, then the shouting commenced.

"Lacey, good God! What do you mean by
this?"

He halted under the portrait of his handsome,
smiling wife. Before I could answer, he plowed on, "The only reason
I have not packed you off is because of Grenville. That does not
give you leave to wander about as you will and have private
conversations with my daughter."

I planned to extemporize that Belinda had
been asking me about Grenville, but I did not get the chance.
Belinda, who was already distraught about the meeting with
Sebastian, burst into tears and fled the room.

I faced Rutledge, deciding not to explain. A
simple silent stare was more effective with him than explanations,
in any case.

"I never wanted you here," Rutledge said. "I
took you on Grenville's recommendation, but I regretted it from the
first. You are rude, arrogant, and insufferable. I am surprised you
had a career in the army at all."

I was too tired of Rutledge to be stung by
his remarks. "As I said, my commander agrees with you. But I
managed to lead men for nearly twenty years and lose very few of
them. A man does that by being arrogant and insufferable and rude
enough to tell a general that his plan is stupid and deadly."

Rutledge did not care. "Be that as it may,
you do not know your place, sir."

"On the contrary. My place is by the side of
my friend, who lies hurt because of my own stupidity. You, sir,
allowed two men to die, because you could not see what was
happening under your very nose."

I had said too much, as usual. Rutledge,
though he annoyed me in every way possible, was not wrong about
me.

"Perhaps you, Lacey, simply do not understand
the reality of being headmaster of a school. To keep fifty boys
disciplined, to make them actually learn something, for God's sake,
to placate their boorish fathers so that they will continue to send
their money, is a continuous and mountainous struggle. Forgive me
for not foreseeing the death of a criminally minded groom and a
Latin tutor equally as criminally minded. Their greed brought about
their own ends."

"That is essentially true. But there is
unhappiness here, and fear, and you have chosen to bluster your way
over it. Your prefect, Frederick Sutcliff, is an exploitative
little monster, but of course, his father provides much money."

"What I decide about Sutcliff is my
business," he growled, "and the school's. Other boys fall into his
power only because they have something of which to be ashamed."

I stared at him, amazed. "So you let him be
your substitute bully to keep order?"

"His methods work."

"You're a bloody tyrant, Rutledge."

"It no longer matters. Fletcher was a weak
fool, and Middleton was tied to unsavory characters. I will simply
find a better Classics tutor and a groom. I am amazed at you for
letting the Romany go. I still believe he killed Middleton, and the
woman must have killed Fletcher."

I smiled an angry, almost feral smile. "No,
it was not that easy. If I tell you who I suspect, you will stop
me, and I will not allow that. But I warn you to lock your door at
night."

He glared. "I do not believe you. You can
have no evidence, or the magistrate would have arrested him
already."

"The magistrate is no more intelligent than
you are, nor any safer." I made a bow. "Good day to you."

"Where are you going?"

"Back to my place," I said coldly, and left
him.

*** *** ***

Rutledge, after that, left me to my own
devices. He said not one word about finding me with Belinda. In the
polite world, a man found alone with an unmarried young woman could
unleash great scandal, often hushed up by a hasty marriage.
Rutledge, on the other hand, decided to pretend it never happened,
much to my relief.

Rutledge would have been apoplectic with fury
if he'd seen me meet Belinda the next afternoon on the path to the
stables and lead her to the canal and Sebastian.

I had arranged the meeting for the dinner
hour, because I knew that Rutledge would be in the hall scowling at
his students. Belinda, on the other hand, always took her meals in
their private rooms, so her absence would likely not be noted. She
had wanted to go in the dead of night, but I had talked her out of
so foolish a course.

I had chosen a place halfway between Lower
Sudbury Lock and the next bridge. Sebastian stepped out from behind
a tree as we approached, and Belinda, like a heroine in a novel,
ran to him.

I, the chaperone, stood back out of earshot
and let them have their little romance.

Sebastian took Belinda's hands in his and
began to talk. I saw Belinda falter, saw her shake her head. To all
appearances, he was keeping his word and telling her they could not
be together.

They made a pretty tableau, Sebastian with
his dark hair and tall body, Belinda with her fair skin and
sun-dappled hair. I envied them the intensity of their infatuation,
but at the same time, I was relieved that I had left such things
behind me.

Or had I? I thought of Lady Breckenridge and
her smile and the feeling of her hand in mine. A man could still be
a great fool at forty.

After a time, I spied a shadow moving near
the lock. I knew it was not the lockkeeper going about his duties,
because I'd seen him enter his house as we approached. Stifling a
sigh, I turned and strolled back down the path, leaving Belinda and
Sebastian alone.

Sutcliff rose from his hiding place next to
the lock's gate as I passed it. He stayed in the shadow there, arms
folded, and waited for me.

I exaggerated my limp as I moved to him, but
when I reached him, I took a step back, unsheathed the sword from
my walking stick, and put it to his throat.

"Put it down."

He looked startled, then he gave an
I-do-not-care shrug and dropped the pistol he'd hidden in his hands
into the tall grass.

"This is interesting," he sneered, looking in
the direction of Sebastian and Belinda. "Are you a procurer now?
Selling Rutledge's daughter to the Romany?"

"Miss Rutledge will return to the school with
me," I said. "And you will say nothing."

"Why not? Because you will run me through if
I do? I think not, Captain. You are not a murderer."

"Others have thought so," I said, my tone
suggestive.