When Falcons Fall (25 page)

T
he discovery that Ayleswick was part of an established smuggling conduit opened up a disturbing new possibility.

Free traders had long been used by both London and Paris to secretly slip men and messages back and forth across the Channel. And Sebastian had no doubt that Paris had moved quickly to exploit a smuggling operation that was already in existence when Lucien Bonaparte arrived in Shropshire as a paroled prisoner of war. From his days as an exploring officer, Sebastian knew enough about the way these things worked to have a pretty good understanding of how messages would move along the route, first to Ayleswick, and then to whatever trusted courier finally delivered the sealed packets to Bonaparte himself.

It was possible Eugene Weston knew his smuggling operation was being exploited by Paris, although Sebastian found that unlikely; the man’s role was that of financier and nothing more. Yet given the distance of some thirty or more miles between Ayleswick and the Bonapartes’ estate in Worcestershire, forwarding such messages would have been both time-consuming and delicate. Was that the real reason Lucien had brought his family to spend the summer at Northcott Abbey? To be in closer contact with Paris now that the situation on the Continent was sliding toward disaster? Were the repairs to his estate simply a convenient excuse? And if so, what was Lady Seaton’s role in all this? Did she know of her guests’ contact with Paris? Or was she simply being used?

Pondering the possibilities, Sebastian rode through the village, then spurred his horse on to Northcott Abbey. As he rounded a bend thickly planted with rhododendrons, a vista opened up before him and he found himself looking down on the ornamental lake, its normally placid, reflective surface now ruffled by a stiffening breeze. A familiar figure clothed in breeches, high-top boots, and a well-tailored coat paced back and forth before the picturesquely sited Roman temple.

Sebastian checked for a moment, then wheeled his horse down the slope toward the lake.

The drum of hoofbeats brought Lucien Bonaparte around, his brow furrowed with the agonies of poetic composition. But at the sight of Sebastian, his face cleared. “Good afternoon, my lord! This is a pleasant surprise.”

Sebastian swung from the saddle and dropped easily to the ground. “Good evening, Senator. How is the epic coming?”

Lucien Bonaparte heaved a weary sigh. “There is a reason the ancients personified the Muses as female. I fear Calliope is a fickle creature, capricious and at times damnably difficult to woo.”

“You come here every day to write?” asked Sebastian, his attention shifting to the folly beside them. Although built as a ruin, the temple’s roof was more than solid enough to provide a poetically minded guest with shelter from sun and rain. Through the single row of thick Doric columns, Sebastian could see that Lady Seaton had even softened the temple’s stone benches with mounds of plump cushions in delicate shades of teal and peach.

“Every day except Sunday, from ten to one,” said the Senator with obvious pride. “And sometimes, as today, I return again to work in the late afternoon.”

“Art requires dedication.”

“It does, it does.” Lucien’s good-humored smile remained in place, but his eyes were shrewd and watchful. The man was no fool; he knew Sebastian wasn’t here to discuss his epic poem on Charlemagne. “So tell me, my lord; how is your investigation into these dreadful murders progressing?”

“It’s interesting, actually. I’ve just discovered that a shipment of French spirits passed through Ayleswick the very day Emma Chandler was killed.”

Lucien Bonaparte kept his face admirably blank. “Oh?”

“Mmm. And it occurs to me that a message may have come with it—say, from Napoléon to you?”

In the sudden, tense silence, Sebastian could hear a thrush singing in a nearby stand of beech and the gentle slap of the wind-ruffled water lapping against the reeds edging the lake. The Corsican cleared his throat. “My brother and I are estranged. That is why I fled the Continent.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt you quarreled. Napoléon has quarreled—sometimes violently—with every one of his brothers and sisters multiple times over the years. But yours is still an extraordinarily close family. You always seem to make up your differences and come to each other’s aid when threatened. And Napoléon has never been more threatened than he is now.”

Lucien Bonaparte brought up a hand to tug at his earlobe, his dark eyes hooded, his gaze on the lake.

“What worries me,” said Sebastian, “is the thought that Emma Chandler might somehow have stumbled upon a meeting between you and your brother’s messenger, and that’s why she was killed.”

“But there is no communication between my brother and me.”

“What about between you and your mother?”

Bonaparte fiddled with the chain of his pocket watch. “I am allowed to send letters to my mother through the commissioner.”

“And if you wish to say something you don’t want the commissioner—and everyone at Whitehall—to read?”

“Unfortunately, that is one of the inescapable trials of being a prisoner.”

“Not so inescapable, surely?”

Bonaparte drew himself up to his full height. “Monsieur! One of the conditions of a gentleman’s parole is that he not communicate with anyone except through the commissioners. I have given my word. You insult me.”

“Do I?” Sebastian met the Senator’s outraged gaze. He’d learned long ago that the rulers of this world operate on a different moral plane than other mere mortals. Their decisions—whether careless or calculated—often wreaked suffering and death on a scale unimaginable to anyone else. Taken all together, Sebastian figured the Bonaparte brothers were collectively responsible for the deaths of anywhere between three and six million people. When set against that level of carnage, what difference would the murder of one insignificant young woman make to someone like Lucien Bonaparte? And as he studied the Corsican’s swarthy, Mediterranean features, so similar to those of his more famous, older brother in his prime, Sebastian knew a rush of raw anger and revulsion that he controlled with difficulty.

“If your presence in Ayleswick has anything to do with these murders,” said Sebastian, “
anything
, then the deaths of both Emma Chandler and Hannibal Pierce are on your head and on your soul. Think about that while you wrestle with your recalcitrant muse,” said Sebastian.

And he walked off and left Bonaparte there, beside the wind-ruffled lake and its pillow-filled folly.

T
hat evening, Sebastian and Archie met to compare notes over brandy in the Grange’s ancient, oak-paneled hall. A relic of a bygone era, the hall was a cavernous space with a soaring, trussed-oak roof, thick walls, and flagstone paving. Even on an August night, it was chilly enough to warrant a small fire on the vast, old-fashioned hearth.

Archie listened, his face grim, while Sebastian told what he’d learned of Emma Chandler’s determination to identify the man who had raped her mother. “My God,” said the young Squire when Sebastian had finished. “Could my own father have done something like that? His name was on her list.”

Sebastian took a slow sip of his brandy. “What color was your father’s hair?”

“Lighter than mine. Why?”

“Because whoever raped Lady Emily was dark. It’s probably why Emma crossed off his name—she somehow discovered your father was fair.”

Archie stared at him. “She did! She actually asked me. And she did it so adroitly it didn’t even occur to me to wonder at it.”

He thrust up from his saggy armchair and went to throw another log on the fire. Then he stood with a palm braced against the aged chimneypiece as he stared down at the flames. “This changes everything, doesn’t it?” he said after a moment. “How horrifying to think she could have tracked down her father only to have him kill her for it.”

“If he did, it narrows our list of suspects considerably.”

Archie looked over at him questioningly.

Sebastian said, “Like your father, Samuel Atwater is fair; Leopold Seaton and Jamie Knox are dead; and we both know Reuben Dickie is incapable of concocting such an elaborate ruse.”

“Which leaves Underwood and Weston. Have you spoken with them?”

“Not Underwood. But Weston denies even remembering Lady Emily.”

“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”

Sebastian swirled the golden brown liquid in his glass and said nothing. He had decided not to tell Archie about his discovery that afternoon at Maplethorpe Hall, or of his subsequent conversation with Lucien Bonaparte. Partially it was because he had given Weston his word as a gentleman that he wouldn’t report his activities to the customs officials, and he suspected that wouldn’t sit well with the earnest young justice of the peace. But it was also because he was beginning to realize that Archie had a tendency to go off half-cocked after each bit of new information, and Sebastian wasn’t yet convinced that what he’d learned had anything to do with Emma Chandler’s murder.

“I’ll admit I’ve never liked the man,” Archie was saying. “And my father abominated him. But . . . do you actually think Weston is capable of murdering a young woman he thought was his own daughter?”

“We know he once seduced an innocent young girl simply to get his hands on her wealth. So I’d say, yes, someone that selfish could conceivably kill if he felt his interests or security were threatened. He’d simply convince himself the murder was the victim’s own fault for asking questions about something that happened twenty-two years ago.” Sebastian paused. “Or for being so thoughtless as to fall pregnant.”

Archie’s features had taken on a pinched, troubled look. “In other words, Sybil Moss and Hannah Grant?”

Sebastian nodded. “I can’t get past the idea that their deaths are linked to what’s happening today. In my experience, once a man kills, it becomes much easier for him to kill again.”

“Because he thinks that if he got away with it once, he can get away with it again?”

“That’s part of it. But there’s also a certain kind of man who discovers he enjoys killing. He likes the feeling of power it gives him.”

“I must say, that does rather sound like Weston.”

“It does, yes.” Sebastian drained his brandy. “Tell me about the Ludlow solicitors.”

It had taken Archie most of the day to track down the right solicitors, an old firm called Bieber and Smythe with offices on a narrow, winding street near the castle. Then the principal partner, Daniel Bieber, had insisted on accompanying him back to Ayleswick to view Emma Chandler’s body and personally verify that she was, indeed, dead.

“Was he satisfied it’s her?” asked Sebastian.

“Said he was—after he finished casting up his accounts behind one of the tombs in the churchyard. Thank God the Reverend will be able to bury her in the morning. I don’t think anyone will be able to recognize her soon.”

“Did Bieber tell you who she named in her will?” asked Sebastian.

“He balked at it, initially. But he finally had to agree it might be important. Seems she left everything to that former teacher of hers up in Little Stretton.”

“Jane Owens?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian watched the flames lick up around the new log on the hearth, his thoughts drifting to the sad-eyed woman in the simple thatched cottage beside the River Ashes Hollow. He knew even without being told how Jane Owens would use Emma’s money: to open the school for chance children that had been the young woman’s dream.

“There’s something else,” said Sebastian as Archie moved to refresh their drinks. “Something Lady Devlin discovered.”

“Oh?”

While Archie poured another hearty measure of brandy in each glass, Sebastian told the young Squire about the Reverend’s edition of
Hamlet
.

“You’re saying the killer stole Underwood’s copy of the play?” Archie set aside the decanter. “But why would he do that?”

Sebastian took the glass he held out. “Because he’s too clever by half. He tucked the line from
Hamlet
into Emma’s hand to reinforce the impression that she’d killed herself. But at the same time, the book could also be used to throw suspicion on the vicar if we ever realized her death was actually murder.”

Archie came to sprawl in his chair again. “But unless the killer knew why Emma was here, what possible motive could he imagine the vicar might have?”

“None that I can see. Which brings us to the second possibility.”

“Which is?”

“That Reverend Benedict Underwood is himself the killer, and he never intended his book to turn up.”

Archie’s eyes widened. “Good God.”

Sebastian drained his glass in one long pull. “We need to know where Reuben Dickie found that damned book.”

“I’ll get it out of him first thing in the morning,” said Archie. “Even if I have to beat it out of him.”

But it was just after dawn the next morning when a cottager collecting firewood in the wasteland along the river found Reuben dead.

Tuesday, 10 August

R
euben Dickie lay sprawled facedown at a gravelly bend in the Teme, his arms flung wide, the side of his head a pulpy, bloody mess. More blood soaked the back of his smock where a jagged slice in the worn cloth showed a gaping, purple wound in the pale flesh beneath. He was close enough to the water’s edge that one hand bobbed with the movements of the river as pond skaters flitted around his stiffening, puffy white fingers.

“Looks like he was stabbed in the back and had his head bashed in,” said Archie, his face grim and slicked with sweat as he batted at the flies buzzing around them.

Sebastian crouched down beside the body. “Someone obviously wanted to make quite certain he was dead.” Reuben’s one visible eye stared back at him, wide and filmed with the beginnings of decay. From the distance came the slow, mournful echo of the funeral toll. The vicar had decided to go ahead with Emma Chandler’s funeral despite the discovery of yet another murder, which meant that Constable Nash wouldn’t be along until he’d finished his duties as bell ringer and sexton.

“How long do you think he’s been dead?” asked Archie, making no move to come any closer.

Sebastian yanked off a glove to touch the dead man’s cheek. “A while. He’s cold.”

“What I don’t understand is, why would a killer go through the trouble of carefully staging Emma Chandler’s death—and the others before her—to look like suicides or accidents, only to now start shooting people or bashing in their skulls?”

“Because once we’d figured out Emma’s death wasn’t a suicide, there really was no point anymore, was there?”

“I suppose not.” Archie cast an uncomfortable glance around. “Was he killed here, do you think?”

“It looks like it. But then, I’m no expert. The gravel strikes me as rather convenient.”

Archie shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“No footprints.”

“Ah. Yes.” Archie stared across the river at a flock of geese that had been turned out into a recently harvested field. Later, cows would be set to graze on the stover, and later still, sheep. In the spring, the dung and the roots would all be plowed under in preparation for the planting of a new season’s crop.

After a moment, Archie said, “Who would want to kill Reuben? I mean, yes, he could be damnably annoying. But he was essentially harmless.”

“Whoever killed him obviously didn’t think so.”

An oilskin satchel lay half-hidden beneath the dead man’s body, and Sebastian carefully eased it free. “Ever see Reuben with anything like this?”

“No.”

“Then I think we know where he got it.”

The satchel opened to reveal a lady’s plain black reticule, a selection of drawing pencils, two erasers, and a large sketchbook.

“Good God,” said Archie, his hands falling to his sides. “It’s Emma Chandler’s.” His gaze met Sebastian’s. “Could Reuben have killed her after all?”

“If he did, then who killed Reuben?”

Archie huffed a startled laugh. “Ah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Sebastian opened the sketchbook to find himself staring at a peaceful, idyllic watercolor of the village green. “I think it more likely that Reuben came upon Emma Chandler’s body sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, before young Charles Bonaparte found her.”

“And simply took her satchel? What a ghoulish thing to do! Was the book with it, do you think?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if it was—and he did take the satchel from her body—it certainly explains why he didn’t want to say where or when he’d found the vicar’s book.” Sebastian flipped several pages in the sketchbook and stopped at a somber charcoal drawing of the churchyard.

“What it doesn’t explain is why he was killed.”

“And here I was thinking the second sketchbook had disappeared because its contents would somehow implicate Emma’s killer,” said Hero. They were in their private parlor at the Blue Boar; Sebastian had laid Emma’s sketchbook open on the small round table beneath the window.

“I thought the same,” said Sebastian, beginning to turn the pages.

The first sketches were general scenes of the village, most done in pencil or charcoal, with a few more detailed studies in watercolors. There was the green with its timeworn pump house and a couple of fat ducks waddling across the grass. Then came pictures of the gently curving high street and the row of picturesque, half-timbered cottages that lined the green. And it occurred to Sebastian that it was possible to follow the passage of Emma’s days at Ayleswick, simply by noting the order of her pictures.

On Saturday morning, at the same time she’d drawn Archie’s portrait, she’d also sketched some half dozen views of the Grange’s ancient, ivy-draped tower and quiet moat. Invited to Northcott Abbey that afternoon by Lady Seaton, Emma had drawn the graceful old house from several angles, as well as the Greek temple overlooking the park’s ornamental lake and the famous Long Gallery.

“Ah,” said Hero, staring at Emma’s exquisite rendering of the long, narrow room’s soaring windows and elaborately plastered ceiling. “She must have asked Lady Seaton to show her the family portraits. Clever.”

Simon started fussing from his rug near the cold hearth, and Sebastian went to pick up the boy, swinging him high. “Is there a portrait of Leopold Seaton in the Long Gallery?”

“There is, yes. Lady Seaton pointed it out to me. He was a startlingly handsome man.”

“As is Crispin.”

“Yes. But I didn’t see much of a resemblance between father and son. The father was dark haired.”

“Which explains why Emma didn’t cross his name off her list,” said Sebastian, coming to stand beside Hero again as she turned the next page.

They found themselves staring at the ruins of Maplethorpe Hall. Emma had drawn the house at eerie angles, so that the blackened walls seemed to loom over the viewer in a way that made it appear oppressive, almost threatening.

“Must have been strange for her, visiting the burned-out husk of the house that had played such a pivotal role in her mother’s life,” said Hero. “I wonder if she knew before she came here that the hall had burned.”

“She may have heard about it from Crispin or his sisters. They must surely have spoken to her of their village long before she realized her own connection to Ayleswick.”

Hero looked over at him. “I hadn’t thought of that. Most of the names in her mother’s letter were probably already familiar to her.”

Emma had drawn some half dozen sketches of the burned old hall before moving on to the crossroads, where she captured the melancholy of the nearly abandoned hamlet and the bedraggled thatch and leaning chimneys of the Ship. Then came a haunting image of the gibbet, its blackened arm stark against a glaring sky.

“Do you think she did all these drawings to support her story of being on a sketching expedition?” said Hero. “Or was she simply intent on recording her father’s village?”

“Could have been both.”

Hero flipped the page to reveal an unexpectedly pastoral scene with cows grazing on the side of a long, grassy mound set against a background of old oaks.

“What the devil is that?” asked Sebastian as Simon began to fuss again.

Hero reached out to take the baby. “Mr. McBroom was telling me there’s an ancient barrow several miles to the east of here, on the way to Ludlow. This must be it.”

Sebastian studied the low, earthen mound, noting now the weathered stones thrusting up from the grass at one rounded end. “So when did Emma go there? And why?” He turned the page to find himself staring at a beautifully detailed watercolor of the pack bridge, its single brick arch silhouetted against a rising sun. “Huh. This was obviously painted on Monday morning. So she must have walked out to the barrow on Sunday evening. Why would she do that?”

He looked up, his gaze meeting Hero’s. But she simply shook her head.

After the watercolor of the bridge came several drawings of Ayleswick’s squat Norman church, then a sketch of a majestic rose window rising empty and solemn against a cloudless sky.

“The priory,” said Hero.

There were two more drawings of the ruins. In one, a scruffy mongrel Sebastian recognized as the Seatons’ dog, Barney, trotted nose-down along the remnants of the cloister. The other was a striking view of the ruins of the chapter house.

The next page was blank.

“Well, hell,” said Sebastian.

Hero shifted Simon’s weight to her hip. “Let me see the sketch of the barrow again.”

Sebastian flipped back to the earlier drawing. It had rained later that evening, and Emma had drawn the storm clouds already pressing down dark and threatening over the landscape. But now, as he studied the ancient tumulus and the stand of trees that encroached upon it, he realized the scene was not entirely deserted. A half-grown, dark-haired boy in nankeens and a torn short coat stood near the trees, his head thrown back as he watched a peregrine circling overhead.

“Good heavens,” said Hero. “That looks like Charles Bonaparte.”

“Sunday?” said the Emperor Napoléon’s precocious young nephew. He sat on the top rail of the paddock fence where Hero and Sebastian had found him watching a groom put a colt through his paces. “Yes. I was out by the barrow. Why?”

“Do you recall seeing Emma Chandler there?” asked Hero.

Charles looked confused. “Chandler?”

“We’ve discovered that was Emma Chance’s actual name,” explained Sebastian.

“Was it really?” The boy’s eyes brightened with interest. “You mean, she was here under an alias? What was she? A spy? An assassin? A—”

“Did you see her at the barrow?” Sebastian asked again.

“Yes, sir.” He gripped the top rail and swung his legs back and forth in a way that reminded them that he was still very much a child. “She asked what I knew about the place. I told her that long barrows like that date back to the Stone Age and were probably used for burial chambers. She was very interested.” His eagerness faded away. “She was a nice lady. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

“Did you see the picture she drew out there?”

“I did, yes. She showed it to me. I wish I could draw like that. Wouldn’t it be grand?”

“Which of you left first?” asked Hero.

The boy looked from Hero to Sebastian, and back again. “She did. Why?”

Sebastian said, “Did she walk toward the village?”

“I don’t think I noticed which way she turned when she left. But I did see her again later, when I was on my way home.”

“Oh?”

“She was near the top of that small rise—you know the one? Just before you reach the crossroads.”

“What was she doing?”

“She was just standing by the hedgerow, talking to Crispin.” The boy hesitated, then added, “I think she was crying. And Crispin, he looked as angry as all get-out.”

Sebastian stared at him. “You mean, Crispin Seaton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you certain?” asked Hero.

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said young Master Bonaparte. “I don’t think he saw me because he was focused so intently on her. But I remember it because I was surprised to see him. I mean, I thought he was still in the Lake District.”

“Did you tell anyone you’d seen him?” asked Sebastian.

“I said something to Mama the next day. But he never showed up at Northcott, and my mother told me I must have been mistaken.”

“Do you think were?”

Charles Bonaparte met his gaze, and there was something about his expression that made the boy seem older than his years. “I know I wasn’t.”