A Duty to the Dead (13 page)

But I thought he mended his church because he couldn’t mend the broken lives and minds brought to him for comfort.

We walked in silence for a time, and then he asked, “Did you want to save Ted Booker because you couldn’t save Arthur Graham?” His eyes were on my face. “Dr. Philips has told me how hard you tried. And you worked a miracle, saving Peregrine Graham. You must count your debt paid in full.”

“I—don’t know if that’s true or not. I won’t know until I’ve left
here, when there’s distance between me and Owlhurst,” I said, unwilling to discuss my feelings with him. Then I heard myself admitting, “I kept putting off coming here, oddly enough.”

As if acknowledging my confession, Mr. Montgomery made one of his own. “I wasn’t cut out to be a chaplain, although I did all I could for the men who came to me. I just didn’t let them see the cost of helping them.”

We walked on in silence, and I said good-bye to him near the rectory, before turning in the direction of the Graham house.

Something he’d said earlier came back to me. That he’d seen Jonathan leaving the surgery later in the evening. I thought grimly,
Had he undone all that Dr. Philips and I had tried to accomplish? Jonathan hadn’t shown any sympathy toward Ted Booker. Why the need to visit him? Timothy I might have understood. But Jonathan…

And speak of the devil—

Here he was coming toward me.

I stopped a few paces from him, and asked the question that was on my mind. “I didn’t know you’d visited Ted Booker last evening. I wonder—was he in better spirits? Or had the depression settled over him again? How did he strike you?”

Jonathan looked at me with a frown between his eyes. “I didn’t go to the surgery last night. Why should I? I had nothing to say to the man.”

He nodded and walked on. I stood there, staring after him. The rector had just told me—But perhaps he was wrong, and it was someone else. He might have assumed…That made no sense either. I somehow hadn’t had the impression that the rector was guessing at the visitor’s identity.

A little unsettled, I had just reached the Graham house to find a man turning away from the door and coming toward me. He was lifting his hat to me, as if he knew me.

“Miss Crawford, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes?” I didn’t know
him.
Tall, middle-aged, dark hair already
thick with gray, and blue eyes that were pale with a darker rim. Disconcerting.

“Sorry to have to introduce myself here in the street. I’m Inspector Howard. I was just asking for you. Susan told me you were having a walk. I must speak to you. Would you be more comfortable in the house with Mrs. Graham present?”

Of course I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t say so. “Perhaps we might continue to walk a little,” I said.

“Certainly. Thank you.” He seemed relieved at my suggestion. We turned back the way I’d come, along the church wall, toward The Bells. “I’m here, as you might have gathered, to ask you about Lieutenant Booker. Dr. Philips tells me you had a good grasp of his medical situation, and that you had spoken to him several times, in fact just after his initial attempt at suicide.”

A formality? What was I to say, that Ted Booker had been driven to his death by well-meaning people who believed that a stiff upper lip, and all that it entailed, would set him right again? That a good husband and father ought to know what was expected of him and do his duty, however painful?

Inspector Howard waited.

Finally I said, “I don’t think he wanted to die. He just didn’t know how to go about living. It was too overwhelming. I was just speaking to Mrs. Clayton, and she told me how close the two—Ted and his brother, Harry—had been all their lives. Do you have a brother, Inspector?”

He grimaced. “Three sisters.”

I had to smile. “Then you can’t very well put yourself in Lieutenant Booker’s place.”

“Do you feel that Dr. Philips did everything possible to prevent Booker’s death?”

So that was the way the wind was blowing. Mrs. Denton must have said something to leave the impression that Dr. Philips was to blame. On the heels of her own spoken wish that her son-in-law
would die! How like her now to try to make a case for neglect, so that her daughter wouldn’t be burdened with the stigma of a suicide.

We had come to The Bells and walked on past their garden gate toward the cricket pitch.

“Not only was he convinced that Lieutenant Booker was on the mend, that his word could be trusted, I was as well. Neither of us would have left him if there had been any doubt in our minds. He was contrite about frightening everyone—he said as much.”

“Then why the turnaround?” He kept his pace matched to mine, and watched my face without appearing to do it. “It must have taken some determination to tear off the bandages and reopen his wounds. I take it the restraining straps had been removed.”

“When he was calmer, yes.”

I could have told Inspector Howard that according to the rector and Dr. Philips, there had been a late visitor to the surgery. But there was no proof that whoever it was had even spoken to Ted Booker. The police would believe Jonathan Graham if he claimed he was nowhere near the doctor’s house. And it would add tinder to the fires of doubt regarding Dr. Philips, that his surgery was not properly secured.

I knew I had felt my own share of guilt for what had happened. But it was emotional, not rational. Dr. Philips must have experienced the same thing. People died, however much you tried to save them….

“Sometimes,” I said, “Lieutenant Booker was unable to tell the present—today, his wife, his son, his responsibilities—from the past—his duty to the men serving under him. He could easily have awakened, confused, not understanding where he was, or why he was bandaged, and tried to return to his unit. Not realizing that in the attempt, he was going to die.”

We stopped, and the inspector stood there, his eyes on the cricket pitch. “You think it was confusion about where he was and what he was doing, that led to his death?”

Remembering how hard Ted Booker had fought to save Harry, I nodded. “He would have done anything, sacrificing himself if need be, to keep his brother alive. It’s the only explanation I can offer. As for Dr. Philips, I’ve known him only a very short time, but he’s well trained and compassionate. I’d trust him with my own life.”

“And yet I understand that when Mrs. Graham’s son Peregrine was very ill, she didn’t call in Dr. Philips to oversee his care.”

The gossips had been busy.

“You are well informed,” I said.

“Well, yes, the asylum notified us that Mr. Graham was ill and in the care of his family. There were constables within call as long as he was in Owlhurst. It was reported that Dr. Philips came to the house once but was turned away.”

“Hardly turned away. Not really needed is closer to the mark,” I answered, my voice nearly betraying my surprise at news of the constables. “I was in charge of the sickroom.” I didn’t add that Peregrine Graham’s case had been such a near run thing that I’d had my hands full. Dr. Philips’s presence would have been reassuring. Besides, the Grahams weren’t turning him away as much as they were keeping Peregrine behind closed doors. Out of sight and out of mind.

“And Jonathan Graham isn’t attended by Dr. Philips, in spite of a rather nasty war wound.”

“Dr. Philips isn’t a surgeon, Inspector Howard. Lieutenant Graham’s bandages haven’t been removed, and he may require more surgery before he’s fully healed. I daresay he’ll remain with the medical staff in charge of his case until they are satisfied that there is no infection.”

“I see.” He nodded, as if he did.

I ventured one last remark. Let the crows come home to roost. “I’m sure Mrs. Denton is distraught over her son-in-law’s death, but it’s unkind to blame Dr. Philips. In my opinion, for what it’s worth, she was not as sympathetic as she might have been during Lieutenant Booker’s illness, and perhaps that’s weighing on her mind now.”

He smiled. “You are very forthright, Miss Crawford.”

I knew then the crows had found their rightful nest. Yes, Mrs. Denton had been busy protecting her daughter. That was as it should be. But she had also been partly responsible for Ted Booker’s plight. I wasn’t about to let her ruin Dr. Philips’s reputation as well.

“I spent several hours in Mrs. Denton’s company one afternoon while we watched over Mr. Booker. I had the opportunity to witness her feelings about him.”

A little silence fell. Finally Inspector Howard turned back toward the church. “Let me walk you home, Miss Crawford. You’ve been very helpful.”

He asked what had brought me to Owlhurst, and I told him. He said, “It’s a great sadness, this war. So many young men lost to us. My sister’s son, for one. He was a bright boy. He could have made something of his life. Now we’ll never know what it might have been.”

“Are you married, Inspector?”

“Indeed I am. And I’ve been blessed with three young daughters.”

We laughed together.

“Will you speak at the inquest?” He appeared to be offering me a choice.

“If my opinion carries any weight, of course I shall.”

Ahead of us was the church. He said, “Would you mind if I left you here? You know your way, I think?”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

He turned to go and then had one last question for me. “In your opinion, was Ted Booker mad?”

“Not mad, no.” I looked toward the church steeple, thinking about Peregrine Graham. “Not as we think of madness. He was as wounded in spirit as Jonathan Graham is wounded in the flesh.”

Inspector Howard touched his hat to me as he thanked me, and then walked on toward the High Street of Owlhurst.

Looking after him, I wondered how much good I had really done—and how much harm. On the whole, I thought the Colonel Sahib would have been pleased with his daughter’s handling of that interview. Inspector Howard was no fool.

When I reached the house, I could almost sense the curiosity welling behind that front door, and the questions I’d be asked about what the inspector had had to say to me. The very thought was enough to make me keep on walking. I wasn’t ready to answer them, and I refused to add to any speculation about police interest in Dr. Philips. And so, with nowhere else to go, and my feet feeling like numb blocks of ice, I called on Susan’s mother. It was the only other sanctuary I could think of where there was a fire and a warm welcome.

No one had told her the sad news about Ted Booker, and tears came to her eyes as she sat down in the nearest chair.

“Oh, my good Lord. No.”

I tried to comfort her, but she took his death hard. “I was that fond of the Booker twins. The truth is, I liked them better than the Graham boys, barring Arthur of course. Steady lads, honest and caring, that’s what they were. Sons a mother could be proud of.”

I was surprised. But then Peregrine was a murderer, Jonathan seemed to be callous and uncaring, and Timothy—Timothy I hadn’t really understood yet. He seemed to be open and honest, but sometimes that appeared to be what was expected of him. As if to show he bore no ill will to Fate for having given him a clubfoot. Again, that English insistence on stiff upper lip, pretending nothing is wrong.

Susan’s mother sat there for a time reminiscing about the Booker twins, and then said, “I don’t know how many more shocks I can bear. First Arthur and then Harry, and now Mr. Ted.” She shook her head. “I ought to count poor Mr. Peregrine as well. He’s as good as dead, isn’t he?”

“I was talking to Mrs. Clayton earlier. She told me she had
expected to go to London with the family, until plans were changed at the last minute. Were you to go as well?”

“I was to stay here. I can tell you, I was more than a little envious of Hester Clayton, at the time. As it turned out, I was glad I wasn’t there. It was a terrible shock. I heard Mrs. Graham speaking to Inspector Gadd, describing how he’d ripped that poor girl to pieces in an orgy of lust and blood. Very like Jack the Ripper, it was, that’s how she put it. I didn’t sleep for two nights, picturing it. And Mrs. Graham walking in to find the body and Peregrine there with blood all over him. It’s a wonder she didn’t lose
her
mind.”

Shocked, I said, “I thought—” But I don’t know what I thought. A nice quiet killing with no blood and the victim someone I didn’t know and never would? Appalling and all that, but somehow until now, not
real.

“Mrs. Graham cried all night, saying she wished he’d died there and then, so she could bury him beside his father and have done with it, and never have to think about it again. Ever.”

There were tears in her eyes again, and she bit her lip to hold them back. “I was that fond of him, as a boy. Very like his father, he was, when he was young. I tell you, it was such a blow. But then he went away, and we all tried to go on as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t as if we’d seen him every day, even when he was young, running about and coming in from some lark, muddy and looking for a bite to eat. I used to save a little treat for him, setting it aside, before he was found to be different. After that he never came down to the kitchen, and his tutor told us that he must be quiet, or it would damage his brain.”

“Damage—” Medically, unless he was subject to seizures, that didn’t make much sense. But of course the tutor was not trained to deal with such a child, and he probably meant well.

“I never liked that tutor,” Susan’s mother was saying. “Sly, he was, and not much one for conversation in the servants’ hall. He took his meals separately, a step above the rest of us. But he would
come down sometimes and speak to one of us about Mr. Peregrine’s needs. As if the Prince of Wales was wanting something, mind you, and the tutor was the Lord Chamberlain. I never resented it, knowing what the poor boy must be suffering. His brothers running and shouting about the house, or in the back garden, while he must sit by his window and watch. There was talk that little Prince John had such seizures and was sent away. I remember that. And I thought, Poor Mr. Peregrine, and wondered if he was to die young too.”

She seemed to tire, her face drooping a little. “I should never have told you such things. You won’t let on to Susan, or to Mrs. Graham, will you?”