A Pattern of Lies (7 page)

I turned and tossed for a bit, unable to settle in the unfamiliar bed—­even though it was much more comfortable than my usual hard cot. And the soft down quilt over me was a far cry from the rough, harsh blanket I was accustomed to. The pillow was bliss, compared to what might just as well have been a wool sack beneath my head in France. Very different too from the hotel I'd have had to find in Canterbury late in the day when the stationmaster finally admitted that my train wasn't coming through. Assuming even the worst rooms hadn't all been taken by that time. No worries about bedbugs and cockroaches in the Ashtons' house.

I drifted into sleep.

Late in the night, I woke up with a start at the sound of breaking glass. It wasn't in my bedroom, but it was loud enough that it seemed to come from just below my windows. And that must mean in Mrs. Ashton's sitting room.

My first thought was that as a guest in the house, I shouldn't go dashing down to find out what it was. But I wondered if it was another egg tossed into the room for someone to discover in the morning, a sticky smear on the polished floors or the edge of a carpet.

I had just settled back against my pillows, on the verge of drifting off to sleep again, when I sat bolt upright, my nose twitching. Surely what I smelled, wafting up from below through my open window, was a strong whiff of smoke.

Pushing aside the last shreds of sleep, I sniffed the air.

It wasn't the odor of tobacco. Something was
burning
.

Shocked wide awake now, I whipped the covers off, caught up my dressing gown, and ran for the door, not bothering with my slippers.

“
Fire!
” I shouted down the passage as I headed for the stairs. “
Hurry!
”

I was halfway down them when I heard Mark calling, “What is it, what's happening?” He was racing after me, and then I heard Clara's voice asking what was wrong.

“The sitting room,” I called over my shoulder, not stopping to explain.

Mark had caught up with me as I headed down the passage, but I stopped him from flinging open the door. “Wait.” I reached out and put my hand on the wood. It was cool. “Open it gently.”

He did as I asked, and we could see as the door edged wider that the chair that Mrs. Ashton usually sat in, right by the window, was aflame. Not just smoldering; there were licking tongues of orange flame rising higher and higher as we watched. The draft from the door, drawing air in the broken window, gave the flames something to feed on.

I pushed past Mark and shut the door quickly.

In old houses, fire was the dreaded enemy. I ran closer to the chair, saw the tall vase of flowers on one of the tables, pulled out the stems, and threw the water into the seat of the chair, getting as close as I dared to the flames.

I coughed as the smoke billowed up at me, and then Mark was beside me with the bucket of sand that most houses kept at hand. His nightclothes were dangerously close to the blaze as he threw the sand in a careful pattern across the seat of the chair, smothering the flames.

Now we were both coughing.

I turned, realizing that someone had opened the door and was standing there on the threshold. It was Clara, her face as white as the nightgown she was wearing, her robe clutched in her hands. Beyond her, I heard Mrs. Ashton on the stairs, calling to Mark, asking what was wrong.

He was bending over the chair, looking at something. I went to see what it was.

A half-­melted candle lay close to the back of the seat.

“Thank God, it wasn't the carpet,” he said, and turned to look up at the smashed window. The old glass had shattered, leaving a gaping hole.

I moved forward for a better look at the candle and stubbed my bare toe on a large stone. “Someone broke the window with this,” I said, reaching down to pick it up. “Then threw in the candle, hoping it would start a fire.”

“Don't come any closer,” Mark ordered, and I realized that he was pointing to shards of broken glass littering the floor. And I was barefoot.

Mrs. Ashton had reached the doorway, and I heard the sharp intake of breath as she saw the still smoking chair. “Dear God,” she exclaimed.

Mark went to her, saying, “It's all right, Mother, just an accident.”

“Accident, my eye,” she said furiously. “That window's broken. Someone did this, it didn't just
happen
.”

He was trying to calm her down, trying to keep her from hurrying forward to look at the chair for herself. Clara was still by the door, a pale statue with a shocked face.

Mrs. Ashton was saying, “Who discovered it?”

“I heard the window break, Mrs. Ashton,” I said quietly. “And then I smelled smoke.”

Even in the dimness of the room I could see that she too was pale with horror, and disturbed by what this represented. She turned to Mark. “Bess has the only room on this side of the house,” she told him. “The rest of us face the gardens. This would have been a conflagration before anyone knew.”

“I'd thought of that,” Mark said grimly. He left the room, and in a matter of minutes he was back with a large bucket of water and poured it over the still smoldering seat of the chair. Then he picked the chair up, and trailing the last remnants of smoke, he carried it past Clara, into the passage, and toward the front door. I went after him, got there first, and swung the heavy door wide. He took the chair down the steps and dropped it on the drive, at a safe distance from the house.

Even if the fire wasn't completely out somewhere deep inside the upholstery, it could do no harm now.

He stood there for a moment, staring down at the charred ruin of his mother's favorite chair, then came back to where I was waiting in the doorway. “Someone isn't satisfied that my father is already in jail. It isn't enough.”

 

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

W
E WALKED BACK
into the house together, Mark and I. In the sitting room, Mrs. Ashton had found matches and lit the lamp. Clara was sitting on one of the other chairs, but her aunt was stooping to scan the floor around the spot where the fire had been. She looked up. “I don't think any sparks flew off onto the carpet.”

“No, I think we were in time,” Mark agreed.

We were all in our nightclothes. Mark's face was red, where he'd got too close to the flames. Mrs. Ashton, Clara, and I were in our dressing gowns, our hair down our backs. Clara and I were barefoot. But I didn't think anyone had really taken any notice. There were other worries on our minds.

“I'll have the police in, first thing in the morning,” Mark was saying. “We'll find out who did this.”

“No,” his mother said firmly. “Let it go. It will only show how agitated ­people are about the claims that your father is being held responsible for the explosion. It will only bring more angry ­people out into the open.”

Clara spoke for the first time, her voice strained. “I can't see how burning us alive in our beds would bring any of the dead back.”

Mark said bracingly, “Nonsense, they were just trying to frighten us.”

“Well, they succeeded,” she answered tartly.

“I think it's best to summon the police,” I said. “And the sooner the better, before breakfast. Or this will just go on happening.”

Mrs. Ashton was about to protest, then stopped. “Why?” she said after a moment.

I took a deep breath. Why indeed? “To do nothing tells the person who did this that the family has something to hide.” I pointed to the windows. “Gossip will soon know something happened here. If you bring in the police, it will go a long way toward convincing others that you believe Mr. Ashton is innocent.”

There was argument, but in the end, Mrs. Ashton said, “Much as I dislike being the center of gossip, Bess is probably right. Bring it out into the open, rather than behind hands and behind our backs.”

Mark said, “I'll go as soon as it's light. I don't want to leave you alone until then.”

“Should you walk around the house, to be sure whoever it is isn't out there still?” Clara asked anxiously.

Mark shook his head. “He wouldn't linger. He wouldn't risk getting caught.”

“And now, I think we should all go back to our beds and try to sleep,” his mother said. She reached for the key that was in the door of the sitting room and ushered us out into the passage. “We'll keep this locked until the police arrive. Clara, my dear, your feet are bare. They must be cold. Would you like a hot water bottle?”

Clara was still very anxious. Mrs. Ashton had been right to draw her attention to her comfort, to take her mind off that frightful image of the burning chair.

“I'll be all right, Aunt Helen,” she said staunchly. She and Mark went up the stairs together, and Mrs. Ashton watched them out of sight.

“This isn't the first time we've been a target,” she said quietly. “If you would like to go on to London, Bess, I wouldn't blame you in the least. Mark can take you to Canterbury first thing after breakfast.”

“I promised to stay and I shall. But do you have any idea who might have done this?”

“I'm afraid I might. A widow, one who won't be satisfied until my husband is dead as well. But proving it? That's quite another matter.”

I don't think any of us slept for what was left of the night.

To burn down a house with all the souls sleeping in it, not just the family, but the servants as well—­and it could have happened—­showed a vicious and determined mind behind the deed.

Thinking about it, I wondered if the candle was an attempt to frighten or an attempt to kill.

And the choice of rooms. Why not the study, which one would think of as Mr. Ashton's? Why the sitting room, where Mrs. Ashton spent much of her day? Was it ignorance of the significance, an any-­room-­would-­do decision?

I got out of bed, pulled on my clothes without lighting a lamp, and felt for the torch I keep in my kit. Then I stole down the stairs. The main door was locked, but opening it was easy enough, and I stepped out into the darkness before dawn.

The chair, its pretty blue brocade dotted with tiny bouquets of flowers, stood like a blackened ruin in the middle of the drive where it circled by the front door. And the odor of smoke and burned stuffing was strong on the night air.

There was a heavy dew, and I was grateful I had put on my nursing shoes, which made up in sturdiness what they lacked in charm. I stood there for a moment, turning off the torch and letting my eyes grow used to what light there was. Then I set out around the house, to my right.

The drawing room. I could tell that quite easily, looking up at the pale linings of the curtains. The study cum library, with its long, diamond-­paned windows, was on the opposite side of the house, one of the older rooms. Next, the sitting room. I realized that standing here, I was deeper in the shadow of the wall. Had that helped the candle-­thrower to choose his target unseen? He'd been luckier than he knew that the candle hadn't blown out as it flew, and that it had fallen on such fertile ground as the heavily upholstered chair. Had he waited to be sure it was burning? How many candles had he brought with him, just in case his first efforts failed?

I had stayed well clear of the ground closest to the windows and the house wall, where someone must have stood to toss first the rock and then the candle. If there was any chance of finding footprints, I didn't want to ruin it by walking over them in the dark.

I stood there, looking up at the sitting room windows. How many times when the lamps were lit had someone looked in and seen Mrs. Ashton in her chair, or jealously watched the rest of the family as they drank their tea together or talked over the day's events? I had noticed that the curtains were seldom drawn here, as if the wall behind me offered enough privacy. I tried to picture it.

Almost as if I'd wished for it, light bloomed in front of me, and I realized that it must come from the ornate lamp on the table against the wall. I could see the shadow of a shape cast against the ceiling as someone moved about. And then whoever it was came toward the window, almost to where the broken glass lay, and I saw that it was Mrs. Ashton. Even though I couldn't see her face clearly, the aureole of her white hair, back-­lit, identified her easily enough.

She stood there, gazing down at the empty place where her chair had sat only a few hours earlier, and at the glass and sand and water all over her pretty carpet.

There was a look of sadness on her face, followed by one of vehement anger.

I felt like a peeping Tom. Looking away, I waited.

But she came closer to the window, unmindful of the glass, and blotting out the light behind her, she stared out into the darkness.

I was sure she couldn't see me where I stood, not with the light in the room spoiling her night vision. And yet I felt naked, vulnerable, as if she were staring straight at me.

I was just uncomfortable enough to step forward and call to her, hesitating only long enough to wonder how to go about it without frightening her.

And then she spoke quite clearly, the words carrying to me where I stood, and I froze, unable to speak her name and identify myself.

“I know who you are,” she said. “And if you are out there still, gloating, know this. Touch my family again, and I will do whatever I must to stop you. Hear me. Whatever I must. I have never meant anything more.”

And then she turned and walked away, leaving the lamp burning. I could follow the crunching of glass under her slippers and then the shadow gliding across the ceiling before the door was slammed behind her and locked again.

I felt cold. Her calm, icy voice had sent shivers down my spine. I hadn't realized how apt that old expression was until I drew my arms around me as a shield against a chill.

I waited until I was sure she had gone away before I crept back around the house. The night air was cool in spite of my uniform, and I could feel the dampness creeping up from the sea after the warmth of the day.

I'd left the door off the latch, and to my relief, it swung wide, allowing me inside. I shut it carefully, silently, and then started up the stairs, praying I didn't meet Mrs. Ashton in the passage above.

I was halfway up the steps when the door to the dining room on the other side of the stairs opened. The room was dark, but there was a tall figure standing just inside the threshold. As I stopped, staring down at it, Mark's voice spoke quietly.

“Bess? Is that you?”

I could hardly deny it. “Yes, I'm afraid I couldn't sleep.”

“Nor could I. There's tea. In here.”

I realized he'd thought I was coming down the stairs instead of climbing them. I went back the way I'd come and joined him in the dining room.

As soon as I shut the door, he lit the candles in the sconce nearest me, then gestured. A teapot and a cup were sitting on a tray on the table. I could smell the whisky he'd added to his. “I'll just fetch another cup,” he said, and disappeared into the butler's pantry. He was back very soon, also carrying a plate of the sponge we'd had for dinner.

With a grin he set them down on the tray and proceeded to pour a cup for me.

As I took it, he said, amusement in his voice, “I learned to make tea in France. One of my finest accomplishments.”

I smiled. “Yes, I'm afraid it's one benefit of the war years.”

The smile faded. “And probably the only benefit. No, I've learned to sew on buttons. My sergeant of all ­people taught me. He was the eldest of six or seven brothers, as I recall. He said he'd learned to be handy in many respects. I'm waiting for first light. I want to see if there are any footprints under the broken window. He'd have had to stand close to chuck the candle in. To make certain it went inside. If there are prints, I'll make sure Constable Hood sees them. A pity it didn't go out. The candle.”

“Yes, a pity,” I agreed. I noticed that he had used the male pronoun, while his mother believed it had been a woman. “Although he must have brought more than one with him. But who could have done this, Mark? Who hates your family enough to want to see you burn alive?”

He sighed, stirring the contents of his cup, not looking at me. “I'm not sure that was the intent. But it could well have been the result. I seem to apologize to you every few hours, don't I, for dragging you into this, Bess. I had no idea I'd be putting your life in jeopardy.”

“No one did,” I agreed. “But what matters now is the future. Who could have gone this far?”

“God, take your pick. Over a hundred dead souls? All of them leaving behind wives and sons, even daughters, not to mention grandchildren in one man's case, although I doubt they would be up for this sort of thing. Or perhaps they were, perhaps they were just young enough and shortsighted enough to think a candle through a window was quite clever.”

“Your mother said something last night—­this morning—­after we put out the fire, that made me wonder whether your father's arrest might fail to satisfy whoever is behind these occurrences.” I had to tread carefully, not to betray what I'd overheard. “There's also the possibility that the original purpose behind all the gossip and rumors might have been lost as more and more ­people believed them and acted on what they believed.”

He looked surprised. “Independently?” Frowning, he considered that. “It's an interesting thought, Bess. It could explain why we've felt like a fortress under attack. It bears looking into, doesn't it? Whatever Constable Hood has to say, I'll speak to Groves about it. Since it began before I came home, I can't tell him what the first indication of trouble was. But the point is to find why it started.”

Changing the subject, I asked, “What does your father have to say to the charges laid against him?”

“Only that they're ridiculous nonsense. Still, he says he'd feel the same if he'd lost members of his family in such a way. Looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame. And most of those victims brought in the only income their families had. The government has done a little, but far from enough. We've done what we could in the worse cases, but charity can only go so far, and sometimes it's rejected out of hand, whatever we offer.”

“You mentioned that a witness had come forward, when the Army first began to investigate,” I went on, finishing my tea.

“Reluctantly. That's the devil of it. I think what persuaded Rollins to speak up was the strong possibility that this was sabotage. That there were spies in our midst. Do you know how many German students were at Oxford and Cambridge when all this began? Many of them speak perfect English. They could probably pass as English. I think Rollins came forward to stop a witch hunt. Not necessarily for my father's sake or even the Government's.”

“It depends, I should think, on his motive. ­People aren't always altruistic, are they? If it's to their advantage, they're more likely to do their civic duty.”

“Which could mean he might have seen
something
—­only it wasn't a German raiding party. And so he could do his duty without betraying what else he knew. That could well explain his reluctance,” Mark said slowly. “I can see I've been too close to the problem, too personally involved to view the broader picture. Too worried about my father and my mother. Well, that will change, now.” Looking toward the windows, he added, “The sun is up. Not quite far enough, but we'll soon be able to take a look.” For the first time he noticed the torch in my lap.

“I didn't want to frighten anyone by bumping into things,” I said. Truth, yes, but not all of it. Just like Rollins?

“Then I shan't have to go back for mine.”

We talked a little until the sun was high enough above the horizon that we could blow out the candles and begin our search. This late in the autumn, I was afraid the household would start to stir quite soon.