A Question of Honor (14 page)

“Go on.”

“I don’t know what happened next. Did he write to someone? Or did someone come to call? However it was, although our photograph was already beyond reach, there were still Mr. Gessler’s files. And his memory. Something that would mean trouble if connections were made. Kill Mr. Gessler before he or his files become a source of interest to the police. Or to someone.”

“You could be right. As long as that photograph was locked away in an attic, all well and good. But if whoever it is learned that the house was for sale, he would have a very good reason to worry that when the attics were emptied, the photograph and whatever else is up there might come to light. Even accidentally. As in fact it has.”

“This takes us back to the Caswells and the children in their care. Among them Lieutenant Wade. Simon, do you think you could persuade Scotland Yard to let you see the files on the Caswell murders?”

“I don’t know. It’s worth a try. The Army might also have copies of those files. I’ll have to come up with an acceptable reason.”

“The Gessler fire?”

“No,” Simon answered slowly. “Information that would have some direct bearing on the case. The Subedar is dead. He can’t be questioned. We could use his sighting as our excuse.”

“The Army might well contact the Colonel Sahib.”

Simon grinned, and I could tell at once that he was feeling a little better. “I’ll request the information in the Colonel’s name. Pull over just there, Bess. I’ll drive the rest of the way.”

Chapter Eleven

M
y next leave was only forty-eight hours, too short to travel to London, and Dover was crowded, noisy, busy.

I found a telephone in the office of the Port Commandant, and called Melinda Crawford.

I was told she was staying with friends in Canterbury, and they were on the telephone. And so my second call was to the Russells.

When Melinda was brought to the telephone, she was excited at the prospect of seeing me, and promised to send her chauffeur straightaway to fetch me.

“I don’t want to interrupt your visit,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I had hoped to ask a favor of her. I’d had a little time to think about matters while waiting for the connection to go through.

“Nonsense, my dear. I was leaving for home this noon. I’ll just make it a few hours ahead of time. Jessica will understand.”

“Cousin Melinda? Do you think we might call on Mr. Kipling? I have a few questions about India I’d like to put to him.”

“I don’t see why not. I’ll telephone him at once. He invited me to lunch with him the last time I was there. I’ll offer to take him somewhere for his tea.”

And she rang off.

Fifteen minutes later, she called to say that she was on her way and would be in Dover as soon as may be.

Knowing how her driver handled the motorcar, I took that with a grain of salt and went to find breakfast. Afterward I walked along the shore and listened to the guns in France, across the Channel. They seemed to be pounding the sectors on both sides of the line, without regard to rumors of an armistice.

I had started up the hill to Dover Castle, where I hoped to find an officer I knew, when a motorcar came barreling toward me and slowed. A trunk and two valises were strapped to the boot, and I could see two other boxes in the seat next to Melinda’s driver.

I greeted him in Urdu, for he was one of her Indian staff, and he returned the greeting as if I were a Maharani. He had always spoiled me.

Melinda poked her head out the window. “Well, this makes it so much easier, my dear. I thought we might have to scour the port.”

Her driver was already opening the door for me. I got into the back beside Melinda and she gave me an enormous hug.

“It’s so good to see you. Still, you look tired, my dear. I expect we all do, with this war going on and on, no end in sight. I did put through a call to your mother, to tell her that I was going to be seeing you. She and your father send their best love. And she wanted to ask what you might know about Simon’s wounds. They didn’t see him until after you’d left, and he refuses to talk about what happened. Your mother says they’re healing but she’s quite worried.”

Simon had been least in sight after bringing me home from Petersfield. He’d left me at the door and disappeared into his own cottage. But he couldn’t hide forever, and the bruises would have been there for much longer than my leave.

“An unavoidable accident,” I said, and Melinda smiled.

“That’s precisely what the Sergeant-Major told your mother. He’s a dear man, our Simon. I hope he hasn’t made any . . . unexpected enemies.”

“I can promise you that all is well, and you can pass that on to my mother.” I sincerely hoped that I was telling the truth.

Melinda had been as fond of Simon as if he had been her own. Childless, she had never remarried after her husband’s death. I loved her as I would a favorite aunt, rather than a distant Crawford cousin.

We talked about the war most of the way to Bateman’s. It was well past four by the time we got there, and Mr. Kipling was standing in his doorway, looking at his watch, when we came down the drive and pulled up by the front walk.

He was alone this weekend, as it happened, Mrs.Kipling and their daughter Elsie having gone to visit friends in Torquay. It was too late to think of going anywhere and so we sat on the terrace overlooking the lawns and drank lemonade while Melinda and Mr. Kipling chatted like the old friends they were. She was the only person I knew who called Mr. Kipling by his first name, Joseph.

At length he turned to me and said, peering over his glasses, “Well, Sister Crawford. You’ve been patient for three-quarters of an hour. What is it you wish to ask me?”

I had to smile. “How did you know?”

“You stare out across the gardens with that faraway look of someone only half listening. Not bored—therefore, waiting your turn to speak.”

“I was never sent home from India to be educated. But you and your sister were. Can you tell me about that? What it was like—”

I stopped short. His face had darkened, his eyes narrowing in anger.

“I’m so sorry,” I began, stumbling over my apology.

He turned to me. “Not your fault, my dear. You couldn’t have known. And I can’t talk about it. Let me only say that it was the most shocking experience a child can suffer, short of the death of a parent. Helpless, afraid, abused, and no escape.”

I sat there, stunned. “I didn’t know,” I said after a moment, embarrassed to have given him such pain.

“How could you have? I have learned since that I was not alone in my suffering. There were good people who took in children to educate and promote. And there were others who did it for money, sadistic people who cared nothing for those committed to their care.”

The Middletons, who had treated their charges as their own. And the Caswells? How had they treated the children?

Mr. Kipling was frowning. “What brought this to mind, my dear? Something must have done.”

“There was a family in Hampshire. We think they also took in children. And it’s possible that many years later they were murdered by one of their charges, at that time a young man. I wondered what could possibly have gone wrong.”

It was his turn to be surprised. “I see. Rather drastic of him. Although to be honest I never spoke of what I endured. I knew that to do so would mean far worse suffering. There was my sister Trixie, you see. I couldn’t take the chance of putting her at risk as well. They were kind to her, in their own way. I never understood why I was singled out for torment. Who knows? If they had touched her, I might have felt murderous myself.”

I could see Lieutenant Wade’s face as he learned of Alice Standish’s death. And his question—
Are they sure?—
about the cause of death, and his insistence on traveling with Mrs. Standish all the way to the Middletons’ home, when he could have put her on the next train, once they had reached London.

Had he been suspicious about the cause of his sister Georgina’s death? There was the unopened birthday present, the little Dresden shepherdess. Had she died before she could be given it? Or had it been withheld maliciously?

I didn’t have to remind myself that it was on this same leave that Lieutenant Wade had been sought as the killer of the Caswell family—mother, father, daughter.

My thoughts were in a whirl.

Mr. Kipling reached out and touched my hand. “It’s in the past, Bess. Let it go.” And after a moment he said with false cheer, “You must come with me to the mill. I have sacks of flour the Army didn’t take away. Wheat flour! Can you believe it? You’ll take one home with you, Melinda.”

And so we got up and walked through the gardens to the mill, as once Simon and I had done not so very long ago, crossing the little bridge over the noisy little stream.

I listened to the two old friends talking, made an effort to take part, as if I had indeed let the past go. And my performance must have outshone anything on the London stage, because as we were leaving, Mr. Kipling took my hand for a moment and said, “I’m glad you’re all right. Don’t stir up what’s best forgotten.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” I said truthfully.

His eyes behind the glasses were sharp, like his mind. “There were nursemaids and doctors and housekeepers and gardeners. They too held their tongues. One must ask why . . .”

And then we were moving down the drive, through the late Sussex afternoon, dust motes dancing in the sunbeams that picked out the meadows and stands of trees. Mr. Kipling had invited us to stay for dinner, but it had already been a long day for Melinda, and we had had to decline.

“I had no idea,” I said to Melinda in apology. “I would never have asked Mr. Kipling about coming to England as a child if I’d even dreamed he was—if such things had happened to him.”

She took my hand. “I shouldn’t worry, my dear. He knew that. We’ve been friends for many years, Joseph and I, and he’s never spoken to me about his childhood. I understand now why he wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.”

We were silent for a while as the motorcar reached the dusty main road and turned toward Kent.

After a time, Melinda said, “You’re thinking about that young Lieutenant Wade, aren’t you? What’s brought him to your attention after all this time?”

“I didn’t want my parents to know. You mustn’t tell them until we can be sure. But a dying Subedar from Agra told me he’d seen Lieutenant Wade in France. I believed him. He had no reason to lie, as far as I can judge. I’d been told very little about what had happened in 1908. I’ve only just discovered who his other victims, the Caswells, were, or that it was very likely that they’d taken in children like Mr. Kipling and his sister. I expect I’m trying to understand why anyone would kill five people, two of them his own parents. This was a man I knew. That my mother and father knew and trusted.”

“I read about the murders, of course. And the hunt for the Lieutenant. I keep up with any news of the regiment. It was in the London papers, but also in the Indian papers that are sent to me regularly. No motive was given for any of the murders, except perhaps that he’d killed his parents before the news of the Caswells’ deaths could reach India. They were shot in their sleep, as I recall. They must have died instantly. It would explain so much if what you suggest is true.”

It would. Drastic measures in the minds of most people. But for a man knowing that his time was short and that what he’d done would be catching up with him, and caring too much about how his parents would feel, shooting them in their sleep might have seemed to be a kindness.

Then why hadn’t we seen any tension or other signs of distress in Lieutenant Wade between the time he had returned from Agra and England and the time the Military Foot Police came looking for him?

On the other hand, perhaps he’d felt no distress. Perhaps he’d held his parents responsible for sending their children to England in the first place.

How cold-blooded. Or perhaps it was not even that, perhaps he knew that if he showed nothing, his chances of escape if he was caught out would be better.

And that’s precisely what had transpired.

Or appeared to have happened. Cold-blooded indeed.

I said, “Someone else appears to be worried about the past coming out. Someone who had nothing to do with the murders. But who stands to be caught in the publicity if there is a renewed interest in the Caswells?”

“Is that how Simon came to have his bruises?”

“I must presume so.”

“Then you’ve awakened a sleeping snake, my dear. And you and Simon must take great care. A cobra strikes before you know he’s there, curled up in the tangled roots of a banyan tree. Or lying quietly in the high grass before you come along and step on it. And then sadly it’s too late.”

It was a warning I took to heart.

I spent the night at Melinda’s comfortable house in Kent, and in the morning, after breakfast, Ram took me to Dover and waited until my ship arrived in port before leaving. It was kind of him.

Before I’d slept that night at Melinda’s, I found stationery and an envelope in the drawer of the desk in my room and wrote a long letter to Simon. I posted it in Dover before boarding. It would not have to pass through the hands of a censor, and so I could put on paper everything I’d learned.

I realized as I got out of the ambulance at the forward aid station where I was posted this time that we were all weary. Four years of war had taken its toll. The wounded men brought in to us, the staff, and the ambulance drivers, all were hollow-eyed. Even the vehicles were forever breaking down from overuse and from being maneuvered on what passed for roads, the ruts and ditches and pits sometimes covering half a mile in width. Tanks had been through one section, churning up the mud, and a caisson had bogged down in another stretch.

We saw quite a few Americans as they pushed hard to drive the Germans back. They reminded me of Captain Barclay, an American serving with a Canadian regiment. Polite but also very unreserved. These men called me Nurse rather than Sister, and one or two asked if I was engaged or was walking out with anyone. I told them that I was engaged to the Prince of Wales and he would clap them in the Tower if they didn’t do as they were told. They roared with laughter and took to calling me Your Royal Highness, much to the displeasure of Dr. Hilton, who thought them disrespectful in the extreme. But they also looked after their own and made no complaint when we had to cut a uniform off a shattered shoulder or a boot off a rotting foot. Many of them had never been more than a dozen miles from home before they enlisted—like so many British soldiers—and coming out of the ether they often called for their mothers.

And then the Yanks were gone and we were back to the Tommies, who demanded to know in mock seriousness if we’d given our hearts away to the enemy.

The next convoy I took to Britain came into Portsmouth in the middle of the night. I’d managed to find a telephone and called my parents to tell them I had no more than thirty-six hours of leave before sailing for France again, but that I was all right. The influenza epidemic of the spring had returned with a vengeance, just as predicted, and was more virulent than ever. Those who had escaped the first wave were falling ill now. Since I had survived the disease, and a very severe case at that, I had already been told I’d be returning to a base hospital to work with the latest victims. We had been warned that this was a deadlier strain, and there had been reports—none of which had been verified—that steam shovels had been brought in to some hospitals to dig mass graves. It had been good to hear my mother’s voice, and then my father’s, and be reassured that they were all right.