A Question of Honor (6 page)

We could hear Dolly Middleton calling from the dining room, and the Captain rose to escort me to the table, tacitly bringing the conversation to an end.

Over the meal, no mention was made of murder or the Lieutenant. Instead I told them about Captain Saunders, and Captain Middleton shook his head.

“We’ve lost so many of the officers and men we knew,” he said, sadness in his voice. “War’s a terrible thing. It’s been my profession since I was a lad, being a soldier. But watching the young ones die is hard.”

Mrs. Middleton changed the subject, and we enjoyed our lunch. I was sorry to leave them, but I had a long drive back to Somerset and I needed to start out as soon as possible. They offered to put me up for the night, which was kind of them, but I knew the roads I’d be driving as I neared home, even though it would be well after dark by then. And so I thanked them for their hospitality and their offer, and set out.

With me I carried the scent of Captain Middleton’s pipe tobacco and the disturbing thought he’d left with me. That one of our own had killed before, and might well kill again.

Thinking about what might drive such a man to murder, I drew a blank.

That was when I decided to go to Petersfield myself and see what I could learn that would explain his conduct.

How had he managed to conceal his deeds from us? From my mother and from me, and most of all from Simon and my father?

Was it a cold-bloodedness that he kept so well hidden we had no inkling it was there? Or something else none of us had ever fathomed?

Driving along in the gathering dark, I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the balmy night air.

I was glad to pull up in the drive and leave my motorcar where it was, hurrying into the lighted hall and hearing Iris’s voice calling, as she came out of the kitchen passage, “Oh, Miss, is it you? And have you had your dinner?” And then as she reached me, she frowned. “You look unhappy, Miss. Is anything wrong?”

I couldn’t tell her how sane and safe the lighted hall seemed, and how familiar and comforting her plain, concerned face was.

“I’m a little tired, that’s all. I think I’ll have a little soup or a sandwich, then go up to bed.”

“Yes, Miss, and Cook has set aside a nice chop for your dinner. You’ll come and eat it, won’t you, and make her happy?”

And so I did, putting aside everything else that was on my mind.

Chapter Six

T
he next morning I was walking out to my motorcar—still sitting just where I’d left it last night—and there was Simon leaning against the nearside wing.

He hadn’t come to the house for breakfast. And I couldn’t read his face as he watched me approach.

“You didn’t tell me you’d come home. I could have met you in London.”

“I didn’t know just when I’d be arriving. There was no point in keeping you standing around the railway station. They sent me home with another convoy of wounded. It was unexpected—and I was very tired. Amputees.” It was the truth, every bit of it, but I felt guilty, as if I’d lied to him. But he knew something about amputees. He’d nearly lost his own arm.

When he said nothing, I added, “I went to the cottage yesterday morning. You weren’t there.”

“No.” He considered me for a moment. Then he asked, “The motorcar performing well enough? It’s been sitting for some time. I hadn’t got around to giving it a run for several weeks.”

“It ran beautifully. Thank you.” I stood by the driver’s door, uncertain what to say next. “I went back to call on the Middletons, yesterday. I stayed for lunch. And so I was late coming home. That’s why I didn’t return the motorcar to the shed.”

I felt myself slowly flushing.

After a space he said, “You could have asked me, Bess. Rather than speak to the Middletons.”

Exasperated suddenly, I reminded him, “You weren’t here. Simon, I went to the cottage. You could have been away. For a few hours, for a week. And I have only five days. Didn’t you go to the Captain’s funeral service with my parents? I thought you might have done.”

He straightened. “I was called to London. I just got in.”

“Then you’ve no right to interrogate me, as if I were a German prisoner,” I retorted.

Simon smiled then.

Coming around to open my door for me, he asked, “What did the Middletons tell you?”

“In fact they knew very little more than we’d learned on our last visit. They did tell me the three murders took place in Petersfield. In Hampshire.”

“And that’s where you’re intending to go now?”

I lifted my chin. “Yes, of course.”

“All right. Let me drive. I haven’t been there myself.”

And that surprised me. So I got out of the motorcar, went round to the other side, and got in there, leaving him to turn the crank.

We set out, leaving the village by the road to the south. He said nothing for a time. Finally he asked, “Have you seen this man again? The one who might be Wade?”

“I have not. I expect I’ve been trying to understand, that’s all. Why someone I thought I knew well was very different from my experiences with him.”

“We’ve all asked ourselves the same question.”

“And yet no one pursued it.”

“We pursued him. And were told he was dead. There was no need for your father to travel to England to go into the matter. He was needed there at the time.”

“Yes, I expect you’re right.” I fell silent, thinking it through. “I was shocked when the Subedar told me who he’d seen. I would probably have left it there if I hadn’t seen the man for myself. Or believed I did. We could both have been wrong, you know. Still, I remember my father’s face when he got the news. I remember how
everyone
felt, even though I didn’t know about the other murders. If we did see the Lieutenant in France, then I want to get to the bottom of it for the Colonel Sahib’s sake. I think what bothers me most is that we assumed, the entire regiment, that Lieutenant Wade was dead. If he’s escaped justice, then my father will feel responsible. He called off the search, you see.” I smoothed the fingers of my driving gloves, not looking at Simon. It was the first time I’d really put my feelings into words. Even to myself. “I don’t want him blamed. I don’t want him to feel he should have done more. Because I don’t think he could have done.”

“Then you’re going the wrong way about it. You’re bringing it all back again. For all of us.”

“No, I’m trying to lay the Subedar’s words to rest. There must be someone out there in France who bears a resemblance to Wade. If it isn’t Wade—then he’s dead, his bones already dust in the Khyber Pass. Where they ought to be.”

Simon turned to look at me. “Then why are you going to Petersfield?”

I gave that some thought. “I want to know something. Did Lieutenant Wade go to the Khyber Pass hoping to make it to the other side and then cross first Afghanistan and then Persia and even Turkey? To escape? Or did he go to the Pass knowing it would be a better death than hanging?”

It was Simon’s turn to be silent. “A very interesting point. He knew enough of the languages of the Frontier. He might have passed himself off as a native. But it would have been an odyssey, that crossing. I don’t know many men with the fortitude even to try.”

“We aren’t the only ones who served in India with Lieutenant Wade. If the Subedar recognized him, if I did, then someone else will eventually. What happens then?”

“We must hope it doesn’t.”

“If we can find out why he killed the family in Petersfield, we just might learn why he killed his parents. Did he do it to keep them from learning what he’d done, what he’d become—what was surely going to catch up with him in the end? If that’s true, then he died out there in the Pass. And whoever we think we’ve seen in France, the Subedar and I, it’s been ten years.”

“You’re very persuasive.”

“I’m just trying to explain all this to myself. And why it has disturbed me so much.”

He reached out and touched my hand for a moment, then concentrated on his driving as we came into another busy town, motorcars and carts and wagons filling the street, and villagers crossing haphazardly from one side of the road to the other.

We paused for lunch along the way, then arrived in Petersfield just as the market was closing. The square in front of St. Peter’s Church was filled with stalls and barrows and tables offering everything from sausages and cheese and bread to cloth and dried flowers and secondhand goods. In the shadow cast by the equestrian statue of William III, a man had a litter of puppies tumbling over themselves in a box, the mother watching anxiously beside it. Fat tummies and flailing tails and overlarge feet waiting to be grown into. I stopped to watch them while Simon made inquiries at the next stall.

“You’ll like one to take home,” the man said, smiling at me. “Which one catches your fancy, Sister? The little brown and tan? The one with the white face? Or the little ’un with the white paws?”

I could have taken every one of them, but I thanked him and moved on as I saw Simon signal me to follow him.

“The house we’re after is outside the town. Not far, I’m told.”

“How on earth did you elicit that bit of information?” I asked.

“Deviously,” he replied, and we went back to the motorcar.

We drove past the market and a black and white Tudor inn, then followed the road to the outskirts of town, where we quickly picked up a low stone wall that led to gates into an overgrown park.

“This is the house?” I asked, surprised.

“It’s on the market. Has been since 1914 when the previous owner died. His nephew is selling up.”

“But how did you know?”

Simon grinned suddenly. “The old man selling brooms and patching pots and pans was garrulous. It didn’t take me long to find out what I needed to know.”

I was reminded again that Simon was a master at interrogating prisoners and suspicious camp followers. We’d had enough of them in India, from musicians to traveling buyers and sellers of every imaginable goods, from mendicants and holy men to beggars and thieves, scoundrels and snake charmers.

We left the motorcar by the gates and walked up the drive to the house. It was in a better state of repair than I’d expected, given the overgrown park.

“I think,” I said warily, “someone must be living here now.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised.”

The house was foursquare with smaller wings set back on either side. The center block was early Georgian, I thought, while the wings had been added later.

We were about to turn and leave when a woman came to the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked, peering out at us. “Are you the couple the estate agent was sending out? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“We were driving past and stopped to have a look,” Simon said. “Before speaking to the estate agent.”

“I don’t know if that’s quite proper,” she said, wringing her hands. “We asked not to have strangers coming by. The estate agent agreed.”

“Then we’ll be on our way,” Simon told her, taking my arm.

She stopped us, asking anxiously, “Were you really interested in the house? I’ll take your name, if you like. And give it to the owner.”

Then she wasn’t the wife of the owner. I’d thought she looked more like a housekeeper, but she was wearing a dark lavender dress, not the usual black.

As if she’d heard the thought, she said, “I’m housekeeper to my cousin.”

“We have several other properties to look at,” Simon told her. “We’ll ask the estate agent to contact you if we decide to return.”

Her expression was apprehensive, as if she was of two minds, letting us have a look around in case we were serious buyers, and keeping to the rules. But in the end, she nodded and closed the door.

We walked back up the drive and had nearly reached the gates when a man came striding up the road from Petersfield.

He was wearing the uniform of a chaplain, and one arm was in a sling.

“We don’t care for trespassers,” he said sternly when he was close enough not to be shouting.

“We weren’t trespassing.” Simon held his ground.

“We’ve had enough of curiosity seekers. I thought it had stopped. It drove my uncle mad, made his last days unbearable. Ever since that article in the Sunday papers.”

“I’ve been out of the country,” Simon replied easily. “I haven’t seen an article about the house.”

“Then why are you here? The property isn’t listed locally. I was quite firm about that.” He paused. “You aren’t Mr. and Mrs. Davies, are you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Simon had his hand on my elbow and ushered me through the gates to the motorcar. The chaplain stared us off the property and watched to see that we did indeed go away.

He was still watching as we reversed and headed back to Petersfield.

“A warm welcome,” I said. “But what article, Simon?”

“From time to time when there isn’t any other news, London editors dig up sensational crimes. It sells papers.”

We drove back to Petersfield and found the marketplace nearly empty, the stalls and carts and barrows all but gone.

“Let’s go into the churchyard,” I suggested, and we left the motorcar by the shops. It was only a short walk up to St. Peter’s.

The handsome old church was not facing the square but set sideways to it. We made our way around to the west door and from there we went in different directions. I found myself near the enclosing outer wall and saw to my left a small plot with three stones on it. I glanced down at the names and dates, then called quietly to Simon, who was bending over to look at a stone in another part of the churchyard.

“Come see this.”

He joined me, then whistled under his breath.

There it was. The graves of Lieutenant Wade’s first victims.

It had to be. The year was right, 1908, and the dates matched as well.

Harvey Caswell, his wife, Isabella, and their daughter, Gwendolyn. They had died on the same day.

I looked again at the dates.

“But I thought she was a child, Simon. Everyone said, ‘Mother, father, and daughter.’ She was nineteen.”

“That’s right.” He did the sums in his head. “Her parents were fifty and fifty-two.”

I heard the sound of the heavy church door closing as a man stepped out. He started toward the square, saw us in the churchyard, and halted. Then he came our way. I don’t know why, but I had a feeling he was the rector, or failing that either a church warden or someone else in authority. His expression was rather cold, and my first thought was,
He knows which graves these are.

“Can I be of assistance?” he asked.

“Are you the rector?” It was Simon who put the question, before I could speak.

“The sexton,” the man replied.

“We had just happened to noticed that three members of this family—the Caswells—died on the same day,” I said.

The sexton frowned. “It was cholera, I believe,” he said shortly, as if used to prying questions. “Are you looking for a member of your own family? There are records in the church, I can help you find their graves.”

He was urging us away from this particular plot.

“We were passing the time until tea, wandering here,” I said. “It’s a lovely church.”

“Then you must look inside. I recommend it.”

There was nothing to do but follow him to the church and go inside. He held the door for us, and busied himself at a table, straightening up the literature there while we looked around. It was indeed a handsome church with a beautiful old wooden ceiling. We walked down toward the altar and then turned.

The sexton waited for us, and accompanied us to the square. I had the feeling that he was shepherding us, even though he was giving us information about the church as we went. Once he was certain we were heading for my motorcar, he bade us farewell, and then stood watching us until I got in and Simon went to turn the crank.

He was still there, in front of the gates, when we drove away.

We decided to stop for tea in the pretty inn just off the square. I was grateful for the quiet table Simon commanded that overlooked the road. There was a small group in the lounge that came through shortly after we’d sat down, choosing a table nearer the cold hearth. It was clear they knew one another, and I thought they must have met up in the square during market day, for I heard them catching up on family news as they sat down. Someone’s daughter was to be married soon, and that occupied much of their conversation.

Our tea had just arrived, along with a dish of thin sandwiches made with the bread I’d just seen in a stall in the square—a lovely farm loaf—when the door opened and the chaplain we’d seen earlier as we’d left what must have been the Caswells’ house at one time came into the room from the street.