Death at Rottingdean (16 page)

“I am Professor Waldemar Hertling,” the man said. “Please do not allow me to detain you further.” And he bowed again, so smartly that Kate almost expected him to click his heels together.

“What an odd man,” Kate remarked, when they had driven on. “I don't think I've ever seen anyone like him before.”

“Well, I've seen
him
before,” Patrick said scornfully. “He comes around every few months, digging and poking and measuring in the oddest places.”

“I doubt he is much of an antiquarian,” Aunt Georgie declared. “Those four skeletons he mentioned—they were dug up some thirty years ago, and I'm sure he had nothing to do with the digging. Certainly it is no news to any of us who have lived in this area.”

“I wonder,” Kate said thoughtfully, “why he was asking about the coast guard.” She turned halfway around in the seat to speak to Patrick, who was sitting sideways in the cart. “You seemed to have been acquainted with Captain Smith. What kind of man was he?”

Patrick looked at her, and she saw the furrow between his eyes and heard the hesitation in his voice, as if he were choosing his words. “I only know what people have said of him, really. He came here just after I did—that would be three years ago. I don't think he was much liked in the village.”

“Why?”

Patrick shrugged. “He liked to have things his own way. I don't know much about it. He was above the other coast guards, though.”

“That's right,” Aunt Georgie said, using the brake to slow the cart's descent, so that it would not injure the pony. “The coast guard at Rottingdean is a captain. The coast guards of Black Rock and Saltdean take their orders from him.”

“And what do coast guards do, exactly?” Kate asked.

They had reached the steepest part of the hill, and Patrick jumped out of the cart and walked alongside. “They patrol the cliffs every night. The coast guard from Black Rock walks to the east and meets the Rottingdean captain at an appointed spot along the cliffs, and then walks back again. The captain walks to the east and meets the Saltdean coast guard and walks back again. That's their job—patrolling the coast. Each has a three-mile stretch, more or less.”

“But if there is no more smuggling,” Kate asked curiously, “why do they patrol? Are they supposed to watch for sailors in distress?”

Patrick gave a short, hard, curiously adult laugh. “No more smuggling?”

Feeling that they were close to getting somewhere at last, Kate was about to ask him what he meant. But just at that moment, they heard the blare of a motorcar horn behind them, and Aunt Georgie, making soothing noises, hastily guided the pony to the verge. It was Charles in the Panhard, with a portly, frock-coated man—Sir Robert Pinckney, the chief constable of Brighton, according to Aunt Georgie. Patrick ran to hold the pony's head and they waited until the motorcar had passed, Charles and his passenger waving at them. When Patrick climbed back into the cart, he seemed to have regretted his ironic remark, and Kate could get no more out of him.

Black Rock was a terrace of small villas facing the sea, one of them doing duty as a post office. Beyond the villas with their banked-up gardens was a prosperous-looking farm with a sign announcing that it was owned by Charles Cowley, and then Patrick pointed out the whitewashed, slate-roofed Black Rock Coast Guard Station. The station stood on the downs side of the road behind a hedge of tamarisk bushes, a flagstaff topped with the coast guard's white ensign set just inside the gate. On the worn stone doorstep, under a bower of late-blooming red roses, sat a forlorn boy of five or six, a twig broom beside him. His head was down, his shoulders sagging dejectedly. Two solicitous white geese stood guard beside him as if to ward off intruders, and a trio of white chickens were pecking at the dirt.

Aunt Georgie stopped the cart, took a cloth-covered basket from beneath the seat, and they all got out. Patrick stood by the pony's head while Kate and Aunt Georgie went up to the boy. The geese stretched out their necks, hissing, but Aunt Georgie ignored them.

“Is your mother at home, child?” she asked gently.

The boy lifted his tear-stained face. “In there, mum,” he said, jerking his head. “Me dad's bin drownded. She's cryin'.”

“Well, don't
you
cry,” Aunt Georgie commanded. “Your mother needs a man to help her about the house, my lad, and you must fill your father's shoes.”

“Fill me dad's shoes?” The boy's eyes widened. “Oh, no, mum. They're too big fer me. But I kin 'elp me mother.” And he jumped up and began to sweep the path, tears raining down his face.

Kate felt the unutterable pathos in the child's words and longed to comfort him. But she knew she could not. Only time would heal the loss of the father he had loved—and perhaps not even that. Perhaps he would carry the scar to his dying day.

The door was ajar, and they knocked and entered at a woman's bidding. After the brightness of sea and sky, the inside of the cottage was so dark that it was a moment before Kate could see. There appeared to be two rooms, side by side, with a third smaller one behind—a kitchen, perhaps, or a pantry—and a loft above. The brick-floored room into which they had entered was fitted with a small writing desk in the brightest corner, beside a casement window curtained in checked gingham, a paraffin lamp on a shelf above it. A cheaply framed print of the Queen and the Prince Consort hung on the wall, and a man's black oilskins hung from a peg beside it. A table and two benches were arranged in front of the fireplace, which held the cold ashes of a small fire. An earthenware teapot and three empty plates puddled with grease—the remains of breakfast—lay at one end of the table, and through the door into the other room, Kate could see a small child, a boy, asleep on a narrow cot, his blond hair rumpled, his thumb in his mouth. To one side of the fireplace, in a stuffed chair that was the only comfortable piece of furniture in the room, sat a woman in a dark woolen dress, a shawl drawn tightly around her. She looked up.

“Good morning, Mrs. Radford,” Aunt Georgie said cordially. “I am Lady Burne-Jones, and this is Lady Sheridan. We have come to offer our heartfelt condolences at the loss of your husband.” She put the basket on the table. “I have brought some elderberry wine, a kidney pie, and some jam puffs.”

“Thank 'ee,” the woman said, in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper. “Yer more'n kind, I'm sure, milady.” She was slight and very young, barely above twenty-one or -two, Kate thought, with chestnut hair pulled back severely from her child's face. She struggled to rise but could not, and was taken by a fit of coughing that shook her slender shoulders.

“Please, don't get up, Mrs. Radford,” Kate said. Impulsively, she went to the child-woman and knelt beside the chair. “We know this is a terrible time for you and your children. If there is any way that we can help, you must allow us to try.” But the words, so conventional, seemed paltry and thin to her own ears. Mere speech could not comfort a woman who had lost her husband in such a terrible way. Words could not recompense the children for the loss of their father, who would have guided them to manhood by his own manhood's example. Kate thought briefly of Charles, sorrowing for the son he would never have, and knew that the sorrow of these sons for their father must be equally sharp.

But Aunt Georgie was not at a loss for words. “Yes, my dear,” she said crisply. “As a member of the Rottingdean Parish Council, I speak for the entire parish when I say that we will be glad to offer you whatever assistance you may require. You shall have to leave this station, as it will be wanted for the man who will take your husband's place. But I shall see that housing is arranged in one of the village's poor-relief cottages for you and your children, and food and clothing provided as well. Of course the boys shall be put to school, and some sort of work shall be found for you. We have recently appointed a new group of Poor Law Overseers who are responsible for the village charities, and I can guarantee you that even though you may have no money, you will not go hungry nor homeless. Our village has a good heart, and is compassionate toward the needy.” She opened her purse and drew out a piece of paper and pencil, looking around the room as if she were assessing the condition and value of its furnishings. “Now, then. Shall we make a list of what you have and what you need so that I can report your requirements to the Overseers?”

Kate knew that these offers stemmed from Aunt Georgie's compassionate conviction that society should take care of those who could not care for themselves, and from her own sympathetic kindliness. But she couldn't help cringing at the older woman's tone, which to her ears sounded patronizing and disrespectful.

If Mrs. Radford was offended, however, she did not show it. She merely said, “Oh, ye're too kind, to be sure,” and even the quietly spoken words brought on another fit of coughing which quickly turned into weeping. Aunt Georgie, truly soft-hearted beneath her officious exterior, dropped her pencil and paper and gathered up the young woman into her arms with a murmured “There, there, now, my dear. Cry if you must.”

Kate took the teapot into the tiny but immaculate kitchen, which proved to contain a coal cooker with the remnants of a fire. She poked it until it blazed up, filled the kettle with water from a bucket on the wooden sink, and in a few minutes had produced a pot of fragrant tea.

A few moments after that, sipping her tea gratefully, Mrs. Radford was calm enough to say, with a quiet dignity, “I'm obliged to ye fer yer ‘elp, but me and the childern wudn't like to go on the poor-relief. Me brother is comin' t'morrer, to ‘elp me bury George, if they gives me 'is body back. Arterwards, he'll fetch us to Manchester, to live wi' me mum. I'll go out to char, and she'll look arter the boys.” She looked around at the dark room. “ ‘Tis a sad thing to leave this fine, big cottage and the garden and the chickens an' geese. The boys wuz ‘appy 'ere, in the clean air. ‘Tain't so clean in Manchester, and me mum's 'ouse is none so fine.” Her voice took on a firmer tone and she gave Aunt Georgie a sideways glance. “But the boys'll go to school. I'll make sure o' that.”

Kate drew one of the benches near Mrs. Radford's chair. “You and your family have lived here long?”

“Near on two years.” The young woman put up a hand and pushed an escaping tendril behind her ear. A tender look crossed her face. “George loved the sea—oh, 'ow 'e loved it. ‘E used to go over the road and stand on the cliff and watch the ships and the fog blowin' in across the water.” The tenderness turned to a sour indignation. “But 'e din't throw himself into it, as some in Rottingdean is tryin' to say.”

“Who has told you that he had?” Aunt Georgie asked in a sharp voice.

“Why, th' constable's bin 'ere, o'course,” Mrs. Radford said bleakly. “ 'E sez George flung hisself off the cliff and some'ow fell on ‘is blade afore 'e tumbled into the water, and that's wot killed ‘im. 'E wanted me to say that George was dark by nature, and giv'n to fits o' despair. But it's not true—that ‘e threw hisself off, I mean.” She took a deep breath, seeming stronger. “And 'e didn't stumble off drunk, neither. George wuz a good man ‘oo loved 'is babes and me. He wuz proud and honest in ‘is work as a coast guard, too—not like some 'oo cud be named. I won't 'ave it said otherwise!” The last was exclaimed with a painful bitterness, and followed by another violent fit of coughing.

“I shall speak to Constable Woodhouse,” Aunt Georgie said imperiously. “Whatever the fact of the matter, he had no business speaking to you in such a manner.”

Kate went quickly to the tiny kitchen to fetch a cup, poured it half full of the elderberry wine Aunt Georgie had brought, and put it to the young woman's lips. “Drink this,” she commanded. “It will ease the coughing.”

When Mrs. Radford was herself again, Kate took her seat again and asked, in an even, quiet voice, “Did your husband tell you that there were others who were not honest in their work as coast guards?”

Aunt Georgie drew in her breath sharply, but Mrs. Radford did not appear to notice. She had lifted her head and was gazing at Kate, her luminous dark eyes filled with something that might have been distress or fear or anger, or all three.

Kate met her gaze squarely and found something in it so compelling that she heard herself speaking before she had thought what to say. “Whatever you tell us, Mrs. Radford, will be entirely secure. We shan't say or do anything that could bring harm to you or the children—more harm than you have already innocently suffered, which is more than any should bear. But if you have any information, I shall ask my husband to use it to clear your husband's name of the charge of suicide. Lord Sheridan is skilled in criminal investigations and has connections at the highest levels of government. He will do what he can to see your husband exonerated.”

The moment the rash promise had flown out of her mouth Kate regretted it. What gave her the right to speak for Charles, or to encourage this poor woman to pin her hope to a truth that might prove false? She had no idea what a full and careful investigation might reveal. Charles might discover that George Radford had indeed been drawn into some sort of illegal activity and had been murdered by his criminal cohorts, or had done himself to death out of guilt and shame for his dishonorable deeds. For his grieving widow, outrage would be added to anguish, and she would be justified in thinking herself and her children betrayed by someone who had promised help and friendship.

The silence was suddenly broken by the raucous gabble of the geese. Then the doorway darkened and Kate felt, rather than saw, that Patrick had come to the door. But Mrs. Radford, whose eyes were fastened on Kate's face, seemed not to see that he was standing on the stone step. She must have read some reassurance there, for after a moment she gave a slight nod and stretched out her hand. Kate took it, feeling the fingers icy cold.