No Graves As Yet (39 page)

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” Perth said grimly. “Oi understand Mr. Allard is here.”

Morel turned just as Elwyn came up behind him.

“What is it?” Elwyn asked, glancing from Perth to Joseph and back again. If he was afraid, there was no sign of it in his face.

Joseph spoke before Perth could answer. “I think it would be a good idea if you were to come to the police station in town, Elwyn. There are a few questions you may be able to answer, and it would be better there.”

Perth glanced at him, a flicker of annoyance across his face, but he conceded.

“If you want,” Elwyn agreed, the tension greater in him now, too.

Morel looked at him, then at Joseph. Finally he turned to Elwyn. “Do you want me to come?”

“No, thank you, sir,” Perth cut him off. “This is a family matter.” He stepped back to block the stairway door. “This way, sir,” he directed Elwyn.

“What is it?” Elwyn asked halfway down the steps.

Perth did not answer until they had reached the bottom and were outside in the quad.

“Oi’m taking you in for questioning, sir, regardin’ the death o’ Dr. Beecher. Oi thought it easier for you if Mr. Morel didn’t have to know that at this point. If you give me your word to come without making a fuss, there’ll be no need for ’andcuffs or anything like that.”

Elwyn went white. “H-Handcuffs!” he stammered. He turned to Joseph.

“If you wish me to come with you, then of course I will,” Joseph offered. “Or if you prefer me to contact your parents, or a lawyer, then I’ll do that first.”

“I . . .” Elwyn looked lost, stunned, as if he had never considered the possibility of this happening. He shook his head, bewildered.

“Mr. Allard’s an adult, Reverend,” Perth said coldly. “If he wants a lawyer, then o’ course he can have one, but he don’t need his parents, nor you. An’ strictly speaking, sir, this in’t your concern. We’re grateful for your help an’ all you’ve done, but Mr. Allard ain’t going to give no trouble, so you could stay here at St. John’s. Mebbe you’d be more use if you told the master what’s happened, an’ sent for Mr. an’ Mrs. Allard.”

“Mrs. Thyer will already have done that,” Joseph pointed out, and saw the flash of annoyance on Perth’s face as he realized. “I’ll come with Elwyn, unless he would rather I didn’t.”

Elwyn hesitated, and it was that instant of indecision which made Joseph certain that he was guilty. He was frightened and confused, but he was not outraged.

Perth gave in, and they walked together into the shadow of the front gate, and out into the street on the far side.

At the police station it was a formal matter of charging Elwyn with the murder of Harry Beecher, to which he pleaded not guilty. On Joseph’s advice, he refused to say anything further until he had a lawyer with him.

Gerald and Mary Allard arrived at St. John’s an hour after Joseph returned. Mary was beside herself, her face contorted with fury. The moment Joseph walked into the sitting room at the master’s lodgings, she swung around from Aidan Thyer, to whom she had been speaking, and glared at Joseph. Her thin body looked positively gaunt in its tight black silk, like a winter crow.

“This is monstrous!” she said, her voice strident. “Elwyn couldn’t possibly have killed that wretched man! For heaven’s sake, Beecher murdered Sebastian! When he knew you were closing in on him, he took his own life. Everybody knows that. Let Elwyn go immediately—with an apology for this idiotic mistake. Now!”

Joseph stood still. What could he tell her? One of her sons was dead and the other guilty of murder, even if he had done it in mistaken revenge.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her—and he meant it profoundly, with a pain that throbbed inside him. “But they have proof.”

“Nonsense!” she spat. “It is totally absurd. Gerald!”

Gerald came to stand almost level with her. He looked wretched; his skin was pale and blotchy and his eyes blurred. “Really, for God’s sake, what is going on?” he demanded. “Beecher killed my son and now you have arrested my other son when quite obviously Beecher took his own life.” He put out a hand tentatively as if to touch Mary, but she pulled away from him.

“No,” Joseph said as gently as he could. He could not like Gerald, but he was fiercely sorry for him. “Beecher did not kill Sebastian. He was seen elsewhere at the time.”

“You are lying!” Mary accused him furiously. Her face was ashen, with scarlet splashes on her cheeks. “Beecher was your friend, and you are lying to protect him. Who on earth would see Beecher anywhere at five o’clock in the morning? Unless he was in bed with somebody? And if he was, then she is a whore, and her word is worth nothing!”

“Mary . . . ,” Gerald began, then faltered under her withering glance.

“He was out walking,” Joseph replied. “And the gun that killed Sebastian was hidden where only a limited number of people could have placed it or retrieved it.”

“Beecher!” Mary said with scalding triumph. “Naturally! It is the only answer that makes sense.”

“No,” Joseph told her. “He might have been able to hide it there, but he could not have retrieved it. Elwyn could have.”

“It’s still ridiculous,” she asserted, her whole body so tense she was shuddering. “If he had known where it was, he would have told the police! It might have led to the arrest of whoever killed Sebastian. Or are you insane enough to believe he did that, too?”

“No. I know he didn’t. I don’t know who did,” he admitted. “And I believe that Elwyn sincerely thought it was Beecher and that the law could not touch him.”

“Then he was justified!” she said savagely. “He killed a murderer!”

“He killed someone he thought was a murderer,” Joseph corrected. “And he was mistaken.”

“You’re wrong,” she insisted, but she turned away from him. Her voice rose, shrill with desperation, as if the world no longer made sense. “Beecher must have done it! Elwyn is morally innocent of any crime, and I shall see to it that he doesn’t suffer.”

Joseph looked past her at Aidan Thyer, and again the darkness filled his mind that it could have been he who was behind the document, and perhaps Sebastian’s death. He looked pale and tired today, the lines in his face deeper. Did he know about Connie and Beecher? Had he always known? Joseph stared at him, searching, but there was nothing in Thyer’s eyes to betray him.

“Dr. Reavley?” Gerald said tentatively. “Would you . . . would you do what you can for Elwyn? I mean, I wish he would . . . you are a person of standing here . . . the police will . . .” He floundered helplessly.

“Yes, of course I will,” Joseph agreed. “Do you have legal representation in Cambridge?”

“Oh, yes . . . I meant as a . . . I don’t know . . . as a friend . . .”

“Yes. If you wish, I’ll go right away.”

“Yes . . . please do. I’ll stay here with my wife.”

“I’m going to Elwyn!” Mary shouted at him.

“No, you are not,” Gerald answered, unusually firmly for him. “You are staying here.”

“I . . .” she began.

“You are staying here,” he repeated, catching hold of her arm as she lunged forward, and bringing her to a stop. “You have done enough harm already.”

She swiveled around and gaped at him in stupefaction, fury and pain struggling in her face. But she did not argue.

Joseph bade goodbye to them and went out again.

Perth placed no barrier to Joseph seeing Elwyn alone in the police cell. It was late afternoon, and the shadows were lengthening. The room smelled stale, of old fears and miseries.

Elwyn sat on one of the two wooden chairs and Joseph on the other, a bare, scarred table between them.

“Is Mother all right?” Elwyn asked as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. He was very pale, and the shadows around his eyes looked like bruises.

“She is very angry,” Joseph replied truthfully. “She found it hard to accept that you could be guilty of Beecher’s death, but when she could no longer avoid it, she believed that you had just cause and were morally innocent.”

The rigidity eased out of Elwyn’s shoulders. His skin looked oddly dead, as if it would be cold to touch.

“Your father will engage a lawyer for you,” Joseph went on. “But is there anything I can do, as a friend?”

Elwyn looked down at his hands on the table. “Look after Mother as much as you can,” he answered. “She cares so much. You wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t seen Aunt Aline. She is Mother’s older sister. She always does everything right, and first. And she boasts about it all the time. Her sons win everything, and she makes us feel as if we’ll never be as clever or as important. I think she’s always been like that. She made it . . .” He stopped suddenly, realizing it was all pointless now. He drew in his breath. And went on more quietly. “You cared about Sebastian; you saw the best in him. Go on caring, and don’t let them say he was a coward.” He looked up quickly, searching Joseph’s face.

“I’ve never heard anyone say he was a coward,” Joseph replied. “No one has even suggested it. He was arrogant and at times manipulative. He enjoyed the power his charm gave him. But I think, in time, even that will be forgotten, and people will choose to remember only what was good.”

Elwyn nodded briefly and brushed his hand across his face. He looked desperately weary.

Joseph ached with pity for him. Too much had been asked of him, far too much. His brother had been idolized, and Mary, in her grief, had expected Elwyn to ignore his own pain and carry hers for her, defend her from the truth and bear the weight of her emotions. And as far as Joseph knew, she had given him nothing back, not even her gratitude or her approval. Only now, when it was far too late, did she consider him and prepare to defend him. In a way it was her passion that had driven Elwyn to seek such a terrible revenge—as it turned out, a mistaken one.

The truth was still to be found. Someone else had put the gun in the drainpipe after killing Sebastian, someone with access to the master’s lodgings. Connie, in order to protect her reputation and thus all her marriage gave her? Or Aidan Thyer, because it was he whom Sebastian had seen on the Hauxton Road when the Lanchester crashed? Perhaps this was the last chance for Joseph to ask, and the moment when Elwyn had nothing left to lose and would tell him if he knew.

“Elwyn . . . ?”

Elwyn moved slightly in acknowledgment, but he did not look up.

“Elwyn, how did you find the gun?”

“What? Oh . . . I saw it.”

“Out of the upstairs window?”

“Yes. Why? What does it matter now?”

“It matters to me. Dr. Beecher didn’t put it there, did he? Was it Mr. Thyer—or Mrs. Thyer? Did you see?”

Joseph waited. It seemed almost a battle of wills.

“Yes, I did,” Elwyn said at last. “It
was
Dr. Beecher.”

“Then he did it for someone else,” Joseph told him, knowing the blow he was dealing him, but it was a truth he could not hide forever. “Dr. Beecher did not kill Sebastian. He couldn’t have. He was somewhere else, and he has a witness to prove it.”

Elwyn’s body was rigid, his eyes hollow, almost black in the fading light of the room. “Somewhere else?” he whispered in horror—but it was not disbelief. Joseph saw it in him the moment before he tried to mask it, and for an instant they saw in each other that terrible understanding that can never be taken back.

Then Joseph looked away, the knowledge burned into him. Elwyn had known Beecher had not killed Sebastian! Then why had he shot Beecher? To protect whom? Not Connie. Aidan Thyer? Had Sebastian seen Thyer on the Hauxton Road and told Elwyn before he was killed? Was that why Elwyn would not speak, even now? Was it even conceivable that he had killed Beecher on Thyer’s orders, rather than be killed himself? The thoughts whirled in Joseph’s mind like leaves in a storm—chaotic, battering. Was this all part of the plot John Reavley had discovered in Reisenburg’s document? And was it going to cost Elwyn Allard his life as well?

He closed his eyes. “I’ll help you if I can, Elwyn,” he said softly. “But so help me God, I don’t know how!”

“You can’t,” Elwyn whispered, covering his face with his hands. “It’s too late.”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Joseph woke up late on Sunday morning, his mind still consumed with Elwyn’s last words to him and with the picture of the young man’s utter despair. And yet Elwyn was determined to hide some secret of Sebastian’s death, even at this cost. Joseph had turned it over and over in his wakeful hours, grasping and losing, finding nothing that made sense.

It was the second of August, and he still did not know who had killed his parents, what the document was, or what had happened to it. He had tried, and every answer had evaporated the moment he framed it. But John and Alys Reavley were dead, and so were Sebastian Allard, the German Reisenburg, and now Harry Beecher. And poor Elwyn might well be, when the fullness of the law had run its course. Joseph knew of no way to help any of it.

Tomorrow was a bank holiday; he should go back to St. Giles and spend it with Judith. He had been too overwhelmed in the last few days even to write to her, or to Hannah.

He got up slowly, shaved, and dressed, but he did not go down to the dining hall for breakfast. He was not hungry, and certainly he did not want to face Moulton or any other of his colleagues. He was not going to explain about Elwyn or discuss the matter. It was a consuming tragedy, but it was a private one. The Allards had more than enough to bear without the added scourge of other people’s speculation.

He spent the morning tidying up various books and papers, then writing a long letter to Hannah, which he knew said little of any meaning—it was simply a way of keeping in touch. He went to the eleven o’clock service in the chapel, and found it washed over him without giving him any of the deep comfort he needed. But he had not honestly expected that it would. Perhaps he knew the words so well that he no longer heard them. Even the perfection of the music seemed irrelevant to the world of everyday life, the disillusion and all the loss he knew of around him.

He saw Connie Thyer briefly in the afternoon, but she had only a few minutes to talk. Again she was overtaken by the growing hysteria of Mary Allard and the futility of attempting to help, and yet she was obliged by circumstances and her own sense of pity to try.

Joseph walked out of the front gate and ambled aimlessly along the nearly deserted streets of the town. All the shops were closed in Sabbath decency. The few people he saw were soberly dressed and merely nodded to him respectfully as they passed.

Without intending to, he found himself on Jesus Lane, and instinctively turned right down Emmanuel Road. He strolled past Christ’s Pieces and eventually across St. Andrews Street, along to Downing Street toward Corpus Christi and the river again.

He was not really thinking so much as letting things run through his mind. It was still teeming with questions, and he had no idea where to find a thread to begin untangling even one answer. Perhaps it began with who had killed Sebastian, and why.

The longest day of summer was well past, and by half past six he was tired and thirsty, and the sun was lowering in the west. Maybe he had come to the pub near the millpond intentionally, even if it had not been consciously in his mind. He would be able to sit down here and have supper and a long, cool drink. In time he could make the opportunity to talk with Flora Whickham again. If Sebastian had known anything about the crash of the Lanchester, then she would be the one person he might have told, other than Elwyn, and there was no chance that Joseph could draw it out of him. He was locked inside his own misery and grief, and perhaps fear as well. If he held that lethal knowledge, it could be the catalyst for his own death if he spoke it aloud to anyone. And why should he trust Joseph? So far he had succeeded in nothing except proving that Beecher did not kill Sebastian or take his own life.

The pub was quiet—a few older men sitting over pints of ale, faces grim, voices subdued. The landlord moved among them quietly, filling tankards, wiping tables. Even for Flora there were no jokes.

Joseph had cold game pie with fresh tomatoes, pickles, and vegetables, then raspberries and clotted cream. The other tables were empty and the air was already hazed with gold when at last he was able to gain Flora’s attention undivided. It was deserted now, and the landlord granted her an early evening.

She seemed quite willing to walk along the Backs under the trees in the fading light. There was no one on the river, at least on this stretch, and the leaves flickered in the barest breeze. One minute they were green and shadowed, the next opaque gold. There was little sound but a whispering of the wind, no voices, no laughter.

“Is it true that Sebastian’s brother killed Dr. Beecher?” Flora asked him.

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“In revenge over Sebastian?”

“No. Dr. Beecher didn’t kill Sebastian, and Elwyn knew that.”

She frowned, the golden light making her hair a halo around her troubled face. “Then why?” she asked. “He loved Sebastian, you know.” She shook her head a little. “He din’t hero-worship him; he knew his faults, even though he didn’t understand him much. They was a lot different.” She stared ahead of her at the light across the smooth sweep of the grass, the tiny motes of dust swirling in the air, the sun gilding the flat surface of the water. “If there’s going to be a war, an’ it seems loike from what people say that there is, then Elwyn would have gone to fight. He would have thought it was his duty an’ honor. But Sebastian would have done anything on earth to prevent it.”

“Did Elwyn know that?”

“Oi think so.” She waited a moment or two before she continued. “He din’t understand how much Sebastian cared, though. No one else did.”

“Not even Miss Coopersmith?” he asked gently. He did not know if Flora knew of her, but even if she had not, she surely never hoped for more from Sebastian than friendship, at the very most. The least would have been something grubbier and far less worthy.

“Oi think she knew something,” she said, looking away from him. “But it made her feel bad. She come to me after his death. She wanted me to say nothing, to save his good name, an’ Oi suppose his family from bein’ hurt.” Her mouth pulled a little at the corners, her face soft with pity. “He din’t love her, an’ she knew it. She thought he moight come to in time. Oi can’t think how awful that must be. But she still wanted to protect him.”

Joseph tried to imagine the same scene, the proud, almost plain Regina in her elegant mourning black, facing the barmaid with the oval face and the shining, almost pre-Raphaelite hair and asking her to keep silent over her friendship with Sebastian, to save his reputation. And perhaps something to salvage a little of her public pride, if not privately, to know he had preferred Flora as a confidante.

“Did he care about it so much?” he asked aloud, remembering his own conversation with Sebastian, only a few yards from here. It had been intense, there would be no question of that, but was it fears and dreams or a will to do anything? Flora had spoken of doing. “Was it really more than words?”

She stared at the grass in the fading light, and her voice was very low. “It were a passion in him,” she said. “In the end it were the most important thing in his loife . . . keep the peace, look after all this beauty what’s come to us from the past. He was terrified o’ war—not just the foighting an’ bombing.” She lifted her head a little and gazed across the shining river at the towers of the intricate, immeasurably lovely buildings and the limpid sky beyond. “The power to break an’ smash an’ burn, but the killing o’ the spirit most o’ all. When we’ve broke civilization, what have we got left inside us? The strength an’ the dreams to start over again? No, we haven’t. In smashing up all we got left o’ what’s wise, an’ lovely, an’ speaks to what’s holy inside us, we break ourselves, too. We get to be savages, but without the excuses that savages have for it.”

He heard Sebastian’s words echoed in hers, exactly as if it had been he again, walking silent-footed in this exquisite evening.

She turned to face him. “Do you understand?” she said urgently. It seemed to matter to her that he did.

For that reason he needed to answer her honestly. “That depends upon what you are prepared to do to avoid war.”

“Does it?” she demanded. “Ain’t it worth anything at all?”

“Did Sebastian think so?”

“Yes! Oi . . .” She seemed troubled, looking away from him. “What d’you mean, it depends? What could be worse’n that? He told me about some of the things in the Boer War.” She shuddered almost convulsively, hugging her arms around herself. “The concentration camps, what happened to some o’ the women an’ children,” she said in a whisper. “If you do that to people, what is there left for you when you come home, even if you won?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, finding himself cold as well. “But I’ve come to the point where I can’t believe that appeasement is the answer. Few sane people want to fight, but perhaps we have to.”

“Oi think mebbe that was what scared him.” She stood still on the grass. They were opposite Trinity; St. John’s was dark against the sunset, and there was only a tiny sliver of light on the water under the bridge. “He was terrible upset over something the last few days. He couldn’t sleep; Oi think he was afraid to. It was as if he had a pain inside him that were so deep he weren’t never free of it. After that shooting in Serbia ’e were so close to despair that Oi was scared for him . . . Oi mean real scared! It was as if for ’im there were nothing out there but darkness. Oi tried to comfort him, but Oi din’t manage.” She looked back at Joseph, her eyes full of grief. “Is it a wicked thing to say . . . sometimes Oi’m almost glad he din’t live to see this . . . ’cos we’re going to war, aren’t we? All of us.”

“I think so,” he said quietly. It seemed a ridiculous conversation with the tremendous sunset dying on the horizon, the evening air full of the perfume of grass, no sound but the murmur of leaves and a whirl of starlings thrown up against the translucent blue of the sky. Surely this was the very soul of peace, generations mounting to this pinnacle of civilization. How could it ever be broken?

“He tried so hard!” There were tears of anger and pity in her voice. “He belonged to a very big sort o’ club fighting for peace, all over the world. An’ he would have done anything for ’em.”

Something tugged at his mind. “Oh? Who were they?”

She shook her head quickly. “Oi dunno. He wouldn’t tell me. But they had big ideas he was terribly excited about, that would stop the war that’s coming now.” She knotted her hands together, her head bowed. “Oi’m glad he din’t have to see this! His dreams was so big, an’ so good, he couldn’t bear seeing ’em come to nothing. He went almost mad just thinking o’ it, before they killed him. Oi’ve thought sometimes if that was why they did it.” She looked up and searched Joseph’s face. “Do you think there’s anyone so wicked they’d want war enough to kill him in case he stopped it?”

He did not answer. His voice was trapped inside him, his chest so tight it filled him with pain. Was that the plot his father had stumbled on? Had Sebastian known about it all the time? What price was it they were prepared to pay for a peace that John Reavley had believed would ruin England’s honor?

Flora was walking again, down over the slope of the grass toward the river, perhaps because the light was fading so rapidly she needed to be away from the trees to see where she was going. She belonged in the landscape, her blemishless skin like gold in the last echoes of the light, her hair an aureole around her head.

He caught up with her. “I’ll walk back with you,” he offered.

She smiled and shook her head. “It ain’t late. If Oi can’t go through the college, Oi’ll walk along the street. But thank you.”

He did not argue. He must see Elwyn. He was the only one who could answer the questions that burned in his mind, and there was no time to wait. The darkness was not only in the sky and the air, but in the heart as well.

He did not go back to St. John’s but cut across the nearest bridge back through Trinity to the street again, and walked as fast as he could toward the police station. His mind was still whirling, his thoughts chaotic, the same questions beating insistently, demanding answers.

He had to see Elwyn, whomever he had to waken, whatever reason or excuse he had to give.

The streets were deserted, the lamps like uncertain moons shedding a yellow glare on the paving stones. His footsteps sounded hollow, rapid, slipping a little now and then.

He reached the police station and saw the lights were on. Good. There were people, perhaps still working. The doors were unlocked, and he went straight in. There was a man at the desk, but Joseph ignored him, hearing the voice calling after him as he strode into the room beyond, where Perth was remonstrating with Gerald and Mary Allard and a man in a dark suit who was presumably their solicitor.

They turned as Joseph came in. Perth looked harassed and so tired that his eyes were red-rimmed. “Reverend—” he started.

“I need to speak to Elwyn,” Joseph said, hearing a thread of desperation in his voice. If the solicitor got to him first, then he might never hear the truth.

“You can’t!” Mary refused savagely. “I forbid it. You have brought nothing but ill to my family, and—”

Joseph turned to Perth. “I think he may know something about Sebastian’s death. Please! It matters very much!”

They stared at him. There was no yielding in Mary’s face, and the solicitor moved half a step closer to her, as if in support. Gerald remained motionless.

“I think Sebastian knew about the death of my parents!” Joseph said, panic coursing through him, threatening to slip out of control. “Please!”

Perth made a decision. “You stay here!” he ordered the Allards and the solicitor. “You come wi’ me,” he said to Joseph. “If he wants to see you, then you can.” And without waiting for possible argument, he went out of the room with Joseph on his heels.

It was only a short distance to the cells where Elwyn was being held, and in a few minutes they were at the door. The key was on a hook outside. Perth took it off and inserted it into the lock and turned it. He pushed it open and stopped, frozen.

Joseph was a step behind him, and taller. He saw Elwyn over Perth’s shoulder. He was hanging from the bars of the high window, the noose around his neck made from the strips of his shirt plaited together, strong enough to hold his weight and strangle the air from his lungs.