Up from the Grave (27 page)

“Oh.” Berdie was reserved. “We’ll see.”

“He also asked that you bring a meat pie.” Hugh took one of the canapés from the tray. “I was hoping for lamb.”

Berdie and Lillie laughed.

“I shouldn’t wonder that the pie’s for Fritz.” Berdie shook her head.

Hugh brightened. “Oh, that’s all right then. I’ll tell him we’ll be there.”

Berdie put her hands on her hips. “Really,” she declared.

15

Berdie loved the way the brilliance of the Easter sun poured through the church windows. It gave cheerful witness, just as it had two thousand years ago, to the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection. And Saint Aidan of the Wood Parish Church regaled in its affirming warmth and beauty.

The faithful were joined by many new faces Berdie had not seen at the church previously. But she recognized Bobby, Milton Butz’s little friend from the science outing, and greeted him. In a gentlemanly manner, Bobby introduced his parents and sister.

“So glad you came today,” Berdie welcomed.

“Yeah, well, it is one of the big two.” Bobby fingered his tie.

“Big two?”

“I mean Christmas and Easter. We always go to church for the big two. Besides, my parents wanted to see the lady who chased down that girl.”

Berdie chuckled, but Bobby’s parents, with a touch of Easter pink in their cheeks, excused themselves and directed the family to a pew near the back of the church.

Many women wore their new hats. Mrs. Plinkerton’s was extremely ostentatious, while Ivy Butz’s was an eye-jolting lime green. The young women wore dainty Fascinators, little bundles of feathery things that clipped on to well-groomed hair, made popular by Princess Kate. Cara Donovan’s pink one was especially admired, and little daughter, Katy, had a matching bow.

Men adjusted their ties and little girls showed off their fresh sunny-colored dresses. Young boys made an art of scuffing their new shoes, and fresh-washed aromas filtered through the pews.

But gathering together for Easter service was far more than welcoming a warm season or adorning the body with new apparel. It was a time to let go of the old and embrace the hope of the future.

The revelation of Robin Darbyshire as the murderous Evergreen Pitts sent shock waves throughout the parish. But there was also the sense of resolution. The little garden child was given a proper family farewell and burial. It was as if the village was free to move on, to begin afresh.

When Berdie arose with the rest of the congregants to sing a beloved Easter hymn, the words of it seemed to come alive.
This joyful Eastertide, Away with sin and sorrow! My Love the Crucified, Hath sprung to life this morrow.

Berdie could sense it. Hugh’s wish for the village to get back to humming along again was set in motion.

When the church service was finished, all the children hunted colored eggs in the front garden, Ivy in full flow. After tiffs about who got which egg first were sorted and everyone departed for their homes, the doors of the church closed upon a now silent edifice.

Loren and Lillie joined Berdie and Hugh in the quick walk to Wilkie Gordon’s cottage.

When they neared the terraced home, Berdie saw Albert Goodnight on the pavement. In uniform. He was entertaining Milton Butz with tales of his exploits and capture in the recent case.

“Hello Albert,” Loren called to the constable.

“Afternoon all.”

“Constable,” Hugh addressed, “are you joining us inside?”

“In due time.”

“He’ll put me off my food,” Berdie whispered to her husband.

“Berdie.” Hugh scolded in a quiet manner.

Milton ran ahead to open the door and escorted Berdie, Hugh, Loren, and Lillie inside to the sitting room.

Wilkie Gordon, Jeff Lawler, and Edsel Butz stood from the chairs where they were seated, a simple courtesy for female guests entering a room.

“Welcome,” Wilkie greeted. Baby Dotty Butz cooed in his arms.

“Hello,” Jeffry Lawler lifted a glass in Berdie’s direction.

“The reverend’s come and all,” Edsel Butz trumpeted towards the kitchen door.

“We’re delighted to be here.” Hugh offered a gracious grin.

“Please, sit down,” Berdie consented.

“Milty,” Edsel directed, “take Mrs. Elliott’s meat pie to the kitchen. And, Lucy love, please move.”

While Milton took the pie, well made-up teenager, Lucy, blinked her heavily mascaraed lashes and continued her conversation on a mobile, an iPod ear bud firmly entrenched in the other orifice. How she heard anything Berdie couldn’t reckon. But the teen removed herself from the sofa to the bottom step of the stairway where Martha Butz sat reading a book.

“Thank you,” Berdie offered, but it was barely heard over Lucy and Martha’s discussion about who was taking too much room on the stairwell and who ought to move or stay.

“Ivy’s in the kitchen preparing the meal,” Wilkie offered as Berdie and Hugh sat on the emptied spot.

“And Cherry’s stuck in as well,” Jeff amended.

Loren and Lillie seated themselves on two small dining chairs pulled near the sofa.

“Family life,” Lillie commented quietly to Loren who smiled.

Four-year-old Duncan sat on the floor, a large basket of colorful eggs and Easter sweeties beside him. With sticky cream all about his mouth, and presumably his hands, Fritz licked the child’s fingers rapidly and made him giggle.

Lila Butz, in a pink dress, looked a bit of an Easter egg as she entered the sitting room from the kitchen, Milton behind her. She held a tray of glasses filled with fizzy water.

“Mum says to quiet down, Dad,” she said softly to Edsel. She mutely distributed the liquid refreshment all round. “Mum and Cherry will be right in.”

The words no sooner left her mouth than the two jovial women burst through the door.

“Happy Easter, all.” Ivy’s rotund figure was alive with goodwill, dressed in green polka dots. “Lamb’s in the oven. Who’s the hungry one then?”

The room erupted with responses from all quarters, and Berdie noticed Hugh’s eyes became especially bright.

Ivy seated herself in a dining chair while Cherry rested on the arm of Jeff’s armchair. He sweetly put his hand on the knee of his petite wife.

When it quieted, Milton Butz, seated near Duncan on the floor, raised the question everyone was hoping to have answered at today’s gathering.

“So, Mrs. Elliott, how did you sort everything, the spider, the bones, and all?”

“I want to know how you figured out who that little boy was.” Martha came to attention and put her book down.

“Yeah, and all from bones.” Milton glowed.

“That’s really Doctor Meredith’s expertise.” Berdie glanced at Loren.

“I don’t want to bore everyone with endless dull details.” Loren tipped his head. “And, really, we want to hear about Mrs. Elliott’s exploits.”

“Well,” Berdie began, “the information that Dr. Meredith uncovered was invaluable, the lodged shard of glass was absolutely key. Very rare glass, and to be found in a collection at the Preswood home, was too much of a coincidence.”

“But that didn’t implicate the Preswoods,” Lila reasoned.

“No, you’re right, Lila, but it was a shadow over the entire household. Bampkingswith Hall became a suspected ‘where’ in the child’s death.”

“Do you know how he died?” Cherry asked.

“The how.” Berdie took a deep breath. “I had bits and pieces, but it was my conversation with Mrs. Santolio that was of greatest help.”

“She’s a fake.” Lucy deposited her mobile in a convenient pocket. “All posh, but she was a maid.”

“No, she’s not fake,” Lillie corrected. “She really did marry a count and she really is a contessa.

“Her station in life changed, Lucy,” Ivy explained. “For the better. Only in Italy.”

“There was something in the paper about that.” Wilkie recalled. “Young Dave Exton interviewed her just a few days ago. As a youth, she was in service at Swithy Hall, but I don’t recall her.”

“Nobody did,” Edsel agreed.

“Not quite true, Edsel,” Berdie exacted. “The contessa arrived, a paying guest, at Swithy Lodge. Robin, Evergreen Pitts, settled the contessa into the lodge the evening we were there for dinner.”

“Cauliflower soup.” Lillie wrinkled her nose.

“The young woman recognized the contessa from a dated photo of the twins. It was taken at Swithy Hall before Robin, Evergreen, entered the household.”

“The snap of the two three-year-olds was Rosalie and the real Robin,” Lillie informed.

“Thus the spider,” Lila declared.

“Well sorted, Lila,” Berdie praised.

“What did the contessa tell you that helped?” Edsel brought his fizzy water to his lips.

“She informed me that when Rose and the girls came to Swithy Hall, Mr. John Darbyshire her husband, was with them. Mind you, they were there for only three days in full. John Darbyshire was, by all accounts, a man in hiding. He was given to drink, not violent, but none settled either.”

“Colonel Preswood wouldn’t let him in the house.” Wilkie scowled.

“The colonel wasn’t there, nor Mrs. Preswood.” Berdie went on. “I genuinely believe the child’s death may have been an accident.”

“How’s that?” Cherry asked.

“John Darbyshire was a dandy, not a killer. However, neglect entered in. Full of drink and rowing with his wife, he knocked into the child and sent the small boy tumbling. The lad hit the rare glass that crashed to the marble floor below where he landed.”

“He would have died instantly,” Loren assured. “Mrs. Elliott’s scenario fits with forensic evidence.”

“Poor lad.” Ivy ran her hand along the edge of her pinny.

“If it was an accident, why not bury the child properly?” Jeff had fire in his voice.

“Darbyshire was on the run.” Hugh spoke up. “He couldn’t chance the questions that would arise at such a death, the publicity, or the law getting involved. What we gather, goons from defrauded enterprises in Venezuela were hunting him.”

“Still,” Jeff said, “he was a coward.”

“When Mrs. Santolio told me that Darbyshire scrambled to London the very day the rare glass was discovered missing, well…”

“Shameful.” Wilkie gently rocked the dozing Dotty.

“Darbyshire hastily buried his son, Rosalie’s twin, Robert, the night before he fled to London. He planted a Lenten rose at the grave.” Berdie raised her eyebrows. “A floral memorial and criminal neglect. Strange bedfellows, but there it is.”

“He planted the Lenten rose, the one we identified?” Milton’s eyes were wide.

“As attested to by John Darbyshire’s brother.”

“How could he not be seen?” Cherry leaned against her husband’s shoulder.

“Someone did, actually.” Berdie nodded. “He was seen in the woods that night, but not entirely recognized.”

Berdie glanced quickly at Hugh who went coy.

“The account given was that Darbyshire carried a spade and wore the hat identified with another person, an estate worker, to throw off his own identity.”

Wilkie’s face became a light-turned-on. “That scoundrel!”

“Scoundrel,” Duncan echoed Wilkie’s words in his cherub voice.

As several chuckled, Duncan climbed into Milton’s lap and fingered the colorful eggs in the basket. Fritz lay next to the boys, but kept astute for possible edible morsels.

“So Rosalie’s twin was really a little boy.” Martha cocked her head. “That’s weird. I mean wouldn’t someone notice when boy, Robin, was suddenly a little girl?”

“Apart from mom and dad, no,” Berdie answered. “The Preswoods knew only that Rose had twins, born in Venezuela.”

“Mrs. Santolio, as the domestic, had to see the twins. And she didn’t know?” Loren’s tone was skeptical.

“She was a kitchen maid. She never changed nappies or had a great deal of contact, and children that young aren’t immediately recognizable as male or female.”

Lucy snapped her fingers. “Robin tried to kill the contessa for no good reason. Mrs. Santolio didn’t know that Robin wasn’t Robin.”

“Hello,” Lila responded loudly, “I already said that.”

“Well, I didn’t hear you,” Lucy protested.

“Well, you wouldn’t.”

“Girls, we’re with guests, mind,” Edsel corrected his daughters.

Cherry tapped her finger on her knee. “So Rose Darbyshire replaced, if you can use that word, boy Robin with girl Robin to protect her husband. Yeah?”

“Yes.” Berdie put forth what she had placed-like-a-puzzle together. “We must assume that in trying to find enough physical resemblance to Rosalie, there were no boys so she chose a girl. Hugh actually made a critical discovery in all this, too.”

“Yes,” Hugh sighed. “Though not until late in the game. Christening certificates: Robin’s had been altered. Not apparent at first, but close examination showed that an
A
had been added to Robert, so it became Roberta. The same with Daniel, which became Daniela. I dare say Rose Darbyshire altered the original.”

“So, where did the pretend Robin come from?” Milty looked a bit confused.

“Ah, well,” Berdie tipped her head toward her friend, “Lillie helped there.”

“Rather inadvertently I’m afraid.” Lillie smiled.

“But Lillie’s mention of the village of St. Erts created a thread.”

Now everyone in the room looked a bit confused as they searched out Berdie’s face.

“Well, it was after I, well we, took a trip to London to learn more about a previous spider death. That’s where we learned of Wanda Pitts. Her demise was done much in the same way as the attempt on Mrs. Santolio’s life.”

“She’s Robin’s, Evergreen’s, birth mother.” Lillie sounded somewhat precocious as she filled in the details.

“It took some difficult work by a professional friend, Mr. Beaton, to uncover it all. Mrs. Pitts, unable to keep her own at the best of times, gave up her child to an institution, St. Erts Home for Children in London.”

“So Rose Darbyshire adopted Evergreen Pitts.” Ivy stated the next step of deduction.

“Indeed.” Berdie folded her hands in her lap. “Then, when Evergreen reached the age of eighteen, Wanda made contact with the girl, as was a provision of the home’s adoption plan. When Mrs. Pitts found out her daughter had been taken into the wealthy Preswood family, she threatened to reveal all unless Evergreen paid her large sums of money.”