Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas: Being a Jane Austen Mystery Read online

  To my surprize, I was not alone.

  Raphael West stood in the middle of the carriageway, his back turned to my approach and a sketching book raised in his right hand. After an instant’s pause for surprize, I picked my way through the snow and gained his side.

  “Miss Austen,” he said calmly.

  “Mr. West.” I glanced at the sketchbook; his left hand was moving rapidly and carelessly over the paper, outlining the scene in charcoal. Where I saw only empty space and disturbed ground, however, he had supplied a tumbled horse and a prone figure. As a scene of violence, it was excessively probable.

  “I expected to hear that the horse reared and threw the Lieutenant,” I observed, “but you seem to think the horse fell. Was there ice beneath the drifts?”

  “There is none there now.” He glanced up at the weak sun, fading towards the western horizon. “Perhaps it has melted. I do not know. Nor can I tell how much you apprehend of horses—having been raised in a parsonage with little in the way of riding.”

  “Very well. May I ask you to explain your sketch?”

  “From the appearance of the snow”—he gestured ahead of us and slightly to the left—“I should judge that the horse came to its knees there. It then panicked and thrashed about a bit to regain purchase under its hooves. Bucking up, it scrambled forward a few yards before turning back and nosing its fallen rider, who lay there.” Again, the gesture with his charcoal, this time further to the left in the trampled drifts. “The imprint of Gage’s left hand is quite plain if you chuse to walk up and look at it. He fell sprawling.”

  “Were you of the search party?”

  “I came up with it a few moments after it departed the stableyard. I had been working in the Oak Gallery when the hue and cry went up, and only learnt of the Lieutenant’s mishap once the men had set out.”

  “But you saw the body?”

  “I did.”

  “Was he lying where you suggest that he fell?”

  Raphael West glanced at me sidelong. “He was not. His body was recovered over there”—he gestured to the right—“after his nag, no doubt, had bolted for the stables. But how the Devil did you guess?”

  I shrugged lamely. “What man breaks his neck from falling into four feet of soft snow? Had a tree branch snapped and struck him—or his horse startled and thrown him—”

  West smiled crookedly. “I should swear to it that the horse was brought down to its knees.”

  I stared ahead with narrowed eyes. “The trail goes no further?”

  “It does not.”

  “And none joins it from the road?”

  He shook his head.

  Our eyes met soberly. “You are sketching a case for murder,” I said.

  “I thought it my duty,” he replied. “The evidence, you see, is melting.”

  WHILE RAPHAEL WEST COMPLETED his second rough drawing—one that showed the final location of John Gage’s body—I forced a path through the snow towards the ice house, and examined the trunks of the trees.

  It was not long before I found what I expected—evidence of a kind that would not vanish in the sun.

  10

  ART IN THE DETAILS

  Tuesday, 27th December 1814

  The Vyne, cont’d.

  I must suppose that the majority of ladies, gently reared, should have displayed a greater sensibility at the gallant Lieutenant’s violent end. I ought perhaps to have wept over the scene, or suffered a passing faintness that must have excited Raphael West’s anxiety. But I am no longer a green girl, and cannot be giving way to emotion when sober presence of mind is required. Moreover, I am a little acquainted with murder, and those who practise it; I have witnessed a number of mankind’s depravities; and on occasion, I have had the good fortune to achieve Justice with nothing more than my wits to support me. The novelist’s perception of motive and character is equally suited to the penetration of human deceit. I am determined never to apologise for my talents in either.

  I spared a thought, then, for John Gage’s earnest looks, and for the misery his passing must cause all those who held him dear—particularly poor Miss Gambier. Then I gathered my discoveries from the snowbank and presented them to Raphael West.

  He studied my gloved palms an instant, then glanced at the sky. “It grows dark. Let us go back.”

  Half an hour later, we discovered William Chute in his book room. He was composing a letter to the Admiralty as he paced before his fire; Benedict L’Anglois was charged with transcribing it. Rather than disturb the MP and his secretary unduly, we had dragooned a footman into scratching at his master’s door; a word only was required to admit us.

  “I fear we must leave off our posing, West,” Chute said as the painter ushered me before him into the book room, “until this sad business of young Gage is managed. Miss Austen! Your cheeks are flushed with cold, I declare! You have never been out-of-doors in this weather!”

  “I have been walking, sir, to view the place where the Lieutenant died—and found Mr. West before me.”

  “Indeed.” Chute frowned a little and looked from one to the other of us.

  “If we might have a word in private, sir?”

  “I shall just draw up this letter, Mr. Chute,” L’Anglois said immediately, “and return with it for your signature.”

  “Very well. You will add everything that is appropriate, I hope?” Chute asked anxiously.

  L’Anglois inclined his head and quitted the book room.

  “I intend to send him immediately to London.” Chute studied us intently. “How may I serve you?”

  Raphael West set his open sketchbook on the writing table. “I have made several rough drawings of the site of Gage’s mishap. Pray examine them, sir.”

  William Chute glanced over the drawings. West had added what he called “insets,” smaller depictions of particular details, superimposed on each of the scenes. One such was a minute image of the snowy imprint of Lieutenant Gage’s gloved left hand, where he had first sprawled in the drifts. The other was a similar picture of the impression of his right arm—upon which he had fallen, at some remove from his first position, in death.

  Chute took infinite care in his study of the sketches. Then he looked up and met West’s gaze. “How is it that a man with a broken neck may pick himself up, walk a few steps, and keel over again?”

  “I can think of only one cause,” West replied calmly. “His neck was not broken by falling from his horse.”

  “But—you would suggest that Gage died after he was tossed? I have never known a similar case; and I have witnessed a few untimely deaths on the hunting field, I may say. Indeed, I have never known a man to break his neck and walk, much less survive.”

  “Nor have I. That is not what I would suggest.”

  Chute’s eyes strayed to my troubled countenance. “Miss Austen, ought you to be here? Surely you will like to take some refreshment with my wife. The fire is better in the library.”

  “Miss Austen wishes to show you what she discovered,” Raphael West said, “at the base of two trunks, near the place where Gage died.”

  I opened my right hand. Some twisted lengths of wire winked in the firelight.

  “What are these?” Chute exclaimed.

  “All that could be retrieved of the trap that brought down Lieutenant Gage’s horse,” I said. “I would guess that we shall find the whole, once the snow is entirely melted.”

  Despite his preference for country life, Chute has benefited from his years of parliamentary service; he is sharper and more adept than I should have guessed, at weaving a whole cloth from a few strands of wool.

  “You mean to say that this … foul contrivance … was stretched across my carriageway?”

  “It must have been invisible with the heavy fall of snow, particularly if it was put there last night—and covered with drifts by the early hours of morning.”

  “We shall have to look to the horse’s knees,” Chute said grimly.

  “Hot fomentations to the wounds,�
�� West suggested, “which, judging by the fineness and strength of this wire, will be clean and deep.”

  “Good God!” Chute exclaimed. “It is in every way infamous! To rig such a trap, with the intent of toppling any poor innocent making his way through the snow—”

  “Not any innocent,” West warned. “Lieutenant Gage. The Admiral’s messenger.”

  Chute paused, and looked from one to the other of us. “You believe he was toppled, and while rising from the ground, was set upon by an unknown person, and …”

  “Killed,” I said succinctly.

  “Depending upon the angle of the attack,” West added, “it should not require inordinate strength to snap back a man’s head; and the signs of struggle should be lost in the trampling of the horse—which was so much alarmed, it bolted for its stable.”

  Chute drew a gusty breath. “Some brigand, I suppose. A wastrel or vagabond cast up from the Sherborne road, and ready to prey upon any chance stranger.”

  There was a pregnant silence. “No, sir,” West said regretfully. “The snow is unbroken from the direction of the Sherborne road, as you must see from my sketch of the ground. No brigand can have come from there.”

  Chute studied West’s drawing once more, and his expression altered. “Do you mean to say—”

  “That the Lieutenant was killed by someone belonging to The Vyne? Yes, sir.”

  “Damn your eyes!” Chute cried. “I will not have my people suspected! It is a farrago of nonsense from first to last! The man was thrown from his horse and died. He is not the only rider, I am sure, to suffer such a fate.”

  Neither West nor I spoke; we did not review the facts as we had shewn them; we merely waited for Chute’s fury to die, as a flaring log might settle into embers.

  He wheeled and paced a few steps, then paced a few more towards us. A formidable figure, when stiffly upon his dignity; but when I expected him to order us from the room, he halted and studied us both uncertainly. “It’s a bad business.”

  “Yes,” I said gently. “You will understand how bad when I tell you that the small outbuilding that stands near the carriageway—an ice house, is it not?—probably harboured the killer. There is a far smaller trail of prints from the road to the building; and the wire was set among the trees at just that point. Mr. West and I found the place empty, of course—but it was not so this morning.”

  “He waited there until Gage’s horse went down,” Chute said. “Despicable blackguard.”

  “Tell me, sir,” West interjected. “Was the Lieutenant’s dispatch bag found on his person?”

  “It was not.”

  “Nor upon his horse?”

  “The bag must be buried in drifts,” Chute replied. “I shall order a search for it, when once I am done reporting the sad intelligence of the Lieutenant’s death to the Admiralty.” He groped his way towards his chair and sank heavily into it.

  West stepped closer to the writing table. “Forgive me, sir, but I must ask you—were the papers the Lieutenant carried of such grave importance that another might kill to obtain them?”

  Chute raised watery brown eyes, remarkably akin to one of his hounds. “He carried the Treaty signed in Ghent a few days ago, between Great Britain and the American delegation. As I have been closely concerned in the Government end of negotiations—being privy, on the House side, to Lord Castlereagh’s dispositions in the matter—Admiral Gambier wished me informed. Gage shared the substance of his dispatch with me yesterday. I glanced over the Treaty, and bade him carry it to London with all possible speed.”

  Viscount Lord Castlereagh had been at the Congress of Vienna since September. In addition to being Leader of the House, he was Foreign Secretary—and as such, expected to negotiate for Britain.3 In Vienna, it was said, the Four Powers would redraw the map of Europe—and when such an undertaking was at issue, the resolution of the American War must be secondary. Still, it was the Treaty signed in Ghent that had gone missing.

  “For what does the document provide?” I asked.

  “For an end to all hostilities between our two nations,” Chute replied. “—And precious little else, I might add. We have prevailed in none of our chief points, while the Americans have realised most of theirs. Still—that is neither here nor there. I am sure the Admiral did his best. I do not know how Castlereagh will regard the terms.”

  “Surely Admiral Gambier will have sent a copy of the Treaty to Vienna?” West said. “He acts, I believe, for Castlereagh in the Ghent negotiations.”

  “Undoubtedly he will have sent the Viscount a copy. But the Treaty itself—with signatures—was in Gage’s possession. He was charged with reaching the Admiralty; the Admiralty was to deliver the document to the Home Secretary, in Castlereagh’s absence. After the Cabinet had reviewed and understood the terms, it was to be sent to Parliament. The Treaty must be read and debated in both the House and Lords, before it is ratified.”

  “With the Treaty lost—”

  “Surely it will be found in the snow!” Chute said imploringly.

  “Send out your search party again, sir,” West suggested.

  Chute rose and rang for a footman. “I shall, indeed. But we three know they will find nothing. Gage is dead—and there is no reason on earth to rob and kill a dispatch rider, unless you wish to prevent his intelligence from arriving.”

  3 The Congress of Vienna ran from September 1814 through June 1815. Representatives of England, France, Austria, and Russia met to discuss European political futures in the aftermath of Napoleon’s abdication and exile. New boundaries were established not only for France but for the Netherlands, the Duchy of Warsaw, and various German states and Italian territories.—Editor’s note.

  THE FOURTH DAY

  11

  THE ODOUR OF DEATH

  Wednesday, 28th December 1814

  The Vyne

  Cassandra undertook to present our gift to Caroline in the early hours of the morning. Jemima’s latest gown was a simple white muslin dress for day-wear, with a triple flounce at the hem and flowers embroidered at the bodice; a pale blue spencer and a jockey bonnet completed the costume. I had managed the embroidery—sewing is one household task in which I excel—and Cassandra had fashioned pale blue slippers from a discarded bit of satin. I did not stir when she departed on her faerie mission; yesterday’s exertions in the snow had thoroughly exhausted me.

  I encountered Caroline a while later in the Staircase Hall; she was sitting on the bottom step, staring thoughtfully at the burning Yule log. She had tied a black ribbon around Jemima’s arm. She knew nothing, to be sure, of murder—but sudden death will distress a child.

  “James-Edward says we must leave The Vyne today,” she told me mournfully.

  I sank down on the step beside her. “Shall you not like to be at home?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing ever happens there. No one visits us. It is terribly dreary in wintertime. Even you will be leaving soon, Aunt.”

  “Not until after Twelfth Night,” I promised. Thank Heaven no word had come to poor Caroline of the promised Children’s Ball! To be denied such a treat must cause anguish; and it seemed doubtful that Eliza should hold a revel, under the circumstances.

  William Chute had proved himself a man of action in the hours after our meeting in his book room. Sparing no expence, he had despatched his letter to the Admiralty via an Express. A similar missive had been sent to Admiral Gambier in Ghent. A groom had ridden off through the drifts on one of Chute’s own hunters to Hackwood Park, home of the second Lord Bolton, who is a Justice of the Peace in the locality; he was expected to wait upon Mr. Chute this morning. Chute holds a similar title but recused himself from acting in the present case of murder. The little awkwardness of having hosted both victim and killer made the matter a delicate one.

  Finally, he had tramped out himself to the scene of the Lieutenant’s death and overlooked the ground. There, with despairing hope, he set a party of gardeners to sweeping the drifts in an effort to secure the missing
dispatch bag. After several hours, they succeeded in securing only the remainder of the cunning wire that had brought down the Lieutenant’s horse.

  Miss Gambier took her dinner on a tray in her bedchamber last night. There were any number of questions I longed to put to her. Who was the person that had uttered threats at her door in the early hours of the morning? Did she suspect the same person of having written the mysterious charade? And if so—had either event anything to do with the Lieutenant’s murder?

  What had driven Miss Gambier to her knees in the Chapel at the exact hour of Lieutenant Gage’s death?

  I could not, with propriety, interrogate the lady in the depths of her grief. Indeed, I had no right to interrogate her at all. I could not even voice my suspicions to William Chute—Miss Gambier was a guest in his household, and he was preoccupied with the fate of his American Treaty. It was probable that Miss Gambier’s private affairs had nothing to do with an intrigue of State.

  But the questions persisted, all the same.

  Before the servants, Eliza was at pains to put a good face on events, and we brushed through dinner tolerably well—tho’ the tone of conversation was both subdued and tedious. Edward Gambier, in particular, was singularly inattentive, and without Mr. L’Anglois—who was gone on horseback to the Admiralty—we lacked one disinterested voice in our midst. It was left to James to introduce a topic of conversation—never to be preferred. He pontificated on the increasing numbers of Evangelicals in the Church, and his belief that the increase in piety must be the saving of us all. Thomas-Vere declared, in shocked tones, that he believed Evangelicals to frown upon so harmless an amusement as dancing. Beyond this, ecclesiastic debate did not venture.