Jane and the Genius of the Place Read online

  “And where did you discover this, Constable?”

  The man’s eyes shifted from my brother’s face, and he began to worry the cap he now held in his hands. “In a hedgerow, yer honour, along the Wingham road a ways. ‘Twas rolled in a piece of sacking, and thrust well back under the brush, so’s not to be seen, like.”

  “Then how did you happen to discover it, Mr. Pyke?”

  An expression of astonished innocence, so false as to cry foul, suffused the man’s countenance. “Why—I were told to look for it, yer honour, same’s every man jack in Kent. Poking about the leaves and such-like I were, with a long stick, and I comes to a largish lump what don’t push back. ‘Ho, ho,’ I says to myself, ‘that there lump ain’t a branch nor a bramble no more’n my hand. That be a lady’s gown, that be.’ And I had it out on the end of the stick.”

  “I see.” Neddie sounded amused. “I commend your dedication to duty, Mr. Pyke. And the sacking?”

  “Yer honour never said nothing ‘bout wanting no sacking,” Pyke countered belligerendy. “It weren’t in my orders, and I can’t be held accountable. Besides—the lad wanted it fer a remembrance, like.”

  “The lad?”

  Mr. Pyke took a step backwards, and looked about him wildly. “Just a lad,” he said, “of no account howsomever. He happened to be passing when I unrolled the gown, and begged for the sacking to show his mates.” Betrayal was in every line of Constable Pyke’s frame, and I surmised that the unfortunate lad—whatever his identity— had found the riding habit while larking in the hedgerow, and had turned it over to the first constable who came in his way. A finer sense of honour had animated the boy than should ever compel his elders; but presumably he had thought the sacking a sensational item enough— knowing nothing of Neddie’s gold sovereign.

  My brother sighed, and studied the man before him closely. “I should like to see this place,” he said, “where you found the riding habit.”

  “Don’t know as I could find it again, yer honour,” the constable protested. “It’s nobbit a bit of hedgerow, same’s any other.”

  “I should like you to be waiting along the Wingham road tomorrow morning, all the same,” Neddie advised, “in expectation of my appearance. We shall go over the ground as closely as may be. And now, Mr. Pyke, pray be so good as to return to the kitchen. You shall have your gold sovereign, and some supper for your pains.”

  The man looked all his relief at Neddie’s words, and bobbed a salute as he disappeared into the passage. My brother hastened to his library, where he kept his strongbox; and the exchange concluded, we heard no more of Mr. Pyke.

  “Henry and I shall forgo the Port this evening, I think,” Neddie said as he reappeared, “and beg you to join us immediately in the library. We must learn what the habit may tell us.”

  THE HABIT’S SECRETS, AT FIRST RECKONING, WERE Disappointingly few. Not so much as a drop of rusty brown stained the scarlet, that might suggest the spilling of blood—but as Mrs. Grey had been strangled with her own hair-ribbon, this was not to be expected.

  We spread the gown on one of the library’s long tables, and made a thorough examination of its folds. It was much creased, but hardly dirty, excepting the dust at the hem that must always accompany a foray out-of-doors; and perhaps some splashes of mud acquired in the lady’s enthusiasm for the mounted chase. No tears or rents did we find, that might suggest a violence in the removal, other than a space at the back where one gold button was missing.

  “Strange,” Neddie muttered. “The button is found in Collingforth’s chaise, but the garment from whence it came is left lying in a hedgerow. Was Mrs. Grey stripped of her clothes in the chaise itself, and the gown thrown aside later on the Wingham road?”

  “That does not seem very likely,” Lizzy replied. “I must believe we refine too much upon the gold button. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Grey’s brutal end—she might have lost it in a trifling way, when Jane and I observed her to enter the chaise well before the final heat.”

  “Very true,” Neddie said thoughtfully, “but it must rob my observation entirely of its honour, my dear!”

  “One thing is certain,” I added. “Mrs. Grey cannot have removed the habit herself. Such a quantity of buttons running from neck to waist should require the offices of a maid—or an intimate friend.”

  “We must assume, then, that she received assistance,” Neddie said briskly, “—and that she knew whoever killed her.”

  “But why remove the gown at all?”

  I stared at Henry wordlessly. “I am all astonishment that a man such as yourself—a Sporting Gendeman, and a man of the world—requires the explication of a spinster. Having heard a litde of Mrs. Grey’s reputation, surely you may form an idea of the circumstances.”

  My unfortunate brother opened his mouth, blushed red, and averted his gaze, to my profound amusement.

  “As to that—I believe I shall await the coroner’s report as to the state of the body,” he replied. “But you mistake my meaning, Jane. I am perfectly well aware that a riding habit may prove an impediment to certain types of sport, and it is possible that Mrs. Grey divested herself of the garment with exactly the intention you suspect. But why remove the habit from the scene of the corpse’s discovery? Why not leave it where the body was found?—If, indeed, the lady was even killed in Collingforth’s chaise. And if she was not… how should her murderer transport a corpse, dressed only in a shift, under the eyes of all Canterbury?”

  I had asked myself a similar question only yesterday. “I had believed the point was moot. We must assume that the murderer shifted the chaise—either to intercept Mrs. Grey on the Wingham road, or to transport her cooling body.”

  “Pretty tho the plan may be, dear Jane, it cannot explain the disposal of the habit. Why should the murderer bother to thrust the thing under a hedgerow, if it bears no sign against himself?”

  “Then let us dispute the matter less,” Neddie broke in, “and examine the habit more.”

  He fetched his quizzing glass from the desk, and pored over the scarlet stuff. Lizzy ran her fingers thoughtfully along the hems, as tho’ calculating the cost of its gold frogging, while Henry began to count the trail of buttons rather hurriedly under his breath. I merely stood by and surveyed their endeavours with a bemused expression. At length Neddie perceived my inactivity, and looked up.

  “Yes, Jane?”

  “It is the custom for ladies who ride, as you know, to carry nothing on their persons, not even a reticule. Their hands must necessarily be reserved for the control of the reins. And yet Mrs. Grey, travelling alone yesterday as she did, must have carried some provision about her. There are no pockets let into the seams of this gown; therefore I suggest you look for one concealed in the interior—perhaps within the lining.”

  “Excellent thought!” my brother cried, and seized the gown immediately.

  “Not at the waist, dear,” Lizzy advised him, “for it should never do to carry coins below the breast. I would survey the bodice itself.”

  And there, in an instant, we found what we were seeking—a small pocket of cloth, let into the bodice’s lining, quite invisible from the gown’s exterior and only large enough to hold a trifle. Mrs. Grey, it seemed, had employed it to conceal a piece of notepaper. Any coins or bills she might have held had long since disappeared.

  “Quickly, Neddie,” Lizzy cried, with something closer to animation than I had ever observed in my brother’s wife, “spread it out so that we all might see.” The note was dated hurriedly, and rather illegibly, 19 August 1805-— the very date of yesterday’s race-meeting.

  Ma chere Francoise—

  You must know that I am a man run mad. If you do not consent to hear me, I will have but one recourse. Oh, God, that I had never seen your face! The Devil himself may assume just such a form, and move with such wanton grace, and yet remain the very soul of evil.

  I shall be waiting in my chaise before the final heat is run. A word, a look, will tell me all—my
salvation or destruction, equally in your hands.

  It was signed Denys Collingforth.

  “Good God!” Lizzy ejaculated, and sat down abruptly in a chair. “So it is all a pack of lies! Collingforth did communicate with Mrs. Grey at the race-meeting, and the result was her furtive visit to the chaise. He must have seen her there. They must have spoken. And when she refused to meet his demands, he killed her in a rage!”

  “You forget,” I said gendy. “We all observed her, large as life, an hour after the visit to Collingforth’s chaise.”

  “What is that?” Lizzy snapped her fingers dismissively. “The scoundrel merely awaited her departure, and pursued her along the Wingham road. We have divined it all an age ago—we merely lacked sufficient proofs. The cowardly rogue, to discover her corpse himself, and protest an innocence that must be the grossest falsehood!”

  “But why divest the lady of her habit?” Henry persisted. “I cannot find the sense of it. Did he suspect her to retain the telltale note, he might merely have searched the body for it. Depriving Mrs. Grey of her clothing, without destroying the letter, can have served him nothing.”

  “Perhaps he could not conceive of the cunning bodice pocket, and in his haste, merely disposed of the clothing as a surety,” I suggested.

  We were silent a moment in contemplation.

  “I cannot like it,” Neddie declared, and commenced to turn before the library’s windows. “As my dear Lizzy has said, the note must strike at the very heart of motive. Whether he speaks of unrequited love—or unforgiven debt—Collingforth betrays an ungovernable passion; and the violence of his feeling might well have ended in murder.”

  “You must expose him to the coroner, I suppose?” Lizzy enquired faintly.

  “I have no choice.”

  “But you will inform Mr. Collingforth of your discovery before tomorrow’s inquest,” I said. “Common decency would urge such a small consideration. He must be afforded a chance to explain himself.”

  Neddie did not immediately reply, but stood in a sombre attitude before the open windows. No breeze stirred the dark hair that fell ardessly across his brow; and if he perceived a little of the twilight scene beyond the glass, it was not reflected in the blankness of his gaze. Heavy thought, and warring duties, and the weight of care sat hard upon my brother’s countenance. Then at last he wheeled and crossed to his wife.

  “I fear, my dear, that regardless of the hour I must ride out to Prior’s Farm, and destroy Collingforth’s complaisance entirely. It is too grave and too ugly a business, to await the inquest in the morning.” He kissed her hand and looked to Henry. “Will you ride with me, brother? I cannot like the Kentish roads at present. Between the unknown murderer and the French invader, a man might find his death in any number of ways.”

  “I should ride with you in any case,” Henry retorted, “as you very well know. But I wonder, Neddie, where you think to find Mr. Collingforth. As I intimated at dinner, he is believed to have fled.”

  “We must begin at Prior’s Farm, and follow where the trail might lead. Do not sit up in expectation of our return,” Neddie called to his wife, “for we shall be very late upon the road.”

  Wednesday

  21 August 1805

  WE DID NOT SIT UP IN EXPECTATION OF MY BROTHERS’ return, but tho’ I followed the mistress of Godmersham to bed in an hour’s time, neither could I sleep. The unhealthy excitement of the past two days quite robbed me of tranquillity, and so I took up my pen and the little book of unlined paper I keep always about me, and set down this account of the day. My candle-flame barely flickered in the torpid air, and but for the scratch of the nib in the breathless room, the great house was unnaturally quiet. I had not doused the light a half-hour, however, before the hallooing of the porter at the gate, and the clatter of horses’ hooves on the sweep, announced the gendemen’s return.

  I hoped for a full account this morning, but was most tediously put off—for when I sought the breakfast-parlour at ten o’clock, I found only Lizzy in possession, and a very cross Lizzy, indeed.

  “Your brothers are already gone, Jane,” she said over her teacup, “for the inquest is to be at noon, and Neddie would search the hedgerows with that detestable man Pyke, before he might face the coroner with something like self-possession.”

  “Then let us hope that Pyke has consulted his lad,” I returned, “that Neddie’s efforts might end in something.”

  ‘You do think of everything, Jane.” Lizzy set down her cup and dusted her fingertips for crumbs. “I am sure that Neddie should be lost without you and Henry to give him spur. I required him to return to the house before venturing into Canterbury, by the by, in the event you wished to accompany him….”

  Lizzy’s natural delicacy prevented her from adding the words, “… since you have made such a habit of inquests of late, “and I mentally praised the excellent breeding of baronets’ daughters. I settled myself into a chair.

  “Tea, Daisy, I think—and perhaps some toast.”

  “Very good, miss.” The housemaid bobbed vaguely in my direction, and quitted the room with obvious reluctance. I leaned conspiratorially towards Lizzy.

  “What of Collingforth and the interesting note?”

  “I could get nothing from your brother—except that Collingforth was not to be found at Prior’s Farm, and his wife has not seen him since Monday e’en. Neddie says that she was quite distracted, and fainted twice in a quarter-hour.”

  “Did they show her the unfortunate note?”

  “Why else should she faint?”

  “I suppose we must conclude the hand to be Collingforth’s, then. And Mr. Everett?”

  “—was naturally your brother’s next resort. But when Neddie arrived quite late at the Hound and Tooth, it was to be greeted with the intelligence that Mr. Everett had settled his bill some hours since, and had quitted the place entirely.”

  “Then it is as Henry feared. Collingforth and Everett have fled in terror of the Law.”

  Lizzy nodded expressionlessly. “I confess your poor brother has taken it quite to heart. He feels himself to be excessively to blame, and utterly in neglect of his duty— however little any of us should tell him so.”

  “You may be certain that Mr. Grey will not be so forbearing.”

  “This flight cannot help Collingforth’s chances before the coroner and his panel,” Lizzy added.

  The passage door swung open, and Daisy’s young face appeared over a tray of tea and toast. I accepted it gratefully, and poured out a cup.

  “It must look like an admission of guilt,” I agreed. “But I wonder—”

  ‘You cannot believe him innocent, Jane!”

  “A wider experience of the world has taught me, Lizzy, that I am capable of believing any number of things. Denys Collingforth might be a murderer, it is true—or he may be merely a man pushed past endurance, by an unhappy congruence of circumstances. Ruined by debt, and now suspected of murder—what desperate fellow, unsure of his chances, might not resort to flight?”

  Lizzy considered this in silence, while I consumed a quantity of toast. Godmersham’s stillroom was evident upon the table, in an admirable preserve of quince, that I knew I should long for in the relative deprivation of a Bath winter.

  “I suppose anyone might have murdered the woman, and placed the note in her bodice,” Lizzy observed at last.

  “But the handwriting?”

  My sister shrugged. “Let us suppose that Collingforth sent the letter after all—that he sent it well before the events of Monday, and the note survived in Mrs. Grey’s correspondence.”

  “But Monday’s date is inscribed above.”

  “It is a small thing to forge a date, Jane—hardly of the same order as the forgery of an entire note.”

  “Very true. I confess, Lizzy, that I had no notion you possessed so cunning a mind. You display a decided talent for subterfuge, and were Neddie aware of it, he should never trust you farther from home than Chilham.”

  “I
have spent the better part of my existence in deceiving my friends,” she returned with complaisance, “and if you betray me to the world, Jane, I shall deny you the freedom of Godmersham forever.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. But there is one point on which I should like your opinion. A note of Collingforth’s, placed to advantage and quite out of context, should serve, like the body in the chaise, to throw suspicion far from the actual murderer. But why conceal the note in the habit? Why not leave it in Mrs. Grey’s dead hand?”

  “Perhaps to underline its plausibility,” Lizzy offered. “Two such items, found together, might appear excessive. But placed at a distance, and discovered by individual parties, entirely without reference to one another—”

  “Admirable.” I partook of the last bit of toast with regret. “The coroner is unlikely to exhibit so much imagination, however.”

  “You comprehend, Jane, that our notion is only possible if we suppose the murderer to possess an intimacy with Mrs. Grey’s correspondence.” Lizzy refolded her napkin and arranged it beside her plate. “Someone of her household, perhaps.”

  Or someone familiar at least with her desk. The image of Captain Woodford and Edward Bridges in the lady’s saloon the night of her murder filled my mind. But I only gazed at Lizzy speculatively.

  ‘You are in a fever to indict Mr. Grey, my dear. And the poor man has done very little that we know of, to deserve it!”

  “He had the shockingly bad form to marry that woman in the first place,” she replied caustically, “and to challenge my husband in the second. I cannot like him, Jane, however little I love poor Collingforth.”

  “We must hope that somebody loves poor Collingforth,” I observed, “for the coroner most certainly shall not.”

  21 August 1805, cont’d.

  NEDDIE AND HENRY RETURNED SOON AFTER BREAKFAST, shaking their heads at the duplicity of men in general, and Constable Pyke in particular. The fellow had drunk the better part of his sovereign in the Hound and Tooth, and was utterly insensible at the appointed hour for meeting. My brothers dallied along the Wingham road for some time, expecting Pyke at every moment. A breathless boy proved their messenger instead—trotting along the hot and dusty road with the constable’s regrets. Mr. Pyke was indisposed, and Neddie’s errand for nothing.