Evidence of Evil (Murder in Moonlight #2)

Chapter Seven

A lone in the rose garden, Constance contemplated the beauty of the flowers and the ugliness of human nature. It depressed her spirits to the extent that she didn’t notice anyone approach until the bench creaked under a man’s weight.

“Maule spoke to me,” Solomon said heavily.

“Elizabeth spoke to me. Frances Niall was an unpleasant and vindictive person. But she doesn’t seem to have been the only one. And the worst of it is, the truth provides Elizabeth with a motive. And Sir Humphrey.”

“I know. But what is the truth?”

Constance frowned at him. “That Frances was carrying Humphrey’s child.”

Solomon’s eyes widened. “Is that what she said to Elizabeth? She told Maule something quite different.”

“What?” Constance demanded. What could be worse than that kind of betrayal by a husband who was supposed to love her?

“Frances told him than she knew of Elizabeth’s past. On the streets around Covent Garden.”

“The truth,” Constance said in despair. “Which makes it all the more likely that she told Elizabeth the truth too.”

“Does it? It can’t have been mentioned at the inquest, and Dr. Laing certainly didn’t mention it to us.”

“Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Colonel Niall and Sir Humphrey are both his patients still.”

“We need to find out if it was true,” Solomon insisted.

“Why on earth would she lie about such a thing?”

“I really don’t know, but a rather nasty person is emerging from behind Frances’s halo. I don’t like her.”

“No… I still don’t believe Elizabeth killed her.”

“I don’t see how. Besides which, Maule said he was uneasy enough about Frances’s visit to watch them from the attic window as they walked around the lake. He claims he saw them part.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think so. His story matches Elizabeth’s, even though they don’t seem to have conferred much on the subject.”

Constance shifted uneasily on the hard bench. “What if, having seen them part from the attic window, Sir Humphrey followed Frances, and killed her somehow to prevent her telling the world about his child?”

“After he called acknowledgment to Elizabeth when she told him she was back and all was well? It’s possible.”

“You sound doubtful.”

“I am. I don’t doubt Maule could have carried her body back to the lake and dropped her in—but she was wearing her nightgown. When did that change happen?”

“If they were having an affair, he might well have had one at hand. Where did they meet? We need to find their cozy love nest.”

“I don’t believe they had one,” Solomon said, irritatingly certain in his manner. “He does not speak of her as someone he loved or had anything but contempt for. I don’t think it’s in his character, either to have the affair or to kill his lover and his own child.”

“People will do anything to maintain the appearance of respectability,” Constance insisted. “He probably felt he had enough to cope with if Elizabeth’s past was about to come out.”

“But he doesn’t believe that part. He thinks it was all Frances’s malice.”

Constance stared at him, then struck the heel of her hand against her forehead in despair. “Elizabeth didn’t tell him. She confessed only to the love affair that caused her parents to throw her out. Not about her continued…fall.”

Solomon said nothing.

“Oh, drat the girl,” Constance whispered.

“It’s an understandable silence.”

“No wonder she wouldn’t tell him about me . She would have had to explain how she knew me. There is so much secrecy here.”

“And at Fairfield Grange. But where do we go from here?”

Constance sprang to her feet. “To find out the truth about Frances’s baby.”

“I really doubt Laing will tell us.”

“No, but his assistant might.”

*

Dr. Harold Murray apparently lodged with his master in Dr. Laing’s cottage. However, Sir Humphrey said he was frequently to be found in the late afternoon enjoying a quiet pint in the village hostelry.

“If Laing has no need of him,” he added.

Since they both thought they would have more chance of learning the truth if Murray was away from Laing, Solomon and Constance repaired to the village inn.

Here, they ordered a light tea and sat in the genteel coffee room. Solomon made occasional unsuccessful forays into the taproom, in search of Dr. Murray, but when asked, the landlord said it was still a bit early for the lad—and in any case, he was normally kept pretty busy.

“Sometimes he barely has time to swallow a half-pint,” the landlord said with a grin. “Hardly worth his time coming, but I think he enjoys the break.”

“Dr. Laing keeps his nose to the grindstone?”

“Good for the young.” The landlord chortled.

“His father will be pleased,” Solomon said.

“I’ll send him through to have a word with you and your lady wife if you like.”

“Thank you. Please do.”

No one disturbed them in the coffee room as they ate their scones and drank their tea. Constance had just ordered another pot, despite feeling awash with the stuff, when a young, brown-haired man wandered in with a mug of ale in his hand. He had a guileless, friendly face and an eager expression, a bit like a labrador retriever.

“Mr. Grey?” he said amiably. “I hear you’re a friend of my father’s.”

“Ah. Not quite,” Solomon said under Constance’s amused gaze. “I think the innkeeper must have misunderstood me.”

“I’m the wrong Murray? Then I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

“No, we’re always glad of company,” Solomon said. “Please join us. My name is Grey. This is my wife. We’re guests of Lady Maule at The Willows.”

A look of curiosity entered Murray’s face. “You called on Dr. Laing earlier.”

“We did. You’ll have gathered we are trying to assist Sir Humphrey in discovering what happened to Miss Niall.”

“Good,” said Murray. With a bow, he sat down opposite Constance. “So you don’t believe this nonsense about his wife either?”

Constance smiled at him, which had its usual effect. “A fellow champion,” she said with honest delight.

Murray blushed. “Well, however grieved he is, Colonel Niall has no call throwing such accusations around.”

“Do other people believe in these accusations?” she asked.

Murray took a sip of ale and shook his head to her gestured offer of tea. “Some,” he said reluctantly. “It’s only because she’s a stranger and stepped out of her so-called place. Some country people believe everything should stay the same forever.”

“You don’t?” Solomon asked.

“Well, I’m a stranger too. I haven’t been in the neighborhood a year, and no one here would call my father a gentleman. I still won a scholarship to university and earned my degree. In my opinion, Lady Maule is better educated, kinder, and more cultured than any of the other ladies of the county.”

“She probably is,” Constance agreed. “Though for what it’s worth, she is also a gentleman’s daughter, whatever the local rumors to the contrary. Did you know Miss Niall?”

Murray gave a crooked smile. “We were bowing acquaintances. I bowed. She tended to look through me without notice, though I did receive at least one nod of recognition.”

“You didn’t like her.”

“I barely spoke to her.”

“Then you never attended her?”

“Dr. Laing tends to see patients of Quality. They don’t always want an assistant observing.”

“Did she consult with him often?” Constance asked.

“Just once that I recall. A brief consultation shortly after her return. I was not present. But Laing was invited to dinner at the Grange. I’m too lowly.”

He wasn’t lowly in his own mind, though. Solomon, who had faced down most forms of prejudice in his own life, rather liked that in him.

“But you assisted in the autopsy?” he said.

Murray nodded. “I did.”

“And that was where you discovered she had not drowned, as had seemed clear in the beginning.”

“Indeed.”

“Did you discover that, or did Dr. Laing?” Solomon asked, more as a test of his character than in any expectation of receiving a different answer to what he already knew.

Laing shifted in his chair. “We both did.”

“Dr. Laing gives you the credit. He implied he was merely going through the motions and not paying attention, because the cause of her death seemed so obvious.”

“It’s true he was…distracted. A bit thrown. Well, she was a very tragic figure lying there, so young and lovely. I found it harrowing, and I didn’t even like her.”

“Did Dr. Laing like her?” Constance asked.

“He never said he didn’t. He’s very closemouthed, is Laing—which is to his credit. He takes confidentiality very seriously, only ever tells me the minimum of what I need to know about patients to treat them. A death like Miss Niall’s is unusual in the extreme. And it was worse for him, knowing her and her family socially. Had done since before they went to India.”

“So you noticed there was no water in her lungs. What else did you find?”

“Nothing,” Murray said helplessly. “The lungs jolted Dr. Laing. He was extremely thorough after that. We even tested the contents of her stomach for all the poisons we could think of. But there was nothing there.”

“Nothing unusual at all?” Solomon pushed.

“Nothing,” Murray repeated, looking him in the eye.

“Then she was not with child?” Solomon said bluntly.

Murray blinked. “Good God, no!”

Constance let out an audible breath of relief. The shock in Murray’s voice was plain. It was as Solomon thought—Frances had been making mischief, sowing discord. What they did not know was why.

“Did you ever hear any rumors in the neighborhood, however untrue, about Miss Niall having a… special admirer?” he asked.

Constance regarded him with a hint of mockery that he did not say the word lover . But he didn’t want to be thought a gossipmonger. That would only make Murray as tight-lipped as Laing. The only reason the young doctor was speaking to them now was the injustice of the accusations against Elizabeth.

“No,” Murray said. “The only rumor I heard was about Sir Humphrey, and that stems from before the Nialls went to India. Apparently there was some semblance of an engagement, or so the locals believed. They were sympathetic to Miss Niall for that reason. But so far as I know, there was never any ill feeling between the two families until after she died. But then, I’m a stranger myself, and I don’t gossip either.”

“No, we can tell,” Constance said sincerely. “Neither do we.” Another thought appeared to strike her. “Does Mrs. Phelps gossip?”

Murray’s eyebrows shot up. “Sarah Phelps? I wouldn’t say she gossiped so much as hurled insults.”

“Did she hurl any at Miss Niall?”

“Not in my hearing. But then, she was too busy insulting me.”

Solomon smiled slightly. “You don’t seem to mind.”

Murray grinned. “No point, is there?”

“Because she’s mad?” Constance asked.

“Oh, I don’t think she’s mad. Just says and does exactly as she wants and doesn’t care tuppence for what the quack’s boot boy opines.”

*

“So it was a lie,” Constance said with some satisfaction as she and Solomon took the road out of the village toward The Willows. “She was making mischief. The same with the accusations she made about Elizabeth to Sir Humphrey. She knew nothing. She was just casting aspersions in the hope something stuck.”

“Why would she do that?” Solomon wondered aloud. “Why risk her own reputation with such accusations?”

“Revenge,” Constance said. “Because Sir Humphrey didn’t marry her.”

“Six years is a long time to wait for vengeance.”

“Perhaps she still thought Humphrey would marry her when she returned from India. And was furious when she discovered he had already married someone else.”

“She would have known,” Solomon objected. “Maule corresponded with the colonel during those years. But I suspect you’re right that she bore a grudge. However, the damage was done. If she had pushed Elizabeth into the lake, I could more easily understand it.”

“So was she causing trouble to inspire him to divorce Elizabeth?” Constance said.

Solomon glanced at her. “Do you think he would do that? For anything?”

“No,” she admitted. “It’s too…disgraceful for a respectable man. On the other hand, Frances may not have known that.”

“Either way, she was behaving badly enough for either of them to have pushed her in the lake, however sorry they might have been afterward.”

“Only they didn’t,” Constance said. “No one did until after she was dead.”

“That’s the heart of the mystery,” he conceded. “What made you ask about Mrs. Phelps?”

“She lives between the lake and the Grange. Frances at least set off along the right path to have passed her cottage. She wields an axe like a twenty-year-old woodsman, and she was the first person I met who did not eulogize Frances. On the other hand, I doubt there was anything Frances could have said that would annoy her enough to commit murder.”

“Which might not matter if she was mad,” Solomon said thoughtfully. “Only, Dr. Murray doesn’t think she is. Which rules out our only other suspect.”

“ Only other?” Constance repeated. “It strikes me that someone like Frances doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide she might as well be nasty, whether for pure spite or some kind of social blackmail. I don’t know what she got out of it, but I very much doubt Elizabeth and Humphrey were her only victims. She must have been practicing for years.”

Solomon frowned. “Do you think so? Then why does everyone speak of her as an angel? Just because she’s dead?”

Constance shrugged. “Partly, yes. The convention is that one does not speak ill of the dead. But also… I think she had some kind of power over people. The sort of presence that could make people believe whatever she wished.”

He must have looked skeptical at this, for she cast him a wry smile. “You have it too, you know.”

He was startled. “I do?”

“You create the impression you wish to create. It’s probably why no one ever hits you when you ask questions.”

“I thought that was because you fluttered your eyelashes at them.”

“Oh, that only works on men of a certain type,” she said dismissively.

“Whatever,” he said. “We’re only guessing about Frances, since neither of us ever met her.”

“True. But I think it’s a reasonable guess. Furthermore, I think she exercised it on Sir Humphrey’s children, either to hurt Elizabeth or just to make them her little minions. It probably worked on most of the village—except Mrs. Phelps—and her own household.”

Solomon began to deny any proof of that, but then said instead, “I suppose it would explain why the butler did not tell her father she had gone out in the evening.”

“It might. Or she might have used her alternative weapon—the kind of threats she made to Sir Humphrey and Elizabeth, the people she could not get around.”

Solomon shook his head. “Even if you’re right, we need proof for such a motive. And supposing we had it, we would still have no idea how or where she died. I think we need to talk to the Fairfield servants again, without the presence of the brother or father.”

“I didn’t get the impression John was under his sister’s thumb, did you? I caught a wry, almost cynical smile on his lips when she was being discussed. I think he is merely defending the respectability of the family. I would like to talk to him again.” Her eyes began to gleam as she glanced up at Solomon. “I would also like to have a good look around her private rooms. If they haven’t thrown out all her things.”

“I can’t see Colonel Niall—or even John—giving us permission for that.”

“Neither can I,” Constance said with a quite dazzling smile. “I’d be surprised if the police themselves had been allowed near. So let’s not ask them.”

*

Before dinner, Constance dragged Elizabeth into her bedchamber and showed her the drawings she had made of the outside of the Grange, and the plans of the inside.

“I’d forgotten how well you remember everything you see and hear,” Elizabeth said with a faint, admiring smile.

“Do you know which is the window to Frances’s rooms?”

Elizabeth pulled the drawings of the back of the house and the left gable out from under the others. “Those,” she said, touching the second-floor windows on the corner, one at the side of the house, and two at the back. Exactly where Constance had noticed the closed curtains as she walked around from the kitchen this morning. “She waved to us from that one when we were in the garden one afternoon.”

“Ah. Then you have never been in her bedroom?”

“Actually, I have been. The rooms were redecorated for her return. She has a bedroom, a dressing room, and a sitting room. More than either John or the colonel, apparently. She was eager to show them to me, as though they were a sign of her status. And I have to admit, they are lovely rooms and very tastefully furnished.”

“Excellent.” Constance reached for the internal plan she had begun. “Show me here.”

Elizabeth stared at her. “Constance, what are you up to?”

“Don’t ask.”

She did not look much comforted. “ Please don’t do anything that will reflect badly on Humph! He is a magistrate, remember.”

“Of course I won’t,” Constance said, crossing her fingers behind her back. “Now, where exactly is her bedroom door?”

*

Although it got cold in the evenings, Sarah Phelps was saving her firewood for the winter. She let her fire die back once her supper was eaten and set about bottling the last of her fruit preserves. There had been a decent harvest of gooseberries, raspberries, and apples this summer. Along with the wheat and the beans and carrots she grew on her land, and the milk, butter, and cheese from her cow, it would ensure she lasted another winter.

It wasn’t much of a goal, but it was the only one she’d had since George’s death. God had granted them no children, and either George or the law—it didn’t much matter which—had given the smithy to his wastrel nephew. Sarah would rather have been a blacksmith than a farmer, but no one considered it right for a female. So, here she was, surviving by means of work she’d known nothing about five years ago.

It was well after dark, and she knew she should go to bed. She had to be up at dawn to milk the cow and get through all her other chores before the next night. It wasn’t much of a life, not on her own. The only thing that made it interesting was observing her neighbors, who discounted her because she was mad.

Fools, she thought as she wandered outside into the darkness of her yard. Would George have married her if she’d been mad? He’d had the pick of all the village maidens, for he’d been a good man, a fine-looking man, and possessed a thriving business. But he’d chosen Sarah. Admittedly, she’d been not bad looking in those days, in a statuesque kind of way. Most of the young men had been too frightened of her, but George wasn’t.

They’d had a good marriage. The villagers forgot that. And they’d have let her starve when she lost the smithy. She should be grateful to Sir Humphrey for renting this place to her for so little—and she was, underneath her grumpiness. He wasn’t a bad man, despite his temper and his ill luck with wives.

Sarah had quite liked the first Lady Maule. She wasn’t so sure of the second, who’d come to The Willows as the governess. Even then, she’d had the kind of eyes that had seen too much tragedy and wouldn’t let it stand in her way again. But at least she was kind enough.

Not like those stuck-up fools at the Grange. She almost laughed at Frances Niall’s airs of superiority. If her neighbors had known what Frances did, they would have turned their backs on her. Her family would have thrown her out.

Usually, Sarah quite liked people who were different. Not Frances. She was all spite.

But then, Sarah herself was no angel. Even the best of her memories were tarnished now. Who was she to judge anyone?

Won’t stop me…

As she leaned against the doorframe, she heard quiet footsteps in the road beyond her hedge. The faint light of a lantern glowed above, swinging slightly as its carrier walked. No, there was more than one person. Two.

They did not speak, so she couldn’t tell who they were until they passed the gap in her hedge and the lantern light flickered over them. The tall, dark fellow, and his far-too-pretty wife with the veiled eyes. Eyes not unlike the new Lady Maule’s, she realized now. She just hid it better. They were odd visitors for Sir Humphrey.

And what on earth were they doing creeping about the lanes at this time of night?

Like Frances had the night she’d apparently died. Sarah had told the truth. She hadn’t seen her come back. But she’d heard her—she recognized the girl’s arrogant footsteps, she always had—and seen her lantern’s glow.

But Sarah had no intention of telling.