Chapter Twenty-four
“I did not kill him!” Ada took hold of George’s arm and clasped it in a death grip, her eyes pleading. “You must believe me. Joshua made the nog himself.”
“That may well be, madam,” George said, “but someone emptied a large amount of phosphorus into that jug. Who else would have had access?”
“That’s not what happened,” she said. “I can explain, if you’ll only listen to me.”
Isaac Penhollow placed a hand on her shoulder. “I do believe she can explain all this,” he said to George, who then turned to Robert.
Robert responded with a start. “Why look to me? I have no opinion in the matter.”
“You are the magistrate,” George reminded him.
“Gad!” Robert cast his gaze up to the heavens. “I should never have agreed to take this office.” Looking uncomfortable, he smoothed back his hair, then gestured to Mrs. Penhollow. “Perhaps we should hear what the lady has to say.”
Fiona tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. “Since we seem to be on the verge of learning the details of how Ada Penhollow murdered her husband, it might be best to take the children back to Hadley Grange, don’t you think?”
I had noticed the children squirming their way to the front of our little circle in an attempt to hear every horrible word. “They will be terribly disappointed to miss this,” I said dryly. “But I’d be grateful if you did take them home. They should not be here.”
“Someone who should be here is Sergeant Hewitt,” Hetty said, stepping over to join us.
“She’s right,” Fiona said. “It will be much more difficult getting him to leave his house tomorrow.” She lifted her brows. “Christmas Day.”
After some discussion, we agreed Fiona and Hetty would take all the young people in the wagon directly to the sergeant’s house for more “caroling” and to notify him of what was happening here. Ultimately, only Dr. Bertram and Robert stayed with George and me.
As soon as everyone else had left, we moved to the warmer and more comfortable drawing room at the rear of the house.
Dr. Bertram, George, and I settled onto the sofa.
Beatrice and the vicar pulled up chairs beside us, while Isaac Penhollow and Ada Penhollow sat opposite.
Robert loomed uncomfortably behind us until George insisted that he take a seat.
Everyone looked uneasy. Ada was shaking and close to tears. Isaac held her hand, leaving me to wonder again if they were closer than brother- and sister-in-law.
“If you do have some sort of explanation, Mrs. Penhollow, this would be the time to tell us,” George said gently.
“Joshua woke me early that day, as I told Mrs. Hazelton, but much earlier than I said. It was about four o’clock when I woke to the noise of crockery breaking.
It was a tremendous crash that had me springing out of bed.
I ran in the kitchen to find Joshua on the floor, surrounded by broken plates and bowls that he’d pulled down from a shelf—and the evidence that he’d been violently ill. ”
She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “He was alive, but only just. He couldn’t speak and was clearly in terrible pain. I could tell he was dying, and I didn’t want to leave him alone while I went for help. I knelt down beside him, and he took my hand. He died within minutes.”
George and I turned to Dr. Bertram, who nodded. “That is consistent with the amount of phosphorus he’d ingested.”
“Joshua’s spirits had been depressed for quite some time,” Ada said, staring down at her hands in her lap.
“He wasn’t sleeping well, and I thought that might have something to do with it.
I encouraged him to call on the doctor in Norwich, since he was going there, anyway, but he waved it off.
When I found him that morning”—she drew a shuddering breath—“well, the truth was perfectly clear to me. He didn’t want the doctor, because he wanted to die. ”
Though I’d considered that possibility before, it seemed rather convenient now.
“Are you trying to say Dr. Penhollow meant to take his own life?” George asked.
“I think he felt he had nothing left to live for,” she said. “There was no great love between the two of us. I married him so he would take care of my girls, and he did.”
Beatrice made a small noise of dissent, which her mother ignored.
“I was grateful to him, and we got on well enough, but we never loved each other,” Ada continued. “When he inherited this house, and we moved here, he had no more way of knowing he would meet the woman he would fall in love with any more than she did.”
So, Ada had known.
“And who is this woman?” George asked.
“Martha Rallison,” she said. “I’ve never seen a love like they had for each other.
It changed him. Made him a kinder man. She was married, and I knew she’d never leave her husband, so I turned a blind eye.
He was happy. And I was happy for him.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
“Until Martha got sick and then died. It was like a light just went out inside him. She had become everything to him. I didn’t think he’d ever get over losing her, especially after knowing her for so short a time. ”
“And because of her death, you believe he devised a way to kill himself?” George sounded far from convinced.
“Not only because he lost her, but because he was the doctor treating her. He had failed. He couldn’t save her.” She dashed a tear from her eye. “Dotty pointed out to me that he was looking unusually glum. She asked if he was troubled, and warned me about how melancholy can affect someone.”
George cast a glance at Robert, who held up his hands, as if he wanted no part in questioning his neighbor.
I could hardly blame him. George sighed and continued.
“But rather than contact the authorities, you found a way to drop his body off in a field. Perhaps you can explain that, Mrs. Penhollow.”
“I may be of some help with that explanation,” Isaac Penhollow said, coming to his feet.
“You had something to do with this?” George asked.
Isaac held up a hand. “If you’ll allow me to explain. My uncle, who first owned this house, made the rather unusual decision to establish an entail regarding the property. If Joshua died without any direct male descendants, the manor and its properties would come to me, leaving Ada with nothing.”
That would explain the expectation that Ada would move into the vicarage.
Isaac continued his explanation. “Joshua has … had an off-putting manner. In truth, he doesn’t like most people, but even he didn’t approve of leaving Ada out in the cold once he passed.
I assured him that I would provide for her, either by selling the manor and splitting the proceeds or granting her the right to live here for her lifetime.
But as it turned out, last summer Joshua bought an insurance policy, with Ada as his beneficiary. ”
“Are you claiming the insurance is evidence that he intended to commit self-murder?” George asked.
Ada was already shaking her head.
“I am not,” Isaac said. “I am telling you only that I and Ada knew it existed.”
“Then I’m afraid you are giving Mrs. Penhollow a motive,” George replied.
“There are a few stipulations in the policy,” Isaac continued. “One is that there would be no payment if the insured took his own life.”
“I see.” George heaved a long sigh. “You are saying that Mrs. Penhollow, believing her husband had done just that, moved his body, so it would be found later and presumed that he suffered a heart attack or something of that nature.”
Isaac rubbed a hand across his eyes, then directed his gaze at George.
“Not exactly,” he said. “Considering the evidence before us, we were quite certain he had taken poison, and we didn’t want to risk the police testing for that.
We thought if we put off reporting his death, the poison would be harder to detect. ”
“That is likely the case,” Dr. Bertram said, drawing everyone’s attention. He cleared his throat and brought his hand to his mouth. “Do go on.”
“We couldn’t keep him here, not as often as Beatrice, Maude, and Mrs. Digby frequented the house.
And the sight of him was very upsetting to Ada.
” Isaac made jerking motions with his hands before clasping them behind his back.
“It was supposed to snow. Joshua was supposed to go to Norwich. We thought to put him in the field, where he might be covered and out of sight to anyone walking past,” he said.
“Walking on the lane, that is,” he added, with a glance at me.
“We didn’t expect anyone to cut through the field in the snow. ”
He was right. That might have left Dr. Penhollow undiscovered for a few days. But there was something wrong with this story. “You keep saying we, Mr. Penhollow, but you didn’t arrive until the evening after your brother’s death,” I said.
“That’s what I wanted you to believe,” he said.
“But in truth, I arrived here the previous day. About the time all of you were at the children’s play.
I was here when Ada arrived. Joshua seemed fine when he came home.
He disappeared into the kitchen, and I went to bed.
I don’t for a moment believe Ada had anything to do with his death.
She woke me after she found Joshua. Thinking he had done away with himself, we decided on this plan together. ”
“How did you manage to move him?” George asked.
“There’s an old pony cart in the barn. I harnessed my horse to the cart, and that’s how we took him down the lane.”
“What time was that?” I asked.
“Early,” he said. “Perhaps five. It was still dark as pitch and storming. I left the cart on the gravel lane at the edge of the wood and walked with Joshua over my shoulder, thinking I would place him under a tree at the other side of the field.”
“I thought the field would be softer.” It was almost a shock to hear Ada’s voice after she’d remained silent for so long. “I asked Isaac to come back and place him down in the middle of the field.”