Chapter Five
The great hall was so silent that the howl of the wind that rattled the shutters seemed as loud as the roar of a locomotive. The members of the tree-trimming party paused in their labors and stared at the young lady who had just spoken.
“How do you know, Miss Goodwin, that Mr. Clarke was carrying such a huge sum of money?” Selena asked.
“Well. As you know, the night before last, Graham and I were dining at the White Hart Inn just a table away from where Mr. Clarke was seated with Mrs. Whitlock and her companion.” Miss Goodwin toyed with a glass angel in her palm. “We had no idea who they were, but we couldn’t help overhearing.”
“Overhearing what?” asked Dr. Scott.
Miss Goodwin took a breath. “He said, rather proudly, ‘I’ll tell you a little secret. I’m a very rich man tonight.’ Mrs. Whitlock said, ‘Is that right, Mr. Clarke?’ And Mr. Clarke said, ‘I’ve got fifty-two hundred pounds in fifty-pound notes in my coat pocket.’”
Selena bit her lip, astonished. It was a king’s ransom.
“What were you doing listening to a private conversation?” blustered Mrs. Whitlock. “That is so rude!”
“Forgive me.” Miss Goodwin shrugged her shoulders. “We didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But Mr. Clarke was drinking a lot, and he spoke rather loudly.”
Colonel Blackwood’s brow knit. “Clarke must have been joking. Or you heard wrong.”
“No, that’s what we heard,” Mr. Davis interjected. “Mr. Clarke said he rescued the money to save it from a blackguard.”
“What blackguard?” Selena asked.
“His business partner.” Mr. Davis twiddled an ornament between his fingers as he addressed the group.
“Mr. Clarke said they had spent more than half a year raising that money to build a new hospital in London. He didn’t trust banks, so he’d kept the money in a safe at his house.
But the day before Mr. Clarke left for Yorkshire, a barmaid told him she had overhead his partner declaring that he’d stolen the combination to the safe, and now he planned to steal the money and kill Mr. Clarke. ”
“Kill him?” repeated Mrs. Hillman with a gasp. “Good heavens!”
Mr. Davis nodded. “Mr. Clarke feared for both his life and the hospital fund. He knew he had to act fast, so he took the money and brought it with him. After the holidays, he said, he planned to open a proper bank account and report his partner to the London police.”
“Good lord,” Selena exclaimed, uncertain if Mr. Clarke’s actions had been valiant or misguided. She turned to Mrs. Whitlock and her companion. “Ma’am, Miss Thompson, you were dining with Mr. Clarke. Is that truly what he said?”
Miss Thompson nodded. “It is.”
“Oh, please!” Mrs. Whitlock flapped a hand.
“If you think Mr. Clarke’s life was really in danger, or that he was carrying a fortune upon his person, you are out of your minds.
It was just the drink talking. Mr. Clarke was a boaster!
From the day I met him, he was always making up things in an attempt to sound more important. ”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mrs. Hillman began, but Mrs. Whitlock interrupted.
“My dear Mrs. Hillman, I know you cared for the man, and he was a charmer. But you don’t honestly believe that Mr. Clarke built an orphanage in Dublin, do you?”
Mrs. Hillman hesitated. “W-Well,” she spluttered, “I can’t be absolutely certain, but—”
“The man was all talk!” Mrs. Whitlock insisted. “When he said all that about raising money to build a hospital, I knew there couldn’t be an ounce of truth to it.”
Colonel Blackwood’s lips pulled downward.
“Clarke did tend to blather when he was in his cups and go and on about his grandiose achievements. When we met up in Dublin a while back, he mentioned that orphanage, but when I expressed an interest in seeing the place, he became vague and changed the subject.”
“That doesn’t mean the orphanage didn’t exist,” Mrs. Hillman pointed out.
Miss Goodwin tilted her head. “What do you think, Colonel? Was everything Mr. Clarke said a lie?”
“It may have been,” Colonel Blackwood admitted.
Mrs. Hillman let out a long sigh. “All right, look, I was aware of Mr. Clarke’s tendency to brag. But he always had the best of intentions. And not everything he said was a lie. He did have a great deal of money with him. Not fifty-two hundred pounds, but two hundred pounds.”
“How do you know?” asked Dr. Scott.
“Because he gave it to me last night, after dinner.” Mrs. Hillman picked up a red, glass sphere from a basket and fiddled with it. “It was the repayment of a loan I gave Mr. Clarke the summer we met. Well, it wasn’t really a loan, but more of an investment.”
Aha, Selena thought, recalling the envelope she had seen Mr. Clarke handing to Mrs. Hillman the previous night. So that’s what that was about.
“An investment in what?” Dr. Scott prodded, his lips thinning.
Mrs. Hillman held her chin high. “He was raising money to build a school for orphaned children. But he was defrauded by the builders, who ran off with all the money.”
Mrs. Whitlock let out a snort of disbelief. “A likely story.”
“Mr. Clarke promised to repay me when he was able,” Mrs. Hillman asserted. “In his last letter, he wrote to say that he finally had the two hundred pounds and would bring it to me at Christmas. And he did—every penny of it!”
“Well, that was good of him.” Mrs. Whitlock shrugged her shoulders. “But I suppose that story was too dull for a man with his inflated ego. So, he made up that ridiculous tale over dinner about having fifty-two hundred pounds and a killer on his tail.”
“That would be just like him,” Colonel Blackwood stated firmly. “Clarke became all the more effusive when he’d had too much to drink. But it was all part of his charm.”
Miss Goodwin made an impish face. “Perhaps the threat on his life was an embellishment. But what if Mr. Clarke was telling the truth about the money? If so, after repaying Mrs. Hillman, there might be five thousand pounds lying around here somewhere.”
An awkward silence fell. For a moment, everyone seemed to be looking anywhere but at each other.
Mrs. Hillman crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t know Mr. Clarke as I did. If he’d had a fortune of that size with him, he would have told me so that I could have put it in a safe place until it was time for him to return home.”
“Good point,” Colonel Blackwood declared.
Mrs. Hillman brought her hands together with a solid clap. “Now, I don’t want to hear another word about this. If Mr. Clarke stretched the truth a bit the other night after imbibing too much ale, so be it. But I won’t have any more talk that sullies his memory.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The colonel saluted their hostess, and gentle laughter erupted around the room.
“By the way,” Mrs. Hillman added, “I always go to church after breakfast on Christmas Day. But if the weather tomorrow should make that impossible, I’d like to assemble in the Darkmoor Park chapel and share a moment in memory of Mr. Clarke.”
“What a lovely idea,” said Miss Thompson.
“If you don’t mind a layman at the helm, ma’am,” the colonel offered, “I’d be glad to offer my services. During my time in the army, I led my men in prayer many times.”
“Thank you, Colonel. That would be wonderful.” Mrs. Hillman gave him an appreciative nod.
“Speaking of Mr. Clarke,” Mr. Davis said, blushing slightly, “last night, he asked if we could have a tour of the house today. Might we be afforded that pleasure?”
“You may. Selena, would you mind doing the honors after lunch, while I take my nap?” Mrs. Hillman asked.
“I’d be happy to,” Selena agreed.
The party returned to tree-decorating. Although their attention seemed to be focused on the activity, Selena’s thoughts drifted back to the conversation that had just ensued.
She knew that drink could loosen a person’s tongue.
Was it possible that Mr. Clarke hadn’t just been boasting when he’d said that he had fifty-two hundred pounds in large notes in his coat pocket?
If so, after repaying his two-hundred-pound debt to Mrs. Hillman, what had he done with the rest of the money?
Mr. Clarke’s last words echoed in Selena’s mind. “I hid it … under … the dragon.”
A possible meaning for those words came to Selena in such a flash, it was all she could do not to gasp aloud.
Had Mr. Clarke been talking about the money?
Five thousand pounds—an immense sum that had been earmarked to build a hospital.
Money that he may well have hidden and—afraid that he was dying—he wanted Selena to find.
The rest of the message, “Four rows,” might have been another clue as to where he had hidden the cash.
She thought back to the events of the previous day.
Mr. Clarke would have had several opportunities to hide the money—either during the quiet interval just after he had arrived, when he, Mrs. Whitlock, and Miss Thompson had gone up to their rooms, or later that night, after everyone had gone to bed.
Now Mr. Clarke was gone. If Selena was right about this, that money might remain hidden at Darkmoor Park forever if she didn’t intervene.
Her stomach tensed. When the weather clears, I’ll verify that the hospital foundation exists, she vowed silently.
In the meantime, I’ll search for whatever Mr. Clarke hid.
If I find that money, I’ll return it to the hospital fund, just as Mr. Clarke had intended.