Chapter Twenty-two
THE GARDENER WAS outside in the garden, such as it was, and there was not a great deal of a garden, really, for it was a house in town. He was tending to a rose bush with some shears.
“Mr. Teeghe?” called Byron.
The gardener set down his shears and turned. “That’s me, yes. Is there something I can do to help you?”
Perhaps considering things had gone badly before, Byron introduced them both. “I’m Lord Byron. This is Miss Jane Austen. We’re here to ask you a few questions regarding the ladder that was propped up against Miss Seward’s window.”
“Ah,” said the gardener, looking down at the shears. “I don’t know if I can help you with that.”
“What do you mean?” said Byron. “If you tell me that you are not the person who keeps track of that ladder either, I shall likely lose my mind.”
“No, no, that is me,” said the gardener. “Dear me. I tried to tell him I was rubbish at spinning falsehoods.”
“Tell who?” said Jane.
“What falsehood?” said Byron.
“Here’s the truth,” said the gardener. “A friend of mine, a friend I care about, asked me not to say anything to anyone about how that ladder came to be there. He’s the one who put it there, and it looks bad, but he didn’t hurt Miss Seward.”
“Why did he put it there?” said Byron. “If he didn’t use it to climb up there and bring her a lethal dose of laudanum, then what did he use it for?”
“As I understand it,” said the gardener, “there was a broken window shutter that needed tending to.”
“If that’s the case, why hide it?” said Byron.
“Apparently,” said the gardener, “he had a bit too much to drink that night, and he says he and a few other fellows climbed the ladder. He says one of them was someone he didn’t know, some gentleman or other, who was wearing fine clothes.
They were going to burst downstairs into the tavern, tell everyone what they’d done. ”
“Oh,” said Byron, furrowing his brow. “Wait a minute, maybe I do remember that.”
The gardener gave him an odd look. “You remember it?”
“I might have been the gentleman who climbed the ladder,” said Byron.
He stroked his chin. “Yes, yes, so I met him in the tavern. He said that he knew that a ladder was set up in the alleyway, and we could go outside, run around the tavern, climb the ladder, and then come back downstairs and everyone would wonder how we got there. It seemed like a fun little jest, so off we went. I went first, and he came right after me. I was all manner of confused in the room. Couldn’t find the door out.
He followed me up, but he never climbed into the room.
He halted at the top of the ladder and looked in the window at the bed, and I think he must have seen Miss Seward, because he climbed down the ladder as fast as he could.
I went over and I tried, tried very hard, to climb that ladder, but I was too drunk.
I remember thinking that there was a bed and that I was going to lie in it and collapsing face first onto one side of it. ”
“Into the bed with the corpse?” said Jane.
Byron shrugged. “I don’t rightly recall seeing anyone on the bed, but…”
“Well, that matches my friend’s story,” said the gardener quietly. “He said that you did exactly that. That the gentleman couldn’t get back down the ladder and that he declared loudly, in a slurred voice, he was going to sleep up there.”
“Wait,” said Jane. “This friend of yours knew that Miss Seward was dead?”
“No, he thought she was. He said she was lying there in a way that unnerved him. But when the gentleman said he was going to sleep in the bed, my friend thought perhaps he’d been mistaken, that she was only sleeping.
But he didn’t want to go up and find out, and the next morning, the truth came out. ”
“All right,” said Byron. “Well, I remember his face now. Not his name, but if I see him, I shall recognize him, and therefore, you should tell me his name and where to find him and spare me the trouble of seeking him out.”
“I can’t. I promised I would not betray his confidence,” said the gardener. “Besides, he had nothing to do with whatever happened to Miss Seward.”
“We need to speak to him,” said Byron. “He saw the body.”
The gardener shook his head. “I can’t. I promised him.”
“Please,” said Byron.
The gardener still refused.
So, then, they went round and round for a bit. Byron started attempting to bribe the man, but nothing worked, not even ridiculous sums of money that made the gardener shake.
Finally, Byron gave up. “Fine. Let’s go, Miss Jane.”
“SO, THE LADDER had nothing to do with the murder,” said Jane.
“Well, we don’t know that,” said Byron. “It was handily left there for someone to climb, and even if it wasn’t me and this friend of the gardener who killed Miss Seward, that doesn’t mean that someone else didn’t climb the ladder and do it.”
“I suppose,” said Jane. “But it sounds like it was there for unrelated reasons.”
“What I don’t understand is who this friend of the gardener’s is,” said Byron. “He borrows the ladder to fix Miss Seward’s window shutter? And the shutter itself, it doesn’t seem as if it needs repair now, does it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose we could go and examine it,” said Jane.
“Yes,” said Byron, “let’s do that.”
“But to do that, we would need to enter the tavern,” said Jane, “and we should quite likely see Mr. Hardy, and no matter what it is you say, I am not capable of protecting you from that man.”
“No, of course not, but with you there, he will not do anything to endanger me,” said Byron.
“It really seems to me that if he is worried about offending someone, it is you who are more important than me,” said Jane. “You’re a baron.”
“Yes, but he knows you,” said Byron. “So, I think that carries more weight in the end.”
“And you think we shall be perfectly safe marching in there and demanding to go up and lean out of the window to examine Miss Seward’s window shutter.”
“I do,” said Byron.
She eyed him. “If I end up trapped in a storage room, forced to drink too much, I shall never forgive you, my lord.”
He smiled. “Noted.”
She sighed. “Oh, fine. Let’s go, then.”
They walked to the tavern’s main entrance and went inside.
The main room was empty, no customers, no one working, for it was still morning, and rather early for anyone to go to the tavern.
So, they walked directly through there and found their way to the stairs.
They got to Miss Seward’s window without anyone seeing them.
There they discovered that the window shutter was, indeed, quite sturdy and not in any need of repair.
“What does that mean?” said Jane.
“I don’t know that it means anything,” said Byron.
“So, why did we come up here?” she said.
He shut the window. “I suppose if it hadn’t been repaired, we might have questioned the gardener’s story. But since it has been, it seems in order.”
“Why leave the ladder here if the window had already been repaired?” said Jane.
“Hmm. That’s a good question,” said Byron.
Suddenly, Jane spotted movement out of the corner of her eye and she whirled around to see who it was, her heart beating too fast in her chest, likely because of all that had already transpired here, finding Byron in the storeroom, sneaking about, all of that.
Her worst fears were realized when who should appear in the doorway but Mr. Hardy.
She let out a tiny little noise in the back of her throat.
“You’re frightened of me,” said Mr. Hardy.
“No, no,” said Byron, quite sarcastic. “Wouldn’t have any reason at all to fear you, sir, now would I?”
Mr. Hardy came through the doorway, and it was then they both realized he wasn’t alone. He had a youth with him, older than a boy, really, but not quite a man. He was nearly as tall as Mr. Hardy, but gangly, his clothes hanging against his narrow frame. He cringed as Mr. Hardy pushed him forward.
“Well,” said Mr. Hardy, “tell them.”
“It was me,” said the youth. “I’m the one who killed Miss Seward.”