Chapter 3
Seth stepped lively to catch up with Sibby—or Miss Somer. He had struggled to think of her as anything but Sibby until she marched ahead of him, leading the way. She had become a force to be reckoned with in the time he was gone.
Sir Whittleby’s grooms were finishing their work when Seth and his companions reached the place the shepherd had been found. They had wrapped the corpse in blankets and were loading it into a wagon.
“Old Cramer,” Holden sighed. “What kind of animal would do this? Do you think my Becky saw it happen?”
Seth shook his head. “From what she said, she saw him carrying the body and ran. She called him ‘the black man,’ probably from his clothing, and ‘the faceless man.’”
“He sounds an ogre.” Holden shuddered.
“Likely a masked brigand of some sort,” Sibby assured the man. “Human and therefore fallible.” She turned to Seth. “Where shall we start?”
He pointed toward the east. “I found Becky that direction, but I saw no footsteps from an adult. Whoever did this had covered his footsteps around the clearing.”
The Deber River was lined with thick woods along this section from where he had found Becky and on south past the tributary from which Astburn took its name. Rivulets and swampy areas crisscrossed the space between the clearing and the wooded area. It would make tracking almost impossible.
“There’s no easy way. Shall we spread out from here south and go forward toward the woods?” Seth suggested. “Miss Somer, please stay with me.”
Sibby opened her mouth to object to being ordered about, but closed it when he went on, “You have an eye for detail and know this area better than I. I’ve been gone too long.” That seemed to mollify her. The truth was he needed her close.
Moments later, picking her way carefully through patches of wet ground, she spoke without looking at him. “A very long time,” she murmured.
He had no response to that. It was a simple fact.
She stopped and peered directly at him. “Why did you come back?” Her words were sharp.
Seth swallowed. The answer was complicated, and there was no time now. “It is home,” he said. He knew it was inadequate. From her expression, so did she. She turned and kept moving.
Holden stayed in eyeshot, and after a frustrating half hour with no clues they reached the tree line. Things changed quickly after that when the call of a great horned owl sounded.
“That’s Frank Holden,” Sibby said. She took Seth ’s hand and pulled him toward the call. The feel of her hand in his, mittened though it was, sent all thought from his mind. He had to force himself to remember their mission.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, concerned.
Her response was a scathing glance.
They reached Holden quickly. He pointed to crushed twigs and one firm footprint at the edge of the brook that flowed into the Deber.
Crossing it would take a man farther from Astburn, which lay beside the brook a half mile away.
They started over it, using the same stepping stones as their prey obviously had.
In the middle of the brook, cold wind whipping Seth ’s cheeks, memories surfaced: Sibby in that very place on summer days letting her hair down, laughing over turtles and frogs, and somewhere on down this direction, an ancient ruin of a fishing shack.
He pushed happy memories down and focused on the little building in his mind, convinced it was their goal.
He glanced up to see Sibby studying him, most likely thinking similar memories. He hoped so. She turned to follow Holden.
Seth pushed himself forward, ahead of Holden. “Softly now,” he said. “We can’t be sure where or if he still lurks.”
Small signs led them toward a more worn path along the river. Seth urged them into the brush, to remain hidden from the path, in the direction he was increasingly certain was their goal.
They reached a spot from which the old shack on the river was clearly visible through the leaves. All three understood the need to pause and watch without Seth needing to speak, for which he was grateful. Holden pulled himself up into a tree, giving a sign he had an excellent view.
When Sibby moved to their right, Seth grabbed her sleeve.
She frowned at him and made hand motions indicating they needed a view of the other side.
He let go, but he followed her. It was well they did.
A small boat had been pulled up into the underbrush and hidden with branches. They could just make it out.
Seth glanced back at Holden who shrugged and slid down. “No one,” he said when they reached him. They approached the shack with care, but it was obvious Holden was correct.
The place was more weathered, half tumbled down on one side and dirty, not at all the happy refuge Seth remembered, much like the rest of his life in Astburn. He glanced at Sibby. Maybe not all of it.
“Nothing,” Holden said.
“Foul smells, dirt, and look there, some sort of pallet. The blankets are filthy, but someone has been staying here,” Sibby pointed out.
“Long enough to need a fire,” Seth said, kicking charred remains at the edge of the river.
“Bones,” Sibby said. “Whoever was here ate well.”
Frank Holden snorted. “Well for sure. Those are sheep bones. Maybe time for him to cook the whole thing.”
Sibby picked up a fluff of fleece. “Cramer’s missing ewe, I’ll bet. If he saw, he would have been furious.
“They were here long enough for old Mr. Cramer to see something vile enough to get him killed. But what?” Sibby asked.
“Smuggling most likely. The boat seems to indicate he’ll be back,” Seth said.
Holden appeared ready to explode with rage. He wanted the man that terrified his Becky.
“We need to have the place watched, Frank. You can’t do it alone, and your family needs you.
I’ll report to Sir Whittleby and prod him to send watchers—and yes Frank you can be part of it.
” Sibby turned to Seth. “Right now, Becky needs you. Return to the surgery to sit with her until you and Maud can see to your other children. I’ll check in after I speak with Sir Whittleby. ”
That, Seth thought, is that. With awe-inspiring efficiency.
They put everything back where it had been, returned down the path, and walked along the brook toward Astburn.
When Holden trudged on ahead of them, Sibby gazed up at Seth. “Why did you come home, really?”
You were here. He didn’t say it out loud.
* * *
“Talk to me Seth Caulfield. You disappeared nine years ago without a single word. It was two years before I even knew you were in His Majesty’s navy.
The wars ended six years ago. You never came back.
Why now?” Sybilla’s long simmering anger with the man got the better of her.
She blurted out what had been eating her since he appeared in Astburn three months ago.
He peered over her left shoulder, and she thought he might not answer. He turned to walk on. “There isn’t time for this.”
“Six years, Seth.” She’d waited, hopeful after Waterloo. It took months before she gave up.
Still walking he didn’t look at her. “China. India. Java. The navy didn’t cease operations after the Corsican was confined. No fighting, thank God, or very little, but we soldiered on. The Neptune sailed to the east via the Cape of Good Hope. My last voyage took three years.”
She longed to hear about those places. “But you left the navy.”
“It was time. Will you stay with Becky tonight?” He kept walking.
“It is hardly proper for me to stay at your house!”
“Not my house, my surgery. Don’t be a goose. Mrs. Duncan can stay over to lend propriety. Take Holden with you to see Sir Whittleby.” He turned toward Astburn.
“If I come to the surgery, will you tell me the rest?” She was speaking to his back.
He gave a jerky nod and went on.
Sybilla made short work of her confrontation with Sir Whittleby. The old fusspot complained about the needed coroner’s hearing, claiming he had no time to deal with a ratty shack.
“Send to Woodbridge for constables. Let them handle it,” he sputtered. “I have no—”
Taking in the sight of his rotund form in a well-padded chair, slippers on his feet, and comfits at his side, Sybilla snorted. No time, indeed.
Frank Holden quickly set him straight, threatening to round up men around the village, and giving Sybilla visions of mob rule.
“Surely, well-respected as you are, Sir Whittleby, constables will come quickly at your request,” she said. That and a clear report and letter from me. “I’m sure your housekeeper can bring pen and paper now.”
At a stern glance from Sybilla, the woman, who had been hanging around by the door, scurried away. Sir Whittleby sniffed. “Best to get them here quickly,” he said.
“Still, it will be two or three days. The villains may return before then. Perhaps your game keeper might work with Holden to set a watch.” Sybilla held her breath, waiting for his approval.
The writing utensils and a lap desk arrived, and the languid magistrate scribbled off a note, encouraged by Sybilla’s offer to send it, sparing him the trouble.
Holden and Sybilla found the game keeper, and she impressed on both of them the importance of not interfering with evidence.
She slipped some coin to one of the grooms, offered her own mount—far more fit than Whittleby’s tired horses—stabled at the Astburn livery and sent him on his way to Woodbridge with the magistrate’s note and one of her own.
She left the men planning and set out for the surgery and Seth.
You will talk to me, Seth Caulfield. You will not avoid me again.