Chapter Six #2
It wasn’t until he had reunited with his friends that he had left the glasses off, eager to embrace his old world again. Foolish. They were both part of him now.
He snatched up the glasses, all but flung them around his neck and left by the door into the passage. There, he encountered the yawning Fosterson, about to retire back to his bed.
“Withy. I didn’t expect to see you so early.”
“How is your patient?” Piers asked.
“Still alive but unconscious. I’ve left the servants with instructions to keep an eye on him and fetch me if there is any change, but I don’t think there’s any point in anyone sitting with him all day.”
Piers nodded. “Thanks, Doctor Foster,” he said, using their old nickname from the nursery rhyme, which made his friend grin.
Piers, noting the candlesticks were still in place, hurried down to the kitchen, hoping no devoted maid had yet removed Edward’s clothes for laundering.
Fortunately for his purpose, there was no sign of the maids he knew.
Since Mrs. Riley was not fuming, he presumed they were busy elsewhere and not asleep.
She had a different, much younger girl with her, fetching and carrying.
It struck Piers they were now down a manservant again. Though Edward had hardly been the most industrious of workers.
Mrs. Riley scowled when she saw Piers and began to dry her hands on her apron before advancing. Piers staved her off by means of a curt nod as he strode straight to the housekeeper’s sitting room, and through to the bedroom.
As Fosterson had said, there was little change in Edward.
Bandaged and still, he looked very pale but peaceful enough.
His clothes lay in a washing pile behind the door.
There was blood on the coat collar and the top of the shirt, as he expected.
It was the corduroy coat he was particularly interested in, for he remembered being struck by its weight as he wrestled it off the patient.
He found the key in the right-hand pocket—a large door key. He transferred it to his own coat and rummaged some more, but there was nothing else of interest.
Before he left, he made sure Edward was still breathing, then went out and exited the house by the kitchen door.
The morning was fresh, greeting him with a gentle wind and country scents that mingled most pleasantly with the smell of Mrs. Riley’s baking bread wafting from within.
The footprints on the track to the summer house were no longer clear.
His own and April’s had joined and sometimes obliterated Edward’s, both going and returning.
He could make out his own boot soles, uneven as he had staggered under the footman’s weight.
When he looked at the grass on either side, searching for some larger sticks of the type that Edward might have fallen on, or that might have been used to strike him, he saw something else interesting.
Although it was springing back, the grass looked as if it had been walked on, a faint but straight trail running parallel to the mud track.
The environs of Temper House seemed to be a busy place after dark.
Although he had a good look through his quizzing glass at the trampled grass, both from a distance and close up, it was impossible to tell the direction of the traveller.
Could this be Edward’s trail? It was certainly on the side nearest the trees, so more likely to provide stout wooden sticks—and cover for an ambush.
Thoughtfully, he pressed onward to the point just over the rise where he and April had discovered Edward.
The footprints had scuffed each other out on the track, and the grass had not yet sprung back where he had lain.
There was blood in a small, dried puddle and in a couple of nearby spots, but no sign of a weapon, or an obstacle, whether stone or wood, that could have injured Edward to that degree.
Nor could he see any signs that the man had been dragged there from anywhere else. Interestingly, the depressed trail of grass on the other side of the track went on parallel to the path.
Keeping his eyes peeled for signs of either blood or weapon, Piers walked on toward the summer house.
The structure was built partly of brick, but mostly of wood, with a wide porch and large windows that could open to the fresh air.
A perfect spot for a summer tryst, although a little chilly for an April night.
Who was Edward’s tryst with? Whoever had walked the grassy trail?
In which case, Edward would have appeared to ignore Piers’s instructions to leave the maidservants alone.
Unbidden, he remembered the furtive, flirtatious glance between Claudia and Edward at dinner.
He blinked the vision away, for he couldn’t imagine Claudia lowering herself to consort with a servant.
She was always aware of her status as a gentleman’s daughter.
But then, she had smiled at said servant, and he hadn’t thought she would do that either.
At least he was fairly sure the key in his pocket, taken from Edward’s, would fit snugly into the lock of the summer house door.
He was wrong.
It didn’t fit at all. And the door was indeed locked.
He was reduced to peering through the windows to see what lay beyond.
A few chairs made of fake bamboo, a table to match, and several bright, comfortable cushions.
No disorder that he could see. No signs of a recent assignation or a fight.
No obvious blood stains or clothing left behind, though he would have liked a closer look.
Emerging from the wooden porch, he looked about him to see if Edward could have had a different destination in mind.
It didn’t seem likely. There were fields in cultivation but only a couple of cottages in the distance.
With his useful quizzing glass, Piers ascertained that the cottages looked to be occupied and cared for, each with a little garden.
On one side was woodland, no doubt for keeping game.
The village was in the other direction altogether.
Which didn’t mean someone had not come from there.
But there was no obvious trail beyond the summer house. There was no path, and no sign that anyone had gone further last night or at any recent time.
Having completed a circle around the summer house, Piers walked back the way he had come until he came to the scene of the attack.
He imagined hurling a stout club in the direction of the wood and followed his vision to the edge of the trees.
Discovering a stout fallen branch—completely un-bloodied—he carried it back to the attack area and experimented with throwing it in various directions.
Following each throw, he came upon no blood-stained weapon. It was hardly scientific and would need a much more thorough search to be sure. But if someone had attacked Edward—and it did seem likely to Piers—he doubted the assailant had panicked and hurled the weapon from him.
Although he could have taken it with him.
He walked back to the house, mulling it all over, entered by the front door, and went up to his bedchamber to change out of his boots and wash his hands.
He was glad to find the water was warm now.
Longing for coffee, he pulled the bell and a few minutes later, the smaller of the original maids appeared bearing a tea tray with a pot and two cups and saucers.
Tea being better than nothing, he thanked her.
Before she could leave again, he said, “Do you know what happened to Edward?”
“I know he’s hurt and not moving.”
Piers, who had expected tears or denial was somewhat surprised by her manner. “Who do you think might have hurt him?”
Her eyes widened, “No one, my lord! Didn’t he fall?”
“I expect he’ll tell us when he wakes. When did you see him last?”
“About ten last night when me and Becky went upstairs.”
“Where were Mrs. Riley and Edward?”
“She was finishing her tea. She likes to make sure we’re gone before she goes up. Edward went to lock all the doors.”
“I suppose that was his job, in the absence of a butler or first footman.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Did you hear Edward go out again?”
There was a certain defiance in her look. “No, my lord. His quarters is on the other side of the house.”
“Can you think of any reason he would go out at two o’clock in the morning?”
Her chin went up. “Probably some village girl no better than she should be. He noticed females, did Edward.”
Did Edward, not Does Edward. “Is that why Lady Temperley left him behind when the family went to London?”
“It weren’t no punishment, my lord,” Peggy said stiffly. “Some of us had to stay behind.”
He didn’t mention that they were all meant to stay behind, though it might be something to ask Mrs. Riley. If she would tell.
“Thank you, Peggy,” he said dismissively and took the tea tray through to April’s room.
April was sitting up in bed again, eating what looked like one of Mrs. Drake’s apple biscuits from Haybury Court. Catching sight of Piers, she paused mid-chew and looked so guilty that he laughed.
“They helped when I felt sick in the mornings,” she confided. “Now they’re just habit. There’s a couple left if you’d like one.”
“I’m saving myself for breakfast,” he assured her, and was rewarded by a dazzling April smile.
“And you brought tea!”
“Well, I rang, and it appeared. There doesn’t appear to be coffee here. I hope Stewart remembers to bring some. He should be here later today, with luck.”
“He’ll be useful since we’re short of a manservant. Fortunately, he doesn’t stand too much on his dignity as a valet. How is Edward? Have you heard?”
Piers poured them a cup of tea each and sprawled beside her on the bed while he told her about his conversation with Fosterson, his discovery of the key, and his somewhat frustrating morning walk in search of clues.
“So you think it was a deliberate attack?”
“I can’t see anything obvious that would otherwise have caused such a wound. Although, to be fair, I saw no sign of a weapon either.”
“Should we be involving the local magistrate in this?” she asked uneasily. “Supposing we knew who he was.”
“If and when we establish it was an attack, then yes.”
April finished her biscuit thoughtfully and reached for her teacup.
“Edward is the sort of man who sets himself up for a smack. If he’s been stringing along at least two maidservants, and goodness knows who else in the village, he must have trodden on a few toes.
Though caving his skull in does seem excessive. ”
“Someone meant to kill him,” Piers said. “We should try and establish exactly when he was struck and where everyone was at the time, since no one seems to have been in bed.”
“And exactly whose toes he stood on,” April said. “We need to speak to the maids.”
“I did speak to Peggy.” Piers gave her the gist of his conversation with the maid, after which, she made a hasty movement to rise.
Piers caught her by the shoulder to keep her in place and unwound himself from the bed to fetch her notebook and pencil from the desk. She was smiling as he set them in her lap, no doubt because they hadn’t needed words.
As they finished their tea, April absorbed herself in writing down the likely time of the attack and what they knew of the household after ten o’clock.
Piers never grew tired of watching her in full concentration, her whole face lit with curiosity and determination.
Any doubts he might have harboured about involving her in a rather nasty attempted murder mystery at this time vanished.
It would, in fact, be unkind to deprive her.
Actually, he doubted he could. She would involve herself anyway. She always had, not necessarily from the same intellectual inquisitiveness as Piers, but simply from the fact that she identified with him. He was still in awe of that.
Without lifting her gaze from the page, she said, “Perhaps you should ask questions of your friends, and I’ll speak to the staff.”
This had been the normal division of tasks when she had worked for him.
Now, it made him uneasy. Also, a little defensive of his friends.
But she was right. Even if Fosterson had not still been dressed in the middle of the night and even if Claudia had not cast that sideways smile at Edward, they needed to know what each had seen and observed.
“You probably have a better manner with the staff,” he allowed. “But we should both speak to our guests. Hopefully, everyone will be at breakfast. Except Fosterson, I suppose...”