Chapter Twenty-Two
The Reverend Ellis Thomas knew he was a good man. He grieved sorely for Mr. and Mrs. Harvey’s terrible pain and had done his very best to ease it with the beautiful words of his funeral service and by his attendance at their side as they hosted their fellow mourners at their home.
Although both looked drawn and haggard, held together by very thin threads, they were playing their parts to perfection, receiving the fresh condolences of their neighbors, from Sir Felix Everett to the school mistress and the town bank manager.
Both the graveside ceremony and the church service had been well attended by everyone who had known Percy, including servants and townspeople and country folk, although Ellis suspected many attended more for the parents’ sake than Percy’s.
Others, of course, had come from indecent curiosity over the manner of his death.
At least those sharing the funeral luncheon all had some pretensions to gentility, and their ranks were swelled by several London friends Ellis did not know. He was glad, for the Harveys’ sakes, to see so many here.
He wasn’t quite so pleased to be introduced to the London policemen, Inspector Harris and Sergeant Flynn, whose presence caused him a nasty moment.
He had just been congratulating himself on the absence of the Grey couple—who had presumably scampered home after someone took a well-deserved potshot at them. But policemen…!
“Are you comfortable with those men here at such a time?” Ellis murmured to Harvey in a quiet moment. “Shall I ask them to leave? Or send them to the kitchen?”
“Oh no,” Harvey said. “The inspector asked permission and I granted it. I’ve no idea what they think they can learn from this, but anything is worth it to discover who murdered my son.”
Ellis dropped his eyes. “Of course.”
Harvey threw out his hand to an approaching stranger, “Lethbridge, how kind of you to come.”
Ellis stepped discreetly aside. Even Mrs. Harvey looked slightly animated to see this couple, who were clearly old friends.
Ellis was glad of it. He wished very much for them to have the kind of support that would lift them beyond their grief.
He would help all he could, but he feared he would always be associated in their minds as the man who had buried their son. They needed more.
He hovered, wondering whether to stay by Mrs. Harvey’s side in case she tired, or to approach the police inspector and get that over with.
He had just decided on the latter when Mr. and Mrs. Grey walked into the room.
She stood out, as she always would, with her bright red-gold hair and her rather stunning beauty.
In this company, she also jarred by not wearing black, apart from her gloves.
A few disapproving glances were cast her way.
But then, they probably lingered on her husband too.
Solomon Grey wore a bandage around his head, making him look somewhat piratical, but no less eye-catching for that.
For an instant they paused just inside the door, appearing not to notice the stares, though Ellis was sure they did. Their undoubted powers of observation had always made him uncomfortable.
They moved in his direction and his stomach tightened. But, of course, they were addressing Mr. and Mrs. Harvey.
“…sorry to have missed the service,” Grey was saying, “but we were making further inquiries.”
“Of course, old fellow,” Harvey replied, in what Ellis considered too friendly a manner. “Our only concern is that you are up to such exertions. Allow me to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge…”
Discreetly, Thomas moved farther away, approaching Everett and Owens, who stood a few yards away making desultory conversation.
“Good service, Thomas,” Everett said. “On a difficult subject.”
“Thank you,” Ellis said gratefully. “I did try to make the best of his good points.”
“Points I hadn’t even thought of,” Owens said. “Well done.”
Ellis nodded in acknowledgment and some relief. He was glad to have done well by everyone.
“I see Harvey took your advice about the London police, Everett,” Ellis said, moving his gaze significantly to the detectives standing on the other side of the room and just watching. It was curiously unnerving.
“I imagine he thought Grey was out of action, since someone shot the poor devil.”
For no obvious reason, Owens’s face turned an angry red. But Ellis’s interest in this development was suddenly wiped out as he glanced again at the policemen to find the Greys with them, talking earnestly.
The older policeman glanced across the room toward Ellis, Everett, and Owens, though it wasn’t clear which of them he focused on, or if it mattered.
Unpleasantness coiled around Thomas’s stomach. It felt like reality, so he pushed it aside. I am a good man. I am.
The younger policeman detached himself from the group and came toward them. The Greys wandered off with the older policeman. Where were they going?
“Mr. Thomas?”
Ellis blinked at the policeman, a good-looking young fellow with friendly features and eyes like flint. “Yes?”
“My name is Flynn. I’m with the Metropolitan Police. I wonder if we might have a word?”
“Why, yes, of course,” Ellis said. “But not now, Mr. Flynn. It is hardly appropriate, and Mr. and Mrs. Harvey are relying upon me.”
“It is for their sakes,” Flynn assured him. “If you please.” He gestured across the room toward the door.
Panic rose and had to be fought. I am a good man. Desperately, Ellis cast around for the Harveys and saw no sign of Richard. Mrs. Harvey was with the Lethbridges still, half hidden from his view, though she was seated now, and he had no excuse to run to her aid.
“I don’t please! Come to the vicarage this evening or tomorrow morning—”
“I must insist.” Flynn’s smile was almost gentle, but his eyes were not. He was about half a minute away from grasping Ellis’s arm and marching him out of the room like a common criminal.
“Just go, old fellow,” Everett advised, patting his arm. “Forgive the bad taste and get it over with. We’ll keep an eye on Mrs. Harvey until you return.”
Ellis felt betrayed, but he could only make the best of it. He walked across the room, looking neither right nor left in case he saw speculation or, worse, accusation in any of the surrounding, mostly familiar faces.
“Where do you wish me to go?” he asked stiffly as he walked into the passage ahead of Flynn.
“Just across the hall to the morning room, if you please.” Flynn ushered him like an attentive host. Ellis would have resented that, if he hadn’t been so ill at ease.
He stalked into the morning room and stopped dead.
Harvey was there. Mr. and Mrs. Grey were there, and so was the older policeman. On the table before them sat a pistol.
Ellis refused to look at it for longer than an instant. It was a mere hallucination brought on by worry…
“My superior, Inspector Harris,” Flynn said. “Sir, Mr. Ellis Thomas, the vicar.”
“Mr. Thomas,” said Harris, fixing him with a stare that made Flynn’s look positively soothing. “I shall be very interested to hear what you have to say about this weapon. Considering you told Constable Wills that you did not possess one.”
“I don’t,” Ellis said haughtily. “That weapon is not mine.”
“It’s Percy’s,” Harvey broke in. “Thomas, how did Percy’s pistol come to be in your hands?”
How the devil was it in police hands? “It is not in my hands! If it is Percy’s, inspector, where did you find it?”
“In your desk drawer,” Grey said.
Ellis met that deceptively soft, dark gaze. He knew who Grey was, much more than an investigator, and no one got to be that rich by being gentle and forgiving. Panic surged again.
“Inspector!” Ellis cried. “I want that man charged with breaking and entering at the very least—!”
“We’ll come to that,” Harris interrupted, his voice even, though it cut like a knife through Ellis’s bluster. “Please just answer the question. How did Percival Harvey’s gun get into your desk drawer?”
“Percy gave it to me,” Ellis said, striving for dignity, although his voice sounded wild in his own ears. “Because I go into the rougher part of town to tend my flock—”
“Which is not where you were last Thursday when Percy died, was it?” said Mrs. Grey. “No one saw you there, but at least two people observed you come in this direction. Constable Wills is currently interviewing the cottagers at Dare and Larchford.”
Ellis felt the walls closing in on him. There was no escape, not in real life, not even in his imagination. His fingers clenched hard on the back of the nearest chair as he tried to make himself breathe normally.
I am a good man… Abruptly he shifted and sat sideways on the nearest chair. “I am not a good man,” he whispered. “I tried to be. I tried so hard, but I cannot make up for this, can I? I broke the most important commandment.”
“Where were you last Thursday afternoon?” Inspector Harris asked.
“At Dare and Larchford,” Ellis said. “I was cutting through the wood, meaning to cross the canal at Larchford Bridge and visit one of the families over there, when I came across Percy.”
“Were you surprised?”
“Yes. He hadn’t been gone a week, and I’d thought he was still in London.”
“Where was his horse?” Grey asked.
Ellis blinked. “I never saw a horse except my own pulling the gig.”
“Did you guess why Percy had returned so quickly?” Mrs. Grey asked, her voice surprisingly gentle. Was it possible she understood?
Ellis tried to smile, but felt it turn into a grimace because Harvey was watching him, his eyes wide and desperate and betrayed. But this had gone beyond protecting the Harveys or himself.
“I didn’t need to guess,” he said flatly. “Percy told me in his own inimitable style. Mrs. Jenkins had eluded him in London and come home, and he was on his way to—and I quote—show her what she’s been missing.”
Even now, an echo of that old rage consumed him. Harvey jerked once as though in shock, but Ellis, swamped by truth, had to go on.