Chapter 2
POMUM COURT
Afootman directed her to the breakfast room and poured her tea while she selected a few things to eat from the sideboard.
She was enjoying a piece of bread slathered with raspberry jam when she heard the men returning and making their way to the breakfast room.
“Well?” she asked as they poured themselves coffee. She felt a trifle annoyed that they had gone to the site without her; however, she understood James’ determination to go as soon as possible. Now she wanted information.
“The location was well chosen for an ambush,” James told her as he took a seat at the table. “It was at a slight rise in the road that would, as Gideon indicated last night, put the sun in one’s eyes at that time of day.”
“But could that have really been a consideration,” she asked, “or a lucky happenstance? By his own words, he came by later than he intended.”
James nodded.
“Huh, I hadn’t considered that when I assumed it was deliberate,” Gideon said.
“It was evident that someone had waited there for some time,” James said.
“How do you come to say that?” his cousin asked.
James turned to him. “Whoever was waiting for your return may have been cautious; however, there were horse droppings and grass trodden in a broad area where the animal had obviously been tethered,” he explained. He turned back to Cecilia. “And thick shrubbery and trees lined one side of the path.”
“What about the escape route?” she asked, drawing a picture in her mind of the layout of the area.
“A sheep path back toward the farm, then a sharp right into a slight ravine leading down to a stream,” James said.
Cecilia thought about his description. “Not something a stranger would know to follow,” she mused.
“Such was my thought,” James said.
Gideon looked from one to the other. “You literally are investigators!” he said.
Cecilia looked at Gideon. She saw surprise reflected in his eyes. She nearly laughed. “We try,” she returned easily, ghosting a smile.
After the gentlemen enjoyed their breakfast and coffee, Gideon suggested they adjourn to the estate room where they could continue their discussion in private.
He ordered more coffee and tea to be served in that room before leading James and Cecilia down a long hall.
At the end of the hall were glass and wooden doors leading to a back terrace.
Before they reached the terrace doors, Gideon opened a door on the left and extended his hand forward to let Cecilia and James precede him into the room.
A large oak table stood in the middle of the room on a worn rug.
Its surface was scarred and ink-stained and piled with correspondence tied in bundles, ledgers, and rolled maps.
Two chairs faced the fireplace; two other chairs were on either side of the desk.
The chairs were for function, not comfort, though they all had worn leather-covered seats and leather-inset backs with curved arms. The chair facing the window had a worn, fabric-covered footrest at its side.
Looking toward the windows, each one hung with dark green drapes, she noted the sun glare that had stabbed her eyes upstairs was gone, devoured by steadily gathering clouds.
Gideon bade them to sit in the chairs that faced the fireplace, then moved forward to clear a space on the desk for the coffee and tea service. He then adjusted the chair that looked to the window so that it faced them, braced his hands on the arms, and then hopped up into the chair.
Jeffrey entered the room bearing the coffee service. A maid followed him with the tea service and stayed a moment to pour for them.
“By the way,” Gideon said, “I’ve neglected to tell you we will have company join us for dinner tonight.”
Cecilia looked at him inquisitively.
“Mrs. Jocelyn Norcroft and her younger sister Miss Katherine Nieves. Mrs. Norcroft and her late husband, Robert, were like an aunt and uncle to me after my mother passed.” He laughed sardonically, his mind elsewhere. “They kept the worst of father’s cruelties at bay.”
Cecilia looked shocked at Gideon’s words and would have requested an explanation; however, her husband signaled not to ask of it now. She compressed her lips but nodded.
Gideon brought himself back from his memories to look first at Cecilia and then James. He smiled. “I think you will like them. Mrs. Norcroft knows of all that has befallen the estate. She would be a good person for you to talk to.”
“I look forward to meeting her and her sister,” Cecilia said. James agreed.
After Cecilia took a sip of her coffee, she set her cup down and looked at Gideon. “But now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to our earlier discussion of the wire incident. That day, did you hear anything unusual?” she briskly asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t recall; I was too angry to pay much attention.”
“From the little you said in your letter, I gather other events occurred earlier. Tell us how everything started,” James invited. He settled back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other.
Gideon nodded. “The incidents began near the end of last summer, increasing in their severity over time.”
“That long ago?” Cecilia asked, surprised.
Gideon nodded again. He pulled up the footrest before his chair, then sought a comfortable position in his chair, leaning backward as James had.
“The first incident was a note attached to one of the orchard gates. A quotation—or near enough to one for recognition. One of the apple pickers brought it to Mr. Thornbridge, who passed it to me. It did have my name on the note.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“It said, ‘Something is rotten in the estate of Pomum.’”
“A take on Hamlet,” James quietly observed.
“Yes. At first, I thought it a childish jest. The sort of misquote a schoolboy would think clever,” Gideon said.
“What did you do with the note?” Cecilia asked.
“I threw it in the fireplace.”
“Unfortunate,” she said.
“Yes, but the second I could not dismiss. It was positioned squarely in the middle of my desk.”
“This desk?” James queried, tapping the scarred wood.
“Yes. The second one read—‘This blessed plot is ill-kept in lesser hands.’”
“Richard II,” Cecilia quietly observed.
Gideon cocked his head to the side. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Using two mangled Shakespeare quotes provides us with information about the person who wrote the notes,” James said.
“How do you determine that?” Gideon asked.
James stirred in his chair. “First, they are educated. Second, their ego is involved, and they want to be seen as clever.”
“They are emotionally vested,” Cecilia said. “But you said a series of things happened?”
“The second—and the third—occurred at the official opening day of apple picking. All the apples that have previously fallen are picked up ahead of time. I climb a ladder to pick the first apple. When I hold the apple over my head, that is the signal for an apple picking contest to begin.”
“Contest?”
“Who can pick the most apples in a two-hour period. At my signal, everyone participating runs to grab a ladder, a basket, and chooses a tree to start on.”
“That sounds like a fun event!” Cecilia enthused.
“Typically, it is and is followed by an estate-hosted picnic.”
“But last year?” James prompted.
“About half of the ladders had been tampered with. A rung cut halfway through. For most of the pickers, this was merely an inconvenience they laughed off. They didn’t see it happening to others due to how spread out they were and focused on the apples.
However, one lad—the vicar’s nephew—had a tampered rung near the top of the ladder and he fell wildly. He broke his leg and his collarbone.”
“Oh, no!”
“My stable master set the boy’s leg but didn’t know what to do for his collarbone. I sent for a surgeon I knew from my days living in Exeter. He bound it into place.”
“He’s all right, now?”
Gideon touched his own collarbone. “He has a slight lump under his skin here where his collarbone broke, but it doesn’t appear to bother him. He helps the innkeeper at the pub in the village.”
“Did you receive any messages about the ladders, or what happened, from your anonymous messenger?” James asked.
“No, however while everyone was exclaiming at the accidents that weren’t accidents, and the other pickers were determined to gather enough apples to win the contest, and there was general chaos in the orchard…”
“A third thing happened,” James offered.
“Yes. Someone went into the cider mill and cut the pole used to drive the grinding wheel forward. When I returned here afterward, there was another note on this desk—‘There’s small choice in rotten apples.’”
Cecilia frowned. “Your adversary is obsessed with apples.”
“If it hadn’t been for the wire incident, I would agree.
Especially because in November, I received an anonymous offer to purchase some of the Pomum land that included a large portion of the apple orchard, along with this house.
The offer came through a solicitor I did not know.
He said he was merely requested to present me with the offer.
He had not drawn it up nor met the gentleman making the request. I turned the offer down. ”
“Is the land particularly prized?” James asked.
“Not that I’m aware. I did find paperwork in my father’s and brother’s things that indicated someone had approached them to sell as well. From what I have learned, it appeared Father and Jasper could not agree on the sale price. This was before the Christmas holidays in 1814.”
“What happened to the offer?”
“It was increased but then withdrawn two weeks after the New Year. No other word afterward that I could find.”
“A neighbor?”
Gideon shook his head. “I asked the neighbors whose lands abut the parcel, and they denied any interest in the land.”
“Curious,” Cecilia said.
“Yes, I—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. Then the door opened and Mr. Thornbridge entered.