A Moment Of Silence Part 2

'Now, it was very clever indeed of you to notice that. Very clever indeed. It tells you a lot about her, you see.'

'Does it, miss?'

'Why, yes. It means she was a working woman, you see; but one that had perhaps gone up in the world a bit just lately. Got a better job perhaps.'

'Yes, yes, I suppose it does,' said Rose, much encouraged.

'And what of her dress?'

'Covered in blood it was.' Her hand flew back to her mouth.

Dido quickly produced another peppermint; Rose took it and sucked noisily.

'Apart from that,' said Dido gently when the crisis seemed to have pa.s.sed, 'was it a nice dress?'

Rose nodded thoughtfully. 'Yes, yes, it was, now you ask. A very nice dimity it was, with a pretty blue stripe.'

'New?'

Rose was thinking hard now. 'Yes, I think it was new.'

'The dress has made you think of something?'

'Yes. It was when I said that then about it being blue-striped dimity. It made me think because I'd never seen anything like it before and I remember Jenny a that's one of the housemaids here a I remember her saying she'd seen some lovely blue dimity new in from London in a draper's shop last month when she had her day off.'

'That's very interesting, Rose. Do you remember what shop it was?'

'Oh, I wouldn't know the name of the shop, miss; that was way over by Hopton Cresswell, I should say, because that's where Jenny's people live.'

'Well, well, you have got a lot to tell them all! You can even make a guess that the unfortunate woman lived somewhere near Hopton Cresswell. And I suppose you know roughly how old she was.'

'Oh no, miss! Because her face-'

'Yes, yes. I know you could not see her face. But what was her hair like?'

'Fair, miss,' said Rose, frowning to remember. 'Long and yellow and it didn't curl over much.'

'Was it thick?'

'Yes, quite thick.'

'Were there any grey hairs mixed in with the fair ones?'

'Oh no.'

'Well then, she was rather young. On the right side of thirty, I would think.'

'Oh yes, miss, yes I suppose she was.'

'And was she fat or thin?'

'Neither really, miss.'

'A good figure then?'

'Yes. Yes, I suppose so.'

'There now,' said Dido, getting to her feet, 'I should think all that is worth a nice little sit down in the housekeeper's room at least a and perhaps a dish of tea too. Remember, don't tell them anything unless they are kind to you.'

'No, miss, thank you, I won't.' Rose smiled happily, picked up her skirts and started off across the wet cobbles to the kitchen door. But then she stopped and turned back, biting her lip thoughtfully.

'Have you remembered something else, Rose?'

'Yes, miss, it's that dress I keep thinking about. Funny, it was. But I don't seem to be so good at making out what things mean like you are.'

'What was funny about the dress?'

'It was made really odd. Too much stuff in it. Lots of little tucks, and stuff all folded into the seams. I ain't never seen a dress like it. Do you think that's interesting at all? Does it mean something like those other things?' She peered hopefully at Dido's frowning face. 'Well, miss? What do you think?'

'Oh? Oh no. No, I doubt it is important. I expect it just means that she was a bad dressmaker and a little bit wasteful. And,' she added brightly, 'we should not speak ill of the dead, should we? No, I would not bother to tell anyone about that. You have plenty to tell without that. Remember now, a nice rest by the fire and a drink of tea.'

Dido smiled encouragingly and clattered away across the cobbles in her pattens. She went out of the yard, skirted the red-brick wall of the kitchen garden, and came, by a side gate, into the park.

She had left the house with the intention of inspecting the place where the woman had been found and it was only the sight of a covered cart from the village bearing its sad burden away from the stables that had prompted her to make a detour into the kitchen yard, in the hope of learning something there.

But now her mind was full and she walked on in some agitation across the park until she came to a little rise in the ground which afforded a particularly good view of the house and estate. Here there stood the broad stump of a walnut tree a one of the ones which Margaret had pointed out to her in their drive through the park yesterday as having been felled in the 'Great Storm'. It must have been a remarkably fine tree, for even its broken remains had a kind of melancholy dignity. There was an ornate bench of green wrought iron standing close beside it and Dido sat herself down upon it to think.

Before her the yellowing autumn gra.s.s stretched away under a heavy grey sky, each blade thickly beaded with dew. The great trees of the park stood out black against white mist and the squat tower of the family chapel rose up above a dark bank of yews. On her right, a well-trodden path led off along the edge of the ha-ha that bounded the shrubbery, and beyond the shrubbery rose lawns and fountains and all the columned grandeur of the house-front. It was a beautiful, tranquil scene which spoke not only of the master's wealth, but also of his care that everything around him should be well kept and present a picture of perfection.

Thoughts of guilt and murder seemed out of place amid such tranquillity.

That the dead woman had been young was very bad news indeed. Respectable spinster though she was, Dido understood the ways of the world quite well enough to see that a woman of that cla.s.s was much more likely to be...acquainted with the son of Sir Edgar Montague if she was young and...not ill-looking. That she should have been rather well dressed and that she should seem to have lately given over menial work was worse still. That telling phrase 'a kept woman' would insinuate itself into Dido's mind in spite of all that she could do to keep it out.

She gazed at a beautiful, intricate ma.s.s of spiders' webs that hung between the iron curls of the bench and she recalled Mr Montague's words: 'I must speak with my father.' 'He will not like what he hears.' 'It is impossible that he and I can remain friends after tonight.'

The words of a young man whose secret amour had been discovered?

But no, Dido would not, could not think that. After all, a woman was dead. This was not simply a matter of a gentleman's youthful indiscretion (and again the vicarage-raised Dido proved herself more worldly-wise than most people would have suspected) such as had been pa.s.sed over and covered up in many respectable families. This was a case of murder. By allowing herself to consider that Mr Montague's strange behaviour and the woman's death were connected, she seemed to be delivering up Catherine's beloved, not simply to moral stricture, but to the very hands of the hangman.

Except, she thought guiltily, I am not delivering him up. I am protecting him.

Her last words to Rose had come unbidden to her tongue, surprising her with their fluency and calculation. For she had believed that her role at Belsfield was to uncover the truth, not to obscure it. But she had moved instinctively to conceal the last fact that Rose had unknowingly revealed to her.

The dead woman's dress had been a puzzle to the scullery maid, coming, as she no doubt did, from a family where women's clothes were coa.r.s.e and loose and probably pa.s.sed around among them as needs changed. But there were others among the servants who would have known precisely what the meaning was of those tucks and folds in the blue dimity gown. The ladies' maids could certainly have enlightened her.

Dido had herself constructed dresses for her sisters-in-law in just the same way. One did it when the dress would have to be let out as the months progressed a and the time of confinement grew closer.

Dido gazed out across the park and wondered whether anyone else had discovered this truth. Perhaps not, for it did not seem as if the young woman's figure had been betraying her yet. Perhaps she was the only one to know that the dead woman had been expecting a child.

Chapter Four.

...I have told no one about the baby, Eliza. By which, of course, I mean that I have told no one but you. I hope you will excuse these long letters full of my own concerns; but it is such a relief to tell someone what is in my mind and I hesitate to confide in Catherine when everything is suspicion and uncertainty, for I do not wish her to be hurt more than she must be.

Exactly how much she must be hurt is not easy to judge. I am almost certain that it must all end in a broken engagement, no matter what I discover, for that is the course of action which Mr Montague himself desires. Her acquaintance with the young man has been brief and I trust the suffering of her heart will be in proportion. But how much the scandal will injure her reputation is much harder to determine.

Well, the next thing I want to tell you about is the shrubbery.

I went there yesterday, after I had spoken to Rose, and I found it to be as well cared for as everything else about this place. The laurels are as neatly clipped as Sir Edgar's own side-whiskers. No great branches to collect the rain and be shaken over unsuspecting heads as we used to do when we were children. Here it is all very orderly: gravel paths raked quite clean of weeds, a murmuring of doves and a rich smell of damp earth and leaf-mould. Anyone knowing nothing of what had happened there could pa.s.s through without suspecting anything.

However, my eyes were awake to suspicion, so I noticed that beside the summerhouse a which, by the by, is called the hermitage; I do not quite know why, except that Belsfield is rather too grand to have something as common-place as a summerhouse, which every farmer may have these days a well, by the summerhouse, I noticed that there was a patch of gravel which was particularly well raked, and rather wetter than any of the rest. It looked very much as if it had been washed clean. And then, when I stooped down and looked closer, I saw that the water that had been thrown down had washed traces of a red crust onto the large white stones that border the path.

This was, undoubtedly, the place where the woman lay.

Eliza, knowing that, there was something indescribably disquieting about the very ordinariness of the place. I was not quite frightened, but it was oppressive to stand upon that spot and think that this picturesque little grey building, these banks of laurel gleaming with damp, were the last sights upon which a fellow creature's eyes had rested.

Well, just beside the wet gravel was the door to the hermitage. I tried the lock, though of course I had not much hope of gaining an entrance. For you know how it is in these grand places: all the keys are jealously guarded by the gardeners and only they are able to go about wherever they like. But, to my very great surprise, the door swung open a letting out a faint smell of damp and dead leaves. There was not much light inside because the shutters were closed, but it was possible to see the usual collection of stools and basketwork chairs that fill such places, a stand with three umbrellas in it, and two forgotten sunhats lying on a small table. The floor was covered in dust and dry, brown leaves.

Nothing of interest, I thought, and I was about to close the door when my eyes became sufficiently accustomed to the dim light to make out footprints in the dust. I looked closer. Yes, some time recently someone a or maybe two people a had come into the summerhouse. I followed the track of the feet and saw that two chairs had been turned slightly towards one another. On the back of one of the chairs a cus.h.i.+on had been balanced and bore still the impression of a resting head.

Well now, Eliza, I did a very clever thing. I sat down in that chair and I tried to rest my own head against the cus.h.i.+on. But I found that it was impossible for me to do so and I was able to calculate that the person who had placed it must be almost a foot taller than I am. Was not that remarkably well done of me?

Indeed, I begin to think that, terrible though this whole business is, it has at least the advantage of allowing full play to my genius, which I have long considered wasted in the contriving of new gowns and roast mutton dinners out of a small income; and if there was such a profession as Solver of Mysteries, I think I should do as well in it as any man. Perhaps I should set myself up in town with a bra.s.s plate upon my door: 'D Kent. Detector of Crimes and Discoverer of Secrets.' Do you not think I should do good business?

But, rather than cry my own praises, I shall tell you instead of everything that I have been clever enough to deduce.

First of all, there is the question of when this murder took place. Well, about that there can be little doubt; we are all quite certain that it must have occurred while the men were out shooting. It must have happened then, otherwise the single shot would have been heard and remarked upon, if not by people up at the house, then certainly by the men working in the garden.

So much is certain.

But, Eliza, this has brought me to a shocking conclusion. You see, after most exhaustive enquiries among the servants a and I might add that there is a veritable army of men employed here in maintaining that exquisite order that Sir Edgar demands in his park and pleasure grounds a none of these men are able to recall seeing a stranger here during that time. So, you see, it seems most likely a though I find this hard to countenance, and n.o.body else in the household will even acknowledge it to be possible a that it was a man from the house who did the terrible deed. Of course there are the beaters and the servants to consider; but they would have had no weapon. Eliza, it was only the gentlemen who were carrying guns.

It is a shocking conclusion, is it not? But I think it must be braved. What was it that Edward used to say when he was preparing for his debates at Cambridge? 'Logic is a matter for the head and it is best not to let the heart have anything to do with it.'

And I sincerely hope that Edward would have approved of the logic I applied yesterday in my study of the shrubbery.

After I had closed the door of the hermitage, I followed the gravel path beside its wall. This brought me to the edge of the shrubbery and the ha-ha that divides it from the park. I stopped here and looked about me.

The first thing I noticed was that it would indeed have been impossible for the woman to have been killed by a shot fired from the park side of the ha-ha because the summerhouse itself stands in the way. The fatal shot must have been fired from within the shrubbery.

But, as I looked across into the park, I also saw that the little wooded hill known as Cooper's Spinney, which is the place where the gentlemen were shooting that day, begins barely two hundred yards away.

Here the parkland ends with a romantic little Greek ruin, which, it seems, Sir Edgar built last summer. It is rather pretty with its white, fresh-looking walls and fallen columns, though it probably has as much of Greece about it as the stable block; for Sir Edgar has never visited Europe, since England has, as I heard him telling the colonel at dinner yesterday, 'always been enough' for him. Anyway, this ruin marks the end of the parkland and beyond it is the rougher ground where the game birds thrive.

Now, looking at the spinney, I thought that one of the men might, just possibly, have been able to slip away while the guns and the beaters were all intent upon the sport and, if luck was with him, his absence might not have been noted. I looked carefully at the distance between the spinney and the shrubbery and I am sure that a man running could have covered the ground in a minute a or maybe two.

And could he have crossed the ha-ha?

Well, yes, I think that he might. It is formed of only a moderate ditch a just deep enough to prevent the fence it contains from interrupting the view from the pleasure grounds a and the fence itself is not high. It does not need to be, for Sir Edgar's park has no deer in it to come marauding in the gardens; there are only sheep and cattle, neither of which are remarkable for their prowess in jumping. Yes, I think a man in shooting dress might scramble down into the ditch and climb the fence without too much difficulty.

In fact, I can say more than that, Eliza. I can say that I am almost sure that someone did just that.

You see, I went and stood beside the ha-ha at the point nearest the hermitage. The point at which it would have been most convenient to cross. And there, sure enough, in the soft mud of the bank, were furrows gouged as if by the skidding heels of boots. And there were marks on the other side too coming down from the park. Someone had crossed there a recently.

So, the question filling my head now is: were all the men of the house out that day? Must they all be equally under suspicion? I must ask Catherine about it.

Which reminds me that I have promised to go with Catherine upon her morning calls; I am to meet her in the morning room at eleven o'clock and it is already just a quarter before the hour. I cannot write much more, but there are yet one or two points that I wish to mention.

First, there is this, rather happier, thought: whoever else might have been a member of that shooting party, Mr Montague was certainly not in it, because he had left Belsfield two days before. So he cannot have been the man who crossed the ha-ha with a gun in his hands, can he?

He cannot have been here on that day...

I have been thinking it over carefully. My information on this matter all comes from dear Mrs Harris and I am almost certain that she said the gatekeeper had been questioned very particularly and that she had said she admitted no strangers that day. A suspicion arises in my mind a this solving of mysteries is very apt to make one suspicious. Is it possible that, either by chance or design, the gatekeeper omitted to mention admitting Mr Montague because he was not a stranger?

I must make my own enquiries about that too.

And now the clock has struck the hour and Catherine will be becoming very impatient; but there is one more thing that I must tell you before I close and it concerns Colonel Walborough.

He is a very strange man. He is large and corpulent and has what I make no doubt our mother would have called a 'bilious look'. Moreover, he has very large, flat feet and walking does not seem to be easy for him a though I suppose he must be rather more nimble on horseback or he would never have won the high reputation that he has in his profession.

Well, as I was returning from the shrubbery yesterday, I saw a very strange sight. I had just crossed the lawns and come onto the drive in front of the house at a place where it is bounded on either side by a succession of large, high yew bushes. I was amazed to see Colonel Walborough making his way along the drive and, as he pa.s.sed each bush, peering around it a and into it.

He looked so strange, Eliza! He was perspiring with the effort and he looked rather as a man does at a ball when he has been, by the tyranny of good manners, trapped into a dance against his will.

'Are you looking for something, Colonel?' I asked.

'Ah!' He came to a standstill on the gravel. 'Good morning, Miss...er, yes, good morning to 'ee.'

'Can I help you?' I said. 'Have you perhaps lost something?'

'Oh, no. No, I thank 'ee, but no.'

The colonel, I should say, has a rather strange way of speaking, which it is difficult to do justice to on paper; it is rather like a gallant young fellow of fifty years ago. It suggests to me that he has perhaps not always lived in the best society and has learnt his manners by reading the wrong sort of novels.

He smiled at me and gave an exaggerated bow. 'I was just looking for that boy,' he said, 'that footman. The young one, you know.'

'Jack?' I said. 'I believe all the footmen are in the butler's pantry cleaning silver at this time in the morning.'

'Ah, good. Thank 'ee.'

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt because after a moment he added, as if in explanation, 'Logs. Logs you know, Miss...er...'