A Bitter Truth (31 page)

“In London,” Henry replied shortly. “I couldn’t leave France, and when I did, I was seconded to carry dispatches to the War Office. My commanding officer doesn’t hold with provincial policemen disrupting his war.”

It was said to irritate, and it hit its mark. Inspector Rother flushed.

“Nevertheless, you will give your statement to one of my constables,” he said, and then turned to the rest of us.

“In your earlier statements, none of you reported the conversation in the drawing room that led to Lieutenant Hughes retiring early. No one, that is, save Dr. Tilton and his wife. Even the rector and his sister professed not to recall what led to the Lieutenant going up to his room. And by the next morning, Hughes was dead and Davis Merrit was accused of his murder. But Davis Merrit must have known something about that conversation. After all, Mrs. Lydia Ellis had rushed into Hartfield to speak to him on that fatal Saturday morning, and the only conclusion to be drawn is that she was upset by events and confided in him rather than her husband. Merrit disappeared, and again the only conclusion was that Merrit, in a fit of misplaced gallantry, rid Mrs. Lydia Ellis of this man who had upset her. But Merrit turned up dead, and not by his own hand, as we’d begun to suspect might be the case. And now Dr. Tilton, who might have appeared to be the tattler to the police, is dead.” He swung around toward me. “Indeed, Dr. Tilton had mentioned that you refused to allow him to question the Lieutenant more fully, and that you’d been ordered to accompany him to help put Hughes to bed by Roger Ellis himself.”

“I was sent because he was too unsteady to walk alone to his room. Captain Ellis gave me no instructions. The rector and his sister can verify that. I was acting in my capacity as a nurse, not a spy,” I replied shortly. “And if you question Mrs. Tilton on this subject, she will tell you that that’s the truth.”

“Nevertheless, Dr. Tilton is dead. On your property, Captain. Because he failed to keep your family’s secrets. Now I ask you to consider who among you had the greatest need to do murder.”

Mrs. Ellis stood up. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “It wasn’t my son,” she said. “I killed these men.”

Gran crossed the room and stood beside her. “Don’t believe her. I did it. I can even tell you how.”

We were all shocked into silence. Then Roger Ellis said sharply, “There’s no need to defend me. I can speak for myself.” He turned to Inspector Rother. “You’re telling us that these murders were done to keep the world from discovering that I possibly had a love child in France. This ‘love child’ of mine, however, is the daughter of Claudette and Gerard Hebert, both of whom are dead—the mother in childbirth, for which there are witnesses, and the father fighting in the French Army.”

There was the ring of truth in his voice, and it was the truth. As far as it went. As he finished, he flicked a glance in my direction, as if defying me to contradict him.

I had no intention of betraying his confidence. It would only hurt Lydia and stain Sophie’s reputation for all time.

“What do you know about this business, Sister Crawford?”

“I have seen this child.” I heard Mrs. Ellis and Gran gasp. “And no one has tried to kill me. What’s more, the nuns into whose care she was given called her Sophie Hebert.”

“Are you defending this man for personal reasons, Sister Crawford?”

“I am not. But if he has committed murder, it was not because of Sophie Hebert.”

He considered Roger Ellis, then said, “Thank you for being frank, sir. But it’s clear your family is not a party to this information. That leaves them as suspects in these murders.”

“I tell you, neither my mother nor my grandmother is capable of killing anyone.”

“How much strength does it take, Captain, to slip up behind a man and strike him hard on the back of the head, hard enough to break his skull? One blow was not sufficient for Lieutenant Hughes—he was left to drown while he was unconscious. But practice makes perfect, does it not? A single blow dispatched the other two victims.”

He hadn’t told us any of that. “What was the weapon?” I asked. “I thought a revolver was found by Merrit’s head?”

“A walking stick? One might carry that without suspicion. As for the revolver, it was window dressing.”

“But you’ve taken all the walking sticks in this house. Did you find that one of them had been used as a murder weapon?” Captain Ellis asked.

“You’re right. None of the sticks showed signs of use. But were these all the sticks that were here to start with? I questioned the staff, and they either can’t or refuse to help me.”

“What about William Pryor?” I asked him. “At one time you thought he might know more about the death of Lieutenant Hughes and even Davis Merrit than he was willing to admit.”

“I haven’t forgot Mr. Pryor,” he told me, and then said, “Mrs. Ellis, I’d like you to come with me.”

Roger stepped between his mother and Inspector Rother. “No. She’s had nothing to do with this business.”

Mrs. Ellis put her hand on her son’s arm. “Let me go with him, let him question me. The sooner we cooperate, the sooner this will be finished.”

“He’ll do his best to confuse you. I won’t have it. If he has questions, he can ask them here, in my presence.”

Gran said, “I have told you. I killed these men. You can decide, Inspector, which of us to believe.”

The door opened and Lydia walked in. I thought perhaps she’d been listening at the door, because she didn’t appear to be surprised to see the Inspector or to feel the tension in the room.

“Inspector, do I understand you to say that one of my family has killed three times to keep my husband’s secret love affair out of the public eye?”

“Indeed, Mrs. Ellis. That’s how it appears.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Why should any of us kill poor George or Davis, or even Dr. Tilton, when the child is here in this house, for all the world to see.”

I felt cold. This was Lydia’s attempt to make certain that Roger couldn’t send Sophie back to France. I couldn’t believe how misguided it was.

Inspector Rother stood there with his mouth open.

“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly.

“Then I’ll prove it.” She turned back into the passage and held out her hand. Sophie Hebert reached for her fingers, and in front of all of us, Lydia led her into the hall.

She stood there, looking around with large, uncertain eyes. And then she saw me, turned Lydia’s hand loose, and rushed across the room to cling to my skirts, smiling up at me.

Lydia’s face froze.

Gran stopped stock-still, with such an expression of pain in her eyes that I took a step backward. Margaret sat down suddenly, as if her limbs could no longer hold her. And Mrs. Ellis’s knees buckled. If Roger hadn’t been quick enough to catch her, she would have fallen to the floor in a dead faint.

Holding his unconscious mother in his arms, Roger Ellis turned his back on the child, as if she were not in the room.

I lifted Sophie into my arms, and she leaned into me. “I think it best for me to take Sophie back upstairs.” Turning to Inspector Rother, I went on, “You have ruined a surprise, Inspector. I hope you are satisfied.”

But he didn’t hear me. Lydia started to follow me from the room, but Roger’s voice stopped her in midstride. I left them there and carried Sophie back to the room where Gran had once played with another small, fair-haired child, long ago.

She said, an arm around my shoulders,
“Le chat?”

“Yes, we are going to see the cat. Will you stay there with it for a little bit? And I’ll bring you soup, perhaps a little cheese, and more biscuits.”

As I opened the door, she got down from my arms and went to the low bed of cushions, climbing into them and rousing Bluebell from her sleep. Giggling, she pulled a bit of green ribbon from her pocket and began to drag it over the bedclothes. I thought Lydia must have given her that.

Shutting the door, I went back to the hall, where Lydia was standing over the still-unconscious form of her mother-in-law while Gran was searching around the hearth for feathers to burn under Amelia Ellis’s nose. Lydia looked tearful now, and I thought that her grand entrance at the wrong time had suddenly dawned on her.

Gran found part of a feather from a duster caught in a length of wood sitting by the hearth, and held it to the flames for an instant. The nauseating odor of burning feathers filled the room, and she blew out the small spurt of fire on the tip before hurrying to Mrs. Ellis’s side to wave it under her nose.

Mrs. Ellis moaned a little, brushing weakly at the feather to push it away, and then opened her eyes. Looking around, she said, “Did I dream that Juliana was here?”

No one quite knew how to answer her.

Inspector Rother drew me to one side. “What happened? How long has that child been here? Why didn’t the others know she was here?”

“Mrs. Roger Ellis wanted to—to make sure Sophie was comfortable here before introducing her to everyone else. Sophie speaks only French, you see. And she doesn’t know these people.”

“Is Mrs. Lydia adopting her? The Captain didn’t appear to be keen on the idea.”

“She would like to, very much. There are procedures to be followed—” I let my voice fade away.

“So it’s not all that certain that the child will stay?”

I sighed. “She’s an orphan, Inspector. I’m not entirely sure what must be done.”

“They could still have killed Hughes, Merrit, and Dr. Tilton. Those women. Not knowing.”

“They could have,” I agreed. “But Mrs. Roger Ellis knew from the start that a search was being made. First by Lieutenant Hughes, and then by her husband.” I was praying he wouldn’t ask me how Sophie came to be here in the first place.

He cleared his throat, trying to attract the attention of a family who had all but forgot that he was even here.

Mrs. Ellis was crying, Gran was gripping her shoulder so tightly I could see that her fingertips were white from the pressure, and Lydia was staring up at her husband, silently pleading with him.

Roger Ellis was very angry. The back of his neck was red above the collar of his tunic. He turned, saw me, and came toward me, catching my arm and leading me to the outer door.

Inspector Rother shouted, “Here!” But Captain Ellis ignored him, slamming the door behind him.

If there was a guard posted, I didn’t see him, although a constable sat in Inspector Rother’s motorcar, staring out across the emptiness of the heath.

I pulled free and said, “Blame me if you like. Then go back to your family. They need you.”

“This is why I didn’t want anyone to know about that child. By bringing her here you’ve ripped open scars that had finally healed. You’ve given my wife the means to blackmail me for the rest of my days. You’ve caused irreparable harm by interfering. Are you satisfied?”

I held my ground before his onslaught. “Captain Ellis. You never wanted to see that child because you knew that if she looked as much like Juliana as George Hughes insisted that she did, you were more likely to be her father, not Hebert. And you couldn’t face that.”

He put his hands over his face and brought them down again, as if to scour the very flesh from the bones.

“God help me” was all he said.

I reached up and touched him, then let my hand drop. “There is nothing you can do about the past,” I said. “And there will be nothing you can do about the future. Your mother won’t let that child go now, and Gran will support her in that. She will become a little Juliana, with all the promise that was taken away when the real Juliana died. You must try to prevent that from happening. Lydia will help.”

“Lydia will want to keep her from them. For herself.” There was agony in his eyes. “What if Lydia dies? Just as Alan did? What then?”

“You think—you believe that your mother or your grandmother could be a murderer?”

He shook his head, but I could tell he didn’t know how to answer me.

“Do you believe they could have killed the others—George, and Davis Merrit, and even Dr. Tilton?”

“I don’t know. Damn it,
I don’t know.
Why did you do this to me? To us?”

“I never intended to bring Sophie to England without your permission, without the arrangements only you could make. The fire in the Rue St. Catherine changed that. I can only say I’m sorry. But in the end you would have had to face up to Sophie. Thanks to George Hughes, too many people knew she existed, and that was the end of secrecy for you.”

“Then why the killings?

“Perhaps,” I said wearily, “they have nothing to do with Sophie. And we’re just too blind to see it.”

Chapter Seventeen

W
e went back into the hall. Nothing had changed. Lydia had asked Daisy to bring tea, and now she was coaxing her mother-in-law to drink a little. Gran stood behind Mrs. Ellis’s chair, a frown on her face, and something in her eyes that disturbed me. Margaret and Henry sat in a corner talking in low voices. I could see that she’d been crying.

But the cause of this, Inspector Rother, was standing by the window, where I was sure he’d been watching Roger Ellis talking to me. He turned as we came in.

“I have to close this inquiry,” he said doggedly.

Gran spoke, and I hardly recognized her voice. “I think you will agree with me that my daughter-in-law is not well enough to be interrogated. But I suggest that you consider the fact that if a body was found on our property, it doesn’t follow that one of us is the murderer. Be very careful about accusations that you will not be able to support when the Chief Constable of Sussex sends for you.”

“There are three men dead in Ashdown Forest, Mrs. Ellis. How do I explain them?”

“I’m not a policeman,” she answered him. “I’m not required to explain anything.”

Inspector Rother took a deep breath. “I must meet the doctor from Groombridge. As soon as I have taken care of that, I’ll be back at Vixen Hill, and I expect Mrs. Ellis to be well enough to answer questions.”

And he was gone.

I stood there, looking at this shattered family. They stared back at me.

Gran said, “Why does that child know you better than her own father?”

I answered, “She’s been told she was an orphan. The reason she clings to me is that she knows me. I must take her back to France, and then proceedings may begin to bring her here legally, if that’s your decision. She—” I looked for a way to say it gently. “The nuns who have cared for her will wish to say good-bye.”

“No,” Mrs. Ellis said before Lydia could speak. “I don’t care how she has come to us. She’s here. Roger, tell her that we don’t want Sophie to return to France.”

Caught on the horns of a dilemma, Roger Ellis said, “She’s not my child. Wherever her birth was recorded, her father is listed as Gerard Hebert. I shall have to declare her illegitimate in order to claim her.”

Mrs. Ellis began to cry. Gran said, a hand on her daughter-in-law’s shoulder, “There must be a way.”

Lydia said, “What does it really matter? She’s here. We’ll simply keep her.”

I wanted to tell them that they couldn’t, that the nuns were grieving for a child they believed to have been burned to death.

But before I could speak, we heard another motorcar pull up in the lane outside the door.

“See who it is. Tell them to go away,” Roger said to me, since I was nearest the door.

“It’s probably the doctor from Groombridge searching for the Inspector,” I replied as I went to the door and opened it.

I stood there transfixed.

Simon Brandon was just stepping out of the motorcar, and his face was bruised, a cut ran from close to his eye to the corner of his mouth, and one arm was in a sling.

“You’re still here,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Bess, but it has been a very long four-and-twenty hours.”

I found my voice. “What happened to you?”

There was a distinctly pleased note behind his words. “I had a small task to perform. Don’t ask, I can’t tell you. But it ended very satisfactorily.”

He’d been in France. It was something he’d been eager to do since the day war was declared. But he’d been set on the sidelines, an adviser, his experience consulted again and again, but his vast talents never put to their full use.

“I’m very glad,” I said faintly. “Are you all right?”

“I will be in a day or two. More important, are you?”

“It’s been a very long four-and-twenty hours,” I answered in my turn, and he was instantly alert.

Roger Ellis was at the door. “Who is it? I told you to send them—” He broke off. “Brandon,” he said in acknowledgment. And then he looked over his shoulder, before adding, “I think it would be for the best if you took Sister Crawford back to The King’s Head. We’ve had a difficult time here, and she may feel more comfortable in other surroundings.”

I turned to him. “I’m not leaving without Sophie. She’s my charge, not yours.”

“Sister—Bess. Give them a few days to get used to the fact she must leave.”

“If I give them a few days, they will have grown so attached to her—and she to them—that it will be impossible to take her away. If you will ask Daisy to pack my things, I’ll go up and fetch Sophie.”

“For God’s sake,” Roger began.

But I said, “You didn’t want her.”

“Dear God, Bess—”

“There’s a solicitor in the Street of Fishes. Go and speak to him, if you want her.”

I walked past him and into the hall. It was going to be very difficult, even for me. But if I left her, for the Ellis family it would be like losing Juliana all over again. And I didn’t know what else to do.

To my surprise it was Henry who came to my aid.

He stood up for me, saying, “It can’t be any other way for now. You must see that. She’s not yours. This child. But if you insist on having her, there’s a proper way to go about it.”

When I came down with Sophie in my arms, there was no one in the hall but Simon Brandon and Roger Ellis.

As Simon escorted me to the motorcar, Roger Ellis brought the valise that Daisy or someone had hastily packed.

I suddenly remembered the Major’s motorcar, but before I could mention it to Simon, Roger Ellis came to shut my door, saying to me, desperation in his voice, “Both Claudette and Gerard Hebert were fair.”

I knew at that moment that he couldn’t accept Sophie until Lydia believed that. And I thought she could be brought around to it, given time. She too would prefer not to dwell on that night with Claudette Hebert. It would be Mrs. Ellis and Gran who would fight hardest to hold on to the knowledge that Sophie was Roger’s child.

And then Simon was turning the motorcar, and we were heading toward Hartfield, leaving Vixen Hill and Roger Ellis behind us.

After we had reached the track, Simon spoke. “You’d better tell me everything.”

I did, ending with what, next to Sophie’s welfare, worried me most. “Who is the murderer, Simon? And is it finished, all this killing?”

“Go back to the facts you know, Bess. Leave everything else out of the equation.”

I smiled. “Easier said than done.”

We were just coming into Hartfield. “What am I to do about Sophie?” I asked as she reached up to touch my face.

“If you really want to return her to the nuns in Rouen, I’ll see to it for you.”

He had the means, I was sure of that. I wished with all my heart that I could leave Sophie’s future in Simon’s capable hands. But the more contact I had with her, the harder it was to be objective.

“Let me think about it. Please?”

“You’ll have children of your own one day, Bess. She isn’t yours. She never can be.”

“It isn’t that, Simon. It’s what I’ve done to hurt so many people. I don’t want to make the wrong decision about Sophie too.”

We had reached the inn, and when Simon had seen to the arrangements, I took Sophie up to my room and settled her. She asked two or three times for
le chat,
and I told her that Bluebell hadn’t come to The King’s Head.

After she’d been fed and put down to sleep, I went next door to Simon’s room and sat disconsolately on the chair by the window.

“If I could fix it, I would,” he said gently.

I smiled. “Would it were as easy as that.”

Taking a deep breath, I began with the facts.

“George Hughes came here when Alan Ellis was dying. And nothing happened to him. He came again when the memorial stone was to be set in place. And this time he was murdered. It’s possible that he went to meet someone—the note I discovered—or that he encountered someone when he went for a walk that last morning. He often went to Juliana’s grave.”

“All right. Let’s look at that. If he’d prepared to leave first thing—his valise in his motorcar, nothing left but to say his farewells—why did he take the time to walk?”

“Everyone thought to say good-bye to Juliana. And then Davis Merrit, a blind man, went for a ride on the heath after Lydia came to see him and told him what George had said. He often went riding. His horse could find its way back to Hartfield, if the Lieutenant got lost. This time it did just that—but without its rider.”

“I’ll just look in on the child,” he told me and was back quickly. “Asleep. Go on.”

“The police believe Lieutenant Merrit rode out to find George and kill him. But how did he, a blind man as I said, know where in all the heath to find George Hughes? Or that he was walking at all?”

“Had Lydia seen him on her way to Hartfield?”

“She never mentioned it. Nor did the police. So I must assume she didn’t.”

“And it wouldn’t be helpful to Merrit, if she spotted Hughes as she returned home.”

“True. Which must mean that somehow Lieutenant Merrit knew where and when to find George Hughes. And that would explain why George went for such an early walk, even though he was in something of a hurry to leave Vixen Hill and all the embarrassment he’d caused.”

“So far so good.”

I took a deep breath. “Simon. That message I found in the umbrella. What if it was dropped in there
after
the meeting took place. A good many people were at Alan’s memorial service in the churchyard. Anyone could have passed it to George Hughes then. But that leaves us with another quandary. Why would those two men wish to meet? The police haven’t been able to come up with any connection between them so far. Except Lydia.”

“They didn’t know where to look.”

“Good God, are you telling me that you’ve found a link?”

He nodded. “Actually it took your father’s connections to uncover it. There was a general court-martial two years ago. Merrit and Hughes were asked to sit on it.”

“A court-martial? I would never—but what was the case?”

“A Sergeant, one Albert Halloran, was accused of shooting an officer in the back during an attack across No Man’s Land. It could have been accidental, God knows there’s chaos in a charge, and no one can be sure when he fires who will suddenly step in the path of the shot. But in this case, the Sergeant had had words with the officer, and he was still angry when he went over the top. This was reported, and it was decided to try the man to get to the bottom of it. The court decided, unanimously, that the shooting had been intentional because the slain officer had warned the Sergeant that he was in danger of being sent back for dereliction of duty. He was sentenced to be hanged, but before it could be carried out, he overpowered his guards and escaped. It was thought that he managed to reach Boulogne and sail aboard a hospital ship bound for New Zealand, but when the ship was searched in New Zealand, he couldn’t be found.”

“He’s back in England looking for revenge?”

“It’s possible. Bess, what was unique about Merrit?”

“He was blind.”

“That’s right. He couldn’t recognize faces.”

I remembered Lieutenant Merrit stepping out the door of Bluebell Cottage and tapping his way down the street here in Hartfield. “But the blind often compensate by developing acute hearing. He could recognize a voice. And when he learned that George Hughes was coming to spend the weekend with the Ellis family, he wanted him to see the owner of the voice he’d heard.”

“Men who have served on courts-martial seldom meet to share a glass of beer in the local pub and talk over the trial,” he agreed.

“William Pryor. Willy,” I said, getting up and walking across to the hearth to warm my hands.

“You can’t be sure of that. Only that someone here in Ashdown Forest could be Halloran.”

“Do you have any idea what this man Halloran looks like?”

“The description could fit half the men serving in the British Army. No distinguishing characteristics. Medium height, medium coloring.”

“I’ll never be able to convince Inspector Rother to look into this. I wonder if George and Davis Merrit actually did meet? Or if the killer got to each of them first?”

“Or if Merrit accidentally got the message into the wrong pocket.”

I shivered. “How awful! But George went to the churchyard that morning, didn’t he?”

“To meet Merrit—or to say good-bye to Juliana? We’ll never know.”

“Simon. There’s George Hughes’s accident. As he drove to Vixen Hill. He swore there was something in the road. But when he and Roger Ellis went back, there wasn’t.”

“Halloran couldn’t have known when he was coming to Vixen Hill.”

“But he could. George stopped here, at The King’s Head, to brace himself for talking with Roger about Sophie. He could have been seen in time to prepare the accident. If George was here in Sussex, Davis Merrit would be able to have any suspicions confirmed. And so both had to die.”

“It’s too late to do anything about this tonight, Bess. But I think tomorrow we ought to speak to Roger Ellis before talking to Inspector Rother or one of his constables. Meanwhile, I should lock my door, if I were you.”