The Bones in the Orchard, page 7
“Ask him why the late Mr. Upton turned in his register and left in the first place,” Clare added dryly.
Well, he should have guessed that everyone was more concerned about marriage than murder. Hunt kept his chuckle to himself. He was far more interested in that as well. He’d never been averse to the married state. He’d simply never found an opportunity—or the right woman. Now he had a woman, he still didn’t have the opportunity.
“Perhaps you’d best not mention the possibility that the last curate was killed when you demand a new one,” he suggested, sipping the brandy he’d poured.
“Murdered?” Henri glanced up from his conversation with Walker. “Upton was murdered?”
“It appears so.” Meera nibbled at one of the crackers Elsa baked at Hunt’s behest. “If I were to conjecture, he was to meet someone in that rather hidden side yard, perhaps in hope of gaining one of his extortion payments. When he prepared to depart, that person hit him over the head with a hard object. It may only have been in anger or frustration, but the blow was vicious enough to crack the skull. We do not know how long he lay there, but it was enough to cause brain bleeding and possibly led to heart failure. Without a surgeon who might perform an autopsy, we shall never know.”
Henri ran his hand through his thick curls. “Mon Dieu, that poor family. A monster with such a temper should not roam the streets!”
Hunt added cheese to a cracker and sipped his brandy before replying. “I talked to some of the people gathered there and made a note of their names. As Clare pointed out at the time, there was a good deal of hostility toward the curate. They were not exactly mourning his demise. But other than to mention that they heard father and son arguing, they did not trust me with their secrets.”
“I’m here to attest that fathers and sons argue,” Jack offered. “I will not believe Paul killed his father over a squabble. I can talk to the stable lads. They gossip like old ladies.”
“One of those old ladies suggested murder,” Clare offered. “And another had harsh words. Perhaps I should learn who they are.”
Henri angrily threw back his whiskey. “I overheard the curate several times. He appeared to be doing what the Scots call blackmailing, extorting protection money from his parishioners to cover past sins. The only name I heard mentioned, though, was Blackstone. He threatened another with bones. The only one I saw, though, was an old woman in a black bonnet. She could have been anyone.”
Hunt frowned. “A woman would need a long arm or a long weapon. He was tall. I suppose it’s conceivable but seems unlikely.”
Adam, the six-foot-plus footman, announced that dinner was served. They moved as an informal group to take their usual places in the main dining room.
Still tidying her hair, Lady Elsa hurried from the kitchen to join them. “Have we discussed replacing Mr. Upton yet?”
Marriage was the main subject on the lady’s mind. Hunt understood that. He was equally frustrated.
He let Jack handle his bride-to-be, while he turned to Clare. “How is Oliver settling in with the tutor? I see he has been persuaded to eat in the schoolroom?”
“They go along famously. I have told Mr. Birdwhistle that he might join us, but he is more interested in teaching Oliver not to eat under the table.”
Hunt snorted. “That only works if there is just the two of them. If we introduce him to a table with strangers, he’ll be gone again.”
Clare’s nephew was only seven, but in Hunt’s estimation, Oliver was on the genius end of the scale. Child prodigies often did not fare well in communal situations. The boy had come a long way these past months, but he still did not socialize.
Clare nodded agreement. “I know, but we must start somewhere. I think he does well when there is only a few of us, but all of us at once. . .” She glanced down the table of laughing, chattering family and friends. “He is too young yet.”
Hunt nodded at the far end of the table where his unattached French cousins dug into the provisions with gusto. As penniless refugees, they’d gone without for too long not to appreciate the hearty fare Elsa provided. “We do not need the boy about when discussing murder. Henri seems exceedingly grim.”
On his left hand, Meera glanced up from her conversation with Walker. “He would be the best of us to make inquiries in the village. The idea of a killer wandering the street gives me cold shivers.” Since she had recently been stalked by her angry lover, the pragmatic apothecary had a right to fear.
Walker covered her small hand with his large one and sent Hunt a glance that he interpreted well.
Any threat to a woman with child would raise Walker’s defensive hackles, but one to the woman he loved? Hunt still wasn’t certain that was their relationship, but the two were close enough to want to marry.
Their discussion had captured the attention of others.
“I can talk to the staff, if Jack talks to the stable lads,” Elsa offered. “But I don’t think any of them had reason to kill a poor curate. They were looking forward to Sunday services.”
“Most of them aren’t from these parts or are too young to have known Upton when he was last here. If he left after Lady Reid died, that was nearly fifteen years ago.” Clare bit into her roll with a frown.
“So we narrow the suspects down to those who were adults and lived here then?” Henri suggested.
“Not necessarily.” Hunt knew he’d regret suggesting this. “I imagine the man collected enemies in every town he ever lived. We have been drawing people from all around the area with our offer of employment. I’m afraid we’d have to look at anyone over the age of thirty who is even passing through.”
“Like that unpleasant fellow calling himself Duncan Reid?” Clare asked.
“Let us just pin it all on him and be done. I don’t want to be questioning Lavender’s ladies.” Arnaud filled his plate again.
At the sound of her name, Lavender looked up from a diagram she’d been sketching. “Questioning? My seamstresses? They’d quit!”
“No, they wouldn’t. They’d gossip,” Arnaud corrected. “That’s all they ever do. You won’t even have to question them. But the nattering will drive me mad, and I’d have to question just to fermer leur bouche.”
Clare snickered. They’d all been brushing up on their French from translating Lady Reid’s diaries. . . and to interpret Arnaud’s attempts to conceal his rudeness.
“We want them talking, not shutting their mouths,” Hunt remonstrated. “You will simply have to absorb the tittle-tattle until we find our predator. I don’t want any more deaths on my watch. Not even a little threat.”
They’d suffered more than that not too long ago when an irate clerk shot at Jack. War and poverty apparently stimulated violence in men’s souls.
“Are there still soldiers camping in the north field?” Jack asked, apparently recalling the incident.
“We’ve found places for all except the most hardened tosspots. If we had someone to tell us what to do about the orchards, we might even be able to catch some of them early enough in the day to be sober for manual labor,” Hunt said.
“Managing a hoe or shear with one arm or one leg might be difficult unless they’re willing to practice,” Meera reminded Hunt. “They might not be employable, except for using weapons.”
That silenced them. Every man at the table, except Henri, had been a soldier once. But unoccupied men could mean trouble, which is what they were hinting at.
“If they only have one leg, they can sit and stuff dried flowers into Miss Upton’s sachet pouches,” Henri suggested. “If they have only one arm, they can still carry boxes about. We must find employment for them before the winter.”
Arnaud glanced down at his hand, the one missing a finger. He’d had to learn to hold an artist’s brush without it. “They might prepare my canvases and apply base coats to the toys the ladies are painting.”
Hunt was a cynic. He didn’t wish to introduce potential killers to his home. But his family was right. Everyone deserved a chance to make a living, and idle hands gave the devil work.
He’d not expected this second chance after war had cost him the sight in one eye and nearly crippled him. He could easily have been one of those homeless, unemployed soldiers.
Jack had been training a pack of hounds to secure the grounds with the aid of one of those soldiers. With more people moving in, some apparently violent, it might be time to hire a bailiff.
NINE
Henri had never used his golden tongue for detecting killers. He most likely would have been a very bad spy. He knew how to talk about his merchandise to obtain the best price. He knew how to ask general questions to open up conversations.
Lying and deceit. . . He’d never practiced. He’d never needed to. His family had sent him to school in England to learn better English, not deceit.
He approached the parsonage thoughtfully the morning after Mr. Upton’s demise. He’d rather not ask pointed questions and let a killer know they suspected the curate’s death hadn’t been an accident. He also didn’t want to upset the victim’s son if he didn’t realize his father had been murdered.
Paul Upton was just climbing down from the parsonage roof. He wore what appeared to be his father’s old clothes. They hung on him as if he were a scarecrow, tied with rope in the middle and folded up at the hems. The lad was barely as tall as his sister. He must take after his mother. The late curate had been a large man.
“You’ve thatched roofs before?” Henri asked, pumping a tin cup of water to hand the sweaty young priest.
“Aye, whatever it takes to earn an honest coin.” Upton gulped the water gratefully.
As opposed to his father’s methods?
“Although someone stole my legget last night,” Upton continued. “I’ll have to make a new one.”
“Legget? What does one look like?” Henri glanced at the ground, but the only tool he saw was a long, knife-like one, presumably for cutting the straw.
Upton shrugged. “I build my own. Mine’s a cross between a hammer and a mallet, I suppose. I wanted to finish up and put my tools away before I start on the coffin, but I can’t find it.”
Mallet? Perhaps one that could have been used to bash his father’s skull? Henri refrained from speaking that aloud, but the other man looked uncomfortable enough to have realized it at the same time—if he knew his father’s death wasn’t accidental.
To ease the moment, Henri picked up the long knife and started trimming the overgrown hedge. “I earned my way through university with peddling. Carpentry could not be much easier.”
“Huh.” Upton wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve and eyed Henri’s fancy neckcloth and tailored coat skeptically. “You don’t look like a peddler.”
Henri acknowledged that truth with a grin. “Now that I earn more selling in the city, I dress the part of prosperous merchant. Once you have a paying position, you will do the same. Miss Marlowe is very clever at sewing vestments and the like.”
“Miss Marlowe?” The young man looked interested for half a minute, then frowned. “I might as well take up construction. I’m good at it. I have very few connections to offer me a position, and none of them are likely to want a parson whose father was murdered for extortion.”
Ah. “So you think that too?” Henri shot the gentleman a considering look.
Upton shrugged uncomfortably. “I am not blind or ignorant. My father pushed limits he should not have. And he definitely did not fall from a roof he never climbed on.”
“You are not demanding justice?” Henri asked, thinking the son seemed oddly dispassionate.
“If I had his position here, I’d call down hellfire and brimstone for solving problems with violence and hope someone confesses. As it is, I cannot see what anyone can do.”
“The Lord would indeed have to work in mysterious ways if you can extract a confession with a sermon.” Henri continued trimming the hedge. “But the ladies want a church. For that, they need a priest. I am Catholic. I do not know your ways. Can we hire you, like your father?”
The young man sighed and studied Henri’s handiwork. “Much as I would love that, and so would my family, I suspect my father has soiled this nest too badly. There had to be a reason he originally left here and did not retrieve the register from the rector when he returned.”
Because he’d been paid to leave, as the old woman had implied? Uneasy at questioning, Henri refrained from relating the incident.
“Do you know this rector?” he asked instead. “Might you ride over and speak with him directly? Would it help if the captain sent a letter with you asking that you be named our curate?”
Henri refused to believe this earnest young man would kill his father unless forced to the brink of madness. The mallet, opportunity, and their argument were not enough evidence. Perhaps if he knew more of the late clergyman. . .
“My father hired the horse and cart that brought us here. I have none of my own.” The young man looked embarrassed. “I have been trying to work up the nerve to ask if I might borrow one so I might do just that, but I thought to finish the coffin first.”
“Ask, and ye shall receive!” Henri replied, happy that he was making some progress. “We have horses. The ladies want you to stay. You will have as many letters as you like. This is not a problem.”
Upton looked relieved. “I will write for an appointment.”
That was an opening Henri could use. “Let us do that now. Your father kept a desk? With papers and pens for his sermons, perhaps?”
“It is not very organized,” the would-be curate apologized. He started toward the back, then remembering himself, ushered Henri toward the front door. “My mother will fix us tea. She’s at sixes and sevens, not knowing whether to unpack or pack.”
“In her grief, she should do whatever feels right. It is not as if anyone is waiting to use this place. How long will it take to build a coffin? It is best to lay him to rest so she might move forward, oui?”
“I had to promise to build a table for the wood cutter in exchange for the planks I need. Once I have the boards, I can build it overnight.” Upton led the way inside.
Henri looked about for Patience, but of course, she must be in a garden somewhere. Only the widow occupied the parsonage’s dreary front room. She bustled off to fix the requested tea while Upton led him into a cluttered study still filled with unopened crates. The desk appeared untouched. Zut.
“I apologize for the muddle, Mr. Lavigne.” Upton gestured at the crates. “Other things seemed more important than unpacking books.”
“Call me Henri.” He studied the clutter. “Mr. Lavigne sounds like my big brother. We are informal here.”
The young curate opened a crate and rifled through it. “Then please call me Paul. I cannot be my father right now. It hurts too much. The crates are not fastened.”
Not daring to hope he’d find extortion notes, Henri rummaged through another crate, setting books on an empty bookshelf and quickly skimming correspondence before opening another box. He scarcely noticed when Mrs. Upton returned with the tea. He wasn’t a tea drinker. But he was enjoying this part of detecting. His curiosity was insatiable.
A few moments later, a scent of lilac wafted through the room, and Henri instantly glanced up.
Miss Upton lingered uncertainly in the doorway. Wisps of fair hair framed her long face, not intentionally, he was certain. She brushed them aside while she found her tongue. She was dressed in black, which made her seem much too frail.
“May I help search?” she asked. “I packed most of the crates.”
“Stationery,” Paul said curtly. “He did have some?”
“Very little. He wrote his sermons in notebooks. I packed the good stationery between larger books so it would not wrinkle.” She crossed the room, crouched down to examine a stack of crates, and pointed at the bottom one. “This one, I think.”
Henri helped the curate’s son haul the crates to a new stack, then left him to open the one indicated. He moved back to give Paul room, but the lady held his attention. Well, a lady as comely as this one would always hold his attention, but he could not dismiss her nervousness.
“Is there aught we can do to help you or your family?” he murmured, blocking her retreat by leaning against the bookshelf.
She reached into her apron pocket and toyed with an object there. “Is the captain the justice of the peace for the area?” she whispered while her brother swore at the mess in the crate.
“The village has elected him so, yes.” Which might not be entirely legal, but they had solicitors who were supposed to be speaking with the Lord High Whomsoever to verify the position. “May I give him a message?”
He’d much rather walk the lovely lady up the hill to the manor to deliver it herself. He’d enjoy the company, only he was no longer a callow youth. He could be a gentleman when needed.
She removed a battered leather notebook from her pocket. “Would you give him this, please? I believe Papa might have been killed for it.”
She knew too? Henri snapped his jaw shut and took the book he’d hoped to find.
Extortionists had to keep notes of who, what, why, when, and where, did they not?
After making certain Paul had his letter-writing tools, the elegant French gentleman tucked the little notebook into his pocket, and offered Patience his arm. “You must show me the work to be done. Did you not say you knew about orchards? We need expert eyes examining the trees. Let me be your beast of burden so you are free to use your pretty head.”
The foreigner was beyond annoying, but he was too charming to set down. She let him lead her outside where they wouldn’t be overheard. “Please cease the flattery. We know I am no expert and not pretty.” She hoped she’d managed to conceal her exasperation.
“I am the one who determines who I think is pretty. And if I do not annoy you with my flattery, you will not speak with me. You are not shy when you are angry.” She thought she heard a smile in his reply.
