Some Touch of Madness, page 12
Emmeline tried to draw her out—she didn’t want to think that her maid was suffering bad treatment or nasty conditions in their current situation—but it turned out she had a toothache. As she dressed her mistress’s hair for the day she leaned in to Emmeline and said she was going to get permission to go to Verburne the next day to see the local tooth drawer. While there she would speak with Dr. Woodforde, she murmured. This morning’s events were alarming and he needed to be told.
Emmeline swiftly shot her a look and nodded. “I have a few things I’d like him to find out,” she whispered. “I’ll think about it and tell you tonight.”
†
After breakfast they were commanded to fetch their cloaks and gloves, as they were to spend an hour outside. Life at the Coleman Institute was going to proceed—with some few alterations—as if one of their own had not been brutally murdered on the premises. The day had turned fine, sunny, but chilly and with clouds beginning to bank in the western sky threatening a change soon.
They paced the flagstone terrace, while one or two of the ladies sat on the low stone wall that bordered the terrace, gazing out over a long green lawn that appeared unbroken. Some of the older ladies sat on benches along the stone wall of the institute, wrapped against the chill in blankets. Sarah was there, soothing her sorrow with ministering to them, reading a prayer. In another life, in another place, she would have been a marvelous vicar.
In the distance, through trees and brush, she could spy the glassy gray glimmer of the stew pond. Emmeline shivered as she stared at it. Alexandrina Lackland stood by her, fury radiating from her in waves. “Maggie was my friend, and I wasn’t here when she needed me,” she muttered, her voice thick with tears. “I need to see where she died.”
Mrs. Jacobson paced behind them, along the terrace, her stentorian voice issuing commands. “Now, ladies, there are new rules in effect this morning, for your own safety. A neighbor’s dog got loose and as it is vicious, none of you are to walk the grounds today.”
“So that’s how they will handle it,” Emmeline murmured. So far the patients had not been told about Maggie’s death. Her body lay alone in a locked room downstairs, awaiting transport to Verburne, and in the meantime no one was being told that among them may be a murderer.
The Misses Pant and Greck huddled close to the institute whispering, hoots of laughter erupting occasionally, especially when they glanced over at Emmeline and Alexandrina.
“What do they talk about?” Emmeline muttered.
“No one knows,” Alexandrina said. She turned to the other girls and in a bad-tempered display stuck out her tongue.
Shrill laughter floated on the breeze as the two young ladies turned away and raced toward Mrs. Jacobson, who was tending to the older ladies.
“I need to see the pond,” Alex said. “And despite Mrs. J’s edict I know how to manage it. Go to the far end, over there,” she said, pointing in the direction past the gathered ladies.
Emmeline paced the terrace, slipping past the grouped women as Alex circled the Misses Pant and Greck, who still chortled and laughed together. Her new friend lingered, covertly listening to the two young women’s conversation, then she drifted closer to the older women and said something to one of them. Ah, it was Mrs. Davies to whom she spoke.
Alex moved away and strolled toward Emmeline. As she joined her there was an outcry from Mrs. Davies. That lady started shouting, red-faced, at the two younger misses. Disjointed phrases floated to Emmeline and Alex on the breeze, poison in my tea, hired by my husband, and plot to kill me among them. Two minutes later, as the conflict became heated with physical blows from the elder lady, Mrs. Jacobson was required to intervene as were the porters, who assisted her. They drew Mrs. Davies away, but also collared the two younger ladies and Mrs. Davies’s companion, ordering them all inside.
“That will take them a good half hour to sort out,” Alex said. “Let’s escape while we can!”
Ten
Emmeline followed the last few feet of the terrace after Alex, who sped ahead, gray cloak fluttering like she was a gull on the wing. Emmeline glanced back once before disappearing around the corner and saw Sarah watching with a startled expression.
Once they were out of sight of the terrace, Alex slowed and turned, her breath coming in puffs, visible in the cold air as she walked backward. “We need to take a circuitous route or we will be discovered.”
Emmeline looked around as she followed, orienting herself. She had to assume that they would soon be missed. And she had to remember that there was a murderer afoot. But then, she had faced killers before. “When do you think they’ll start looking for us?”
“Mrs. Davies can create quite a stir. It’ll be twenty minutes before they realize we’re missing.”
“Sarah saw us leave.”
“She won’t say a word. Now, do you want to do this or not? If you don’t, go back and I will proceed alone.”
“I can’t let you do that,” she said.
“You believe it was murder, don’t you? Don’t deny it. You know more than what you told us earlier. I can see it in your eyes. Let us make haste, and when we get to the pond you can tell me all. I need to know. My friend is dead, and I want to know why and how.”
There was comfort in finding a likeminded woman among the placid pigeons of the Coleman Institute. “How do we get there from here?”
“We’d best go around the front way so as not to be seen.”
They were a hundred feet from a thickly wooded area, the leaves gone this late in November but with overgrown patchy brush at the base of the denuded trees. She was considering all the places an attacker could hide. Someone could easily lurk there, waiting until they saw Maggie Padimore walking across the grassy expanse. “I want to do this.” She motioned toward the wooded copse. “Where are we?”
Alex turned, shaded her eyes as one brief beam of sun peeked through the gray cover, and pointed. “That is still Coleman Institute property. The wooded area is not too big, an acre or so. We left the terrace toward the north. The building faces the east.”
“That’s right,” Emmeline said. “Our room faces the sunrise. The light comes in between the drapes.”
“Walk with me,” Alex said.
Emmeline followed her. They both had long strides and were active women, so even in dresses, petticoats and cloaks they sped across the firm ground.
“In the middle of that woods is a folly,” Alex said, pointing. “It’s nothing special, a pretend ruin built by the original owner of this place back when follies and hermits were au courant.” She led the way around the Coleman Institute to the front, peeking around the corner and waving Emmeline on. They strolled across the damp grass as she explained the grounds. “There is the gate, where you arrived, and the gatekeeper’s cottage beside it,” she said, pointing to the Tudor building and large wrought iron gates. “The gatekeeper and his wife have boarders, the Swiss porters. Also the two men who take care of the gardens.”
Possible suspects in Maggie’s murder, Emmeline thought. Alex was a valuable aid if she was going to investigate who could have murdered Maggie, and she would. How could she not? The image of that raw red wound was fresh in her mind, as was poor Maggie’s forlorn hope that she would escape with her beau and be married. Whomever that beau was, he was a suspect as well as Hopper, John Lincoln, the Swiss porters and every other person with the freedom to move unimpeded over the property. Including . . . “I understand Dr. Coleman has a house on the property?”
“There is a lane to it through those woods I showed you. Come along. Let’s go around the other side of the house.” She glanced over at Emmeline as she led the way across the front of the three-story building.
“Lead on to the pond.”
Broad-shouldered, fair-haired John Lincoln trundled a barrow of gravel toward the lane, tugging at his hat as he passed. He was good-looking in a red-cheeked way, and looked as untroubled as he had early that morning, walking away from the general area of Maggie’s death. Was he Maggie’s swain? Was he her killer? How would she find out?
Alexandrina, seeing her gaze follow him, misinterpreted her interest. “That’s John Lincoln. Handsome lad, isn’t he? Well set up, strong of limb, sound of wind, and all that. He’s not stupid. He has read Fielding, and can quote Pamela. I can’t decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing given his position.”
“What do you mean?” she said, not yet revealing that she had already met him.
“The stupid ones are easier to enjoy the look of, you know? When they are intelligent, one is inclined to take them seriously. More’s the pity.”
Startled, Emmeline thought that was the way most men appraised women. It was interesting to see the philosophy turned on its head, but she understood what her new friend was saying. A good-looking stupid man was like a painting; one could enjoy looking without ever worrying about becoming attached. “I met him when I was out walking with Maggie and I could see that he was attracted to her. She seemed to disdain him. Do you think that is so?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said.
“I didn’t know her well, but she appeared . . .” Trying to discover what Alex truly thought of Maggie, Emmeline said, “In truth, I thought any passable man may have caught her eye, and he is better than passable. Did they have a secret flirtation?”
“Perhaps. She did admire male beauty.”
“Like the handsome vicar?”
Alex gave a rueful smile. “Did you note that? I thought it one-sided myself, for she appeared to throw herself at the man, and he was not catching. But I never heard her express admiration for the gardener boy.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That is not part of your store of secrets? Maggie said you liked to hoard secrets.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Maggie could be . . . I’m afraid I have been caught up in my own family concerns. I still can’t believe that when I left here was the last time I’d ever see Maggie.” She beckoned to the young fellow, and he doffed his cap, holding it in front of him in both hands as he approached, a gleam of interest in his eyes.
“John Lincoln, how do you fare? This is Miss Emmeline St. Germaine, a new inmate of this place.”
He bowed and turned his cap around and around. “We have met. How are you today, Miss St. Germaine?”
Did he know Maggie was dead? Impossible to tell, unless she asked. “I’m very well, thank you.” She eyed him speculatively. He was broad of shoulder, clean and fair, with ruddy cheeks. “I understand from Miss Lackland that you are a reader.”
“Aye, miss.”
“What have you read lately?”
“I’m reading poetry, miss. My landlady favors Mr. Crabbe, you know, and we read one of his poems each night, or one of the older ones by Mr. Cowper. But for myself, I fancy the more stirring verses by Mr. Wordsworth. I’m that set on reading all of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There’s a painting in the landlady’s sitting room, you see, and when I ponder it I am full of Mr. Coleridge’s words . . . Day after day, day after day,/We stuck, nor breath nor motion;/As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean.”
“Jove, but you are a learned one!” Alex exclaimed. “I admire you, young John, I truly do! Next I’ll be hearing that you’re reading Shakespeare.”
“I’m tryin’, Miss Lackland, but that is tough going, I’ll admit it. Too much language, you know. I am trying the tragedies. Hamlet, miss . . . very bloody. Not romantic enough for my taste.”
Emmeline said, “I noticed the other day that you appeared to admire Miss Magdalen Padimore. Was it a romantic interest?” Alex moved beside her, but Emmeline stayed her with one hand.
The fellow sobered and paused, then said, “I’d no notion in that direction.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about Miss Padimore?” She watched his face as his color rose and his gaze shifted away from her, to the distant landscape. He clapped his hat back on his head and shuffled, but he did not speak. He knew. She wondered from whom he had heard, but supposed it was swiftly spoken of even in the gatekeeper’s cottage or institute kitchen. “I saw you this morning, John, coming from the direction of the pond. What were you doing so early, and with a barrow?”
“Lookin’ for fallen wood, miss. Naught wrong with that.”
“But your barrow was empty.”
“No fallen wood thereabouts to find.”
“Did you see anyone or hear anything?”
“No, miss. I’d best be on my way, miss. Good day to you.” He walked away, but without the jaunty whistle.
“You don’t suspect him, do you?” Alex said. “What are you thinking? Now see here, what do you suspect happened to Maggie?”
“Let’s go on. Show me the grounds, then let us go to the pond.” Along the south-facing front was a long, broad, jutting-out glassed room. “What is this?”
“The conservatory. They don’t use it much, only for the oldies on sunny days.”
They followed a gravel path and circled the glass room. Emmeline paused and peered in, seeing chairs, green plants, a few tables and not much else. Alexandrina urged her to move along and together they rounded the corner of the building to a long brick wall. They followed the wall, on the other side of which, Alex told her, was the kitchen yard, which held a garden in the spring and was used for laundry day. A gravel path followed the wall and passed by a gate on the wall to access the kitchen yard, probably used for deliveries. The gate was thick wood with a latch, not locked.
They crunched along the gravel path, which split in two, one branch heading off into the distance, while the other stopped at a haha. “Jump down, and we won’t be seen until we’re too far away to catch.”
“What?”
“The haha, stupid. Jump down, and we will head to the stew pond. The haha conceals you until you are a ways from the terrace, you see, especially if you know what path to take around the shrubbery. If Mrs. Jacobson comes looking, she won’t see us right away.”
Emmeline followed to the edge of the haha and looked down. It was easily six feet high. “Maggie and I found a different way, down further where it slopes to a gentle decline. Surely this is too steep to jump from. We’ll break an ankle.”
“Don’t be a sap-skull. Sit down on the edge and push off.”
“Sap-skull?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “That means idiot, idiot. Simpleton. Nickninny. Clodpole.”
“You know a lot of jargon for idiot.” Emmeline thought she knew a lot of slang herself, having been tutored by a rude little chimney sweep of whom she was fond. But Alex had a richer knowledge.
“I went to school where those are terms of endearment. If you are concerned by the drop there is a spot I know where it is easier.” She led the way back along the haha, as the land below sloped upward until the height was much less. “Here, I’ll show you.” She crouched down, put one hand on the stone edge, and slid down over it to the soft grass below. “You’re not afraid, are you?” she said, looking up at Emmeline.
“Not at all,” she replied and followed the other lady’s example. The jump down was not too jarring. “Lead on!”
Alexandrina led the way around clumps of bushes and a perennial border. Emmeline saw how those would conceal them from the matron and porters on the terrace. She paused to look up at the institute and saw a face in a window. She squinted and counted the windows along from the end. Six, which meant it was one over and across the hall from their room. That must be Mrs. Horsfall, if she was right. The face disappeared.
Had that woman been looking out the window last night, or early this morning? Had she seen anything? It was a possible avenue of investigation.
They walked across an open patch of grass, down a slope, and there was the stew pond. The patches of blue in the sky had dissipated, sullen clouds closing in overhead. The surface was like a sheet of glass until an icy drizzle set up, splashing slim needles of sleet that rippled the pond. It was a gloomy spot, the murky water disturbed by drifting weeds and rotting wood branches thrusting out of the water like ghastly fingers.
Alex wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the muck at the edge of the pond, where booted feet of the men dragging Maggie’s body out had churned it into a thick porridge of slime. “This was where she lay?”
“Close on. Her body was drifting, feet toward the bank, head toward the center of the pond. She wore a cloak and a dress, and there was a circlet of weeds near her head.” There was no response. Emmeline glanced to her companion and saw Alex staring at her in horror. “What is it?”
“You’re so calm. Matter-of-fact. Like seeing a dead woman is no . . .” Alex stared and her eyes clouded. She stepped back one step.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Emmeline said impatiently, swiping a tendril of hair out of her eyes. “But someone did. Listen to me. I have to tell someone, and you were Maggie’s friend. She was murdered, strangled with that red velvet ribbon she always wore around her neck and left floating on the pond. It was staged, too: that ribbon, the circle of weeds. Who did such a thing? I want to know, and I think you do too.”
Alex straightened, her jaw firming, her eyes watering in the dull gleam of daylight, as the rain intensified. “I do want to know what happened. I feel responsible.”
“Responsible? Why?”
Her voice clogged and rough with emotion, she said, “If I had been here she may have confided . . . perhaps I could have stopped her.” She shook her head, sniffed, and rubbed her nose. “I’m too late to save her!”
“You are not responsible. Help me figure out who did it.”
She nodded and turned away from the grim scene. “Do you suspect anyone?”
Emmeline nodded. “Several people.” She left it there, waiting for Alex to share, but the young woman simply blinked and shook her head.
“I can’t believe she’s gone. I had so much more to say to her, so much more—”
“She said you tried to talk her out of her ways toward men. Why is that?”
