Sharyn McCrumb - Missing Susan

Alice MacKenzie nodded triumphantly. “Bad blood in that family! I’ll bet he wasn’t much of an improvement as monarch.”

“Thank God my relatives aren’t like that,” said Susan Cohen.

The guide paused for a moment with his mouth open. Finally he recovered enough to say, “As the Victorian lady said when she saw a production of Antony and Cleopatra: ‘How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen.’ ”

Elizabeth was still considering the list of suspects. “Did Walter Tyrrel get anything from the new king? Was he made Lord Chancellor, or archbishop, or anything?”

“Not that I know of,” said Rowan. “After eight hundred and ninety years, it’s a bit late to be checking bank balances, and testing alibis.”

Alice MacKenzie made a note in her travel diary: Find out what became of Walter Tyrrel. Rowan pointed to the coach windows. “We are coming into more intriguing country,” he remarked. “We have been traveling southwest and we are now between Salisbury and Bournemouth, heading for the tiny village of Minstead, in the heart of the New Forest. Has anyone read anything of Conan Doyle besides the Sherlock Holmes stories?”

They shook their heads.

“Did he write something else?” asked Frances.

Rowan Rover did not trust himself to elaborate. “He did. Sir Nigel, a character in The White Company , lives at Minstead. Conan Doyle himself lived east of here in Crowborough.”

“What beautiful hedges!” said Nancy Warren. “Lovely gardens-and no billboards or gas stations. You can’t tell it’s the twentieth century here at all.”

“The price of a pint in the pub will give you a hint,” muttered Bernard from the driver’s seat.

“Notice these picturesque cottages with their thatched roofs,” said Rowan into the microphone. “Don’t be fooled by all this rustic simplicity. These places cost the earth.”

Susan Cohen looked unimpressed. “If you knew what my grandfather’s house cost, you’d probably faint.” She stifled a yawn.

“A pony!” cried Frances. “Look! He’s wandering around loose beside the road.”

“It’s a New Forest pony,” said Rowan. “They’re wild. They still roam about wherever they like, so it’s just as well that these narrow roads force one to go slow.”

There was a pause while everyone in the coach waited to hear if there were wild ponies in Minnesota, but Susan had nodded off to sleep and was unavailable for comment. Rowan Rover leaned back in his seat and contemplated the hazardous possibilities of pastoral Hampshire. Fortunately or unfortunately, incompetent Norman archers no longer roamed the wilderness. It also seemed unlikely on this first day of the tour that Rowan would be able to bonk his victim on the head with a log in a peaceful forest glade without the presence of a gaggle of horrified onlookers. He knew that he could not expect to share Walter Tyrrel’s good fortune in his witnesses: this lot would not run away in terror and say no more about the incident. Trust them to fight each other for pride of place on the evening news in their eagerness to shop him to the CID. He daren’t risk anything. Rowan hunched down in his seat, oblivious to the glorious warmth of the late summer day.

After a few more minutes of travel through country lanes scarcely wider than the coach, Bernard eased into an expanse of grass at a crossroads facing a half-timbered pub. “Minstead,” he announced. “I’m not sure that road will take this vehicle, though.” He indicated an even smaller hedge-lined road that led uphill from the pub.

Rowan Rover consulted his notes. “It can’t be far. Minstead is a small village. Why don’t we get out and walk to the church? It’s just a little way up this road.”

The tourists stood up and began to collect purses and cameras. “Should we wake up Susan?” asked Kate Conway, flashing her Bambi eyelashes at the guide.

No, let’s leave her here with the bus running and a handkerchief stuffed in the tailpipe. Aloud Rowan Rover managed to say, “Yes, indeed. She wouldn’t want to miss seeing the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She may have heard of him.”

Bernard had opened the coach door and was waiting outside to assist the travelers as they stepped down.

“Are you coming with us?” Maud Marsh asked him as she descended.

Bernard laughed. “Not me. I’ll be having a cigarette break. Take your time, though.”

Susan, stifling a yawn, grabbed her cardigan sweater and ambled off the bus. She looked around at the thatched cottage across the road, the ponies wandering about the green, the ancient pub, and finally at the steep and narrow road that curved away through trees and hedges.

“We have to walk?” she wailed. “Can’t we get any closer?”

“No,” said Maud, tying the laces of her running shoes. “The bus wouldn’t make it up that narrow lane.”

Susan sighed. “I hope it’s worth seeing. I can’t believe we have to walk a mile to look at some pokey old church. These are Italian leather shoes I’m wearing! And it’s uphill!” The pathos of this statement was diminished somewhat by the sight of Maud Marsh, some forty years her senior, striding briskly along as if she were on level ground.

“What flowers are those?” asked Nancy Warren, appearing at Rowan’s elbow as they began the climb.

The guide peered over the privet hedge into a cottage garden, praying for a glimpse of a Michaelmas daisy. “It don’t know,” he said, frowning at a clump of dark pink blossoms in the direction of Nancy’s pointing. “I’m afraid I’m no gardener. Now, if you could poison someone with it, I might possibly know.”

“Impatiens,” said Maud Marsh without breaking stride as she elbowed past.

“Nancy loves to garden,” said Charles Warren. “Of course, in San Diego it’s probably easier to get the stuff to grow. Warmer climate.”

“What do you use for water?” asked Susan Cohen. “Stale Perrier? In Minnesota, we never have water rationing.”

The Californians exchanged glances that suggested they’d like to hold her head under a basin full of it.

The road ended at a wrought-iron fence surrounding the small stone church. They stood for a moment before the arched entrance to the churchyard, taking in the beauty of the weathered stone, bathed in fading sunlight, and the serenity of the grounds, dotted only with simple crosses and gravestones. They felt out of place with their cameras and running shoes.

While Rowan Rover waited for the non-Californians to make it up the hill, he took another look at his notes. “I think we’ll find Conan Doyle past the church, under one of the trees in the western part of the churchyard. Perhaps we ought to split up and have a go at reading tombstones.”

Charles Warren took a few carefully metered shots of the church, and then followed the others into the churchyard. “This is an out-of-the-way place for Doyle to be buried, isn’t it?” he asked the guide.

“Surely this is the only church at Minstead,” said Rowan. “Oh, I see! You expected such a famous writer to be buried somewhere more grand? Westminster Abbey, perhaps?”

“Something like that,” Warren admitted. “After all, they had Jane Austen in the cathedral at Winchester-and she wrote romance novels.”

Rowan pictured certain Victorian scholars of his acquaintance ranting in apoplectic rage at this cavalier dismissal of their favorite novelist. The vision pleased him immensely. “Life is hardly fair, is it?” he remarked to Charles.

Up ahead they saw Emma Smith and her mother standing in front of a simple stone cross and waving semaphore-style to indicate that they found the grave. Soon everyone had gathered around it for a moment of silent homage, followed by an orgy of photography.