Anne Perry - Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries

“Oh, bless you, ma’am!” the man in the hall said fervently. “This way, Vicar.”

The doctor came back with the blacksmith and his cart, and the two men carried the body out quickly and discreetly, wrapped in a blanket. After they had gone Clarice went back to the kitchen and washed the few dishes they had used, her mind whirling. There was something wrong. She could not put her finger on it standing here at the bench. She would have to go down to the cellar again, and yet she was reluctant to. It was more than the cold or even the memory of what she had found.

“Come on, Harry,” she said briskly. “Come, keep me company.” She relit the lantern and the dog, surprisingly, obeyed her. It was the very first time he had done as she’d asked. Together they went to the door and opened it. She went first down the steps, very carefully, and he followed behind. A little more than halfway he stopped and sniffed.

“What is it?” she said, gulping, her hand swaying so the light gyrated around the walls.

Harry sniffed again and looked up at her.

Swallowing hard, she retraced her steps up to him and bent to examine what he’d spotted. It was a very small piece of fabric, no more than a few threads caught in a splinter of the wood. At first she thought how odd it was that the dog had noticed it; then she saw the smear of blood. It wasn’t much darker than the coal-smudged steps themselves, but when she licked her finger and touched it, it came away red. Was this where the vicar had stumbled, and then gone on down the rest of the way to the bottom? How could she find out?

She held the lantern so she could see the steps closely. They were dark with years of trodden-in coal dust, each bit dropped from a bucket or scuttle carried up full. No matter how closely she looked, all she could distinguish were the most recent marks, a heel dent, and the smear of a sole. They could have been anybody’s: Dominic’s, the doctor’s, even Mrs. Wellbeloved’s.

She went to the bottom and looked again, not expecting to find anything or knowing what it would mean even if she did.

Then she saw it: a small, neat pattern of marks she understood very easily-cat prints. Etta had been this way. She walked after the marks, for no real reason except that they led to the second cellar. They were easy to read because they were on plain ground, as if someone had swept all the old marks away with a broom. Why would anybody sweep just a single track, no more than eighteen or twenty inches wide? It was not even clean, just brushed once. Several times it was disturbed at the sides by footprints.

Then she understood. It was not swept-these were drag marks. Someone had pulled something heavy, covered in cloth, from the bottom of the stairs over into the second cellar.

Could the Reverend Wynter have fallen, struck his head and become confused, mistaken where he was and dragged himself in the wrong direction?

No. That was idiotic. There were no handprints in the dust. And his hands would have been filthy when they found him. They weren’t: only smudges here and there-the backs as much as the palms.

She was in the second cellar now. When she had found him, he had been lying on his back. But his nose had been scraped, as if he had fallen forward. And there was coal dust on his front as well as his back. The hard, deep wound was on the back of his head.

“Somebody killed him, Harry,” she said softly, putting her hand out to touch the dog’s soft fur. “Somebody hit him on the head and dragged him in here, and then left him. Why would they do that? He was an old man whom almost everyone loved.”

The dog whined and leaned his weight against her leg.

“I don’t suppose you know, and even if you do, you can’t tell me.” She was talking to him because it was so much better not to feel alone. “I’ll have to find out without you. We’ll have to,” she corrected. “I’ll tell Dominic when he comes back. Right now, in case anybody calls, I think we should pretend that we don’t know anything at all. Come on. It’s cold down here, and we shouldn’t stay anyway. It isn’t safe.”

When Dominic returned from his visits, tired and cold, she had no alternative but to tell him immediately. It was already midafternoon; there would be little more than an hour before the light began to fade and the ground froze even harder.

“What?” he said incredulously, sitting at the kitchen table, his hands thawing as he held the cup of tea she had made. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure,” she said looking at him steadily. “I’m not being overimaginative, Dominic. Remember the marks on his face and head? Remember how little coal dust there was on his hands? Or on his knees? But there was a tear on the shin of his trousers, and dust where he had been dragged. Go down to the cellar and look. It’s still there.”

He hesitated.

“Please,” she urged. “I don’t want to be the only one who saw it. Anyway, I don’t think the doctor is going to listen to me.”

She was perfectly correct-Dr. Fitzpatrick did not believe either of them.

“That suggestion is preposterous,” he said irritably, pulling on his mustache. “It is a perfectly ordinary domestic tragedy. An elderly man had a heart attack and fell down the cellar stairs. Or perhaps he simply tripped and then the shock of the fall brought on an attack. He was confused, naturally, perhaps hurt, and he mistakenly crawled in the wrong direction. You are trying to make a horror out of something that is merely sad. And if I may say so, that is a completely irresponsible thing to do.”

Clarice took a deep breath, facing his anger. “What did he go into the cellar for?” she asked.

“My dear Mrs. Corde, surely that is perfectly obvious?” Fitzpatrick snapped. “Exactly the same reason as you did yourself! For coal!”

She met his gaze steadily. “I took a lantern and a coal bucket, and I left the door open at the top,” she replied.

“Then perhaps he went for some other reason,” Fitzpatrick said. “Didn’t you say something about the dog? He must have gone to look for it.”

“Why would you go to look for anything in a cellar without a lantern?” Dominic pressed. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“He probably stood at the top and called.” Fitzpatrick was becoming more and more annoyed. His face was tight, lips thin. “Reverend, you are a guest here. In view of poor Wynter’s death, it will possibly be for far longer than you had originally intended. You are now required to guide the village through a sad and very trying time. As shepherd of the people, it is your calling to sustain, comfort, and uplift them, not indulge in what, I have to say, is idle and vicious speculation on the death of a deeply loved man. I am sorry that it falls to my lot to remind you of this. Don’t make it necessary for me to take it further.”

Dominic’s face flamed, but he turned and left without retaliation. He could not afford it, as the doctor had reminded him.

Clarice went with him, not daring to meet Fitzpatrick’s eyes in case he saw in hers the rage she also felt toward him. He had humiliated Dominic, and that she had no idea how to heal, so she could not forgive him for it. As she went out into the snow, she remembered her father telling her that if you sought wealth or fame, other people might dislike you for it, but if you sought only to do good, no one would be your enemy. How wrong he was! Good held a mirror to other people’s hearts, and the reflection was too often unflattering. People could hate you for that more than for almost anything else.

She caught up with Dominic and linked her arm through his, holding on to him when he tried to pull back. He was ashamed because he had not found a way to stand up for the truth. She struggled for something to say that would make it better, not worse. If she were to sound superficial it would be worse than silence; it would be patronizing, as if she thought him not strong enough to face their failure. Yet she ached to comfort him. If she could not at least do that, what use was she?