Агата Кристи: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 53, No. 12, December 2008

I intervened.

I didn’t draw my sword, although perhaps I should have done so. Instead I charged forward and rammed the palm of my stiffened left arm hard into the man’s collarbone.

He spun about, missing the women with his fist and opening himself to a blow of my own. It drove him back into the crowd and left me standing between the women and the villagers.

Their surprise at my actions began to turn to anger, but Lord William preempted any further action on their part.

“Enough!” he shouted. He was out of his chair, his face alive with rage. “With each act and every word you convince me that something is wrong here. Sir Gerald, I am most disappointed in the efforts of this jury.”

Sir Gerald was on his feet as well. “Disappointed? There’s nothing wrong with this jury’s investigation. Find the women guilty and be done with it!”

“I will not be rushed to judgment!” Lord William shouted. “I will conduct my own investigation if I must!”

“Your own investigation?” Sir Gerald sputtered. “You don’t have the power—”

“I am King Henry’s justice of the peace. I have all the power I need!”

“The king will hear—”

“The king will approve!” Lord William insisted.

He turned his back on Sir Gerald and faced the villagers. “Go back to your homes,” he said. “My man Edgar will be around to talk to many of you. Answer his questions or face my wrath!”

The people sullenly stood their ground, staring back at my lord and me.

“Edgar,” my lord said. “Walk with me. We have a mystery to resolve and I will have the solution.”

“I don’t understand what’s disturbing you, my lord,” I confessed. I didn’t like to admit this inadequacy. Lord William could be quite hard on men who failed him. But in this case I would certainly fail if I couldn’t follow my lord’s reasoning.

“Just find me another murderer,” he said. There was a hint of weariness in his voice that did not seem to fit with the man who had just raged against Sir Gerald and the village. Where was the certainty that the jury was wrong? Where was the passion that drove him to stand up for justice?

“I believe the jury has found the murderer,” I told him quietly. “It found two of them, in fact.”

“It cannot be them,” Lord William insisted.

“My Lord, I don’t mean to be difficult, but will you explain to me why not? It is true that no one saw them stab Garrick, but is it reasonable to think that someone else committed the crime?”

Lord William turned to face me squarely and clasped me firmly by both shoulders. “It must be someone else, Edgar. Do you understand me? Find me another murderer for this crime.”

“I—” I began to repeat that I did not understand, but suddenly I believed that I did. “Of course, my Lord,” I assured him. “You can leave everything to me.”

I left him on the edge of the wood and immediately began to trek back to the village, wishing only to know why Lord William wished to have an innocent man die to save these two women.

John the Bailiff was waiting for me at the end of the green, falling into step beside me as I strode toward the village houses. “Did Lord William explain the weakness in the jury’s evidence?” he asked.

John was going to be a problem for me. How much of a problem remained to be seen.

“My lord William is not in the habit of explaining himself to me,” I told the bailiff. “He gives instructions and I carry them out.”

“And your instructions are?” John asked.

There was no way that I could tell him my actual orders. “To satisfy him as to whether or not the actual murderers have been caught.”

“And why doesn’t he think that Anna and Peta are the killers?” John asked, making no attempt to conceal his intense frustration.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “My lord did not share that with me. Perhaps he is not actually certain that the women did not commit the deed. From my perspective, it does not matter. My lord has instructed me to reinvestigate the case.”

John was not satisfied with my answer, but I cut off his next question with one of my own. “Did Sir Gerald tell you to stay with me while I do this?”

He nodded.

That might be a big problem for me, but it didn’t have to be. “Are you going to let me ask my questions, or are you planning to interfere with me at each step of the way?”

“I want to understand why Lord William doesn’t just hang the women,” John said.

“Hanging is very permanent,” I told him. “What harm is there in taking one more day to make certain of their guilt?”

“I just don’t understand why he thinks they’re innocent,” John told me.

“Perhaps after we speak with your villagers we will both know the answer to that.”

We began with Garrick’s brothers, Aiken and Brand. Both were large and imposing men. Both bore influence with their neighbors. Both had been named to the jury which investigated their brother’s death. Neither man wanted to speak to me or the bailiff.

“Why are you protecting them?” Aiken asked.

“Why not hang them and be done with it?” Brand added.

“Why did you beat them senseless instead of letting your neighbors question them?” I countered.

Their answers were completely predictable.

“They killed our brother!”

“They were murderers! We all knew that.”

Yes, in my heart of hearts, I felt quite certain that we did know. If Garrick was half as volatile as his brothers appeared to be, it was easy to imagine what kind of horror life would have been like in his household. Usually the other villagers could act as a restraint on a husband’s violence, but with two brothers just like him to help intimidate the neighbors, they clearly had not done so.

I doubted that there was anything to learn here, but I knew I had to try. “Where were you when your brother was murdered?”

The two men did not immediately recognize this for the potential accusation it was, but John the Bailiff did. He stiffened perceptibly and drew in his breath in a hiss.

“We were out in the fields with our neighbors,” Aiken said.

“We had no idea Garrick needed our help,” Brand added.

“And did you fight with him very often?” I asked.

This time the implication was so blatant that the two brothers could not fail to see it. Their red faces darkened further and Aiken balled his fists.

“Why you scoundrel!” Aiken said.

“We don’t have to take this from you!” Brand growled.

I poked him in the chest with my forefinger, purposely goading the man. He was a bully, plain and simple. He wouldn’t understand diplomacy, just the threat of violence. “Yes, you do!” I told him. “You will stand here and answer every question I put to you and if you are so stupid as to strike me, Lord William will break you and your brother with fines right after I break every bone in your two worthless bodies.”

John the Bailiff deserved praise. He didn’t agree with what I was doing, but he stepped up to my assistance just the same. “Aiken, Brand, you back off and get control of your tempers. I won’t have you make Sir Gerald look bad by frustrating this investigation.”

“But Bailiff,” Aiken protested, “he’s saying Brand and I killed Garrick.”

“He’s said no such thing,” John corrected him, “but after this nonsense, he must be thinking it. You damned fools, I know you were in those fields when it happened and you’ve got me wondering if you could have slipped away and gone after your brother.”

“You know it?” I asked, disappointed if it was true.

“Yes, I know it,” he said. “I wasn’t there myself, but I talked to all the villagers afterwards. You guessed right. Garrick and his brothers fought all the time they weren’t making trouble for someone else, but just about everyone agrees that they didn’t follow after Garrick when he left early to go home. And neither did young Oswin, the fellow who’s sweet on Anna.”