Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

After all, I was the stranger here.

Was she afraid that her grandson had killed his friend?

I suddenly remembered the accident before Lieutenant Hughes had arrived.

Or was it?

It would certainly make more sense to kill George Hughes before he could mention the child in France than to murder him after he had blurted out the fact of her existence.

Still considering that, I went up to my room to change out of my traveling clothes and for a moment stood there, looking down at my luggage where it had been brought back into the house and placed in front of the wardrobe. Someone had opened the valises and gone through them, I was sure of it. I hoped it was the police. But what could they have been looking for?

A murder weapon?

The day dragged on, the hours creeping around the clock with a pace that was maddening. I had the strongest feeling that people were avoiding me. Lydia, blaming me for taking so long packing and then agreeing to help Mrs. Ellis look for George Hughes, which in the end prevented us from making it to the station in time for the train, had disappeared. I learned later that she had locked herself into the small room above the hall, the one with the long windows. According to what Margaret had told me when we were making beds together, when Juliana was alive, Gran used to read to her there in the afternoons. But she had refused to set foot in it after the child’s death.

Lydia never knew Juliana, and so the room would hold no memories for her.

Thus far it appeared that the police hadn’t learned of the exchange between Lieutenant Hughes and Roger Ellis. It could very well supply the motive for murder that they had spent the afternoon searching for. On the other hand, once the story about the child had come out, why kill him? Unless of course someone feared that he was planning to search for and claim that child for his own.

Once she was in England, anyone could see for himself or herself how much the child resembled the dead Juliana.

Had someone been listening at the door after all? Or had George Hughes talked to someone else after he left me?

The problem was, the family couldn’t hope to keep the child a secret for very long.

The doctor and his wife as well as the rector and his sister had been present in the drawing room. How much would they confide to the police? I had a feeling that the rector would be circumspect, but Dr. Tilton was a very different matter.

Only the family had heard Roger Ellis quarrel with his mother over inviting George Hughes to Vixen Hill for the weekend.

It kept coming around to Captain Ellis. Or-his mother, if she were intent on protecting him.

I wished that someone would tell us how Lieutenant Hughes had died.

A very harassed Daisy appeared at my door. “There’s a caller for you, Miss. The gentleman who brought your other valise.”

Simon?

I should have known he would appear sooner rather than later.

Very likely my father had run him to earth and passed on to him what little I’d been able to say about finding the body. We hadn’t known then that it was murder. But the Colonel Sahib was not one to take chances. He’d have come himself, but he was probably in Somerset, while Simon was very likely still in London and therefore closer to Sussex. I was wrong. I discovered later that it was my mother who had sent Simon post haste, when she had finally cajoled my father into telling her why he’d been frowning after his conversation with me. And if my mother asked him for help, Simon would have flown here if he could have commandeered an aircraft.

I walked into the hall to find him standing there looking as much like a regiment as one man could.

That’s when I knew that somehow he’d already discovered more about this business of Lieutenant Hughes’s death than I knew. And he was already aware that I was one of the suspects.

“Are you all right?” he asked at once, making no pretense that he’d come merely to collect my party dresses.

“Yes, of course I’m all right.”

“You look tired.”

“I am, a little. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Why?”

Until now, we’d had the hall to ourselves.

The door opened, and Margaret came in, pausing on the threshold.

“I’m interrupting,” she began. I hastily made the introductions.

“Not at all,” said Simon, for all the world as if we’d been discussing the weather. “I’ve come to drive Miss Crawford to her parents’ home, but I’ve just been told she’s not free to leave. Meanwhile, she’s offered to show me the grounds.”

I opened my mouth to deny it and instead said, “I’ll just fetch my coat.”

I was back in two minutes. Margaret pointed to the door. “Mr. Brandon has already stepped outside. Such a nice man,” she added, and I knew he’d done his best to charm her. When Simon did that, it usually meant he was worried.

And I was beginning to be, myself.

I thanked her and found him waiting for me on the steps. Without a word spoken, we set out across the lawns.

“This is godforsaken country,” he commented at last, looking out over the blighted landscape. “I wouldn’t want to defend it.”

“It’s said to be much nicer in spring and summer.”

“It could hardly get much worse,” he replied.

We walked on, well out of hearing of anyone in the house. He stopped at the edge of the lawns, where I could see that the gorse and heather were already creeping toward this outpost of civilization. I shivered, turning my back so that I was looking at the house, not at the heath.

“Who is this man Hughes, and what is he to you?” Simon finally asked.

“You sound like my father,” I said, annoyed at his tone of voice.

“In fact, it’s one of the questions the Colonel instructed me to ask you.”

With raised eyebrows, I studied Simon’s face. “You telephoned him as soon as you realized that I could be a suspect. Even before you came to Vixen Hill.”

“That was another of the instructions I was given.”

“Well, yes, I’m technically a suspect, I suppose, but I had nothing to do with the poor man’s death. I only met him this weekend. I had probably addressed no more than a dozen or so words to him in all of that time, until last evening. And I was there when the body was found, but that was only because I didn’t feel that Mrs. Ellis-Roger Ellis’s mother-ought to go exploring down that twisting, overgrown path on her own. I didn’t expect her to find the Lieutenant dead. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been too drunk to walk. No, that’s not true. I had a feeling from the start that something was wrong. That’s why I went with her to the church. I know, she’s lived here most of her life, still-” I shivered. “This forest is-I don’t know-not haunted, but most certainly, it broods. I expect one eventually learns its moods, but that sense of-dying all around you is disturbing. I’m beginning to understand why Lydia came to dislike it so.” I shrugged. “It isn’t at all like Rajasthan, is it?”

“No, I agree with you there, Bess. What possessed you to come here in the first place?”

I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do about Lydia. She had a concussion, Simon. I’ve tried to keep an eye on her.” I launched into an account of the past three days, holding nothing back. I told him about Juliana, about the child in France, about the new breach between Lydia and her husband. And I told him the lies that had been circulated about my having spoken to George in the middle of the night.

Simon whistled. “Small wonder the man was killed.”

“What’s more, no one will tell us how he died. It might help me sort out what happened. When I saw the body, it appeared that he’d drowned.”