James Benn - A Blind Goddess

“As soon as word gets out, every family hereabouts will keep their daughters close,” Cook said. “From your description, the two girls are about the same age. Not a good sign.”

“No,” Payne said. Silence slipped into the room as we considered what that meant, for Sophia and possibly other girls.

“Inspector Payne said you were interested in the Tom Eastman murder.” Cook spoke quietly, as if not wanting to intrude on our thoughts about the girls.

“Yes. I’m looking into it for a friend. Unofficially. Anything you can tell me would be appreciated. I don’t mean any disrespect to Constable Eastman. I know I’d be suspicious of anyone snooping around a closed case back home.”

“I’ll tell you this,” Cook said, leaning forward. “Your chaps from CID were plain lazy, if you don’t mind my saying so. Once they got Private Smith on the brain, that was all they wanted to hear.”

“You know his nickname,” I said.

“Indeed. Any man called Angry bears watching, I decided, when I first heard of him.”

“Did he cause any trouble for you?”

“Not really. His friends stopped a fight outside the Three Crowns once. I was told it took three of them, and Private Smith wasn’t all that riled up. But the occasional fisticuffs among soldiers is to be expected.”

“The fight was between two Negro soldiers?”

“So I heard. Can’t say who it was, the talk was more about the effort it took to restrain Private Smith. I’ve seen him a few times. Strong fellow, he is.”

“Do you think he killed Tom Eastman?”

“It’s possible,” Cook said, considering the question. “From what circumstantial evidence I saw, and knowing his temper, he could have done it. And there was bad blood between Tom and him as well. You know about Rosemary Adams?”

“Tom Eastman’s sister, and wife of Malcolm Adams,” I said, pulling the names out of my mental notebook.

“Yes. Tom was very protective of Rosemary. Had to be, with a brute like Malcolm for a husband. I can think of no man who was grieved less when we thought he’d been killed.”

“Eastman didn’t like a Negro keeping company with his sister?”

“Tom Eastman was a fine man,” Cook said, his voice firm and his eyes on mine. “Finer than many Americans I’ve seen who treat these colored boys like dirt. He may have called Private Smith a few choice names, but that didn’t mean he objected to his entire race. When Rosemary thought Malcolm might have been killed, Tom told Smith to stay away until they got official word from the army. He was protecting his sister, and rightly so.”

“But Rosemary and Angry didn’t listen to him.”

“No, except that they kept things quiet. Tom knew, of course, and when word came that Malcolm had been wounded, not killed, he became quite upset. He knew that Malcolm would make life horrible for poor Rosemary. He blamed Private Smith, when he should have blamed both equally. But that’s a brother’s love, isn’t it?”

“How did they meet?”

“His company was on a march and passed by the Adams place, so I heard,” Cook said. I got the impression the constable heard everything that went on around here. “She has a little garden and a coop with some chickens. The fence was down and the chickens were wandering out into the road. They gathered them up, and Rosemary brought out water from the well. Smith offered to come back and repair the fence, which he did. Not the first time one of these chaps offered to help out the locals. Farm boys miss the soil, don’t they?”

“Well, I miss the sidewalks in Boston, Constable, but I’m not offering to walk your beat.”

“Different with country fellows. Anyhow, that’s how they got to know each other, and things were proper like until word came that Malcolm was dead. Rosemary did her best to put on a show of grief, but everyone knew what a blighter her husband was. Truth be told, most were glad to see a kind man around the house.”

“So you don’t think he’s guilty.”

“As I said, he could have done it. But no, I don’t think he did.”

“But Angry Smith didn’t get along with white people, as I understand. He could have turned that rage onto Eastman.”

“Ah,” said Cook. “It’s your lot he doesn’t like. American white people, that is. He told me Hungerford was the friendliest town with white people in it he’d ever been to.” Cook grinned at the memory. He seemed to have taken a liking to the man named Angry.

“He was thinking of staying on, after the war,” I said, remembering his letters, and what Tree had told me about being accepted as a human being, and what a novel experience that was.

“We could use men like him,” Payne said. “With all the losses from the last war, and those already dead in this one, we have too few men about. The Royal Berkshire Regiment took heavy losses at Dunkirk, you know. And with the invasion coming any time soon, there’ll be more mourning done before the end.”

“You don’t think a Negro and a white woman would have a hard time?” I asked. I knew they would back home.

“We have our faults, to be sure,” Payne said. “But we weren’t brought up to believe these sons of Africa are the devil’s spawn like so many of you Yanks. The smashing of glasses in the pubs, that said more about the white soldiers than it did the Negroes. Thank goodness someone saw the light and rescinded that order. No one was looking forward to the louts who did that coming here on leave.”

“Have you seen the sign Horace put up at the Three Crowns?” Cook asked. We hadn’t. “It says, ‘This place for the exclusive use of Englishmen and American Negro soldiers.’ That about sums up the feelings in town.”

“Okay, I get it. But back to Tom Eastman. If Angry Smith didn’t kill him, who did?” I thought there had to be a more personal connection with Tom, but I wanted to see what the cop on the scene thought.

“There’s got to be something about where the body was left.

That points to a local person who knows the family,” Payne said.

“Any candidates?”

“I would have looked at Malcolm Adams, if it weren’t for his legs,” Cook said. “He can move about, but he has to use a cane. If Tom had been left where he fell, Malcolm would be on my list. But the coroner said he’d been killed elsewhere, and brought to the gravesite.”

“And Malcolm couldn’t manage that?” I asked.

“No, not without help. And Malcolm isn’t the type to have friends who would do such a favor.”

“What do we know about the father? Samuel, wasn’t it?”

“Sam Eastman was a decent man and fine a police officer,” Payne said as Cook nodded his head in agreement. “Taught me the ropes, he did.”

“What?”

“Sergeant Sam Eastman,” Cook said. “He ran this very nick for more than ten years. Started as constable after the Great War. That’s his photograph, behind you.”

“Tom Eastman’s old man was a cop?” I stood to study his picture. The elder Eastman was square-jawed with mutton-chop sideburns and a look that said he might arrest the photographer if he didn’t get on with it. He had the hardy look of a cop who had to handle things by himself. “And Tom was found dead on his father’s grave?”

“That’s right,” Payne said. “And before you get hot under the collar, of course we looked at the old files. Sam passed away in nineteen thirty-nine. Heart attack, in this very room. We went back to when he joined the force, and every villain he sent away on serious charges was accounted for. Dead or still in prison, every one.”

“What about that track, from the rear of the cemetery? Where does that lead?”

“To the parachute training school at Chilton Foliat. Your Hundred-and-First Airborne has a facility there, qualifying soldiers for their parachute wings,” Payne said.