Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

Before she could reach me to embrace me, Peregrine was on his feet, his eyes wild and his hands clenched.

I leapt into the breach, taking Peregrine’s arm as I said, “He couldn’t find a room anywhere. I had to smuggle him past Mrs. Hennessey. You won’t give him away, will you?”

Diana looked from Peregrine’s face to mine.

“He’s wounded, Diana.” With my free hand I touched my forehead, and after a moment she relaxed.

“As long as he isn’t sleeping in my bed,” she said. “Hallo, Lieutenant.”

“Philips,” Peregrine answered. “Lieutenant Philips. Sorry. I was asleep when you came in.” His hands were trembling, but he stepped back and sat down in his chair again, as if his legs were unable to support him.

Diana brought in her valise and said, “I hope there’s something to eat. I’m starving. The train was so crowded coming up from Dover I could hardly breathe.”

“Yes, there’s food. How long are you here, Diana?”

“Four days. Worst luck. Ralph isn’t here, he’s been sent back. I’d hoped we’d overlap for a day or two.”

I made her a sandwich as she sat down across from Peregrine. “Ralph is my brother,” she was saying. “Where were you wounded, Lieutenant?”

“The Somme,” he said. It was the battle Mr. Stanley had mentioned. “I don’t remember much about it, I’m afraid.”

“Not surprised. Head injuries are the very devil.” She went on, unwinding as she described working at the dressing station along the Ypres line. “Frostbite, trench foot from all the rains, dysentery, fevers, rat bites, lice, even a case of measles. And that’s not counting the wounded.”

She rattled on, a pretty girl with tired blue eyes and blond hair that she had refused to cut even when ordered to do so. It was pulled tight into a bun at the back of her neck, but anyone could see how lovely it was. She’d maintained that the men she treated liked looking at it. I didn’t doubt it.

Peregrine was pale with exhaustion, but he kept up his end of the conversation as best he could, falling back on his head injury when pressed about something he had no way of knowing.

Diana ate her sandwich with zest and asked me about Britannic, and I told her briefly what it had been like. Then she handed me her empty plate and her teacup, saying, “Would you mind if I left you to wash up? I’m going to fall flat on my face if I don’t get a few hours of sleep.”

I sent her off to her bedroom, then said in a low voice to Peregrine, “She won’t be difficult, and she won’t be here very long. And she might be able to help us.”

“Why should she?”

“Because she owes me a favor. Will you be willing to go back to Kent? Will you risk it?”

He watched my face, as if trying to see beneath skin and bone into my brain. “I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you.”

“The sooner you’re satisfied, the sooner I’m rid of you,” I said. “I protected you when you were ill. But I can’t condone your escape from the asylum-you aren’t trying to make amends for what you did, you aren’t even trying to start life anew. You want to relive it.”

“I don’t want to relive it,” he said, his voice tense. “I want to understand it.”

“I’m going back to Kent. There are some things I must do, information I must find. Will you stay here with Diana, and not harm her? She’ll do your marketing, and she’ll be my hostage, if I betray you.”

“I can’t sit here waiting. I’ll go with you.”

“If you do, and you’re recognized-”

“I’ll chance it,” he told me grimly.

And so that evening we set out for Kent again. When we reached Tonbridge, I found a hotel on a side street, bespoke two rooms, and asked if there was anyone who could take me to Owlhurst in the morning. They found a man who was willing, and after breakfast, I left Peregrine cooling his heels in his room while I set out, wondering what I was going to say to anyone.

I watched the villages come and go in silence, for I hadn’t slept well, worried about Peregrine taking it in his head to walk away. He was two people, the sick man I had watched over day and night for nearly a week, and a man obsessed with a bloody moment in his childhood.

I tried to shut out Peregrine, but he was there, a dark figure in the back of my mind. I turned to the middle-aged man driving me. His name was Owens.

“Do you know Owlhurst?”

“Oh, yes. My Aunt May lived there for a time,” he said. “I visited her often enough, boy and man.”

Oh, dear. Mind your tongue, I warned myself.

“Did you know an Inspector Gadd?” It was the first name that came to me, other than the Grahams and Dr. Philips. After all, the man had been dead for some time. It should be safe enough to claim acquaintance there.

To my surprise, Mr. Owens replied, “He lived next house but one to my aunt. Taught me how to ride my first bicycle. Shame about his dying so young. A good man.”

“Yes. Er, do you know if his widow is still living in Owlhurst?”

“She went to stay with her brother in Rye. She couldn’t bear that house afterward.”

Rye.

I said hastily, “Will you take me to Rye instead?”

He turned to look at me. “You said Owlhurst.”

“Yes, but that was before I knew Mrs. Gadd now lived in Rye. Will you take me there, and bring me back again?”

We settled on a new price for his trouble and were soon on our way south to the small town that had once been a Cinque Port, one of the five major harbors during the great days of the wool trade.

It was a journey of several hours by motorcar, but I soon found myself at the foot of a high bluff on which sat a gray stone church. We looked for the local police station, and I went in to ask the desk sergeant if by chance he knew where I could find a Mrs. Gadd. Oh, yes, he said, he knew her well.

“Go up to the church, Miss, and turn to your right. At the corner of the churchyard, turn left, and at the next corner, turn right again. You’ll have a lovely view of the water from there. Her house is on the left, the small one with black trim and an anchor for door knocker.”

I thanked him, went back to the patient Mr. Owens, and passed the directions on to him. We climbed the hill, went around the large, gray stone church, and found ourselves on a street that seemed to be eager to run straight down into the sea. From the heights, we had a wonderful view of gray water, rough with the turning of the tide. I located the house easily and told Mr. Owens to find himself tea and something to eat while I went inside.

“Knock at the door before I go,” he suggested. “She might not be to home.”

Good thinking. If I was as brilliant in questioning Mrs. Gadd, we might actually accomplish something, I told myself ruefully.

Using the anchor, I tapped briskly. After a moment someone came to the door. She was not young, perhaps in her middle fifties, but her hair was still fair, and her face unlined. She’d been a pretty woman in her youth, and that hadn’t faded with time.

Before I could speak, she peered over her spectacles at the man in the motorcar. “Is that you, Terrence Owens?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Gadd, it is. How are you faring? I haven’t seen you in a good many years.”

“Well enough. Harry died, you know.”

“Your brother? That’s sad news. My aunt is gone as well.”

“Oh, my dear. I’m sorry to hear it. Won’t you come in?”

“I think this young woman would prefer to speak to you privately. But I’ll step in when I come to fetch her.”

“Fair enough.” She turned to me, frowning. “I don’t believe we’ve met, my dear.”

“My name is Elizabeth Crawford. I’ve come to speak to you about something that happened in the past. While you were living in Owlhurst.”