Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

There was the briefest hesitation.

She knows what I’m here to ask her…

“Do come in out of the cold, then. The wind is brisk here on the bluff.”

Indeed it was. I followed her inside, and after she had taken my coat and gloves, we sat by the fire. My fingers and toes were instantly grateful for the warmth.

“I was a nurse on Britannic,” I began, “and one of the men in my care was Arthur Graham. You probably remember him as a child. I knew him as a man, a very brave one. He died of his wounds, and I was with him until the end. I spent some time in Owlhurst until a week ago. A guest of the Graham family, in fact. What I’ve learned about Peregrine Graham during my visit has been confusing-contradictory. I didn’t like to ask his family more than they were willing to tell me. But it has become rather important to me to understand about the murder of the girl called Lily.”

Mrs. Gadd spread her hands to the fire, and at first I was sure she wouldn’t answer me. Then she said, “Is it just idle curiosity that brings you here?”

“No. You see, I carried a message from Arthur Graham to his brother. No one told me what the message meant, but I came to believe it might have something to do with Peregrine. And I had the strongest impression that the family chose to ignore what amounted to Arthur’s last wish. Were they right to do so? I’ll tell you something else in confidence. While I was visiting the Grahams, Peregrine was brought to the house suffering from pneumonia. I nursed him back to health. He was so different from what I’d expected-I couldn’t-he seemed normal. As normal as Arthur or Jonathan or Timothy Graham. That troubled me.”

“What will you do with this knowledge, once you have it?”

“I’ve come back to Kent, and now here to Rye, to settle my own conscience. I have no right to pry, and I respect the possibility that you have no reason to confide in me.”

I’d tried to be honest-just leaving out the fact that Peregrine had fled from the asylum and only I knew where he was.

“Your concern does you credit, my dear. A duty to the dead is a sacred matter.” It was an echo of what my father had said to me. “What is it you want to hear?”

“What do you recall about Peregrine and the decision to send him to the asylum? How much did your husband tell you?”

“Very little at first. He came home that night shocked and grieving, refusing to tell me anything. Several months later, he was reminded of that night. We’d just finished our tea, and it was beginning to rain when Mrs. Graham sent for my husband. He was gone for hours. It seems that young Timothy went missing. We learned afterward that he’d set out on his own to find Peregrine. I have no idea how Mrs. Graham explained the situation to her other children, but it appeared that Timothy really didn’t know what had become of his half brother. Come to that, most of us weren’t told in the beginning where Peregrine was or why. And to tell you the truth, the boy was so seldom seen by that time that few of us thought twice about his absence. But back to Timothy Graham. My husband learned that Timothy was very upset that day. He’d been sent to his room for disobeying Robert Douglas, and some time in the late afternoon he left the house without being seen and simply vanished. Everyone was frantic; they had no idea where he was or why he’d told no one where he was going.”

“There were search parties?”

“Oh, yes, as many men as my husband could muster. Mr. Craig rang the church bell to gather them. And they were out until late into the night. Finally someone came from one of the outlying farms-a man named Hutter-to say that Timothy had been found in his barn, asleep in one of the horse stalls. My husband asked the boy why he’d run away, and he said that he wanted to find Peregrine and stay with him. It was after he was brought in that Mrs. Graham finally admitted to her sons where their brother was and that he would never come home.”

“How sad!”

“When Henry finally walked in the door, he couldn’t sleep. He paced for two hours, he was that upset. And because he couldn’t put it all behind him, he told me about Peregrine.”

“Did he tell you about how they’d gathered-your husband, Mr. Craig, Lady Parsons, and Dr. Hadley, together with Mrs. Graham-to decide Peregrine’s fate? And then apparently London accepted their decision? Did Inspector Gadd believe it was a just solution?”

“Yes, and I’m sure he felt it was, or he wouldn’t have been a party to it. Still, I was horrified. I’d known those boys, you see, most of their lives.”

“Can you tell me anything about the tutor? Nathan Appleby?”

“I didn’t know him well, but I was of the opinion that he didn’t have the character to rule four lively boys. But Mrs. Graham appeared to be satisfied with him.”

“What do you mean, the character?”

“He was rather pompous, for one thing, and I-well, to put it bluntly, I overheard the rector question Mr. Appleby’s qualifications, when the Grahams could afford the best. Mr. Graham replied that his wife-the present Mrs. Graham-had selected him, and there was no more to be said.”

Why would she willingly choose an incompetent tutor? Unless she felt he would do as she asked?

“Did he stay with the Graham family, after Peregrine was taken away?”

“Yes, until the boys went off to school, and then he moved to Chilham, to a family there.”

“Did your husband tell you the name of the girl who was-murdered?”

“How could I ever forget it? Lily Mercer.”

“Did anyone ask her family how they felt about Peregrine going to the asylum rather than standing trial?”

Mrs. Gadd looked surprised. “I-I don’t believe they were consulted-nothing was said-the London police were in agreement about the asylum. Even though there were no witnesses, the evidence spoke for itself. Peregrine’s bloody hands and clothes, his mental confusion, told their own story. And of course there was his youth. No one wanted the boy sent to prison, if treatment was available at Barton’s.”

“Yes, but no one has explained why he should have killed Lily.”

“I doubt that anyone knows except perhaps Peregrine himself, if he’s able to understand his own actions.”

“You said the evidence pointed strongly to Peregrine.”

“Mrs. Graham and her cousin had gone out to dine that evening. They came home to find the other boys in bed. Lily wasn’t waiting for them, as she was supposed to be. Mrs. Graham went to Lily’s room and found Peregrine on the floor by her body. They asked him, of course-the London police, Lady Parsons, the rector, my husband-everyone. He seemed dazed. And all he would say to them was he wanted his knife back again, the one his father had given him. And of course they couldn’t give it to him, the police had taken it away because it was a murder weapon.”

I swallowed hard. “And his brothers? They hadn’t seen or heard anything?”

“Apparently not. But we had the same laundress, Mrs. Graham and I. And I heard her tell my cook that when Susan’s mother unpacked the boys’ luggage, the night they returned to Owlhurst, she found blood all along the cuff of Arthur’s nightshirt. She pointed it out to Mrs. Wallace-the laundress-and asked if such a stain would come out.”

“Arthur’s? Are you sure of that?” My voice was sharp, I couldn’t make it behave.

“Yes, I’m certain. He’d had a nosebleed, he said. It seems he was prone to them as a child.”

Mr. Owens chose that moment to knock at the door, and Mrs. Gadd went to let him in.

I sat by the fire, cold to the bone. And all I could think of was the message I had carried home for Arthur.

Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother’s sake. But it has to be set right.