Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

Peregrine spoke, startling me.

“I was never the apple of her eye…”

“What was she to tell the police, then? That she welcomed her stepson as a murderer?” My voice was harsher than I had expected.

He looked down at me. “You don’t want it to be anyone else.”

“You told me you didn’t doubt that you’d killed that poor girl.”

“So I did. I still don’t doubt it. But it would be comforting in the dark of the night to think that someone believed in me.”

I felt the blow of that comment almost physically. “I’m sorry-”

“But you aren’t, are you? You’re afraid that it might have been Arthur, and you were half in love with my brother, weren’t you?”

“No. But I was fond enough of him to want to believe he couldn’t have killed anyone.” Even as I spoke the words, I was ashamed.

He reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out something that caught the light from the nearest streetlamp.

It was the pistol. It had been there all along, and I had almost stopped believing in it.

“It wasn’t Jonathan’s. I lied to you there. It was in the pocket of the good doctor’s coat. I think he was afraid of us, his patients. And so he went armed, in case.”

“But that’s disgusting! A doctor would never-”

“You haven’t spent a great deal of time in a madhouse, have you? Barton’s Asylum has a locked ward where the most dangerous patients are kept. I was there, in the beginning. Until Dr. Sinclair ordered me to be moved to another floor where I was kept in a locked room by myself. Do you have any idea what it was like for a fourteen-year-old boy to be at the mercy of what must surely have been the most depraved men? I fought one off one night, screaming for help, and help never came. That’s when I gave up all hope.”

If that was true, I thought, then Peregrine Graham had been lucky to come out of that place sane.

He was holding out the weapon to me. “Take it. I was going to use it on myself, if they tried to return me to Barton’s.”

“I don’t want it. Put it away, Peregrine, before someone sees it!”

I could tell he was smiling, a flash of white teeth under the shadow of his cap. But not in amusement. The pistol disappeared. “Yes, of course. I might still need to shoot Mrs. Hennessey.”

There was such bitterness in his voice that I said, “I’m not about to carry a weapon in my pocket-besides, the pocket isn’t big enough. When we are back at the flat-”

“What are we to do now? Will you call your father, or the police?”

“No, this isn’t finished. I’m going back to Owlhurst, and I’m going to see the rector’s journals.”

“Not alone. I’m going with you. What have I to lose?”

G ETTING THERE WASeasier said than done. Once more we hired Mr. Owens and his motorcar to drive us from Tonbridge to Owlhurst. As we passed Barton’s Asylum, I could see Peregrine’s shoulders tense. He was in the seat beside Mr. Owens, and it was another five miles before he relaxed again.

I directed Mr. Owens to the hotel in Owlhurst, a part of the little village I hadn’t seen before. The Rose and Thorn was a small Georgian hotel with a handsome reception and lounge where two or three other travelers were enjoying their tea.

No one took note of the young soldier with me, and we were given two rooms overlooking the street.

My intention was to visit the rector, and ask him to let me borrow the journals to read in my room, which I could then share with Peregrine. And so I walked down the High Street toward the church, my mind on what to say to him to explain this sudden reappearance.

And the first person I encountered was the doctor.

Dr. Philips stopped in his tracks.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked with a smile. “I never expected to see you again. We used you terribly, didn’t we?”

“I was only doing my duty,” I said lightly. “How is Sally Booker?”

“Her mother took her to visit a cousin in Oxford. Probably for the best. What brings you back again? The Grahams?”

“I’ve come on my own account, actually. Did you hear about Peregrine Graham’s escape?”

“My God, yes. The village was in turmoil. The general thinking was, he would come here to wreak havoc on his family. Jonathan was as grim as I’d ever seen him, and Owlhurst was combed by the police. It was thought Peregrine might try to live in the wood where the owls are. That proved to be a false lead. A watch was kept on the house. And then word came that he’d gone to Dover. They lost track of him there. One young soldier went missing, and it was thought that he’d been killed for his uniform and that Peregrine had reached France, posing as the missing man. But then that soldier turned up-apparently he’d had second thoughts at the last minute and gone to Canterbury to wed his sweetheart there before embarking. Later a body washed ashore, rather decomposed, but Jonathan went to identify it anyway. He couldn’t be sure it was Peregrine, or so I was told. But the hunt was called off. The police had other matters demanding their attention, and the feeling was, the poor man couldn’t have survived very long in this weather, out in the open. In his shoes, I wouldn’t have gone back to the asylum, once out of it. And the sea is merciful.”

“That’s a very compassionate opinion.”

“Is it? That’s the way Ted Booker chose.”

“Did they actually declare Peregrine dead?” I asked, thinking what that might mean to the living Peregrine.

“With reservations. Until new information comes along.”

“Oh.”

“You said Peregrine brought you here?”

For an instant I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak. Then I realized that Dr. Philips had drawn conclusions from the direction the conversation had taken.

“Actually I wanted to ask the rector a question. Nothing to do with the Grahams.” At least, not directly…it wasn’t a complete fabrication.

“I promise I won’t drag you to my surgery every other day. At least not this visit. We’ve got a new nurse, an older woman who seems to be steady as a rock. And thank God for that.”

He had turned to walk with me toward the rectory, and after a moment he said, “Speaking of reservations. I must admit I’ve got my own about Ted Booker’s death. I’ve kept that to myself. I’d appreciate it if you did the same.”

I stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of a woman pushing twins in a pram. “Reservations. That’s a strong word.”

“Look, come and have tea with me, will you? There’s no one I can speak to here, without stirring up the devil of a fuss, and I can’t afford to do that. But you’ll leave Owlhurst, and carry my secrets safely away with you.” The last he said with a quirk of an eyebrow, and laughed.

“Back to war, you mean.”

We went into the little tea shop within sight of the hotel and ordered tea and small sandwiches.

“I’ve not had my breakfast,” Dr. Philips said ruefully. “Another lying-in. I can almost count on a baby arriving nine months after the soldier husband came home on leave. And this one was an eight months’ wonder. Still, it had his father’s nose, according to the fond grandmother, and who am I to tell the world otherwise?”

When the tea had come and we were alone in the corner of the shop, watching the cold wind bowl down the street in gusts that had men clamping a hand on their hats and women’s skirts blowing about their ankles, Dr. Philips began in a low voice, “Do you remember the smudged footprint I saw in the passage the morning I found Ted Booker dead?”

“Yes. I do.”

“I’ve given a great deal of thought to that footprint. And it worries me.”