Death at Dartmoor Read online

  Tactfully, Doyle cleared his throat, and Kate turned, catching sight of him. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dr. Doyle. I didn’t realize that you were here. You must hear Avis’s tale, as well. But first, I should like a moment’s privacy with Charles.”

  “But we were about to go over to the stable to have a look at Sir Edgar’s gig,” Charles protested. “Doyle located it in Yelverton and has brought it back. We are hoping that it may contain some further clue to—”

  “Oh, bother the gig!” Kate exclaimed, stamping her foot. “You don’t need any further clues to Sir Edgar’s murder. Avis Cartwright is waiting for you upstairs. She was an eyewitness to the crime, and she will tell you who did it.” She stopped, looking around. “By the way, where is the constable? Wasn’t he with you?”

  “He has gone home to tea, I believe.” Charles frowned. “Who the devil is Avis Cartwright?”

  “Did I hear you say that she is an eyewitness?” Doyle was thunderstruck.

  “Exactly,” Kate said. “Really, Charles, the constable must be sent for at once. There is no point in asking poor Avis to repeat her dreadful story over and over. It is quite difficult for her.”

  “I’ll send for the constable,” Doyle said, rising.

  “And I have a letter to read to you,” Kate said to Charles, taking the chair Doyle vacated. When he had left the room, she added, “Mrs. Victor’s little boy brought me this an hour ago, so they are well on their way, I hope.”

  “Well on their way?” Charles asked. He stared at his wife, amazed as he always was by her resourcefulness. How in the name of heaven had she managed to locate an eyewitness? He shook his head, bringing himself back to the more immediate question. “Who is well on their way?”

  “Patsy, Evelyn, and Evelyn’s brother. Listen to this. It’s from Patsy.” Leaning closer and lowering her voice, Kate began to read:

  My dearest Kate:

  By the time you receive this, Evelyn and I shall be on our way to meet her brother, who has just arrived from his tramp in Cornwall and has agreed with some enthusiasm to join us. Really, he looks so well, and so different, that I am sure Charles would not recognize him. The three of us are to continue our holiday together, and we are all quite jolly about it, as you might guess. I shall telegraph you when we have reached our destination. Please don’t worry—I am quite looking forward to this marvelous adventure and am confident that everything will turn out exactly as we planned. Give Charles my best love, and a kiss for you.

  Yours,

  Patsy Marsden

  “So the good doctor was persuaded to leave the moor with his sister and Patsy?” Charles asked in some surprise. “How was that managed, I wonder.”

  “I think Patsy had more than a little to do with it.” Kate folded the letter and put it back in her pocket. “It seems that Evelyn’s brother and Patsy had a brief but significant encounter on the moor a couple of days ago, and none of us knew it. Even Patsy herself had no idea who he really was. But it’s a long story. It shall have to wait until we have both leisure and privacy.” She rose, holding out her hand. “All we can do for the moment is hope and pray for their safe journey.”

  Charles took his wife’s hand and stood. “Poor Lady Marsden.” He grinned. “She would have apoplexy if she knew what her wayward daughter is up to now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation rather more clear to you before long. It has been an exceedingly difficult and most complicated business. There are several points upon which we still want light—but it is coming all the same.

  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  The eyewitness to the crime was uneasily seated, with her younger sister, before the fire in Kate and Charles’s sitting room, where the two women had spent most of the day. Kate, Charles, Doyle, and Constable Chapman arranged themselves around the room and listened intently as, fortified by yet another cup of tea, Avis Cartwright began her story, with Kate’s gentle questions as a guide.

  “Avis,” Kate said quietly, “I would like you to repeat what you told me this morning, while Constable Chapman takes notes.”

  “An’ I need t’ remind ye, young woman,” the constable said with a stern look, “that ye must tell the truth, just as ye wud in any court o’ law, fer ye’ll shortly be testifyin’ at the coroner’s hearing, an’ ye’ll be asked t’ swear on the Bible t’ tell th’ truth an’ nothin’ but the truth.”

  “Oh, yessir.” Avis looked nervously at Kate. “Where shall I begin, yer ladyship?”

  “Why don’t you tell them who you are and where you were employed, and then tell them what you saw,” Kate said. “I’m sure that if they don’t understand something, they’ll ask you about it.”

  Avis nodded. “Well, then, me name is Avis Cartwright.” She gestured toward Jenny, who was sitting on a stool in the corner. “Me ’n Jenny are sisters. Her works fer Mrs. Bernard and I am—I wuz—upstairs maid at Thornworthy Castle, for Sir Edgar an’ Lady Duncan. I wuz employed there fer three years, near as might be.”

  “You were an upstairs maid?” the constable asked, making hasty entries in his notebook.

  “Yessir. I left four days ago, sir.” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, as if to keep them from trembling. “I wuz ... afeard to stay at Thornworthy.” She stopped, biting her lip. “I ... I—”

  “I know it’s difficult,” Kate said, putting her hand over Avis’s, “but I’m sure the gentlemen would like you to tell them why you were afraid.”

  “I wuz afeard ’cuz of wot I saw,” Avis said in a low voice. “It happened on the mornin’ after the spir’t seance, when ever’ body wuz at Thornworthy for the party.”

  “That would be the day Sir Edgar disappeared, I take it,” Doyle said sotto voce to Charles, who nodded.

  “I wuz cleanin’ the windows in Sir Edgar’s bedroom upstairs,” Avis went on, “when I heard Sir Edgar an’ Mr. Westcott. They wuz talkin’ loud, in the yard next to th’ stable.”

  “And what time was this?” Kate asked.

  “ ’Twas early, just afore eight, ’cuz the stair clock chimed eight right after. It sounded like them wuz havin’ a quarrel, harsh words, anyway.”

  Charles stirred. “Was it just the two of them?”

  “No, sir. Lady Duncan wuz there, too, standin’ near the wall. Her wuz wringin’ her hands, like her wuz distressed, an’ cryin’ to ‘em to stop, but them di’n’t. Sir Edgar, him pushed Mr. Westcott, hard, an’ Mr. Westcott pushed back. An’ then there was a lit’le pop, an’ Sir Edgar fell down—” She shivered and clutched her shawl close around her shoulders, turning her face away.

  Conan Doyle cleared his throat as if he intended to say something, then thought better of it and coughed into the back of his hand.

  “And what happened after that, Avis?” Kate asked gently.

  Avis took a deep breath, her chest rising under her flowered dress. “Lady Duncan, her rushed to him, cryin’, an’ Mr. Westcott bent down an’ rolled Sir Edgar over. His arm flopped, loose-like, an’ there was blood on his throat, lots of blood, an’ blood in the dirt. Lady Duncan got down on her knees, but Mr. Westcott pulled her up an’ made her go into the stable, quick-like. And then him took Sir Edgar by the arms an’ drug him into the stable, too.” She stopped, breathless after this long speech.

  “Did you see the gun?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, it fell on the ground, after. After Sir Edgar fell down, I mean. Mr. Westcott, him picked it up an’ put it in his pocket.”

  “But you didn’t see who had it before?” Charles persisted. “Before Sir Edgar was shot, that is?”

  “Nossir.” Her answer was barely audible. It had grown quite dark outside, and the firelight flickered on her face, dimpling it with shadows. The silence lengthened.

  “You were at the window while all this was going on,” Kate said finally. “And afterward? Did you wait at the window after they went into the stable?”

  Avis nodded, her
face bleak. “For a long time. Th’ stair clock strikes th’ quarters, ye see, an’ it’ud got to th’ half afore Mr. Westcott drove the gig out of the stable an’ out to the road. There wuz something—I reckoned maybe Sir Edgar—in the back, covered with a horse blanket.”

  “Which way did Mr. Westcott go as he went out the gate?” the constable asked. “Down toward Chagford, or up, t’ other way?”

  “Up, t‘ward the commons,” Avis replied. “A little bit after Mr. Westcott drove off, Lady Duncan come in through the hall entrance. A few minutes later, I heard the door of her bedroom shut, an’ her di’n’t come out until they said the vicar wuz there.”

  “And did you say anything to anyone about what you saw?” Kate asked.

  “Oh, no, mum,” Avis said, with a violent shake of her head. “I wuz too afeard. The more I thought on‘t, the more I figgered that wot I saw wuz murder, an’ that if Lady Duncan or Mr. Westcott knew wot I’d seen, it ’ud all be up with me. So I left, without even givin’ notice. I di‘n’t have nowhere to go, ’cept to Jenny, an’ when Mrs. Bernard took bad the next day, I nursed her.” She looked at Kate. “Which is where I met ye, m’ lady. When ye come t’ see Mrs. Bernard.”

  Charles shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Had you heard any unusual exchanges between Sir Edgar and Lady Duncan before this took place?”

  Avis looked down. “Well, I doan’t like—”

  “I know you don’t like to carry tales,” Kate said, “but this is a murder investigation, Avis, and these gentlemen need to know about anything that bears on the case.”

  Avis nodded unhappily. “Yes, there was quarrels. It’s not like I listened a-purpose, it’s just that ‘em talked very loud:’

  “What did they quarrel about?” Charles asked.

  “Sir Edgar, him didn’t much like Mr. Westcott. Him said him was a... a charl’tan.” She frowned.

  “A charlatan?” Kate asked, to be sure.

  Avis nodded. “I think that’s wot him said. Something like that.”

  “Did they quarrel about anything else?” Charles asked.

  “Well, Lady Duncan, her di‘n’t much like the country an’ wanted to move back to London. Her was unhappy when Sir Edgar took his name out o’ the runnin’ fer the seat from Mid-Devon, ’coz it meant stayin’. Least, that’s wot her said. An’ Sir Edgar, him said him wuz sorry him married her.” She smiled sadly. “Ye know wot married folk sez when them’re angry. That’s wot ’twas like.”

  “Thank you,” Charles said. He looked at the constable, then at Doyle. “Are there any more questions?” When they shook their heads, he added, “If you think of anything else that might help us understand what you’ve said, Avis, please let us know.”

  “I will.” Avis rose eagerly. “C’n us’ns go now?”

  The constable nodded, and Kate found the women’s coats and went to the door with them. “There is one more thing,” she said, “if you don’t mind. While you were nursing Mrs. Bernard, Avis, did you speak of what you saw from the window, either directly to her, or to Jenny, in her hearing?”

  Avis shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no, m‘lady. I di’n’t even speak of’t to Jenny til this mornin’. It felt safer to keep it to myself.” Tears began to fill her eyes again. “I hope I di’n’t do wrong.”

  “It doan’t matter, dear,” Jenny said quietly. “ ’Twill all rub out when ’tis dry.”

  “Yes,” Kate said, “it will.” She squeezed Avis’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Avis, and for telling us what you know. We appreciate it very much indeed.”

  When they were gone and Kate had returned to the fire, there was a long silence. Finally, Doyle said, in a tone of something like chagrin, “I suppose, then, that the tall, thin, fair-haired man who left the gig at the Yelverton stable and posted the letter to Lady Duncan was Nigel Westcott, not Jack Delany.”

  “Wot’s that?” asked the constable, looking up from his notebook.

  Doyle reported what he had learned in Yelverton and added, a bit sheepishly, “I was sure that the man described to me was Delany. I was—as Dr. Watson might say—entirely in the dark.”

  “So Westcott came back to Princetown on the train?” Kate said thoughtfully. “That explains why the vicar and I saw him that afternoon, in one of the livery stable’s pony carts, being driven in the direction of Thornworthy. He must have just returned from Yelverton.”

  “Westcott and Delany do look something like,” Charles said. “And we can certainly make better sense of what happened when we know it was Westcott who battered Sir Edgar’s face, hid the body, and wrote the letter.” He glanced at Doyle with a smile. “Reasoning backward is easier when you know the answer.”

  “How’s that?” the constable asked, frowning. “Reasonin’ backward?”

  “One of Sherlock Holmes’s strategies,” Kate put in. She turned to Charles. “What do you think happened?”

  “It looks as if Sir Edgar was killed in a struggle for the gun,” Charles said, “and Westcott and Lady Duncan decided to take advantage of the situation. They would not have wanted his death to be known, at least not immediately, to give them the opportunity to remove themselves from suspicion and as many of his portable assets as they might lay hands on. So Westcott mutilated the dead man’s face to prevent easy identification and concealed the corpse in the kistvaen, with the hope that it would not be discovered for quite some time, if ever.”

  “And then,” Doyle said, taking up the story, “Westcott drove the gig to Yelverton, where he stabled it, pretending to be Sir Edgar, and told the stable master that he was going abroad with a lady friend. He then wrote the letter to Lady Duncan.”

  “And that night, at the séance,” Kate put in, “the spirits predicted that Lady Duncan would soon learn of someone’s betrayal—”

  “And she received the letter the very next day!” Doyle exclaimed. “Since she was in on the scheme, Westcott didn’t even have to imitate Sir Edgar’s hand. All she had to do was to read the letter aloud or show it to the vicar, whom she confided in for that very purpose.” He scowled. “Obviously, that fellow Westcott is an out-and-out fake—as a medium, I mean to say.” His scowl deepened. “I must confess that I am annoyed. I made sure to test his accuracy by requiring verification.”

  “But because Lady Duncan was a part of the scheme,” Kate said, “she would quite naturally verify any answer Pheneas might give you.” She shook her head with a smile. “Darwin, indeed!”

  “It’s this letter business I don’t understand,” the constable said, mulling it over. “If her ladyship knew Sir Edgar wuz dead, the way the upstairs maid tells it, then wot wuz the purpose of the letter?”

  “It was all part of the fiction,” Charles said. “Every action after Sir Edgar’s shooting was designed to create the impression that he was alive. Westcott and Lady Duncan wanted it to be believed that he had left the country and that Lady Duncan knew nothing of his departure until she received the letter. If you will recall, the letter arrived before the body was found. If the corpse had remained safely hidden, no doubt there would have been other letters posted from here and there—France, say, or Africa or India—and perhaps even spurious sightings. It’s not difficult to arrange such things, given a few friends in distant places. But sooner or later—”

  “Sooner or later,” Kate said excitedly, “a letter or telegram would arrive informing Lady Duncan that her husband was dead, a victim of some accident or illness in a foreign country. She could claim her widow’s share of the estate, although there would have been plenty of time for her pillaging of the dead man’s accounts.”

  “The money was likely the reason she married him in the first place,” Charles said. “According to Dr. Lorrimer, when Sir Edgar was still in Africa, he contracted what his doctors expected to be a fatal illness. Then he married and came here to the moor, and was cured—so Lorrimer claims—by the fresh air and climate. Lady Duncan must have expected to become a widow, a wealthy widow, long before now.”

  �
��But the estate would not include Thornworthy,” Doyle reminded them. “It goes to Delany, now that his cousin is dead.”

  “Judging from Avis’s report,” Kate replied, “I don’t think Lady Duncan has much affection for Dartmoor. She probably doesn’t want Thornworthy.”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “It may be that she determined to take some sort of action when Sir Edgar decided not to stand for a seat in the Commons, which would have meant a return to London for at least part of the year.” He frowned. “In fact, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she is planning a trip to the City this very moment—with Mr. Westcott, no doubt.”

  The constable cleared his throat. “Well, then, we’d best take them both into custody, wouldn’t you say?” He looked at Charles. “How d’ ye think it should be done?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  His flight was madness: when our actions do not,

  Our fears do make us traitors.

  Lady Macduff, in Macbeth

  William Shakespeare

  After some discussion, it was decided that Charles should discuss the situation with Oliver Cranford at the prison and procure from him a conveyance and a pair of armed guards, to follow Doyle, Constable Chapman, Charles, and Kate as they drove out to Thornworthy. Charles originally opposed Kate’s being among the party, but she argued that Lady Duncan might speak more readily in the presence of another lady, and he finally gave in. These arrangements took the better part of an hour, so that it was full dark by the time the group set out in a closed carriage, a wagon containing two prison guards staying well back. The temperature had dropped dramatically, and the earlier drizzle had turned to snow, just heavy and persistent enough to dust the road with white.

  As they approached Thornworthy, passing between the stone pillars and wrought-iron lodge gates, Kate thought sadly over the many things that had happened since they had first driven down the long avenue toward the great house at the end. The moon flickered through the clouds, painting the ancient granite walls and turrets with a phosphorescent silver so that they seemed to glow with their own eerie light. But the great double doors of the hall were not thrown hospitably open tonight as they had been at that first visit, and it was only with a loud ringing of the bell and repeated pounding at the door that the constable was at last able to summon the butler.