A Duty To The Dead Part 25

But to look at it another way, six opportunities for the police to catch their man. And Peregrine locked away in his room at the asylum could only have been blamed for one of them.

It was dark under the trees, but peaceful. A little wind rustled the dry, bare branches, and once I thought I heard an owl glide past me, after other prey. They are silent, owls are, as they fly, but there's something, a disturbance in the air, a sixth sense, that catches one's attention sometimes.

It was time to turn back. I was nearly out of the wood when someone stepped from the shadow of a tree trunk and confronted me.

I drew in a breath, I was so startled, and he could hear that. He laughed, and then my eyes adjusted to the barest glimmer of ambient light, and I saw that it was Timothy Graham.

"It is you," he said then. "I thought I saw you walking toward the wood, but I told myself it was impossible. What brings you back to Owlhurst?"

"You gave me such a fright!" I declared.

"Guilty conscience, I'll be bound."

That was too close to the mark for comfort. I laughed, more an admission than a denial, I was certain.

"I-a personal matter brought me back. And so I stayed the night. But I'm leaving tomorrow."

He fell in step beside me. "I saw you coming from the rectory. If I were to guess, I'd say it was Ted Booker who has been on your mind."

"I'd rather not discuss Lieutenant Booker."

"You tried to help him. I think it was unfinished business on Ted's account."

I answered. "Sometimes when you try to save a patient, and you fail-even if it isn't your fault, you still take it more personally than you should."

"As you did in Arthur's case."

Surprised, I answered, "In a way, yes. He sent me here with a message, and I felt honor bound to bring it. However it might be received."

"I can understand that." He hesitated, then asked, "What did you make of Arthur? I don't mean what you told my mother, but what you really felt?"

"He was a good patient. We often talked-I'd be coming off my s.h.i.+ft, and I'd stop by his cot and he'd tell me what he'd been reading. Or I would tell him about some part of my day. He was restless, his foot hurting him like the very devil, and I knew that any distraction was welcomed."

"Did he talk to you about Owlhurst or his family?"

"Only in the most general terms. You see, the wounded often live in the present, because they've been very badly frightened, even if they refuse to admit it. And so they hold on to the present. The past is still too-I don't know-precious."

"Did he tell you about his brothers?"

"I knew he had three, and no sisters. That was all."

"Not that I was lame, or that Jonathan has a cold streak in him that I've never fathomed, and I doubt if Arthur did either? Or that Peregrine had been clapped up for murder?"

"In a hospital ward, with other ears hearing every word, men seldom bring up such personal things. I knew Jonathan was also in the army-I heard Arthur telling someone that."

"Yet you came all this way..."

"I made a promise, Mr. Graham. I have told you."

"And so you'd have traveled to Yorks.h.i.+re, if a patient asked you to."

"Kent was much easier. But yes. I'd have tried."

He nodded. "Yes, that's honorable. I'm angry that I'm not allowed to join the army. I resent the bonds that soldiers share. Arthur and Jonathan wrote often to each other, but less often to me. Or to my mother. It was as if we didn't exist because we weren't there." there."

I could sympathize with what he was saying. My father, during his years as a commanding officer, cared for his men like a stern but loving father. I doubt they saw it that way, especially those who felt the sharp edge of his tongue, but my mother and I did. We sometimes felt pangs of jealousy, and my mother would say, "I married a regiment, my dear. If you are looking for single-minded love, find yourself someone in civilian life. A nice banker, perhaps."

I said to Timothy Graham, "I think it isn't so much the bond between soldiers as the fear that to tell the truth to those one loves would be too painful, and so letters must be brief, before other things spill over. I've written to wives and sweethearts and mothers, putting down what I'm told to write, and even knowing it for kind lies, I add nothing of what I know."

There was the young Welshman who a.s.sured his mother that the trenches were quite comfortable, despite what she read in the newspapers, and that he had clean sheets and a good pillow for his bed.

"Did Jonathan tell you about Peregrine?"

"No. Your mother did, when I was asked to care for him. You were there."

"I'm surprised you could bear to be in the same room with him."

"A nurse is only concerned with the health of a patient. I wasn't there to judge Peregrine Graham, only to heal him."

"What did he tell you?"

"He was so ill. I think once he asked me why I was there-he thought I must be Arthur's wife-and again he asked where he was, and I told him. He had to fight for every breath, even to tell me whether he felt like drinking more broth, or if he needed another pillow to help ease the coughing. And I was far too busy to worry about what he might have done years before." It was such a narrow line between truth and falsehood.

Timothy nodded. "I didn't want to see him. None of us did. He was the painful past, come creeping back. I wouldn't recognize him if he spoke to me on the street. He must have changed beyond recognition. It explains why he killed himself. I wouldn't have wanted to be shut away, as he was."

"No." We had reached the churchyard wall, and he opened the gate for me.

"I'm glad Arthur had someone with him at the end. It must be rather frightening to die alone. I can't imagine it, to tell you the truth."

I went through the gate, and after closing it, he turned toward his home. Then he came back to me. "I won't mention the fact that I saw you. I can do that much for Booker. And his death did me no good. Mrs. Denton took Sally away with her, and it may be months before she's home again."

"Just as well," I said. "She has a great deal of healing to do before she thinks about any future."

"You're a wise woman, Elizabeth Crawford, did anyone ever tell you that?"

I smiled but didn't answer. And he was gone, limping across the uneven, winter-dead gra.s.s in the churchyard.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PEREGRINE WAS WAITING for me, and I said as I reached the head of the stairs, "I walked in the wood for a time, and Timothy saw me there. I came back as soon as I could." for me, and I said as I reached the head of the stairs, "I walked in the wood for a time, and Timothy saw me there. I came back as soon as I could."

He was silent. We went down the pa.s.sage to the door of my room and paused by common consent.

I hadn't told him what I'd learned about his disappearance and possible death. I couldn't have said why, except that it had erased Peregrine's ident.i.ty, and I wasn't sure it was for the best to tell him that. He could take pa.s.sage now to half a dozen countries that wouldn't ask too many questions, he could create his own past, and walk away from Peregrine Graham. Would he be as eager to learn about Lily Mercer, if he knew all that I knew?

He waited. I said, "Peregrine. We should go back to London. We've learned all we can learn, here."

"You know how the rector died, don't you?"

"Yes. He tripped and fell down the pulpit stairs. Do you remember? It's very high and the steps turn and narrow as they descend."

Frowning, he looked for the memory, then nodded. "Yes. I do remember."

I had opened my door and was about to cross the threshold, when he said, "You still think Arthur may have killed Lily Mercer, don't you? I've seen your face when you're afraid the evidence points in that direction. Tell me, how would you choose between Arthur and me, if it came to that-if the only way you could protect him would be to sacrifice me?"

I said, "Arthur is dead. Nothing can harm him now. You are alive."

"Fair enough. Then I'll be honest with you as well. If I didn't kill Lily Mercer, why do I dream so vividly about her death?"

He turned and walked away, going into his room without looking back.

I had dinner sent up to both of us, for fear that someone might recognize Peregrine in the dining room or ask questions about the man who accompanied me. And so I ate alone, and Peregrine did the same.

We left Owlhurst behind and went back to Tonbridge, to take the train to London.

We hadn't been in the flat for five minutes before Mrs. Hennessey came puffing up the stairs. I made certain Peregrine was safely out of sight before opening my door.

"There's someone to see you, Miss Crawford. I declare, Mr. Hennessey might have something to worry about, if I were thirty years younger. But after those stairs I daresay I'm thirty years older." She had brought up the post as well and was fanning herself with it as she caught her breath.

"Is it my father?" What if Peregrine and I'd encountered him as we arrived? It was such a close call I felt weak.

"No, my dear, I know your father very well. It's the other one. He's very anxious to speak to you, though he was inordinately polite when he asked if I'd mind going up to fetch you for him."

Simon Brandon. And that would have been just as bad.

"Yes, I'll be there in a moment. Let me collect my coat."

She turned to descend the stairs again, smiling at me over her shoulder. I stepped back into the flat, promised Peregrine that I'd return in a few minutes, and went down to meet the sergeant major.

He greeted me and held the door for me. "Let's sit in the motorcar-it's warmer."

The hall was cold. I went out and got into the motorcar, wondering what was afoot.

As he got behind the wheel, he said, "How are you faring with your search for Lily Mercer?"

"Um-well, I know her parents went to New Zealand shortly after she died."

"Then you may not know that one Peregrine Graham was charged with her murder. He stabbed her in the throat with his father's pocketknife. And it was agreed by all parties that he should be remanded to an asylum for the rest of his natural life."

"Indeed." It was all I could think of to say.

"Indeed. And said Peregrine Graham is now missing from said asylum, and the authorities have every reason to believe he shot himself on the coast of Kent, somewhere south of Dover. Winchelsea? Dymchurch? And his body is still missing, though they did find someone near his size and age."

Something he'd just said struck me.

"She was what? Stabbed in the throat, you say?"

"My friend at Scotland Yard tells me that's what the report says."

"But-I thought-I mean, someone told me she'd been disemboweled-"

"Now that's a nasty thing to be telling a lady," he said, turning to look at me, his dark eyes unreadable in the dimness of the motorcar's interior.

Oh dear. Simon was frighteningly astute. Had I given myself away? Still, I had to ask.

"Are you very certain, Simon? It's important to know this."

"As certain as the report filed at the time of death. I don't know how your Mrs. Graham managed to protect her stepson the way she did, but the police were in agreement that in his present state, taking him into custody would only aggravate his condition. A number of other cases of a similar nature had been sent to Barton's, they knew the doctors there and respected their expertise. The upshot of it was, the boy was given into the care of his stepmother to be transported to the asylum, where doctors evaluated the facts, examined him, and reported to the police. The inquest was held, the doc.u.ments were placed in evidence, and that was the end of the matter."

"Does the Colonel Sahib know any of this?" I asked after a moment.

"Not yet. That's why I came to see you first. Want to tell me what's going on?"

My heart sank. Simon would never accept my a.s.surance that I was as safe with Peregrine Graham as I was with him.

"I learned something when I was in Owlhurst. I don't know that Peregrine did what he's accused of. If my information is reliable, it's possible that his half brother let Peregrine take the blame for what happened to Lily Mercer. If that's true, Peregrine may have spent nearly fifteen years in an asylum for something he didn't do."

Simon whistled. "My G.o.d, Bess, you do manage to get yourself into a tangle. Don't tell me you found a way to spirit Graham out of that asylum yourself. It would be just like you."

I sighed. "He escaped the day I left Owlhurst. I didn't know-I thought the family had been told he was dead of pneumonia. There was the death of Lieutenant Booker, you see, and I was so distressed by that-"

"Who is Booker?" Simon asked suspiciously.

"While I was in Owlhurst, I was asked by the local doctor to help him watch a patient suffering from severe sh.e.l.l shock. He was threatening to kill himself, you see, and in fact he did."

"I thought nursing would keep you safe. How wrong I was. Britannic Britannic sank under you, and now Owlhurst involved you in murder and suicide. I'm taking you back to Somerset with me." sank under you, and now Owlhurst involved you in murder and suicide. I'm taking you back to Somerset with me."

"No, you can't-" I began to say, then stopped short.

"Pray, why can't I?"

"I-I want to do something first. Are you sure Lily Mercer was stabbed-that there was nothing else?"

"You've already asked me that," he pointed out. "Who are you really trying to protect, Bess? Arthur? Peregrine? This man Booker? Are you in love with any of them?" His voice was exasperated.

"Ted Booker is-was-married, and he has a son. Arthur is dead. And you just told me that Peregrine was dead."