A Christmas Visitor Read online

  They followed her up the stairs and across the landing to Judah’s dressing room. Henry found it disturbing to go into a dead man’s private space, see his hairbrushes and collar studs set out on the tallboy, cuff links in boxes, shoes and boots on their racks. His razor was set beside an empty bowl and ewer in front of the looking glass in which he must have seen his face so many times.

  He glanced quickly at Benjamin, and saw reflected in his expression exactly the emotions he felt himself, the grief, the slight embarrassment as if they had intruded when Judah was no longer capable of stopping them. It was uncomfortable for reasons he had not expected.

  In Antonia he saw only the pain of her loneliness. She must have been in here many times before.

  Ephraim, several years younger than Judah, carried his loss inside him, concealed as much as he was able. His face was tight, muscles pulling his mouth into a thinner line, eyes avoiding others.

  Naomi put her arm around Antonia. She had perhaps done exactly this same grim task, and knew how it felt.

  It was left to Henry to go to the top of the chest of drawers where the dark suit was folded, dry and stiff from river water and heavy traces of sand and silt.

  He opened the jacket and looked at it carefully. It had been little worn, perhaps no more than a year or two old, and made of excellent quality wool. It was beautiful cloth, probably from the fleeces of Lakeland sheep, but the label inside was that of a Liverpool tailor. It told him nothing at all, except the taste of the man who had worn it, which he already knew.

  Then he looked in the pockets one by one. He found a handkerchief, stained by water, but still folded, so probably otherwise clean. There were two business cards, a shirt maker in Penrith and a saddler in Kendal. In the wallet there were papers, some of which looked like receipts, but were too smudged to read, a treasury note for five pounds—a lot of money; not that anyone had assumed robbery. The last item was a penknife with a mother-of-pearl handle set with a silver, initialed shield. Presumably any coins would be in his trouser pockets. Henry was about to look when Antonia’s voice stopped him.

  “What’s that?” she said sharply. “The knife?”

  He held it up. “This? A penknife. He would have one, to sharpen a quill.” It was a very usual thing to carry. He did not understand the strain and disbelief in her face.

  “That one!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand.

  He passed it to her.

  She turned it over, her eyes wide, her skin bleached of color.

  “What is it, Antonia?” Benjamin asked. “Why does it matter? Isn’t it Judah’s?”

  “Yes.” She looked at each of them in turn. “He lost it the day before he died.” The words seemed to catch in her throat.

  Benjamin frowned. “Well, he must have found it again. It’s easy enough to misplace something so small.”

  “Where did he lose it?” Henry asked her.

  “That’s what I mean.” She stared at him. “In the stream. He was bending over and it fell out of his pocket. He searched for it, we both did, but we couldn’t find it again.”

  Ephraim said what Henry was thinking. “Maybe that’s why he went back the night he died.” It was obvious in his face and his voice that he loathed admitting it, but honesty compelled him. “It’s a very nice knife. And it has his initials on it. Perhaps it was a gift, and he cared very much about losing it.”

  “I gave it to him,” Antonia said. “But he didn’t lose it at the stones where he was found.” She had to stop a moment to struggle for control of her voice.

  There was utter silence in the small dressing room. No one moved. No one asked.

  “It was by the bridge a mile and a half farther down. The two stones set across the water above it.”

  “Farther down!” Benjamin was incredulous. “That doesn’t make any sense. It …” He did not say it.

  Henry knew what they were all thinking. It was in their faces as it was in his mind. Bodies do not wash upstream, only down.

  “Are you absolutely certain?” he said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  It was the proof they needed. Judah had been moved after he was dead, and left where it looked as if he had fallen accidentally.

  “Are there any sharp rocks at the lower bridge where he lost the knife?” Henry pressed.

  “No! Just water, deep … and gravel.” Antonia closed her eyes. “He was murdered … wasn’t he?”

  Henry looked at Benjamin, then at Ephraim, then at last back at Antonia.

  “Yes. I can think of no other explanation.” He felt stunned by the reality of it. Judah’s death had made no sense and they had all been convinced that Ashton Gower was capable of murder. Henry had believed it himself. But it was still different now that it was no longer theoretical but something from which there was no escape.

  “What are we going to do?” Naomi asked. “How do we prove that it was Gower? Where do we begin?”

  Ephraim put his hand up and pushed his hair back slowly off his brow. His eyes were unfocused, staring at something within himself.

  Benjamin looked at Antonia, then at Henry. There was horror in his eyes and a deep, painful confusion. Death had hurt him, as he had expected it would, as Nathaniel’s death had, but hatred and murder were apart from all he had known. They looked to Henry because he was older. He had an inner calm that concealed his emotions, and he did not betray the pain or the ignorance inside him. He had come to terms with it long ago.

  “Tomorrow, when it’s light,” he replied. “We should go to the place where Judah lost the knife, and therefore found it, and see if we can learn anything. We can at least see how long it would take anyone to carry a body from there, upstream to the place he was found, and then go back to the village. If we follow in the steps of whoever did it, we may learn something about them.”

  “Yes,” Benjamin agreed. “That’s where we should begin. In the morning.”

  They set out together after breakfast. The light was glittering sharp, the lake gray, with silver shadows like strokes from a giant brush. Underfoot the ice crackled with every step, hung in bright strands from the branches of every tree. The wind drifted ragged clouds, tearing them high, like mares’ tails.

  They set out walking, Henry and Benjamin ahead, Ephraim alone after them, Antonia and Naomi last, high leather boots keeping their feet dry. No amount of care could keep their skirts from being sodden by the loose snow.

  The route to the lower crossing was actually easier. They stood on the bank and stared at the wild, almost colorless landscape. Everything was black rocks, shining water, and bleached snow. Of course it would be possible to fall off the stones, but if one did, it would be far from any jagged edges. There were no rocks, no race or fall to cause the injuries Judah had suffered. The bottom of the stream here was pebbles and larger, smooth stones.

  “That proves it,” Ephraim said grimly. “He couldn’t have fallen accidentally and hit his head here. Someone killed him, and then carried or dragged him upstream to where he was found.” He looked along the bank as he said it, and everyone else’s eyes followed his.

  “How?” Benjamin asked the obvious question. The ground rose sharply, and a hundred yards away there was a copse of trees straddling both sides. There was no path, not even a sheep track. “How could anyone carry a grown man’s body along there, let alone a big man like Judah?”

  “On a horse,” Naomi said quickly. “That’s the only possible way. It’s steep, rough, and uphill.” She looked at Antonia. “A horse would leave marks in the snow, at both places. We can’t find out now about this place, but Wiggins would remember if there were prints of a horse’s hooves where Judah was found.”

  “There was nothing,” Ephraim answered for her. “I asked, because I wanted to prove that he went there to meet someone.”

  “Did it snow any more on that night to fill them in?” Benjamin asked.

  “No.” This time it was Antonia who spoke. “If there were no prints, then there can’t have been anyon
e else there. You can’t walk on snow without leaving a mark, whoever you are.” There was pain in her voice, as if a vestige of sense had been snatched from her just when she had thought she understood.

  “But he was killed here!” Ephraim insisted. “Nothing floats upstream!”

  “Water,” Henry said aloud.

  Ephraim’s face tightened, his eyes as cold and blue as the sky. “Water does not flow upstream, Henry,” he said bitterly. He only just refrained from adding that the remark was stupid and unhelpful, but it was in his expression.

  “You can walk in water without leaving a mark,” Henry corrected him. He turned to look up the slope again. “You could drag a body up the river, walking on the bed and letting the water itself help bear the weight. It’s only a mile or so. You’d leave no trace, and it’s extremely unlikely anyone would see you. Even if anyone were out, the bed is low-lying naturally, because the stream has cut it. Anything you disturbed would look as if the current did it, and if anyone did come in the light of the half moon, you would see them black against the snow. And if you bent over, you would simply look like an outcrop of rock, an edge of the bank.”

  Benjamin breathed out gently. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s a superb answer. The clever swine! How can we prove it?”

  “We can’t.” Ephraim bit his lip. “That’s why it’s so extremely clever. Sorry, Henry.”

  Henry brushed the apology aside with a smile. “What I don’t understand is how Judah lost the penknife the first time, and couldn’t find it, yet the second time, in the dark and when he must have had other things on his mind, he saw it!” He looked around at the snow-covered bark, the water clear as glass above the stones, and the dark, roughly cut edges of the stones used for the bridge. They were carefully wedged so they would not slip, even with a man’s weight on them.

  “Where did he drop it?” Benjamin asked Antonia.

  “He bent forward to look at his boot,” she replied. “He thought he might have cut the leather, but it was only scuffed.”

  “And where did you look?”

  “On the path, in the snow, and at the edge of the water, in case it went in. The mother-of-pearl would have caught the light,” she replied.

  Henry looked at the bridge stones where they were wedged. “Did he put his foot up here to look at the boot?”

  “Yes. Oh!” Antonia’s face lit. “You mean it fell between the stones there? And perhaps he remembered …”

  “Is it possible?” He knew from her face that it was.

  Ephraim turned his face toward the stream. “Do you suppose Gower took the horse up there, with Judah slung across it?”

  They all followed his eyes, seeing the winding course of it, the deeps and shallows.

  “Possibly,” Henry answered. “Or left it here, and walked, dragging him. Neither would be easy, and it would have taken far longer than we originally thought. He must have been away from home a good deal of the night, and half dead with cold after going a mile or more upstream, up to his thighs in icy water, either leading the horse, which would have been reluctant, or dragging the body. And then he had to tramp home through the snow. I wouldn’t be surprised if his feet were frostbitten by it.”

  “Good!” Ephraim snapped. “I hope he loses histoes.”

  “He wouldn’t risk going to Leighton with it,” Benjamin said thoughtfully. The wind was rising and over to the west the sky was gray. “There’s more snow coming,” he went on. “We know now what happened. We can make plans what to do best at home. Come on.” And he turned and started to lead the way back again, offering his arm to Antonia.

  After having taken off their wet clothes, they assembled around the fire. Mrs. Hardcastle brought them hot cocoa and ginger cake, then they set about the serious discussion of what they could each do to bring Ashton Gower to justice.

  No one questioned that Benjamin had a high intelligence, a keen and orderly mind that, if he governed the overriding emotion of outrage, he could use to direct the investigation. He could make sense of all they could learn and integrate it into one story to lay before the authorities. His leadership was taken for granted.

  Ephraim had courage and a power that would accept no defeat as sufficient to deflect him from his purpose. Now they were certain that there was a crime to solve, his strength would be invaluable.

  It was Henry who suggested that they should also make use of Naomi’s charm to gain what might otherwise be beyond their reach. Laughter and a quick smile often achieved what demand could not, and she agreed immediately, as keen as anyone else to help.

  Antonia, newly widowed and with such a young child, was required by custom and decorum to remain at home. Apart from that, she had no desire at all to leave Joshua with a governess or tutor while he puzzled as to what all the adults were doing, knowing something was desperately wrong, but not told what it was, or how they hoped to resolve it. However, her reputation and the regard she had earned in her years in the village would stand well in their favor.

  “We will take luncheon early and begin this afternoon,” Benjamin declared. His face was grave as he turned to Ephraim. “There is at least one man in the village who knows what manner of man Gower is, and that is Colgrave. He is not an easy man to like, but he is our best ally in this. Go to him and gain as much of his help as you can. He won’t find it hard to believe that Gower could have killed Judah, but don’t raise that question unless he does. Remember that we have two objectives: to establish exactly how Judah died.” His mouth pinched tight and his eyes were full of anger. He was finding it hard to control the pain of loss he felt. Judah had been his beloved and admired elder brother. His memories were full of laughter, adventure, and friendship. To have a creature like Ashton Gower not only end the future but sully the past as well was almost insupportable. “And to prove it and find justice for him,” he went on. “But we must also silence his lies forever and show to everyone that all he says is false. Colgrave might be able to help in both. But be careful how you ask.”

  Ephraim’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Don’t worry, I shan’t trust him,” he replied. “But he’ll help me with everything he can, I promise you.”

  Benjamin turned to Naomi. “Henry and I already spoke to Gower. We met him by chance in the street. He’s consumed with hatred. Even death isn’t enough to satisfy him. He wants to justify himself and get the estate back for …”

  “I’ll see him in hell first,” Ephraim said huskily.

  “There’s no good confronting him,” Benjamin argued. “We need to determine where he was that night, and if it was even possible for him to have been to the crossing where Judah was killed, and also the stones where he was found. Does he have access to a horse, or did he take one? Did anyone see him, and if so, where and at what time? If we gain anything from him it will be either by charm, or tricking him. Naomi …”

  “No!” Ephraim cut across him, instantly protective. “You can’t ask her to speak to him. For God’s sake, Ben, he murdered Judah!”

  Naomi flushed, seeing the emotion in Ephraim’s face.

  “He won’t know who she is,” Benjamin pointed out, apparently oblivious of it, or of her embarrassment. He could think only of plans. “And if she went with Henry …”

  “I’d rather go alone,” Naomi said quickly. She flashed a smile at Henry, as if he would understand, then looked back at Benjamin. “To begin with at least, I can pretend anything I wish, or allow him to assume it. If I go with Mr. Rathbone, Gower will take against me from the outset, because he knows Mr. Rathbone is your friend.”

  “He’s dangerous,” Ephraim told her, finality in his voice. “You forget where he’s been already. He was eleven years in prison in Carlisle. He’s not a …”

  She looked at him with the shadow of a smile on her mouth, but her eyes were direct, even challenging. Watching them, Henry realized that there was far more between them than he, or Benjamin, had supposed, and a great deal more emotion.

  “We suspect that he murdered a
member of our family,” she replied coolly. “I understand that, Ephraim. I am going to see him openly, and in daylight. He is evil, we are all perfectly certain of that, but he is not stupid. If he were, we would not find him so difficult to catch.”

  The dull red of anger spread up Ephraim’s cheeks, and a consciousness that he was betraying his emotion too far. It was as if their exchange was not new but merely something in the middle of an established difference.

  Benjamin looked at his brother, then at his sister-in-law, aware that he had missed something, but not certain what it was. “Are you sure you would not prefer to have Henry with you?” he asked.

  “Quite sure,” Naomi answered. “If Gower sees me with anyone from this house we will in a sense have tipped our hands.” She looked at Antonia, and bit her lip. “Sorry. That is a card-playing expression I have heard men use. I’m afraid I have mixed with some odd company when traveling. Geological sites are not always in the most civilized of places.”

  Antonia smiled for the first time since Henry had arrived, perhaps since Judah’s death. “Please don’t apologize. Some time, when this is past, I would like to hear more about it. There are advantages to having a family, but there are chances you lose as well. But I understand the reference. You might be surprised how fierce and how devious some of the ladies of the village can be about their cards.”

  Now it was Naomi who smiled self-consciously. “Of course, I didn’t think of that. The desire to play and to win is universal, I suppose. But believe me, I shall play better against Mr. Gower if I do it alone.”

  Benjamin conceded. “I shall go to the village, then follow the path Gower must have taken to see exactly how long it requires, including walking up the bed of the stream.”

  “You’ll freeze!” Antonia exclaimed with concern.

  He smiled at her. “Probably. But I’ll survive. I’ll have a hot bath when I get back. I won’t be the only man to get soaked through. Shepherds do it regularly. It’s time we did something for Judah, apart from talk, and grieve.”