River's Edge Read online

  Suppressing a grin, Davis turned toward the door.

  “And, Davis…” Henley said.

  “Sir?”

  “You and Jenks can have Clover when she’s served her purpose. Or perhaps you alone if Jenks isn’t hanging about.”

  Davis nodded and went out, and Clover entered directly, evidently full of news. She had grown bold, it seemed to Henley. But the forward, cunning look on her face brought out her beauty, or something that passed for it.

  “What did you discover at Hereafter Farm?” he asked her. “You delivered the broadsheet, I trust.”

  “Well, sir, I took the papers to the farm as you said, and didn’t their eyes shoot open when they saw them.”

  “Who, Clover? Who saw them?”

  “Why the one they call Mother Laswell, and also the St. Ives woman and her man. And Mother Laswell’s husband, it must have been. You’d best watch out for him. He’s a fire-brand, that one is. And Mr. Frobisher was with them, talking a blue streak about what he meant to do. I left them to it and went off, and I was half a mile down the lane when I heard a horse coming up, and so I stepped into a copse and hid. It was the husband. He was in a wild state for certain—on a desperate mission, I thought.”

  “Do you know where he was bound?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And that’s the lot of it then? You knocked upon the door and handed Mother Laswell the broadsheet and the Gazette, watched her eyes shoot open, and walked away?”

  “Oh, no sir,” she said, smiling coyly at him. “Aren’t you in a state, sir? I didn’t knock upon the door at all. I saw there was no one about, and so I walked in as bold as Jack Straw and listened from the hallway. Do you wish to know what I heard, perhaps?”

  “Of course I do, Clover. You know it full well.”

  “And will you be good to me?”

  “As good as ever I can be.”

  She smiled broadly, hiked her skirts, sat down atop the desk, and with Henley’s hand upon her knee, she told him what she had heard.

  Chapter 15

  Suspicions

  WHAT A SHAMBLES of a day,” Alice said, sitting on the edge of the bed and knotting her hair. The candles guttered in the night breeze, which was exotically warm. She looked closely at St. Ives and whispered, “And now we discover that our island harbors a coven of witches!”

  “I’m quite fond of those witches, so I see it as a general improvement.”

  “But what should the witches do about it?”

  “About my being fond of them?” he asked. “I’m particularly fond of one of them, actually. As for doing something about it…” He smiled at her and received a smile in return.

  “Perhaps we’ll get to that,” she said. “Should we answer the charges, though? Should we say anything at all? The entire thing is the work of a small, disturbed mind.”

  “I counsel silence. It could be that the mind that conceived the thing isn’t as small as it would seem. More to the point, small minds and small ambitions can be dangerous things. He evidently commissioned the photographs some time ago. Such necessities aren’t left until the last moment. Mother Laswell hasn’t kept her mission a secret, after all.”

  “He? How do you know it’s a man?”

  “Women are largely above this sort of thing. There’s a salacious quality to the deviousness that reveals a man’s mind.”

  “And Charles Townover is not the man? You seem very sure of that, as does Gilbert.”

  “I’m sure of nothing,” St. Ives said. “Townover is quite capable of sending Daisy away. She was sick, and a liability to the mill. But I believe that he paid her what he thought was a sufficient sum for her troubles. He intended to send her off to London, just as he asserts. She might in fact have recovered, once she was no longer breathing the poisons.”

  “I would agree but for the fact that Daisy had been attending the Friends gatherings. She was a potential threat to the mill and not merely a sick girl.”

  “You’re correct, of course. When I met with Townover we were interrupted by the mill foreman, a man named Davis. Hasbro and I had run into Davis, almost literally, when we were gathering samples along the river. I’m quite sure that he saw my face that night, and from the look on his own face this morning, I could see that he knew me. And yet he denied it. We both knew it was a lie, but I cannot fathom the reason for the lie. When Davis attacked us along the brook he was merely doing his duty. He can have no liking for me. It would have been sensible for him to reveal my activities to Townover on the spot, and to have me pitched out.”

  Alice sat down on the bed and leaned back against the headboard now. “Was Townover aware of the lie?” she asked.

  “I believe not, although there’s no certainty. Davis followed me across the river to Snodland, however, and looked into the Malden Arms, where I was breakfasting. He ascertained that I was there and then went away. So he has his eye on me.”

  “And yet you don’t suspect Townover’s hand behind this?”

  “Not behind all of it, no. I agree with Gilbert there. Davis would have been aware that Daisy was carrying a sum of money. If the demise of both Bill Henry and Daisy Dumpel was contrived by Davis, as it well might have been, then Davis is the culprit. Certainly he has a criminal air about him. It was Davis who provided evidence against Henry, and it was Davis who beat him senseless in the alley behind the Malden Arms and could quite easily have slipped Daisy’s banknotes into Henry’s coat.”

  “Daisy would have been an easy mark,” Alice said. “She believed that Davis was looking after her. What if it was he and not Bill Henry who collected her from the Chequers? According to the Gazette, no one saw the man come in or got a look at him going out. But then what’s to be gained by Davis? He had his hands on one hundred pounds and he gave it away in order to implicate Henry.”

  “He stands to gain something more than one hundred pounds, perhaps. It seemed to me that Townover’s gift to Daisy was at least partly intended to buy her silence. But what if someone wanted to buy a more permanent silence? Perhaps Davis is another pawn.”

  “Or merely a murderer who is in the habit of taking what he wants.”

  “Possibly.”

  They lay there in silence for a time, and then Alice said, “There’s no proof of any of this, and Bill Henry and Daisy are both dead. You don’t intend to pursue it, I hope, unless there’s something more certain. And then you’d be wise to go to Constable Brooke. He’s a good man.”

  “As you will.”

  “And it could be that all of this is finished, you know. The Friends of the Medway are discredited. Bill Henry and Daisy are silenced. It seems to be a thorough-going success.”

  “I very much hope you’re right,” St. Ives said.

  And then they blew out their candles and settled in for the night.

  Chapter 16

  It Looks Like Witches

  ST. IVES SAT on the veranda the next morning, recalling his conversation with Alice. There was nothing he could think of to do about this mess. The more one protested, the deeper one sank into the mire, and yet it seemed to him that there must be some relevant action—that a plot had been hatched, and that the chick was growing into a chicken.

  He smiled at the figure. Perhaps Alice was correct. The Friends of the Medway had been discredited. The damage was done. They would survive it, although Mother Laswell would scarcely lay down her cudgels, nor should she. Perhaps Gilbert would succeed and the chicken sent packing.

  Eddie ran up onto the porch now. “Larkin wants to know can we take the rubber off the arrows,” he said, “and sharpen them. We mean to shoot at a hay bale. She’s made a target. A great giant rat. Ten points if you pierce its eye and five through the heart.”

  St. Ives considered the notion. Eddie was a sensible boy; his sister Cleo was flighty, but not foolish. Larkin was outright wild, but her heart was right and she had wonderful, arcane skills, many of which might someday lead her to the gallows. “Where will you position the hay bale, then?”
>
  “Against the far wall of the barn, near the capstan. We’ve been feeding sugar-canes to Dr. Johnson, and he wants to observe the shooting.”

  “Nowhere near the balloon, though? And Dr. Johnson must be well clear. Shooting an arrow anywhere near a balloon or an elephant isn’t to be countenanced. Not for a moment.”

  “Oh, no sir,” Eddie said. “Yes, sir, I mean. None of us would count…do what you said.”

  “And you’ll draw a line that must be stood behind.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And there will be no notched arrows when someone is collecting the spent arrows. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Just as you say.”

  “And do not allow Johnson to eat all of his sugar canes at one sitting. He must be content with two or three, like you or I or the next fellow. They won’t be replenished until the end of the week. It’s a kindness to him to parse them out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Eddie said, and then before there could be any more admonitions, he bolted toward the barn, hollering something that St. Ives couldn’t make out. He was distracted by the sight of Constable Brooke stepping down from his buggy at the end of the wisteria alley. St. Ives went out to meet him, deadly certain that something further was amiss, that the island was under siege.

  “Is Mrs. St. Ives at home, sir?” Brooke asked after the two men had shaken hands.

  “Upstairs, yes. I’m afraid she’s slept late. Shall I awaken her?”

  “Might I speak to you first?”

  “Of course, Brooke. Come, take a chair on the porch.”

  The two men ascended the porch steps into the shade and sat down. “I don’t like to be here at all, sir. Not on such a day as this,” Brooke said.

  “I see. State your mind freely,” St. Ives told him. “I half expected you’d pay us a visit sooner or later.”

  “It’s not good news sir, and to my mind it’s dead wrong, but I must do my duty by the constabulary.”

  “Of course you must.”

  “Bill Kraken’s been taken up for murder, do you see? It appears as if he’s killed a man named Manfred Pink, a photographer fellow from Tunbridge Wells. He and Pink had some sort of falling out, and Kraken murdered him with a clasp knife—a single blow, in the heart.”

  St. Ives stood in shocked silence. It was certainly possible that Kraken had done just this thing—horribly possible. Kraken was impetuous, and he had ridden off in a state yesterday. “Were there witnesses?”

  “No, sir. Pink’s body was found, and there was a hue and cry. Kraken was riding toward Aylesford from Tunbridge Wells when he was brought to bay by three citizens. Pink had struck him on the head—Kraken admits as much—but he denied having touched Pink. It wasn’t his knife, he said, but that of an unseen hand, as they say. When he was captured he had a photograph concealed on his person, however—a dead baby slit open by a knife and bleeding out.”

  “Which he had taken from Pink’s, no doubt, as I would have done if I had seen it there. Have you seen the infamous broadsheet, Brooke?”

  “Yes, sir, I have.”

  “And you’re aware that the photographs are frauds?”

  “Truth to tell, I don’t know what’s frauds, sir. And what I know, or what I think, makes little difference. I haven’t got to the end of what I came to say, neither.”

  “Tell me the lot of it, then. We’ll sort it out.”

  “It ain’t the sort of thing that can be sorted, Professor, but here it is. After Kraken was jailed, we went out to Hereafter to see Mother Laswell, naturally, and what did we find but the table made of sticks that was on the broadsheet you mentioned—a satanic altar, so they say. It stood behind the barn under a bit of canvas, and there was blood on the table-top and a bloody knife underneath along with a jar of…” He looked down at the ground now and muttered, “…what they call flying ointment.”

  St. Ives burst into laughter. “I won’t pretend not to understand you, Brooke, but for the love of God how does anyone know what was contained within the jar? Did it have a label on it, as if it had come from the chemist’s?”

  “In fact it did, sir—that very thing. But like I was saying, out we went to Kit’s Coty, and found the dead baby itself buried on the meadow near the old stones, the same baby as was in the photograph that Kraken took from Pink’s.”

  St. Ives looked away, forcing himself to breathe evenly. “Was the photo of the dead baby taken from afar, so to speak?”

  “No sir, near-on.”

  “How can that be? It would mean that between the baby’s being killed—if in fact it was killed—and the time it was buried, Pink managed to take a photograph of it. How was this done? Did this alleged coven of witches, which I remind you seems to include my wife, invite Pink to take such a photograph, one which would damn them for good and all? It doesn’t stand to reason, man.”

  Constable Brook shrugged. “That will surely come out, sir, but at the moment it’s evidence.”

  “And the dead baby. Where was it removed to?”

  “Dr. Pullman has it.”

  “Good. Was Mother Laswell arrested, then?”

  “There was an attempt, but she beat one of the men with a twig broom and ran into the woods. We searched, but she’d hid herself.”

  “Good again, by God. She’s an innocent woman. Did you confiscate the broom? Perhaps it’s the very broom that she rides upon—another piece of evidence.”

  Brooke blinked at him. “I didn’t think to…”

  “Fetch it, man. If Dr. Pullman can find traces of flying ointment on the staff, then you’ve got your woman dead to rights. Did you think of that?” St. Ives realized that he was very near to breaking out. He didn’t want to savage Brooke, who was a kind if unimaginative man, but he badly wanted to savage something. He reined himself in, however, forcing himself to compose his face.

  “What else, then?” he asked.

  Brooke stared at him, his mouth half open. “Only I’ve come to arrest Mrs. St. Ives. It’s her picture with the witches, you see. She’s implicated.”

  “There are no witches, Brooke.”

  “Maybe not, sir. I hope not. But it looks like witches. And there’s the stones at Kit’s Coty and the bloody altar and the baby and Pink murdered, and two bloody knives alongside all. We don’t quite know where to start. We’ve got to…”

  “Witchcraft hasn’t been a punishable offense for 150 years, Brooke. Surely you’re aware of that.”

  He shrugged unhappily. “There’s a murdered baby, sir, no matter was it witchcraft or not.”

  From somewhere behind them, hidden in the shadows of the porch, Alice said, “I’ll come along peacefully, Constable Brooke.” She’d apparently been standing inside the door, listening. “As Langdon said, we’ll sort this out. I’ll just be a few minutes getting some things together.”

  Alice left, and the two men stood in silence. St. Ives’s mind was swimming helplessly, but he saw nothing solid to clutch on to. “Tell me, Brooke, was Clara Wright arrested? Surely you do not believe that a blind girl was riding atop a broom.”

  “No sir. Only your Alice and Mother Laswell, who were at Kit’s Coty. Their faces were plain.”

  “They were not at Kit’s Coty, Brooke. The photograph is a fraud.”

  “Yes, sir. No doubt it is, but…”

  Mrs. Langley stepped out onto the porch now with two glasses of lemonade. Gilbert Frobisher was with her.

  “My throat is closed,” St. Ives said, waving his glass away. Brooke, who was in the act of reaching for one of the glasses, hesitated.

  “This will open your throat, sir. Mrs. St. Ives said that I must make an offer of lemonade and that’s what I’m a-doing. Take your glass, Constable.”

  Brooke nodded and did as he was told, as did St. Ives, both men drinking it straight down. Brooke looked away, as if studying the wisteria alley, and Mrs. Langley went back inside with the empty glasses.

  St. Ives could think of nothing to say, but his mind was working now. It seemed clear t
o him that everything he had imagined about the man Davis was true. But it still seemed unlikely that Davis could be the linch-pin. He was a mere hireling, and had nothing to gain by fabricating ornate plots. Someone else meant to gain by it.

  “A word with you, Constable?” Frobisher asked, and Brooke nodded with a look of apparent relief on his face. The two men walked off, Gilbert speaking, and a moment later St. Ives observed his friend handing Brooke several banknotes.

  Alice and Mrs. Langley came out through the door, Alice carrying her portmanteau, which St. Ives took from her.

  “Do you want the children?” Mrs. Langley asked her.

  “Yes,” Alice answered. “What I do not want are secrets, although we’d best wait until after I’ve gone to make things particularly clear, whatever that means.” Mrs. Langley hurried away toward the barn.

  “You’ll consider your actions carefully, won’t you, Langdon?” Alice asked, looking into his eyes. “Nothing rash. Anger never helps. It always rebounds upon a person.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re right, of course.”

  “Do you know, I’ve never been happier that there are two of us.”

  He nodded, but said, “Did you hear the entire conversation? It’s difficult to generate anything like happiness.”

  “I did hear it. But I choose to be happy that we’re husband and wife. I suggest that you contact Mr. Bayhew so that he can find a barrister in the event that there is to be a trial. A clever lawyer will destroy them, whoever they are.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll send to Bayhew immediately.” He hadn’t thought to do so, despite their long friendship with Bayhew, who had acted as their solicitor several times in the past. Alice kissed him now, which surprised him, although he kissed her back heartily enough. They walked to where Brooke and Frobisher were apparently contemplating the hops field, their conversation at an end. “Is Alice to be taken to the jail in Aylesford?” St. Ives asked Brooke.

  “No, sir. It’s taken up by Bill Kraken,” Brooke said. “If we can find Mother Laswell, she can join Bill, of course, the two of them together.”