Peril by Post Page 5

  “The baby,” Pickett said. “Someday it’s going to notice the difference between its parents—and if it doesn’t, you can be sure some other child will point it out. Children can be cruel to each other, you know.” A shadow crossed his face, and she wondered again what his life had been like before Mr. Colquhoun had intervened. “So, what will we tell it?”

  “We shall tell it”—she paused long enough to pluck the hat from over his face and lean down to kiss him—“that its parents loved each other enough to give up everything in order to be together. I assure you, many an aristocratic child would envy such a heritage, no matter what he might say to the contrary.”

  “ ‘He’?” echoed Pickett. “You sound very sure it will be a boy.”

  “Not at all. But I assume a boy will be sent to school—where he might very well run up against the sort of cruelty you fear—while a girl may be sheltered, at least to some extent, by being privately educated at home. Still, I should actually pity a girl more.”

  “Because she’ll have no dowry,” Pickett observed.

  “No,” she said, torn between exasperation and amusement. “Because she’ll never be able to find a man who will live up to her own Papa.”

  Pickett regarded her with mingled hope and fear. “You don’t think it will despise me, then?”

  “Good heavens, no! It will grow up hearing all about how Papa saved Mama from the gallows. I daresay that will become the bedtime story of choice, and will become so embellished over the years that eventually you will scarcely recognize yourself.”

  “Hmm,” said Pickett, pondering this vision of his paternal self with surprised satisfaction.

  “Now, if that has been worrying you, pray set your mind at ease and go back to sleep,” Julia said, plunking the hat back over his face. “I want to finish sketching the waterfall before it is cast into the shadow of the fell.”

  It was not long before the steady rhythm of his breathing told Julia that he had followed this advice, and she had almost finished her drawing when she realized they were no longer alone. Two men had appeared far ahead on the rough path leading to the waterfall, their figures mere black silhouettes against the sun behind them. Julia watched them for some time, weighing whether or not to include them in her sketch. Would the presence of human figures detract from the beauty of the scenery, she wondered, or would their addition actually improve the drawing by giving some sense of the height of the falls and the grandeur of the fells behind it? She decided in favor of the latter, and was about to put pencil to paper once more when there was an abrupt movement toward the cliff’s edge, and suddenly only one figure remained.

  It all happened so quickly, Julia would have thought she’d only imagined it, had she not just spent several minutes weighing the effect of the two figures on her drawing. But no, there had certainly been two where now there was one—one dark silhouette that was even now stepping away from the sheer drop.

  “John!” Although she was much too far away for that anonymous form to hear her, she whispered as she shook Pickett by the shoulder. “John, wake up!”

  “Huh—what—?” Although groggy from sleep, he nevertheless recognized the urgency in her voice and pushed his hat off his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “John, I think I’ve just seen a murder!”

  4

  In Which John Pickett Examines a Body

  and Julia Makes a Sacrifice

  ALL TRACES OF SLEEP vanished. Without raising his head from his makeshift pillow, Pickett turned in the direction she was staring. Some hundred yards ahead, the dark silhouette of a man bent and picked up what appeared at this distance to be a long stick, then stood upright, braced it against his shoulder, and—

  “Get down!” Pickett grabbed Julia by the wrist and yanked her down. She fell across his chest with sufficient force to knock the breath from his body, and in the same instant a shower of splinters exploded from the tree behind them.

  “John—was that—did he—?”

  “Yes—no, stay down,” Pickett said, still gasping for breath. The man had not waited to see if his ball had found its mark, but hurried up the path toward the waterfall, presumably in the direction whence he and his companion had come.

  “He—he pushed the other man off the cliff,” Julia said, trembling with delayed reaction. “There were two of them, and I was trying to decide whether to include them in my drawing, and suddenly he was standing on the edge and the other one was—gone. It happened so fast—it was almost as if there had never been another man at all, as if I’d imagined the whole thing.”

  “That shot wasn’t imaginary,” Pickett said, glancing up at the trunk of the tree, whose bark showed a pale, jagged scar that hadn’t been there before.

  “So what do we do now?” Julia asked.

  “I suppose I’d better find a way down to the river,” Pickett said. No one stood on the path near the waterfall now, so he eased himself out from underneath her and cautiously stood up. Confirming that they were alone—at least for the nonce—he took her hand and pulled her to her feet, then picked up his coat and shook it out. One sleeve was still wet and smelled rather strongly of wine, but he shrugged it on nevertheless. “First, though, I’d better get that ball out of the tree to hold as evidence. I don’t want him—whoever he is—to come back and tamper with the scene.”

  Julia cast a nervous glance up the path. “Do you think he will? Come back, I mean?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m taking no chances.” Using the tip of the corkscrew, he prized the spent ball out of the tree trunk—an operation that seemed to take an unconscionably long time, exposed as they were to any murderer who might choose to return to the scene of the crime.

  “I don’t understand,” she said unsteadily. “If he had a gun, why did he push the other man off the cliff? Why didn’t he just shoot him?”

  Pickett looked up from his task long enough to chide her gently. “Think, Julia. If a body is found with a ball in its chest obviously fired from point-blank range, it’s a clear case of murder. But I expect when we find the body at the foot of the cliff, there will be no injuries that couldn’t be the result of an accidental fall—and those, I’ll wager, are frequent enough in these parts that no one would think to question it.”

  “And yet he shot at me,” she pointed out with some asperity.

  “Only after he realized he’d been seen.”

  She raised a shaking hand to her forehead. “Of course. I should have known—I’m afraid I’m not thinking very clearly.”

  “And who can wonder at it? I am a bit puzzled by the gun, though. It isn’t yet hunting season, is it?”

  She shook her head. “Hunting doesn’t begin until the twelfth of August, so two months yet.”

  “Could they have been poachers, then? Or perhaps the man with the gun was poaching, and when the other fellow objected, he was killed for his pains?”

  Julia cast her mind back. “It would seem to make sense, and yet—and yet they looked so—so companionable, the two of them! There was no trace of animosity in their bearing, and certainly no sign of a quarrel—at least none that I could tell from a distance.”

  At last the tree trunk surrendered its captive. Pickett dropped the slightly misshapen ball of lead into the inside pocket of his coat and stepped back to inspect his handiwork. His operation had done nothing to improve the scar of pale splintered wood marring the bark of the tree, but there was no help for it; he would just have to trust no one would notice or, if they noticed, would not wonder at it. For now, though, there was a body somewhere at the bottom of the cliff that required his attention.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me, sweetheart,” he told Julia apologetically. “I don’t dare leave you alone here; for all we know, he might be lurking around the bend, waiting for a chance to come back and make sure any witnesses have been eliminated.”

  She shuddered at the prospect. “Believe me, I have no desire to be left behind!”

  “Yes, but it ma
y be rough going,” Pickett cautioned. “It’s a long way down, and the path is bound to be steep.”

  “You forget that I am country-bred,” Julia said, pale but resolute. “I’ll keep up, I promise.”

  She proved to be as good as her word. The only path down the face of the cliff was every bit as rough and steep as Pickett had feared, being more suited to the walkers and trout fishermen who no doubt constituted the majority of its traffic than it was to an aristocratic lady in a delicate condition. Julia’s West Country childhood stood her in good stead, however, and with Pickett to help her over the worst patches or hold back the gorse that snatched at her skirts, they both made it safely to the foot of the cliff, where the water rushed past on its way to the lake farther downriver.

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it,” Julia remarked, when they paused for a moment’s rest. “What sort of person looks at such scenery and sees only a means to commit murder?”

  “Perhaps when we find the body we’ll have a better idea of that,” Pickett said. As if concurring with this suggestion, a trout suddenly leaped from the water, a flash of spotted brown scales that vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Recalling that his magistrate was an enthusiastic angler, he remarked, “Mr. Colquhoun will wish he were here.”

  Julia grimaced, her thoughts clearly dwelling on the act of violence she had witnessed. “I would be happy to yield my place to him.”

  “I thank you, sweetheart, but no! Much as I respect him, I have no desire to go on a honeymoon with Mr. Colquhoun.”

  She gave a shaky laugh, and Pickett took her hand and drew it through his arm, glad to have distracted her, if only for a moment.

  Alas, greater difficulties lay ahead. The path had taken them some way downriver from their picnic spot, and the place where Julia had seen the two men was farther still, which meant they would have to follow the river upstream for some distance before reaching the body. But the bank was very narrow, so narrow that in places the water lapped against the side of the cliff itself.

  “Stay here,” Pickett said, stripping off his boots. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “John, you will be careful, won’t you?”

  “I promise.” He stepped barefooted into the water and gasped. “Brrr! That’s cold!”

  “I’ll warm you up when we get back to the inn,” she said, and although she smiled bravely, there was little of the flirtatiousness that would ordinarily have accompanied such a promise.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Pickett replied, and began making his way against the current.

  He had no idea how long he waded—fifteen minutes? Twenty?—but at last he came upon a rounded shape of brown and gray, half in the water and half on the narrow riverbank. Pickett might have mistaken it for a boulder, had it not been for the skirts of the old-fashioned frock coat that swayed in the current—and the broad shoulders that rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths. Somehow, miraculously, the man was still alive. For how long, however, was anyone’s guess. Heedless of the splashing he made, Pickett increased his pace and soon stepped up on the bank beside the man. From this vantage point, he could see a leg stuck out at an unnatural angle.

  “It’s all right,” Pickett said soothingly, realizing even as he said the words just how absurd they were. It was anything but “all right”; even if it were possible to get a stretcher down to the man, the chances of his surviving the trek back up to the top of the cliff without either succumbing to his injuries or being tipped out by his bearers was somewhere between slim and none. Still, Pickett knew better than to point out this probable outcome to a dying man.

  “It’s all right,” he said again. “You’re not alone.”

  “What—who’s there?” The voice was the merest wisp of sound, but the man seemed to be fully conscious.

  “John Pickett. I’m visiting from London. I’d like to move your head a bit farther from the water, if I may. Will it hurt you if I turn you over?”

  “Don’t—don’t think so. I can’t—can’t feel my legs.”

  This was a very bad sign, Pickett knew, but one glance at the twisted limbs told him it might actually be for the best. The man would very likely die in any case; at least he would be spared the agony of pain that must otherwise have been excruciating. The fellow no doubt outweighed Pickett by a good five stone, but he eased the man onto his back as gently as he could, being careful to keep his head clear of the water. When he saw the bruised face, he suffered a shock.

  “Mr. Hawkins?” he said. “Ned Hawkins?”

  The innkeeper acknowledged him with the briefest flicker of his eyelids. “John Pickett of Bow Street.”

  “Yes, sir.” Was he just repeating the information Pickett had given as he and Julia had signed the inn’s register, or did he mean something else entirely? One look at Ned Hawkins’s ashen face told Pickett he had not long to find out. “Was it you who sent for me?” he asked urgently.

  “Let her—” He broke off and took a rattling breath.

  “Did you send to Bow Street for a Runner?” Pickett reiterated.

  “Let her—” The words trailed off to a whisper.

  “Let who what?” asked Pickett, his voice rising on a note of desperation.

  “No—in my—in my pocket—let her—let her—” The voice faded away, and the pale blue eyes grew unfocused. Ned Hawkins was gone.

  Let her, he’d said. Let her. But who was she, and what must she be allowed to do? Whoever and whatever, it had been important enough to Ned Hawkins that he’d spent his last breaths trying to communicate it. Her, then, must refer to Mrs. Hawkins, but that would presume she was doing, or intended to do, something which Pickett had the power to prohibit. Or perhaps he meant his daughter, and was giving his blessing to Lizzie and her poet—although what influence he imagined Pickett might exercise in such a case left the latter mystified. Hawkins had also referred to his pocket, however, and in a way that suggested this might shed some light on the puzzle.

  It seemed somehow wrong to rifle a dead man’s pockets while the body was still warm, but the dead man in question had given him permission, in a way. Besides, once the death was reported, he was unlikely to have another chance. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, thought Pickett, and reached inside the man’s coat. His nimble pickpocket’s fingers located the breast pocket and slipped inside. Paper crackled beneath his fingertips, and he withdrew a folded sheet sealed with red wax into which was pressed a crest bearing the image of a curiously shaped harp. He turned it over and found that it bore the name (slightly smudged) of one James Sullivan, along with an address in Dublin.

  Not “let her,” then, but “letter.” It still didn’t explain much. Was Hawkins asking him to make sure that the letter was delivered, or urging him to intercept it? He glanced down at the dead man, but there was no answer in the glazed eyes. A quick search of the other pockets yielded nothing but a few copper coins and one silver shilling, none of which interested Pickett in the slightest. Meanwhile, Julia was waiting for him, and Pickett wasn’t at all certain that, if he were to linger too long, she wouldn’t come in search of him. Resisting the urge to close those staring eyes—it would not do to let anyone know that someone else had seen, let alone tampered with, the body—he tucked the letter into his own inside breast pocket, and stepped back into the cold water. Turning back toward the dead man, he made a cup of his hands and scooped water up onto the bank to eradicate any footprints he might have left behind. Finally, satisfied that he’d left no trace of his visit behind—no trace, that is, except for the absence of the letter—he waded back down the river to find Julia.

  “Well?” she asked urgently. “Did you find him?”

  “Yes,” he said tersely. “It was Ned Hawkins, our host.”

  “Oh,” she said faintly. “Was he—was he dead?”

  He shook his head. “Not at first. He is now.”

  “Oh,” she said again. “I can’t help thinking it would have been better if he had died immediately. One hates to think of him lying
there suffering, knowing it unlikely that anyone will come along to help—” She broke off, shuddering.

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” Pickett said quickly, not wanting her to dwell on imaginary horrors. “I believe he must have sustained some spinal injury. He said he could not feel his legs, and so he did not suffer as much pain as he otherwise would have done. As for his being alone, I was with him at the end. Not that I could do much, but he seemed to have a dying wish, which I will try my best to fulfill.”

  “A dying wish? What was that?”

  He sighed. “I only wish I knew.” As he pulled his stockings on over wet feet, he recounted the innkeeper’s cryptic utterings about a letter, including his own misunderstanding of the word and the sealed correspondence now residing in his own pocket. He almost wished he’d allowed her to accompany him in spite of her condition; she might have noticed something or recognized some significance to the words that he had missed.

  “I wonder what it says. It must be important, for him to speak of it with his last breath.” Something in Pickett’s face must have given him away, for she spoke accusingly. “John! You don’t intend to read someone else’s mail!”

  “I have to,” he pointed out. “How else am I to know what he wanted done with it?”

  “I see,” she said thoughtfully, regarding him with narrowed eyes. “You think it was Mr. Hawkins who sent to Bow Street.”

  “I think it very likely. He couldn’t see me at first—he was lying with his back to me—but it wasn’t until after I identified myself that he began talking about the letter. In any case, I intend to try and find out. In the meantime, we’d better get back up to our interrupted picnic.”

  “Hadn’t we ought to notify the coroner first? Or at least go back to the inn and tell Mrs. Hawkins?”

  “We can’t,” he said with a sigh. “I know it sounds cruel to leave him there, but I can’t call undue attention to myself, not until I discover who sent for me and why. I’m working in the dark here, Julia. Someone here knows who I am and why they’ve summoned me, but I don’t know who they are, or what I’m supposed to be doing for them. Whatever it is, it was apparently sensitive enough—or dangerous enough—that it couldn’t be put down in writing. Nor, for that matter, would Hawkins run the risk of putting his name to it—if it was Hawkins who wrote the letter, which is by no means certain. It’s an uncomfortable position, to say the least.”