Peril by Post Page 6

  “But Hawkins is dead now,” she pointed out. “Whatever is going on, and whoever is behind it, they can’t hurt him anymore.”

  “No, but they can hurt me,” he said bluntly. “Worse yet, they can hurt me the most by hurting you. That’s why I can’t let anyone know I’ve been down to the river and seen the body.”

  “And so poor Mrs. Hawkins will be left to wait and worry, and wonder why her husband hasn’t come back home.”

  “I’m afraid so. It seems harsh, I know, but by keeping mum now, I might be able to discover who did this and why. Could you describe him at all—the man who pushed Hawkins, I mean? I’m afraid I didn’t get a very good look—it was all over by the time I woke up, and the fellow was already making his escape.”

  “No—I didn’t even recognize Hawkins, and I’d been watching the pair of them for some time, trying to decide whether or not to include them in my drawing. But I was seeing them only in silhouette, you know, for the sun was behind them.”

  “You couldn’t say whether he was short or tall, thin or fat?”

  “I should say Mr. Hawkins and his attacker were much of a size, but that is only an impression. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that a frail man could not have pushed Mr. Hawkins hard enough to send him over the edge? After all, he is—was—somewhat stout himself.”

  Pickett made no reply beyond a noncommittal noise, and Julia, focused on putting one foot in front of the other as they climbed the steep path, failed to notice anything unusual in this. Eventually they reached the gentler slope at the top of the path, and returned to the inn. Still, Julia thought nothing of his uncharacteristic silence beyond assuming that he must be pondering the unexpectedly tragic twist their outing had taken. Upon entering the public room, Julia was relieved when they entered the room to find no sign of Mrs. Hawkins behind the counter; resigned as she was to yield to her husband’s wishes in the matter of informing the widow, she was glad she didn’t have to look the woman in the face while withholding the information.

  Upstairs, she removed her bonnet and spencer while Pickett, still apparently chilled from his wade in the river, kindled a fire in the grate. Once the flame had taken hold, he stood up, dusted off his hands, and turned to face her, and suddenly the direction of his thoughts became clear.

  “Julia,” he said with the air of one coming to an unpleasant but necessary decision, “I think you had best go back to London.”

  “Go back without you?” she asked, dismayed. “But why?”

  He stared at her in stunned disbelief. “Sweetheart, a man has been murdered.”

  “I’ve helped you on murder cases before,” she pointed out reasonably.

  “Yes, but on those occasions, you weren’t a witness to the murder. This time you saw it happen, and the murderer obviously saw you, else he wouldn’t have shot at you.”

  “But it doesn’t necessarily follow that he knows who I am. After all, I couldn’t identify him; how do we know he could identify me?”

  “You couldn’t recognize him because the sun was behind him; it wasn’t behind you.”

  Julia could not dispute this home truth, but neither was she ready to give in. “We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon,” she reminded him. “How are you going to explain your staying behind while I return to London?”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing him pace the floor for a few minutes while he pondered the question. Alas, her satisfaction was short-lived.

  “We’ll have to quarrel,” he said at last. “Tonight, in the public room downstairs, where there will be plenty of witnesses. That way you can leave on the mail coach first thing tomorrow.”

  “But I don’t want to quarrel with you,” she said bleakly. “Not even just for show.”

  He stopped pacing and took her in his arms. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, either,” he said, knowing she was thinking, as he was, about their one and only quarrel, which had not been “just for show” at all, and which had resulted in the longest—and very nearly the last—thirty-six hours of his life. “But I don’t want you to be shot, either. God, Julia, if anything were to happen to you—” He broke off, bending his head to bury his face in the curve of her neck.

  “And does it never occur to you that I feel the same way about you?” she asked, stroking his hair. “That I should be utterly miserable, sitting all alone in the Curzon Street house not knowing if you were at that very moment on a London-bound coach coming back home to me, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere?”

  “All right,” he said resolutely as they drew apart. “You can stay, on one condition.”

  “Anything!” she declared fervently.

  “You’re not going to like it,” he cautioned her.

  “Try me.”

  He took a deep breath. “Turn around.”

  She turned her back to him, and he went to work on the laces at the back of her gown.

  “John, this is hardly the time—”

  “I’m going to burn it.”

  “You’re going to what?” If anyone had asked him, Pickett would have sworn it would be impossible for anyone to exude offended dignity while clad in nothing but their undergarments. He would have been wrong. Julia, standing in only her shift and stays with her gown lying in a puddle of fabric at her feet, fairly quivered with outrage. Her bare shoulders appeared creamy in the afternoon sunlight, inviting his touch, but a finely tuned instinct for self-preservation warned Pickett that he would make advances at his peril.

  “I have to, sweetheart,” he said in a conciliatory tone that moved her not at all. “He’s seen you in it—whoever he is—and if he sees you wearing it again, he’ll know beyond any doubt who was the only witness to his crime. I won’t risk it.”

  “I don’t see you offering to burn your clothes!”

  “No, for I was lying down, so if he saw me at all, he couldn’t have got a very good look at me. And even if he had, well, I’d taken off my coat, and one man’s shirt looks very much like another’s, especially from a distance.”

  “I won’t wear this dress again until we return to London,” she promised. “I’ll hide it in the bottom of my portmanteau.”

  “And if someone searches the room? What then?”

  “But—but I like this dress!”

  “You won’t even be able to wear it in a couple of months,” he pointed out with unassailable logic.

  “All the more reason for wearing it now, while I have the chance! John, it’s new,” she said coaxingly. “It only just came from the dressmaker.”

  “I know, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. When we get back to London, you can have another one made.”

  “What’s the use?” she asked bitterly. “By the time it was ready, I wouldn’t be able to wear it—as you so generously reminded me.”

  “All right, then,” he said, grasping at straws, “how about this? Whatever reward I get for this case is yours, to do with as you please, no matter the amount.”

  She regarded him speculatively. It wasn’t a matter of money; her widow’s jointure from her first husband was sufficient for her to replace the gown, and purchase one or two others as well. But she knew it galled him, the fact that he could not support her as her first husband had done; in truth, that had been the crux of their first, bitter quarrel. If he was willing to surrender what independence he had, without even knowing the sum that independence might amount to, then he was more worried for her safety than she’d realized. That being the case, she could not spurn such a gesture. Nor, for that matter, could she let him know that she realized the offer was worth far more than money. “You promise?” she asked, pretending to think only of pounds, shillings, and pence.

  “I promise.”

  She said not a word, but looked down at the pool of cloth at her feet and slowly, deliberately, stepped out of it. Pickett grabbed it and bundled up both it and its matching spencer before she could change her mind. The fabric blackened and disintegrated as soon as the flames touched it.

  “What about your bonnet?�
�� He glanced about the room and found it lying on the foot of the bed. “Did you take it off at any point while I was asleep?”

  “No.”

  He snatched it up by its plaited straw crown. “Thank God for that, anyway.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Only that no one seeing you with the sun in your hair would ever forget it,” he said, and added her bonnet to the blaze.

  He’d spoken the words with no trace of flattery, and, ironically, they moved her as no amount of effusive praise would have done. “John Pickett!” she chided him. “Keep saying things like that, and soon you’ll have me begging you to burn my clothes!”

  Her voice held a mixture of annoyance and affection, and he had hopes of being forgiven—not at this moment, perhaps, but eventually. Emboldened, he cupped his hands over her bare shoulders. “I am sorry,” he said.

  “I know you are,” she retorted, but kissed him nonetheless.

  5

  In Which John Pickett Joins a Search

  and Makes a Surprising Discovery

  THE LETTER, WHEN IT was opened and read, proved to be a disappointment.

  My dear James, (it said)

  I trust this Letter finds You and your Family Well. I have been Much Troubled of late by an Attack of Catarrh, which has left me with a Sorely Abused Nose and a Lingering Cough, but I trust my Sufferings will soon be a Thing of the Past, the Good Lord be Willing. Thankfully, none of the Children have contracted their Father’s Illness, and I am confident their Good Health will continue long enough for them to Enjoy their Sire’s 55th Birthday Festivities on Thursday Next. I am only Sorry that George, my Eldest, may not Join us, as his new Position requires that he Remain in Edinburgh, at least for the Nonce. It is difficult to Believe he will soon be celebrating his own 34th Natal Day. My poor first Wife, Elizabeth (God rest her soul), would certainly be Proud of the Man he has Become.

  As for the Rest of the Family, Penelope is to have her Come-Out next Spring, if she does not drive us all to Distraction long before then. Nor is my Good Lady much Better, as she can only Expound upon the Need for hiring a Suitable House in Mayfair, to say nothing of the Mantua-Makers, Florists, and various Others whose Talents must be Enlisted, doubtless at Exorbitant Cost, in order to see our Girl suitably Launched. I have always fancied myself a Warm Fellow, but I may be Bankrupt by the time the thing is Finally Done. I only hope she may attach an Eligible Parti in her First Season; I fear I have neither the Finances nor the Patience to give her a Second.

  My good Wife informs me that you cannot yet know of the Blessed Event that took place on the Sixth of June. Lest she accuse me of being an Unnatural Father, I must tell you forthwith that my elder Daughter Lavinia was safely brought to Bed of a Son, to be named Evelyn after his Mother’s proud Papa. My Wife predicts that I shall become so Puffed Up in my own Conceit that there will be No Living with me. As I should Hate to disappoint her Faith in me by Neglecting to carry out my Role, however Humble, in her newly discovered Talent for Prophecy, I shall do my Poor Best not to Fail her in this Regard.

  And now, having Bored you to Distraction with my Familial Boasting, I have a Confession to Make. It concerns (as you might Expect, having previously made his Acquaintance) my Youngest Son, Edward. Edward is presently at Eton, but it may, I fear, be Wrong to Assume that he is receiving an Education there. Although I am presently paying 50 pounds per Annum, never mind an additional 22 for Incidentals, it would be an Exaggeration to call the hapless lad a Scholar. I suspect he spends more time on juvenile Pranks than on Greek or Latin. But then I am reminded of the Larks you and I once Kicked Up, and I cannot be too Hard on him. He is a Good Lad at heart, and I Suspect there is nothing Wrong with him that Time will not Mend. Until then, I have Only to Resist his determined Efforts to send his Longsuffering Papa to an Early Grave. In the meantime, I Remain, as Ever,

  Yr very Obedient Servant,

  E. G. B.

  Pickett was not quite certain what he’d expected, but he had certainly hoped for more than this.

  “If he is only now turning fifty-five and already has a thirty-four-year-old son, he must have married his first wife—Elizabeth, was it?—very young.” Julia had crossed the room to where Pickett sat at the table beneath the window, and read the letter over his shoulder. Following the destruction of her dress, she’d slipped a pink satin wrapper over her shift and stays, although she made no noticeable effort to prevent this garment from gaping open as she leaned forward. Pickett suspected she was deliberately tormenting him, and did her the justice to own that he probably deserved it.

  His own thoughts—his thoughts concerning the letter, anyway—were running along very different lines. If the writer’s complaints about the expense of launching a young lady into Society were anything to judge by, it appeared any daughter of his and Julia’s was destined to remain unlaunched. In the meantime, he had less than twenty years to come up with a suitable dowry and a respectable lineage. The dowry was just within the realm of possibility; the lineage was likely to be a bit more problematic. Thankfully, it might yet prove to be unnecessary: If the daughter in question looked anything like her mother, suitors would very likely beat a path to her door, her questionable antecedents notwithstanding.

  And on the subject of antecedents . . .

  “E. G. B.,” he said, reading aloud from the signature. “The ‘E’ must stand for ‘Evelyn,’ since he says his grandson is named after him, but what about the other initials? Do you know of any such family with a surname beginning with B? Husband Evelyn, wife Elizabeth—but no, that was his first wife, wasn’t it?—a son named George and a married daughter named Lavinia? No mention of her married name, more’s the pity, or any clue as to who the second wife might be.”

  “No, and I daresay I would not be familiar with the younger children in any case, as Penelope isn’t yet out and Edward is away at school. Poor Edward! He does seem to get rather short shrift, does he not? But what is his father ‘confessing,’ do you think? I don’t see any confession beyond an admission of Edward’s shortcomings compared with the accomplishments of his siblings.”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” Pickett suggested. “He’s confessing to have fathered a child with the temerity to be less than perfect.”

  “Poor Edward!” Julia said again, filled with righteous indignation on the unknown Edward’s behalf. “I feel quite sorry for him. I’m sure his brother George must be the greatest prig imaginable, while Penelope obviously cares for nothing but fashion and flirtation.”

  “Oh, obviously,” agreed Pickett, entering into the spirit of the thing. “But what of the other sister—Lavinia?”

  “Lavinia is the worst of all,” Julia replied promptly. “Ever since her marriage, she has become quite puffed up with her own consequence. Now that she’s had a baby, there will be no bearing her.”

  “I’m going to remind you of those words in, oh, about six months,” Pickett promised. In a very different tone, he added, “This is all very amusing, but it isn’t getting us anywhere, is it? I’ll admit, when I realized Hawkins was talking about a letter, I’d hoped it might offer some clue—something, anything to go on.”

  “It hardly seems worth wasting one’s dying breath on,” Julia agreed.

  “No. And yet . . .” He stared pensively at the correspondence in his hand, noting the liberal use of capital letters.

  “John!” Julia’s eyes grew round as the same thought occurred to her. “Could it be in code, do you suppose?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering. Can you spare me a sheet of paper from that writing desk of yours?”

  She went to the desk in question, returning a moment later with a single sheet of paper, a quill pen, an ink pot, and a slightly guilty expression which under other circumstances would have instantly aroused his suspicions. Having, firstly, no reason to suspect any clandestine behavior on her part and, secondly, a brain firmly focused on what he believed to be a promising lead, he had no thought to spare for his wife’s guilty secrets
, but instead spent the next few minutes transcribing every capital letter used by the unknown E.G.B., while Julia watched over his shoulder.

  She was struck by the realization that he had rather beautiful hands which must have been a great advantage to him in his earlier profession, with long, slender fingers. Still, there was something unusual about the way he wrote, something that took her a moment to identify.

  “You write with your left hand,” she said with the air of one making a discovery.

  “You’ve seen me write before,” he reminded her, a bit defensive concerning this clear evidence of his lack of formal education. “Taking notes on the morning after Lord Field-hurst’s murder.”

  “Did I? Yes, I suppose I must have,” she conceded. “I never noticed. I daresay I was more concerned at the time with avoiding the gallows. But I’m surprised your schoolmaster didn’t make you switch to your right hand.”

  “Oh, he tried,” Pickett said, glancing up at her. “He told me there were those who claimed that left-handedness was the mark of the devil’s spawn. He wasn’t telling me anything about my father that I didn’t already know, so I saw no reason to change, and I wasn’t in school long enough at any given time for him to force the issue.”

  “I am becoming more and more curious about this father of yours,” Julia said, making a mental note to visit the stationer across the street and purchase half a dozen quills from the cheaper and less desirable (for most writers, anyway) right side of the goose for her husband’s exclusive use, as these would curve over the back of his left hand so as not to block his view of his own writing. “I hope I have the opportunity to meet him someday.”

  “That makes one of us,” Pickett said without enthusiasm.