Bradford Marsden. Sir Charles's brown canvas jacket needed brushing. It was covered with lumpy pockets, stuffed, from what she could see, with odds and ends of scientific paraphernalia-magnifying lens, an ivory rule, a pair of calipers. His tweedy Norfolk breeches were tucked into scarred, heavy-soled leather boots, and a soft felt hat, a broad-brimmed, brown thing with a shapeless crown, was pushed back on his curly brown hair, cut overlong, so that he looked like a buccaneer. From the look of him, Kate deduced that his knighthood was not a distinction he valued highly.
'Kathryn-' Miss Marsden took her arm. 'May I call you Kathryn, my dear? And you really must call me Eleanor. I require it. It is so tedious to be formal.' Without waiting for a response, she went on. ' 'Dear Kathryn has arrived a day sooner than expected, so I have offered to take her to Bishop's Keep.'
Mr. Marsden pursed his lips. 'But my dear sister, I fear that five is too many, given your monstrous load of parcels.'
Kate disengaged her arm. 'I can wait here,' she said hastily. 'I can send word to Bishop's Keep to let them know I
have arrived, and someone will be sent to fetch me. I shall not mind staying, truly.'
She would not, either. Beryl Bardwell would spend the time writing down everything she had seen on the clanking, steam-belching journey from London to Colchester and as much of Eleanor's chitchat as she could remember, as well as full descriptions of the elegant Bradford Marsden and Sir Charles Sheridan, he of the lumpy pockets. And she would give her thoughts to what adventures and great mysteries lay ahead at Bishop's Keep, which she imagined as an enormous stone pile of arches and towers, shrouded by a mysterious haze and haunted by ghosts of dead Ardleighs. Now that she was almost there, she had to admit to some anxiety. The sense of being alone in a strange place, so distant from the life she had known, the feeling of utter dependence on the goodwill of her unknown aunt-her two unknown aunts! — made her feel apprehensive. Apprehension was not an emotion Kate was used to. She didn't particularly like it.
'Actually, I prefer to stay behind,' Sir Charles said. 'I shall return to the scene of the murder and see if anything new has been found out-although,' he added, as much to himself as to them, 'judging from Sergeant Battle's muddled methods, I rather doubt it.'
Kate swiveled to look at Sir Charles. Eleanor squealed and clapped her hands.
'Murder!' she cried. 'How delightfully shocking! Charles, you naughty man, what dreadful scrape have you gotten yourself into now? You must tell us all about it as we ride. There is nothing I love quite as much as a good murder, especially when one of our party is involved in it.' She possessed herself of Kate's arm once again. 'And it is absolute balderdash to think of anyone's staying behind,' she added firmly. 'We will hire a man with a cart to take Garnet and the boxes, whilst we enjoy a leisurely drive through the countryside. You should know, dear Kathryn, that the painter John Constable, who has memorialized our Dedham Vale in his landscapes, was Sir Charles's estimable great-uncle. Come now, everyone.'
Kate smiled. Clearly, problems were readily solved if one
had the money to hire the solution. But even though she continued to smile as Eleanor led them toward the carriage, she was at the same time surveying Sir Charles with greater interest, wondering exactly what sort of murder he meant.
The carriage, with Kate's boxes roped at the rear, proceeded through the Essex countryside, resplendent in late-summer glories. Blackbirds sang in the hawthorn hedges, apples ripened in the orchards, and golden stubblefields were studded with standing sheaves of grain. But the sun was a flat silver disk, mist-shrouded, in a pearl-gray sky. As they rode, the air thickened into a damp, cool fog. Bradford Marsden seemed preoccupied, while Eleanor wheedled out of Sir Charles a full account of the dead body in the dig and Beryl Bardwell made careful mental note of every grisly detail that might enrich 'Amber's Amulet.'
So far, her story was little more than character sketches of an Egyptian gentleman (greatly resembling the ship's steward in appearance and demeanor) and a mysterious medium named Mrs. Amber Bartlett, who wore an amulet and conducted seances in darkened rooms. It did not presently involve a murder, if only because Kate had not yet thought it all out, but the story would undoubtedly be the better for one. She made a note to herself to look for the newspaper accounts of the Colchester tragedy, and at Sir Charles's mention of the photographs he had taken that morning, she asked to see them.
'But my dear Kathryn,' Eleanor protested in a shocked voice, ' 'they are photographs of a dead man. And not merely dead, but shockingly murdered! One presumes that there was a great deal of blood.' She shuddered with an eager delicacy. 'The mere thought of it makes one quite faint.' Then she smiled and patted Kate's hand. 'But I forget. You are an American and American women are reputed to be amazingly venturesome. You would not be daunted by a bit of blood, perhaps not even by the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tus-saud's.' She turned to Bradford. 'Perhaps Miss Ardleigh would consent to your escorting us to Madame Tussaud's, — dear brother. I understand that Cecil Hambrough's dreadful
murderer has been newly installed, holding the very gun from which the fatal shot was fired.'
Having already heard of Madame Tussaud's famous waxworks and feeling that the jaunt would yield excellent story material, Kate instantly agreed to Eleanor's proposal. 'It is not that I am particularly adventuresome,' she added. ' 'It is simply that I am fascinated by all facets of life-even death.' She smiled at Sir Charles. 'Hence my interest in your photographs.'
Bradford Marsden roused himself from his preoccupation. 'Sheridan, old chap,' he said, 'you are in luck. Someone actually wants to see those wretched snapshots of yours.' He turned morosely to Kate. 'Take my advice and don't encourage the fellow, Miss Ardleigh. He will not only insist on showing you his photographs, but his fingerprints as well.'
'Fingerprints?' Kate asked, finding that her opinion of Sir Charles was in need of revision. 'You know about fingerprints?'
Sir Charles held out his hand, palm up. 'Indeed,' he said. 'The skin of each finger exhibits a unique set of ridges. Each time the finger touches a surface, it deposits a print, rather like a stamp.'
'That much I know,' Kate said.
Sir Charles frowned. 'You know?'
'I read Pudd'nhead Wilson' Kate explained. 'Mark Twain's novel, published last year in Century Magazine. The murderer is convicted when the detective shows an enlarged drawing of a fingerprint to the jury.'
'Astonishing,' Sir Charles murmured.
'Absurd,' Mr. Marsden said. 'Shows how far novels are from the real world. Convicting a man on the flimsy print of a finger!'
'Nevertheless,' Kate said bravely, 'at some time when you would care to explain more about fingerprints, Sir Charles, I would be interested in listening.' And she sat back, fearing that she had called too much attention to herself already, when attention was the last thing she wished. In order for Beryl Bardwell to conduct her clandestine observations, she must remain discreet and undiscovered behind the mask
of Kathryn Ardleigh, docile, decorous secretary-companion.
But how interesting to encounter a man (however arrogant he might be) who could teach her something more than she already knew about fingerprints-and to encounter a murder. Not just fictional murder, either, but murder most real!
So, as Eleanor Marsden pointed out landmarks of interest along the way, Beryl Bardwell was devising a catalog of things she needed to discover. Who was the murdered man? From whence had he come? And, above all, who had done the deed and why? It was up to her to find answers, or, rather, to create them. When it came to thrillers, Beryl Bardwell was constrained neither by truth nor by fact.
8
The splendour falls on castle walls
