and prolonged. Judging from the dose I administered, he should be conscious by nine tomorrow morning, possibly earlier, but I cannot be precise, I had difficulty in persuading him to take more than a few mouthfuls. With Mr Darcy’s consent I propose to stay until my patient is conscious. I have also Mrs Wickham under my care.”
“And no doubt also sedated and unfit to be questioned?”
“Mrs Wickham was hysterical with shock and distress. She had convinced herself that her husband was dead. I was attending a grievously disturbed woman who needed the relief of sleep. You would have got nothing out of her until she became calmer.”
“I might have got the truth. I think you and I understand each other, Doctor. You have your responsibilities and I have mine. I am not an unreasonable man. I have no wish to disturb Mrs Wickham until the morning.” He turned to Dr Belcher. “Have you any observation to make, Belcher?”
“None, Sir Selwyn, except to say that I concur with Dr McFee’s action in administering a sedative to Wickham. He could not usefully have been questioned in the state described and, if he were later committed for trial, anything he did say might be challenged in court.”
Hardcastle turned to Darcy. “Then I shall return at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Until then, Headborough Brownrigg and Petty Constable Mason will be on guard and will take possession of the key. If Wickham requires attention from Dr McFee they will call for him, otherwise no one will be admitted to this room until I return. The constables will need blankets, and some food and drink to see them through – cold meats, bread, the usual.”
Darcy said shortly, “Everything necessary will be attended to.”
It was then that Hardcastle seemed for the first time to take note of Wickham’s greatcoat slung over one of the chairs and the leather bag on the floor beside it. “Is this all the baggage there was in the chaise?”
Darcy said, “Apart from a trunk, a hatbox and a bag belonging to Mrs Wickham there were two other bags, one marked GW and one with Captain Denny’s name. As I was told by Pratt that the chaise had been hired to take the gentlemen on to the King’s Arms at Lambton, the bags were left in the chaise until we returned with Captain Denny’s body, when they were brought into the house.”
Hardcastle said, “They will, of course, need to be handed over. I will confiscate all the bags except those of Mrs Wickham. In the meantime, let us see what he had on his person.”
He took the heavy greatcoat in his hands and shook it vigorously. Three dried leaves caught in one of the capes fluttered to the floor and Darcy saw that there were a few adhering to the sleeves. Hardcastle handed the coat to Mason and himself dug his hands into the pockets. From the left-hand pocket he drew out the usual minor possessions which a traveller might be expected to carry: a pencil, a small notebook but with no entries, two handkerchiefs, a flask which Hardcastle, after unscrewing the top, said had contained whisky. The right-hand pocket yielded a more interesting object, a leather notecase. Opening it Hardcastle drew out a wad of notes, carefully folded, and counted them.
“Thirty pounds precisely. In notes, obviously new, or at least recently issued. I’ll give you a receipt for them, Darcy, until we can discover their legal owner. I’ll place the money in my safe tonight. Tomorrow morning I may get an explanation of how he came by such a sum. One possibility is that he took it from Denny’s body and, if so, we may have a motive.”
Darcy opened his mouth to protest but, deciding that he would only make matters worse, said nothing.
Hardcastle said, “And now I propose to view the body. I take it that the corpse is under guard?”
Darcy said, “Not under guard. Captain Denny’s body is in the gunroom, the door of which is locked. The table there seemed convenient. I have in my possession the keys both to the room and to the cupboard containing the weapons and ammunition; it hardly seemed necessary to arrange any additional safeguards. We can go there now. If you have no objection, I would like Dr McFee to accompany us. You may feel a second opinion on the state of the body would be an advantage.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Hardcastle said, “I can see no objection. You yourself will doubtless wish to be present and I shall need Dr Belcher and Headborough Brownrigg but no others will be necessary. Let us not make a public spectacle of the dead. We shall, of course, need plenty of candles.”
Darcy said, “I had foreseen that. Extra candles have been placed in the gunroom ready to be lit. I think you will find that the light is as adequate as it can be at night.”
Hardcastle said, “I need someone to watch with Mason while Brownrigg is away. Stoughton would seem an appropriate choice. Can you call him back, Darcy?”
Stoughton, as if expecting the summons, was waiting close to the door. He entered the room and stood silently next to Mason. Picking up their candles, Hardcastle and the party left, and Darcy heard the key being turned in the lock behind them.
The house was so quiet that it could have been deserted. Mrs Reynolds had ordered any servants still preparing food for the morrow to go to their beds and of the staff only she, Stoughton and Belton remained on duty. Mrs Reynolds was waiting in the hall beside a table which held a group of new candles in high silver candlesticks. Four had been lit and the flames, burning steadily, seemed to emphasise rather than illuminate the surrounding darkness of the great entrance hall.
Mrs Reynolds said, “There may be more than needed, but I thought you might want additional light.”
Each man took up and lit a fresh candle. Hardcastle said, “Leave the others where they are at present. The constable will fetch them if necessary.” He turned to Darcy. “You said you have the key to the gunroom and that you have already provided an adequate number of candles?”
“There are fourteen already there, Sir Selwyn. I took them in myself with Stoughton. Apart from that visit no one has entered the gunroom since Captain Denny’s body was placed there.”
“So let us get started. The sooner the body is examined the better.”
Darcy was relieved that Hardcastle had accepted his right to be one of the party. Denny had been brought to Pemberley and it was fitting that the master of the house should be there when his body was viewed although he could think of no way in which he could be of particular use. He led the candlelit procession towards the rear of the house and, taking two keys on a ring from his pocket, used the larger to unlock the door to the gunroom. It was surprisingly large with pictures of old shooting parties and their spoils and a shelf with the bright leather spines of records going back at least a century, a mahogany desk and chair and a locked cupboard containing the guns and ammunition. The narrow table had obviously been moved out from the wall and was now in the middle of the room with the body covered by a clean sheet.
Before setting off to inform Sir Selwyn of Denny’s death, Darcy had instructed Stoughton to provide candlesticks of equal size and the best tall wax candles, an extravagance which he guessed would be the cause of some muttering between Stoughton and Mrs Reynolds. These were candles normally reserved for the dining room. Together he and Stoughton had set them up in two rows on the desktop, taper to hand. Now he lit them and as the taper found each candle-tip the room brightened, suffusing the watching faces with a warm glow and softening even Hardcastle’s strong bony features into gentleness, while each trail of smoke rose like incense, its transitory sweetness lost in the smell of beeswax. It seemed to Darcy that the desktop with its glittering rows of light had become an over-decorated altar, the sparsely furnished and functional gunroom a chapel, and that the five of them were secretly engaged in the obsequies of some alien but exacting religion.
As they stood like inappropriately clad acolytes round the body, Hardcastle folded back the sheet. The right eye was blackened with blood which had been smeared over a large part of the face, but the left eye was wide open, the pupil turned upward so that Darcy, standing behind Denny’s head, felt that it was fixed on him, not with the blankness of death, but holding in its sticky gaze a lifetime of reproach.
Dr Belcher placed his hands on Denny’s face, arms and legs, then said, “Rigor mortis is already present in the face. As a preliminary estimate I would say he has been dead about five hours.”
Hardcastle did a brief calculation, then said, “That confirms what we have already surmised, that he died shortly after he left the chaise and approximately at the time the shots were heard. He was killed at about nine o’clock last evening. What about the wound?”
Dr Belcher and Dr McFee moved closer, handing their candles to Brownrigg who, placing his own candle on the desktop, raised them high as the two doctors peered closely at the dark patch of blood.
Dr Belcher said, “We need to wash this away before we can ascertain the depth of the blow but, before doing so, we should note the fragment of a dead leaf and the small smear of dirt both above the effusion of blood. At some point after the infliction of the wound he must have fallen on his face. Where is the water?” He looked round as if expecting it to materialise out of the air.
Darcy put his head outside the door and instructed Mrs Reynolds to bring a bowl of water and some small
