“In your earlier statements, none of you reported the conversation in the drawing room that led to Lieutenant Hughes retiring early. No one, that is, save Dr. Tilton and his wife. Even the rector and his sister professed not to recall what led to the Lieutenant going up to his room. And by the next morning, Hughes was dead and Davis Merrit was accused of his murder. But Davis Merrit must have known something about that conversation. After all, Mrs. Lydia Ellis had rushed into Hartfield to speak to him on that fatal Saturday morning, and the only conclusion to be drawn is that she was upset by events and confided in him rather than her husband. Merrit disappeared, and again the only conclusion was that Merrit, in a fit of misplaced gallantry, rid Mrs. Lydia Ellis of this man who had upset her. But Merrit turned up dead, and not by his own hand, as we’d begun to suspect might be the case. And now Dr. Tilton, who might have appeared to be the tattler to the police, is dead.” He swung around toward me. “Indeed, Dr. Tilton had mentioned that you refused to allow him to question the Lieutenant more fully, and that you’d been ordered to accompany him to help put Hughes to bed by Roger Ellis himself.”
“I was sent because he was too unsteady to walk alone to his room. Captain Ellis gave me no instructions. The rector and his sister can verify that. I was acting in my capacity as a nurse, not a spy,” I replied shortly. “And if you question Mrs. Tilton on this subject, she will tell you that that’s the truth.”
“Nevertheless, Dr. Tilton is dead. On your property, Captain. Because he failed to keep your family’s secrets. Now I ask you to consider who among you had the greatest need to do murder.”
Mrs. Ellis stood up. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “It wasn’t my son,” she said. “I killed these men.”
Gran crossed the room and stood beside her. “Don’t believe her. I did it. I can even tell you how.”
We were all shocked into silence. Then Roger Ellis said sharply, “There’s no need to defend me. I can speak for myself.” He turned to Inspector Rother. “You’re telling us that these murders were done to keep the world from discovering that I possibly had a love child in France. This ‘love child’ of mine, however, is the daughter of Claudette and Gerard Hebert, both of whom are dead-the mother in childbirth, for which there are witnesses, and the father fighting in the French Army.”
There was the ring of truth in his voice, and it was the truth. As far as it went. As he finished, he flicked a glance in my direction, as if defying me to contradict him.
I had no intention of betraying his confidence. It would only hurt Lydia and stain Sophie’s reputation for all time.
“What do you know about this business, Sister Crawford?”
“I have seen this child.” I heard Mrs. Ellis and Gran gasp. “And no one has tried to kill me. What’s more, the nuns into whose care she was given called her Sophie Hebert.”
“Are you defending this man for personal reasons, Sister Crawford?”
“I am not. But if he has committed murder, it was not because of Sophie Hebert.”
He considered Roger Ellis, then said, “Thank you for being frank, sir. But it’s clear your family is not a party to this information. That leaves them as suspects in these murders.”
“I tell you, neither my mother nor my grandmother is capable of killing anyone.”
“How much strength does it take, Captain, to slip up behind a man and strike him hard on the back of the head, hard enough to break his skull? One blow was not sufficient for Lieutenant Hughes-he was left to drown while he was unconscious. But practice makes perfect, does it not? A single blow dispatched the other two victims.”
He hadn’t told us any of that. “What was the weapon?” I asked. “I thought a revolver was found by Merrit’s head?”
“A walking stick? One might carry that without suspicion. As for the revolver, it was window dressing.”
“But you’ve taken all the walking sticks in this house. Did you find that one of them had been used as a murder weapon?” Captain Ellis asked.
“You’re right. None of the sticks showed signs of use. But were these all the sticks that were here to start with? I questioned the staff, and they either can’t or refuse to help me.”
“What about William Pryor?” I asked him. “At one time you thought he might know more about the death of Lieutenant Hughes and even Davis Merrit than he was willing to admit.”
“I haven’t forgot Mr. Pryor,” he told me, and then said, “Mrs. Ellis, I’d like you to come with me.”
Roger stepped between his mother and Inspector Rother. “No. She’s had nothing to do with this business.”
Mrs. Ellis put her hand on her son’s arm. “Let me go with him, let him question me. The sooner we cooperate, the sooner this will be finished.”
“He’ll do his best to confuse you. I won’t have it. If he has questions, he can ask them here, in my presence.”
Gran said, “I have told you. I killed these men. You can decide, Inspector, which of us to believe.”
The door opened and Lydia walked in. I thought perhaps she’d been listening at the door, because she didn’t appear to be surprised to see the Inspector or to feel the tension in the room.
“Inspector, do I understand you to say that one of my family has killed three times to keep my husband’s secret love affair out of the public eye?”
“Indeed, Mrs. Ellis. That’s how it appears.”
“Well, you’re wrong. Why should any of us kill poor George or Davis, or even Dr. Tilton, when the child is here in this house, for all the world to see.”
I felt cold. This was Lydia’s attempt to make certain that Roger couldn’t send Sophie back to France. I couldn’t believe how misguided it was.
Inspector Rother stood there with his mouth open.
“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly.
“Then I’ll prove it.” She turned back into the passage and held out her hand. Sophie Hebert reached for her fingers, and in front of all of us, Lydia led her into the hall.
She stood there, looking around with large, uncertain eyes. And then she saw me, turned Lydia’s hand loose, and rushed across the room to cling to my skirts, smiling up at me.
Lydia’s face froze.
Gran stopped stock-still, with such an expression of pain in her eyes that I took a step backward. Margaret sat down suddenly, as if her limbs could no longer hold her. And Mrs. Ellis’s knees buckled. If Roger hadn’t been quick enough to catch her, she would have fallen to the floor in a dead faint.
Holding his unconscious mother in his arms, Roger Ellis turned his back on the child, as if she were not in the room.
I lifted Sophie into my arms, and she leaned into me. “I think it best for me to take Sophie back upstairs.” Turning to Inspector Rother, I went on, “You have ruined a surprise, Inspector. I hope you are satisfied.”
But he didn’t hear me. Lydia started to follow me from the room, but Roger’s voice stopped her in midstride. I left them there and carried Sophie back to the room where Gran had once played with another small, fair-haired child, long ago.
She said, an arm around my shoulders,
“Yes, we are going to see the cat. Will you stay there with it for a little bit? And I’ll bring you soup, perhaps a little cheese, and more biscuits.”
As I opened the door, she got down from my arms and went to the low bed of cushions, climbing into them and rousing Bluebell from her sleep. Giggling, she pulled a bit of green ribbon from her pocket and began to drag it over the bedclothes. I thought Lydia must have given her that.
Shutting the door, I went back to the hall, where Lydia was standing over the still-unconscious form of her mother-in-law while Gran was searching around the hearth for feathers to burn under Amelia Ellis’s nose. Lydia looked tearful now, and I thought that her grand entrance at the wrong time had suddenly dawned on her.
Gran found part of a feather from a duster caught in a length of wood sitting by the hearth, and held it to the flames for an instant. The nauseating odor of burning feathers filled the room, and she blew out the small spurt of fire on the tip before hurrying to Mrs. Ellis’s side to wave it under her nose.
Mrs. Ellis moaned a little, brushing weakly at the feather to push it away, and then opened her eyes. Looking around, she said, “Did I dream that Juliana was here?”
No one quite knew how to answer her.
Inspector Rother drew me to one side. “What happened? How long has that child been here? Why didn’t the
