‘Can you tell me the source of the quotation on this stone?’
The old man fumbled in his pocket and produced a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles which he balanced precariously on the end of his nose. ‘Ah yes. A strange choice and incorrect, but the stone mason was adamant that was what had been ordered. It is an inaccurate quotation of part of Genesis, chapter four, verse ten, taken out of context.’
‘Thank you, sir. Who paid for the stone to be erected?’
‘I do not know that.’ The vicar took off his spectacles, dropped them and almost trod on them as he searched. ‘Thank you, sir, you would not believe how many lenses I lose.’ He took them from Jared and absent-mindedly put them back on. ‘The stone mason told me that he received a letter with the instructions and a very adequate payment for what was required. It replaced the wooden cross with a small brass plaque with the name that Lord Northam had requested.’
‘Given that Francis Willoughby died in an accident, does the wording not strike you as strange, sir?’
‘Strange? Killed, you mean? Yes, if I had been consulted I would have advised against it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Jared took a bank note from his pocket book. ‘For the poor box.’
He strode away through the graveyard with the vicar’s thanks faint behind him and this new information turning and twisting in his brain. Willoughby had a sister who had paid for his gravestone, who considered him to have been killed and to whom his blood cried for revenge. Now all he had to do was find her and he would surely have the twisted mind behind the attacks on Guinevere. Easier said than done from a remote village, unless Allerton Grange had a library with a copy of the Landed Gentry in it. And that assumed the Willoughbys had land enough to be included.
He would send a letter to Dover, put him on the task and hope that he would write soon with what he had gathered on Theo. A fine scandal that was going to make if it turned out that he had murdered his own uncle for the title, but somehow he couldn’t believe it. Nor could he see any reason for Willoughby’s vengeful sister Elizabeth to want to murder Northam. Unless she saw him as saving Guinevere from the gallows and thus deserving of punishment as well…
Jared untied the horse and walked across the green to the inn. It was a substantial building, very plain, and probably sixty or seventy years old. Its one claim to any distinction was the window that rose almost the full height of the west gable and was clearly intended to light the staircase, for the horizontal line of each landing was visible through the glass. Such showpiece windows were a speciality of the area and Whitby had several houses with them, his aunt’s for one.
The landlord, Mr Grantham according to the sign over the door, was more than ready to discuss the Dreadful Occurrence, as he repeatedly called Willoughby’s death. He seemed to feel it gave his inn some distinction, being the site of such a dramatic event, resulting in the intercession of none other than the Viscount Northam.
‘He who has bought Allerton Grange now, which is a good thing for the village,’ he confided as he drew a pint of ale for Jared. The story spilled out fluently, obviously a regular tale to entertain customers. ‘Those Quentens who used to live there never had any money, not that they spent hereabouts, that’s for certain sure. Kept themselves to themselves they did and they were always late paying their bills.’ Grantham mopped the bar down with a cloth, stuck it back under his belt and leant on the worn oak. ‘Lord Northam’s a distant relative of theirs from what I hear, but not like them at all.’
It seemed that the news of the murder had not yet reached these parts and Jared did not want to divert the landlord by telling him. He drank some ale and made appreciative noises. ‘Good ale. Your own brew?’
‘Aye, sir. It is that. I win prizes at Scarborough Fair with that, most years. Are you from around these parts, sir? Only there’s something familiar about you, if you don’t mind me mentioning it.’
‘This village is new to me,’ Jared said easily. Any kind of evasiveness would only arouse suspicion. ‘My mother’s mother was from round about here somewhere – perhaps I’ve some distant relatives. It’s strange how resemblances pass down.’
‘It’s just the colouring. And your profile, sir. Can’t quite put my finger on it.’ The man shrugged. ‘Would you like to have a look at the scene of the Dreadful Occurrence, seeing how you are interested?’
So I have to dye my hair and get my nose broken to ensure anonymity, do I? Jared thought with an inward curse and a smile and a nod for the innkeeper. I’m damned if I will. I like my nose just the way it is. ‘I would indeed. I imagine it is quite a talking point around here. No doubt the poor gentleman’s family all came to the funeral.’
He knew they hadn’t, but it was a useful prompt for Grantham to say if he knew the Willoughbys. ‘No sign of them, sir. Not a local family, I suppose, or there’s none of them living. Though Mr Willoughby who died, there was something about him that rang a bell with me.’ He shrugged as he began to climb the stairs, the great expanse of glass making the best of the late afternoon light and sending their shadows spilling across the walls.
‘The wife would say I’m getting fanciful – first you, sir, and then Mr Willoughby looking familiar. Here we are. That’s the window he fell from and that’s the room he and his lady were staying in, just next door. Coroner’s jury decided he got fuddled with drink and fell through, right down to the pavers below. Nasty mess it made of his head, sir. A very nasty mess what with the brains and all. We covered him up, soon as we found him, didn’t want his lady seeing that. Doctor tidied him up a bit before she identified him.’
‘She must have been very much shocked,’ Jared observed as he studied the catch on the opening section of the window. ‘This looks secure enough.’
‘Indeed the lady was in a proper taking, sir. White as a sheet and she kept saying God forgive me – but I reckon that was because she hadn’t stopped him drinking, sir. Not that anyone could, I’d have said. A nasty drunk until he’d had so much he could hardly stand, then he mellowed. That’s what she told me when I tried to stop serving him the night before and he got in a right state about it. So the night of the Occurrence I gave him another bottle and, sure enough, after ten minutes or so of language that would curdle milk he calmed right down and just sat there moaning into his glass. Where is she? Why isn’t she here? Where is she when I need her?
‘I thought to myself, She’s gone off to h
er bed and I don’t say as how I blame her, you unpleasant sot. Then when I was properly sick of the sound of him he got to his feet and stumbled off. If I’d known the girl had opened the landing windows to cool the bedchambers down a bit I’d have kept an eye on him, helped him up to his room.’ He shrugged. ‘But I didn’t and Coroner said no-one who wasn’t drunk as a lord would have been in any danger, because the banister rail should have made it safe enough. He put no blame on us.’
‘Had Willoughby gone out while they were here? Did he ask directions to anywhere?’
‘He didn’t ask that I know of, sir. He went out on foot the day he fell, was gone about, oh, an hour or two? Anyway, he was in a foul mood when he got back. Of course, that might have been the weather, it was pouring with rain and he was soaked through and muddy to the knees,’ the landlord said as they walked back downstairs.
‘How had they arrived here?’ He could ask Guinevere of course, but Mr Grantham was handy. Jared wondered how much longer he was going to tolerate detailed questions from a complete stranger with no standing in the matter, but so far he seemed happy to talk about the local excitement. Presumably there wasn’t much drama day-to-day thereabouts.
‘One-horse gig, sir. The kind with a hood.’
So Willoughby had not gone far, otherwise he would surely have taken the gig, put the hood up and saved himself a soaking. There did not seem to be anything more to be gleaned from the helpful landlord. Jared finished his glass of ale and walked slowly back to his horse.
Francis Willoughby had come here with a purpose and, whatever that purpose had been, it had not been fulfilled. Willoughby had died first.
Jared swung into the saddle and set himself to scour the area an hour’s walk out from the inn. The landlord said Willoughby had been gone an hour or two. Assuming the man had done something, even if it were only to stare at his destination in frustration when he got there, then he would then have to walk back, so a five mile radius should encompass it, he calculated.