An Unwilling Accomplice (41 page)

“You couldn’t have known such a thing. It’s impossible.”

“Remember Corporal Benton? He was in the same ward when you were in hospital. He’d also known Paul Addison. He couldn’t see you, he’d been gassed and his eyes were bandaged. But he could hear you. He didn’t think your voice sounded like Addison’s. And when you didn’t rejoin your unit, he couldn’t believe Addison would have deserted. But he kept his mouth shut, went back to France, and was wounded a second time. He thought at first I was you, when he came to Shrewsbury. We sound enough alike, after all. When he realized his mistake, he told me about Paul Addison. He wanted to know if Addison was a cousin.” Wilkins turned to Simon. “The Army won’t give us a chance in hell. I don’t want to hang. I’d rather be shot.”

“You should have thought about that in London, before you dragged Sister Crawford into your plot.”

“I didn’t think—I wanted to believe she wouldn’t be in any trouble. I had to find my brother. I went to warn Lessup, but he was already dead when I got there. I saw him hanging from the bridge. It was just before dawn. And I kept walking, all the way to Wolverhampton before I dared take a train.”

“There’s someone who can sort this out. My father. The Army will listen to him,” I said. “We’ll take both men to him.”

“You will not take this man from my house,” Mrs. Chatham said.

Phyllis, her face twisted by fright, asked, “Why did you have to come here? Why didn’t you leave us alone? It’s cruel, what you’re doing. We’re to be
married
at Christmas. The war will surely end before Christmas.”

But we’d thought the war would end before Christmas in 1914, and we’d been wrong.

Jeremy Wilkins got out of bed and walked unsteadily toward Mrs. Chatham. His face was strained, his gaze never leaving her face. I could see, through his stocking, the twisted, damaged foot. “I’m ready to face anyone. I’m telling the truth. Just give me a chance to prove it, that’s all I ask.” He turned and lightly kissed Phyllis Percy. “I love you. Remember that, whatever happens to me.”

It occurred to me suddenly that while he was speaking to Mrs. Chatham, Simon was well in range of Jeremy Wilkins’s peripheral vision.

Without warning Jeremy Wilkins lunged halfway across the room, shoved me hard, in the direction of Mrs. Chatham, and I stumbled against the chair next to her, effectively blocking Simon’s view.

Before I could recover, Jeremy Wilkins was out the door, racing for the stairs as fast as his bad foot would allow him. And Sergeant Wilkins was on his heels.

Picking myself up, I collided with Phyllis Percy as I ran to the door, shouting to Simon, “The miller’s cart—your motorcar—they’re both
there
.”

She had taken a death grip on my apron, trying to prevent me from following. I heard it tear as I broke away, nearly tripping myself on the trailing edge. Simon was right behind me, and Maddie had come forward to take Miss Percy’s arm. She turned on him, fighting him mercilessly.

Out in the passage, I heard the two men struggling at the top of the stairs, one of them shouting, “You can’t want me to
hang
—”

Then they were falling. I reached the railing where the passage overlooked the hall just in time to see them strike the last few steps before landing hard on the bare wood floor below.

They lay there, tangled in each other’s arms, not moving.

“Maddie!” I cried, and started down the stairs. Simon caught my arm and pulled me back.

“Wait here.”

I could hear Phyllis Percy screaming as she ran after us, Maddie, older and slower, just behind her.

Simon had reached the two men, was kneeling beside them, putting out a hand to feel for a pulse. After a moment he called up to us, “I think they’re both alive.”

I caught Miss Percy’s arm, letting Maddie go ahead of us.

“Wait,” I said sternly to her. “You’ll do more harm than good.” But she didn’t want to listen. Pulling me with her, her will stronger than her body, she went down the stairs after Maddie.

I let her go. Simon was there to deal with her.

I looked around, expecting to find Mrs. Chatham behind me as well. But she hadn’t left the bedroom.

The Widow of Windsor, denying she had any part of the world her husband no longer inhabited. I thought it coldhearted.

Mary was coming out the kitchen door, drawn by the racket and Miss Percy’s screams, while other servants pushed out past her to stare.

Maddie had managed to untangle the two brothers. He was lifting the eyelids of first one and then the other, then running his hands down their limbs and their bodies.

Phyllis Percy was kneeling beside Jeremy Wilkins, begging him to speak to her.

Looking over her head to where Simon waited, Maddie said, pointing to Sergeant Wilkins, “This one has a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist. Just as well his shoulder took the brunt of the fall, and not his head. The other—Private Wilkins—has a broken leg. Badly broken, I’m afraid. There may be more injuries—internal ones. I can’t be sure.”

I called down to Mary. “Bedding, quickly. And pillows. We must make them comfortable where they are for now.” Maddie wouldn’t let them be moved until he was certain about the internal injuries.

He was already busy, with Simon’s help, setting the shoulder while Sergeant Wilkins was unconscious. Then he looked at the wrist. “A nasty break.” Turning to me, he called, “My satchel.”

I hurried back to the bedroom. It was lying on the floor where he’d set it while examining Jeremy Wilkins.

Mrs. Chatham was still sitting where we’d left her. She looked at me, but didn’t ask any questions.

I said, “Both men are still alive but badly hurt. We can’t move them. I’m afraid they’ll have to stay where they are.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, although I didn’t think she cared either way.

Rising, she walked to the door, with me but apart from me. I stood back to allow her to go before me, thinking she would be going down to see to her unwelcome guests. Instead she turned toward the end of the passage, intending to shut herself away again.

And then she stopped, showing the first sign of compassion I’d seen in her.

“Phyllis loved him, and that was all that mattered to me. I was happy once, I know how it feels to be happy.”

And then she was gone. She hadn’t even asked if we knew yet which brother had been a murderer.

I hurried back to Maddie with his satchel. Mary had brought bedding and pillows, another maid took chairs from one of the nearby rooms and brought them to us. Delicate brocade, delicate chairs intended to be sat on quietly while sipping tea. I asked her to take them back and find more comfortable ones. We went to the attics and discovered cots, and with Simon’s help brought them down along with tables to put beside them.

Phyllis Percy sat beside Jeremy Wilkins, holding his hand, whispering to him. Both men had come around but neither tried to speak.

By the time I had organized a sickroom here in the spacious hall, and we had carefully lifted both men to their respective cots, it was close to dawn, although the sun hadn’t yet crept over the hills that marked the Dysoes.

Simon stood by the door. I thought he must be very tired by now, and I asked Mary to bring tea and whatever the kitchens could provide in the way of sandwiches.

He and I helped Maddie set Sergeant Wilkins’s wrist, then simply splinted his brother’s leg. We had no access to an X-ray. That would have to come once they were moved to hospital. Phyllis Percy collapsed from sheer exhaustion, and was taken to her room. I went up as well, found the key, and locked the door from the outside.

Simon went to Upper Dysoe to fetch the sergeant’s belongings and to bring back someone to drive the miller’s cart home. Then he went up to a room Mary prepared for him. I’d asked for another pair of cots so that Maddie and I could stay close by our patients.

It wasn’t until late that same afternoon, after Jeremy Wilkins had been given something for his pain and was now lightly snoring, that his brother softly called my name. I got up, glanced at Maddie, who appeared to be asleep as well, and crossed to the sergeant’s cot.

“What’s going to happen now?”

“Sergeant-Major Brandon has sent one of Tulley’s people to find the nearest railway station. He’s to send a telegram to my father. Colonel Crawford.”

“Yes, I remember. The King spoke of him. And when your father comes?”

“We must get you both to hospital. That wrist is very nasty, and so is your brother’s leg. It’s really a miracle that both of you survived your fall.”

“And then?”

“We leave it to Scotland Yard to determine which of you is a killer.”

“I’d wanted both of us to die, there on the stairs. Easier than hanging. And both of us
will
hang. One for murder, the other for desertion.” He turned his face away for a moment, looking at nothing.

“How did you know your brother was here, at Chatham Hall?” I pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down.

“I couldn’t think of any other place to look. Jeremy couldn’t go home. My parents are dead, the house occupied by others. The constable in our town is very much alive and would give him away at once. He never liked Jeremy. This was the perfect hideaway. Mrs. Chatham was in mourning, they never entertained. I went to the Chatham’s London house first, you know. Expecting to slip back into the hotel before you came to fetch me. The house was closed, mourning crepe on the door. A neighbor’s boot boy, on his way to the shops, told me Mrs. Chatham was in the country for the duration. That meant I had to go to Warwickshire. I couldn’t go back to the hotel after all. I’m sorry. I never intended to land you in hot water. Was it very bad?”

“For a time, very much so,” I told him truthfully. “It was the worst thing possible, to be accused, to be suspended from nursing. And then I was questioned by Scotland Yard about Henry Lessup’s death. It was painful to be considered an accomplice to murder, however unwitting or unwilling.”

He took a deep breath. “Corporal Benton knew Lessup had been put on extended leave. That meant that Jeremy could reach him, you see. I knew he’d try. He’d always been vindictive. He couldn’t act as long as Lessup was a serving soldier. That’s when I decided to disappear. But the Palace made other arrangements, which meant I’d be in London. The Monarch Hotel wasn’t all that far from the Chatham house in London. If I was late getting back to the hotel, I could claim my friends insisted on taking me to breakfast. You’d have scolded me, but no harm done. Only it didn’t quite work out that way, did it?”

“It would look very bad, in the newspapers. A hero disappearing—a mad search for you, and the dawning suspicion that you’d deserted. Didn’t you think about that?”

“I did, but where could I have turned? Not to the Army. I even thought about asking you to speak to your father, but for all I knew, he’d think me mad and do nothing.”

“Who killed Lessup?” I asked then.

“I won’t stand up in a courtroom and testify against my own brother. Would you?”

And yet Jeremy Wilkins had said before witnesses that his brother was a murderer.

When I didn’t answer, he said, “What does it matter? Scotland Yard can take their choice.” He closed his eyes again and pretended to sleep.

I said quietly, my voice not carrying beyond the cot where the sergeant lay, “The accident that injured your brother was two years ago. I know he was in hospital for a time. Why didn’t he look for Miss Percy after he was released? He didn’t address that gap, did he? He left the impression it was only recently that he could search for her. Where has he been all this time?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. For that matter, I didn’t know they were engaged. He liked her well enough, but she was only seventeen when he first met her.” He sighed. “He’s always been popular with women. She was lonely, she believed he was dead. I don’t think she asked many questions.”

But that didn’t make Jeremy Wilkins a murderer. Except that when he’d appeared, exhausted, in pain, it was dreadfully close to the time Henry Lessup had been killed.

I studied the man in the bed. The cleverest thing he could do was refuse to accuse his brother.

On the other cot, Private Wilkins stirred, then was quiet again. But the light snoring had stopped. I glanced in his direction. His eyes were closed.

It occurred to me that I could play a trick of my own. Not as well planned as the one Sergeant Wilkins had played on me, but it would do.

I said, pitching my voice so that both men could hear me, and at the same time appearing to be speaking to the sergeant privately, “There was someone who saw the killer speak to Henry Lessup. This person overheard what they said to each other. And I know what it was. I was told, you see.”

“Were you, by God.” He waited.

“If you intend to tell Colonel Crawford that you murdered that man, you’ll have to know the right answers. If you didn’t kill him, then I’d be very careful if I were you, trusting anything your brother has to say about it. Oh, and I nearly forgot. I shouldn’t tell you this, but Scotland Yard hinted that one of you dropped something on that bridge.” I smiled. “That’s why Sergeant-Major Brandon went to the hut to retrieve your uniform. We’ll be looking at both tunics as soon as Colonel Crawford arrives.”

I made to rise; then, almost as an afterthought, I said, “Why would Jeremy blame you last night for Lessup’s death, when you’d risked your life to kill Lessup for him? He’ll do it again, you know. He’ll offer to testify against you, if it will save him from charges of desertion.”

He said, his voice weary. “Why are you taunting me? Is it to pay me back for what I did to you?”

“That’s something you’ll have to worry about, isn’t it?” I asked, and walked back to my cot.

It was a little after dark when Miss Percy discovered her door was locked, and banged on it for nearly a quarter of an hour. Mary took her dinner up to her, with Simon to stand guard. Mrs. Chatham didn’t appear, although she must surely have heard her sister calling to her to help, pleading with her to unlock the door.

Simon and I went for a walk in the garden, wrapped up against the chill wind, and I told him about my conversation with Sergeant Wilkins.