I LOOK AT THE tall, tousle-haired lawyer, standing straight in his worn black tweed, then at the man behind the fire. His hair’s a gray thatch and his clothes are shabby, and he looks at me even now with a curdled mixture of menace and sharp pride. But I can see a resemblance now, in the dignified way they hold themselves, in the bones of their faces. I breathe in, but I can’t think of what to say.
McAllister surprises me by speaking first. His voice is different with his son in attendance. It softens and relaxes, and the faint burr of an Irish upbringing warms it. “I was no great family man,” he says, “but it still came as a surprise to me when Mrs. McAllister left. Mrs. Simpson, she called herself after that—her family name. Passed herself off as a widow, I believe. Isn’t that right, boy?”
Mr. Simpson nods silent assent.
“It seems a strange thing to me, a terrible thing, to wish for a man’s death like that.” He holds up a hand, as if to quell his son’s protests. “But I see now, and saw it even then, that she had to do it. I was no great family man, as I said, and she did what she had to. William was small when she took him, and I followed after her. I tracked her right to the very boardinghouse where they were hiding. I had the sense not to talk to her right away—they wouldn’t have let her stay, if I’d come running in. But I caught her on her way to church next morning, with little William wrapped up warm in her arms. She was always a good ma.
“I wished I could remind her of our courting days, but truth is we didn’t really have them. Or I could make promises of being a better man for her, but I didn’t want to tell lies. Sentimentality’s never suited me. So I only asked her if she’d come home with me. I told her we never need talk of it again, and that William would be too small ever to remember. And she pressed my hand and shook her head, and did not say another word to me again. Not ever. And that was the last I saw of my son until he was a man grown, a solicitor working for Crowne & Crowne. You can never say I wasn’t proud, or grateful to Lord Walthingham for all he did for him.”
“But what did he do?” I ask, watching the man’s sad face through the trailing smoke of his campfire.
“He was my benefactor,” says William, watching my face. “He took pity on my mother and paid for my boarding school. Then my legal training at the Inns. He also put in a word for me with Crowne & Crowne—they were already his solicitors.”
McAllister breaks in. “My son looks ashamed now—we McAllisters were never much for giving credit where credit’s due, or for admitting that we had help along the way. Lucky for you, young lady, the boy’s got much of his mother in him, too.”
William does look flushed, but continues. “I lost my mother to illness two years ago. When she was dying she told me the truth: that my father was alive and working for Walthingham. At the time I knew your grandfather only as the man of the house. It was only in her final days that my mother revealed his part in my advancement, something he had not wished her to do. I came to the house to thank him, and to meet my father.” His eyes meet McAllister’s, briefly.
“We quickly realized that too much time had passed for ours to be more than a passing acquaintance,” he says, low. I can see that this pains him—shames him, even.
“It’s all right, William,” his father offers. “I’d rather have a son who faces things honestly than one who flatters with his words. Like that blasted Henry Campion.”
The change that comes over his features when he speaks Henry’s name is extreme. I see again the hardened, criminal presence that I once imagined stalking the woods of Walthingham.
“My boy came back looking for a father,” continues McAllister. “And he very nearly found one. Not me, though. Lord Walthingham.”
“That’s not true—” William protests, but his father cuts him off.
“Walthingham and my son were men of a similar mind. The master had driven his own son off, as you well know, lady, and that nephew of his was the very picture of his own father: a dissolute, a charmer, a snake with a handsome face, who had married Walthingham’s only sister. Lord Walthingham could never bear the thought of leaving it all to him, though he knew he’d likely have to. But Campion got to thinking that William might be given an inheritance—some small piece that would lessen his own part of the store when your grandfather died. It seemed, though, like it would be many years before that happened. Your grandfather was the halest man that I knew—and the best rider.” McAllister glared and he folded his arms. “Not the sort to fall and snap his neck.”
His meaning becomes clear to me. “You think there was foul play?”
The firelight finds the old man’s eyes, and they glow with hooded intelligence. “Henry Campion was broken after the war. Your grandfather saw it and did his best to make a son of him. They rode out together every day. I saw them setting out together one morning, early, though no groom accompanied them. Just before midday, Campion came back saying his horse had thrown a shoe. When Lord Walthingham still hadn’t come back for luncheon, they went looking. Found him deep in the forest with his head stoved in.”
I feel sick. “Grace never told me about a head injury. She said he died from a broken neck, instantly.”
McAllister sniffed angrily. “His neck was snapped, that’s right enough, but he hung on for two days, unable to move an inch. Never have I seen a man so pale as your cousin. But he did not grieve—he feared. Feared, I think, that your grandfather would wake, and tell the truth.”
“The truth,” I breathe. “Sir, do you think that my cousin—did you ever tell the magistrate of your suspicions?”
“I am not a man to make accusations lightly, but nor do I hold my peace when I have a suspicion that something’s not right. Campion was at the bedside constantly in those two days that your grandfather hung on to his life. But on the second morning, he stepped out long enough to see me—and to tell me that I was to leave Walthingham at once. I know why he did it. You see, I’m the only one who knows the grounds the way he does. I’m the only one who might have seen something—might have seen whatever it was that happened the day your grandfather died. I made no fuss, but set straight out to find William in London. ‘His Lordship’s son might still be alive,’ I told him. ‘In America. If not, he may have heirs of his own, who would be first in line for the estate.’ Anything to keep it out of Campion’s bloody hands. That’s right: My son was the one who tracked you down. Not that he believed me about Campion until now. He inherited his mother’s expectations of goodness.”
He leans forward on his knees, as if this much talk has tired him out. Then he tilts his head up to eye me balefully. “And if I steal an animal from your land from time to time just to keep myself alive, after all my service to your family, I don’t see as you should fault it!”
William shuffles his feet, embarrassed by this final outburst, but my mind is blooming with all I’ve been told. “Tell me now, please. What did you find in the watch?”
The watch gleams in the firelight when he pulls it from his pocket. “Here, look. You can see why it no longer worked.” With careful fingers, he opens its back and turns it to show me: an empty cavity where the mechanism should be, and inside it a crumpled scrap of white. “Someone removed the gears and put this in their place.”
I can tell by the way he dips his head as he hands the note to me that he’s already read it. And who wouldn’t read a message secreted into the back of a broken watch? The words on the page are blotted and misshapen, but their meaning is true:
To Ladie Kathrin:
I do belief that “he watches over us all,” yore George, my mother and father, and the Lord Walthingham alike. Yore trust is mistook—I am the one who helped Henry Campion do his teribul deed. He slew George in the wud, and I cam upon him. He gayve me munnie wich could not be eenuf for the sale of my everlasting sole, yet I tuk it to hid the bodie of yore brother. I am sorry beyond messure for wat I did, and feer my lief will not be long. I miss-trust Campion. If you fined this letter it is becus I am done for, and at his hand. Do not trust him. Think of me a litle, and speek a prayr. Do not comend my sole to GOD, becus it is him not you wat will deside my fayt heerafter.
John Hayes
To see proof of my suspicions at last, in black-and-white, is too much for me to bear. “My brother,” I cry. “My trusting brother! He was Henry’s cousin; we share blood! Murdering his own family, to feed his own greed—how can it be possible?” The close heat of the cavern combines with my renewed horror, and I feel myself start to swoon. No sooner do my knees dip than William’s arms are around me, and he leads me to a chair.
“This is a shock, Katherine.” William cups my chin in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “And I pray that you do not lose yourself under the weight of it. But despite what you’ve read, I still counsel caution. This is not proof—he will say we’ve forged it. He has a very old family name at his back, and allies like Dr. Ebner. Even Mr. Dowling seems to have been taken in by your cousin. Henry Campion is cunning and has gotten away with his misdeeds thus far. But”—he holds up a finger—“I think that lately he has gotten careless.”
“We’ll catch him unaware,” I say. “And if the law can’t make him pay for my brother’s death, I will do it myself.”
“Don’t be reckless, Katherine,” William says softly. “I promise you, your brother’s death will not go unpunished.”
I summon the hardness of heart that protected me through the past five nights in a windowless cell. “I’ll get him to talk. But before I do, we’ll need the magistrate.”