| |
Monday, 6 August 1821
Before everyone in the household retired for the night, I was aware of Lord Medley and Cecil organizing a party of footmen and other menservants to conduct an exhaustive search of the grounds for the thief who had absconded again with the satchel containing Lady Medley’s precious jewels, save for the one ring she had slipped onto her finger even as we all stood there gazing down upon the treasure. During the long night, I recall being awakened several times by noises, shouting and whatnot, coming from the courtyard below, and even from within the house, although it is possible I could have only been dreaming. That poor Miss Martha was no longer with us and that I had been the last to see her alive felt as if a heavy weight bore down upon me. As if her death was somehow . . . my fault.
Upon awakening from a fitful slumber the following morning, I instantly wondered if the brazen thief had been caught and Lady Medley’s possessions returned to her. When Tilda arrived to help me dress, I asked if she had heard any news of the search but rather than supply an answer, she instead anxiously relayed to me that his lordship wished me to join him in the library below stairs at once.
“But . . . I’ve not yet had my breakfast,” I protested.
“’E said at once, miss. Him an’ Mr. Cecil is in the book room with . . . another man.”
Thinking that perhaps they had, indeed, caught the thief and merely wished to ask if I had noticed the fellow loitering about outside Miss Martha’s suite the day before, I hurried to the ground floor and indeed found Lord Medley conferring with . . . another man. My heat sank when I saw that it was Constable Wainwright, he and Lord Medley standing before the long table at the top of the room with their heads together.
Unsure exactly what was about to transpire, I stood waiting until one of them turned around. A pang of apprehension shot through me when the constable looked up first, and a scowl appeared upon his craggy face.
“Ah, here she is now. If you will take a seat here, young lady.” A hand indicated one of the ladder-backed chairs drawn up to one end of the long library table. Another chair sat at the opposite end.
Lord Medley had also glanced up, his expression mirroring that of the constable. The constable moved to the other end of the table, where a smattering of papers lay spread out. My breath grew excessively short as I slipped onto the seat opposite the man of law. Lord Medley settled into a padded armchair a bit apart from us, and moments later, Mr. Cecil Ruston also entered the room and took a seat near his father.
“Miss Abbott,” the constable addressed me. “From this moment forth, his lordship and I expect you to be truthful in your answers to every question that I, or rather, we put to you. You are to view the proceedings as if you are in a court of law, which, in our estimation, you are. Do you understand? Do you swear to speak only the truth?”
Trying not to appear as apprehensive as I felt, I flung a questioning gaze towards Cecil as I nervously folded my hands before me upon the table. It was then I noted that the constable was enjoying a cup of steaming hot coffee and a plate of buttered toast sat at his elbow. By contrast, I had not yet been allowed to eat a single bite of my breakfast and the rumble from my stomach now acutely reminded me of that fact.
“Of course, I shall speak the truth, sir.” I nearly added I always do but realized that, in all honesty, that was not always the case. On occasion I had been known to . . . fabricate, but certainly not about anything as dire as the death of another person, or theft.
I flung a worried glance at a firm-lipped Lord Medley and his almost-first-born son, Cecil, who, I noted, wore quite a concerned look upon his handsome face as he and his father sat poised to observe the . . . inquest. Although both men appeared to be wearing fresh clothing, neither looked to be as fresh as they usually did of a morning, which told me that perhaps neither had taken to their beds the previous night. I also noticed that they, too, now held cups of steaming hot coffee in their hands, the pot and a pitcher of cream and dish of sugar on a small table nearby.
Of a sudden, before the constable had a chance to say anything more to me, I was startled when the surly servant girl Lottie sauntered into the room cradling in her arms the pink porcelain rabbit that Miss Martha had only yesterday presented to me as a gift.
“I ‘jes found this in ‘er room, sir,” she declared, her nose in the air. “Belonged to Miss Martha, it did. I seen it in her bedchamber more ‘n once. Quite fond of it, too, she was.”
“Thank you, young lady,” the constable said. Taking the rabbit from the girl, he gingerly set it down in the center of the table between us.
Wearing a smug smirk on her face, Lottie moved to stand just beyond the constable while they both continued to glare at me.
Abruptly, the constable leaned forward. “Did you or did you not take this very item from Miss Martha’s bedchamber, Miss Abbott? Answer me!”
My brow creased. “W-why, yes-sir, I-I did take it, but . . .”
“There!” Pointing a pudgy finger at me, he aimed a pleased look at Lord Medley. “There is your thief, sir! Just as I said. By her own admission, Miss Abbott has freely confessed to the crime of theft!”
“But, sir,” I spoke up in my defense, “Miss Martha insisted I take the rabbit! I admired it and she wished me to have it.”
The constable’s beady eyes narrowed as he whirled to regard me. “I would expect you to say nothing less, girl.” He again leaned as far over the table as his rotund body would allow. “Is it, or is it not, true that since you arrived at Medley Park, Miss Abbott, things have been disappearing to the right and left? To say nothing of the fact that two members of the household has lost their lives!”
“Y-Yes-sir, that does appear to be the case, but nonetheless, I did not take the rabbit! Miss Martha gave it to me!”
“Well, we’ve no way of corroborating that now, have we?”
Fighting to not become flustered beneath the man’s persistent claims of theft, I blurted out, “Indeed, sir, we can corroborate it!”
“And what exactly might you be suggestin’? The old woman is . . . pardon me, sir.” The constable flung an apologetic look at Lord Medley, then began afresh. “With the deceased being unable to corroborate your claim, it is my belief and I daresay, his lordship concurs, that all evidence points to you being the Medley Park thief, Miss Abbott.”
“But, sir, that is preposterous!”
“You will remain silent until I am finished, young lady! His lordship and I know you took the rabbit. The proof of your theft is sitting right here before us! What we demand to know now is, who is your accomplice? Where is the fellow who assisted you in the theft of Lady Medley’s jewels?” He flung another glance at the pair of gentlemen observing the proceedings as if seeking their approval of his method of interrogation. “Our exhaustive search of the grounds last night turned up nothing! Who did you leave the window open for last evenin’, Miss Abbott, thereby makin’ it easy for your cohort to slip out with the jewel case after you killed Miss Martha? I suspect the old lady fingered you as the thief, and you saw nothing for it but to kill her in order to ensure her silence? Is that not true, Miss Abbott?”
“No sir! It is not true! I did not kill Miss Martha! And I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Lady Medley’s jewels!”
“Nonetheless, you were the last person to see the old lady alive!” The man’s angry black eyes were mere slits in his head as he leant over the table to glare at me.
“That is also untrue, sir, I was not the last person to see Miss Martha alive!”
“And just what are you implying now, young lady?”
“The true killer was the last person to see Miss Martha alive and that person was not I!”
The constable paused. “Oh, you are a clever one, aren’t you?” Suddenly he slammed his fist onto the table. “But you are not nearly so clever as you think!”
He again walked from his end of the table in order to lean over me. He stood so close to me that I could smell the coffee on his breath, mixed with other unsavory odors, all of which had the effect of making me want to retch.
“Make no mistake, Miss Abbott, I am at this moment looking at the true killer! You killed the old lady, beg pardon, sir . . . you killed his lordship’s beloved sister, Miss Martha, then because, on your own, you could not heft the bag of jewels up and over the window sill to the ground, you flung open the window in order for your accomplice to complete that part of your plan, is that not right, Miss Abbott?” The angry man was fairly shouting now.
I attempted to swallow the fright that was threatening to strangle the last bit of breath from my body.
“Who is your accomplice, Miss Abbott? Answer me! Or we shall have no choice but to assume from your very silence that you are the guilty party!” His tone lowered to little more than a seething whisper. “For a full twelvemonth now, Miss Abbott, I have been itching to put a noose around your neck and watch you dangle from the end of a rope until you are . . .”
“Sir, I do confess to opening the windows in Miss Martha’s suite.”
“Ah, hah! So, I am correct in my assessment! And now you freely confess to the crime of murder!” The horrid little man all but marched up and down before the table as if he had snagged the fox every other man on the estate had been hunting and thus far, no one could catch.
Lord Medley interrupted. “Get on it with it, man. It is patently clear that Miss Abbott took the rabbit, and the thief made a hasty exit through the opened window near the clothespress. What we do not know, is who she flung the windows open for!”
Before the gloating constable could recover from Lord Medley’s reprimand, I cried, “I opened the windows in Miss Martha’s suite simply because the air in her bedchamber was quite stuffy!”
The constable’s eyes narrowed as he whirled back toward me. “A likely story! I ask you once more, young lady, who is your accomplice? Who?”
“I have no accomplice, sir,” I declared.
“Ah! So, you admit to committing both the theft and the murder on you own, without help! Or, are you protecting someone?”
Lord Medley rose. “Miss Abbott, I clearly recall you being with the family last evening when we all discovered my sister sitting dead in her chair. You were also still there in the sitting room with us when my wife returned to Martha’s bedchamber and screamed when she discovered the case full of her possessions had up and disappeared once again. It is clear to all of us that you did not remove the case on your own, Miss Abbott. You could not have removed it for the simple reason that you were not in the bedchamber at the time. You were with my wife and myself, as well as, Cecil here, when the jewels disappeared . . . for the second time.”
Lord Medley advanced a few steps toward me, my eyes wide with fright as I now listened to his accusations.
“Yet you expect us to believe that you do not have a partner whose task was to climb through the opened window and snatch the valise and disappear with it into the night! You poisoned my sister, Miss Abbott, and you had a hand in the theft of my wife’s jewels, is that not true?”
I found my voice. “No, sir! It is not true! I did not poison Miss Martha and I knew nothing of a plan to steal, or that is, re-steal, her ladyship’s jewels!”
“But, you were aware of a plan to kill, by means of poison, if your note is to be believed, a female in the household! Do you deny that?” Lord Medley demanded to know.
“No, sir; I do not deny that.” Now both Lord Medley and the constable’s manner of twisting my words around was serving only to confuse me.
“I own that the . . . that the conspirator’s plan to commit another murder was, indeed, included in my note, sir, because that is what I overhead the pair of them say to one another the previous evening in the courtyard.”
The constable’s head wagged with disgust as he took up my interrogation. “And now you expect us to believe that you overheard a pair of unknown persons planning to kill a poor defenseless woman in order that they might steal the jewels that you, Miss Abbott, had stashed in the clothespress; which is conveniently situated near a window.” He leaned in again to glare at me. “Who has the jewels now, Miss Abbott? Who?” He was so near to me, his breath fluttered the wisp of curly hair grazing my cheek.
I drew away from the foul stench of the odious man’s breath. “I haven’t the least notion who is in possession of the jewels at this moment, sir.”
“Oh, I believe you do know, Miss Abbott. I believe we have now caught our thief and quite soon, we shall uncover the remaining pieces of the puzzle.” Both his tone and his gaze were ominous.
I shifted on the hard seat of the chair as the constable puffed out his chest and turned to declare to Lord Medley, “Did I not tell you, sir, that I would run both the thief and the killer to ground ‘afore this day was done?”
At that my blood ran hot in my veins! I was not guilty of any part of this crime! At Morland Manor when the disagreeable constable had persistently accosted me with cries of “Hang her!” I did not know how to defend myself and had very nearly been bullied into admitting to a crime I did not commit. However, I was older and far wiser now, and I would not be bullied!
I sprang to my feet. “Sir, not only did I not kill Miss Martha, I also did not steal Lady Medley’s jewels, and I did not take the rabbit! You’ve only to ask Mrs. Bertram.”
“Mrs. Bertram!” Lord Medley sputtered. “What has she to say to this? Girl!” He addressed Lottie, who was still standing calmly to one side, and quite enjoying the proceedings, if the expression on her face was to be believed. “Fetch Mrs. Bertram!”
When Lottie scampered away, I slipped again onto my chair to wait, hoping against hope that the housekeeper would, indeed, recall all that had taken place yesterday at the moment she brought in the luncheon tray to Miss Martha. If not . . . or if, for any reason, she did not wish to corroborate my statement . . . I feared that due to no fault of my own, my days upon this earth were about to come to an end.