Late Saturday evening, the Pig and Shilling, Broughton Magna
Dev was lucky a room was available. Nothing fancy, and very small—he could barely turn around—but it didn’t really matter. His personal belongings were still at Lady Adelaide’s, and he would make do tomorrow with a borrowed razor from the landlord before he returned the truck and retrieved them.
It was too bad he had sent the suitcases back to Patrick Cassidy—Dev and he were about the same size and he could have done with a clean shirt after pitching himself off that horse.
Earlier, Cassidy had told Dev on the telephone that he was heading for London on the first train from Compton-Under-Wood tomorrow morning, expecting a much smoother trip this time. Maybe he was fanciful imagining he was poisoned. He still wasn’t especially happy about the inquest, but what could one do after all these years?
At least he was getting paid for the horses.
Dev did not disclose the accusation against Pamela. He never met the woman, so why did he have such doubts?
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Mr. Parks gave Dev the use of his private office, all the paper and pens and ink he could need on a well-ordered scarred golden oak desk. The noise and smoke from the pub barely filtered back here. From what little Dev heard, the customers were having a typical rollicking Saturday night, unaware of the mourning at nearby Fernald Hall.
There would be two reports, one sanitized for public consumption and one for his own edification. Dev would recount certain things all over again on official forms, but he wanted to write the true events up while they were still so terribly fresh in his mind.
Lady Adelaide would be left out as much as possible, although he’d be forever grateful to her for driving down that rutted bank in a madcap attempt to make sure he was uninjured and would stay that way. The undercarriage of the Rolls-Royce would probably never be the same.
By mutual agreement, she would say nothing of Lady Fernald’s extraordinary revelations before she killed herself. Lady Adelaide cared too much for Hugh and John to carry tales, and it was no one’s business, not even the Crown’s anymore. One couldn’t receive the death penalty from beyond the grave.
So it was left to Dev to have the worst hour of his career informing Sir Hugh of what had transpired in the stable and afterward. He couched what facts he knew as gently as he could, wondering with each word if the baronet would somehow survive the conversation with his sanity intact. Dev wasn’t sure of his own at this point.
If all the truth ever came out, the tabloids would have a field day. And for what? Nothing could be changed or improved. Both women were dead, and there was not a shred of proof to link them to their crimes. Fernald and his son had lost enough.
There was a knock on the frosted glass of the door. He shoved the papers aside and hoped Mr. Parks would be quick at finding whatever he was looking for.
“Come.”
“A word, Inspector.”
Dev looked up to find Captain Clifford and Owen Bradbury in the doorway.
Now what?
Bradbury shut the door behind him. “Hugh told us you were spending the night in the village.”
“Yes. I didn’t want to intrude any further upon Sir Hugh’s hospitality.”
Dev needed to get away from there—it wasn’t every day he abandoned an investigation. Got shot at and nearly broke a shoulder too. From the stabbing sensation every time he moved, he thought it might be dislocated and gave it an absent rub, wishing for some aspirin or perhaps a strong brandy to dull the pain.
He would make do with the soothing effects of nicotine. It was past time for his daily gasper. Dev reached into his pocket gingerly and pulled out a crushed pack of Pall Malls and held them out. “Sit down, gentlemen. Join me?”
Clifford unstacked the two bentwood chairs in a corner and placed them in front of the desk, while Bradbury pulled out a gold cigarette case. “Here. Have one of mine. They look to be in better shape than yours.”
“Thank you.”
The men sat and a matching gold lighter made its way around the desk. There was no attempt at small talk. Both his unexpected guests looked pale but resolute. Dev braced himself for another confession, and it wasn’t long in coming.
“There’s really no way to say this,” Clifford began.
Dev thought all along they knew more than they had told him. Friendship. Loyalty. Perhaps even love. All were admirable traits, but wreaked havoc with a police investigation.
This case had more layers than a harem girl’s veils. These men had protected Pamela Fernald’s reputation for almost ten years.
“Try,” Dev said. “I won’t judge.”
“But you might,” Bradbury said. “Maybe enough to try to arrest us both.”
Dev raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
The captain shot a look at Bradbury, who nodded. “Go on, Denny. Get it over with.”
Clifford took a long drag on his cigarette, as if he might never get the chance to smoke again. When he exhaled, he cleared his throat. “Pam didn’t kill Michael. Hugh did. But he…doesn’t remember.”
Dev stopped himself from dropping his own cigarette. “How do you know this?”
“We were there, weren’t we?” Bradbury said. “Saw it all.”
Dev stubbed out his cigarette in a clean copper ashtray and took out his notebook. “You are saying you were both present in the autumn of 1916 when Lieutenant Ainsley disappeared…and was killed.”
“Don’t bother writing down what I’m telling you. We’ll deny it,” Clifford said. “I have my career to think of, and one day Owen will be Baron Hurst.”
Bradbury grimaced. “Don’t count chickens, Denny. My cousin is a hale and hearty fifty. He might outlive me yet. Or have half a dozen sons if he marries again to go along with his six daughters.”
Dev didn’t care one iota about Bradbury’s genealogy. “Then why tell me? Why now?”
“It’s time. Hugh told us what you said—that while you had no proof, his mother had blamed Pam for Michael’s death before her…accident. It isn’t true, and we told him that. Argued with him, really. Swore up and down we would have known if that was the case since we were there.”
“The man’s a wreck. Hugh needs to know that his wife was completely innocent, at least of this. It was all so long ago. What difference does it make now?” Clifford asked.
“We’d like you to back us up by saying you’ve given it some thought, and in your professional opinion you don’t credit what his mother said. Hell, I bet you even wondered about the probability that she did it,” Bradbury added.
Dev had. But it was altogether too convenient to blame someone who could not defend themselves, just as Evelyn had tried to pin the deed on Pamela. She had been oozing with spite at the end, which was just one reason he hadn’t believed her.
“He’s had enough tragedy. He loved Pam—he shouldn’t think she’s a cold-blooded killer.”
No. His mother deserved that description.
But right to the end, she was protecting her child, wasn’t she?
“You know there is no statute of limitations on murder.” He plumped up one of his own Pall Malls and lit it. “And I still don’t understand. You say he doesn’t remember. How is that possible?”
Clifford sat back in his chair. “Didn’t you see him the other day? How happy he was that his friend’s honor was restored? He doesn’t remember. And if he does, it’s like a dream, all mixed up with the war. Musgrave says he has nightmares sometimes, but Hugh truly doesn’t know what he did. I’d stake my own life on it.”
Dev examined the men before him. He was used to fabrications and half-truths but saw none of the tells from either of them that revealed a lie. “Sir Hugh doesn’t know that he was the one who killed Ainsley,” he stated, mostly to himself. It sounded ludicrous.
“That’s right. And we don’t want him to,” Clifford continued. “He didn’t mean to. If he’d been himself—well, he’ll never be himself again, will he? John needs his father, especially now.”
“Then why are you telling me this?” Let sleeping dogs lie.
“It’s for Pam.” Dev could barely hear Bradbury’s voice over the pulsing in his ears. “She always felt responsible. Said she might as well have pulled the trigger herself.” He drew a deep breath. “It wasn’t really her fault. She and her mother-in-law gave Hugh things to try to ease his discomfort beyond what the quacks prescribed when he got home. To help him sleep and breathe and so on. They did it out of love, the both of them. But they weren’t doctors, and it took a while to get it right. Hugh didn’t know what he was doing half the time that fall. Didn’t know where he was. Carried his service revolver at all times so he could defend himself from the bloody Huns.”
Clifford gave Dev a rueful smile. “Musgrave kept taking the bullets out of it. It was almost comical the lengths he went to hide the gun or the bullets. But this was one time he failed.”
Bradbury’s words flowed faster now, as though he was eager to get rid of this long-held secret. “We were just dancing to records that night, you know? Taking turns pushing Pam around the drawing room like we did every night since we arrived. She was a good sport, and it was perfectly harmless. Of course, Michael liked her—we all did. She was…Pam. He kissed her after he spun her around. Just as a friend, mind. She laughed and pushed him away. All in good fun. But Hugh came in to say goodnight and saw. Musgrave tried to grab the gun away, but it was too late.”
“It could have been any of us.” Clifford shuddered. “Pam fell to pieces.”
“Lady Fernald sorted it all out. Kept it quiet somehow from the servants. Musgrave got Hugh dosed and settled, and then we buried the body in the dead of night where Evelyn told us to. The next morning we pretended Michael just decided to leave. That makes us accomplices, and if you want to arrest us, you have every right, but it will be the devil to prove, won’t it? We kept silent for Hugh all these years. And for Pam,” Bradbury said. “And we’ll stay silent.”
Except for tonight.
“So you wouldn’t sign a statement corroborating what you’ve told me? And Musgrave won’t either, am I right?” Musgrave, who owed his life and employment to Captain Sir Hugh Fernald.
The men looked at each other but said nothing.
What good would it do to arrest Fernald for a crime he couldn’t remember committing? In effect, Dev would orphan Hugh’s son and cause complications far worse than what the boy was presently experiencing. No mother. No father. No grandmother. Even his governess was dead.
And there was nothing concrete to produce as evidence except the word of two men who wouldn’t repeat themselves.
“What do you want me to do?” Dev asked.
“We told you. Tell Hugh you doubt his mother’s story. That she was simply deranged at the end. She shot at you, didn’t she? Tried to murder you. Killed herself! There, a madwoman! Tell him you’re happy with the jury’s finding at the inquest. Nobody will ever know for sure just how Michael managed to get himself killed. It could have been a passing tramp.”
Everything Bradbury said went against Dev’s conscience and training. Right was right and wrong was wrong. There was nothing more important than truth and justice. What would Cassidy make of his complicity? To withhold the facts and protect a killer—
Dev had never done such a thing. What he had done for Fernald this afternoon was use discretion, not deliberately obstruct. Oh, he knew with certainty there was corruption within the force, as Evelyn Fernald had so accurately pointed out. His colleagues were offered bribes to see one thing and not see another all the time. He was tested himself when that banker set a fat wallet in front of him last year. The rich and privileged often felt the rules did not apply to them.
Bradbury and Clifford asked him to bend those rules, but not to benefit themselves. They covered for their friend for nearly a decade and must long to truly bury the past.
But nobody was above the law, not even the Prime Minister.
“We only want to help Hugh. He shouldn’t go through the rest of his life believing a vicious lie. He’s got enough to deal with, don’t you think? His mother killed his wife. He was always the best of us,” Clifford said with feeling. “We’re alive because of Hugh’s sacrifice. It’s time a sacrifice was done for him.”
Dev’s sacrifice.
Of his own morality.
Here he faced the very thing he’d studied in the abstract all these years in his spiritual questing. But what choice did he have really? There were three witnesses who wouldn’t cooperate. The other three witnesses were dead.
He wished these men had not come forward to relieve their burden and pass it on to him, but it was too late to call back the truth.
Dev would write to Fernald. He didn’t trust himself to look the man in the eye and lie.
That was the best he could do.