The men talked for a while longer, speculating about Wells and Oates and where they had gone. Both Lenox, who had seen it in his eyes, and Frederick, who had heard it from his mouth, also returned to Oates’s regret at involving himself in the plot.
There was a knock at the door. It was Nash. “Dr. Eastwood, sir,” he announced.
“Show him in,” said Frederick.
It was Eastwood whom Frederick had insisted he see for the wound upon his head, inflicted by Wells a few miles outside of Plumbley with the butt of a revolver Oates had brought. It was also Wells who had shot Chalmers in cold blood; Oates hadn’t known it was part of the plan.
On the other hand it was Oates himself who had killed Weston. Sobbing, in the carriage, he had told Frederick the terrible details, while his accomplice stared impassively on. There was no McCutcheon.
In his surgery Eastwood had pronounced Frederick wounded, but not dangerously. Now the squire sat quite comfortably with his wine; it was difficult to tell whether this ordeal of the past week had made him look older or younger. A bit of both, perhaps. Physically he was down to his last ounces of energy. At the same time he looked as if he had discovered within himself a new fortitude.
After wrapping Frederick’s head Eastwood had borrowed a horse from the stables — the now badly depleted stables, which only had an old cart horse left, Sadie and one of the two gray mares being up-country — and ridden to West Buckland, to look after Chalmers. Now he was back. He accepted a scotch and soda.
“Well?” asked Lenox. “Any news?”
Eastwood, his handsome face graven with concern, said, “It is touch and go whether he shall survive. If he does it is because of your veterinarian, Mr. Lenox. That young man took excellent care of Chalmers. In return for the favor had an earful from the drunken doctor next door, Morris-McCarthy, about infringement upon his practice. I told them both a specialist in Harley Street could scarcely have improved on the job the veterinarian did, Jacklin was his name.”
“What is your instinct?” said Freddie. “Will Chalmers survive?”
“I have not seen many gunshot cases, but I would say that his chances are fair. It all depends upon infection.”
“Would it help to call doctors from London? Specialists, I mean, from Harley Street, as you say — I know that your education in general medicine is second to none,” said Frederick.
“No. It is as straightforward a wound as I ever saw, no organs hit, thank Christ, three ribs broken from the impact, and the ball itself came straight out under Jacklin’s knife. Now we can only wait.”
“He has not spoken?” said Lenox.
“Not yet.”
“Can he return to Everley for his recuperation?” asked Freddie.
“No. He shouldn’t be moved.”
Frederick acquiesced to this with a nod. Then he stood, though the doctor motioned him to sit. “Shake my hand — you have behaved damned handsomely today, Eastwood, patching me up and going to Buckland. In Plumbley we do not consider you much more than a passing visitor until you’ve been here a few decades, but I think I may say that you are as true a Plum as I ever knew.”
Eastwood, like many men of reserved manners, took a compliment with unusual pleasure, flushing and declining and accepting all that Freddie had said. They shook hands. “And now I should go,” he said.
“Nonsense,” said Frederick. “My nephew will pour you another scotch and soda. You are as deeply involved in this horrible matter as any of us are. Charles, the doctor’s drink?”
Eastwood declined. “I have patients waiting still,” he said. “Please excuse me, gentlemen.”
When he was gone Frederick looked after him. “I wish he had a wife to go home to, you know.”
Supper had been cancelled — neither the squire nor Lenox feeling much like a social occasion — and so as they sat on, discussing Oates and Wells, Nash brought in plates of toasted cheese and cold chicken.
To his surprise Lenox found that he was famished, though he had eaten a quick bite when he first returned to Everley. It was the hardest exercise he had done in some time, riding as he had across half of Somerset. Thank goodness the Wild Bear had let them a coach to return to Everley in, and one with four horses, too, fast enough to cut the travel time in half.
Much of their conversation still revolved, unsurprisingly, around Oates. Apparently he had been half-drunk when Frederick had come to the police station, and as soon as he had handed the revolver from his cloak to Wells, he had taken his flask out and begun to drain it, all the while telling in great jags what he had done, and constantly asking Frederick for forgiveness. Wells had been happy to let Oates speak, even chiming in now and then with a detail.
“It was that which convinced me they didn’t mean to let me live. A full confession to a magistrate — I believed they didn’t care because I would be a corpse soon anyhow.”
Dallington grimaced. “I can scarcely imagine a worse sensation.”
Frederick’s face was steely. “It shows a man what he wants from life, believing he will die.”
“What did Oates tell you, then?”
“Just what I have told you — that it was he, not Wells, who treated with the men from Bath, and it was he, not Wells, who killed Weston. It broke his heart, I think. Anyhow he seemed barely a man.”
“Nothing else of material interest?” asked Lenox.
“Oh — that he planted the knife at Musgrave’s, too.”
“Of course.”
“That was where he dished himself,” said Dallington. “He’d have been better off washing it and putting it back in his drawer.”
“It might still have been matched to Weston’s wounds, however,” said Lenox.
“Throwing it into the woods, then.”
“It was foolish, but one can imagine his reasoning. Musgrave was already suspected in Plumbley, and indeed made himself the prime suspect by fleeing the village altogether. The knife must have seemed like the final clue that would decide me — all of us — against Musgrave.”
“I have a question. If Wells wanted Carmody to tell us about the horses, why did Oates pass him over?” asked Dallington.
Lenox shrugged, but Frederick knew. “They hadn’t had time to speak yet. Wells mentioned that. Said he would have told Oates to bring Carmody to you later that day.”
They talked for an hour more, perhaps two, smoothing over all the details of the case to their satisfaction, until it clicked together like a puzzle in all of their minds.
By now it was getting late. The wind whistled outside, the rain tapped the windows: It was a good night for a heavy sleep. “I suppose I had better retire,” said Lenox at last. “Certainly you should, Uncle Freddie.”
“Oh, I don’t need as much sleep these days, and my head hardly smarts at all. John, will you sit up with me for another glass of hot wine? I wouldn’t mind something else to eat, either.”
They were the kindest and least reserved words the squire had spoken directly to the young lord, who smiled — he loved to be liked, and hated to have a bad reputation, though he always seemed to acquire one anyhow. Still, here was a chance; perhaps his ignominious arrival at Everley could be forgotten. “With great pleasure,” he said. “It was the finest toasted cheese I’ve ever had.”
“Mustard is the key,” said Frederick as if revealing one of the secrets of the ages.
Lenox looked at him fondly and then rose. “I shall leave you to it. Good night, gentlemen.”
Just as he reached the door, however, the butler appeared again.
“Nash?” said Freddie.
“It is a telegram, sir. For you and Mr. Lenox.”