So much is certain.
But, Eliza, this has brought me to a shocking conclusion. You see, after most exhaustive enquiries among the servants – and I might add that there is a veritable army of men employed here in maintaining that exquisite order that Sir Edgar demands in his park and pleasure grounds – none of these men are able to recall seeing a stranger here during that time. So, you see, it seems most likely – though I find this hard to countenance, and nobody else in the household will even acknowledge it to be possible – that it was a man from the house who did the terrible deed. Of course there are the beaters and the servants to consider; but they would have had no weapon. Eliza, it was only the gentlemen who were carrying guns.
It is a shocking conclusion, is it not? But I think it must be braved. What was it that Edward used to say when he was preparing for his debates at Cambridge? ‘Logic is a matter for the head and it is best not to let the heart have anything to do with it.’
And I sincerely hope that Edward would have approved of the logic I applied yesterday in my study of the shrubbery.
After I had closed the door of the hermitage, I followed the gravel path beside its wall. This brought me to the edge of the shrubbery and the ha-ha that divides it from the park. I stopped here and looked about me.
The first thing I noticed was that it would indeed have been impossible for the woman to have been killed by a shot fired from the park side of the ha-ha because the summerhouse itself stands in the way. The fatal shot must have been fired from within the shrubbery.
But, as I looked across into the park, I also saw that the little wooded hill known as Cooper’s Spinney, which is the place where the gentlemen were shooting that day, begins barely two hundred yards away.
Here the parkland ends with a romantic little Greek ruin, which, it seems, Sir Edgar built last summer. It is rather pretty with its white, fresh-looking walls and fallen columns, though it probably has as much of Greece about it as the stable block; for Sir Edgar has never visited Europe, since England has, as I heard him telling the colonel at dinner yesterday, ‘always been enough’ for him. Anyway, this ruin marks the end of the parkland and beyond it is the rougher ground where the game birds thrive.
Now, looking at the spinney, I thought that one of the men might, just possibly, have been able to slip away while the guns and the beaters were all intent upon the sport and, if luck was with him, his absence might not have been noted. I looked carefully at the distance between the spinney and the shrubbery and I am sure that a man running could have covered the ground in a minute – or maybe two.
And could he have crossed the ha-ha?
Well, yes, I think that he might. It is formed of only a moderate ditch – just deep enough to prevent the fence it contains from interrupting the view from the pleasure grounds – and the fence itself is not high. It does not need to be, for Sir Edgar’s park has no deer in it to come marauding in the gardens; there are only sheep and cattle, neither of which are remarkable for their prowess in jumping. Yes, I think a man in shooting dress might scramble down into the ditch and climb the fence without too much difficulty.
In fact, I can say more than that, Eliza. I can say that I am almost sure that someone did just that.
You see, I went and stood beside the ha-ha at the point nearest the hermitage. The point at which it would have been most convenient to cross. And there, sure enough, in the soft mud of the bank, were furrows gouged as if by the skidding heels of boots. And there were marks on the other side too coming down from the park. Someone had crossed there – recently.
So, the question filling my head now is: were all the men of the house out that day? Must they all be equally under suspicion? I must ask Catherine about it.
Which reminds me that I have promised to go with Catherine upon her morning calls; I am to meet her in the morning room at eleven o’clock and it is already just a quarter before the hour. I cannot write much more, but there are yet one or two points that I wish to mention.
First, there is this, rather happier, thought: whoever else might have been a member of that shooting party, Mr Montague was certainly not in it, because he had left Belsfield two days before. So he cannot have been the man who crossed the ha-ha with a gun in his hands, can he?
He cannot have been here on that day…
I have been thinking it over carefully. My information on this matter all comes from dear Mrs Harris and I am almost certain that she said the gatekeeper had been questioned very particularly and that she had said she admitted no strangers that day. A suspicion arises in my mind – this solving of mysteries is very apt to make one suspicious. Is it possible that, either by chance or design, the gatekeeper omitted to mention admitting Mr Montague because he was not a stranger?
I must make my own enquiries about that too.
And now the clock has struck the hour and Catherine will be becoming very impatient; but there is one more thing that I must tell you before I close and it concerns Colonel Walborough.
He is a very strange man. He is large and corpulent and has what I make no doubt our mother would have called a ‘bilious look’. Moreover, he has very large, flat feet and walking does not seem to be easy for him – though I suppose he must be rather more nimble on horseback or he would never have won the high reputation that he has in his profession.
Well, as I was returning from the shrubbery yesterday, I saw a very strange sight. I had just crossed the lawns and come onto the drive in front of the house at a place where it is bounded on either side by a succession of large, high yew bushes. I was amazed to see Colonel Walborough making his way along the drive and, as he passed each bush, peering around it – and into it.
He looked so strange, Eliza! He was perspiring with the effort and he looked rather as a man does at a ball when he has been, by the tyranny of good manners, trapped into a dance against his will.
‘Are you looking for something, Colonel?’ I asked.
‘Ah!’ He came to a standstill on the gravel. ‘Good morning, Miss…er, yes, good morning to ’ee.’
‘Can I help you?’ I said. ‘Have you perhaps lost something?’
‘Oh, no. No, I thank ’ee, but no.’
The colonel, I should say, has a rather strange way of speaking, which it is difficult to do justice to on paper; it is rather like a gallant young fellow of fifty years ago. It suggests to me that he has perhaps not always lived in the best society and has learnt his manners by reading the wrong sort of novels.
He smiled at me and gave an exaggerated bow. ‘I was just looking for that boy,’ he said, ‘that footman. The young one, you know.’
‘Jack?’ I said. ‘I believe all the footmen are in the butler’s pantry cleaning silver at this time in the morning.’
‘Ah, good. Thank ’ee.’
I must have looked as puzzled as I felt because after a moment he added, as if in explanation, ‘Logs. Logs you know, Miss…er…’