Webb smiled. “Yes, he would be proud. And though I look like him, I am not half the man. He would have found it in his heart to understand.”
Maisie allowed a few seconds to pass. “How did you know the Reverend Staples had the violin?”
“Stroke of luck, it was, going to the vicar’s house with Beulah, selling flowers. When he opened the door I saw it there, lying on a table. So I went back later and took what was rightly mine. I remembered some things from Sandermere, such as how to break into a house or just walk in while the doors to the garden were open.”
“And what will you do now, Webb?”
He looked again toward the waste ground that was once his home. “We’ll bury Beulah, do what we have to do with her vardo, her belongings, and then we’ll go.” He turned to Maisie. “Will you come? To her funeral, and to the afterwards?”
She nodded and said she would go, though she did not reveal how much she dreaded the afterwards.
After bidding Webb farewell and returning to her room, Maisie leaned back in her chair and looked out into the blackness. A faint light rose up from the kitchen below, and she could hear the bubbling of talk in the public bar. She knew that Webb would not rest until he had received some acknowledgment from the villagers, and she understood that secrets long buried were not easily brought to the surface. She would try to see Sandermere tomorrow, but first she would visit the Reverend Staples.
She stood up and reached out to close the window against the unrelenting howl of the dead gypsy’s lurcher. We’ll do what we have to do with her vardo. She wondered if she could bear to witness the ritual.
AS MAISIE LEFT the village next morning, bound for Hawkhurst, she passed two police Invicta motor cars traveling in the direction of the Sandermere estate. Clearly James had made his report. She wondered what tack they would take. Would Sandermere be summoned from his room for questioning, or would there be a softly-softly approach, with the police claiming they were acting on a tip-off, perhaps, and knew where the silver was hidden? How would they link Sandermere, except by accusation? His fingerprints would be expected to be on such items as were hidden in the horse’s stall, which led her to believe that they would question him until he confessed, wearing him down with suppositions that would eventually prove to be true.
She paid little attention to the surrounding countryside today, wanting only to complete her confrontation with the retired former vicar of Heronsdene parish church, and arrived at Easter Cottage in time to see Mrs. Staples leave the house with a large basket, then continue walking toward the houses on the other side of the green. There would be no phantom telephone calls today. Parking along the street, Maisie locked the MG, walked back to the cottage, and rang the bell.
“Miss Dobbs, what a surprise.” The vicar seemed flustered, holding a copy of The Times which he began to fold and fold again as he spoke to her. He was wearing exactly the same garb as at their previous meeting and seemed crumpled and uncomfortable at having his morning disturbed, especially by a woman who doubtless would broach a subject he would rather not dwell upon.
“Good morning, Reverend Staples. I was just passing and thought I would drop in to see you. I have some information you might find interesting.”
“Do come in.” He led the way to the study. “Please, be seated.” He waved the newspaper toward a chair and sat down when Maisie was settled. He leaned back, placed the newspaper in the wastepaper bin, and, as if trying to find a comfortable position in which to brook an unwelcome conversation, he leaned forward, resting his elbow on the desk. Finally, he sat up with his arms folded in front of his ecclesiastical cross. “Now then, what’s all this about?”
Maisie smiled, confident in her composure. She was used to being lied to, but not by a religious man.
“I had cause to travel up to London this week and by chance was close to Denmark Street, so I popped in to see Mr. Andersen—Senior, that is—the luthier to whom Jacob Martin always took his precious and very valuable Cuypers violin to be tuned and generally reconditioned.”
The vicar frowned. “Cuypers? Precious? You must be mistaken. And valuable? I doubt it.”
“The luthier, whom I believe to be something of an expert, said the violin was one of the most beautiful he had ever seen and that Jacob was an accomplished musician.”
“Well, I never.” The vicar shrugged.
“Reverend Staples, please do not be vague. I believe you know perfectly well why I am here. There is nothing I can do now regarding your crime—for what you have done constitutes looting and is thus a criminal act—but I can at least be an advocate for the dead and tell you that I know what you did.”
“I don’t know what you mean!”
“Yes, you do. Jacob Martin—and you knew that the family’s real name was van Maarten—told you he had taken the violin to London, to his friend Mr. Andersen, in Denmark Street. After the tragedy, indeed, after you received the telegram with news that Willem, Pim, was presumed dead, you went to London to claim the violin, saying nothing to Mr. Andersen of what had happened, only that Jacob had asked you to collect his property. Weren’t you afraid he might ask what you intended to do with the instrument? Or that he might know a relative with a claim to it?”
“I—it wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, I think it was, Reverend Staples. And, as I said, what you did amounted to looting, which is beneath your calling.”
“But it would have languished there; it would have not been played. It was a beautiful thing, a work of art.”
“And it didn’t belong to you. It was meant to be passed on, father to son.”
“But the son was dead.”
“As far as you knew, he was missing.”
“But he—” The man stopped speaking and looked at Maisie, his eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to say?”
“Before I try to say anything, I have one question for you.”
“And that is?”
“Why didn’t you stop it? A man of the cloth could have put a stop to what went on in Heronsdene.”
“But I—”
Maisie inclined her head, watching the white pallor of fear rise up on the vicar’s face. “Your expression has told me all I need to know.”
“You don’t know what it was like. The chaos, the fear, the terror.”
“But aren’t you supposed to walk up to that chaos and challenge it, Reverend Staples? Isn’t that what you are called to do, rather than be part of it?”
The man leaned forward, his shoulders slumped. Then he looked up and sighed deeply. “The violin was stolen from me anyway, so what does it all matter now? It’s in the past.”
“You retired several years ago, didn’t you?” She did not allow him to reply, but continued. “I suspect because you could not stand another hop-picking season and the fires that came with it. You probably thought you were being haunted, didn’t you? Haunted by the ghost of a young man who had lost his entire family in one night. Haunted by the young man who might one day come for the violin that was rightly his.”
There was silence. Then the Reverend Staples spoke again. “You are right, Miss Dobbs. I am haunted, and I will bear that cross for the rest of my life.”
Maisie stood up. “You may wonder why I came today, to tell you what I have discovered when there is nothing I can do about it. I came because I wanted you to know that someone else knows what you have been part of, and that you had taken property from the dead before you even buried their remains. You should have been the moral anchor of the village, not of the hue and cry.”
Maisie bid the vicar good day without further ado and left Hawkhurst to return to Heronsdene, where she intended to pack her bags and make her way to her father’s house before going on to London the next day. It was unlikely that she would be able to see Sandermere this afternoon, given the police presence she had witnessed as she left the village this morning. She was looking forward to getting home now, to the city with its self-important bustle. If she were to remain faithful to her practice of ensuring that all ends of a case were tied before leaving, she would have to admit that there was more to do, but James Compton had not required her to bring all the guilty to account. He had asked her only to find out what was amiss in the village, and she knew more than enough to make her report. Yet such considerations did not sit easy with her, and she hoped, even now, that she might find a way to usher her work to a more fulfilling close.