Comprehensively losing my way, I resolved to follow what seemed the most recently trodden path in the hope that it would bring me to a clearing where I could orientate myself by the sun, the overhead canopy being far too thick for the early spring rays.
Despite the chill beneath the branches, there was a hum of insects: flies. And a sickly smell that spoke of death. Thinking an animal had died in a trap, I dismounted and led Titus very slowly, keeping my eyes peeled, lest he or I be similarly caught.
Alas, the corpse I found was all too human. And it was not caught in a trap. In a dreadful parody of what we had just been celebrating, a man hung on a tree, nailed by his ankles and wrists, a deep gash in his side. But for a loincloth and a crown of thorns, he was naked. Even a local could not have recognised him, for his face was beaten to a pulp. There was a great deal of dried blood.
“You have done well to find your way back here, Tobias,” Dr. Hansard said, trying in his kind way to distract me from the horror we faced. We had brought with us my former groom, Jem, whose new post as village schoolmaster had not rendered him too grand to assist Dr. Hansard whenever there was a need. Now he was carrying what was once an old tabletop, adjusted to carry either the living or the dead in need of the doctor’s skills. For Edmund was developing an extraordinary prowess in examining bodies to help determine the cause of death, a process at which I found myself totally unable to assist.
We had brought a couple of trusted men to assist us in the grisly task of removing the corpse from the tree. Hansard and I placed them under the most solemn oath not to reveal what they had found, but I was sure that by the time we were back in Langley Park, Dr. Hansard’s residence, our activities would be all the way round the two villages and probably others besides.
I was deputed to break the news to Lord Wychbold. A surly butler showed me into a shabby morning room. After near on twenty minutes, Wychbold entered the room, reading my card. “The Reverend Tobias Campion! My idiot of a butler did not tell me a man of the cloth had called! What can he be thinking of, to leave you cooling your heels in here? Pray, come with me to my library, which has the advantage of a fire, and join me in some sherry and biscuits.”
Only when we were seated, one each side of a fitful fire, did I break the news to him.
“A corpse? In my woodland? And in such a state? Dear God, how can that be?”
His face went so grey I wished Edmund had been there to administer restorative drops. But a sip of sherry did much to improve his colour, and he was soon able to speak quite rationally, offering me the help of all his estate workers to search for the evidence so beloved of my friend.
“Dr. Hansard insists that he wants but two or three of your most trusted men,” I said. “And they must work with the utmost discretion — we do not want to frighten away the killer.”
He rang for the surly butler and gave his orders.
“You told Lord Wychwood the method of the corpse’s death?” Edmund expostulated, slapping his glass down so hard the port slopped over the rim. “Dear God, Toby, I took you for a man of discretion. Surely you know the rumours surrounding the old reprobate? That in his youth he was a member of the Hellfire Club, and most assiduous in its vilest practices? Of all the men I can think of, he is the one most likely to have been involved in such a sacrilegious parody!”
Mrs. Hansard laid a calming hand on his arm. When we supped informally, she never retired while we men drank our port, instead sipping a glass of champagne and joining in the conversation. “My dear, even if you had personally sewn Tobias’s lips together, and employed only blind and dumb men to assist you, the news of the man’s death and the manner of it would have reached his lordship before nightfall. At least Tobias was able to observe how he received the news.” Her bright eyes prompted me.
“His colour was poor, his breathing shallow. I feared for his health, and indeed cursed that I had forgotten to take some of your restorative cordial when I went on my errand. But a sip or two of sherry restored him.”
“So he was shocked,” Jem said.
Edmund nodded. “Did you at any point feel that his shock might have its roots in guilt?”
I considered. “I thought he was simply as appalled as any man might be. And I cannot think differently now.”
“Very well. We have,” he continued, “a victim aged between forty and fifty, I would say, strong of build. So whoever overpowered him and killed him must have been even stronger.”
“Who would choose such a dreadful method of execution?”
“An interesting choice of word, Tobias. You would be right, had the victim actually been killed on that tree. But when Jem and I examined the corpse, we came to believe that the man was killed first — that knife thrust into his side. I will spare you and your ticklish stomach the details, my friend,” he said with a laugh. “However, even assuming the man had expired, it would not have been an easy task to lift him and nail him in place.”
“A dead weight,” Jem observed, with a dry smile.
I asked bravely, “How do you know he was dead before he was crucified?”
“Apart from that wound? Well, you may have observed that there was surprisingly little blood from his hands — very well, Maria, I will not ruin an excellent supper by making Tobias cast up his accounts. I will just say this, Tobias — we are sure, Jem and I, that there is a sexual motive to the crime. An element of revenge, I would say.” He looked meaningfully at his wife and said no more.
Mrs. Hansard, however, was a redoubtable woman. “Do you imply that a female avenged herself by stabbing and then mutilating—?”
Jem overrode her. “We are sure a woman was at the heart of the problem. But not as the killer, unless she were an Amazon indeed. Even her jilted or outraged lover would surely have needed assistance.”
She nodded sadly. “So we need to find the betrayed young woman.”
“If only Dr. Coates were here to consult,” I said. “I suppose that in his absence we must refer to the verger.”
Maria smiled enigmatically. “If you and Tobias are going to Clavercote in the chaise, my love, perhaps you will take me as your passenger. An old friend of mine, the widow of a steward at a noble house, has retired there to share her son’s house. I think it is time to pay her a visit.”
The verger at All Saints, a man of few smiles, insisted that he had no forwarding address for Dr. Coates. He was entirely uninformative, in fact. If any villagers had hurriedly quit Clavercote, if any strangers had been in the neighbourhood, he knew not — and seemed to care less. Frustrated, Hansard and I retired to the tiny inn, hunched round-shouldered on the edge of the village. Perhaps the landlord would offer us information as well as ale.
We were just abandoning our attempts to squeeze more than a monosyllable from the sour-faced man, and were waiting for the chaise to be brought round, when a party of riders trotted by. Mine host, forgetting the claims of his existing customers, was all at once full of smiles and forelock-tugging, clearly recognising members of the ton from forty yards’ distance. But it was not his toadying that brought the party to a halt.
One of the riders wheeled his horse and brought it back to where I stood. “Tobias, you whelp — what in Hades are you doing outside a foul drinking-den like this?”