“My father has friends in many of the embassies in Europe,” I said. “If anyone could run the man to earth, it is he. Thank you, Edmund, I am much more comfortable now.”
“You lie, of course,” he said cheerfully. “The pain may get worse before it gets better. But there is good news. Titus found his way back to his stable, safe and sound. And now I am off to Clavercote to see how my other patients do.”
Soon I was able to sit in a sunny corner of the Hansards’ terrace, absorbing the healing rays of a suddenly benign sun, which greened the hitherto joyless browns of the fields and promised a future of plenty — at least to those who still had unenclosed land to farm. Edmund wanted me to rest. But I insisted I needed to make three journeys — to my own dear church and to All Saints, to take divine service in each, and then to Ewen Court, to pay my respects to my father and thank him for his endeavours on my behalf.
Once again he surprised me by not asking for the latest news of our investigations.
“These strange potions this quack friend of yours insists I drink — will they kill me, do you think?” he demanded the moment I entered his chamber.
“If they are herbal remedies, based on the folklore round here, then you should obey to the letter his instructions,” I said cautiously. “Just because they are derived from innocent-looking flowers does not mean that they are harmless. But — in the quantities he recommends — are they doing you good?”
He surveyed his foot balefully. “He says himself he doesn’t know if it’s the plain regimen he insists I follow or the tinctures that are doing me good. Seems a decent enough fellow, Tobias.”
“He is. He has the most charming wife, too, possessed of true elegance of mind and person.”
“You are telling me this because there’s something you don’t want me to know,” he growled, looking at me from under his eyebrows. “Admit it!”
“I do indeed,” I said, not knowing whether to be pleased by this sudden allusion to the way he had always dealt with my childhood peccadilloes. “But it is not my secret I would betray if I told it.”
“Oh, everyone’s told me he married his doxy of a housekeeper—”
“Then everyone has misled you, sir. He married a lady who was someone else’s housekeeper — and was far more intelligent and learned than those who employed her. Indeed, it is she who introduced Edmund to many of the simple remedies he now employs. When you do me the honour of dining at the rectory, sir,” I pressed on bravely, “you will have the chance to meet them — for I would not invite the one without the other. And if Mama happened to be of the party, I would say no different.”
He looked suddenly furtive. “Your mother must know nothing of this, do you hear?” He pointed at his foot. “Or I shall never again have peace in my own home.”
We exchanged a smile: This was the first time we had ever entered such a conspiracy together.
Edmund’s other patients continued to do well. In due course, I was able to church the mother, having must needs baptised her first, Dr. Coates never having formally welcomed her into the church. Edmund and Maria sponsored her, Edmund regarding with covert concern the two frail men, her father and father-in-law, who accompanied her and her husband to the font. One was detailed to hold the lusty babe, who had had a much less formal baptism, but Maria soon seized him, for safety’s sake as much as anything else.
After the ceremony, the two old men hung back. And for the most solemn reason. They wanted to confess to Edmund and me that they had committed the vile murder and crucifixion. Along with horror, my first impulse was to laugh. How could these two living skeletons have overpowered such a powerful specimen? They insisted that they had acted in concert, to kill a vagrant who had in some unspecified way insulted them. Despite our questioning, they would say no more. So, in his capacity as justice of the peace, Edmund was bound to have them confined in the local lockup, a poor affair of but three pitiful rooms — two cells and the jailer’s office.
Justice soon took its course. They were found guilty after the most perfunctory of trials and condemned to death within the week. Privately, Edmund doubted whether the elder would survive to take his punishment.
Since the lockup could not provide the men with more than the most rudimentary sustenance, I was permitted to take food with me when I visited them each day to preach the Gospel and assure them of the forgiveness of sins.
I was not the only visitor, nor the only provider of food. On their last day, several of the womenfolk of the village came to say their farewells, bearing pies and a cake, so small the jailer made a sad jest about it not being big enough to contain a file.
So tender were their final embraces I could scarce forbear to weep. At last we all wended our way home; only Edmund and I could promise to be there to accompany them on their final earthly journey.
“Dead!” I had repeated, staggering back as the jailer broke the astonishing news. “What? Both dead?”
He had nodded, equally amazed. “You may see for yourself, Mr. Campion. There they lie, with as sweet smiles on their faces as if they had never done the dreadful deed for which they stood condemned.”
“But which, I am as sure as I am sitting beside you in this chaise, Tobias,” Edmund confided, as we returned to Langley Park, “they did not commit. When I anatomise them — and I promised it would be me and no other, remember — I am sure I will find signs of mortal illness in both. They were dying, Tobias, and knew it. They confessed — mark my words — to protect someone else.”
“But surely it is more than coincidence that they both died the night before they were to be hanged!”
“No coincidence at all. I can only surmise what was in those pies and cakes. And surmise, too, who put it in. There must have been half a dozen women bidding them goodbye, and others outside the jail. How can we bring them all to justice? Or any of them? Now, I intended to call on your father, while we are so close to Ewen Court: Will you accompany me?”
“This Reverend Dr. Nathaniel Coates of yours,” my father greeted us, “has not presented himself at any of our embassies in Europe, nor is he known by reputation. I tell you straight, gentlemen, there’s something havey-cavey about this vicar of yours. As Lord Wychbold here avers.”
The aged earl had ridden over to greet Lord Ewen and his guest and now sat with my father, an old political ally.
“I fear that in my youth I did great wrong, gentlemen,” he said. “But I repented and changed my ways. So imagine how I felt when none other than a man of the cloth invited me to join him in the most nefarious debauchery. It is my opinion and that of Hartland, here, that Dr. Coates never fulfilled his aim of escaping to the Continent. The wronged villagers must have got wind of his plans and decided to make his journey from this place his last.”
I frowned. “Surely they would do so secretly? And dispose of his body where it might never have been found?”
“Who knows what anger his regular betrayals of village maidens — aye, and some young men too! — may have caused? Anger that drives the perpetrator beyond common sense. Anger that wished you dead, Mr. Campion. Anger that quailed in the face of your kindness to sick strangers when you were so ill yourself.”