“Yer honour!”
A spare, bandy-legged fellow pushed past the footman and sprang lightly into the dining-parlour. “I've come fer yer gold sovereign, and I won't take no paper fer it, neither!”
A length of soiled cloth unfurled from his hands, its gold frogging glinting in the candlelight. Lizzy gasped, and Neddie started to his feet.
Mrs. Grey's scarlet riding habit.
Chapter 6
What the Habit Revealed
20 August 1805, cont'd.
NEDDIE MOVED TO THE CONSTABLE'S SIDE AND TOOK THE gown from his hands. He whistled softly under his breath. “What is your name, my good sir?”
“Jacob Pyke, yer honour, and a Kentish man from four generations.”
“Then I must assume you are familiar with the country, Mr. Pyke.”
“I knows it as well as me own wife's arse, sir.”
A choking sound from Lizzy, hastily covered by a cough.
“Mr. Pyke!” Neddie said sharply. “There are ladies present.”
The constable scraped a bow, and leered all around. “Beggin' yer pardon, and I meant no harm, I'm sure, it being a common enough saying.”
“And where did you discover this, Constable?”
The man's eyes shifted from my brother's face, and he began to worry the cap he now held in his hands. “In a hedgerow, yer honour, along the Wingham road a ways. 'Twas rolled in a piece of sacking, and thrust well back under the brush, so's not to be seen, like.”
“Then how did you happen to discover it, Mr. Pyke?”
An expression of astonished innocence, so false as to cry foul, suffused the man's countenance. “Why — I were told to look for it, yer honour, same's every man jack in Kent. Poking about the leaves and such-like I were, with a long stick, and I comes to a largish lump what don't push back. 'Ho, ho,' I says to myself, 'that there lump ain't a branch nor a bramble no more'n my hand. That be a lady's gown, that be.' And I had it out on the end of the stick.”
“I see.” Neddie sounded amused. “I commend your dedication to duty, Mr. Pyke. And the sacking?”
“Yer honour never said nothing 'bout wanting no sacking,” Pyke countered belligerendy. “It weren't in my orders, and I can't be held accountable. Besides — the lad wanted it fer a remembrance, like.”
“The lad?”
Mr. Pyke took a step backwards, and looked about him wildly. “Just a lad,” he said, “of no account howsomever. He happened to be passing when I unrolled the gown, and begged for the sacking to show his mates.” Betrayal was in every line of Constable Pyke's frame, and I surmised that the unfortunate lad — whatever his identity— had found the riding habit while larking in the hedgerow, and had turned it over to the first constable who came in his way. A finer sense of honour had animated the boy than should ever compel his elders; but presumably he had thought the sacking a sensational item enough— knowing nothing of Neddie's gold sovereign.
My brother sighed, and studied the man before him closely. “I should like to see this place,” he said, “where you found the riding habit.”
“Don't know as I could find it again, yer honour,” the constable protested. “It's nobbit a bit of hedgerow, same's any other.”
“I should like you to be waiting along the Wingham road tomorrow morning, all the same,” Neddie advised, “in expectation of my appearance. We shall go over the ground as closely as may be. And now, Mr. Pyke, pray be so good as to return to the kitchen. You shall have your gold sovereign, and some supper for your pains.”
The man looked all his relief at Neddie's words, and bobbed a salute as he disappeared into the passage. My brother hastened to his library, where he kept his strongbox; and the exchange concluded, we heard no more of Mr. Pyke.
“Henry and I shall forgo the Port this evening, I think,” Neddie said as he reappeared, “and beg you to join us immediately in the library. We must learn what the habit may tell us.”
THE HABIT'S SECRETS, AT FIRST RECKONING, WERE Disappointingly few. Not so much as a drop of rusty brown stained the scarlet, that might suggest the spilling of blood — but as Mrs. Grey had been strangled with her own hair-ribbon, this was not to be expected.
We spread the gown on one of the library's long tables, and made a thorough examination of its folds. It was much creased, but hardly dirty, excepting the dust at the hem that must always accompany a foray out-of-doors; and perhaps some splashes of mud acquired in the lady's enthusiasm for the mounted chase. No tears or rents did we find, that might suggest a violence in the removal, other than a space at the back where one gold button was missing.
“Strange,” Neddie muttered. “The button is found in Collingforth's chaise, but the garment from whence it came is left lying in a hedgerow. Was Mrs. Grey stripped of her clothes in the chaise itself, and the gown thrown aside later on the Wingham road?”
“That does not seem very likely,” Lizzy replied. “I must believe we refine too much upon the gold button. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Grey's brutal end — she might have lost it in a trifling way, when Jane and I observed her to enter the chaise well before the final heat.”
“Very true,” Neddie said thoughtfully, “but it must rob my observation entirely of its honour, my dear!”
“One thing is certain,” I added. “Mrs. Grey cannot have removed the habit herself. Such a quantity of buttons running from neck to waist should require the offices of a maid — or an intimate friend.”
“We must assume, then, that she received assistance,” Neddie said briskly, “—and that she knew whoever killed her.”
“But why remove the gown at all?”
I stared at Henry wordlessly. “I am all astonishment that a man such as yourself — a Sporting Gentleman, and a man of the world — requires the explication of a spinster. Having heard a little of Mrs. Grey's reputation, surely you may form an idea of the circumstances.”
My unfortunate brother opened his mouth, blushed red, and averted his gaze, to my profound amusement.
“As to that — I believe I shall await the coroner's report as to the state of the body,” he replied. “But you mistake my meaning, Jane. I am perfectly well aware that a riding habit may prove an impediment to certain types of sport, and it is possible that Mrs. Grey divested herself of the garment with exactly the intention you suspect. But why remove the habit from the scene of the corpse's discovery? Why not leave it where the body was found? — If, indeed, the lady was even killed in Collingforth's chaise. And if she was not… how should her murderer transport a corpse, dressed only in a shift, under the eyes of all Canterbury?”
I had asked myself a similar question only yesterday. “I had believed the point was moot. We must assume that the murderer shifted the chaise — either to intercept Mrs. Grey on the Wingham road, or to transport her cooling body.”
“Pretty tho the plan may be, dear Jane, it cannot explain the disposal of the habit. Why should the murderer bother to thrust the thing under a hedgerow, if it bears no sign against himself?”
“Then let us dispute the matter less,” Neddie broke in, “and examine the habit more.”
He fetched his quizzing glass from the desk, and pored over the scarlet stuff. Lizzy ran her fingers thoughtfully along the hems, as tho' calculating the cost of its gold frogging, while Henry began to count the trail of buttons rather hurriedly under his breath. I merely stood by and surveyed their endeavours with a bemused expression. At length Neddie perceived my inactivity, and looked up.
“Yes, Jane?”
“It is the custom for ladies who ride, as you know, to carry nothing on their persons, not even a reticule. Their hands must necessarily be reserved for the control of the reins. And yet Mrs. Grey, travelling alone yesterday as she did, must have carried some provision about her. There are no pockets let into the seams of this gown; therefore I suggest you look for one concealed in the interior — perhaps within the lining.”