“Excellent thought!” my brother cried, and seized the gown immediately.
“Not at the waist, dear,” Lizzy advised him, “for it should never do to carry coins below the breast. I would survey the bodice itself.”
And there, in an instant, we found what we were seeking — a small pocket of cloth, let into the bodice's lining, quite invisible from the gown's exterior and only large enough to hold a trifle. Mrs. Grey, it seemed, had employed it to conceal a piece of notepaper. Any coins or bills she might have held had long since disappeared.
“Quickly, Neddie,” Lizzy cried, with something closer to animation than I had ever observed in my brother's wife, “spread it out so that we all might see.” The note was dated hurriedly, and rather illegibly, 19 August 1805 — the very date of yesterday's race-meeting.
Ma chere Francoise —
You must know that I am a man run mad. If you do not consent to hear me, I will have but one recourse. Oh, God, that I had never seen your face! The Devil himself may assume just such a form, and move with such wanton grace, and yet remain the very soul of evil. I shall be waiting in my chaise before the final heat is run. A word, a look, will tell me all — my salvation or destruction, equally in your hands.
It was signed Denys Collingforth.
“Good God!” Lizzy ejaculated, and sat down abruptly in a chair. “So it is all a pack of lies! Collingforth did communicate with Mrs. Grey at the race-meeting, and the result was her furtive visit to the chaise. He must have seen her there. They must have spoken. And when she refused to meet his demands, he killed her in a rage!”
“You forget,” I said gently. “We all observed her, large as life, an hour after the visit to Collingforth's chaise.”
“What is that?” Lizzy snapped her fingers dismissively. “The scoundrel merely awaited her departure, and pursued her along the Wingham road. We have divined it all an age ago — we merely lacked sufficient proofs. The cowardly rogue, to discover her corpse himself, and protest an innocence that must be the grossest falsehood!”
“But why divest the lady of her habit?” Henry persisted. “I cannot find the sense of it. Did he suspect her to retain the tell-tale note, he might merely have searched the body for it. Depriving Mrs. Grey of her clothing, without destroying the letter, can have served him nothing.”
“Perhaps he could not conceive of the cunning bodice pocket, and in his haste, merely disposed of the clothing as a surety,” I suggested.
We were silent a moment in contemplation.
“I cannot like it,” Neddie declared, and commenced to turn before the library's windows. “As my dear Lizzy has said, the note must strike at the very heart of motive. Whether he speaks of unrequited love — or unforgiven debt — Collingforth betrays an ungovernable passion; and the violence of his feeling might well have ended in murder.”
“You must expose him to the coroner, I suppose?” Lizzy enquired faintly.
“I have no choice.”
“But you will inform Mr. Collingforth of your discovery before tomorrow's inquest,” I said. “Common decency would urge such a small consideration. He must be afforded a chance to explain himself.”
Neddie did not immediately reply, but stood in a sombre attitude before the open windows. No breeze stirred the dark hair that fell artlessly across his brow; and if he perceived a little of the twilight scene beyond the glass, it was not reflected in the blankness of his gaze. Heavy thought, and warring duties, and the weight of care sat hard upon my brother's countenance. Then at last he wheeled and crossed to his wife.
“I fear, my dear, that regardless of the hour I must ride out to Prior's Farm, and destroy Collingforth's complaisance entirely. It is too grave and too ugly a business, to await the inquest in the morning.” He kissed her hand and looked to Henry. “Will you ride with me, brother? I cannot like the Kentish roads at present. Between the unknown murderer and the French invader, a man might find his death in any number of ways.”
“I should ride with you in any case,” Henry retorted, “as you very well know. But I wonder, Neddie, where you think to find Mr. Collingforth. As I intimated at dinner, he is believed to have fled.”
“We must begin at Prior's Farm, and follow where the trail might lead. Do not sit up in expectation of our return,” Neddie called to his wife, “for we shall be very late upon the road.”
Wednesday
21 August 1805
WE DID NOT SIT UP IN EXPECTATION OF MY BROTHERS' return, but tho' I followed the mistress of Godmersham to bed in an hour's time, neither could I sleep. The unhealthy excitement of the past two days quite robbed me of tranquillity, and so I took up my pen and the little book of unlined paper I keep always about me, and set down this account of the day. My candle-flame barely flickered in the torpid air, and but for the scratch of the nib in the breathless room, the great house was unnaturally quiet. I had not doused the light a half-hour, however, before the hallooing of the porter at the gate, and the clatter of horses' hooves on the sweep, announced the gentlemen's return.
I hoped for a full account this morning, but was most tediously put off — for when I sought the breakfast-parlour at ten o'clock, I found only Lizzy in possession, and a very cross Lizzy, indeed.
“Your brothers are already gone, Jane,” she said over her teacup, “for the inquest is to be at noon, and Neddie would search the hedgerows with that detestable man Pyke, before he might face the coroner with something like self-possession.”
“Then let us hope that Pyke has consulted his lad,” I returned, “that Neddie's efforts might end in something.”
“You do think of everything, Jane.” Lizzy set down her cup and dusted her fingertips for crumbs. “I am sure that Neddie should be lost without you and Henry to give him spur. I required him to return to the house before venturing into Canterbury, by the by, in the event you wished to accompany him….”
Lizzy's natural delicacy prevented her from adding the words, “… since you have made such a habit of inquests of late, “and I mentally praised the excellent breeding of baronets' daughters. I settled myself into a chair.
“Tea, Daisy, I think — and perhaps some toast.”
“Very good, miss.” The housemaid bobbed vaguely in my direction, and quitted the room with obvious reluctance. I leaned conspiratorially towards Lizzy.
“What of Collingforth and the interesting note?”
“I could get nothing from your brother — except that Collingforth was not to be found at Prior's Farm, and his wife has not seen him since Monday e'en. Neddie says that she was quite distracted, and fainted twice in a quarter-hour.”
“Did they show her the unfortunate note?”
“Why else should she faint?”
“I suppose we must conclude the hand to be Collingforth's, then. And Mr. Everett?”
“—was naturally your brother's next resort. But when Neddie arrived quite late at the Hound and Tooth, it was to be greeted with the intelligence that Mr. Everett had settled his bill some hours since, and had quitted the place entirely.”
“Then it is as Henry feared. Collingforth and Everett have fled in terror of the Law.”