Lizzy nodded expressionlessly. “I confess your poor brother has taken it quite to heart. He feels himself to be excessively to blame, and utterly in neglect of his duty— however little any of us should tell him so.”
“You may be certain that Mr. Grey will not be so forbearing.”
“This flight cannot help Collingforth's chances before the coroner and his panel,” Lizzy added.
The passage door swung open, and Daisy's young face appeared over a tray of tea and toast. I accepted it gratefully, and poured out a cup.
“It must look like an admission of guilt,” I agreed. “But I wonder—”
“You cannot believe him innocent, Jane!”
“A wider experience of the world has taught me, Lizzy, that I am capable of believing any number of things. Denys Collingforth might be a murderer, it is true — or he may be merely a man pushed past endurance, by an unhappy congruence of circumstances. Ruined by debt, and now suspected of murder — what desperate fellow, unsure of his chances, might not resort to flight?”
Lizzy considered this in silence, while I consumed a quantity of toast. Godmersham's stillroom was evident upon the table, in an admirable preserve of quince, that I knew I should long for in the relative deprivation of a Bath winter.
“I suppose anyone might have murdered the woman, and placed the note in her bodice,” Lizzy observed at last.
“But the handwriting?”
My sister shrugged. “Let us suppose that Collingforth sent the letter after all — that he sent it well before the events of Monday, and the note survived in Mrs. Grey's correspondence.”
“But Monday's date is inscribed above.”
“It is a small thing to forge a date, Jane — hardly of the same order as the forgery of an entire note.”
“Very true. I confess, Lizzy, that I had no notion you possessed so cunning a mind. You display a decided talent for subterfuge, and were Neddie aware of it, he should never trust you farther from home than Chilham.”
“I have spent the better part of my existence in deceiving my friends,” she returned with complaisance, “and if you betray me to the world, Jane, I shall deny you the freedom of Godmersham forever.”
“Your secret is safe with me. But there is one point on which I should like your opinion. A note of Collingforth's, placed to advantage and quite out of context, should serve, like the body in the chaise, to throw suspicion far from the actual murderer. But why conceal the note in the habit? Why not leave it in Mrs. Grey's dead hand?”
“Perhaps to underline its plausibility,” Lizzy offered. “Two such items, found together, might appear excessive. But placed at a distance, and discovered by individual parties, entirely without reference to one another—”
“Admirable.” I partook of the last bit of toast with regret. “The coroner is unlikely to exhibit so much imagination, however.”
“You comprehend, Jane, that our notion is only possible if we suppose the murderer to possess an intimacy with Mrs. Grey's correspondence.” Lizzy refolded her napkin and arranged it beside her plate. “Someone of her household, perhaps.”
Or someone familiar at least with her desk. The image of Captain Woodford and Edward Bridges in the lady's saloon the night of her murder filled my mind. But I only gazed at Lizzy speculatively.
“You are in a fever to indict Mr. Grey, my dear. And the poor man has done very little that we know of, to deserve it!”
“He had the shockingly bad form to marry that woman in the first place,” she replied caustically, “and to challenge my husband in the second. I cannot like him, Jane, however little I love poor Collingforth.”
“We must hope that somebody loves poor Collingforth,” I observed, “for the coroner most certainly shall not.”
Chapter 7
A Canterbury Tale
21 August 1805, cont'd.
NEDDIE AND HENRY RETURNED SOON AFTER BREAKFAST, shaking their heads at the duplicity of men in general, and Constable Pyke in particular. The fellow had drunk the better part of his sovereign in the Hound and Tooth, and was utterly insensible at the appointed hour for meeting. My brothers dallied along the Wingham road for some time, expecting Pyke at every moment. A breathless boy proved their messenger instead — trotting along the hot and dusty road with the constable's regrets. Mr. Pyke was indisposed, and Neddie's errand for nothing.
“Lizzy assured me that you would wish to attend the inquest,” he said to me now, over a cooling glass of lemonade, “and I have returned to Godmersham expressly that Henry and I might convey you into Canterbury in the barouche.”
“You are very good—”
“Do not tell me that you intend to refuse!” He set down his glass with an emphasis that might have shattered a lesser piece. “Am I to be sent on a fool's errand every hour of the day?”
“Of course I should be happy to accompany you into Canterbury,” I said quickly. “I might complete a few purchases towards my toilette, before tonight's Assembly.”
“I see that Lizzy was entirely mistaken in your character,” he returned, amused. “She was convinced you should be drawn to the macabre deliberation as a fly to jam.”
“It is just that I have learned to despise the coroner and his panel, Neddie.”
“You are acquainted with Mr. Wing?”
“Of particular coroners I may say nothing. Mr. Wing, and his merits or detractions, are entirely unknown to me, as I am sure you are aware. It is just that every instance of a coroner's judgement I have seen, has proved so fallacious and, indeed, injurious to the parties concerned, that I dread to countenance another by attending.”
“Strong words, Jane. Unless I am very much mistaken, Mr. Wing and his panel shall return the only conceivable verdict in the present case.”
“—That Mrs. Grey was murdered, and by Denys Collingforth.”
“Can there be any other construction placed upon events?”
“You know full well, Neddie, that there can.”
He was silent a moment.
“Given how little we truly comprehend of what was toward, any judgement at present must be the grossest presumption. What is required is time, and sufficient proofs, if the guilty party is to be charged. That must be true whether Mr. CoUingforth is eventually revealed as that party or no.”
“You are suggesting I should request of Mr. Wing a postponement.”
“As Justice, you might be heard.”
“But Valentine Grey is most insistent that the burial be effected at the soonest moment. In this heat, the decay of the corpse must be advanced; and yet the coroner's panel must view the body before they are empanelled. Any delay will be most unfortunate for all concerned.”[23]
“That is true. You must do as you think best, of course.”
“I must confess that I long for a swift judgement against Collingforth,” he replied with becoming candour. “The man is already fled, and quite unlikely to be discovered; he cannot suffer from the charge. It is the judgement, in fine, that all of Kent expects. Valentine Grey would be appeased. I should feel that I had discharged my duty, and there would be an end to the affair.”
“Until you found yourself lying wakeful at night, besieged with a thousand doubts as to the body's disposition,” I said. “Why was it returned to the race-meeting at all, much less to Collingforth's chaise? That, and an hundred other questions, should plague you until your final hour.”
“God preserve me from a prescient woman!” Neddie exclaimed. He drew his watch from his waistcoat. “Let us summon the carriage, Jane, and set about the wretched business.”
23
It was considered necessary for a coroner's jury to view the corpse, in order to form a judgment about the manner of death. This practice was later abolished, and replaced with medical examiners' sworn testimony. —