Crispin straightened his coat. The action helped to ground him in the here and now. He looked in the direction of the Walcote estates and headed there.
Crispin waited for the door to open and was greeted by a servant. There was comfort in the familiar, and strangely, the Walcote manor felt a little like home. Crispin stepped inside. “Where is Adam Becton?”
The servant eyed Crispin and shook his head. “He is at his duties, good master. Who do you come to see, master or mistress?”
“Neither. I want to talk to the steward.”
The short man squinted at Crispin. “He is unavailable, sir.”
“Then make him available.”
Crispin pushed past him and made his way unaccompanied to the parlor. He stepped across the threshold before he discovered too late that Maude Walcote was there. Just as he decided to back out unobserved she looked up. And scowled. “Why are you here?”
His crooked grin returned and he strolled in. “Why does everyone in this house greet me thus? I am a congenial fellow. Truly I am.”
“You are a nuisance,” she said. “And I fear you are also a menace.”
“You clearly do not know me, Madam.”
“Don’t I? I know your character. There’s something velvety about you, but your nap runs the wrong way.”
He chuckled at the imagery. “Perhaps it does.”
She stood and flicked out the creases in her gown—they dared not wrinkle. “And you are insolent. Who invited you in here?”
“I told you. I am investigating a murder. I want to talk to Adam Becton.”
“He is busy.”
“And I don’t care. I’ll talk to him anyway.” Crispin strode to a chair and sat.
Maude seethed. “Lionel!” She tossed her sewing aside and marched from the parlor.
Crispin sunk down with relief. God’s Blood! These Walcotes were nothing but arrogant children, but he couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge that he saw a bit of himself.
Gazing at the fire, he brooded. If Adam killed Nicholas for love and status, all of his plans have gone for nought. Philippa was cast from the house and disinherited, and her love belonged to another.
Crispin’s smile faded.
He shot from the chair and paced.
The squinting servant returned and sloppily bowed to Crispin. “My lord, I cannot find him.”
“What do you mean you can’t find him? Is he here or is he not?”
“I do not know, my lord.”
“I am not a lord,” he grumbled and pushed the man out of the way.
“Adam Becton!” called Crispin. He walked out of the parlor and looked across the checkered floor of the hall. He strode through the empty hall to the door to the kitchens and opened it. “Becton!” he called into the passage. A rosy-cheeked boy little older than Jack poked his head from the kitchen doorway and ducked back inside. No one else approached.
Crispin grunted. He reversed his steps and stood in the hall again, glancing up to the gallery above and to the solar, the site of so much mayhem. The servant came up beside him, sputtering in an attempt to confine his untamable guest, but Crispin slid past him and headed for the stairs.
He grabbed the ornately carved banister and climbed the steps two at a time, the servant following vainly behind. Crispin searched behind curtained alcoves, finding one occupied by a sleepy maidservant, catching a nap on a straw-stuffed cushion.
A few paces down the gallery, the solar’s door, repaired and as sturdy as before, hung ajar, and Crispin turned to the befuddled servant who arrived breathlessly behind him. “Has Walcote been buried yet?”
“Aye, my—I mean Master. They buried him in the churchyard just as quick as a wink. It weren’t right, that. He might as well have been Master Walcote. He were good to us.”
“No doubt,” Crispin said distractedly. He closed upon the solar and noticed one taper burning within. The room seemed strangely empty without the funeral bier, but then Crispin noticed it. The drapery on the wall was torn aside and the secret passage door stood open. The empty box that once contained the Mandyllon lay cast across the floor. But more than that, he saw the body of Adam Becton lying on the floor in the opened doorway of the hidden passage.
22
Crispin waited impatiently for the servant to return with Lionel and Clarence Walcote. He had already checked the window—still barred. But the murderer could have come through the secret door, from the kitchens, or from the front door for all he knew. There was little struggle. He was captured from behind, much like Nicholas Walcote.
There were muffled voices and hard footsteps coming from the stairs. Crispin waited by the body as the brothers entered and gasped at the sight at Crispin’s feet.
“He’s been garroted,” said Crispin.
Clarence’s face shone bone white in the torchlight. He eyed Lionel, who tapped his keys on his front teeth.
The servant who had tried to rein in Crispin stood in the doorway, grasping tightly to the doorpost. He looked as if he would faint. “You there,” said Clarence.
“Matthew, sir.”
“Matthew. Go and fetch the sheriff. Make haste!”
The servant turned and instantly obeyed. They all listened to his feet hit each step and then slap across the hall.
Lionel glared at his brother, probably for such impertinence as to supersede his authority.
Crispin knelt by the body. He pulled away the rope from Adam’s neck, tossing the instrument aside. He straightened and glanced about the room. Adam faced away from the secret passage, but judging from the new footprints in the dust, he’d plainly been inside it. One of his shoes had fallen off in his struggle and lay near the empty box.
Crispin retrieved the shoe and stepped back into the passage. He found a clean footprint with dried drops of blood and placed the shoe atop it.
Didn’t fit.
He let the shoe drop and examined Adam’s body. He found long, fair hairs clutched between his fingers. In his last act to try to save himself, he must have reached behind, grabbed the assailant’s head, and plucked them out. But of course, it had done him no good.
“What is all this?” Lionel bellowed.
Crispin walked across the room twice, looking over the body, the box, the open portal, and finally the two men who stared at him. “As near as I can make it, Adam found something here he never expected to find: this portal.”
Crispin stepped over the box and reached the passage. He turned toward the brothers. “But you two knew it was there. Didn’t you?”
“I remember it now,” said Clarence. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Lionel?”
“Yes,” he said. “But what of this box?”
“It contained something else Adam also knew nothing about. Something that our friend, the false Nicholas hid in it.”
Lionel edged closer, nudging the overturned box with his foot. “Is that why he was murdered?”
“That’s what I thought at first. But not now.”
“Oh? Then what’s on your mind, Guest? Spill it.”
Crispin eyed the two. “I don’t think I’m ready to say just yet.”
Lionel advanced on him but Crispin was spared further explanation when the sheriff arrived.
“Damn this family!” cried Wynchecombe. He swept in without ceremony and planted his feet in the room, his back to the doorway and to Crispin. “What have you done now, by God?”
Crispin took the opportunity to slip from the room and into the gallery. Wynchecombe’s muffled voice boomed in the background, becoming a low rumble the further away he got.
Crispin made it downstairs to the hall. A small boy stepped out onto the hall’s painted floor, but when he saw Crispin, he ducked back in the shadows. Crispin swooped and nabbed him by his shoulder cape.