She was a rough, broad woman in a worn wool dress that might once have been of a rosy hue, but was faded now with dirt and age to a dull maroon. Black mitts partly covered chilblained fingers, and on her feet she wore the stout boots of a field labourer — her late husband's, perhaps, for that she was a widow we quickly learned. She reached from time to time to adjust a ridiculous straw hat — which swept up from her frowzy brow like the masthead of a schooner, arrayed with turnips and cabbage leaves and what I judged to be a rooster's wattle. She stood before her fellow townsfolk in all the glory of notice; she knew the power of having a tale to tell.
“You are a resident of this village?” Mr. Bott's tone lacked something of the warmth with which he had addressed the magistrate.
“That I am, sir, born and bred, wed and bed, as the saying goes.” Lizzy Scratch had profited by the proceeding's several hours to consume a quantity of warm gin, that much was certain.
“And what is your occupation?”
“It's a laundress as I am, ‘aving learned the trade from my good mother; and taken it up once more when my pore Joe passed from this life.”
“And were you acquainted with the maid, Marguerite Dumas? “
“I ‘ad ‘er ladyship's washing off ‘er every ‘alf-week,” Lizzy Scratch said, staring balefully at Isobel; “and such a lot of shameful finery as the woman wore, I should not like to say. It was enough to turn the stomach of any decent woman, it was.”
“That is quite enough, Mrs. Scratch,” the coroner said peremptorily. “Please confine yourself to the questions put. Were you on intimate terms with the maid?”
“Well, I knew Margie weren't ‘appy, same as everybody else. What with being far from ‘er ferrin’ parts, and ‘ating the cold, and being that shamed by ‘er ladyship's goings-on with the Viscount that was—”
A shocked murmur ran through the ranks, and Fitzroy Payne, seated to my right, put his head in his hands.
“Mrs. Scratch, I must insist,” Mr. Bott said, with a sharp eye for the Earl. “Confine yourself to the question.”
“We was friends good enough,” the laundress said sulkily.
“Although the maid was resident in these parts less than a month?”
“Margie ‘ad taking ways, and was fond of talk, and I saw no ‘arm in ‘er.”
“And when did you last see Marguerite Dumas?”
“She come to me the day after the old Earl passed on, she did, beggin’ for some food and a roof against the cold. Said she couldn't stay in no ‘ouse where murder was done, and she'd be off as soon as she'd got ‘er story to the Justice.”
The outcry in the room now verged on the clamourous, and Lizzy Scratch smiled broadly, bobbing her head to her neighbours and kinsfolk.
“That's the truth, by God, and the pore thing was killed for it,” she added.
“Mrs. Scratch,” Mr. Bott said menacingly, “if you cannot control your tongue, I shall dismiss you from this room.” He removed his spectacles, wiped them briefly with a pocket linen, and resumed his train of thought. “How long was Marguerite Dumas in your home?”
“Until the day they found ‘er pore mangled body in the ‘ay-shed at Scargrave,” the laundress avowed, and dabbed at her eyes with a fingerless mitt.
“Do you know when she might have left your house that day?”
“A'course I knows. Right after milking ‘twas, which I'd given ‘er the doing of. Margie come in and took a bit o’ bread from the fire and said she was off to see ‘er man, and I shouldn't look for ‘er before dinner.”
“Her man, Mrs. Scratch?”
“Some feller as she was sweet on.”
“Are you familiar with the identity of this person?”
“That I'm not. Margie could be close-mouthed enough, when she wanted.” This Mrs. Scratch said with satisfaction.
“Had this fellow communicated with her in any way that you were aware?”
Lizzy Scratch shrugged. “Met up with ‘er ‘ere in the Cock and Bull, more'n likely, when I weren't to see. ‘E must've done, else ‘ow'd she come by those scraps of paper she was forever tucking in ‘er bodice? Love letters, I called ‘em, right to ‘er face, and she'd just smile.”
At that, Mrs. Scratch was torn from her moment of glory and forced back among the common folk, but she sailed towards her place like Nelson's flagship, fully conscious of her majesty and the power of her guns. Beside me, Isobel had closed her eyes, and the blue veins on their lids throbbed with a feverish intensity. I placed my gloved hand over her own, and felt some small pressure in return. I looked then for the remainder of the Scargrave party; but the three gentlemen were locked in a stony silence, their features fixed and grim. The time for anger was past; what was required of them now was fortitude. Fitzroy Payne had ever been possessed of a remarkable command of countenance; but I was touched to observe that the Hearst brothers — one so commonly hot-blooded, and the other so commonly cold — were united in dignity.
It was my duty next to be called and sworn, and I related in as calm a manner as possible the finding of the handkerchief, the appearance of the footprints, and the discovery of the body. I stated that the time had been close to half-past ten in the morning, and that the blood was quite fresh. I was queried as to my reasons for probing the maid's bodice, which brought a conscious flush to my cheeks and an edge of severity to the voice of Mr. Bott; and then I was allowed to go.
Sir William took the chair; and affirmed that the maid was slain in the shed itself, to judge by appearances; that she was undoubtedly called there by the note found on her person; and that the note was determined to have been written by Fitzroy Payne. I should have thought the humble audience long since wearied by such revelations; but they were inflamed anew with every fact let fall, as a hound will grow increasingly crazed with the letting of a doomed fox's blood.
At the last, Fitzroy Payne was himself called to the chair; and asked of his whereabouts on the morning in question; he could say only that he had been abroad at eight o'clock for an early ride on his horse, had roamed throughout the Park, and had met with no one; that when he returned to the stables, it was eleven o'clock, and he learned the news of the maid's murder. When asked whether he had ever communicated by letter with Marguerite, the Earl replied firmly in the negative, and declared that a common forger had grossly imposed upon us all.
With that, Mr. Bott cleared his throat and turned his spectacles upon the dozen men who formed the jury. “My good sirs,” the coroner told them, “we have come to the close of the evidence you must consider. A hard duty is now before you. If you believe the late Earl to have died of dyspepsia, you must return a verdict of death by natural causes. If you consider the maid to have been killed somehow, but are uncertain as to whether this was murder and if so, at whose hand, you must return a verdict of death by misadventure.”
Mr. Bott paused, and glared at the assembled villagers with severity. “If, however, you believe the Earl to have been murdered, and feel with certainty and conviction that you may name the hand that has effected his demise, you must return a charge of wilful murder against that person. The same is true in the maid's case. Leave us now, and bring to your deliberations consideration and care. God bless you.”
The jury filed away, eyes grim and faces averted from the Scargrave household; and in a matter of moments had returned, with a verdict of death by wilful murder — against Isobel in the case of the late Earl, and against Fitzroy Payne in the case of Marguerite.
AND SO THE GREAT HOUSE IS HUSHED THIS EVENING, IN all the awareness of doom. Several stout fellows stand watch before the Manor's doors, lest the Countess or the Earl conceive the reckless notion to flee. Sir William has allowed them to remain under house arrest this night, until their removal tomorrow for a special session of the Assizes, and then to London, where they will await trial by a jury of their peers. And as Fitzroy and Isobel are members of the peerage — he by birth, and she by marriage — their trial is to be in the House of Lords, a spectacle rare in the annals of England's criminal history.