“Mr. Prowting, are you aware of any dispute that may have existed between French and some one of the gentlemen hereabouts? A small thing, perhaps, that grew to ugliness over time?” I enquired.
The magistrate preserved a thoughtful silence, his fingers loosely grasping his tongs. “I should have thought nobody in these parts could have put a name to the fellow’s face! French was a common labourer, merely, and much of a piece with all the rest — shiftless, drunken, of no particular account. I confess, Miss Austen, that I am at a loss to explain the entire episode.”
“And yet: he must have held enormous significance to one of our neighbours,” I persisted gently. “Shafto French was fearsome enough to be lured to the pond, and violently killed there.”
“What I do not understand,” Henry said, “is why the fellow was put in the cellar at all! Why not leave him, as Mr. Prowting has suggested, exactly where he lay? It is probable French was drowned after midnight, and that no one was abroad to observe the deed. Why not allow the body to be discovered in the morning?”
“Perhaps,” I said thoughtfully, “because the murderer required time.”
Mr. Prowting looked at me with a frown. “What do you mean to say, Miss Austen?”
“Perhaps the murderer wished French’s body to be discovered several days after death, to confuse the public knowledge of exactly when murder occurred. Perhaps he was safely distant from Chawton for most of the period in question — the period of French’s disappearance — and by hiding the body, wished to delay discovery and thus divert our attention from the Saturday night in question. It is unfortunate for our murderer, then, that the last sighting of French at the Crown Inn should have been so exact, and his absence throughout the Sunday and Monday noted. Our murderer cannot have anticipated this.”
Mr. Prowting was staring at me in an incredulous fashion.
“Miss Austen,” he said accusingly, “I do believe you are a blue- stocking!”
“Certainly not, sir!” I protested in an outraged accent.
“But her understanding is regrettably excellent,” my brother added with a sigh. “It is to this we may attribute her refusal to enter the married state, despite the many opportunities that have offered.”
I chose to ignore his impudence. “Mr. Prowting, you have long been a neighbour of Mrs. Seward’s. Can you tell me whether she entrusted a spare set of keys to this cottage, to you or any other friend in the village?”
“Good Lord,” he muttered. “Worse and worse. You cannot even allow it to be Dyer’s fault!”
“In the interest of furthering the truth,” I admitted delicately, “I cannot. You will admit the appearance of the body in this place becomes more explicable if someone other than simply Mr. Dyer was in possession of a set of keys.”
“The Sewards did not honour me with their confidence. Being your brother’s steward and a close man by nature, Bridger Seward was jealous of his trust. But his widow may have given the means of entry into other hands, after her husband’s death, and forgotten to retrieve them once she quitted the cottage.”
“Then I suppose I must speak to Mrs. Seward. I do not like to think of a set of keys to this house continuing to wander about the countryside. I should sleep far better if they all came home to roost.”
Henry’s eyes met mine over Mr. Prowting’s head with a sombre expression. Both of us were thinking of the same thing: Lord Harold’s Bengal chest, now hidden beneath my bedstead.
“Pray tell me, sir — Where does Mrs. Seward now reside?”
“In Alton, with her daughter Mrs. Baverstock. The Baverstocks have long been brewers, and their establishment sits on the High, just opposite the Duke’s Head.” The magistrate rose, dusting off his hands. “I cannot say that this is a happy discovery, Miss Austen. I should rather these marks to have remained obscured. The suspicion of a neighbour in so grave an affair as murder must be a most distasteful business.”
“But justice, my dear sir, is owed to the lowly as well as the great.”
From his looks as he parted from my door, I doubted that Mr. Prowting agreed with me.
After a brief nuncheon, Henry informed me that he was required in Alton that day, and had already tarried too long.
“Would you allow me to ride pillion, Henry? I feel it incumbent upon me to pay a call of mourning.”
“But you’ve already seen the widow, Jane!”
“And had Shafto French no friends to grieve at his sudden passing?” I demanded indignantly.
“More likely creditors filing to the door in search of payment. No wonder his unfortuate wife fled to Chawton this morning as soon as may be.”
“Very well — if you are so unfeeling and so selfish, I will walk to Alton.”
“Of course you may ride pillion,” he retorted impatiently.
“Only do not be clutching at the poor horse’s neck in that odious way. You look such a flat when you do.”
“I have never been a horsewoman,” I admitted despairingly.
“Have you a riding habit?”
I shook my head. A made-over gown of Lizzy’s had served to carry me through Canterbury Race Week four years before, but that was long since consigned to the scrap basket, and should probably form a part of my mother’s scheme for a pieced coverlet before long.
“I daresay you are going to force an acquaintance on the Widow Seward, as well. You mean to pursue this murder,”
Henry said, his gaze narrowed. “You will not let matters rest. I blame Lord Harold, Jane — he has had a most unfortunate influence on your headstrong nature.”
“Bertie Philmore knows more than he admitted.”
“Undoubtedly. But must you be the one to tell him so? Why cannot you allow our neighbour Mr. Prowting to do his duty?”
“Because he shall undoubtedly do it so badly, Henry!
Jemima French deserves some justice, does she not? Consider all she has lost!”
“A lout of a husband who drank, and boasted, and owed the world his living before it reached his pocket.” My brother looked away, a muscle in his jaw working. “There has never been any justice for people of French’s class. You know that, Jane.”
“But I cannot stand idly by, and watch a wrong go unrighted. Recollect, Henry —I saw the dead man’s face. Or what remained of it.”
“Should you be surprised to learn that Bertie Philmore is, at this very moment, engaged in mending the window frame of Austen, Gray & Vincent? Philmore, as it happens, is a most accomplished joiner. He reposes somewhat higher in Mr. Dyer’s trust than his late colleague French.”
“Henry!” I cried. “You are heartless. How long did you intend to keep this from me?”
“I had no notion it was a secret.” He smiled ruefully. “You had better change your dress. The dust on the road is fearful in this season. And do not tell Mamma what you are about — she will have endless commissions among the tradesmen; and I must accomplish some of my business before returning to London, or Gray will be finding a new partner.”
Henry set me down in Alton’s High Street and led his horse to the hackney stables behind Mr. Barlow’s George. I passed an enjoyable interval in strolling towards No. 10 past the various houses and shops, and took the opportunity of purchasing some bread and a couple of chickens newly dressed from the poulterer. Tho’ the town cannot match Canterbury’s ancient charm or rival Southampton’s gentility, it offers a stout and occasionally elegant little clutch of modern buildings. I could not despise it, and felt sure that our proximity to Alton — neither so close as to oppress, nor so far as to inconvenience — was a blessing.
I found the place known as Baverstocks’ without difficulty: the family has long been in the business of brewing in Alton, and a brief enquiry at the premises as to the location of the Widow Seward soon directed my footsteps towards a side lane known as Church Street. Here the younger Mr. Baverstock, one James, was established with his even younger wife and a baby, while his mother-in-law did the mending in a chair by the door. She was a woman no older than Mrs. Prowting, tho’ of less ample proportions: a frail, angular woman with a greying head and a pinched expression about the mouth. Her dark eyes swept my length as I stood in her doorway, and for an instant after I spoke my name, I was doubtful of admittance. But then she stepped backwards, with a wooden expression on her countenance, and said, “Come in, miss, and very welcome.”