“When I understood, a few hours later, that my father meant to charge poor Bertie Philmore with French’s murder, I knew that I was left no choice but to act, since Mr. Hinton refused to do so.”
I placed my arm within Catherine Prowting’s as we passed the first of Alton’s shops and houses. “You are possessed of singular courage, my dear. I am determined all the same not to let you out of my sight until I have seen you safely into the care of Mr. Prowting. Let Jack Hinton do his worst — we shall be ready for him!”
We discovered, through the simple expedient of vigourous interrogation at the George Inn, that Mr. Prowting had been observed to enter Mr. John Dyer’s premises at Ivy House — a trim building not without charm, and the attraction of a series of Gothick arched casements. The magistrate was as yet engaged there. I accompanied Catherine to the builder’s door, and tho’ curious as to the nature of Mr. Prowting’s business, declined to intrude. I had an idea of the conversation: the magistrate in his heavy, forthright way demanding to know whether Bertie Philmore could have stolen Dyer’s keys to Chawton Cottage on the Saturday night of French’s murder; and Mr. Dyer — in his succinct, pugnacious style — steadfastly refusing to allow it to be possible. Mr. Prowting was destined to suffer a revolution of opinion, and a disorder of all his ideas, when once his daughter’s story was heard; but I did not like to witness his discomfiture. Let him endure the severest pangs of regret beyond the reach of his neighbours, and collect his faculties during the brief walk home from Alton to Chawton. Prowting would require the full measure of his sense for the coming interview with Mr. John-Knight Hinton, Esquire. The murder of Shafto French might well be explained by Catherine Prowting’s confession, but the disappearance of Lord Harold’s chest was not. I made my own way to Normandy Street, and kept a keen lookout for a yard full of laundry. Halfway up the lane, on the opposite side of the paving, I detected a quantity of white lawn secured by wooden pegs to a line of rope. A tidy picket preserved the yard from the ravages of dogs and children, and a few flowers bloomed near its palings. No figure moved among the hanging linen, and the door of the nearby cottage was closed. I glanced upwards at the chimney, however, and observed a thin thread of smoke. A girl of perhaps ten years answered my knock, and stared at me gravely from the threshold.
“Is your mother within?”
She nodded mutely.
“You may tell her that Miss Jane Austen is come to call.”
“Bid the lady welcome, Mary,” a voice commanded from the interior.
The child stepped back, pulling the door wide. I moved into the room, and saw that it was no foyer or front passage, but merely the cottage’s place of all work, with a few benches drawn up to a scrubbed pine table, a hob with a great kettle boiling on the banked embers of the hearth, and several irons warming in the fire. A woman sat rocking an infant at her breast; she gazed at me with neither welcome nor trepidation on her features.
“Are you Rosie Philmore?”
“I am.”
“Miss Jane Austen, at your service. It was at my home in Chawton, Mrs. Philmore, that your husband was. ” I glanced at the silent little girl named Mary and hesitated. “. found, last evening.”
“What of it?”
The child moved swiftly to her mother’s side and stared at me with wide and frightened eyes.
“Would it be possible to talk a while,” I attempted, “in private?”
“Do you go in search of your brothers, Mary,” Mrs. Philmore said. “They’ll be down near the Wey, I’ll be bound, fishing with young Zakariah Gibbs. Tell them their dinner’s waiting. Go on, now.”
The girl fled out a rear door, two washtubs visible in the grass beyond it. I waited until the door creaked shut behind her before speaking again.
“Mrs. Philmore, I know that your husband is detained in Alton gaol at this moment. He may be guilty of entering my home — he may even have taken something of great value that belongs to me — but I do not believe he murdered Shafto French.”
“He was home at midnight Saturday,” she said stoutly, “like he said. I’ll swear to that, to my dying day.”
“I am sure you will. But Mr. Prowting thinks otherwise, and Mr. Prowting is magistrate for Alton, and determined to hang somebody for French’s murder. I do not think it will concern him much if he hangs the wrong man.”
In this, I may have done my neighbour an injustice; but my words had the effect I desired. Rosie Philmore closed her eyes, as if surrendering to a sudden shaft of pain, and drew a shuddering breath.
“It’s all on account of those jewels,” she said. I frowned. Had Thrace’s tale of the rubies of Chandernagar reached so far as Alton?
“—That chest of yours, what the great man from London brought special in his carriage. People will talk of anything, ma’am. You’re a stranger in these parts, so you’re not to know. Scandalous it was, how they talked — about the fortune you’d received from a dead lord, and what the man might have been paying for. I didn’t listen no more than others — but Bert’s ears grew so long with hanging on every word, I thought they’d scrape the floor by week’s end. And then he told me, two nights past, the truth of the tale.”
“The truth?”
She opened her eyes, still rocking the infant, and stared straight at me. “That ’tweren’t jewels a’tall, nor gold neither, but a chest full of papers. Papers as somebody’d pay a good bit to see.”
A thrill of apprehension coursed through me. “Your husband knew what the chest contained?”
“Of course. Heard it of his uncle, Old Philmore, he did.”
“Old Philmore? But I am not even acquainted with the man.”
“Old Philmore knew, all the same.”
As had Lady Imogen. Was it she who set the joiner’s family on to stealing Lord Harold’s papers?
“Your husband was engaged by Mr. Dyer to work at my cottage. He was also employed, I understand, at Stonings in Sherborne St. John — the Earl of Holbrook’s estate. Was Old Philmore ever working there?”
“Of course. It was from Old Philmore my Bert learned his trade. He’s a rare joiner, Old Philmore.”
“Has your husband’s uncle been to see you? Has he called upon Bertie, in Alton gaol?”
She appeared to stiffen, like a woods animal grown suddenly wary of a trap.
“He’ll be along, soon enough.”
“You do not know where he is at present?”
“In Chawton. He lives there, same as yerself.”
“Old Philmore has not been seen since your husband was taken up last night, Mrs. Philmore.”
She leaned forward in her chair, the babe thrust into her lap. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Old Philmore appears to have fled. Is not that a singular coincidence? — That your husband should be sitting in gaol for a theft that cannot profit him, while his uncle is nowhere to be found?”
For an instant, I watched Rosie Philmore comprehend the import of my words. Then she laughed with a bitter harshness.
“Not if you know Bert’s family, ma’am. If there’s a way to turn a penny from hardship, Old Philmore’ll find it.”
From Normandy Street I made my way towards Austen, Gray & Vincent, feeling exposed to every eye and the subject of every chance conversation. Far more of my business was known than I had understood before, and the knowledge could not help but make me uneasy. Lady Imogen had spoken of the existence of Lord Harold’s papers with easy familiarity; but this I had dismissed as the knowledge of a family friend. I must now assume the contents of the chest were also known to Major Spence and Mr. Thrace, with whom her ladyship was intimate; as clearly they were known to the Philmores and their circle. I could no longer suppose the information to be privileged. Last night I had presumed the chest was stolen because of the rumour of fabulous wealth attached to it. I apprehended now that Lord Harold’s legacy had been seized for exactly the reason it has always been so sedulously guarded by the solicitor Mr. Chizzlewit and his confederates — because of the danger inherent in its communications. The theft had not been made at random: deep in the chest lay a truth that one person at least could not allow to be known. Was he content in having stolen the trunk and the dangerous memories it held? Or did the threat still walk abroad, with an intelligence that lived and breathed?