Letter from a Dead Man Read online

  Becoming aware that Mudd was speaking to me, I took a deep gulp of fresh air, and automatically handed over the reins of his horse, as he requested. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and remounting, he blurted out, ‘He may still be alive--’ I gazed at him helplessly, for we both knew there was no life left in the body on the beach.

  A sudden gust of wind agitated Orlando and quite unconsciously calming him, I followed Mudd to the chine. On the cliff top above, he handed over his hack’s reins again. ‘I’d best go alone, my lady.’ He pointed towards Hokewell Down, where a small group of horsemen, other searchers, were riding in my direction. ‘Someone must tell them.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, running a tongue round my dry lips. ‘You go on.’

  Mudd looked up at me, hesitating. ‘Will you be all right, my lady?’

  It was very many years since he had asked such a question, and I blinked. ‘Yes,’ I said, not knowing if it was true.

  The approaching riders were still some distance away, and I watched Mudd scramble down the chine, loose clay and shale bouncing and scuttling ahead of him. When he reached the beach he looked up at me anxiously, before running towards the body, his boots leaving a trail of deep footprints in the wet sand.

  Watching him bend over the body, I felt the sting of unaccustomed tears in my eyes and mechanically brushed them away. Waves still rolled in on the sand, the sun continued to rise in a clear blue sky, and a bee buzzed dozily around Orlando, causing him to shake his head. Everything around me going on as normal. As if nothing had happened.

  Late yesterday evening I’d told Parker I was sure Giles was still alive, but it seemed I had been wrong, his body must have been here even then. I shuddered at the thought of Giles all alone, hidden by darkness, last night’s gentle waves sweeping up the sand and over his body, the foaming surf draining through his tangled blond hair and across his sightless blue eyes.

  The riders were almost upon me, and mechanically, I turned Orlando to face them. Vincent led the group, but close behind him was a man I had not expected to see. Vincent brought his horse to a halt, his face etched with anxiety over the whereabouts of Piers, and explained that Mr Reevers had returned an hour ago. ‘He and Giles were set upon by a band of Frenchies soon after I left them at Dittistone.’

  Mr Reevers, grey-faced and haggard, told me, ‘It was Giles they wanted, I’m afraid. They left me tied up on Hokewell Down. Regrettably it took some considerable time to get out of my bonds.’

  ‘So you escaped,’ I whispered. ‘While Giles lies dead on the beach.’

  ‘Dead?’ he echoed, as if he’d misheard. With a gulp, I pointed to the body. Vincent looked down and covered his face with his hands, while Mr Reevers sat stonily in his saddle, watching Mudd climb back up the chine to the cliff top.

  Mudd ran towards us, the breeze tousling his hair. Wet sand clung to the knees of his riding breeches, where he had knelt by the body. He looked straight at me, and I saw his eyes were alight with hope. Nevertheless he spoke in grave tones. ‘It’s not Mr Giles, my lady. It’s Mr Piers. Shot through the heart.’

  ‘Piers?’ I repeated in a whisper, my senses reeling. Giles often wore a green coat, that being his favourite colour, whereas Piers preferred maroon. In fact, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him in green. Both had blond hair, and it was Giles, not Piers, whose life had been at risk. Or so I had thought.

  ‘Are you sure?’ It was fatuous question, yet I could not help myself. Mudd simply nodded, and I asked, ‘Is there any sign of---’

  ‘There’s nothing else, my lady,’ he answered firmly. ‘Not even a pistol.’

  I could not believe Piers was dead. It was the last thing I’d expected. On hearing Mudd’s words, Vincent had uttered a cry of anguish. Dismounting, he stood reins in hand, his eyes on my groom. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  Mudd said, ‘I’m very sorry, sir. It’s Mr Piers right enough.’

  Vincent stared at him blindly for some seconds before saying in dignified tones, ‘Then I must go to him.’

  Out of respect we waited on the cliff top, watching as he hurried down to the beach and ignoring the fast encroaching waves, knelt beside the body, as Mudd had done. His shoulders began to shake with grief, and I turned away. His loss meant Giles might still be alive, and I asked Mr Reevers if he knew where the Frenchmen had taken him.

  He started to shake his head but quickly stopped, wincing. ‘I have a lump on the back of my head the size of an egg,’ he grimaced. ‘All I can tell you is we were set upon by about ten Frenchmen. One of them knocked me out with a club, and when I came to, I was alone.’

  Gazing down at Vincent I saw he hadn’t moved. ‘I won’t wait,’ I said. ‘I’ll carry on looking for Giles.’ Frankly I did not expect to find him, but I had already been wrong once this morning.

  Mudd and I searched the west coast without finding Giles or anything connected with his disappearance. There was nothing to do then except return to Ledstone and join the family gathered in the drawing room. Mr Reevers, who had taken over the organisation of the search, had drawn up a map of the areas covered, and those not yet searched.

  It wasn’t until the searchers had been dispatched again that Vincent, who had been sitting with his head in his hands, looked up and said, ‘It’s my belief Giles isn’t on the Island.’

  Marguerite, who had refused to go and lie down, cried out, ‘Whatever do you mean? Giles must be on the Island.’

  Crossing to her side, Vincent took her fluttering hands in his. ‘You must be brave, my dear. As we both must. I believe I know where Giles is.’

  A chorus of voices demanded, ‘Where?’

  ‘I fear he has been kidnapped.’

  Marguerite gave a little sigh and fainted clean away. Aunt Thirza, who thought it her duty to be here, dismissed Vincent’s suggestion as nonsense, but my uncle drew his brows together in a worried frown, and said nothing. Lucie, wafting some smelling salts under Marguerite’s nose, demanded to know why he should think that.

  As my godmother began to come round, he said, ‘Well, my poor boy is dead, so it cannot hurt him,’ he said, his voice filled with sadness. I stood by the window opposite, and Vincent looked across at me. ‘Piers told me Giles was wanted in France for a crime against the revolution.’

  ‘Removing my uncle from prison?’

  He inclined his head. ‘Piers made some wild remarks about wanting to see justice done. If only I had known then that he was spying for the French. I didn’t take his ramblings seriously you see, for after all, Giles was here, not in France.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Marguerite whispered fearfully.

  ‘My dear, I wish I could spare you this, but I’m afraid there’s no help for it. I believe Giles has been abducted by a bunch of French revolutionaries and is, at this moment, on his way to France to face trial.’

  Marguerite gasped, her left hand clutching at her throat. ‘No - you cannot mean that. No-one would do such a wicked thing.’ She looked up at me pleadingly. ‘Drusilla, it isn’t true, is it?’ I could not bring myself to answer her, for I knew it to be true.

  ‘If only I had realised sooner what Piers meant to do,’ Vincent said, ‘I might have saved them both. Your son, my dear Marguerite. And mine.’

  Marguerite was very pale. ‘I do not believe Giles is dead.’

  ‘Nor is he, as yet, my dear. Perhaps you may be luckier than I. He may even now be rescued before they-----’ He stopped, but we all knew what he meant.

  In France today, justice was dispensed by the guillotine. Giles had known of the risk, for I’d overheard him telling Jacob that Piers knew what he’d done and meant to have him arrested. For one terrible hour I’d thought Giles had been speaking of the Saxborough killings, until that piece of contradictory evidence on my wall charts had shown me who was really behind the murders.

  Which told me Piers had to get Giles to France before the wedding, before there was a chance of an heir. Or the murders would have been for nothing. Therefore some pret
ext was needed to persuade Giles to leave Ledstone last night. I had to admit that an invasion plan and a note suggesting Piers was assisting a French force to land was masterly, for Giles would never consider his own safety if he believed the Island, and England itself, was in danger. Severe gales had prevented anyone sailing to France over the last few nights. But, yesterday, the winds had dropped away almost to nothing. If that had not happened, if the weather hadn’t changed, there would have been another plan. I was quite sure of that.

  Giles had sensibly taken Vincent and Mr Reevers with him last night, but after Vincent went off to Yarmouth, French smugglers had attacked them. The worst part of it all was that I could have prevented it. And gained the evidence needed for an arrest. If Giles hadn’t shut me in the boathouse. I mentioned this quietly to my uncle, while Vincent, Lucie and my aunt were comforting a now highly distressed Marguerite.

  He said, ‘Giles did it for the best, Drusilla. He was convinced someone would be watching Westfleet after dark yesterday. If you and Mudd had not left until then, he believed you would both be killed. And I think he was right.’

  I stared at him. After two attempts on my life I’d expected a third. Yet, stupidly, I’d thought myself safe, provided I wasn’t alone. ‘When did Giles tell you this, Uncle?’

  ‘He rode over just after sunset yesterday to tell us you were not in any danger. He meant to release you later, when he was sure it was safe.’ So that was why my family hadn’t worried where I was.

  Giles, of course, aware of what Piers meant to do, believed he could outwit him. I was, however, virtually certain Giles was unaware of one vital fact. It wasn’t Piers he had to outwit.

  Marguerite being a little calmer now, I smiled at her encouragingly, but stayed where I was, in order to ask the one question no-one had mentioned. ‘Who do you think killed Piers, Mr Saxborough?’

  ‘Why those revolutionary scoundrels he was meeting, of course. Once they had Giles in their clutches, Piers was of no further use to them. So they shot him.’ He began to sob quietly, ‘My poor boy - all that revolutionary nonsense led him astray.’

  ‘But,’ I murmured softly, ‘he wasn’t your son, was he?’

  CHAPTER THIRTYSEVEN

  A stunned silence filled the room, but I didn’t miss the fleeting flicker of shock in Vincent’s eyes. Marguerite looked up at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘What are you saying, Drusilla? Of course Piers was Vincent’s son.’

  Vincent had come to mean so much to her in the past few weeks, I wished I didn’t have to show her the kind of a man he really was when she was already worried sick about Giles. But I could see no other way. ‘I’m afraid Mr Saxborough has not been telling us the truth,’ I told her gently. ‘Do you recall showing me his letters?’

  Marguerite’s hands flew up to cover her flushing cheeks. ‘Drusilla, those letters were private. Whatever must Vincent think of us.’

  To which that gentleman said, ‘Do not distress yourself, my dear Marguerite. I don’t pretend to understand what Lady Drusilla means, but------’

  ‘I am referring to the letters you wrote to your brother in the years following your estrangement from the family.’

  He stared at me for several seconds before turning to Marguerite in understandable astonishment. ‘You mean, you kept them?’

  ‘Of course. I am persuaded Cuthbert would not have liked me to throw them away.’

  He looked from Marguerite to me, his brow furrowing, and I said, ‘When you wrote to my godmother back in the summer, she remembered those old letters of yours, and allowed me to read some of them.’

  ‘Drusilla,’ Marguerite gasped. Opening her pretty fan, she employed it with unaccustomed vigour. ‘Whatever will you say next?’

  Vincent shrugged. ‘Really Lady Drusilla, I cannot see that letters I wrote a quarter of a century ago can be of any significance.’

  I raised my brows slightly. ‘You think not, Mr Saxborough?’ And I took a folded sheet from my pocket.

  Marguerite’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘If that is one of Vincent’s letters you must give it to him at once.’ I glanced at Vincent, and although he said nothing, a slight wariness had crept into his eyes. When I carefully unfolded the sheet, Marguerite became even more agitated. ‘It is true I allowed you to read those letters Drusilla, and that was very wrong of me, but I know I did not give you permission to keep any of them.’

  I inclined my head in apology. ‘No, indeed you did not, and I must beg your forgiveness.’ For, what I had to say would cause her great pain, and I longed with all my heart for a kinder way. ‘If you remember, I was at Ledstone when one of the housemaids accidentally broke the glass on the miniature Mr Saxborough kept in his bedchamber. The only keepsake he has of his wife. The portrait showed a beautiful woman with honey coloured hair and eyes, and you asked me to see if it was damaged.’

  ‘Of course I remember, Drusilla. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’

  ‘No, neither did I at the time.’

  I paused, deliberating on the best way to continue, but no-one spoke, or even moved. Everyone waited, as if mesmerised, for me to go on. I explained how I’d used the wall charts in my workroom to record the facts about the Saxborough deaths, including some background information copied from one of Mr Saxborough’s old letters. ‘But the miniature showed me one of those small details didn’t mean what I’d thought.’

  This glaring discrepancy told me who was behind the murders, and why I had been attacked at Hokewell Bay, and in my own orchard.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d made a mistake when copying the letter, but I needed to be certain. There was a lock of Piers’s hair with that particular letter. So,’ I said, addressing my godmother, ‘when you decided to return the lock to him-----’

  ‘But that was your idea,’ Marguerite burst out. ‘I didn’t know what to give Vincent as a memento, and you suggested--------- She stopped and after a moment, accused, ‘I suppose that’s when you stole the letter.’

  ‘I slipped into my pocket, yes.’ One glance had confirmed I’d correctly copied what Vincent had written, which meant that the Piers we knew, could not be his son.

  When I carefully flattened out the letter Marguerite begged in distress, ‘You are surely not going to read it out loud.’

  ‘Just one small paragraph, that’s all.’

  Lucie took her hand, and my uncle said, ‘I believe we should trust Drusilla’s judgement, ma’am.’

  Throwing him a grateful look, I went on, ‘I should explain that Mr Saxborough wrote the letter when his wife and son were dangerously ill with a fever. He asks his brother to help him provide the good food and decent lodgings the doctor recommended.’

  Vincent sat, apparently indifferent to the proceedings, one leg crossed over the other. Calmly he tapped the top of his snuff box, flicked it open and took a pinch of the contents. Brushing a speck of snuff off his riding breeches, he commented in sardonic fashion, ‘Do not, on any account, spare my feelings, ma’am.’

  Mr Reevers, who had not spoken throughout, quietly crossed the room to stand guard by the door as I read the paragraph.

  ‘ I beg of you to help me Cuthbert, for my son is as much a Saxborough as your own beloved Giles. At four years of age, Piers bears a remarkable resemblance to the portrait of your good self that hangs in the gallery at Ledstone. The one Mama had done when you were five. Piers, like so many of his Saxborough ancestors, has blond hair, as you can see from the lock I have enclosed. He is fortunate too in that he has inherited his mother’s beautiful eyes, and like her, has the most charming nature.’

  Folding the sheet, I put it back in my pocket.

  Marguerite was the first to speak. ‘I don’t understand, Drusilla. There can be nothing to object to in that. Indeed it shows a sensitivity that can only please.’

  Glancing at Vincent, I saw that he understood all too well, and turning back to my godmother, I reminded her in a placid tone, ‘The Piers we met had gray eyes.’

  She looked up at me, pu
zzled. ‘Why, yes, so he did.’ She still didn’t grasp the significance, and I asked quietly, ‘What colour were the eyes in the miniature?’

  ‘Oh, Vincent’s wife had the most gorgeous honey-coloured eyes. As soon as I saw the painting I remembered. Everyone commented on them at the time. Even Cuthbert said…….’ Her voice trailed away as she finally saw what it meant, and she turned to Vincent, murmuring his name in a stunned, questioning way.

  The letter stated Piers had inherited his mother’s beautiful eyes, and as his were gray, I’d assumed hers had been too. It had been on my charts so long, I barely noticed it any more. Even when I saw the miniature of Vincent’s wife, it had not come to mind. It wasn’t until I looked through my charts that night that I realised how we had been deceived.

  Vincent had introduced the man with him as his son Piers, and we had accepted it without question, as he had known we would. Even though Piers’s features and build were quite different to Vincent’s, and as I later saw, to his wife’s too. If I had taken the lack of resemblance into account much sooner, I might have questioned some of the other things Vincent had told us.

  For in working out who was responsible for the murders, I knew it wasn’t Giles. He simply wasn’t capable of such a thing, which left Mr Reevers, Vincent and Piers. Piers didn’t have the intelligence to devise so clever a scheme. The other two gentlemen had exactly that kind of mind.

  I didn’t know what to think where Mr Reevers was concerned, for he desperately needed money, and at the time of the murders had thought himself next in line after Giles. But when we learnt Vincent was alive, that changed the family tree, making him the heir to Ledstone Place until Giles and Lucie married and had children.

  Vincent’s answer was dismissive. ‘Gray eyes, brown eyes. Men don’t notice such things. I was distraught when I penned that letter. I hardly knew what I was writing. My wife and son were very ill, the walls of our lodgings ran with damp, and I hadn’t enough money to buy the food they needed. Cuthbert chose not to answer my letter, and my dear wife died. I feared my son would be taken from me too, but----’