A Duty To The Dead Part 22

"I want to find someone. The family of a girl who died in service nearly fifteen years ago. And I don't know how to begin."

My father's eyes met Simon's across the table. "And if I help you find this family, you'll come home with me?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. It will depend on many things."

"Does this have to do with Arthur and his message?"

"Arthur must have been all of eleven at the time Lily died," I replied, evading his question.

"I see." I don't think he did. But one could never be sure with my father.

Finally he added, "All right. Simon knows people. Give me the name of the family and we'll see what he can discover."

"I think it's hopeless. But I have to try. The girl's name was Lily. Lily Mercer. And she was murdered in a house on Carroll Square, Number 17. I want to know what became of her family."

Simon had finished his flan. "I'll leave the motor with you, then, shall I?" he said to my father, and then to me, "I'll bring whatever I can learn to the flat. Tomorrow morning. Will that do?"

"How are you going about this?" I asked, more than a little alarmed.

He grinned. "One of the lads in the regiment is now a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police."

Before I could ask him to be circ.u.mspect, he was gone-a tall, slender man striding through the restaurant as if he were about to lead the regiment into battle.

"Who is Lily Mercer?"

I turned quickly to face my father. "Let me do what needs to be done. And afterward, I'll tell you what I can."

"I don't care to find you involved in a murder, even an old one."

"I'm not involved. I just want to know what became of this girl's family afterward. Whether they were satisfied that justice had been done."

"Why is it so important to you? Tell me that?"

"You'll learn soon enough, if Simon speaks to the police. It had to do with the Graham family."

"You told me it had nothing to do with the message you carried."

"No, I told you that Arthur was only eleven at the time."

He smiled. "You are no better at lying to me now than you were at seven."

"I don't want you taking charge and doing it all your way. I want to satisfy myself in my own fas.h.i.+on. I can't do anything about the past, I can't bring back the dead, but I think Arthur was-changed by what happened in Carroll Square, and perhaps he'll rest a little easier at the bottom of the sea if I finish what he never could."

"All right. That's fair enough." He signaled to the waiter, and we left the subject of Lily Mercer until we reached the street. As we walked to where Simon had left the motorcar, my father said, "We'll say nothing of this to your mother. Is that agreed?"

"Yes. Oh, yes."

"And if you should find yourself in over your head in this business, you'll remember to call in the cavalry, won't you?"

"I promise." He handed me into the motorcar, and as he walked around to the driver's side, I thought, This is my chance. This is my chance. I could tell him about Peregrine, and let him see to finis.h.i.+ng what I'd inadvertently begun in Owlhurst. I could tell him about Peregrine, and let him see to finis.h.i.+ng what I'd inadvertently begun in Owlhurst.

But I couldn't. It wasn't clever to deal with a murderer, let alone a man who has spent years in an asylum. It wasn't clever to hide an armed man with a history of murder in his background. It wasn't at all clever to think I could do what I'd set out to do, alone and in the dark.

Yet if I sounded the alarm now, Peregrine would be returned to the asylum to live out his life there. And the truth would be locked away with him.

If Arthur had had any part in what had happened to Lily Mercer, I wanted to know.

He was only eleven, the little voice in my head reminded me. the little voice in my head reminded me.

Who was I to say that a child of eleven could or couldn't kill. I didn't even know if a child that age really understood the significance of killing.

I remember one summer morning in India when the box wallah came to tell the cook that his favorite grandson was dead. The boy had been bitten by a cobra that had been called out of its hole in the roots of a tree near the river by the boy's own cousin with a flute he had made for himself from a reed. It was called an accident, a tragic accident, but other children told me later what the adults hadn't known, that the cousin had been eaten up by jealousy and wanted the boy out of the way. They were both nine.

I had told my ayah, my Indian nanny, what I'd learned, but she said to me, "It was the boy's time to die, don't you see? If it hadn't been, the cobra would never have come, no matter how much the cousin had played his flute."

Her fatalism had frightened me far more than the death of the boy. It claimed that the universe I knew wasn't run by a benevolent G.o.d, as I'd been taught, but by Chance, a system where one's turn was dictated by forces over which one had no control.

My father was saying, "You must get this altruistic nature from your mother, not me."

I laughed in spite of myself. "That indicates a choice in the matter," I told him. "This wasn't so much choice as it was thrust in my face when I wasn't looking."

The Colonel dropped me at my flat.

As I watched him drive away, I wished I'd had the forethought to ask him to stay in London, within reach, and not return to Somerset just yet.

Then I turned and hurried into the flat, where Peregrine and Diana were comfortably discussing a visit she'd made to Rochester shortly before the war. But his eyes as I came through the door flicked to my face on the instant, searching for any sign of betrayal.

Diana went out that night to dine with friends, and I made dinner for Peregrine and myself.

"What did you tell your father?"

"That I was in London to discover what had become of Lily Mercer's family."

He started up, sensing betrayal.

"Sit down. I can't track them alone. Nor can you. The best chance we have is to use my father's connections. You don't know the Army, Peregrine-the regular Army. It's as tightly knit a group as the Knights Templar-or the Masons or the Catholic Church. If there's a way to find them, my father will." I had left out Simon Brandon. Don't muddy the waters too far, my girl. Don't muddy the waters too far, my girl.

Besides, no military plan should be without a line of retreat.

But Peregrine was nothing if not astute.

"Who was the man with your father? The one waiting with the car?"

I would have sworn, if I'd been my father's son instead of my father's daughter. As it was, I was sorely tempted.

The windows of Elayne's room looked down on the street. I had forgot.

"His batman. My father retired as a Colonel. Simon had risen to sergeant major. But they served together when my father was a lowly lieutenant, and the bond has lasted all these years. Simon drives my father, he always has."

"But he didn't drive you back here, did he?"

The temptation to swear was overwhelming now.

"He had other business to attend to. He left us while we were still in the restaurant."

Peregrine wasn't convinced, though he said nothing more. But I could feel him watching me for the rest of the evening, speculation in his eyes.

Diana left the next day, and I was grateful not to have to consider her in my dealings with Peregrine. She gave him a good-bye kiss on his cheek, though, a dancing dervish in her eyes, and blew me one, then was gone, back to France, leaving silence behind her. I saw that Peregrine was staring at the door with an unreadable expression on his face.

At teatime, Mrs. Hennessey brought up a folded note. "From your father, dear," she said.

I thanked her and read it quickly.

Lucy Mercer's family had emigrated to New Zealand soon after she was killed. Their pa.s.sage had been paid for them by the Graham solicitors.

They had traded their daughter's death for a better life for themselves.

I turned to Peregrine as he came up from Elayne's room. "Not the best of news," I said, and gave him the message.

He read it and swore.

"A dead end," he said, finally.

"But it's odd, isn't it? That they should take the money offered them, and leave England on the heels of their daughter's murder."

"Desperate people. She wasn't coming back, and something good-for them, at any rate-had come of it."

"I expect so." But I couldn't rid myself of doubts. Still, I had no children, and I couldn't judge whether a grieving mother might well take the chance to better the lives of her remaining children while she could, even at the hands of the murderer's family, or whether she had been willing to sacrifice one for the good of the others, making the best of what life had brought her.

Had that been the bribe? Had the family accepted a new life in lieu of demanding that Peregrine be sent to prison? The police of course had decided Peregrine's fate, but without the Mercers demanding an eye for an eye, they might have been more easily persuaded to be lenient with a disturbed boy.

"I'm going back to Carroll Square," I said on my way to my room to fetch my coat and hat. "I'll see if anyone there still remembers Lily."

He was at the door before me, his own coat over his arm as I came out of my room.

"No, Peregrine-"

"Yes. They aren't going to know me, for G.o.d's sake. Why shouldn't I accompany you?"

Reluctantly I let him come with me. We found a cab and arrived at Number 17 as a few early flakes of snow began to fall.

An elderly maid answered our knock, and I asked her if there was anyone still employed in this house who remembered a maid here some fourteen years ago, by the name of Lily Mercer.

She stared at me for a moment, and said, "You must ask Mrs. Talbot, Miss."

And so it was that we were admitted to the presence of Mrs. Talbot, a formidably fat woman in her later years, swathed in shawls and seated like a toad in the largest chair in a very fas.h.i.+onable drawing room. Her trim feet rested on a stool.

She had an eye for Peregrine and asked him where he'd been wounded.

"On the Somme," he said, but didn't elaborate.

She nodded. "Indeed. I lost a son at Mons and another at Ypres. I didn't want to live myself, at first, but it's not in my nature to die. Which of my many committees and sponsors.h.i.+ps brings you to my door tonight?"

"I'm afraid it's none of them, Mrs. Talbot. We're trying to find anyone who might have known a young woman by the name of Lily Mercer. She worked here in this house as an upstairs maid for a time some fourteen years ago."

"And why do you wish to find this young person?" Mrs. Talbot asked, her eyes narrowing. "Is it in her interest or yours, this search?"

"Mine," I admitted. "I never knew Lily Mercer. But her family moved to New Zealand, and so I'm unable to contact them. I was hoping one of your present staff might remember her. Lieutenant Philips is as interested as I am to learn more about the girl. One of his friends was accused of harming her, you see, and I'd like to know if it is true, or if he was falsely accused."

We had discussed in the cab coming here what to admit to and what not.

Mrs. Talbot considered us a moment, then picked up the silver bell at her elbow. The maid who had admitted us answered the summons. Mrs. Talbot sent the maid belowstairs to question the staff.

Mrs. Talbot, meanwhile, turned her attention to me.

"You are doing nothing to help with the war, Miss Crawford?"

I could see myself leaving here as part of any number of committees, or dispatched to Hamps.h.i.+re to grow vegetables on the lawns of some great estate.

"I was serving on Britannic, Britannic, Mrs. Talbot, when she went down, and my arm was broken when she was struck. I can't return to duty until it's fully healed." Mrs. Talbot, when she went down, and my arm was broken when she was struck. I can't return to duty until it's fully healed."

She nodded approvingly. At that moment there was a tap at the door, and the maid was back.

"There's the laundress, Mrs. Talbot. She remembers the young person in question."

"Then bring her here."

"If you'll forgive me, she might be more comfortable speaking to us in the servants' hall," I suggested quickly.

But Mrs. Talbot wouldn't hear of it. "Nonsense. Bring her here, Mattie."

And in due course, Mattie returned with the laundress. She might have been young and pretty fourteen years ago, but hard work had toughened her skin and reddened her hands and taken away her youth.

Her name, Mattie informed us, was Daisy.

"Hallo, Daisy," I said. "It's kind of you to speak to us. We're concerned about Lily Mercer. Did you know her?"

"She's dead," Daisy answered bluntly. She was clearly ill at ease.

"Yes, I know that. But as her family has left England, I'm hoping to find someone who can tell me a little about her."

"We was employed here, when this house was let to visitors to London. That was when Mr. Horner owned it, and didn't want to live here anymore. He said it was haunted by his wife's ghost. Which is absurd, o' course. But he believed it. And so we stayed on as staff, those that chose to stay, and went with the house, so to speak. When Mr. Horner died of his grief, the house was sold to Mrs. Talbot's brother, and then she inherited it from him."

"What happened to the rest of the staff?"

"Some stayed. Others gave in their notice."

"Tell me about Lily?"