Читать книгу Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Janet Kellough - Страница 33

Lewis returned to an uproarious welcome at the Jessup’s. Betsy was feeling much better, and was able to hobble between the stove and the table without help. Minta’s Henry was a serious little boy who didn’t quite know what to make of the boisterous Martha, but she was determined to entertain him, and had him giggling and laughing as his mother watched approvingly.

“He seems to have inherited his father’s temperament,” she said. “It’s so good for him to have another child to play with. He needs to learn that life isn’t all seriousness.”

Martha had constructed a tent of sorts out of two chairs and the quilt from the daybed, and she was pretending to be an ogre who lived inside. Every time Henry approached the makeshift cave, Martha would roar and try to grab him. He would then run away squealing and laughing. Betsy and Minta both got into the spirit of the game and roared at him in their turn, and when Lewis rose from his chair with the intention of fetching some firewood, Martha shouted, “Oh, no, it’s a really big monster coming to get you!”

Henry was unsure of where to run, so he stood still, his eyes huge. Lewis strode across the floor, grabbed the little boy, turned him upside down and began to tickle him while the others laughed and shouted encouragement. This was the scene that greeted Seth Jessup after his day’s work was over and he came in looking for his supper.

“My goodness me,” he said mildly. “This looks like fun.” He stood, as uncertain as his son had been. Lewis took the small, struggling boy and thrust him into his father’s arms.

“More, Daddy, more!” Henry shouted, and after a moment’s hesitation Seth began to spin the child around, all the time dipping and raising him until he ended by plunking him on his shoulders while Henry clutched his hair, his face red and happy.

“Supper’s ready,” Minta said, and Seth swung Henry down, depositing him at the table. “Martha, tidy away the quilt, dear, and bring the chairs to the table.”

Later, after the children said their prayers and were put to bed, Minta finally asked the question that she had probably been dying to ask ever since they’d arrived. “So, what brought you down this way, Mr. Lewis?”

“It’s Thaddeus, please, and that is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.” He hesitated for a moment, a little unsure what reaction his next statement would produce. “It’s partly about Rachel.”

He turned to Seth. “Please don’t be upset. Just bear with me for a bit and then I’ll explain, but I need to know the answer to one question. Where did you go the night Henry was born?”

The blacksmith looked sheepish. “Minta told you about that?”

“She told me you’d been gone, but I’ve never known why.”

Seth heaved a great sigh and stared at the table as he struggled for the words.

“I have always been a driven man,” he said finally. “I always felt that my fortunes depended on me and me alone. You can make something of yourself in this place if you’re willing to work and you’re careful with the fruits of your labours. I’d always worked hard until I could work no more, never spent a penny more than was needed.” He cleared his throat and looked at Minta. “And sometimes not even when it was.”

Lewis nodded. This was what Rachel had implied when he asked why Seth didn’t attend the class meetings.

“I love my wife dearly, Mr. Lewis, and I always have, but sometimes my attitude made life difficult for her. I told myself that I was doing it all for her, that I would end up being somebody in this life, and that at some future time she would be a lady of leisure, she and Rachel as well, with other people hired to look after all the hard tasks. That’s who I worked for, you see, for them. I was scared to death that I was going to lose Minta when the baby was born, but it was all selfish — I didn’t know what I would do if that happened. And then when she gave me a fine, healthy boy and it appeared that she was out of danger, I did something very silly.”

He stopped, and Lewis waited, knowing that it would take this man of few words a moment to compose his confession.

“I went and bought a bottle of whiskey. Oh, I had no wish to consort with the drunks at the tavern — they’re a foolish lot — but I wanted to celebrate what I thought I had done. Here I was, with a wonderful wife and a new son, a good job and money saved. I was on top of the world, you see, but I thought it was all my doing. I felt I deserved it all, and that I would darn well spend a shilling and have a good time for once.”

“Oh, Seth …” Minta began, but Lewis silenced her with a glance. There was much more to come, and silence was the way to coax it into the open air.

“I woke up in the woods the next morning and was sick as a dog,” Seth said. “I felt stupid over the whole thing — money wasted, and it wasn’t such a nice pastime after all. Why do people drink like they do?” he asked. “I felt terrible, and I never want to feel that way again.”

Lewis thought for a moment. “But one of the first times I ever laid eyes on you, you were coming out of a tavern.”

It was Seth’s turn to think back. “I don’t know why, unless I’d gone to tell a customer his horse was shod. I never went there otherwise.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “A bunch of wasters in there, that’s what they are — knaves and braggarts. Nay, Preacher, I’d have nothing to do with them.”

Again Lewis took himself to task for jumping to conclusions. “Go on,” he said, “what happened then?”

“And then I went home and found Rachel dead, and I knew my foolishness for what it was. My good fortune had little to do with me. It was Providence alone that had brought me my blessings, and I realized that it didn’t matter what I did, it could all be taken away in the flash of an eye. How stupid I was to think that hard work alone would get me what I wanted. And then I realized that what I really wanted had nothing to do with riches. I wanted Minta and Henry to cherish, and I wanted my lovely sister to get up off the bed and live and breathe again, and she could tease me all she wanted, for I loved her, too.”

His voice grew husky with emotion. “I vowed then to turn over a new leaf. Oh, I would still work my fingers to the bone, and gladly, for my family, but I would take time to be with them, too, and do my best to make life easier for them — not at some far-off time in the future, but now. And I would open up my soul and give thanks for what I’d been blessed with.”

Lewis’s heart went out to the man. Poor dour Seth: a good man, whose goodness had to be ferreted out and cosseted before it could find the light of day. He reached over and squeezed the man’s hand.

“I’m happy that you realize how fortunate you are,” he said. “I’m just sorry about what it took to make you realize it.”

Seth nodded. “You said you’d explain why you were asking.”

“I have reason to believe that Rachel was murdered.”

Minta gasped, and her hand flew up to her mouth, but Seth had a thoughtful look on his face. “I’d wondered,” he said. “All this time, I’ve wondered.”

Lewis told them of the other deaths, and a little of the strange details that anointed the bodies, the details that dovetailed with what Seth had discovered at his house that night. He omitted his theory of who had done it; it was not yet time to make his suspicions public.

“I was almost certain Rachel had been strangled,” Seth said, “but I couldn’t make head nor tail out of the other stuff. I thought maybe it was the Quaker boy she’d been seeing on the sly; his father was pretty upset at the notion of him marrying out. You know how they are — it’s their way or no way. I thought maybe something had happened between the two — they’d had an argument or something — and the boy flew into a rage and killed her.”

“No,” Lewis said, “I’m sure it wasn’t the Quaker boy. If it were only Rachel, you might think so, but he was nowhere near the others. And I’m positive the murders are all related, all done by the same person. There seems to be this strange ritual with each of them. The bodies set up in the same way, with the same things placed with them. That speaks of one man.”

“How do you know it’s a man?” Minta asked. “You men always seem to think that women are far too noble to do such evil things, but there are women who are monsters as well.”

Lewis smiled at her. “Believe me, Minta, I considered it. I know that evil comes sometimes in a female form, but there are certain aspects of this that point to a man. It would have to be someone with an excuse to be in many different places. There is also something else going on here that points to a man, a certain warped and depraved lust that somehow becomes something else. Please, Minta, don’t make me go into the details.”

But they had already imagined what those details might be, and they both looked taken aback.

“Do you know who it is?” Seth asked.

“Maybe,” Lewis replied. “But I have no proof, so I’ll not bandy names at this point.”

“But at some point in time you must have wondered if it was me,” Seth said, and Lewis sheepishly admitted that he had, but had quickly dropped him from consideration. “You have a happy family, and somehow I don’t think this man knows what that is.”

His timetable was once again in a shambles. Betsy was still far too lame to sit a horse, and even when she did start to feel better, he would still have to take her back to Bath. He debated whether or not he should ride west and resume his round for a few days and then return to take his family home, but that would mean leaving them with Minta. He felt they had imposed far too long as it was. Besides, he would once again be abandoning his appointments and he knew that many of them were in the northern reaches of his circuit, which would add substantially to the number of miles he would have to ride and the amount of time it would take for him to return. It was probably wiser to wait a day and see how things were.

His mind went round and round as he tried to fit together all the pieces of information he had gathered. Again and again he came back to Simms. He studied the Book of Proverbs again, the admonition to “come not nigh the door to her house,” and to “cleave unto thy wife.”

But Simms didn’t have a wife, did he? He had spoken only of a demanding mother and three unmarried sisters. Yet, he had been in Demorestville, in Prescott, in Millcreek. And who had given Sarah the little book and the painted pin, if not a peddler who had a large stock of both? He tried to recall whether or not he had ever seen the peddler’s wagon near Sarah’s cabin, but if he had, it had obviously made no impression on him. It would have been such a common sight that there would have been no reason to remember it. He did feel for the longest time that there was something he had overlooked, and then it came to him: Simms had said he was in Prescott awaiting a shipment, a shipment that had been sent down the river by his brother-in-law. As far as Lewis was aware, he had no brother-in-law; he had mentioned only the unmarried sisters. And he had been quite specific about their unwed states. And where had he been coming from when he had caught up with Lewis that day? Again, everything was pointing to the peddler. It was as clear as the writing on the wall.

The writing … the inscription inside the cover of Rachel’s book! It was a fine, educated hand that had written that. Mentally he compared the writing to the blotched and nearly illegible scrawl that had been on Morgan Spicer’s application for appointment. Not only was Spicer absent at the time of Sarah’s murder, he could never have written the words in Rachel’s book. He just didn’t write well enough.

“Minta,” he said, rising from the table. “Do you still have Rachel’s things?”

“Yes,” she said, puzzled. “Did you want to see them again?”

She retrieved the box for Lewis, who sorted through the effects until he found the Book of Proverbs. Yes, the writing was slanted and well-formed: the mark of an educated man.

“May I borrow this for a short time tomorrow?” he asked, and Minta, though obviously puzzled, nodded her assent.

The next morning Willett was nowhere in sight, but Benjamin was in the cramped little corner of the building that had been set aside as an office of sorts.

“Mr. Lewis,” he said, “Willett told me you were around the other day. I was sorry I missed you, so I’m glad you came back.”

“It’s good to see you again, too,” Lewis said. “I hear congratulations are in order. You’ve married since I left.”

Benjamin grinned. “Best thing I ever did. Should have done it long since.”

“I hear you’re so busy you’re not painting anymore.”

“That’s right. Given it up, just like my father wanted me to for years, although Willet and I may do a mural for the new church.”

“I do have a question regarding those pins you made. I understand that you travelled for a time selling them? As well as your portraits and paintings?”

“No, that’s not really quite right,” Caddick said. “Simms had his regular routes, so I sent most of the pin stock out with him. When I travelled I was selling the paintings. It’s only the well-to-do in the towns who would buy those, you see, but the pins were more popular with the poorer folk. I couldn’t cover the same kind of ground as Simms because he had all his other stock as well. He might sell some yard goods, or a pot or a tool at the same time. There just wasn’t enough profit in the pins to merit a special trip anywhere, but it was all right for him because he was going anyway.”

“So he handled the bulk of them?”

“Yes, he had most of them,” Caddick agreed. “Oh, I’d always have a few with me, just in case, but by and large it was Simms. He always said he wished they were worth more because he sold so many of them. He gave a lot of them away, as well. You know, if somebody bought a bible or a prayer book, he’d throw in the pin as a bonus.”

A bible or a prayer book … or a little red Book of Proverbs.

“Does this have something to do with Rachel Jessup?” Caddick asked. “Willett said you were asking questions about her.”

“Well, yes it does. I have never been convinced that all the questions about her death have ever been answered.” He shrugged. “I’m just trying to put the pieces together, that’s all.”

“Don’t tell me you fell under her spell as well?” Caddick teased. “She had all the young fellows dancing, that’s for sure, but I’d have thought you’d be unmoved.”

Lewis smiled. “Oh, no. Don’t worry, I’m well aware that I’m a crotchety old man and unattractive to all, except perhaps my wife on a good day. It’s just a small mystery that’s been nagging at me for a time.”

“And you think it has something to do with Isaac Simms?”

“I’m not sure,” Lewis said. But he was. And becoming surer all the time.

“Did you have any sort of written agreement with Simms? Or was it all just a verbal arrangement?”

“It wasn’t worth enough to be bothered with any sort of contract. I’d just make a note of what I sent with him and he’d make a note of what he’d sold.”

“Do you still have the notes?”

“Yes.” He disappeared under the counter and hauled out a box. “I should have tossed this out ages ago, but my father was always a stickler for record-keeping. He says you never know when you may have to prove something.” He shuffled through the documents. “Yes, it’s all here.” He shoved a sheaf of papers toward Lewis.

He only needed to find one and it didn’t take him long. There, in a fine sloping hand were the words RECEIVED, 31 JULY 1837, 100 PINS. CONSIGNMENT SALES AS AT 9 OCTOBER, 1837–82. PAID 10 OCTOBER 1837.

Just to make sure, he pulled open Rachel’s book and compared the writing. There was no question. It was the same. But why would Simms have written in the book before he placed it in her lifeless lap?

He handed the papers back. “Thank you. That helps a lot.”

Caddick shrugged. “I don’t know how, but you’re welcome.”

Lewis had never set much store by the Caddicks’ so-called “artistic talents.” The pins, he felt, were quite useless articles and perilously close to being icons of a sort — something that was more along the lines of the Catholic way of thinking than the Methodist. He could see no reason for Willett’s landscapes at all: why put something down in paint when you could see it in person? But he had had a change of heart about Benjamin’s little miniature portraits. He wished that he had, at some point, had the sense to have one done of Sarah, for he realized that he was beginning to forget what she looked like.