“Good-tempered until someone abrades the soft tissue at the edges of the mouth using the emery board from a box of matches or the serrated edge of a half crown. Something you might expect to find in any man’s pocket.”
Dorcas gasped. “How cruel! That’s malice aforethought, isn’t it? Who would do that?”
“Malice is the right word exactly. It was done by someone who had no feeling for the horse and who had a grudge against its owner. Are you aware of a man living and working on the estate who had good reason to feel aggrieved? The Green Man?” Joe lifted an eyebrow, watching her reactions.
“Oh, him! The rat-catcher! Creepy man! He was watching me and Lavinia as we did the tour. She didn’t seem to mind—she even waved at him. I can’t imagine why James puts up with him. He told me he’d given him notice to leave … Oh! There you are! That’s the reason, isn’t it? What are you waiting for, Joe? Go out and bring him in!”
“Listen, Dorcas. Sit down. I’ll make this quick.”
She listened intently as he told her of Adelaide Hartest’s evidence and sketched out a ruthlessly edited version of Goodfellow’s death. He made no mention of the letter or of Phoebe Pilgrim. He’d leave James Truelove to tell his own tale.
The old Dorcas was with him again as she frowned with concentration and responded with quick understanding. “Stoat’s liver, you say? Yes. That would do it. But you’re wrong, Joe—you don’t have to be a Horseman to know that. The gypsies have the knowledge too. But they don’t bother to wrap it up in cat’s urine, rabbit’s blood and toad bone—all that’s just so much abracadabra. Whatever else, it’s not magic! No—first catch your stoat! That’s the vital bit. Goodfellow! He styled himself ‘gamekeeper’ you know. He shot birds and he trapped vermin. The kind who enjoys killing creatures. I saw a row of pathetic little corpses he’d caught and mounted on osier spikes along the edge of the wood where it meets the wheat field. Out in the open. Anyone able to identify a stoat could have helped himself and no one would ever have noticed.”
“It’s chilling to hear you say so, Dorcas.” Again, Joe was assailed by a thought he had instantly to suppress. He forged on: “But someone would then need to be close enough to Lavinia to persuade her—or trick her—into using the horse bate—substance B, let’s call it—instead of the attractant.”
“Or someone could have entered her room during the night and simply exchanged samples. Well, you can eliminate James—he chose to spend the night over in the Dower House where his mother lives. He wasn’t creeping about the corridors with his pockets full of rotting livers.”
“I had wondered why he should choose that particular night to distance himself from his wife’s room,” Joe invited a comment. “Sounds very like someone setting up an alibi to me.”
Again the challenge in her eye as she spoke: “You’re right. It was. But you have the wrong reason. It was a deliberate choice. To avert any suspicion of hanky-panky with an unaccompanied female guest. Me. You know what these large households are like for gossip. But you can eliminate me as well. I never left the Old Nursery where the witch had stuck me for the night. It’s right over the other side. I would have had to walk miles of corridor and probably got lost en route looking for Lavinia’s room. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Are you losing your grip, Joe? Her maid did it. Quiet little thing but well-spoken. Her name’s Grace. Why don’t you just ask her? It was probably a half-baked reprisal for some ticking-off, some fancied slight or, at best, a hideous misunderstanding. Being maid to Lavinia would give anyone a hundred reasons for wishing her ill. She’s done the world a favour—don’t be hard on her. Put on your stern face and she’ll come clean. Then we can all go back to London and get on with our lives.”
Joe stared at Dorcas as though seeing her for the first time. Was this the girl he’d worried about for seven years? His charge? His delightful but tormenting responsibility? A pawn, casually pushing another pawn forward into the firing line? The young woman facing him was confident, argumentative and unyielding. She needed no help. She was flying by herself. She was leaving Joe behind, floundering in her slipstream, without a backward glance.
“And you can produce independent confirmation of your whereabouts during the crucial hours?” he asked with deceptive mildness.
A flash of scorn for his policeman’s phrasing cut him to the quick.
“I wouldn’t like to think I had to,” she said, turning away from him dismissively.