Chapter 5

Five

I heard Brodie moving about quite early, then he let himself out of the room.

I rose shortly after and dressed. I made notes in my notebook from our discoveries the day before, then went downstairs to the tavern.

The proprietress was there, customers already filling the tap room for breakfast before heading off for the races she had spoken of the night before.

"Yer husband has gone to see about a driver," she informed with a cheery greeting.

Husband. Did he still think of himself as that? I wondered.

"I've got a fresh pot of coffee on the cookstove."

I nodded. "Yes, please."

Brodie returned shortly after. He had arranged for a coach at the rail station to make the return trip to Sandringham.

He was matter-of-fact as I had seen him countless times before when making inquiries in a case. Nothing seemed to have changed...

"We need to go," he replied.

Brodie paid for the room and the meals, then escorted me from the tavern. The ride back to Sandringham was equally polite, and quiet.

It was very near nine o'clock in the morning when we arrived.

In parting the previous evening, Brodie had let Mr. Compton know that we would be returning.

The head steward at Sandringham met us on the front steps much like a gate-keeper with the keys to the kingdom and that impression of something very near resentment from the day before.

"How may we serve you today, sir?" he inquired with that aloof manner that was in fact most condescending.

"The conservatory is as you left it yesterday," he assured us.

Brodie thanked him, then made the request to speak with the head groundskeeper. I noted the man's surprise, then he replied, "Of course, I will advise Mr. Strangway. Is there a specific request?"

Brodie ignored the question. "Thank ye, sir," he politely told him instead. "We will meet him at the gardens at the far end of the manor."

"Of course, sir."

"Hopefully the footprints are still there," Brodie commented as we then set off to meet with the head groundskeeper.

Mr. Strangway arrived a short time later, escorted by Mr. Compton. The man most certainly was determined to oversee our every move.

Introductions were made and then Brodie once again thanked Mr. Compton for his assistance, dismissing him.

The house steward turned to Mr. Strangway and informed him that he would need to speak with him after he met with us. No doubt to question him regarding any inquiries we made.

Brodie waited until Mr. Compton had returned to the manor, then turned to the groundskeeper as we walked through the gardens to the location of those footprints we had seen the previous evening.

Along the way he commended the man on the gardens, along with several questions as I had seen him do countless times as he put the man at ease and built a certain level of cooperation with him, as Mr. Strangway had no doubt been cautioned about speaking with us.

In between, Brodie asked about the last night when the gentlemen were all present for a weekend of gaming, and perhaps a bit of hunting in the forest just beyond. Had the groundskeeper noticed anything afterward, perhaps one of the gentlemen partaking of a cigarette or taking a walk about?

"Oh, no, sir. The weather had set in and would have made it quite difficult. The gentlemen remained inside through the evening."

We eventually arrived near the base of those steps that led up to the suite of rooms Sir Collingwood had occupied during that ‘gentlemen's weekend.'

"Who among yer staff would tend these gardens?" Brodie asked.

"Most usually that would be Ben McMasters and young Tim, one of the lads he's brought on. If they were needed elsewhere, then it would be meself and one of the other men. It's a sizable task, maintaining the gardens for Their Royal Highnesses."

Then, something that Brodie was also very accomplished at, his probing for information, his experience with other cases, as he pointed to the boot print in the mud at the base of the steps which had survived intact due to the warmth of the day and no additional rain through the night.

"It seems one of yer people might have recently attended this part of the gardens."

Mr. Roberts studied the print. "No, sir. Not since the rain set in. I've only just today been able to get the lads out and about their responsibilities here. With His Highness back in London for these few days, we will have the opportunity to clean and set the gardens aright before he returns. And ye can see, sir, the print is not of the sort of boot worn by me or the lads."

He gave it a closer inspection.

"This does have the look more of a gentleman's boot." He was thoughtful. "I suppose it's possible that one of them might have stepped out for a bit of fresh air or a smoke."

Might that ‘bit of fresh air' or ‘a smoke' have included the lady who had obviously also been present that weekend?

Brodie thanked him. "Ye've been most helpful."

"If there's nothing else, sir, I need to get on with my work while the sun is with us."

"Of course," Brodie replied. "We'll find our way back."

"And he will no doubt report our conversation to Mr. Compton," I added when he had gone.

"Aye," he replied as he studied the prints once more.

"We need to see where these prints lead. It might tell us something about what Sir Collingwood was about that night."

We set off and followed those prints through the gardens and then beyond to the edge of the forest. The tree cover and gorse were quite thick, which raised the obvious question—what would have taken Sir Collingwood into the forest that late night?

"It might be useful to split up," I suggested. There was somewhat of a path that led off in one direction.

Brodie nodded. "I'll continue in this other direction. Keep sight of the manor so not to get lost."

I headed off one way, Brodie in the other.

The forest was denser there as I followed the path that at times disappeared, then reappeared. However, the forest floor was covered with leaves and pine needles that made it impossible to know if there were any prints there.

As I continued, I was forced to push aside low hanging branches that had broken off—including juniper. Was it possible Sir Collingwood had come this way?

That question was answered as I found a boot print on the path where the undergrowth and forest debris thinned and exposed soft earth. Then another.

What was Sir Collingwood doing in the forest that last night? Was he merely out for a walk? Or had he come here to meet someone?

I pushed aside a thick branch of low-growing elder with those long, toothed leaves and that faint sweet smell that reminded me of the forest at Old Lodge, then suddenly stopped at the sight of the body before me or what was left of it, a leg that protruded from the undergrowth. And I was not alone.

There was much grunting and snorting, and that leg thrown about.

I had heard those sounds before a long time ago, the memory suddenly surfacing, and my stomach tightened as a dark shape suddenly appeared. The boar raised that massive head with bloodied tusks. Beady eyes stared back at me.

It seemed that I had found Sir Collingwood, or what was left of him.

I forced myself to think.

The knife that Munro had given me when I made my first travel along with the revolver that Brodie insisted I carry were both in my carpet bag. However, in order to retrieve either one would have immediately brought the beast down on me.

"Dinnae move," Brodie said in a quiet voice, somewhere very near.

I wondered if breathing was part of that. I then saw the sudden change in the boar's stance. It pawed the ground sending clumps of bloodied sod and flesh into the air, then charged.

The silence of the forest exploded in a series of loud shots as Brodie fired—once, twice, three times and still the boar charged.

It caught me at the knees and rolled me as he fired twice more, followed by the sound of thrashing through the elder brush just beyond where I lay. Then silence.

Brodie moved past me, followed that bloody path into the underbrush, then returned.

"Is it dead?" I barely recognized my own voice.

"Are ye hurt?" Brodie returned the revolver to the waist of his trousers. But I barely heard him.

"Is it dead?" I demanded.

"Are ye hurt?"

He was there, kneeling beside me, hands at my arms as if he would shake a response from me.

"No!" I shouted, then tried to push him away with that sudden need to get away from the blood and gore.

He held on. "Are ye certain yer not injured? Mikaela?" Urgent this time, pulling me back from the fear and the blood and gore.

I nodded. "I'm certain." Although my skirt had not fared as well, and I realized just how dangerous the encounter had been at the long tear in the fabric, no doubt caused as the boar charged.

That dark gaze met mine, and I saw something else there—fear.

"Aye," he eventually replied. "Let's get ye on yer feet. We need to get back to the manor."

I glanced past him at the carcass of the boar, bloodied from bullet wounds along with remnants of that body nearby, those beady eyes still staring quite dead now.

I was wobbly and started to shake. Brodie pulled me against him.

"I've got ye."

He held onto me, his beard brushing my cheek.

"Ye are a troublesome baggage, Mikaela Forsythe." The hand that stroked my hair shook slightly.

"I've been told that."

We stood there for several moments, holding on to each other in the silence of the forest.

"Yer certain ye are all right?" he asked again. "Can ye stand?"

I assured him that I could, then glanced past him to that mutilated body.

"Sir Collingwood?"

"So, it would seem from what is left of him."

He went to the body then, crouched down, and made several observations in spite of the condition of the body.

"He's been dead verra likely since that night he was found to be missing. However, it would seem that the beast that attacked ye was not what killed him."

There was the distinct odor, the body already beginning to decay. Or, what was left of it. It did seem that the boar wasn't particular about that.

He lifted the edge of Sir Collingwood's jacket. "Knife wounds, several of them, undoubtedly the cause of death. And then the body was left for the animals to have their way, perhaps with the hope it would never be found."

That changed everything as far as our inquiry was concerned.

"The body will need to be sent back to London," he said then as other sounds were heard, gradually coming nearer. No doubt staff from Sandringham at the sound of those shots being fired.

"We'll need to return to London as soon as possible."

Sir Collingwood's disappearance was no longer a case of a missing person who had taken himself off after a particularly interesting weekend of gambling in the company of His Royal Highness, and...others. Those stab wounds told a far different story.

His disappearance was now a murder investigation.

A local physician was requested in spite of the fact there was nothing to be done. Mr. Compton identified the remains as those of Sir Collingwood, then they were bound and placed in a plain wood coffin appropriated from the village blacksmith.

Several hours later, a handful of servants, including Mr. Compton, assembled at the steps of Sandringham Manor as we departed.

"His Royal Highness will need to be notified," he said in that reserved manner that all servants were obviously required to maintain—even with a body that had been discovered very near the manor.

"I will see that it is done," Brodie replied.

He sent a telegram to Sir Avery in London upon our arrival at the rail station. When the train arrived, the coffin was taken aboard. He then joined me in the compartment for the return to London.

We were the only ones in the compartment when the train departed. Several times I looked up to find that him watching me.

"Ye are a rare woman, Mikaela Forsythe."

I had heard that before, but after everything that had happened, I was left to wonder what it now meant, most particularly, for us.