Page 77 of Corpse in the Canal

They were near the top of the hill, and Solomon had moved to the right of the track, when he spoke her name quietly. He was gazing at a tree trunk. Constance hurried to join him, and he pointed to what looked like a dark stain on the bark. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket, he wet it with his saliva and rubbed the stain. His handkerchief showed a dull, pinkish red.

“Old blood,” Constance said. “He was shot here…”

“Possibly. He might have grabbed the tree for support, leaned against it…or it might be older blood from some other incident entirely. Or just staining from the bark.” His gaze dropped to the track. “There have been wheels along here.”

“More than one lot shows in places,” Constance said. “Where the trees are thickest and little rain gets through. Let’s say he was shot and died here. Unless whoever killed him was very strong, he or she would have needed a vehicle to transport his body from here to the canal.”

“And Joshua’s boy would not necessarily have seen the vehicle emerge, and the body tipped in… Let’s go down and see where such a vehicle might have emerged.”

“That track,” Constance said as they moved downward, gesturing beyond the point they had entered the wood, “must lead to Larchford House.”

“So Percy must have been heading to Dare Hall—surreptitiously. Only he never got there.”

Eventually, they emerged from the wood, only yards from the canal.

“I can’t see Joshua’s cottage from here,” Solomon said.

“Nor Larchford House. It’s a quiet spot on both banks. Only a chance passerby is likely to have seen him. Or a canal boat crew, I suppose.”

“And he must already have been dead before Fred Baines’s barge passed here to tie up. The water had already surged down into the lock, carrying his body with it. It would be easy enough for the murderer to stay hidden in these trees until the coast was clear, and he could tip Percy’s body into the canal.”

“But someone could have seen him earlier,” Constance said. “The old woman saw a gentleman on this side of the bank, further downstream, nearer Dare Hall.”

“It’s more likely to have been Percy. He was on horseback, not driving a wheeled cart or whatever.”

Constance nodded. “So it probably wasn’t the murderer she saw there at all. It must have been Percy. So there were two people skulking around Dare Hall land without seeing each other until they came face to face up there in the woods?”

“It’s possible.” He sighed. “It’s also possible Adelaide, or her servant, shot Percy, and went home to fetch a cart to carry the body down to the canal. Any caller at Dare Hall would have been denied.”

“And were too embarrassed or afraid to tell us of their presence?” Constance widened her eyes. “Did Adelaide have another suitor?”

“Someone she’s protecting,” Solomon said slowly. “Either for reasons of reputation or because she fears that person murdered Percy. For her.”

“Everett,” Constance said in triumph. “He’s the only one who defends her. He said outright that the Harveys are wrong about her. But did he shoot Percy? Or is he covering for her?”

“Or her servant,” Solomon added. He turned, facing along the canal bank toward Channing, and Constance heard it too—the clip-cop of a horse’s hooves. In the distance a small, gig-shaped vehicle drawn by a single pony came into view along the canal side. A flash of red, from a scarf or a waistcoat, caught her attention, distracting her from some other half-glimpsed movement in the woods.

“Is that David?” Constance asked, just before a loud crack split the air, and Solomon fell at her feet, blood oozing across his forehead.

*

David had borrowed the inn’s gig along with their fat little pony. He was looking for inspiration for fresh sketches that he could later turn into oil paintings.

He was also giving himself the option of calling on Adelaide Jenkins. He had been told there were two paths up to her house from the canal and had driven past the first to give himself time. Besides, the second was apparently through a forest and gave him opportunity to pretend to be lost—if he was prepared to stoop so low.

He didn’t think he was. But neither did he want to be another Percy-like pest.

David’s passages with women had not been respectable, except for those who tended to mother him. From others, he had learned to guard his coin, and expected nothing except shame—so much so that he had been celibate for years. The brain fever had hardly helped, of course, but even as he had begun to find his feet in London and Paris, and recognized the beauty of what Solomon had found with Constance, he had known that such contentment was not for him.

He hadn’t much cared. Except that Adelaide Jenkins made him care, without even trying. And how sick was that, when her past was entwined with Solomon’s? No, he had to stay away…

As if he had conjured them from his thoughts, he saw Constance and Solomon emerge from the wood and come to a halt, talking and looking about them. He tickled the pony with the ribbons.

“Giddy up, you lazy old…equine. Make it a trot!”

Reluctantly, the pony obliged, and the gig bowled along the canal road twice as fast. Something moved in the density of the trees, attracting his attention. Something flashed, like a blink of sun, and then a sharp crack sounded and Solomon fell to the ground.

The pony whinnied with distress and sped up. Someone shouted, a cry of pitiful loss and anguish. Constance… No, it was a man’s voice. It was David’s.