The Murder Stone Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  THE COUSINS: Simon . . . the warrior

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  THE COUSINS: Peter . . . the engineer

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  THE COUSINS: Harry . . . the charmer

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  THE COUSINS: Robin . . . the practical one

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  THE COUSINS: Freddy . . . the musician

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  FRANCIS HATTON . . .

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Author's Notes

  Also by Charles Todd

  Copyright Page

  For Kate Miciak,

  whose book this is . . .

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  THE HATTONS OF RIVER’S END HOUSE:

  Francesca Hatton—central character, a young woman who has spent the early war years in London as a Red Cross worker meeting trains from the coast; burned out, she comes home to the Valley when her grandfather has a stroke.

  Francis Hatton—who has lived secluded in the isolated Exe Valley. After his death, Francesca discovers that he may have been a very different person from the loving grandfather she remembers.

  Francesca’s Dead Parents—Edward had a gambling problem and was exiled to Canada, where he and his wife were killed in a car crash, leaving an infant daughter. Or did they?

  Francesca’s Uncle and Aunt—Tristan and Margaret Hatton, who seldom came to the Valley, but had a family of sons. They died in Hampshire—or were they murdered?

  Francesca’s Cousins:

  Simon, the warrior, who played war games and then went off to real war, only to die. He it was who gave the white stone at the bottom of the garden the name Murder Stone.

  Robin, the practical one, who always sought explanations for everything. Did he, in the war, before he died, see the wretched business for what it was?

  Peter, the engineer, who made the props for all their games, and then became a sapper in the war, only to die a horrible death when one of his tunnels collapsed around him.

  Freddy, the musician, whose talent was silenced in the terrors of destruction.

  And Harry, the charmer, the youngest who was everyone’s favorite and who was the last to die, in the first weeks of the Somme offensive.

  Mr. Gregory—the children’s tutor.

  Mrs. Lane—for years the housekeeper for the household at River’s End, and who lives in the village now, coming to clean and cook every day.

  Wiggins—long-dead gatekeeper and gardener.

  Bill Trelawny, the coachman, who has served the family all his life and is devoted to Francis Hatton.

  Bill’s sister Beth Trelawny—who died in Francis Hatton’s youth.

  Tyler—the old dog that had belonged to Francis Hatton.

  RESIDENTS OF HURLEY—the tiny hamlet where a bridge crosses the Exe River, a stone’s throw from the gates of River’s End.

  William Stevens—the young war-wounded rector of St. Mary Magdalene Church and the village choice to marry Miss Francesca.

  Mrs. Horner—the housekeeper at the Rectory, and neighbor of Mrs. Lane’s.

  “Tardy” Horner—her husband, the sexton, and always late.

  Mr. Chatham—the former rector, now retired and living by the sea below Exemouth.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ranson—who own the village inn/pub, The Spotted Calf.

  Miss Trotter—the old woman who lives alone in a cottage beyond the church, offering medicines and advice with equal vigor, as many eccentric people did in the past.

  Daisy Barton—a dead serving girl whom Mr. Hatton took pity on.

  Mrs. Markley—another resident of the Valley.

  Betsy Henley—a Valley child.

  Mrs. Tallon, husband George, daughter Mary—a prosperous Valley family beyond the hill.

  Mrs. Danner—the verger’s wife.

  Tommy Higby—who had a cow in his care shot before his eyes, on Mrs. Stoner’ s farm.

  BEYOND THE VALLEY—

  Dr. Nealy—who lives in Tiverton and serves Hurley when called.

  Miss Honneycutt—the nurse he provided during Francis Hatton’s last illness.

  Mr. Branscombe, of Exeter—the Hatton family solicitor, his family having served the Hattons for generations.

  THE LEIGHTON FAMILY—from Sussex

  Richard Leighton—war-wounded, and searching for the grave of his vanished mother.

  Thomas Leighton—his father, who has remarried and has a young daughter.

  Victoria Alice Woodward MacPherson Leighton—the missing wife and mother, who is thought to be dead.

  Alasdair MacPherson—Victoria Leighton’s fiercely determined father, still living as the book opens, and unwell.

  Carter—the MacPherson butler.

  AND FINALLY—the bit players from other parts of England, who knew Francis Hatton in one way or another.

  Elizabeth Andrews—a young woman who claims Francis Hatton saved her life.

  Walsham—the man who claims that Francis Hatton cheated his father out of an estate.

  Mrs. Perkins—the housekeeper of that house, and her husband, Ben, the groundskeeper, clubfooted, and unable to serve in the Army.

  Lydia—her twin sister who lives in Cambridge.

  Mrs. Kenneth—who keeps an inn in the village of Mercer, Essex, and sister to Mrs. Perkins and Lydia. A gossip . . .

  Mrs. Gibbon—the woman who runs the orphanage established by Francis Hatton in Falworthy, Somerset.

  Mrs. Passmore—a woman whose child was left at the orphanage for placement years ago. Widowed, she’s now searching for him.

  Miss Weaver—Francesca’s governess for the first year or so in the Valley.

  Sergeant Nelson—an Army man sent to Valley.

  The Scotsman—who had lost something to Francis Hatton and wants it returned.

  And finally, the shooter in the hills whose real identity is obscured by doubt and silence . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  Devon, Autumn, 1916

  It always stood in the back garden—what my cousins called the Murder Stone.

  They teased me about it often enough.

  “Put your head here, and your brains will be bashed out.”

  “Lie down here, and the headsman will come and chop your neck!”

  Nasty little beasts, I thought them then. But they’re all dead now. Lost at Mons and Ypres, Passchendaele and the Somme. Their laughter stilled, their teasing no more than a childhood memory. Their voices a distant echo I hear sometimes in my dreams.

  “Do be quiet, Cesca! We’re hiding from the Boers—you’ll give us away!”

  But the Murder Stone is still there, at the bottom of my grandfather’s garden, where it has always been.

  And the house above the garden is mine, now. I’ve inherited it by default, because all the fair-haired boys are dead, gone to be real soldiers at last and mo
wn down with their dreams of glory.

  CHAPTER 2

  It seemed quite strange to be sitting here—alone—in the solicitor’s office, without her grandfather beside her.

  Francis Hatton had always had a powerful presence. An impressive man physically as well: tall, strongly built, with broad shoulders and that air of good breeding Englishmen wear so confidently. Someone to be reckoned with. Women had found him attractive, even in age.

  He had carried his years well, in fact, his face lean and handsome, his voice deep and resonant, his hair a distinguished silver gray.

  Until 1915.

  In 1915 the first of the cousins died in France. They had hardly had time to grieve for Simon when Robin was killed at the Front. Freddy and Peter soon followed, and Francesca watched each blow take its toll. The man she had always adored had become someone she barely recognized. Silent—dark. And then Harry died . . .

  She stirred in her chair. Mr. Branscombe had always toadied to Francis Hatton. The solicitor fussed with the papers before him now, setting the box marked HATTON aside and uncapping his inkwell, as if hoping to delay matters until his true client arrived. Reluctant somehow to begin this final duty.

  And had she failed in her own duty to her grandfather? She had hated the change in him, that gradual withdrawal into himself, leaving her behind. Instead of mourning together, for the first time in her life she had felt shut out of his love. When Harry died on the Somme in the late summer of 1916—scarcely two months ago—she had witnessed Francis Hatton’s descent into despair.

  In the weeks following his stroke she had prayed for her grandfather’s death, and at night, walking the passages in restless repudiation of approaching death, she had wished with increasing fervor that she could hasten it, and be done with it at last. For his sake. For release . . .

  A surge of guilt pressed in on her.

  Mr. Branscombe cleared his throat, an announcement that he was ready to begin the Reading of the Will. Ceremony duly noted . . .

  The servants—the older ones, the younger ones having gone off one by one either to fight or to work in the factories—were in an anteroom, waiting to be invited into the inner sanctum at the proper moment.

  “‘I, Charles Francis Stewart Hatton, being of Sound Mind and Body, do hereby set my Hand to this, my Last Will and Testament . . .’ ”

  The Devon voice was sonorously launched on its charge.

  Francesca found it difficult to concentrate.

  My grandfather is only just dead, she wanted to cry. This smacks of sacrilege, to be dividing up his goods and chattels before he’s quite cold . . . I haven’t earned the right to sit here. Oh, God.

  But who else was there to sit in this room and mark a great man’s passing? She was the last of the Hattons. A long and distinguished line had trickled down to one girl.

  Mr. Branscombe paused, glancing over the rims of his spectacles at her, as if sensing her distraction.

  “Are you with me thus far, Miss Hatton—?”

  “Yes,” she answered, untruthfully.

  He seemed far from satisfied, regarding her intently before returning to the document.

  Francesca felt pinned to the hard, uncomfortable chair provided for the solicitor’s clients—chosen, she was certain, to prevent them from overstaying their welcome—and wished she had the courage to stop him altogether. But listening was her duty, even if she cared little about provisions for her future, and she had absolutely no idea what she ought to do about the house at River’s End. Close it? Live there? Sell it?

  Ask me next month—next year! I’m so weary—

  It was haunted, River’s End. Not by ghosts who clanked and howled, but by the lost souls who were never coming back to it. She could almost feel them, standing at the bottom of the stairs each night as she climbed to her room. Shadows that grieved for substance, so that they, too, could come home again.

  It was a stupid obsession on her part, and she hadn’t told anyone of it. But the old black dog also seemed to sense their presence, and ran up the stairs ahead of her, as if afraid to be left behind among them.

  Just that morning the rector had said, worried about her, “This is such a large, rambling house for a woman alone. Won’t you come to us at the Rectory and stay a few days? It will do you good, and my housekeeper will take pleasure in your company . . .”

  But Francesca had explained to him that the house was all that was left of home and family. An anchor in grief, where she could still feel loved. She knew its long dark passages so well, and its many rooms with their drapes pulled tight, the black wreath over the door knocker. River’s End was peaceful, after the tumult of her grandfather’s dying. And the ghosts were, after all, of her blood.

  Mrs. Lane came in to cook and to clean. It was enough. There was the old dog Tyler for company, and the library when she tired of her own thoughts. Her grandfather’s tastes had run to war and politics, history and philosophy. Hardly the reading for a woman suffering from insomnia. Although twice Plato had put her soundly to sleep—

  She became aware of the silence in the room. Mr. Branscombe had finished and was waiting for her to acknowledge that fact.

  “Quite straightforward, is it not?” she said, dragging her attention back to the present.

  “In essence,” he agreed weightily, “it is indeed. Everything comes to you. Save for the usual bequests to the remaining servants and to the church, and of course to several charitable societies which have benefited from your grandfather’s generosity in the past.”

  “Indeed,” she responded, trying to infuse appreciation into her voice.

  “It’s an enormous responsibility,” Mr. Branscombe reminded her.

  “I understand that.” What might once have been shared equally with the cousins would be hers. She would rather have had the cousins—

  It was clear that Mr. Branscombe was uncomfortable with a woman dealing with such a heavy obligation. He fiddled with the edges of the blotter, and when no questions were forthcoming, he asked, “Do you wish to keep the properties in Somerset and Essex? I must warn you that this is not a propitious time to sell—in the middle of a war—”

  He had her full attention now, as she stifled her surprise.

  “Properties—?”

  His thin lips pinched together in a tight line, as if he’d finally caught her out, as he had known he would.

  Trying to recoup his good opinion of her and conceal her ignorance, she asked, thinking it through, “Were these estates destined for my cousins? You see, my grandfather told me very little about them.”

  He told me nothing—

  “The properties have been in his possession for many years. Quite sizable estates, in fact. Whether he intended to settle either of them on one of his male heirs in due course, I don’t know. He didn’t confide in me.” It was grudgingly admitted. “I can tell you that the property in Hampshire that belonged to your uncle, Tristan Hatton, was sold at the time of his death. It would have been prudent for your grandfather to provide in some other fashion for his eldest grandson. Sadly, Mr. Simon Hatton is also deceased.”

  Simon. The first of the cousins to go to war . . . the first to die.

  Francesca was still trying to absorb the fact that her grandfather had owned other estates. But if it was true, why had he always chosen to live in the isolated Exe Valley? It was the only home she had ever known. And as far as she was aware, that was true of her cousins as well. Even Simon had had only the haziest memory of his parents.

  Why had he never taken us to visit houses in Somerset or Essex, if they were his? There hadn’t been so much as a casual “Shall we spend Christmas in Somerset this year?” Or “Since the weather is so fine, we might travel to Essex for a week. I ought to have a look at the tenant roofs. . . .” If he had gone there at all, it had been in secret.

  The thought was disturbing. Why should secrecy have been necessary? Hadn’t he trusted her? Or had he never got around to telling her, after Simon was killed? Or at Harry’s
death? The last of the five grandsons to die. Francis Hatton had abandoned interest in everything then, including the will to live . . .

  “Before I summon the servants to hear their bequests, there is one other matter that your grandfather wished you to deal with. A recent Codicil, in fact.”

  “Indeed?” she said again, still wrestling with the puzzle of the properties.

  “It involves the Murder Stone, whatever that may be.”

  Caught completely unawares, Francesca stared at him. “But—that’s nothing more than a jest—a largish white stone in the back garden that my cousins were always making a part of their games!”

  “Nevertheless, your grandfather has included in his will a provision for its removal from Devon to Scotland.”

  “Scotland? My grandfather has never been to Scotland in his life!”

  “That may very well be true, Miss Hatton. But I shall read you the provision: ‘I place upon my heir the solemn duty of taking the object known to her as the Murder Stone from its present location and carrying it by whatever means necessary to Scotland, to be buried in the furthermost corner of that country as far away from Devon as can be reached safely.’ ” He returned the Codicil to the will, and cleared his throat again. “I was summoned to River’s End after his stroke especially to add this clause.”

  Mystified, Francesca said, “The deaths of my cousins must surely have turned his mind—”

  “Perhaps this stone reminded him too forcibly of their lost youth,” Branscombe suggested gravely, with an insight she had not thought he possessed. “When men are old and ill, small things tend to loom large.”

  Francesca shook her head. “It’s such an insignificant matter . . .”

  “Perhaps to you, my dear. But I assure you, to your grandfather it was quite important. I was under the impression that Mr. Hatton was—um—extraordinarily superstitious—about this matter. Speaking to me about this stone seemed to agitate him. The nurse had cautioned me not to allow him to exert himself unnecessarily. And thus I neither questioned nor inquired but wrote his words down directly as he spoke them.”

  “My grandfather was never superstitious! And he allowed my cousins to use the stone as they pleased. It was always a part of our games—we were never warned away.”