A Strange Conversation
"Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long."
- Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
The back door leading to the small rear yard was already ajar. Anna needed only to give it the slightest push, and it swung wide enough for her to slip through. I wonder why it was already open—Then she stopped, after taking only a step or two, because she saw why. Thomas and O'Brien were leaning up against the large, rough wooden table, heads close together. They didn't glance up; they clearly hadn't seen her. And it was just as clear that they were sunk in deep conversation.
In a flash, Anna understood what she was going to do. She knew exactly how to get close enough to overhear them, and if she were very, very lucky, she might manage it without being seen. Am I really going to do this absolutely mad thing? It's broad daylight! What if one of them catches me? What if somebody else sees me? Her saner self made a weak attempt to argue her out of the plan, but it was too late. Anna found that her feet were already moving. She slipped behind a shed directly to the right of the door and skirted the outside of several small storage buildings, working her way in a large circle towards the table on the opposite side of the yard where the pair stood. I'm taking a terrible chance, she thought. But she was perfectly aware that she wasn't going to give up this opportunity to find out more about what that pair knew, and anyway, it was too late. Nothing could be worse than stopping short of her goal and then being discovered anyway. She crouched swiftly just behind the corner of a shed used to hold extra gardening equipment, only a few yards from the pair. They were talking quietly, but not whispering, and just as she had hoped, she could hear every word they said.
"— I'm telling you, I saw someone walking down the corridor well after eleven," said Thomas. "Might've been to Mr. Napier's room; might've been to Mr. Pamuk's, but either way, that man was there."
O'Brien's brow furrowed. "But are you sure about that? The Crawleys are quite good about keeping country hours at Downton, I'll say that for them; their guests aren't up at all hours making fools of themselves like they are at some houses. All the gentlemen are always in bed by ten-thirty, at the latest."
"It was a bit after I went up," said Thomas, and it seemed to Anna that a shadow flitted over his face. "I was still at the bottom of the stairs. So I know exactly what time it was."
Thomas had been assigned as Mr. Pamuk's valet while he was here, Anna remembered. That must be what he meant. But he doesn't look happy about it. Maybe that Turkish villain was too nasty even for Thomas.
"Couldn't it have been either Mr. Pamuk or Mr. Napier?" asked O'Brien.
"He didn't look a thing like either of them."
O'Brien took a long drag on her cigarette. "So what did he look like, then?"
"A big man," said Thomas. "Tall, stocky build, short dark hair. He was carrying something in one hand, I couldn't tell quite what… but I saw a glint off the surface. A glass, or maybe a small bottle."
"Sounds rather like Mr. Bates,"
He shrugged. "I thought that too, but he also looked a good bit like that valet Mr. Napier brought with him. And the valet would have had a reason to be there, which Bates wouldn't have done. But Mr. Napier went to bed quite early, long before then, so I thought it was odd."
"Yes, that description could fit the valet, no doubt," said O'Brien. "But the thing is, Thomas, that—
A large mouse suddenly ran directly over Anna's feet. She had the presence of mind to clap a hand over her mouth just in time to stop a cry.
O'Brien stopped the sentence abruptly. "Shh! What's that?"
The mouse ran around the corner and darted directly in front of the pair. Thomas let out a sigh, and O'Brien shuddered.
"Ugh. " She grimaced. "If there's anything I hate, it's a mouse. I'll tell that gardener's boy—Henry, I think—that we're starting to see those mice again. Next thing you know, they'll be invading the house! If I've told Carson once, I've told him a thousand times, we need a cat about the kitchen. We ought to take one of the barn kittens this spring and keep it here. I'd like a nice tabby."
"Well—" Thomas's glance darted from side to side, and Anna fought the urge to scramble backwards. Movement would attract their attention more surely than anything else. "There might be two-footed nuisances about as well, if we stand here much longer," he muttered. "We've said enough."
Anna held her breath until the two disappeared into the back of the house again. She let it out in a long sigh. What did it mean? Why had O'Brien said that she had thought of the valet? The phrasing seemed to imply that something might have happened to cause her to think that the mystery of the unidentified man in the corridor couldn't be solved so easily. But O'Brien couldn't actually know, so whatever she had been about to say, it meant nothing. Anna repeated the phrases to herself again and again, trying to fit what she had heard into a comfortable shape. That man must have been Napier's valet. If Mr. Bates had been the one headed towards the gentlemen's guest rooms upstairs, he would have said so.
I'll just ask him when he gets here, Anna decided. That'll settle the matter for good and all.
Yet she didn't want to, and in fact, she already suspected that she wouldn't.
She shivered. A goose walked over my grave, as my gran used to say-
"Anna," said a soft, low voice just behind her, and she jumped to her feet, almost falling. Strong arms caught her before she tumbled to the ground. She looked up into the familiar, ruggedly handsome face.
"Mr. Bates," she managed to say. "I—ah—I didn't see you there."
How long have you been here? The words were on the tip of her tongue, but they went no further. Why not, though? Why shouldn't she just ask the question? It was a perfectly innocent one. Go on, Anna, just ask. How long have you been in the shed, Mr. Bates? Did you hear what Thomas and O'Brien were saying? Did you hear more than I did? And why didn't you let me know you were here? Nothing could have been more natural than to ask those questions. Yet somehow, the words died on her lips.
"Thank you," she said, straightening up, reluctant to leave his arms but knowing that she must pull back now. "For keeping me from falling, I mean. I would have tumbled right onto the floor."
"I would never let you fall, Anna," he said.
The words were the very same ones in her dream of the night before. Her shock must have shown through on her face, Anna realized, because his brows drew together.
"Are you all right, Anna?"
"Yes, oh, yes, perfectly fine, Mr. Bates," she said a bit breathlessly. It was just a coincidence, she told herself; the similarity in the words meant nothing.
Bates stepped back a little; she almost wished that he had not. The air felt so much cooler now. "I'm afraid I only heard that last few words," he said. "In fact, I don't think I overheard as much as you did. I got here only a few seconds before I saw you come in, and then I didn't dare move or say a word until that pair was gone."
So there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Of course there was.
"What were they talking about?" asked Bates.
This was the perfect opening. She would tell him that they'd been discussing the mystery man upstairs. She wouldn't need to come up with some way to broach the subject; it would arise naturally from their discussion. In fact, it could hardly be avoided if she wanted to tell him what those two had been saying. Yes; that was exactly what she was about to do, she decided.
"Nothing useful," she heard herself say instead.
"Really?"
Anna nodded. "Thomas was talking about what he plans to do on his next day out. O'Brien was being nasty about Gwen. Nothing else."
Bates studied her for a moment, as if he could read the lie on her face. "More's the pity."
"I know," agreed Anna. "But there's still a deal else to talk about, isn't there?"
He nodded. Was there just the faintest shadow of relief on his face? She wondered.
"There's everything we now know about that dinner," he said.
Yes, thought Anna. They might only have a few minutes to talk; they could be interrupted at any time. There were plenty of other things to discuss, and they'd best get to them. "What I've been thinking about all along was if anybody had a motive to kill Mr. Pamuk," she said rapidly.
"No doubt at all, that's an important question to ask," said Bates. "What could the motive have been, though?"
"The only thing I can think of is rivalry," said Anna. "Jealousy. And there was loads of that at dinner. Mr. Napier was jealous enough of Mr. Pamuk to turn green in the face."
"Enough to kill him, do you think?"
Anna felt a bit foolish once it was spelled out. "I know it sounds mad," she confessed. "But look at it this way. Mr. Napier felt something for Lady Mary. Not love, or anything like that. Most likely just infatuation. But he felt it."
Bates leaned back against one wall of the shed. "I'd agree with that, yes."
" So could he have… I don't know… " Sent his valet up to Pamuk's room? That was the most obvious next question. The words trembled on her lips, but again, she could not speak them.
Bates's lips twitched. "Can you really picture Evelyn Napier poisoning Pamuk in a fit of passion?"
She thought of Mary's suitor, overeager, flustered, well-meaning, and laughter threatened to bubble up. "It's hard to imagine," she admitted.
Bates laughed slightly, an almost silent laugh. "That it is. I remember Evelyn Napier when he was just a small boy—shy and nervous, exactly as he is today. He was never much good at games, as I recall. His younger sister could swing a better cricket bat." He waved a hand, forestalling her question. "I worked for Lord Branksome before the war; that's how I know."
"I thought you were working with Mr. Moseley at a house in Stafford before the Boer war," said Anna, surprised. "That's what I heard, anyway."
"You heard correctly," said Bates. "I worked for Lord Branksome before that. Must've been twenty years ago, now."
Anna couldn't help a twinge of curiosity, but she dismissed the entire line of thought. Where he'd worked before he was Lord Grantham's batman couldn't be important. There were so many things he hadn't yet told her about his life before Downton, after all, and now certainly wasn't the time to pry.
"I don't know what we can make of it," sighed Anna. "Lady Mary clearly preferred Mr. Pamuk to Mr. Napier, I don't have any doubt about that, and he wasn't happy about it. But it's a bit difficult to picture Mr. Napier murdering anybody in a mad fit of jealousy. So what else do we have to go on?"
"There might very well be clues in the other topics of conversation," said Bates.
Anna tried to remember everything that had been said at the dinner. "They certainly spend some time talking about Gwen," she said. "But I can't see any link between Gwen learning how to use a typewriter and Mr. Pamuk's death." That sounded even more absurd than her theories about a murderous Mr. Napier, she thought. "Oh, I know! Mr. Pamuk talked about his home—about Turkey."
"He did do that a fair amount," said Bates.
Anna tried to think about any news she'd read recently. She liked to keep up with current events and to think about what was going on in the world, and it seemed to her that she'd seen the name of that country come up in the Times recently. "They've had some changes in the past few years, I've read that," she said. "They restored the parliament and the constitution. How would Mr. Pamuk stand on the issues, do you think?"
Bates shrugged. "William certainly seemed to think that he didn't like the old ways, so he'd most likely be happy with the way the empire is headed."
"Lady Mary did tell me that he said his family wouldn't be pleased if he made a match with her. That makes me think that they wouldn't be too terribly modern," said Anna. "But he might be a different story. Oh! I know. William said they were saying something about the "Young Turks." Who are they, do you know?"
Mr. Bates looked at her appraisingly for a split second, as if debating whether to answer her question.
"You do know, don't you? I wish I did. I try to keep up with the news, but it's not easy, working the hours that we do," she sighed. "Sometimes I feel such a fool."
Bates shook his head vehemently. "Never say that, Anna. I've lived longer and traveled further than you have; that's all, and I've picked up more of the facts. The Young Turks are a group in Turkey that wants political reform. They're the ones who brought back the parliament and the constitution. They'd like the Ottoman Empire to modernize, to be a part of today's world, to leave the past behind."
"If Mr. Pamuk sympathized with them, that would go along with what William said." Anna thought for a moment. "But I'd wager that the Young Turks just want to replace the old empire with a one of their own."
"True." Bates nodded. "They want the constitution and the parliament, but they don't want the empire to break up. They want to keep what the country's gained over time."
He was speaking with her seriously, as if he truly valued her opinion and they were intellectual equals, Anna realized. She wasn't sure if any man had ever talked to her in this way. "How so?" she asked.
"They overthrew the sultan, Abdulhamid is his name," said Bates, "but they want to keep the power that he built. They want to keep the areas that the Ottomans control; they wouldn't like any of their colonies to become independent, and so forth."
"How do you know so much about the Ottoman Empire?" asked Anna curiously.
"I'm interested in history," he said, his gaze shuttering slightly. "Always have been. It's difficult to see how any of that could anything to do with what happened to Mr. Pamuk, though."
"I suppose you're right about that," said Anna. She was not willing to let go of that idea just yet, but they might as well move on, and she could almost hear the minutes ticking down before they would need to leave or else be found in the shed.
"You don't think the herbs and the grandfather could have been important at all?" she asked. "The things that William didn't quite hear as clearly? Only that did make me think of what Dr. Clarkson said, that he thought it was Mr. Pamuk's heart."
"It did for me as well. But there's a great deal of difference between an old man dying of heart failure and his young grandson."
"Of course there is, but…" Anna's mind chased after a memory. The teashop, the smell of warm muffins, the foolish face of the smiling young man across from her. Philip Carey, Dr. Clarkson's locum, only a few days before. Of course, Dr, Clarkson did think it a bit odd that such a young man should die of heart failure. But it's not unknown. Weak hearts do tend to run in families. That what was he had said.
"That could have been it," she said, still lost in thought.
"What?" asked Bates, his voice seeming a trifle wary.
She looked up at him, eyes shining with excitement and hope. "Mr. Bates, I think there might be a clue, an important one. Dr. Clarkson said that heart trouble might run in a family, passed down from generation to generation. What if Mr. Pamuk inherited the same weak heart as his grandfather? What if he was taking the same sorts of herbs as his grandpa did, as a tonic? And what if it could be poisonous in large doses? My gran back home used to brew all sorts of herbal remedies, and she always told me that some of them were dangerous if you took too much. What if the valet brought up the heart tonic and gave Mr. Pamuk too much of it?"
Bates looked back at her, his expression impossible to read in the dim light of the shed. "The valet?"
Too late, Anna realized what she had said. "Er…"
"Oh, you mean the valet that William saw in the guest corridor after eleven," he said. "Hmm. I can see how you might think of that… And William was right; that valet had no reason to be there. This could be an explanation."
Anna felt foolish. Surely Bates couldn't talk about the subject so easily if it touched him personally at all. He couldn't keep his face so straight and bland if anything odd was going on. There was never anything to worry about. That mystery man was Mr. Napier's valet, of course he was. How on earth could she have thought that Mr. Bates was lying about that?
"So you really think it's possible?" she asked. "I mean to say, I know it's a bit farfetched- more than a bit, really. Only my gran always said that a heart tonic would have…" She tried to think, to remember back to her childhood, her grandmother standing before the fire, drying rows of herbs hung in bunches. "Aconite," she said slowly. "That's it. The tonic for heart troubles would have aconite, a very small amount, brewed from monkshood." In her mind's eye, she saw the fields of bobbing, brilliant blue flowers that had surrounded her and Mr. Bates the day before as they had walked by the stream.
"It's too bad that William didn't see exactly what the valet was carrying in his hands," said Mr. Bates
"It was a glass, or a bottle," said Anna, without thinking.
Mr. Bates gave her a strange look. "How do you know that?"
Anna gulped. Now what? William had said that he thought the man had been carrying something, but he'd said nothing about a bottle. She could see no way out of the trap she'd stepped into except to go back on what she'd said, and admit that she really had overheard Thomas and O'Brien discussing that man in the first place. Perhaps I should. After all, I know I was wrong about what I was thinking before; Mr. Bates couldn't have anything to do with that mystery man.
"That may well be. A glass would make sense," said Bates, while her mind was still running over possibilities. His face creased in a smile, and she realized she had been waiting for that smile. "You're very clever, Anna, to put the pieces together in this way."
She blushed slightly, glad that the shed was too dim for him to see it. "Do you really think that could be the solution? I mean, there's still the problem of who would have sent the valet. I know that you don't think it could be Mr. Napier, but I don't know who on earth besides him would have a reason."
"I honestly don't know," he said. "But we've got nothing else to go on right now, and this is a theory that would cover what happened to Mr. Pamuk."
"Maybe this entire idea is mad anyway," she admitted. "It could be nothing but a wild goose chase. But whether it is or not, we're still in the same place we were before. If Mr. Napier's valet brought it up, why did he do it? Who could be behind this? And how? And why? If it wasn't Mr. Napier, then who was it?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
What an odd question, she thought. "A man died, and I know it wasn't because of anything Lady Mary did," said Anna. "Of course I want to know who was responsible. We've got to figure it out soon, too. I told Lady Mary…"
"What?"
She squirmed slightly. The habit of keeping confidences was strong. She took pride in it as a lady's maid, honoring the code as someone like O'Brien never really did. She wouldn't use her knowledge as a set of subtle weapons, but she still had that knowledge. But it was important that Bates know. He had to know, in fact, as little as she wanted to look like a fool for telling him. "I told her that I'd find out the truth within two days. So we've only got until tomorrow night. It was stupid, really, but I had to say something."
He shook his head. "You would never be stupid, Anna. And I agree. Whatever we find out, it's got to be soon."
Why did he feel urgency, she wondered. Was it only because of Mary's desperation?
"I'll see if I can find out where that valet of Mr. Napier's is," said Bates. "The estate is just outside York, and I still know a few people downstairs there. I'll get the answer from him."
"All right," said Anna. A thought struck her. "If only we could find the bottle, it would still have traces of the herb tonic, wouldn't it, if that's really what it was? Could it still be in that guest room?"
He stepped closer to her. "Anna, I don't want you searching that room on your own."
He was standing so close now; she could feel the warmth of his skin. She couldn't very well step back. There was nowhere to go in the tiny shed. And worse, she didn't want to move away from him. She only wanted to come closer.
But he was the one who stepped back, and the spring air was cold between them.
"I'll find out everything I can, Anna," he said. "We'd best leave separately. I'll go first."
She looked after the wooden door as it closed softly behind him, motes of dust dancing in the shaft of sunlight from a window. His words came back to her. Are you sure you want to know?
She shook them off. They had a great deal to do, and time was flying by. Anna just hoped that the time they had would be enough.
A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: Guest, DaGuest, lemacd, and eyeon. No, you're not imagining it… this chapter actually WAS updated faster! 😉 Ccomp is my NaNo project, so Chapter 18 really WILL come out faster too. Next chappie: more mystery, more intrigue, a Mary/Edith catfight, and the return of a mysterious man at a seedy inn at the edge of town. He's watching Anna, and she just might be in danger…