CORNERING A KILLER

Chapter 19 The End of It All

There was a moment of profound silence. And then …an eruption of emotion.

John Bates lifted his wife from her chair into his arms and they clung to each other for a good five minutes, oblivious to all around them – their persecutor, their several benefactors, the observers, some of whom had no acquaintance with the Bateses but who could not remain indifferent.

Tears shone once more in Anna's eyes, the sheen of disbelief overwhelmed by the emerging but unmistakable conviction of triumph. It was over. And she knew it was when she was swept with an urge to laugh, in relief, in astonishment, in celebration. It was more of an effort that she might have expected. She had almost forgotten how.

Bates was overcome. He had wrapped his arms so tightly about Anna that she squeaked and he had to relax his hold just a little. Bates could never be described as effusive and he had always recoiled from the public expression of emotion, but he could not help himself in this instance. Tears ran down his cheeks and disappeared into Anna's golden hair. He could not speak, not to her nor to anyone else. He could only hold her.

Around them, the room had broken spontaneously into applause, led by His Lordship and Lady Mary. Everyone was suddenly on their feet. The atmosphere, which only minutes earlier had been tense, became almost festive.

Superintendent Dash crossed the room and extended a hand first to Mrs. Carson, then to her husband, and finally to Mr. Barrow.

"Mrs. Carson," he said, "you have conducted an impressive investigation. I commend you on the originality of your approach, for the intelligence with which you assembled and interpreted the evidence, and for your persistence in the cause of justice. It was as fine a piece of work as I have ever seen."

Elsie Carson beamed. She had known the satisfaction of a good day's work many times in her life, but seldom had the rewards been quite so palpable. "Thank you, Superintendent."

"No investigation is ever the province of an individual," the Scotland Yard man went on. "Mr. Carson, Mr. Barrow, your contributions were of incalculable value. That much has been made clear today." He stared at each of them in turn, lingering perhaps a second or two longer on Mr. Barrow. There was no discounting the significance or the drama of the role Barrow had played. Then the man's gaze returned to Downtown's housekeeper. "Please don't permit your success to go to your head, Mrs. Carson," he said, affecting a serious tone that was compromised by the genial light in his eyes. "I shan't be so generous if I hear you've taken up criminal investigation as a past-time."

"You may be assured this is our final case," Mrs. Carson responded, a solemn commitment she undertook with fervour.

"We will need statements," Dash said, slipping back into a more professional mien. "From the three of you, and from everyone else regarding the events of yesterday. Inspector Viner will be in touch." The superintendent glanced over his shoulder at his colleague who was lurking by his chair across the room, the only person in the room not smiling. "Although perhaps not today."

Dash moved on. He wanted to speak to the Bateses, to provide an official assurance that their ordeal was, indeed, at an end.

Then the Crawleys – Lord and Lady Grantham, the Dowager, and Lady Mary – were before the intrepid sleuths.

"Well done, Mrs. Carson." Lord Grantham was shaking her hand and shaking his head. "You've put Scotland Yard to shame."

"I think only Inspector Viner," Mrs. Carson replied modestly.

Robert laughed. And then he turned to his underbutler to whom he also extended a hand. "Barrow," he said solemnly, "there are no words."

Barrow agreed, accepting His Lordship's congratulations wordlessly.

"Carson." Lord Grantham now turned his attention to his butler. "I must say, at the beginning, this morning, I thought Inspector Viner wholly incompetent for not having come across this line of investigation or this suspect, and," he threw a glance over his shoulder at the disgraced inspector, "I'm not likely to forgive the man entirely. But," his gaze returned to Carson, "the narrative of the thing has convinced me less of the shortcomings of the police than of the brilliance of the three of you." Robert stared at Carson with one of those exuberant looks that radiated both admiration and pride.

Carson held his head just a little bit higher in the face of such praise. "Mrs. Carson is the genius here, my lord. It was all her from the very beginning. I supplied some facts, that's all. And Mr. Barrow…." Carson inclined his head toward the younger man and his voice caught a little. "Mr. Barrow, my lord." His Lordship could only nod. They were both momentarily taken back to what had happened the day before on the roof.

"I can't believe how you put together so many fragments into such a coherent story!" Lady Grantham declared, her gaze fixed on Mrs. Carson. "And to think we had both of those reprehensible people under Downton's roof!"

"I'm certain there have been others like them," the Dowager said drily, "although to my knowledge they've stopped short of committing murder here." She quite deliberately drew Mrs. Carson to one side. "You have done a great service, Mrs. Carson, one with reverberations well beyond Downton."

"Thank you, my lady." Such a day it was that Mrs. Carson welcomed even the Dowager's compliments.

"I should like to thank you for your particular discretion with regard to the family," the Dowager added, in a slightly quieter voice.

"My lady?" Elsie stared at her blankly, determined as always to keep her cards close to her chest.

The Dowager smiled faintly. "Mr. Branson," she said. "You did what you could. Your efforts are appreciated." And then she moved away.

Elsie found herself admiring the woman's perspicacity and then congratulated herself for meeting so high a bar with such a challenging task.

"Barrow." Lady Mary knew what the Carsons, particularly Mrs. Carson, had done in bringing Anna's ordeal to such a satisfactory conclusion, but in the first instance the underbutler demanded her attention. She lapsed into the familiar. "Thank you for my son, Thomas. Thank you for Anna. Thank you for all you have done in this." She paused, knowing full well how inadequate this captured what Barrow had done – and endured – the previous day. There was little enough she could do to make things right for him, but that which was within her power she was eager to do. "You have my gratitude. And I will see to it that that means something."

Thomas found he could only incline his head in acknowledgment. He couldn't even formulate the words to thank her for the brandy she had sent to him the night before.

"Come now, Mr. Barrow," Mr. Carson said quietly into his ear, startling him. "You have not just played the hero. You are the hero, the genuine article. Must needs live with it, for the moment at least."

It was strange to know that Mr. Carson meant to brace him by these words, to give him courage as he had done with his hearty comments up there, on the roof, yesterday. Was it only yesterday that that had happened? And, as yesterday, there was a practical purpose to the butler's bolstering words. For Thomas must tolerate the plaudits and the admiration, even if what he really wanted to do was lock himself in the loo and vomit. And so he stood where he was and absorbed the compliments of his co-workers, suffering a hug from Mrs. Patmore who had occasional outbursts of excessive affection in moments of high emotion, and concealing the fact that he would rather be anywhere by here.

Lady Mary next turned her attention to Mrs. Carson. They were not natural allies and they had never displayed toward each other anything beyond the regard that their associated positions at Downton Abbey demanded, but something had changed between them. How could it not have done after yesterday?

"I feel as though we have fought a war together, Mrs. Carson," Lady Mary said, affecting a degree of circumspection, but not wholly able to suppress feeling. They were both marked by their ordeal, Mrs. Carson's cheek bruised, Lady Mary's sporting a scratch, wounds inflicted by Edna Braithwaite. "Although the men might likely characterize it as a catfight."

"Then then would be wrong, my lady," Mrs. Carson said solemnly. "If we weren't quite fighting for life, as the men were on the roof, we did manage to capture a murderer between us."

Lady Mary smiled at this and, for the first time in their acquaintance, Mrs. Carson felt the genuine warmth of this expression extended to her. "We did, didn't we. I find myself among your admirers here today, Mrs. Carson. This began with you and, for Anna's sake and on behalf of those other young women who will never know their benefactor in this matter, I am grateful." She paused. "And I don't know when I've been more pleased to see an obnoxious man called down. Thank you for reducing Inspector Viner to dust and for allowing me to be present to watch you do it."

Elsie found herself touched by the sincerity and solemnity of Lady Mary's words, a sentiment not dimmed by the predatory satisfaction regarding the inspector, a feeling she shared in spades.

Sergeant Willis, displaying none of the reticence of his Scotland Yard superior, advanced on the Carsons. "You'll be having my job," he told Mrs. Carson jovially, genuinely impressed.

"She'll be having his job," interceded Mr. Carson, with a nod toward Inspector Viner.

"I'm going to stay right here and show Superintendent Dash that I'm a woman of my word," Mrs. Carson said firmly.

"Ah, there is one thing," the sergeant said, as almost an aside. "Thank you for not mentioning … me… in all of this." He glanced toward the sullen inspector. "I'm glad to have been of help, but…."

"No one shall ever know," Mrs. Carson said soothingly. In supplying the names of the additional victims, Sergeant Willis had provided critical information, though he'd no idea what he was doing at the time. They were grateful to him. As the constable passed on, Elsie exchanged a look with her husband and there was a twinkle in her eye.

"Well, we'll be off shortly," Lord Edgerton told Robert. "What with yesterday's adventure and today's reveal, I can honestly say I've not had such a ripping time in years, Grantham. Good show!" The men shook hands vigorously.

To the ear of another, Edgerton's enthusiasm might have sounded callous, but Robert understood what the man was saying.

"My wife has been somewhat less enthralled," Edgerton admitted, his gaze sliding across the room to where Lady Edgerton stood with Lady Sinderby. This, too, was understandable, for it was Lady Edgerton's maid, Edna Braithwaite, who was now revealed as a cold-blooded killer. "But I'd not have missed it for the world," Edgerton reiterated.

"We are indebted to you for your knot-tying facility," Robert said genially. And that was about as close to the horrors of the day before as he wanted to go.

Lord Sinderby sidled into the spot Edgerton vacated. He affected an air of formal indifference. Only when his own dignity was at stake did Sinderby's cool exterior give way. "Your servants have proved themselves very sharp indeed in this affair," he observed.

But Robert would accept no half measures. "Brilliant, I would say," he declared. "To have uncovered such clues, put them all together, and then sprung such a trap…."

"It would make me nervous to have one such schemer about," Sinderby said, "let alone a troika."

But Lord Grantham was unfazed. "I am very proud of them all," he said soberly. And he was.

John and Anna Bates were getting a grip on themselves. John unbent just enough that he could plant several gentle kisses on his wife's forehead. "Thank God," he murmured. "Thank God."

"Yes, thank God," Anna echoed, and then added, "and Mrs. Carson."

A slow smile spread across John's face. He knew precisely what she was saying and with those words, he knew Anna, his Anna, the woman of the habitually sunny disposition and a streak of mischief, was on the mend. And he was able to release her, then, to her well-wishers, the first of whom was Mrs. Carson herself. Anna did not hesitate to fling herself into that woman's arms and Mrs. Carson, in an uncharacteristic display of feeling, was only too happy to oblige.

"You did this!" Anna gasped, entirely clear on the person to whom she owed this moment.

"And why not?" Mrs. Carson responded, attempting to reimpose some degree of equanimity. She had stepped outside herself these past few days, what with wrangling with Edna Braithwaite yesterday and then, this morning, taking centre stage in the exposition. There was no harm in a few more tears or exclamations of elation, but a woman could only take so much. "Inspector Viner and his circumstantial evidence! Pshaw! We know your character and character never lies."

Bates took the opportunity of his wife's distraction to pay his own debt. "Mr. Barrow. Thank you." He might have expanded on that. Thank you for all you did, for your inquisitiveness, your incomparable capacity for disinterring detail and discerning its meaning, for risking your life…. But Bates was a man of few words and he knew, too, that such effusion would be misplaced and unappreciated between himself and Barrow.

He extended his hand and Barrow surprised them both in taking it. Thomas had done none of it with Anna in mind, let alone Bates, but he understood both the man's need to express his gratitude. And insofar as it gave meaning to what he himself had done on the platform in Durham and on the roof of Downton Abbey, he was prepared to indulge it.

Lady Mary wanted nothing more than to embrace Anna, but she waited patiently while Anna clung to Mrs. Carson and reviewed the highlights of the evidence given.

"What happened to you?" Anna asked, concerned, raising her hand to the bruise on Mrs. Carson's face.

"We'd a bit of a dust-up," Mrs. Carson replied calmly. Her gaze slid sideways to see Lady Mary on the peripheries and she gestured her way, thereby drawing her into the conversation. "While the men were on the roof rescuing Mr. Barrow, Lady Mary and I were tackling Edna Braithwaite, who had slipped by them and was making her bid for freedom."

Anna noticed the scratch on Lady Mary's face. "You what?"

"We took her on in tandem," Lady Mary said smoothly, with a satisfied smile. "We'd gone racing upstairs after the men and my shoe broke. The heel came off and I fell behind."

"I got to the landing where the stairs split," Mrs. Carson continued, "and almost ran right up to the roof. Only I noticed a child's shoe on the stair and it made me pause. And then I heard a sound behind me, and wasn't it Edna hoping to slip away down the stairs!"

"But … you never told us this part!" Anna declared.

"I'll say!" Mrs. Patmore put in, joining this circle. She had missed all the action the day before and had been crouching uncomfortably behind the green baize door most of the morning. She didn't want to miss anything else.

"Well, more dramatic events were unfolding above," Mrs. Carson said modestly. "And for our purposes this morning, conveying Edna's confession was more important than …."

"Than capturing the perpetrator?" Mrs. Patmore's voice rang out. "Are you joking?"

"I caught her arm and we tussled a bit, but she got the advantage of me," the housekeeper went on. She gingerly touched the bruise on her face. "But she could never just seize her winnings and go, Edna, and so she paused to have a laugh at my expense, and that allowed Lady Mary, now in her stocking feet, to come up from behind."

"I hit her, Anna," Lady Mary said boldly. "Quite hard. And then when she fell down, I jumped on top of her. Goodness! I'd not behaved so since I pummelled Lady Edith when we were children." The thought startled her and then she recovered. "You must know, Anna, that I gave it all I had. The law is unlikely to let you have a swing at her, much as she deserves it, but I stood in for you as best I could."

"She did," Mrs. Carson affirmed, smiling wryly in Lady Mary's direction. Then she tightened her hand on Anna's arm, a gentle reassurance in the face of this account of violence.

"It was immensely gratifying," Lady Mary added, "although more so in retrospect. At the time I only thought to pull her off Mrs. Carson and to find my son."

"Well, I never!" Mrs. Patmore huffed.

"And I hope I never again!" Mrs. Carson responded firmly.

Eventually the excitement died down. The Crawleys had their guests to see off. The servants had their work to get back to. Mrs. Patmore had a lunch to get on. Everyone was hungry. The police had things to sort out, not the least of it Inspector Viner's ego. They announced intention to begin interviews to secure individual statements after lunch.

Mr. and Mrs. Carson found each other.

"You were wonderful, my love," he announced, though quietly enough that the endearment went no farther than her ears. "You put M. Poirot to shame with that performance."

"Well, I don't know about Belgian detectives," she said, "but you may be right with regard to Scotland Yard inspectors."

"I've guests to see off and this room to set right and …," he said.

"And I've maids to attend to. Goodness knows with two hours out of our schedule this morning we'll be playing catch-up all day," she agreed.

"Later," he intoned.

"That's a promise."

* C * C * C * C *

It had been another long day. They were accustomed to long days, the Carsons were, but they'd never known three days together like these. And yet as they prepared for bed at the end of this one, the exhilaration of their triumph trumped a nagging exhaustion.

"What a day." As distracted as she was, Elsie reached over to fluff up Charlie's pillows before he could settle in.

"I'm still shaken," Charlie admitted. "I've known degrees of unpleasantness in my life, but I've never been so close to violence, let alone murder."

"I know what you mean." Elsie paused. "I went up to see Mr. Barrow before we left for the night."

"I wondered where you'd got off to. But, Elsie, in his room?"

"Well, that's where he was. What are you looking at me like that for? You spent a night there."

"At your command!"

Elsie thought perhaps he might never forgive her this, but she did not want to go there. "I wanted to make sure he was all right," she said.

"And? Is he?"

"Well, of course not. How could he be? But you know Thomas. He was polite enough, but determined to manage on his own." She paused. "He was writing a letter. To someone at Chesley Park."

This caught her husband's attention. "Eh? To whom would he be writing there?"

"A friend, I think," Elsie said circumspectly.

Charlie sighed. "His Lordship informed me this afternoon that Lady Mary won't hear of Mr. Barrow being let go. Every time I come near to getting shot of him, it seems that some miracle intervenes to prevent it."

Elsie gave him a sidelong glance. "Perhaps that should tell you something."

"Moving on," Charlie said, ignoring the implication.

"Do you think Edna will hang?" Elsie's question altered the mood.

Again, her husband sighed heavily. "I don't doubt it. She killed one man in cold blood and almost succeeded in killing another. Had Anna been convicted of killing … the valet … she'd likely have gone to prison because of extenuating circumstances. Edna has none."

"Foolish woman." There was bitterness in Elsie's voice. "Foolish, stupid woman."

"It's only what I always say," Charlie said airily. "Mixing of classes is always a bad idea."

"What nonsense! It's the classes themselves that are the bad idea."

"So you're a Bolshevik now, are you?"

Elsie ignored him. "She had brains, you know. And ability. She could have made something of herself and crossed class boundaries on her way up, and done it properly. And more power to her. But to resort to sexual deception, blackmail, and then murder." She shook her head.

"You don't pity her, surely?"

"Not quite. Not when I think of Anna."

Thoughts of Anna returned smiles to both their faces.

"Anna is where it all started," Charlie said, and reached over to stroke Elsie's cheek. "I was sceptical and you were determined. And now the killer has been captured and the world of Downton set aright again. You were magnificent today, you know."

She beamed and, as was almost always the case when she felt just a little uncomfortable with attention, she resorted to practicalities. "That may be so, but I'll be exhausted tomorrow and so will you if we don't get any sleep."

"Back to the grind," he said, sliding beneath the covers and reaching out to draw her close. "It does require a good night's sleep."

"It's not that," Elsie murmured. "Or, not just that. It's only that Mrs. Patmore was quite agitated that all of this unfolded without her knowing. She's made me promise to tell her the whole story, right from the beginning."

A Postscript

Inspired by lemacd

Executed by Edward Carson

October, 1932

They had pushed the table over to the sitting room window where the natural light was at its strongest in mid-afternoon. On the tabletop, the outline of a jigsaw puzzle was complete, and both inside and outside the skeletal frame were the thousand other pieces, all facing up and sorted by shape.

They sat across from each other and both wore, in addition to the casual garb of an ordinary day, a thick jumper against the chill of a late-autumn afternoon. There was no fire in the grate. Coal was dear and winter was coming. Elsie had knitted the jumpers three years earlier for long walks on country roads in the changeable seasons of spring and fall. They had been anticipating then a comfortable retirement together, easing into the sunset of their lives which they envisaged as active but leisurely and without the cares that had characterized their working years. Well, in the memorable words of Scotland's most famous poet, The best laid schemes o' mice and men / Gang aft a-gley, and so it had for them and many others as the Great Depression descended.* Their world, never expansive, had gotten smaller.

"It's no nevermind," Elsie said bracingly, more than once. "We have our health and our friends and each other. And a roof over our heads that's our own and enough to put food on our table. And that's more than a great lot of the world can say these days."

Charlie never argued the point. Elsie was right and they had evidence enough around them, even in this quiet corner of Yorkshire, to confirm it. Even if this were not the case, he would have hesitated to challenge her. He preferred it when they were on the same side of things.

"What is this picture we're attempting to put together, anyway?" he demanded, frowning a little at the myriad pieces arrayed before him.

Elsie gave him a look. He knew full well what they were constructing. But she reached for the box anyway. "It's Windsor Castle." She showed him the artistic rendering.

"Why's it all the same colour?" he asked querulously.

"It's good Bagshot heath stone," Elsie said placidly, putting the box aside and focusing on her corner of the puzzle. She picked up one piece of greenery, tried it in a few places, set it aside, and picked up another. "You'd hardly expect there to be noticeable variations in a royal palace."

His eyes slid up and fixed on her head, bent over her task. "You've having a go at me, aren't you?" he said, affecting affront and doing a poor job of masking his amusement.

"Never!" Elsie assured him, not looking up. But she did smile.

They worked on the puzzle for a while. She assembled a number of pieces that were the same colour and then patiently went about piecing together a tiny patch that grew slowly as she fitted the correct piece. He picked up one piece after another, tried to fit it to any number of possibilities in the corner he was working on, and made no progress at all. His exasperation was increasingly apparent in the heaviness of his breathing and the force with which he put down pieces that didn't "work."

"What kind of a torment is this?" he demanded after a while, glaring at her as though she had inflicted it on him. "None of these pieces fit!"

Her gaze shifted from her own work, to his eyes, to his empty little corner, and then dropped back to her own expanding portion. She said nothing, but she didn't have to. The message was clear.

He leaned back heavily in his chair, frustrated. She laughed at him.

"What!"

But Elsie only shook her head. "You're so impatient, Charlie. You don't think I notice how you tear through Mrs. Christie's novels? Always in a hurry to get to the end."

"I want to know who did it!"

"Of course. But you miss the cleverness of it all by rushing through. I enjoy the unfolding of the mystery as much as the revelation of the perpetrator." Unconsciously, her eyes flitted to the little table by the sofa, where The Sittaford Mystery, Agatha Christie's most recent novel, lay bookmarked at chapter three. Charlie had finished it a week ago. "I like to savour things."

He grunted, clearly of a dissonant view.

Elsie considered the skeletal framework on the table between them, her eyes wandering over the thousand cardboard cut-outs, meaningless in their individualism but, once assembled, a complete picture. It made her think.

"Remember that murder we solved back in '25? Now that was a puzzle."**

She said this almost in passing, her brow furrow over the green pieces immediately before her. She stirred them about with a forefinger, carefully examining the edges for possibilities. It was a moment before she realized her husband was staring at her, his great dark eyes awash with feeling.

"What is it?" she asked uncertainly, wondering if her hair were not tidy.

"You," he said, and he sat back in his chair, the better to contemplate her. His impatience had dissolved and now there was only wonder in his eyes. "That was a brilliant bit of work, Elsie Carson. I knew, I'd always known you were a smart one. And determined. But I confess, you astonished me with the way you went about it all." He reached across the table and she gave him her hand. "They'd never have solved it, you know. Scotland Yard. That Anna was absolved and … what was her name?..."

"Edna. Edna Braithwaite."

"… Edna Braithwaite exposed and captured, it would never have happened but for you." His admiring gaze was tempered just a little by amusement. "That young woman was quite a plotter, as it turned out, but she was no match for you."

He leaned across the table, oblivious to the way his sleeve caught on the corner of the puzzle, pulling it askew. Elsie obligingly met him halfway, careful so as not to disrupt the pattern. And as their lips met the last ray of afternoon light glinted down upon them and the same thought occurred to both: How lucky we are.

THE END

Author's Note 1: The poet is Robert Burns, the poem, To a Mouse.

Author's Note 2: In an early review to this story, lemacd casually tossed off this line and a sketchy allusion to the scene depicted here. I thought it apt. I develop it here with permission.

Dear Readers: And now, with tale complete, please leave a review to let me know what you think.