Michael sigh of relief was almost audible. “Oh, a lie! That is… interesting.” But his next thought was that perhaps Sandy was right again, and she had lied about being with Eustace Atherton on the night of the murder. That would be a far worse transgression, all things considered.
“Is it? I told her that the best way to ease her conscience was to tell the truth, and later she said the lie no longer troubled her, so perhaps she did so.”
And perhaps she had merely stopped worrying about it.
“Do you suppose I might talk to Daisy? If you have no objection?”
“I shall ask my aunt.”
Within moments she was back, Daisy was sent for, and they talked for some time of the tower and all she had seen there. After Michael had exhausted that subject, he took the opportunity to ask about mules, and whether she had noticed any in the field beside the tower.
“I did not notice particularly, no. I am not sure I could identify a mule unless it— Oh, look! Daisy is running down the drive!”
Michael was out of his chair instantly, tearing out of the house in pursuit. Daisy was a little too plump for speed, and was besides hampered by her skirts, so Michael caught her just at the end of the drive and grabbed an arm.
“Stop right there, Daisy!”
To his astonishment, she dropped to her knees at his feet, tears cascading down her face. “Oh, please, sir! Please don’t have me transported! Me ma would be that upset. Or lock me up, neither. Them gaols are foul places where people die, and the colonies are hot and nasty. Please don’t send me there!”
Michael dropped to one knee beside her. “Daisy, I promise you no one intends to have you transported, but I do need to talk to you, and you must tell me the truth, do you understand?Allthe truth, nothing left out. If you can do that, you will not be transported or put in gaol or punished in any way. Is that clear?”
Mutely, she nodded. It took some little time to gently urge her back into the house, and then to persuade the hovering Mrs Cathcart, much inclined to scold, from the room. Then a glass of something and several more minutes of reassurance before Michael could begin his questions. But the first one got right to the point.
“Daisy, when I talked to you before, you told me that you were with Mr Eustace Atherton on that night in June when Mr Nicholson was murdered. Was that the truth?”
A long silence. Then she whispered, “You won’t send me to the colonies?”
“Not if you tell the truth, but this is a question of murder, and lying about anything at all when asked is a very serious matter. People have been gaoled and even transported for that. But if you tell me the truth—”
“I weren’t there!”
Michael sighed. “Mr Eustace paid you to say so, I suppose.”
She nodded. “Twenty pounds! I never had so much money in my life before, and he said it weren’t a real lie because I’d stayed the night there before, and he did have someone staying that night, but she were a real lady, and he didn’t want it to get about that she stayed the night with him. She’d be ruined, he said, and he didn’t want her name brought into it, but everyone knows I’ve obliged him from time to time, don’t they? But then me pa found out about the money and wanted to know what I’d done to get so much, and he was that angry with me and told me I’d be transported if it came out. So he sent me to me uncle in Birchall and I were that upset to be away from home, sir, and nothing much to do, but Miss Katherine’s been so kind to me and I really don’t want to lose my place here, sir, truly I don’t.”
“And is this the complete truth, Daisy?” Michael said gently. “Mr Eustace told you there was a lady with him that night?”
“He did, sir, a proper lady, but he didn’t want her ruined. Ladies can be ruined, can’t they, sir? Then they can’t never get married. Not like me! I’m just a farmer’s daughter, and Jack Benson says he’ll wed me as soon as he’s got his own place and he don’t mind me obliging anyone ’til then, cos it’s good money for us, ain’t it? But a proper lady can’t oblige a gentleman without being ruined.”
“That is so,” Michael said gravely. He pressed Daisy a little harder, but although she prattled on at great length now that her fear of transportation had receded, she had nothing new to say, and Michael let her go. He made sure that Mrs Cathcart knew that the girl had been helpful to him, and could only hope she would not suffer too severe a scolding for trying to run away.
And then he sent for his horse, and rode as fast as his mount could manage to Welwood-on-the-Hill. It was just as well that a groom emerged at once to attend to the horse, for Michael was not minded to wait. He strapped on his sword and stormed up to the front door.
He had left Birchall mildly cross that he had been lied to by Daisy Marler, but the greater lie had gradually risen up in his mind and brought him to a boiling rage. Daisy was not the transgressor here. That crime lay at Eustace Atherton’s door, who had bribed the poor girl to say she had been with him when she had not.
So he strode into the hall as soon as the manservant opened the door.
“Where is he?”
“I am not sure if the master is at home, sir.”
“He had better be, because if he skulks in a hole to avoid me, I am liable to tear this place apart brick by brick to find him.”
“Perhaps you should make an appointment, sir,” the manservant said frostily.
“And perhaps you should be thrown off the roof for insolence.Where is he?Oh, never mind.”
He stomped across the hall and began opening doors, yelling, “Atherton!” at each. The third door brought results, for there was Mr Eustace Atherton sprawled at his ease in a chair beside the fire, a wine glass in his hand, with a man in the attire of a bailiff or gamekeeper sitting opposite him.
