Pat Ashby must have been killed between the time that old Abel met him in the early afternoon and the moment when Mr. Pilbeam had to chase Simon home for six o'clock supper.
Well, there was that old saying about Mahomet and the mountain.
He thought the Mahomet theory over, but was stumped by the coat on the cliff-top. It was Simon who had written that note, but Simon was never out of Clare.
It was two o'clock when he came to himself, and he went to have lunch at a small pub in the harbour. They had nothing much left, but it did not matter because he sat staring at his plate until they put the bill in front of him.
He went back to Latchetts and without going to the house went to the stables and took out one of the horses that had not been at Bures. There was no one about but Arthur, who reported that all the horses were safely back and all well except that Buster had an overreach.
"Taking him out like that, sir?" Arthur asked, nodding at Brat's tweed suit. And Brat said that he was.
He turned up to the down as he had that first morning when he took out Timber, and did again what he had done on Timber's back. But all the glory was gone. The whole world looked sick. Life itself tasted bad.
He dismounted and sat down where he had sat that morning a month ago, looking out over the small green valley. It had seemed paradise to him then. Even that silly girl who had come and talked to him had not sufficed to spoil it for him. He remembered how her eyes had popped when she found he was not Simon. She had come there sure of seeing Simon because it was his favourite place for exercising the horses. Because he….
The horse by his side threw up his head as Brat's sudden movement jerked the bit in his mouth.
Because he…?
He listened to the girl's voice in his mind. Then he got slowly to his feet and stood a long time staring across the valley.
He knew now how Simon had done it. And he also knew the answer to something that had puzzled him. He knew why Simon had been afraid that, by some miracle, it was the real Patrick who had come back.
He got on the horse and went back to the stables. The great clouds were racing up from the south-west and it was beginning to rain. In the saddle room he took a sheet of writing paper from the desk and wrote on it: "Out for dinner. Leave the front door on the latch for me, and don't worry if I am late." He put it in an envelope, addressed it to Bee, and asked Arthur to hand it in at the house when he was passing. He took his burberry from the back of the saddle-room door, and went out into the rain, away from Latchetts. He had the knowledge now. What was he going to do with it?
He walked without conscious purpose, unaware of anything but the dreadful question to be answered. He came to the smithy where Mr. Pilbeam was still working, and greeted him, and exchanged opinions on the work in hand and on the weather to come, without having for a moment ceased to battle with the thing in his mind.
He walked up the path to Tanbitches and up the hill over the wet grass to the crown of beeches, and walked there to and fro among the great boles of the trees, distracted and stricken.
How could he bring this thing on Bee?
On Eleanor? On Latchetts?
Had he not already done Latchetts sufficient harm?
Would it matter so much if Simon were left in possession as he had been for eight years?
Who had been harmed by that? Only one person: Patrick.
If Simon was to be brought to justice for Patrick's death, it would mean horror beyond horror for Bee and the rest.
He didn't have to do it at all. He could go away; stage a suicide. After all, Simon had staged Patrick's suicide, and it had passed a police investigation. If a boy of thirteen could do that he could do it. He could just drop out, and things would be as they were a month ago.
And-Pat Ashby?
But Pat, if he could choose, would not want justice on Simon at the cost of his family's ruin. Not Pat, who had been kind and always thought first of others.
And Simon?
Was he to make good Simon's monstrous supposition that he would do nothing? Was Simon to spend a long life as the owner of Latchetts? Were Simon's children to inherit Latchetts?
But they would still be Ashbys. If Simon were brought to justice there would be no more Ashbys at Latchetts.
And how would it advantage Latchetts to have its inheritance made safe by the condoning of murder?
Was it not, perhaps, to uncover that murder that he had come by such strange ways to Latchetts?
He had come half across a world to that meeting with Loding in the street, and he had said to himself that so strange a chance must be destiny. But he had not imagined it to be an important destiny. Now, it would seem, it was an all-important one.
What was he to do? Who could advise him? Decide for him? It was not fair that this should be put on his shoulders. He had not the wisdom, the experience, to deal with a thing of this magnitude.
"I am retribution," he had said to Simon, and meant it. But that was before he had the weapon of retribution in his hand.
What was he to do?
Go to the police to-night? To-morrow?
Do nothing, and let the celebrations begin when Charles Ashby came home?
What was he to do?
It was late that night that George Peck, sitting in his study and conscious every now and then even from his distant vantage point in Thebes of the lashing rain on the window of the Rectory in Clare, heard a tapping at that window, and came back from Thebes and went to the front door. It was by no means the first time that people had tapped on that window late at night.
In the light from the hall he saw one of the Ashbys, he could not tell which because the soaked hat almost obscured the face.
"Rector, may I come in and talk to you?"
"Of course, Patrick. Come in."
Brat stood on the step, the rain sluicing from his coat.
"I'm afraid I'm very wet," he said vaguely.
The Rector looked down and saw that the grey tweed of his trousers was black, and his shoes an oozing pulp. His eyes went sharply to the boy's face. Brat had taken off his limp hat and the rain-water from his soaked hair was running down his face.
"Take off your coat and leave it here," the Rector said. "I'll give you another one when you are ready to go." He went to the hall cloakroom and came back with a towel. "Rub your head with that."
Brat did as he was told, with the obedient air and fumbling movements of a child. The Rector went through to the empty kitchen and brought a kettle of water.
"Come in," he said. "Just drop the towel where your wet coat is." He led the way into his study and put the kettle on an electric ring. "That will be hot in no time. I often make tea for myself when I sit up late. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"A pit in Dothan."
"What?"
"I'm sorry. My mind has stopped working. Have you a drink of any kind?"
The Rector had meant to put the whisky in the tea, as a toddy, but he poured a stiff one now and Brat drank it.
"Thank you. I am sorry to come and worry you like this, but I had to talk to you. I hope you don't mind."
"I am here to be talked to. Some more whisky?"
"No, thanks."
"Then let me give you some dry shoes."
"Oh, no, thank you. I'm used to being wet, you know. Rector, I want your advice about something very important, but can I talk to you as if-as if it were confessional? I mean, without your feeling that you must do something about it."
"Whatever you say I shall treat as confession, certainly."
"Well, first I have to tell you something. I am not Patrick Ashby."
"No," agreed the Rector. And Brat stared.
"You mean-you mean, you knew I wasn't Patrick?"
"I rather thought that you weren't."
"Why?"
"There is more to any person than a physical presence; there is an aura, a personality, a being. And I was almost sure the first time I met you that I had never met you before. There was nothing in you that I recognised, although you have many things in common with Patrick as well as your appearance."