A Pattern of Lies: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mysteries) by Charles Todd

Author:Charles Todd [Todd, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: United States, Genre Fiction, Literary, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women Sleuths, Thriller & Suspense, Historical
ISBN: 9780062386243
Amazon: 0062386247
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2015-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

I TOLD MYSELF that this did not necessarily mean that the cushion belonged to someone from Kent. It could have been found or taken away by anyone in need of a better seat. From a transport ship, from the wreckage of a lorry, from someone’s kit. It could have been wandering around the battlefields of France since the BEF landed and marched north to Mons, passed from one hand to another.

And yet . . . Someone had made an effort twice to replace the worn covering over the pillow. First with canvas and then with burlap. Someone hadn’t intended for the pillow to be used until the stuffing had fallen out, then tossed aside. It meant enough that it was kept in use.

When the furor died down, would the owner of the cushion come looking for it? I really should have considered that possibility last night.

I picked up first the canvas covering and then the burlap, sewing them back in place, trying to match the awkward, untutored stitches that had held them together this long.

Could someone tell what I’d done? Would he—or even she—look at the stitching to see if the cushion’s secret had been discovered?

I thought not. Most people wouldn’t have tried to take that cushion apart looking for evidence. Although my mother, who had taught me to make tiny, almost invisible stitches, would raise her eyebrows at my poor workmanship.

I got up from the camp stool by my bed and tossed the cushion in a heap just outside my door, as if I’d taken it from Sister Morris’s room but had not wanted to keep it.

I undressed and went to bed but hardly slept, one eye on my door, in case whoever it was came in—with that pillow. But close to morning I fell into a deep sleep and nearly missed breakfast.

I got up and hastily prepared for my day with a clean uniform and apron, laced up my boots, and put up my hair after brushing it.

It was only then that I realized that the cushion was no longer lying there just outside the passage door.

The cases of trench foot were moved to a base hospital to allow their damaged toes to heal. They had been gone for two days when one of the ward Sisters said, as I helped her make up a fresh bed for a shoulder surgery case, “I was glad to see the back of them. A cheeky lot. Not ill enough to lie there and simply moan. Not well enough to help out with feeding some of the other patients. But I did catch one of them sleepwalking, when he’d been told to stay off his feet.”

“Sleepwalking?” It did happen, but it was rare. Most of the men we cared for were recovering from serious wounds that kept them in their beds.

“Oh yes. It was around two in the morning. He came limping back to his bed. I startled him when I asked him what he thought he was doing. ‘Sister, you’ll give a man heart failure if you frighten him like that.

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