Page 82 of A Matter of Murder
The man rubbed his temples. “Oh, by all means, Miss Bennet,” he said sarcastically.
“Mr. Burton, your wife mentioned that George Oliver visited Netherfield Park often, calling in on Mrs. Bingley.”
The old man was trembling just slightly, but he nodded. “Yes.”
“And you suspected he was after something of value?”
“Didn’t know it for certain,” Mr. Burton said. “But that was our suspicion.”
“And...” Lizzie paused, and Darcy knew she was choosing her words carefully. “Did he show interest in your daughter, Amy?”
Mr. Burton didn’t answer the question, but Darcy could read all the answer they needed in his eyes.
“He used her,” Mrs. Burton said. “I told her, ‘Don’t trust that one, my girl. He’s slippery and not good to the child he has. He just wants a mother to manage his boy.’ But he could work the old charm when he had a mind. And Amy, she liked the idea of being someone’s wife, of a life in the village. She never wanted to be in service.”
Darcy noted that Sally stood beside her grandmother, her expression stony. She didn’t appear shocked or dismayed by this revelation... which meant that she’d likely known that George Oliver and her mother had carried on a relationship. Darcy thought back to the day before, when they’d pored over the registers... how long ago exactly was Sally’s baptism?
“What happened?” Mr. Layne asked. “If he courted your daughter, and you weren’t pleased about it, and he ended up dead—”
“I tried to pay him off, all right?” Mr. Burton shouted. “I knew he wasn’t good for my Amy, and I knew he didn’t really care for her. He was using her, just as he was attempting to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Bingley. We all knew the stories about Mrs. Bingley’s silver. Only, Susannah and I actually knew where she kept it. So I took some of it—yes, I stole it!—and I gave it to George Oliver and said, ‘Here, take what you came for and go.Don’t ever come back here.’ And as far as I knew, he did—he just didn’t take his boy with him, either.”
The room was shocked into silence by Mr. Burton’s confession, but Mr. Layne was unconvinced. “So how did George Oliver end up dead?”
“I don’t know,” the old man replied, his voice breaking. “But you have to believe me—I only stole what I did to protect my family from that snake of a man.”
“You killed him! You’re a liar, and I’ve always known it!” Mr. Oliver struggled against his restraints, shouting. “I’ll make sure you hang!”
“I’m afraid this case is out of my hands,” Mr. Layne began to say. “For matters of murder, I must refer this to—”
“No!” Sally said sharply, stepping forward. “My grandparents didn’t kill George Oliver. They never knew the truth of what happened that night.”
“And you do?” Mr. Layne asked doubtfully. “You’re hardly more than twenty yourself—”
“I’m twenty-two. And while I might not have witnessed what happened, I know. I’m the only person alive who knows.” Sally swallowed hard, and Darcy saw for the first time a crack in the young woman’s careful mask of stoic indifference. “Mrs. Bingley told me everything before she died.”
“And why would she do that?” Mr. Layne asked.
“Because she thought I ought to know what happened to my father.”
Of all the revelations that morning, this one stunned theaudience into silence. Sally did not cry or become overwrought, but Darcy could see her chin tremble slightly as she turned to her grandparents. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You knew?” her grandfather asked, incredulous. “But how?”
“Gran,” Sally said with a sigh. “She slipped up one day and mentioned how he tried to court Mum. I asked Mrs. Bingley about it, and...”
“Sally,” Lizzie said gently, “the only way to clear your grandparents’ names is if you tell us what you know.”
Sally nodded, and when she first spoke, her sentences came haltingly. “Mrs. Bingley said it was late. George would come in the late evening, when my grandparents had left and only my mother remained.”
Sally did not elaborate on what George Oliver and Amy Burton did during those late-night visits, but one could make the appropriate assumptions.
“But this night, Mrs. Bingley thought she heard someone else rattling around in the house, and she went to find my mother. Together they found George in the drawing room. Mrs. Bingley kept the silver close back then, locked in a box in the fireplace. He was plundering it.”
“And then what happened, Sally?”
“I don’t know exactly, but Mrs. Bingley said an argument broke out. George raised his hand to my mother, and Mrs. Bingley said she reacted without thinking. She grabbed the fire poker and hit him over the head.”
Sally didn’t elaborate, and Darcy cleared his throat. “That is consistent with what we observed of the body, Mr. Layne.”