by Marlowe Benn
Jack arrived and clasped Philip’s shoulder. He must know too. Of course there would be more thought, much more thought—but later. “Very sorry,” Jack said. “A long telephone call I couldn’t avoid. Ready?”
Philip rose and offered Julia his arm. “Shall we?” he said jauntily, as if they were returning for the next act of a vaudeville show. Somehow it seemed fitting, a last absurd gesture mocking the gravitas of the occasion.
They settled into the same chairs they’d occupied the morning they’d first parried arguments. Jack’s desk was clear except for a single stack of documents: the tidy severing of all Julia’s ties to her father and half brother. Jack reached for the papers. “The business at hand. At last.”
Philip took out his cigarette case and offered it around. Julia didn’t take one for fear her hand might shake.
“It’s straightforward enough,” Jack said. “In accordance with the partners’ judgment, these papers transfer to Philip the accounts of Milo Kydd’s estate that had been held in trust for Julia. With these documents, Julia, you renounce all claims to the estate. It seems harsh and unnecessary”—he looked sharply at Philip, who picked a fleck of tobacco from his lip—“but that’s how your father’s will is now construed. I’m sorry—”
“Isn’t that a bit precipitous?” Julia said. She sniffled to hide the trace of hoarseness. “What about our codicil? The wager.”
“What?” Jack jabbed the bridge of his spectacles to push them higher on his nose. “The judgment’s made. Nothing you can do or say now will alter it.”
“We agreed, and honor is honor. Philip, do you stand by your pledge?”
“My honor is as good as yours.”
“Good,” Julia said, “because it’s resolved now, the mystery of Naomi Rankin’s death.” The words, that simple declarative sentence, were as ashes in her mouth.
“Brava! Cough it out. Am I to be merely rich or positively swish with it?”
“Philip, please,” Jack said. “Be serious for once.”
“Was I right?” Philip said, ignoring him. “No deadly concoctions after all?”
“No poison, no.” Before Philip could crow, Julia added, “Nor was it suicide. Naomi Rankin died of a vicious attack to destroy her pregnancy.”
He sat back. “My stars. Imagine that. There must be quite a story?”
“You’re both still pledged to secrecy. Neither of you can breathe a word of this.”
Philip assured her with a half wave.
She told them. She told them of the missing suicide note, the threats, Alice’s deceit. She described the diary, the cryptic receipt, the attack on Alice, the discoveries with Barney. She described last evening’s drama as lightly as possible. Neither man pressed her for details, fuming instead at her dangerous folly. Philip glared at her scarf. As if he would not have taken precisely the same risk.
“Naomi was drugged,” Julia said. “Left powerless to resist an assault that left her dead. Glennis calls it murder.”
“Did Mrs. Rankin confess?”
“No. But neither did she deny it.”
Philip nodded thoughtfully. “Did Mrs. Rankin intend to kill her sister-in-law?”
“Probably not, though she showed no remorse. She claimed Naomi deserved her fate.”
“I see. Tell me, if Naomi had inflicted the wound herself, with the same objective and same lamentable result, would you call it suicide?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Murder requires intent no less than suicide. Otherwise it’s simply incompetence. I’m afraid Nolda Rankin’s bloody hands are quite clean, technically speaking. An appalling metaphor and worse irony, but there it is.”
“But you said yourself the most cunning murders often fall beyond the purview of the law. If a barber draws his blade across a man’s throat with enough force to slit it open, would you shrug and call it incompetence? Would you give any surgeon, any policeman with a short temper and a billy club, carte blanche to—”
“Honest tools can serve an evil purpose.”
“My point exactly.”
“Note emphasis on purpose.”
Julia spanked her handbag. It was all she could do not to shriek.
Philip had the decency to pale. “You’re right. Enough pin dancing. If I recall correctly, I would prevail if you failed to prove it was murder.”
“You insisted it was suicide. You were even further from the truth.”
“Perhaps I misremember our precise language. It’s possible we agreed on something more slippery. Neither of us was at our most serene at the time. I merely invoke the letter of the agreement, whatever the conversation’s more general spirit.”
“But—”
“I may, however,” Philip continued, “be prevailed upon to accept your creative reasoning. Murder by malicious botchery—how can I resist the novelty of it? All right then, I concede.” He launched a ridiculous sweep of his arm. “Hats off to the more devious mind. You win.”
With that grand gesture he declared her the victor, the superior sleuth. The winner. It’s over, a small voice in her head piped. At last. After weeks of wrenching worry, she’d finally achieved what she’d come for. What should have been a straightforward path had become a tortuous one, but she’d arrived—at a poor but redeeming end to both awful businesses, her usurped birthright and Naomi’s terrible death.
Something in Julia’s head soared off and zoomed about the room as she dared to fathom her triumph. She was again and forever free. She could marry David if she liked, but on her own terms. Or not at all. The jubilant notion wheeled and tumbled overhead like a drunken acrobat, a bee sozzled in honey.
“Tear it up, Jack,” Philip went on. “The whole blasted thing, null and void. Poof.” His fingertips sprang apart, dispelling Julia’s weeks, months, of torment with a jaunty puff of air.
“How many times do I have to tell you—” Jack began.
“Poof?” Julia’s bee faltered, her acrobat stumbled. “That’s cavalier, considering the agonies you’ve put me through.”
Philip paused in the process of lighting a fresh cigarette. “Julia, my dear, I don’t want your money. Never did. It was Aunt Lillian, bless her soul, who insisted I pursue that balmy suit. She had it drawn up in my name and forced me at knifepoint—cake knife, but even so—to let it proceed. If I thought it had a ghost of a chance of prevailing, I’d have turned that flat little blade on her own finger, but honestly, I never thought it possible. No one was more surprised than I when those fools endorsed all that blather.”
Jack slapped the desk. “Finally! At last a little truth. Good God, this whole business has been ridiculous from the start. Lillian pestered him like a rat terrier, Julia. She wouldn’t leave him in peace until he agreed to let her contest the will on his behalf.”
Bloody hell tenfold. An ocean would not suffice to distance her from this vindictive, horrid, spiteful man. “You stood to inherit a packet from the old lady, and still you’d see me denied?”
“Hardly a packet,” Philip objected. “No one guessed that. And she did promise to live to a hundred.”
“No wonder you goaded me into that wager. It meant nothing to you if you lost. Yet you would have me risk everything. This so-called concession is a sham. You’ve been laughing at me all this time. What a monstrous, monstrous man you are!”
Philip raised a forearm in mock alarm. “Mea culpa. Guilty as charged. But I only went along with the silly business for the chance to see you again. All those years of signing over sums made me curious about what had become of that spoiled, knock-kneed—yes, you were—ill-tempered urchin carting my name around on other continents. Once you got here and I’d had a good look, a mighty relieved one, I’ll admit, I intended to denounce the old lady’s flimflam at first crack, but then you turned out to be such a spanking fine adversary that, well, I couldn’t resist. I had to keep it going a bit longer.”
“This was all a great joke to you? All those things you said about me, about my mother, were froth, your
idea of a fine amusement?”
“Perfect blather. Plausible objections, I suppose, but your claim seemed so secure I thought a bit of a dustup, an eyeball to eyeball, if you will, might make for good sport. You looked like you enjoyed it too, all those flashing eyes and ringing speeches.”
“Enjoy it? Enjoy losing my independence? Enjoy my brother’s rejection? And my father’s? Having to risk everything to win back what you stole? You are unspeakably mad.”
“Very possibly. But spare us the melodrama. You were never in the least danger. Even if you hadn’t proven such a wily sleuth, I assume this Adair fellow has a bob or two. Besides, I’d always pitch in and give you—”
“Give me? That’s outrageous! You were about to usurp my rightful inheritance, Philip. Any gift from you—drawn from my own money, no doubt—would be the very height of arrogant—” Julia choked at the ghastly echo of Naomi’s situation and now Glennis’s.
“What’s going on in here?” Rousch loomed in the doorway. “Sounds like two cats on fire.”
Jack scrambled to his feet. “There’s some dispute about the judgment, sir.”
“Stop wasting our time.” Rousch pushed the stack of unsigned papers toward Philip. “You asked for arbitration, and you got it. The money’s yours, Mr. Kydd, end of story.”
Philip released an O of smoke. “I’m afraid circumstances have changed. I’ve been persuaded to drop the challenge. Sorry for the needless folderol and all that. We’ll compensate you for your trouble, of course.”
“Are you deaf, man?” Rousch said. “Our sole concern is the final execution of your father’s will. He’s our client here, not you. Sign the papers, both of you, and save your squawking for the street.”
“But—” Julia and Philip protested in unison.
“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “They’re just about to, sir. We’re almost done.”
Reality blazed over Julia like a prison-yard beacon. She was so close, nearly there in her creep toward freedom under the cloak of their wager. She’d dared to imagine the new proofing press, the new titling fonts she’d buy with her reclaimed fortune. Now in a few blunt words, Rousch had exposed the futility of those hopes. The judgment was irrevocable: her father’s will did not include her. The wager that had galvanized her last few weeks’ effort was irrelevant. Nothing she’d learned had made, or could have made, any difference to her lost inheritance. She saw this now in searing clarity. Her cautious joy turned to cinders.
Rousch paused as he turned to go. “Oh, and best wishes, Miss Kydd, on your return to England. I understand you have a serious suitor. We’ll look forward to wedding news within the year, as we reasoned would soon be the case. The best solution to your situation, I believe.”
“Pompous ogre,” Philip said as Jack pushed the door shut, a milder epithet than what rang in Julia’s head. “You still won the wager, Julia. Your wits bested mine, for what it’s worth.”
For what it’s worth. There it was, her meager prize, her only prize. What had her wits accomplished? She’d learned sleuthing was no game, no carefree romp of puzzle cracking. She’d achieved a measure of justice by ensuring Naomi’s last wishes would be honored, but it had come at a great cost: a family in ruins, marriages torn, friends and lover freshly grieving. She’d brought to light the terrible truth of Naomi’s death, but Gerald’s remained forever obscured by lies. Julia’s cleverness could do nothing for that.
Philip resettled, flinging one leg over the arm of his chair. A turquoise sock gleamed at Julia. “I suppose we’ll have to settle for a draw,” he said. “Fair enough?”
She watched pigeons strut along the windowsills across the avenue. Any reply required too great an effort. So this was the true end. She felt limp, battered, flung from despair to victory to defeat to—what? She had no more fight left. Certainly no more wit. After all she’d done to defend what was rightfully hers, a draw was now the best she could achieve. Even that was a euphemism for whatever beneficence struck Philip’s fancy. He’d slip her a nicely mollifying sum, enough to see her handed off comfortably into David’s care.
Fair enough? It was what one said. There was nothing at all fair about this ending, but it would have to be enough. She was out of options. Life was always a draw: disappointments muted by triumphs tempered by obstacles eased by kindnesses. No ambitious Capriole agenda but no dreary bedsit either. Enough. She slid forward and extended her hand for the pen.
It was a daunting stack. She wrote her name on one sheet after another, and Jack laid them out across the desk to dry. They covered the surface in orderly rows, some nineteen pages, before she reached the end. She signed the final document and blew on the ink. “So be it. At last, the end of this awful business.”
Thank God her voice was calm, her hand steady. Another few minutes and she could escape. Tomorrow. Not today but tomorrow she would begin to recalibrate, take the final, clear-eyed measurements of just what marriage would and would not allow of her.
Philip unscrambled his legs. “The end? Nothing will happen, daft girl, unless I sign as well.”
“So get on with it.” She thrust the pen at him. “Only a sadist would trifle at this point.”
He sent another tremulous O of smoke into the air.
“Philip?” It had the shrill sound of foot stamping. “He’s your friend, Jack. What madness is he up to now?”
“Why must you two always egg each other on?” Jack said. “You heard Rousch, Philip. Wink all you like, but what’s done is done.”
“Nonsense. Even if you shackle me to this chair for days and force my fainting hand to sign, I’ll merely set up another monthly allowance, same as before only from my own ill-gotten estate. In fact, I’ll boost it. Aunt Lillian ought to kick in something, for all the trouble she’s caused.”
The weary bee twitched. The acrobat made a wobbly somersault. Julia was too exhausted for more. Did he mean it? Resuming her present arrangement was not fair, but it could be enough. And yet. Was this another trick? More glib sport? She could bandy sham extravagance right back at him and better.
“Double it then,” she said. “Triple it. But don’t think you can ever compensate for what you stole, what we both know is mine by birthright. You’re a poisonous cad. Fine, pay me dearly for this folly, but I’ll never, ever forgive you.”
“Poisonous? That’s harsh. And you will, you know,” Philip said. “I shall be a model citizen until you do. All these years, and I had no idea a sister could be so fun. I couldn’t possibly sign you away. What about my lifetime supply of bookplates and calling cards? Maybe a volume of Lillian’s bluest limericks? You need me to keep Capriole honest, steer you clear of any frightful Rubaiyats or Sonnets from the bloody Portuguese. Bibliophiles everywhere will thank me. Why on earth would I sign all that away?”
Julia’s head ached. Even if genuine, Philip’s offer restored her options but presented a loathsome choice: Whose grip did she prefer on her purse strings, David’s or Philip’s? Appease one man’s vanity or the other man’s caprice? David would allow only the most safe and decorous production from Capriole, while Philip would pester her for anything but. David would soon wander off in search of his next Julia, leaving her to languish in peaceful comfort, if Helen’s experience was anything to go by. On the other hand, with fresh coffers to plunder, Philip might use his money as marionette strings, making her dance (and print) to suit his every quirk and whim. Was it better to be a toy neglected or a toy worn to bits?
Let cynicism prevail then, once and for all. What folly to think she could escape the compromises even Naomi Rankin had accepted in the end, as Russell’s hidden emerald ring attested. David too was a reasonable man. His demands—Julia’s restrictions—would be few. She might still dabble in minor intrigues, print and bind as her (discreet) caprine whimsy moved. It could be enough. Like Naomi, she could not afford more. At last she could rid herself forever of everything Kydd and Vancill. Julia Adair had a stylish ring to it, after all.
“Just sign the wretched papers,” she sai
d. “I’ve been your plaything long enough. No allowance is worth a lifetime of your harebrained fun at my expense. Just sign and let me go.”
Philip folded his arms across his chest, chin in the air. Though adults ten years apart in age, at the moment they might be feuding toddlers. If Julia had had something sturdy to hand, she’d have coshed him with it. Her bag was a trifle too dear to mash.
“Give me peace!” Jack expelled two cheekfuls of air and strode from the room.
He returned several minutes later to the same scene—not even a glance had been exchanged. Julia could match Philip in obstinacy any day of the week.
“You’re both impossible.” He thwacked two thick envelopes on his desk. “While you were stewing, Miss Baxter reminded me of these. Lillian Vancill’s nurse brought them in. Apparently the old woman demanded they be delivered here in person. There’s one for each of you, if you can drag your thoughts away from garroting each other.”
Julia extended a gloved hand. “If I must.” In truth, she was curious. What could the old lizard possibly have to say to her?
Philip tore his envelope open and pulled out two sheets folded twice and covered with a dense, wavery script in brilliant blue ink. He sighed and sat back to read.
Julia’s held a tightly folded typescript and a brief note in the same blue ink. Without salutation, it read,
I’ve been a foolish old woman, Miss Kydd. I see now I was an even more foolish young woman. I confess with shame that I removed this from your father’s library shortly before his death, for reasons I’d rather not disclose, but compelling ones, at least compelling to me. I apologize for meddling, then and now, and beg you to forgive the culprit, Lillian Lapham Vancill
Julia unfolded the document in her lap. It was her father’s will, dated March 8, 1906, a week before his death. The pages rattled like leaves in a windstorm as she searched for the pertinent phrase. She found it: The remainder of my estate to be divided equally between my two children, Philip Vancill Kydd and Julia Jordahl Kydd . . .