by Anne Perry
He saw Hester look at the forest-green carpet and upholstery, and the plain white walls, the mahogany woodwork. It was very bare for current fashion, which favored oak, ornate carving and highly decorative china and ornaments. It was on the tip of his tongue to make some comment to her, but he could think of nothing that did not sound as if he were seeking a compliment, so he remained silent.
“Do you wish for my findings before dinner, or after?” Monk asked. “If you care what I say, I think you may prefer them after.”
“I cannot but leap to the conclusion that they are unpleasant,” Rathbone replied with a twisted smile. “In which case, do not let us spoil our meal.”
“A wise decision,” Monk conceded.
Eames returned with a decanter of sherry, long-stemmed glasses and a tray of savory tidbits. They accepted them and made trivial conversation about current political events, the possibility of war in India, until they were informed that dinner awaited them.
The dining room was in the same deep green, a far smaller room than that in the Furnivals’ house; obviously Rathbone seldom entertained more than half a dozen people at the most. The china was imported from France, a delicately gold-rimmed pattern of extreme severity. The only concession to flamboyance was a magnificent Sevres um covered in a profusion of roses and other flowers in blazing reds, pinks, golds and greens. Rathbone saw Hester look at it several times, but forbore from asking her opinion. If she praised it he would think it mere politeness; if not then he would be hurt, because he feared it was ostentatious, but he loved it.
Throughout the meal conversation centered on subjects of politics and social concern, which he would not personally have imagined discussing in front of a woman. He was well versed in the fashion and graces of Society, but Hester was different. She was not a woman in the customary sense of someone separate from the business of life outside the home, a person to be protected from the affairs or the emotions that involved the mind.
After the final course they returned to the withdrawing room and at last there was no reason any longer to put off the matter of the Carlyon case.
Rathbone looked across at Monk, his eyes wide.
“A crime contains three elements,” Monk said, leaning back in his chair, a dour, ironic smile on his face. He was perfectly sure that Rathbone knew this, and quite possibly Hester did also, but he was going to tell them in his own fashion.
Rathbone could feel an irritation rising inside him already. He had a profound respect for Monk, and part of him liked the man, but there was also a quality in him which abraded the nerves like fine sandpaper, an awareness that at any time he might lash out with the unforeseeable, the suddenly disturbing, cutting away comforts and safely held ideas.
“The means were there to hand for anyone,” Monk went on. “To wit, the halberd held by the suit of armor. They all had access to it, and they all knew it was there because any person entering the hall had to see it. That was its function-to impress.”
“We knew they all could have done it,” Rathbone said tersely. His irritation with Monk had provoked him into haste. “It does not take a powerful person to push a man over a banister, if he is standing next to it and is taken by surprise. And the halberd could have been used by anyone of average build—according to the medical report—although to penetrate the body and scar the floor beneath it must have been driven with extraordinary violence.” He winced very slightly, and felt a chill pass through him at such a passion of hate. “At least four of them were upstairs,” he hurried on. “Or otherwise out of the withdrawing room and unobserved during the time the general went upstairs until Maxim Furnival came in and said he had found him on the floor of the hall.”
“Opportunity,” Monk said somewhat officiously. “Not quite true, I’m afraid. That is the painful part. Apparently the police questioned the guests and Mr. and Mrs. Furnival at some length, but they only corroborated with the servants what they already knew.”
“One of the servants was involved?” Hester said slowly. There was no real hope in her face, because of his warning that the news was not good. “I wondered that before, if one of them had a military experience, or was related to someone who had. The motive might be quite different, something in his professional life and nothing personal at all …” She looked at Monk.
There was a flicker in Monk’s face, and Rathbone knew in that instant that he had not thought of that himself. Why not? Inefficiency—or had he reached some unarguable conclusion before he got that far?
“No.” Monk glanced at him, then away again. “They did not question the movements of the servants closely enough. The butler said they had all been about their duties and noticed nothing at all, and since their duties were in the kitchen and servants’ quarters, it was not surprising they had not heard the suit of armor fall. But on questioning him more closely, he admitted one footman tidied the dining room, which was not in the time period we are interested in. He was told to fill the coal scuttles for the rest of the house, including the morning room and the library, which are off the front hall.”
Hester turned her head to watch him. Rathbone sat up a little straighter.
Monk continued impassively, only the faintest of smiles touching the corners of his mouth.
“The footman’s observations as to the armor, and he could hardly have missed it had it been lying on the floor in pieces with the body of the general across it and the halberd sticking six feet out of his chest like a flagpole—”
“We take your point,” Rathbone said sharply. “That reduces the opportunities of the suspects. I assume that is what you are eventually going to tell us?”
A flush of annoyance crossed Monk’s face, then vanished and was replaced by satisfaction, not at the outcome, but at his own competence in proving it.
“That, and the romantic inclinations of the upstairs maid, and the fact that the footman had a lazy streak, and preferred to carry the scuttles up the front stairs instead of the back, for Mrs. Furnival’s bedroom, make it impossible that anyone but Alexandra could have killed him. I’m sorry.”
“Not Sabella?” Hester asked with a frown, leaning a little forward in her seat.
“No.” He turned to her, his face softening for an instant. “The upstairs maid was waiting around the stair head to catch the footman, and when she realized she had missed him, and heard someone coming, she darted into the room where Sabella was resting, just off the first landing, on the pretext that she thought she had heard her call. And when she came out again the people had passed, and she went on back up to the servants’ back stairs, and her own room. The people who passed her must have been Alexandra and the general, because after the footman had finished, he went down the back stairs, just in time to meet the news that General Carlyon had had an accident, and the butler had been told to keep the hall clear, and to send for the police.”
Rathbone let out his breath in a sigh. He did not ask Monk if he were sure; he knew he would not have said it if there were the slightest doubt.
Monk bit his lip, glanced at Hester, who looked crushed, then back at Rathbone.
“The third element is motive,” he said.
Rathbone’s attention jerked back. Suddenly there was hope again. If not, why would Monk have bothered to mention it?
Damn the man for his theatricality! It was too late to pretend he was indifferent, Monk had seen his change of expression. To affect a casual air now would make himself ridiculous.
“I presume your discovery there is more useful to us?” he said aloud.
Monk’s satisfaction evaporated.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “One could speculate all sorts of motives for the others, but for her there seems only jealousy—and yet that was not the reason.”
Rathbone and Hester stared at him. There was no sound in the quiet room but a leaf tapping against the window in the spring breeze.
Monk pulled a dubious face. “It was never easy to believe, in spite of one or two people accepting it, albeit rel
uctantly. I believed it myself for a while.” He saw the sudden start of interest in their faces, and continued blindly. “Louisa Furnival is certainly a woman who would inspire uncertainty, self-doubt and then jealousy in another woman—and must have done so many times. And there is the possibility that Alexandra could have hated her not because she was so in love with the general but simply because she could not abide publicly being beaten by Louisa, being seen to be second best in the rivalry which cuts deepest to a person’s self-esteem, most especially a woman’s.”
“But …” Hester could not contain herself. “But what? Why don’t you believe it now?”
“Because Louisa was not having an affair with the general, and Alexandra must have known he was not.”
“Are you sure?” Rathbone leaned forward keenly. “How do you know?”
“Maxim has money, which is important to Louisa,” Monk replied, watching their faces carefully. “But even more important is her security and her reputation. Apparently some time ago Maxim was in love with Alexandra.” He glanced up as Hester leaned forward, nodding quickly. “You knew that too?”
“Yes—yes, Edith told me. But he would not do anything about it because he is very moral, and believes profoundly in his marriage vows, regardless of emotions afterwards.”
“Precisely,” Monk agreed. “And Alexandra must have known that, because she was so immediately concerned. Louisa is not a woman to throw away anything—money, honor, home, Society’s acceptance—for the love of a man, especially one she knew would not marry her. And the general would not; he would lose his own reputation and career, not to mention the son he adored. In fact I doubt Louisa ever threw away anything intentionally. Alexandra knew her, and knew the situation. If Louisa had been caught in an affair with the general, Maxim would have made life extremely hard for her. After all, he had already made a great sacrifice in order to sustain his marriage. He would demand the same of her. And all this Alexandra knew …” He left the rest unsaid, and sat staring at them, his face somber.
Rathbone sat back with a feeling of confusion and incompleteness in his mind. There must be so much more to this story they had not even guessed at. They had only pieces, and the most important one that held it all together was missing.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said guardedly. He looked across at Hester, wondering what she thought, and was pleased to see the same doubt reflected in her face. Better than that, the attention in her eyes betrayed that she was still acutely involved in the matter. In no way had she resigned interest merely because the answer eluded them but left the guilt undeniable.
“And you have no idea what the real motive was?” he said to Monk, searching his face to see if he concealed yet another surprise, some final piece held back for a last self-satisfying dramatic effect. But there was nothing. Monk’s face was perfectly candid.
“I’ve tried to think,” he said frankly. “But there is nothing to suggest he used her badly in any way, nor has anyone else suggested anything.” He also glanced at Hester.
Rathbone looked at her. “Hester? If you were in her place, can you think of anything which would make you kill such a man?”
“Several things,” she admitted with a twisted smile, then bit her lip as she realized what they might think of her for such feelings.
Rathbone grinned in sudden amusement. “For example?” he asked.
“The first thing that comes to mind is if I loved someone else.”
“And the second?”
“If he loved someone else.” Her eyebrows rose. “Frankly I should be delighted to let him go. He sounds so—so restricting. But if I could not bear the social shame of it, what my friends would say, or my enemies, the laughter behind my back, and above all the pity—and the other woman’s victory …”
“But he was not having an affair with Louisa,” Monk pointed out. “Oh—you mean another woman entirely? Someone we have not even thought of? But why that night?”
Hester shrugged. “Why not? Perhaps he taunted her. Perhaps that was the night he told her about it. We shall probably never know what they said to one another.”
“What else?”
The butler returned discreetly and enquired if there was anything more required. After asking his guests, Rathbone thanked him and bade him good-night.
Hester sighed, “Money?” she answered as the door closed. “Perhaps she overspent, or gambled, and he refused to pay her debts. Maybe she was frightened her creditors would shame her publicly. The only thing …” She frowned, looking first at one, then the other of them. Somewhere outside a dog barked. Beyond the windows it was almost dark. “The thing is, why did she say she had done it out of jealousy of Louisa? Jealousy is an ugly thing, and in no way an excuse—is it?” She turned to Rathbone again. “Will the law take any account of that?”
“None at all,” he answered grimly. “They will hang her, if they find her guilty, and on this evidence they will have no choice.”
“Then what can we do?” Hester’s face was full of anxiety. Her eyes held Rathbone’s and there was a sharp pity in them. He wondered at it. She alone of them had never met Alexandra Carlyon. His own dragging void of pity he could understand; he had seen the woman. She was a real living being like himself. He had been touched by her hopelessness and her fear. Her death would be the extinguishing of someone he knew. For Monk it must be the same, and for all his sometime ruthlessness, Rathbone had no doubt Monk was just as capable of compassion as he was himself.
But for Hester she was still a creature of the imagination, a name and a set of circumstances, no more.
“What are we going to do?” Hester repeated urgently.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “If she doesn’t tell us the truth, I don’t know what there is that I can do.”
“Then ask her,” Hester retorted. “Go to her and tell her what you know, and ask her what the truth is. It may be better. It may offer some …” Her voice tailed off. “Some mitigation,” she finished lamely.
“None of your suggestions were any mitigation at all, Monk pointed out.” She would hang just as surely as if it had been what she claims
“What do you want to do, give up?” Hester snapped.
“What I want is immaterial,” Monk replied. “I cannot afford the luxury of meddling in other people’s affairs for entertainment.”
“I’ll go and see her again,” Rathbone declared. “At least I will ask her.”
Alexandra looked up as he came into the cell. For an instant her face lit with hope, then knowledge prevailed and fear took its place.
“Mr. Rathbone?” She swallowed with difficulty, as though there were some constriction in her throat. “What is it?”
The door clanged shut behind him and they both heard the lock fall and then the silence. He longed to be able to comfort her, at least to be gentle, but there was no time, no place for evasion.
“I should not have doubted you, Mrs. Carlyon,” he answered, looking straight at her remarkable blue eyes. “I thought perhaps you had confessed in order to shield your daughter. But Monk has proved beyond any question at all that it was, as you say, you who killed your husband. However, it was not because he was having an affair With Louisa Furnival. He was not—and you knew he was not.”
She stared at him, white-faced. He felt as if he had struck her, but she did not flinch. She was an extraordinary woman, and the feeling renewed in him that he must know the truth behind the surface facts. Why in heaven’s name had she resorted to such hopeless and foredoomed violence? Could she ever have imagined she would get away with it?
“Why did you kill him, Mrs. Carlyon?” he said urgently, leaning towards her. It was raining outside and the cell was dim, the air clammy.
She did not look away, but closed her eyes to avoid seeing him.
“I have told you! I was jealous of Louisa!”
“That is not true!”
“Yes it is.” Still her eyes were closed.
“They will hang you,” he said deli
berately. He saw her wince, but she still kept her face towards his, eyes tight shut. “Unless we can find some circumstance that will at least in part explain what you did, they will hang you, Mrs. Carlyon! For heaven’s sake, tell me why you did it.” His voice was low, grating and insistent. How could he get through the shield of denial? What could he say to reach her mind with reality? He wanted to touch her, take her by those slender arms and shake sense into her. But it would be such a breach of all possible etiquette, it would shatter the mood and become more important, for the moment, than the issue that would save or lose her life.
“Why did you kill him?” he repeated desperately.
“Whatever you say, you cannot make it worse than it is already.”
“I killed him because he was having an affair with Louisa,” she repeated flatly. “At least I thought he was.”
And he could get nothing further from her. She refused to add anything, or take anything from what she had said.
Reluctantly, temporarily defeated, he took his leave. She remained sitting on the cot, immobile, ashen-faced.
Outside in the street the rain was a steady downpour, the gutter filling, people hurrying by with collars up. He passed a newsboy shouting the latest headlines. It was something to do with a financial scandal and the boy caressed the words with relish, seeing the faces of passersby as they turned. “Scandal, scandal in the City! Financier absconds with fortune. Secret love nest! Scandal in the City!”
Rathbone quickened his pace to get away from it. They had temporarily forgotten Alexandra and the murder of General Carlyon, but as soon as the trial began it would be all over every front page and every newsboy would be crying out each day’s revelations and turning them over with delight, poring over the details, imagining, condemning.