Sonnet to a Dead Contessa

by Gilbert, Morris

  wrapped sweet

  page from Macbeth with notes in Dylan’s handwriting

  picture of Joan of Arc

  queen of hearts playing card

  collection of combs and hair pins

  Matthew and Serafina spent the next two hours going over the room. They thought that they had seen everything, but finally Serafina straightened up.

  “Look at this, Matthew.”

  He came over at once. “It’s a single hair. Is it yours?”

  “No, although it’s almost the same colour. A reddish blonde.”

  “It’s from someone else. It could be one of the maids.”

  “I suppose so, but we’ll keep it just in case.”

  They both fell silent for a minute, and finally Serafina said, “There’s a clue to the identity of the killer in these poems and also to the next victim, but I can’t figure it out.”

  “He’s a maniac toying with us!”

  At that moment the door opened, and a man came in. “My wife!”

  Immediately Serafina and Matthew went to block his entrance. She knew him immediately as the Marquis Reis. “Marquis,” she said, “you shouldn’t be here. You don’t want to see her like this.”

  “Let me see her!” he cried. He was a smallish man with sleek black hair and black eyes. His eyes were filled, it seemed to both Matthew and Serafina, with agony. Matthew came to help, and they took him out of the room. “Please, sir, you can see her later but not now,” Matthew said.

  “Who could do a terrible thing like this? She was not always a kind woman, but she didn’t deserve this.”

  “Did you hear any sound at all, Marquis?”

  “No, I did not. How could a thief get in?”

  “He had to come in through the window,” Serafina said quickly. She had already checked all of these details.

  “But it’s straight up, at least twenty-five feet. You’d have to be a fly to climb up that side.”

  “He must have been a very agile man. I saw him come down.”

  “You saw him? Who was he? Why did he kill my wife?”

  “It was very dark, and I couldn’t see his face. All I saw was a hooded figure in the darkness.”

  “You must find him!” the marquis called out in anguish.

  They led him away, and as soon as the local doctor came, he was given a sedative and put to bed.

  “He seems broken up over her death,” Matthew said, “but it might be an act.”

  “You suspect him?”

  “I don’t know who to suspect,” Matthew said sourly. “I’m sick of this case! If I ever catch that fellow, I’m not sure he’ll have to stand trial. I might be judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “You couldn’t do that, Matthew.” Serafina shook her head.

  “No, I suppose not. Well, let’s get started working. We’ll have to analyse all this, but we still don’t know who we’re looking for. Perhaps we never will.”

  “We’ll find him. We have to. He killed my best friend and two other women. We’ll find him, and he’ll hang for what he’s done!”

  Dylan smiled down at Meredith as she bubbled over with excitement. “Do you think I really have a chance to get a part in a play, Dylan?”

  “There’s always a chance.” The day was bright, and the sun accented Dylan’s rugged good looks. He looked down to where Meredith was holding tightly on to his arm and said, “You don’t have to hold me so tightly, Meredith. Nobody’s going to run off with me. They’d be more likely to run off with you.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for trying to do this for me.”

  “You may not thank me. The theatre is hard work. Not the fun that people think it is. I suppose work is work no matter what form it takes.”

  “But it’s so exciting. The curtain going up, and going out on the stage. I know I can do it.” Her eyes were shining, and her face glowed with an inner excitement that could not be hidden.

  “We go in here. The producer’s name is Browning. He owes me a favour, and I happen to know he needs someone for a small part.”

  Dylan felt Meredith’s hand tighten on his arm as he led her inside the building. They went to the office that was backstage at the theatre and found John Browning waiting for them. “Come in, Dylan.”

  “Thanks for seeing us, Mr. Browning. This is Meredith Brice. Mrs. Brice, this is Mr. Browning.”

  She smiled at him, and Browning suddenly laughed. “Another starstruck young woman, Dylan?”

  “Oh, come now, Mr. Browning. I’ve never asked you a favour like this before. You know that full well.”

  “I know it.” He looked at Meredith and asked, “Do you have any experience at all?”

  “No, sir, but I know I can do it.”

  “Well, we do have a small part. It’s just two lines, and I’m looking for someone who can do that part and help our costume mistress.”

  “Oh, I’m very good with a needle, sir, and I’m perfectly happy to do it.”

  “It doesn’t pay much.” He mentioned a sum, and at once Meredith beamed. “That would be very fine, sir. I’d be more than satisfied to come for that.”

  “Just be here this afternoon at two o’clock for rehearsal. If you’ll wait just a minute, I’ll get you a sheet, and you can practice on your lines.”

  After Browning disappeared into an inner office, Meredith turned and said, “Isn’t it wonderful!”

  “You think so, don’t you?” He studied the rich, racy current of vitality within this woman and saw that she had a way of laughing that was extremely attractive. Her chin tilted up, and her lips curved in pretty lines. He noticed a small dimple at the left of her mouth and admired the way that the light danced in her eyes.

  Browning came back and handed her a few sheets of paper. “Your character is simply called ‘the maid Mary.’”

  “I’m so excited.”

  “I hope Dylan told you that being an actress is a hard, demanding task.”

  “Yes, I’ve told her, Mr. Browning, but she doesn’t believe me.”

  “Well, she may after a while.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Browning. I appreciate the favour. Call on me if you ever need me.”

  “I’ll be calling on you, all right, but not for a small favour. I want you to star in something for me when your run is over with Macbeth.”

  “I’ll be happy to talk with you about it, sir.”

  The two left the theatre, and Meredith talked unceasingly all the way home. She was so excited that people turned to watch her on the street. As soon as they reached her house, she said, “Come in and teach me how to say my lines.”

  “Well, I suppose a lesson wouldn’t hurt.” He entered, and she made tea, and soon the two had gone over the simple lines that she had to memorise.

  “I want to do this just right, Dylan.”

  “We’ll find some way. It’s a very mundane line. It’s really to move other actors around, but maybe we can put a little something extra to it.”

  Dylan stayed for over an hour. They had tea and cakes, and Dylan had exhausted himself trying to find something new to put into the lines that Meredith had read.

  They sipped their tea, and he said, “Did you get along well with Lewis’s family?”

  “Oh yes. His mother, Lucy, she was a charming woman.”

  “You don’t mean Lucy. You mean Alice.”

  “Oh yes, of course. Aren’t I a silly thing? I can’t even keep my mother-in-law’s name straight. My own mother’s name was Lucy, as you know.”

  “I suppose it’s a natural mistake,” Dylan said doubtfully. He was wondering how anyone could mistake the name of one’s mother-in-law, but his thoughts were broken when a knock sounded on the door.

  “I’m not expecting anyone,” Meredith said. She got up and went to the door, and when she opened it she found Sergeant Kenzie there. He asked at once, “Is Mr. Tremayne here, ma’am?”

  “Why, yes, he is. Come in, Sergeant.”

  Kenzie came in and removed his hat, and Dylan got up f
rom the table. “What is it, Kenzie?” he asked. “Has there been a new development?”

  “I’m afraid there has been another murder.”

  “Oh no,” Dylan groaned. “Who was it?”

  “The Lady Reis.”

  Dylan shook his head sadly. “This madman must be caught.”

  Kenzie cleared his throat. “That’s not exactly all, sir. You see, Lady Trent figured out, somehow, by reading the poem left at the last murder scene that the marchioness was going to be the victim. I don’t know exactly how that worked.”

  “She’s got a brain, that woman has. What did she do?”

  “Well, sorry to tell you, she rushed right over to the Reis mansion, and she was attacked by the killer who had just murdered the marchioness.”

  Instantly Dylan demanded, “Is she badly hurt? Is she all right, Kenzie?”

  “A minor wound, sir, but the superintendent asked me to bring you there. He knew you would want to see her.”

  Dylan said, “Yes. Come, man, let’s go at once.” He left through the door, and Kenzie rushed after him. Meredith moved to watch them go. “He didn’t even say good-bye,” she muttered. Then she thought of her new career, and a slow smile came to her. “I’ll be a star someday. I will!”

  Serafina heard Dylan’s voice, and from the sound of his feet in the hall, she knew he was running. The door burst open, and he came in at once. His face was pale, and she cried out, “Why, Dylan—”

  Dylan did not speak. He was, indeed, pale. The ride had seemed interminable, and he rushed over to her at once and seized both of her hands. “Are you all right, Serafina? Are you badly hurt?”

  Serafina’s hands were hurt by his iron grip, but his touch made her feel secure. Actually she was shocked at the show of concern in Dylan’s face. He must think more of me than I suspected. The thought flitted through her mind and was pleasing. But quickly she said, “It was very minor.”

  “He slashed you with a knife?”

  Serafina freed her hand and touched the pins. “I could barely see, it was so dark. I did see the flash of the knife, and I was falling backward. If I hadn’t been, I think it would have been a very deadly wound. Here, sit down, Dylan.” She looked up and said, “Vincent, bring some tea, please.”

  “It’s already made, ma’am.”

  Serafina drew him over to the couch and pulled him down. She sat down beside him and was pleased when he reached over, took her right hand, and held it tightly between his own. She noted that his hands were unsteady, something she had never seen in him before. She waited until Vincent had brought the tea in, and she poured and then told him the same story that she had told the superintendent.

  “What did he look like?” Dylan demanded.

  “I couldn’t see. It was very dark.”

  “Well, how big was he?”

  “It all happened so quickly. He was not big, not as big as you. He was wearing some sort of very dark clothing and a hood over his face.”

  Dylan had calmed down, and some colour had come into his cheeks. He listened as she told of their findings in the murder room upstairs, but he seemed preoccupied. Finally she said, “We have a poem that sounds meaningless. We have a group of clues. One of them is a page of a script with your writing on it.”

  “I’m a suspect again.”

  “Oh no. Matthew knows that these things are meaningless, for the most part.”

  She sat there studying him, not so much because of his good looks. She was accustomed to that, but she was interested in the man beneath all of this. Studying him, she saw in his eyes a shine of hard simplicity. In fortune or in trouble he would never be much different. He could not be different, she thought. His life had tempered him, fashioned a private world with its images and its long thoughts and its hope of what might be. She was well aware of this. She saw a tiny scar on his temple she had never noticed, and suddenly she thought, Why, I know him so well. There is in him a loneliness and a hunger for life, and for something I thought would take its form in a woman.

  For the first time since her marriage had ended, as she studied Dylan carefully, she gave serious thought to what it would be like to be a wife. She felt as if she had never been a wife, for there had been none of the tenderness that she had longed for from Charles. As this thought came to her, Dylan reached over and took her hand, and a warmth came to her in a sense of goodness and a sense of security. She suddenly realised that these were the kind of thoughts she had had when she was a young girl and then a young woman before she married. It was what she had always longed for, and now she was seeing it in a man who was so different from who she was. But it gave her a feeling of completeness and somehow of goodness to know that this man who was good could feel such concern for her.

  When he spoke, his voice was almost rough, and he gripped her upper arms so hard that she almost winced. “You will not put yourself in a situation like this again, Serafina. Do you hear me?”

  “Ye—yes, I hear you,” she stammered. She was very aware of the power that came out of him, of the strength of his hands on her arms and of his eyes that seemed to devour her.

  “That’s what you have a man like me for.”

  Serafina had always argued she did not need a man, but now that he held her so tightly as if she would run away and he would not permit it, she was aware that there was something in what he was saying that appealed to the very deepest part of her spirit, and she found herself saying, “Yes, Dylan, I’ll do as you say.”

  He was pleased with her and expelled his breath. Suddenly he reached out, put his arms around her, and said, “You’ll never know what a terrible thing it was when I thought you were hurt!”

  His embrace almost crushed the breath from her body, but Lady Serafina Trent found herself like a mariner who had left a stormy sea and come into a safe harbor. A sense of peace and joy and happiness that she had longed for, at least for a moment, was there and was all she wanted.

  FOURTEEN

  As usual, the cheerful atmosphere of the breakfast table was broken by the presence of Aunt Bertha. Lady Bertha Mulvane had the ability to cast a pall of misery on any gathering that she chose to honour with her presence. The other members of the family, including Septimus, his wife, Alberta Rose, Clive, Dora, David, and Serafina, ate almost silently while Lady Bertha dominated the conversation.

  Septimus spoke up, making an attempt to cut through the gloom by reading items from the newspaper. “Serafina, here’s an article about Elizabeth Blackwell,” he said. “It talks about her work in directing that new infirmary for women and children in New York.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of her,” Serafina said at once. “She’s the first woman to graduate with a medical degree.”

  “The woman should stay home where she belongs. Imagine a woman probing around on the body of a man. Disgusting!” Bertha said.

  “What about a man probing around on the body of a woman, Aunt Bertha?” David piped up.

  “You keep out of this, young man,” Aunt Bertha warned sternly. “Young people should be seen and not heard!”

  Septimus shook his head and then tried again. “You’ll be interested in this, Serafina. That French chemist Louis Pasteur, who’s been working on researching fermentation . . . he’s just taken a new post in Paris.”

  “Really, Septimus, who do you think would be interested in a thing like that?” Lady Bertha snorted with disgust.

  “I think the whole world will be interested in what Mr. Pasteur is doing,” Septimus answered. “It’s very important scientific work.” Quickly, before Bertha could speak, he shook his head. “We no sooner get a war finished in the Crimea, and then we have another one breaking out.”

  “Another war, dear? Where in the world is it?” Alberta spoke up.

  “Well, there’s a mutiny in India. Been a massacre over there. Two hundred and eleven British women and children were killed.”

  Again Bertha proclaimed her views on the subject. “Those who did it should be caught and hung.”

  S
eptimus gave up, seeing that whatever he read in the paper would not be accepted.

  “I see the newspapers are screaming for Scotland Yard to catch the Slasher,” Clive said. He looked over at his sister. “What does Grant say about this, Dora Lynn?”

  But Dora was not able to answer, for Bertha once more issued a proclamation. “It’s vulgar for our family to be involved with such things.” She opened her mouth to say more, but then suddenly caught a glimpse of Serafina’s face. Lady Bertha at once shut her own mouth, for she remembered the stern warning that Serafina had given her.

  David waited for his aunt to speak, and when she did not, he turned to his mother and smiled. “I think it was noble of you to try to save the woman’s life, Mother.”

  “I wish I had been successful.”

  Dora picked up the paper and read what it had to say about the Slasher case. “Why, they’re blaming Matthew for these murders. It’s not fair!”

  “It isn’t fair, but very few things in this world are,” Serafina remarked. She was surprised when Dora suddenly rose and walked out of the breakfast room. She disappeared without saying a word, and Bertha said, “There’s manners for you! You really should speak to her, Septimus.”

  Septimus, who rarely spoke to any of his children about their misbehaviour, buried himself in the newspaper. Serafina watched out the window and saw Dora get into one of the carriages and drive off. I wonder where she’s going, she thought.

  Matthew Grant was talking to the marquis when suddenly he thought, I’m getting to be quite a connoisseur of the nobility of England. All the murder victims have titles, and their husbands also. He studied the Marquis Reis and remembered what Kenzie had gleaned in his study of the man. Kenzie had reported that the Marquis Reis had come to England as a poor boy, had worked himself up in a factory, and finally had become wealthy through the manufacture of arms. He was a small man, very inoffensive, and what seemed to be profound grief scored deep lines in his face. Matthew cleared his throat and said quietly, “I am terribly sorry to have to question you at this time, sir, but you understand that we need to catch this murderer as quickly as possible.”