‘Wait just a moment,’ I said. ‘There is something I must show you.’
Not sure I was doing the right thing, not sure what to do at all, I slowly dug Camilla’s manuscript out from among my tumbled things and handed it to him. He read through it attentively; it took him some time. After he finished it, he put it down upon the table and remained silent for a while; when he spoke, it was to quote the words of Rosalind.
‘Were it not better
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar spear in my hand; and – in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will –
We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.’
He paused, and then, taking my hand, he said, ‘I think we must go to the p-p-p-; to the police. Now.’
I hesitated; it felt wrong and yet I felt it must be inexorably the only thing to do. I was afraid of Camilla’s being arrested and also afraid that she would be long gone. Above all, I felt that I no longer had any will at all in the matter. Dora, I felt quite simply too tired, bone-tired. I followed Arthur wordlessly outside.
We were proceeding down the path to the gate when it swung open vigorously, and Pat O’Sullivan walked up towards us with his springiest step.
‘So you’re back!’ he exclaimed eagerly, rushing towards me. ‘Well? Have you found everything out?’ He stopped short, taking in the expression on our faces.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘You two look about as cheerful as gravestones. Is it something to do with the murder? What’s going on?’
I turned to Arthur, unable to answer. But he was not looking at me nor even at Pat; he was looking down the path to the gate. A young boy was standing in front of it, studying it. He put his hand out and pushed it open, but remained peering in hesitantly.
‘What are you looking for?’ Arthur called out to him.
He consulted something white he held in his hand.
‘Does Miss Vanessa Duncan live here?’ he enquired.
‘I am she,’ I said, leaving go of Arthur’s hand and hastening down the path.
‘Letter for you, miss,’ he said, giving it to me. ‘Hand delivery. Lady gave it to me yesterday afternoon to be delivered after twenty-four hours, she said.’
Half consciously, I saw Arthur thanking the boy and handing him a bit of coin. I knew who the letter was from before I tore open the envelope which bore my name. I extracted the sheets it contained, and read them; leaning over my shoulder, Pat and Arthur read them too.
Dear Vanessa,
You will most surely not wish to receive a letter from such a person as I am, and for this reason I will remain brief, considering myself lucky enough if you will only consent to open it.
Your sudden appearance, your subsequent trip to Paris, the anxiety of Sylvia’s mother – all these things finally caused me to understand your true purpose among us, and that for my own safety, as worthless and unjustified as that may be now that I belong to the abhorred portion of humanity which shares the brand of Cain, I am better far away.
Yet I cringe at the idea that any blame for anything that has happened should fall on any head but my own, and for this reason, I have written a confession, after a great deal of reflection on how to best achieve my purpose. It is addressed directly to the police; I humbly beg that you will transmit it to them without delay.
Yours sincerely,
Camilla Wright
The letter to the police was written on a loose sheet of paper; I pulled it out and read it over, Pat breathing heavily in my ear.
To the British Police,
I the undersigned, Camilla Wright, hereby admit and confess to the murder of Mr George Burton Granger of Haverhill Manor, Haverhill.
I shot Mr Granger because he betrayed me. Unsatisfied by his wife, he turned to me for solace and declared that his passion for me was such that he had never felt anything like it, that his marriage was an error, that he would have it annulled and that we would be married as soon as possible. Although Mrs Granger was one of my closest friends, I naturally kept this affair entirely secret from her.
Recently, by a strange coincidence, I discovered that Mr Granger had had a mistress by whom he had a son. I taxed him with it, and during the scene that ensued, he changed completely; he told me that he had had and continued to have many mistresses, that I was merely one of them and had never been anything more to him than a passing whim; that far from annulling his marriage, he now intended to consummate it and ensure himself of a legitimate heir.
In the early afternoon of the fifth of June of this year 1892, I shot Mr Granger in the chest with my own personal weapon, purchased in France several months earlier. In order to avoid detection, I travelled up to Dover and crossed over to Calais, then came back from there disguised as a man with a red cape, hoping to be noticed and remembered by a number of people; it was an easy matter to remove my disguise on the train back to London. I hoped to escape suspicion entirely, but I see now that what I have done is bringing undeserved fear and accusation to innocent people. I write my confession for this reason: I, and I alone, am responsible for Mr Granger’s death.
Dona nobis pacem.
Camilla Wright
I had barely had time to take in what I was reading before Pat was off, setting the bell on the gate a-jangle as he swung through.
‘Police won’t see the press before tomorrow morning at the earliest,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Maybe I can make the evening paper with this! Yes!’
‘Oh, Arthur, how awful,’ I murmured, hiding my face against his coat. ‘I shouldn’t have let him see it.’
‘Murder is awful,’ he answered. ‘It doesn’t matter, Vanessa. Pat can’t make any difference now. Camilla left yesterday morning, didn’t she? She must be halfway across Europe by this time. Whether they find her or not is a matter of chance at this point; it doesn’t depend on what Pat does, or even on what we do. For the moment at least, she seems to have escaped by a narrow margin.’
‘Maybe too narrow,’ I answered, turning resolutely towards the gate.
MATHEMATICAL HISTORY IN
FLOWERS STAINED WITH MOONLIGHT
The main events concerning the story of Fermat’s last theorem occurred as recounted in this book. Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665), professional magistrate, and amateur but brilliant mathematician, wrote exactly the famous claim quoted by Korneck in the margin of his copy of Diophantus; it is now commonly believed that his proof must have contained an error which he quite possibly later noticed himself. He was not immune to errors; he did claim to have proved his theorem for the exponent $n=3$, but there is a gap in his proof which was repaired only a century later by the astoundingly prolific Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) – at least, there appears to be a gap in Euler’s proof as well, but that one has been convincingly plugged since then.
The young Sophie Germain (1776–1831) was indeed forced to assume a male identity both to study (by correspondence) at the École Polytechnique and to address herself to the great Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), who, upon discovering her true identity as described, wrote her the letter quoted in the text.
The public rivalry between Augustin Cauchy (1789–1857) and Gabriel Lamé (1795–1870), who deposited sealed manuscripts at the Academy of Sciences and published successive portions of their ‘proofs’ until the breakthrough described in the letter by Ernst Kummer (1810–1893) was publicly read out in front of all the members, really existed; it is documented by the reports of the weekly meetings published in the Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, and the two passages concerning Cauchy are cited verbatim. These old Comptes-Rendus, containing reports on every kind of scientific progress, and sundry remarks upon the behaviour of the members, make remarkably interesting reading.
The record of the submission of an attempted proof of Fermat’s theorem by a certain G. Korneck of Kempen, Poznània, and the brief report on it by Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) are reproduced here exactly as they were published in the Comptes-Rendus, although they actually appeared a little later, in 1894. Apart from this unfortunate effort, G. Korneck has left no other detectable trace; the depiction of his character in this book is entirely fictional.
A most informative popular rendering of the story of Fermat’s last theorem from its inception until its final proof by Andrew Wiles in 1994, can be found in the book Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh (Fourth Estate, London, 1997). A very complete website containing the biographies of hundreds of mathematicians can be found on the Internet at the address:
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html.
Although not mathematical, it is worth noting that the facts concerning the Princesse de Lamballe recounted in the novel are also entirely historical, including the contemporary accusations linking her with Marie-Antoinette. The ultimate truth on this matter, of course, is unlikely ever to be known.
About the Author
CATHERINE SHAW is a professional mathematician and academic living in France. Flowers Stained with Moonlight is her second mystery novel.
By Catherine Shaw
The Three-Body Problem
Flowers Stained with Moonlight
The Library Paradox
The Riddle of the River
Fatal Inheritance
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Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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London W1T 6DW
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2005.
This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2013.
Copyright © 2005 by CATHERINE SHAW
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1449–0
Flowers Stained With Moonlight Page 31