Midnight at Marble Arch

by Anne Perry

  The comments on the weather continued, with notes as to the flowers that had pleased her. Her botanical interest was written with acute observation, but mostly it was the beauty of the plants that moved her.

  Narraway put the book down and wondered what Catherine Quixwood had thought as she had written those words. Was the loneliness he felt within the pages, the sense of confusion, hers or his own? Unwillingly he pictured her again, but lying on the floor. There had been such possibility of passion in her face, such turbulence, even in death. Or was he imagining that too?

  He picked up the diary again and resumed reading it, paying more attention to where she had been and, when she had noted it, with whom.

  As the weather grew more clement she had attended lectures at the Royal Geographical Society. After one on Egypt she had made a note of its excellence. Reading on, he saw that she had then gone to an exhibition of paintings of the Nile by various watercolorists, and then to the library to find books on Egyptian history.

  In May she had gone to a lecture on astronomy. This time it was not the night sky that drew her most enthusiastic comments, but the sublime order of the stars in their courses, from the most random comet or meteor to the most immense galaxies. There was too little room on the page for all she wanted to say to remind herself of her emotions, and her writing eventually became so small he could not read it.

  Then she went back to the library and searched for other books on astronomy, and more lectures she might attend. In the following weeks she even went by train to both Birmingham and Manchester to learn more.

  But, as Knox had said, there were very few names in the diary. Those that were present all seemed exactly the acquaintances one might have expected: other married women in Society of her own age and station, a couple of distant cousins, one unmarried and apparently of considerable means. Catherine seemed to enjoy her company when it was available. There were also two aunts mentioned, the vicar and his wife and business associates of Quixwood’s and their wives.

  He read the entry from the day before she was killed, then closed the book. There was nothing further. He asked Knox if he might now speak to the lady’s maid, although he did not hold much hope of learning anything from her that would be of value.

  Flaxley was a tall, spare woman, her brown hair liberally threaded with gray. The marks of grief were all too evident in her face. She came in and sat down opposite Narraway at his invitation, then folded her hands in her lap and waited for him to speak. Her back was ramrod straight, probably from a lifetime of self-discipline; every emotion within her seemed to have been drained away. She looked exhausted.

  Narraway was deeply moved by her loyalty. He wondered for a fleeting moment how many people had inspired such sense of loss, even among their own families.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Flaxley,” he said quietly. He decided to be completely honest with her. “But the more I learn of Mrs. Quixwood, the more determined I am to do what I can to see that the man who attacked her is punished.” He chose very deliberately not to use the word “rape.” There was no need to distress Flaxley further.

  He saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes.

  “I am certain that if you had any idea how to achieve this,” he went on, “with as little unpleasant speculation as possible, you would already have told Inspector Knox. I have been reading Mrs. Quixwood’s appointment diary, and I feel I know her better than I did before.”

  “Her appointment diary,” Flaxley repeated. She did not ask if he believed that Catherine could possibly have had any idea what would happen to her, but it was implicit in the lift of her voice and the contempt in her eyes.

  “Do you believe Mrs. Quixwood would have opened the front door to a man she did not both know and trust?” he asked her.

  “No, of course—” She stopped. Clearly she had not even considered the matter. “Was her … attacker not a thief?”

  “I don’t know what he was, Miss Flaxley, but it’s clear he did not break into the house, which leaves only one other possibility—that she let him in. Indeed, that initially she had no fear of him. Therefore he was someone she already knew, quite well enough not to call a servant to attend her.”

  She stared at him, her eyes filling with horror, her hands knotted in her lap so tightly that the knuckles shone white. He noticed with surprise how delicately boned they were. In their own way, they were quite beautiful.

  “I will not smear her reputation.” There was anger in her voice, and warning. “But tell me, what can I do to help?”

  He admired her for it. He hoped that she would be able to keep that resolve and it pained him that she would probably not.

  “Please go through the diary with me and tell me which of her friends she kept company with, and something about each of them. I will call on them in due course, but your insight will be more acute than mine. You knew Mrs. Quixwood, and possibly her true feelings about these people rather than the socially polite face she showed. Also, I have learned to my cost that women can judge one another far more observantly than men can.” He allowed himself a very slight smile.

  He saw it echoed in a momentary easing in her expression also.

  “Yes, my lord, of course,” she agreed.

  IT TOOK NARRAWAY THE next three days to meet with eight of the people mentioned in Catherine’s diaries. He found it difficult, which surprised him. They were all women very like those he had known and mixed with all his adult life, and yet when speaking of Catherine, the artificiality of polite conversation between strangers irritated him.

  He began with a cousin of Catherine’s, a dark, rather elegant woman with beautiful hair and a very ordinary face. Her name was Mary Abercrombie.

  “Of course we are deeply grieved,” she said earnestly, but without any signs of pain that Narraway could see. “I don’t know what I can tell you; I was very fond of Catherine, of course. We grew up together.” She fidgeted slightly with her skirts. “But as so often happens, when we both married we drifted apart. Our tastes were … different.”

  “But you still went to the British Museum together,” he pointed out. “Or was the entry in her diary incorrect?”

  Mrs. Abercrombie smiled and looked down at her hands. Narraway had a fleeting and irrelevant thought about how much uglier they were than those of Flaxley.

  “It was incorrect?” he prompted.

  “Yes … and no,” she equivocated. “We did meet there, and visited a few of the exhibits. I ran into a friend and left to take tea with her. It was about that time in the afternoon. Catherine stayed on, I presumed by herself, but I don’t know. When I spoke to Rawdon a few days later at a reception, he implied that Catherine had returned home very late. I’m afraid I rather let her down by saying to him that I had left the museum before four o’clock.”

  “And Catherine was not at the reception?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head, a shadow of disapproval crossing her face. “She found such light social exchanges rather tedious. So do many of us, but one must make the effort.” It was a statement, as if it were a fact agreed to by all.

  Narraway wondered if she had made the remark to Quixwood on purpose. Catherine had been beautiful. Even in violent death the remnants of it were there in her face. Mary Abercrombie was agreeable enough and without obvious blemish, but she was no beauty, at least not to Narraway.

  “Was that the last time you saw her?” he asked.

  “Yes. Except briefly at a concert about two weeks ago.”

  “Who was she with at the concert?”

  “I’m not sure she was with anyone.” She raised her eyebrows slightly. “When we spoke she was alone.”

  “Did that surprise you?”

  “Frankly, no. Catherine was inclined to go to events alone. If it was something she wished to do, she would prefer to be alone to indulge in it, rather than go with company, who might require conversation from her.” Her disapproval of such behavior was clear, if still unspoken.

  Narraway
had a sudden vision of Catherine bent forward, listening to great, sweeping symphonies of music while the fashionable women around her were talking to one another, gossiping, flirting, or merely pretending to listen while they waited for the opportunity to recommence speaking. He imagined in her an inner loneliness he found disturbing, and frighteningly easy to understand.

  Or was he simply projecting his own emotions onto her, because he had never known her alive and there was no one to refute his picture?

  “Was there anyone to whom she was particularly close?” he asked.

  “You mean someone who might know if she was … having an unsuitable friendship?” Mrs. Abercrombie asked, delicate eyebrows raised. “Possibly. But I cannot imagine that they would be indiscreet enough to speak of it, even had she been that foolish and disloyal. Poor Rawdon is suffering enough, don’t you think? And Catherine has certainly paid for any indiscretions.”

  Narraway smiled coldly, feeling the temper like an ice storm inside him. “Actually, Mrs. Abercrombie, I was thinking of someone who might know if she was being troubled by unwanted attentions,” he corrected her. “Men sometimes look at a beautiful woman and imagine she has given them some encouragement, when in truth she was no more than civil—or at most, kind. Denials do not always persuade them of their error.”

  She opened her pale eyes very wide. “Really? I have never known anyone so … disturbed.”

  “No,” he agreed without a flicker in his expression. “I imagine not.”

  The anger burned up her face. “But most perceptive of you to have realized Catherine may have,” she retorted. “Remarkable, because apparently you did not know her. But then, perhaps you know women like her.”

  “Unfortunately not,” he said, keeping his eyes on hers. “From all I hear, she seems to have been unique. Please accept my condolences on your loss, Mrs. Abercrombie.” He rose to his feet and gave a very slight inclination of his head.

  She remained seated, her eyes cold. “You are too kind,” she said sarcastically.

  STILL ANNOYED AND SOMEWHAT confused in trying to make sense of Catherine’s seemingly innocent life, Narraway called on the police surgeon, Brinsley, to see if he had anything further to report.

  Brinsley was busy with another autopsy, but he did not keep Narraway waiting more than fifteen minutes. He came into the sparse waiting room rolling down his shirtsleeves, his hair a little tousled.

  “Afternoon, my lord,” he said briskly. He did not hold out his hand. Perhaps he had experienced too many people’s revulsion, their imagination picturing where it had just been.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Narraway replied. “Am I too soon to learn if you have anything further to say about Mrs. Quixwood’s death?”

  “No, no. Preformed the autopsy this morning,” Brinsley’s face was pinched. “I’ve really nothing to add, unless you want the details of the rape? Can’t think it’ll help you. Very violent.” His voice sank even lower, grating with anger. “Very ugly.”

  “Can you tell if she fought, or at least tried to?” Narraway asked.

  Brinsley winced. “She tried. A few ugly bruises have come out. They do, after death, if they were inflicted just before. Wrists, arms, shoulders. He was unnecessarily brutal. Thighs, but you’d expect that. And the bite, of course, on her breast.” His mouth was tight, as if his jaw was clenched. “Only thing that might make a difference to you is that I’m now quite certain she actually died of opium poisoning. Overdose of laudanum, dissolved in a glassful of Madeira wine. Pretty heavily laced, I must say. Far more than enough to kill her.”

  Narraway stood paralyzed, grief washing over him. He had hoped the doctor’s initial reading had been an error. Now he couldn’t help but picture the despair she must have felt, as if everything she was had been torn violently from her: her body, her dignity, the very core of herself damaged beyond hope.

  “I’m sorry,” Brinsley said hoarsely. “I keep thinking that one day I’ll get used to it, but I never do. I can’t say for certain that it was suicide, since we don’t know if the man stayed long enough to force her to drink it, but that seems extremely unlikely. If he’d wanted her dead he could simply have broken her neck. I’m afraid everything suggests she crawled to the cabinet and poured herself enough to deaden the pain, and either accidentally or intentionally overdid the dose.” His face was bleak. “I’m sorry.”

  Narraway struggled to picture it. “Could she have dragged herself that far? And why on earth would she keep laudanum in the cabinet in the hallway? Wouldn’t she keep it upstairs? In the bedroom?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Brinsley said patiently. “But as far as we know, there was no one else in that part of the house, right? And from the bruising on her knees, I believe she crawled over to the cabinet. It isn’t difficult to assume that from there she opened it and poured and drank the Madeira. The dregs were full of laudanum, both in the glass and in the bottle.” He shook himself. “For God’s sake! The poor woman can’t have had the least idea of what she was doing. She just tipped the laudanum into the bottle and drank the whole damn thing. Can you blame her?”

  “It doesn’t make sense. Why would she pour opium into the bottle? Why not just straight into her glass, then?”

  “I don’t know,” Brinsley said. “I’ve just given you the facts, and I don’t see what else you can make of them. But I hope to hell you find whoever did it, and if you can’t hang him, literally, for murder, then find a way to get him for rape.”

  “I’ll try,” Narraway swore. “Believe me.”

  HE VISITED AND SPOKE with all the other people on Miss Flaxley’s list. He gained a wider view of Catherine Quixwood, but it did not alter radically from that already given him by Mary Abercrombie. Catherine had been interested in all manner of science, in the artifacts of other times and places, in human thought and above all in the passions of the mind.

  She seemed to have skirted more carefully around the edges regarding passions of the heart. He wondered if they had frightened her, perhaps come too close to breaching the walls of her own safety, or her loneliness.

  Or was that his overfanciful imagination seeking in her a likeness to himself? He could understand being drawn to the music of Beethoven, and yet at the same time frightened of it. It challenged all the flimsy arguments of safety and dared beyond the known into something far bigger, both more beautiful and more dangerous. At times he wanted to stay with what his mind could conquer and hold. To be enchanted by the brilliance of the mind was exciting, but without the risk of injury.

  Look at vases of flowers, not the wild paintings of Turner in which all the light was caught and imagined on canvas. Look at the artifacts of ancient Troy, but do not think of the passion and the loss of the time. Always keep the mind busy.

  Was that what Catherine had been doing?

  At the end of three days Narraway had a plethora of facts, statements, and stories, but no fixed frame in which to place them. If she had made secret assignations with anyone, she had been sufficiently clever in concealing them that he had found no trace. She was charming to everyone and intimate with none.

  About the only thing she did not appear to have had any interest in was the last few years of extraordinary events in Africa. There was one brief note in her diary on the discovery of gold in Johannesburg, but no mention of the massacres carried out by Lobengula, or the extraordinary career of Cecil Rhodes, or even of the catastrophic Jameson Raid only months ago. For a woman interested in so many things it was a curious omission.

  Finally Narraway was driven to going back again to speak to Quixwood himself, little as he wished to. He owed the man a report of his discoveries, fruitless as they were so far.

  He found him in the library of the club, as before, but this time he was busy writing letters. He looked up as Narraway came in. He was clearly tired, the lines in his face more deeply scored.

  “Have you found anything further?” he asked as Narraway sat down on the smooth, comfortable leather.

  “I�
�m not certain,” Narraway replied honestly. “I have been asking questions of her friends, mostly the people with whom she attended lectures and visited museums, that sort of thing.”

  Quixwood frowned. “Why? What might that have to do with her death?” His voice held a note of disappointment.

  “She knew whoever killed her,” Narraway said, gently but without hesitation. He could think of little more painful than the possibility Quixwood now faced. If he balked at it, or blamed the man who told him, it was a very human reaction. He needed someone to be angry with for his pain.

  Quixwood blinked as if caught in a sudden, bright light. “And you think one of her friends might know who it is?”

  “Possibly without being aware of the connection, but yes, I do,” Narraway told him.

  Quixwood stared at him for several long seconds, then he lowered his gaze. “Yes, you are quite right, of course. I suppose it is what I have been trying hard to deny to myself. Such things do not happen in isolation. And I can’t willfully refuse to accept that she let him in. I appreciate your patience in allowing me come to it a trifle more slowly.”

  “I’m sorry,” Narraway said with intense regret. “I cannot see any other answer that fits the facts we have.”

  “And … do you have any idea who it was?” Quixwood framed the words with difficulty, staring down at his half-written-on paper.

  “No, not yet. But I have further questions I intend to ask Flaxley. She seems a sensible woman, and loyal. I believe she wishes to see this man punished, as far as is consistent with protecting Mrs. Quixwood’s reputation.”

  Quixwood looked bleak but he forced a rather shaky smile. “I’m sure Flaxley will give you all the help she can. She was devoted to Catherine. I’ve no idea what she’ll do now, because there is nothing for her to do in what is left of my household. I suppose I can offer her an excellent reference, but that feels like precious little to do for a woman who’s given so many years of her life, and seen it end in such hideous crime.” He took a deep breath. “And a pension, of course. Fortunately I’m in a position to do that.”