by Clare Jayne
“Do you know if the disagreement was resolved?”
“Och, aye. The duke went out and spent a small fortune on a necklace for her the day before he died as an apology for what he’d said. After he came back from her house he was in a sunny mood all right.”
“When did he leave on the night he died?” Mr MacPherson asked.
“Later than he intended. Not much before midnight.”
“Was he alone?” Ishbel queried.
“Aye, Miss.”
“Then had he arranged to meet anyone else?”
“No, Miss.”
“But, if Miss McNeil did not kill him, he must have let his murderer into the house. Did he not mention anyone else?”
“No.” He frowned. “He wanted to see Kenina. It isna likely anyone else woulda accompanied him there and I can think of no one else who would visit the lady’s house after midnight.”
Then their trip here had been pointless. She fought back a wave of disappointment, her mind picturing Miss McNeil sitting in her gaol room, relying on them to save her. She swallowed.
“Thank you for your help,” Mr MacPherson was saying to the valet.
“I liked the duke, Sir. I wish I knew more about what happened to him.”
They left the house, only to find one of Mr MacPherson’s footmen hurrying up the steps to meet them.
“The jury are ready to give their verdict about Viscount Inderly,” he said with breathless excitement.
She and Mr MacPherson exchanged glances before he thanked the footman and sent him home, then ordered his carriage driver to take them to the court as swiftly as possible. Ishbel sat beside him, sick at the thought of going back into the courtroom where her family’s good name had been further attacked, but eager to know the outcome of the case.
The carriage came to a halt too quickly and Ishbel froze, suddenly unable to bear the thought that the Viscount might be found innocent. Mr MacPherson held out his hand to help her down from the carriage and, looking into his face, she somehow found the courage to take it and walk inside with him. Harriette was waiting for them and Ishbel had never been so happy to see her. She also caught sight of Mr and Mrs Jones, taking seats halfway down the courtroom, behind a group of indifferent, chattering people who were probably just here to enjoy the scandal.
She sat down with Mr MacPherson and Harriette, only to have to stand up again as the judge arrived. Ishbel dug her fingernails into her palm as she waited. This had been their first case and she wanted so badly to get some form of justice to help Mr and Mrs Jones cope with the loss of their daughter.
The judge asked the jury whether they had found the defendant guilty or not guilty and the room went silent, a tension in it that was almost palpable.
Ishbel closed her eyes as she waited for the answer, breathing in short, shallow spurts.
The foreman spoke quietly, making them strain to hear him. “We find the defendant guilty.”
Ishbel nearly laughed aloud, such was her relief. All their work had had a positive outcome after all. Around them, people were talking about the verdict, but she could do no more than exchange smiles with Mr MacPherson and Harriette, feeling weak now that the case was over.
The judge pounded his gavel on the wooden surface in front of him and silence fell once more. He turned his gaze upon Viscount Inderly. “You have been found guilty of the crimes of reckless endangerment and hiring an unlicensed doctor, but given the mitigating factors of your youth, background and previous good character, I sentence you to pay a fine of one hundred pounds.”
Ishbel stared at him in disbelief. A fine? That was all?
“The important thing is that he was found guilty,” Harriette told her, taking her hand. “You should be happy about that.”
Happiness was not even a distant relation of the emotion she was feeling. Her gaze sought out Mr and Mrs Jones and Ishbel saw that Aileas’s mother was crying. Ishbel had trusted that justice would be done and had given Mr and Mrs Jones false hope of the same, and that faith had been destroyed.
Chapter Forty-One
EWAN CALLED upon Miss Campbell the next day to discuss the Duke’s death and they ate an early luncheon together. He observed her carefully as they spoke, still concerned over the pain-filled look that had been in her eyes yesterday when the verdict was given in the Aileas Jones trial.
Miss Campbell stared with an unseeing gaze at her plate of scones. “I keep thinking that we already have the solution to the murder, but we are unable to see it. So far we have had three possible suspects who seemed worth considering: Lord Moray, Lady Sarah and Mrs Ainslie.”
“Mrs Ainslie never had a strong motive, would never have committed the murder herself and did not hire anyone else, except in connection with a robbery, so she is certainly innocent,” Ewan said, wishing he could find a way to get the conversation back to what Miss Campbell had been about to say yesterday morning about his proposal. It sounded as if she might have been saying she regretted turning him down, but perhaps that was just what he wanted to believe. However, even if she had simply wanted to tell him her reasons for refusing him, he would like to hear them and understand what he had done wrong. “Lord Moray and Lady Sarah provided alibis for each other for the entire night when the duke was killed.”
“Only if they committed the murder themselves.”
“If it was Lord Moray then why would he take such a dangerous chance as to involve anyone else? He could have easily killed the duke himself, but he never left his house. Similarly, if Lady Sarah wanted her father dead then why would she not turn to Lord Moray, who was already angry with the duke? Who else could she have asked to do the murder for her? None of the servants spoke very well of her to Rabbie, and they liked the duke far better, so I cannot believe it was not them.”
“Perhaps she tricked one of her would-be suitors into killing for her,” Miss Campbell said and took a bite of scone. “She could have said she would marry him if he did this. If she never actually intended to marry her paramour, Lord Moray, then she could still do it.”
“There were several men interested in marrying her,” Ewan recalled, holding the porcelain cup of tea in his hands to warm them, “but she is helping us.”
“Or sending us looking in a different direction,” Miss Campbell said, then pulled a face, “but it is unlikely she would have Duke Raden’s valet speak freely to us if she still had secrets to hide. She has the best motive out of everyone connected with the duke, though. What if she did, in fact, know about her father’s dalliance with Miss McNeil? The staff thought she was unaware of it, but Lord Moray knew. He could have told her.”
“Then why did he not commit the murder?” Ewan asked.
“The duke was a former friend of his. Perhaps he did not have the heart to do it.”
“But he had the heart to spend the night with Lady Sarah, both of them knowing the duke was being killed while they were together? She would have known she might be suspected of the crime so it would have been more sensible for her to remain at her own home and make sure the servants saw her there.”
She put down her teacup with a slight clatter. “You are right. Unless the maid tells us something new or is guilty of the crime herself, we have no suspects left except for Miss McNeil.”
“What about your inquiry concerning the actors?”
“I have not yet heard back from the offices in England. I have no definite suspicion, but it might still help us.”
She sounded unconvinced about this and Ewan watched her as he thought about what they did and did not know.
“What if someone saw the murderer?” Miss Campbell said.
“We spoke to the staff at Miss McNeil’s house...” he began.
“No, I do not mean them. What if someone saw the duke’s arrival? What if they saw whom he let into the house?”
“It was late at night, but it is possible.”
“Some people work late hours. Others sleep on the streets.”
Ewan got up. “I will send for Jed
and see if he can help us.”
They spoke to the young caddie an hour later and he left with a promise to learn anything he could. Ewan hoped they would finally discover something useful, all too aware of the sand running out in the hour glass of Kenina McNeil’s life.
Chapter Forty-Two
ISHBEL WAS due to attend a lecture at the university at midday the next morning, so Mr MacPherson called to see her with Jed Cassell just after breakfast.
“I tried to find out if anyone had seen the duke arrive home or anyone who might have been with him, but I had no luck there. It’s a quieter, more respectable street, so there are few people about late at night. If it helps any, it’s likely he arrived there on foot as a carriage woulda be heard.”
They had already known that his coachman had not driven him anywhere. Miss McNeil’s house would only have been a fifteen or twenty minute walk from his own.
“Could he have hired someone to light the way for him?” Mr MacPherson asked.
“I asked about that, sir, and none of the regular laddies took him there.”
“Is it at all possible that a thief could have got a key to the house?” Ishbel asked, thinking of what Marie had said. “Could someone who worked on the locks have got a key and let themselves into Miss McNeil’s house, only to be surprised by the duke and kill him?”
“I could ask if any locksmith worked at the house, Miss.”
They had nothing better to look into that she could think of, so she said yes to this and the men left. She was reading through the notes she had made since the start of the case when Harriette walked into the library.
“You will render yourself blind from the amount of time you spend reading,” her cousin commented.
She ignored this and said, “Miss McNeil’s trial will shortly start and we have nothing. If the case goes unsolved and she hangs for it...”
“That would not be your fault,” Harriette said, walking across the room to sit opposite her.
“Then whose? We should have done better than this. We were supposed to find justice for those who might otherwise be denied it, but we have failed.”
“Perhaps there was nothing to find and the facts were exactly as they appeared from the start. If Miss McNeil is hanged, it probably means that she is guilty.”
She was saved from giving an answer to this by the arrival of the butler, who brought in two letters for her on a silver tray. She took them and thanked him as Harriette left, then broke the seals and read them. The second letter she read again, its contents not what she had expected. She had had a vague thought that Miss McNeil might have had a husband amongst the actors, someone she had parted from but who still had a reason to kill over her.
She frowned down at the parchment as she realised that she had indeed found a motive for the Duke’s death, although she sought for a reason to discount it.
She raised her eyes, gazing sightlessly at the shelves of books in front of her. Some instinct had put the fear in her mind that this case would end badly and she wished now that they had never taken it. This outcome was the worst one she could imagine and, as she thought of everyone who would be hurt by the truth, her mood sank even lower.
She had not moved when Mr MacPherson arrived. “Ishbel!” he exclaimed, striding across the room to kneel in front of her chair. “Miss Campbell, are you ill? You look white. Should I send for a physician?”
She looked into his kind eyes and knew this would make him unhappy too. She had the wild thought that she could lie and tear up the letter, but the result of that was unthinkable. “I know who the killer is and I very much wish that I did not.”
“What do you mean?” He got up and pulled a chair close to hers, leaning towards her.
“We have been going round in circles, when the answer was there almost from the start. Ewan, what is the one thing that a good actor knows how to do?”
Chapter Forty-Three
JOE FILLINISTER and Miss McNeil were waiting for them inside the room of the dark, filthy gaol, when Ishbel and Ewan arrived.
“Have you discovered something?” Miss McNeil asked, pale and worried.
“Yes,” Ishbel told her. “We know who killed Duke Raden.”
“Then you know it was me,” she said at once. “I knew your investigation could do me no good, but Joe was so desperate to help me. I was furious at the duke...”
“Kenina, stop,” Mr Fillinister said, putting a hand on her arm. “This is pointless.”
“You realised the truth when we were last here,” Ishbel said, heart going out to the distressed woman. “You covered it up by pretending to faint, but we had asked you who knew about the duke’s callous treatment of you. That was when you put the pieces together.”
“I killed him.”
“No, you did not,” Ishbel said, feeling sick because she knew that Miss McNeil would rather hang than see the real culprit die. They had wanted to help her and it was impossible. “While you were miserable over the duke’s behaviour and terrified of bringing an illegitimate child into the world, you turned to the one person you always turned to: Mr Fillinister, your brother.”
“How did you find out?” he asked in a calm voice and, looking at him, she saw for the first time the resemblance between the siblings; the same dark hair and blue eyes. They even had the same accent but, knowing they were both born in England, she had never thought it unusual.
“I thought we might be missing something about Miss McNeil’s relationships with the other actors. I half-thought she might have been married to one of the men but, of course, actors often change their names. Fillinister was your father’s surname and McNeil was your mother’s maiden name. We believed at the start that someone could have killed the duke out of love for Miss McNeil and that was what happened.”
“Yes,” he agreed, stepping closer to his sister and taking her hand. “I was always worried about Kenina’s relationship with the duke, that such a powerful man would leave her one day, but he seemed so honest in his affection for her that I was fooled. When Kenina came and told me she thought she was going to have a child and that that bastard had yelled at her and was going to leave her... I’ve never hated anyone so much in my life.”
“What happened that night?”
“I went to the house to check on Kenina. She’d been inconsolable and I was afraid of what she might do. But I was delayed at the theatre and when I got to her house all the rooms were dark, so I realised she must be asleep. I was leaving when I saw the duke.” Mr Fillinister shook his head, features screwed up with pain. “I couldn’t believe he’d just go back there as if nothing had happened, after the way he’d treated her. It was obvious that it could only end with him leaving her, now or later, heartbroken.”
“What did you say to him?” Mr MacPherson asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t have to. He greeted me with pleasure as if nothing had changed and invited me inside. I think he wanted a drinking companion. I had the knife in my pocket for protection – almost all the troupe carry one – so I just stabbed him. He took a while to die and I nearly changed my mind and called for a doctor, seeing him in agony like that, then suddenly it was over. I didn’t think how it would look, him being in her house like that. I just panicked and ran out.”
“But the next day Miss McNeil came to your house,” Ishbel prompted, shaking him out of whatever dark memories he was lost in.
“Yes. I’d paced back and forth all night, trying to decide what we should do. Kenina wanted to run and I realised that was the only thing that’d keep her out of gaol. I gave her money to leave, intending to follow when I knew if she was going to get the blame. I almost turned myself in, but I thought that if we could only get abroad, we might survive.”
“Why did you come to us?” Mr MacPherson asked.
“I just wanted you to prove she couldn’t have killed him. Even if you thought someone else was guilty, there would be no evidence, so they wouldn’t hang. I never would’ve let the trial begin – I would’ve confessed before
then. You know that, don’t you?” he said to Kenina.
She embraced him, tears running down her cheeks. “Of course I do. You just wanted to protect me, as you always do. It wasn’t your fault.” She turned to Ishbel and Mr MacPherson. “Please don’t tell the law it was him, I beg you.”
“They have to,” Mr Fillinister said, kissing her forehead. “I can’t let you die for my crime. I’d hoped to get away with it, that no one would be found guilty, but the law will do what it wants with me now.”
He had an arm round her waist and she was leaning her head against his shoulder.
That was how she and Mr MacPherson left them, sharing a moment of affection, before they had him arrested for murder.
Chapter Forty-Four
“DID YOU have any success?” Ishbel asked as soon as Mr MacPherson arrived the next morning.
He took the seat beside hers in the dining room. “Because of Joe Fillinister’s confession, Miss McNeil has been released.”
That had been a certainty and was not what had kept her awake worrying for much of the night. “Yes, but did the solicitors listen to you about Mr Fillinister only acting as he did out of love for his sister? Will it stop him being hanged?”
The bleak look on his face answered her question. “The solicitor defending Joe will certainly allow myself and Miss McNeil to speak for him at the trial. It might make a difference.”
It would not. She had held out little hope before, but now it was gone. It felt as if they were placing the noose around his neck themselves. “We are responsible for this.”
“We had no choice,” he said, touching her arm for a moment and almost distracting her from her fears. “We took on this investigation to bring Duke Raden’s killer to justice.”
She pulled away, angry at herself and him for believing in such a simplistic idea. “This is not justice, nor anything close to it.”
“Miss McNeil is out of gaol and safe now.”
“Her life is ruined. If she has to watch her brother die after everything else she has gone through, she will never recover.”