A Christmas Homecoming

by Anne Perry

  “I’m terrible sorry …”

  “Of course. We all are. We are not quite sure what happened, and it would be better if we knew. Were you upstairs late in the evening?”

  Tess nodded. “I din’t stay. Mr. Netheridge were … not ’isself.”

  “He was ill?”

  “No, ma’am, but ’e an’ the mistress were ’avin’ a disagreement.”

  “What about?” Caroline did not make any excuses as to why she wanted to know. There were none that would not sound completely artificial. “The play?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. It were about the drawin’ room, an’ such like, the dinin’ room, too. It’ll all need redoin’ pretty soon. Come the spring, at the latest. The master says it’ll all be the same as ’is mam ’ad it. It always is. The mistress says as she’ll ’ave it ’er own way this time, like she wants it. ’E says it’s always been like ’is mam ’ad it, and she says it’s time it was changed. They went on an’ on like that, an’ I know it wasn’t no use askin’ ’er anythin’ about anythin’ else that night, so I just went.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Just before midnight. I waited around, like, but it wasn’t goin’ to get any better, so I gave up.”

  “How long do you think they argued?”

  “ ’Alf hour, maybe more.”

  “So I don’t think they could have seen what happened to Mr. Ballin.”

  “No, ma’am. They was too angry to see anythin’ else but the curtains an’ walls an’ the like.”

  “Were they going to redecorate the bedroom as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am. An’ the mistress says as it in’t goin’ to be brown this time.” She looked pleased. “Wot lady, ’ceptin’ ’is mam, wants a brown bedroom?”

  “None,” Caroline agreed. “Mine is mostly pink and red, and I love it.”

  Tess breathed out in a sigh of pleasure. “Cor! An’ your husband don’t mind?”

  “If he did I wouldn’t have done it. The pink is very pale and cool, and the red is hot. He likes it.”

  Tess went out smiling so widely that Caroline heard the other maid on the landing asking her what had happened. The tale of Caroline’s bedroom would be all over the house in an hour.

  The last person Caroline spoke to was Alice herself. She found her alone after dinner in a long gallery overlooking the snowbound darkness of the countryside. There was nothing to see except an occasional light in the distance where the city lay, shrouded in snow, just like them.

  “I shall miss you when you’re gone,” Alice said quietly. It was simply a statement. She did not seem to be expecting a reply. She took a deep breath. “And I miss Mr. Ballin. Do you think it was Douglas who killed him, Mrs. Fielding?”

  “No,” Caroline replied without hesitation. “Nor was it your father.”

  Alice turned to face Caroline. Even in the candlelight and shadow of the gallery, Caroline could see the shock and shame in Alice’s face.

  “Were you not afraid of that as well?” Caroline asked her. “You know if you want to break off your engagement to Douglas and come to London, it will take a great change of heart on your father’s part, to allow that.” She bit her lip. “And he might be a good deal less inclined to back our company in the future, if he feels that we have influenced you toward that.”

  “But he invited you up here to help me!” Alice protested. “You came. If he then blamed you for what happened as a result, that would be monstrously unfair.”

  “Not really. He has no obligation to back us.”

  “But that is why you came?”

  Caroline felt the heat in her own face. But she could not deny it now. “Yes. But things don’t always work out the way you expect.”

  “I have enough money to live for quite a while in London, even if I don’t earn anything right away.” Alice turned again to stare back out the window into the darkness.

  “It would be a very big change,” Caroline warned.

  “I know. Leaving home always is, but there are all sorts of ways in which I am not really at home here. I … I feel that if I marry Douglas I shall have stopped growing, the way a plant does if you put it in too small a pot. The flowers never open, the fruit never forms … that will be what I’ll feel like.” She looked at Caroline again. “Is it worth dying a little inside, just to be safe from hurt, or failure? And there’s more than one kind of loneliness. You could spend all your life with people who only know what they think you are, what they think you ought to be, and never let you be anything different.”

  “Yes, but growing can hurt, and you don’t always get what you want,” Caroline warned. “Or sometimes you do, and then find that you don’t want it so much after all.”

  “So is it better to not even try?” Alice asked earnestly. “I was going to say ‘to stay at home,’ but surely home is where you are yourself, your best self, isn’t it? I don’t think that for me it is Whitby. Not any more.”

  “Then perhaps you had better find out where your home truly lies,” Caroline conceded.

  “Will you ask Mr. Fielding to consider allowing me to join your group? I won’t expect anything beyond the opportunity to work. And I won’t ask to come with you now. That would be embarrassing for you, after this.”

  “Of course I’ll speak to him,” Caroline said quickly. “I think if it is really what you want, then we will find a way to make it possible. But all the same, give it a little longer, perhaps a bit more thought.”

  Alice smiled. “And I think maybe Miss Rye would be better for Douglas anyway. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Yes, of course I have.”

  “And I don’t mind,” Alice said with surprise. “When I realized that, then I knew I shouldn’t marry him. It would be dishonest, and I don’t want to start any undertaking by lying to myself.”

  “I don’t see that possibility in you,” Caroline said frankly.

  hey all retired early. There was little to stay up for. It did not seem possible that it was Christmas Eve. Everything was motionless in the icy grip of the snow. No one had the heart to put up wreaths of holly or ivy, ribbons of scarlet, or any of the other usual ornaments. The weather had prevented the delivery of the tree. It would be a somber Christmas, shorn of all the trimmings, haunted by Ballin’s death.

  Caroline lay in bed wondering what else she could do. They did not know when the thaw would come, but it could be within the next few days. Then the police would be sent for. The reality of murder would no longer be avoidable. The players would be suspect, and every tragic or grubby secret would be dragged out, examined, and very probably misunderstood. Unless she could find an answer before then.

  Eliza had questioned the servants, and they were all accounted for, as Caroline had expected. Joshua and Mr. Netheridge had searched the house again, but they had still not found Ballin’s body. Where had they not looked? Why had anyone moved it? It could only be because there was something about it that would reveal who had killed him, and perhaps why.

  aroline was in bed, staring at the ceiling. She thought Joshua was asleep, but she was not certain. As soon as she knew for sure, she would get up and begin her own search for the body. Their only answers lay with Ballin himself. Something that forced the killer to go through the trouble of moving the body.

  Ballin was quite a big man, and strong; he must be heavy. Inert bodies were not called “deadweight” for nothing. No woman could have carried him alone. Two together would have found it difficult, but perhaps not impossible. One man might have managed, if he was strong and used to lifting.

  Joshua was asleep. She was sure of it now. Very carefully she slid out of the bed and crept to the dressing room, feeling her way. Thank goodness they had a separate room for clothes where she could light a candle and dress without wakening him. She must dress warmly, and put on her boots. She might need to go somewhere unheated.

  She considered starting with the attics, but they were mostly servants’ quarters. No doubt all the rooms would be used, one way or anot
her, and the whole area would be far from private. Also, who would willingly carry a dead body up four flights of stairs? There might be box rooms up there, full of old furniture and suitcases, cabin trunks and the like. Excellent places to hide a body, but not if you were trying to do it alone, in the middle of the night.

  She stood on the silent landing in the very faint candlelight, thinking. She must make no sound, or she would disturb someone. She could imagine the furor: the screaming if it were Mercy, or even Lydia; the outrage and suspicion if it were Douglas or Mr. Netheridge; the sarcasm if it were Vincent, or even James.

  Of course one of them knew exactly where Ballin was. But that was a thought she refused to entertain. It would paralyze her. Courage. She must use all the courage she had. And for heaven’s sake, also the sense.

  How long did it take for a dead body to begin to rot, and to attract scavengers, not to mention smell? The rats and flies, so loved of Renfield, would soon give away a corpse kept in a warm place. Therefore it would be somewhere as cold as possible. And she couldn’t be squeamish about searching.

  They burned both wood and coal in the house fires, so there would be a coal cellar. Very possibly there would also be a place inside for wood, certainly at least for kindling. Had anyone looked there, thoroughly?

  The house where the meat and other perishable food was kept would be perfect, but the servants would go in there regularly. They would check all the stores to make sure nothing was spoiling. But they might not go to the icehouse, not in this weather.

  She went down to the cloakroom where she had left her outside coat when she had arrived, not knowing then that they would be unable to take walks. She put on her boots. The cellar would be bitterly cold, and dirty.

  She lit one of the lanterns that were stored in the cloakroom and set off.

  An hour later she was aching, filthy, and shuddering with cold, and she had found nothing that helped in the slightest to figure out what had happened to the body of Anton Ballin.

  Think! It had to be somewhere. Was it conceivable that whoever had murdered him had somehow destroyed his corpse? But how? Burning? The only possible place for a fire big enough to get a whole body into would be the furnace used to heat the water in the laundry room. And the maids did the laundry regularly.

  Were the fires kept going all night? Hardly likely, at least not hotly enough to destroy a corpse.

  Still, she would look.

  She went slowly, very reluctantly, to the laundry room. The fire under the big copper tub in which the sheets were boiled was glowing dimly. One might have burned a rat in it, but nothing bigger. And the smell would have been awful.

  She stood in the middle of the room and turned around slowly. Apart from the copper one, there were deep tubs next to the wall, and mangles. On the shelves above, there were many jars for all kinds of substances: soaps, lye, starch, chemicals for cleaning various stains on different kinds of fabrics.

  She walked slowly through to the drying room. Long airing racks were suspended from the ceiling to deal with days when it was impossible to dry anything outside.

  There was another large tub by the wall. She tiptoed over to it and lifted the lid, her heart pounding. There was nothing inside it but loose, light brown bran. It was useful for lifting certain stains, or for rubbing fabrics that needed extra care. Determined not to have to come back and search the room again, she found a wooden spoon with a long handle and poked it down into the bran. It met no resistance. With a gulp of relief she closed the lid.

  There was nowhere else left to look, except the still-room. There were plenty of bottles and jars in it, but a glance told her there was nowhere large enough for a corpse.

  So where was he? It must be two in the morning now. Christmas Day. And here she was frozen cold, hunting around her hosts’ laundry room for the body of a dead man. And she had told Alice that life in a company of touring actors was fun!

  The only place left was the icehouse. It couldn’t be there, but where else was there to look? The stables? No, Caroline knew enough of horses to rule that out. Horses smell death and are afraid of it. They would certainly have let people know if there were any sort of decaying body near them. Even in the hayloft the smell would be appalling, and they would have had a plague of rats within hours, let alone days.

  There was no choice but to go outside across the yard to the icehouse. She went to the scullery door and unlocked it. Why anyone had bothered with the bolts in this weather was beyond her. Habit, and obedience possibly. They were stiff to move, and the top one was high, but she managed, with rather a noise. She hoped fervently that everyone else was asleep.

  She pulled the door open and stepped out, holding the lantern high. She did not completely close the door: She needed the crack of light to guide her back, and somehow leaving it ajar made her mission seem less final.

  The air was bitter but there was no wind at all. In fact, it was possible to imagine that it could thaw, just a little bit, by morning. She walked half a dozen steps across the yard. The snow was completely untrodden since yesterday’s fall, and there was not a mark on it. It was deep enough to cover the top of her boots and cling to her skirts. When it melted she would be soaked.

  The icehouse was ahead of her, half under some trees whose black branches seemed to rest on the roof. There was something else up there: piles of wood like discarded floorboards, half-covered with snow. There were more timbers to one side of the house, and bags of something. Coal? No, there was room in the cellar. Kindling? It would get soaked and be of no use. Perhaps rubbish no one had been able to dispose of properly in the snow.

  In spite of the stillness, the wind seemed to sigh a little in the bare branches, and several lumps of snow fell off the trees. She was right: It was thawing, just a tiny bit.

  Could the killer have put Ballin’s body out here, with the rubbish? How long could it remain hidden? Perhaps they had planned to do something else with it after a few days?

  She walked with difficulty, forced to lift her feet unnaturally high in the deep snow. Suddenly she was anxious. Should she look now, or ask Joshua to help her in daylight? But what a cowardly thing to do, when she didn’t even know if there was anything here or not. And maybe if whoever killed Ballin saw her footsteps in the snow leading to the side of the icehouse, they would know someone had been there, and move the body before she had another chance to check for it.

  She reached the sacks of rubbish, holding the lantern high so she could see. The timber had slid a little, and several pieces were lying over the tops of the bags. She put the lantern down carefully and started to lift the top piece of wood. She put it to one side and lifted the next one.

  Then it happened—the shift in the snow on the roof. She looked up. A few lumps dropped off and fell onto the sacks. The stars were brilliant above the pale outline of the ridge, and she could see the ends of wood poking up. A larger lump of snow fell. Then as she stepped back, without thinking pulling the wood with her, there was a roar of sliding snow on the slates. A figure launched itself at her, diving downward, head thrown back, mouth wide open. It struck her so hard she staggered backward, falling into the deep snow as it landed hard, half on top of her. By the yellow light of the lantern she saw the hideously distorted face, glaring eyes, flesh eaten away and sliding off, teeth bared.

  She screamed, again and again, her lungs aching.

  Nothing happened. No one came.

  Ballin’s terrible face was inches from her, his body hard as rock. But something had happened to him, beyond agony, beyond death. The flesh of his cheeks seemed to have half-dissolved and slipped sideways, crookedly. Even his nose was rotted away, twisted to one side.

  For a moment she thought her heart was going to burst. She was alone in the night with the face of evil, the vampire without his human mask. This thing was a creature of the night, dead and yet not dead.

  There was no one to help. She must do this alone. She steadied her breath and forced herself to grab the lantern and look
at the body. It was frozen rigid, as unbending as the planks of wood that had held it up there on the icehouse roof.

  His face was terrible, as if it were falling apart. How could that happen in the paralyzing cold, and so soon after death?

  She made herself look at it again, steadily. Her hand shook, and the light of the lantern wavered over Ballin’s face. Caroline stared and stared, and slowly she realized that it was not decay that made him look as if he were rotting and falling apart. His face was literally sliding off his skin. It was actor’s makeup. More than greasepaint, he had a thin layer of some rubbery kind of substance, a gum of some nature, to pad out his cheeks and nose. Underneath it she saw the harder, deeper lines of a different face, one that in some half-remembered way was vaguely familiar. She knew him, but she had no idea from where, or when.

  And as she understood that, she knew why his killer had moved the body.

  Shuddering with cold and horror, she gingerly pushed Ballin away and stood up. She must go and tell Joshua. If nothing else, they must put the body in some decent place, not leave him lying on the ground by the icehouse. None of the servants, rising early to prepare breakfast, must find him.

  She tramped back through the snow to the back door. Thank heaven it was still slightly ajar. Her teeth were chattering from the cold.

  She walked slowly through the scullery into the kitchen. She was trailing water behind her. Her whole coat was covered with snow from when she had fallen, and her skirt was wet at least a foot above the hem.

  Where had she seen Ballin’s true face before? It was in a photograph, she was sure of that, definitely not in person. But his name had not been Ballin. She would have remembered that. Anton. Had it been Anton something-else?

  She was in the hallway now. Only a couple of candles were alight. The tall clock said it was nearly three in the morning. She reached the bottom of the stairs and started up, holding her soaked skirt high so as not to trip over it.

  She was almost at the landing when she remembered. The photograph had been in the green room of a theater: Joshua had pointed it out to her because he felt that the man in it was a great actor. Anton Rausch. A handsome face, powerful. And there had been a tragedy connected to him. He had killed some actress in a murder scene in a play. A knife. It was supposed to have been a stage prop, a harmless thing whose blade would retract when it met resistance. Only it had not retracted, because Anton had replaced it with a real knife.