Death Is the Cure

by Slade, Nicola

  A second loud hail dashed that hope but pretending valiantly that she had not heard him, Charlotte hastened up the hill and realized that she could probably make her way through the mews and so gain entry to Waterloo House through the back door. Darting into the Waterloo House mews she paused to take a breath, head turned to look over her shoulder, and tripped over something lying on the cobbles. Something large and warm. Something wet on the hand she reached down to steady herself with.

  ‘Oh my goodness, what on earth.…’ For a moment she assumed the man on the ground must be drunk but reason told her otherwise. At three o’clock in the afternoon? In a respectable mews? Besides, the man was wearing good sober clothes, smart clothes, in fact. He looked to be a gentleman and he looked to be extremely dead.

  A moment’s horrified intake of breath was followed by a second moment of blind panic. Her life-long response to trouble was to get away unobserved, silently and swiftly in the opposite direction. Was he hurt? Was he indeed dead? Her unruly sense of the ridiculous ambushed her even at such a moment, fuelling a rising hysteria. Dead? Surely the horrid red stain spreading across his chest was evidence enough? She bit her lip, stifled her impulse to escape, and made a rapid search for his pulse which revealed no sign of life and, as she hesitated, wondering what she should do, she realized she was not alone in the mews that led off the adjoining street.

  Half crouching with his knee upon the ground, and leaning against the wall in the concealing shadow that obscured at least half of the cobbled courtyard, was the elder Count de Kersac. His breath was coming in shallow gasps and he gave every indication of imminent collapse, his face a sickly greenish-white, a frail hand clutched to his chest. Charlotte leaped to her feet from beside the body and hastened over to the old man.

  ‘Why, good heavens! Monsieur de Kersac, what in God’s name has happened here? Are you injured also, sir? Pray let me help you. Here, come and sit on this upturned cart.’ She looked round but there was no sign of the stable hands who should have been lounging in the vicinity of the coach house. Nor was there any movement beyond the stables, in the small dingy garden of Waterloo House, so she gave the count her arm and steered him to the cart which, old and ramshackle as it was, still provided a place for them both to lean against.

  ‘Well,’ she said, blowing out her cheeks in a satisfying, if unladylike, gusty sigh.

  ‘Well indeed,’ he said, and she was relieved to see that his cheeks were regaining a little colour and that his breathing was calmer and less ragged. Together they stared wide-eyed at the man on the ground and the old count tilted his head to one side, took a breath and addressed her again. ‘Vraiment, madame, I must make you my compliments!’

  ‘Compliments, monsieur?’ It was such a bizarre remark in the circumstances that Charlotte turned to look at him in astonishment.

  ‘Indeed, madame.’ He gave a faint smile of acknowledgement at the slight suggestion of a curtsy that had been dinned into her by her mother and godmother. ‘Always, always, Char, make sure you are polite and respectful to everyone but particularly to the elderly. They have more influence than you might think and if there is trouble, it can do you no harm to be thought of as a meek and charming young woman of breeding.’ Her stepfather, Will Glover, had added his own rider to this advice: ‘Don’t forget, Char, a curtsy is a useful distraction. It disarms the other person and gives you time to consider your position.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said again, his voice now calm and quiet, only the slightest increase in his elegant accent betraying his perturbation. ‘My compliments, madame, upon your sang-froid. I myself have an unfortunate weakness when it comes to the sight of blood and I confess it overtook me here, but one might almost assume that finding a bloody corpse lying at one’s feet was a daily occurrence for you.’

  ‘Not a daily occurrence, monsieur, I do assure you.’ She answered him in the same, almost mocking tone and saw him nod, with a spark of warmth in his pale-blue eyes, as if he admired her composure and recognized her yet again, not simply as he had remarked at their first meeting – as a fellow sufferer – but now, as a realist, practical and useful to have beside one in a crisis, in spite of his unfortunate reaction to the sight of blood.

  A crisis! She forced herself to look again at the bloodied figure lying on the dusty cobbles in front of her. She knew him, of course; she had known him immediately and she felt a spasm of sorrow allied with anger, but this was not the time for such emotions.

  ‘Did – did you know this gentleman at all, m’sieur?’

  There was a very slight hesitation, a small movement of his mouth in a gesture of distaste as he gazed down at the silent, sprawled body of the detective, Mr Tibbins. He shook his head. ‘He did not seem to be the kind of man I should wish to claim as a close acquaintance, either dead or alive.’

  The sound of brisk footsteps caused her to turn her head towards the road.

  ‘That might well be Captain Penbury,’ she said, catching her breath and noting, with relief, that the old gentleman’s colour was less livid. ‘He was following me and I thought I had escaped him, but that sounds like his tread. We must send for help at once.’

  He nodded and she lowered her eyes then turned towards the opening of the alley to await the newcomer. That was when she noticed the ebony stick that Mr Tibbins had twirled so jauntily. It now lay beside him, revealed to be a sword-stick – unsheathed – and a narrow blade, stained with blood, lay several feet away as though flung aside in haste.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘Monsieur de Kersac!’ Her voice was urgent. He saw that her anxious gaze was directed at the sword-stick and shook his head, looking suddenly very old and utterly exhausted.

  ‘Mon dieu! I fell; I remember tripping over something and I saw it was the body of a man, but that … I did not see it. My weakness overtook me then but I thought, I hoped perhaps, that this was some unfortunate accident.’

  ‘No.’ She stared sadly at the body of Mr Tibbins. ‘Scarcely an accident, he has been stabbed with his own sword-stick.’ She caught a glimpse of her own right hand. It was covered in blood, in just the same way as the old count’s sleeve. ‘You must have done just what I did,’ she told him swiftly, holding out her own wrist and retracting it with an apology as his face paled again at the sight. ‘As you say, I stumbled upon the body shortly after you did and we both tried to find a pulse.’

  ‘Well, well, Mrs Richmond, here you are. By George you’re a fast walker, my dear; good healthy stock, by George, I like that in a woman, so I do. Did you not hear me calling out to you? Hey? I thought I would give myself the pleasure of your company … why? What the devil?’

  Charlotte and the old Frenchman watched as Captain Penbury repeated the rigmarole of checking for a pulse in a body whose blood was only too obviously no longer circulating.

  ‘What the…? Mrs Richmond? Are you in any way indisposed, my dear young lady? Good God! What a shocking thing for you to discover. And you, Mounseer? Here, let me just shout for the constables and find someone to guard this poor fellow … Why, bless my soul! If it isn’t that talkative American fellow who’s been staying at Mrs Montgomery’s. This will upset the apple cart, my word if it don’t, she certainly won’t like this at all.’

  He rushed hither and yon and in a very short time procured a stolid-looking gardener’s boy from a neighbouring building and called loudly in at the door to the kitchen regions of Waterloo House as he ordered the kitchen maid to go running for the constables.

  Within a very short time the yard was filled with people, servants from the neighbouring buildings, from Waterloo House itself; some of her fellow guests, attracted by the shouts for the constables, and an assortment of complete strangers thronging around out of curiosity. Charlotte ran a rapid glance round the yard, taking in the solitary pony cart in the coach house and sticking her head briefly into the stable to soothe the old grey pony who gave no sign of being grateful for such attention.

  Impressed by the captain’s efficiency – who would have
thought it? Charlotte was all admiration, she had supposed he was all talk – she took the old count’s arm and helped him into the house via the back door, brushing aside the cook’s offer of a chair for him.

  ‘You’re very kind.’ Charlotte gave a smile and a nod. ‘But I think M. de Kersac will be more comfortable above stairs in the drawing room. I imagine the constables will want to question him, and me too, and we must make haste to let Mrs Montgomery know this dreadful news if she hasn’t heard all the noise and wondered at it. But a cup of tea, perhaps or,’ – she exchanged an urgent glance with the cook – ‘Maybe a glass of brandy?’

  The footman arrived in the drawing room almost as swiftly as did Charlotte and the old French gentleman. Setting the small silver salver on a side table he helped settle M. de Kersac in a high backed chair by the window and handed him a glass of brandy. Charlotte was glad to see that the cook had poured it with a generous hand and, after observing that her own glass was equally full, she determined to take merely a restorative sip.

  I must take care, she thought. I have no idea who stabbed Mr Tibbins, but he must have been barely dead when first M. de Kersac and then I stumbled on him; a few minutes before and we should have seen the murder committed. Thank God we did not! She took another sip then set it determinedly on a side table. Getting tipsy on brandy won’t do any good. Irresistibly a memory of one of Will Glover’s tales bubbled up as she recalled him describing a funeral he had been called upon to conduct. ‘The mourners were all roaring drunk,’ he had explained. ‘The body was supposed to have been pickled in spirits of rum, in the manner of the late Lord Nelson, of blessed memory.’ Will had been sitting on a fallen log, the sun glinting on his chestnut curls and an arm wrapped casually around his wife. Charlotte, aged about fourteen, was paddling in the shallows of a wide river, somewhere on the east coast of Australia; she couldn’t, after all this time, remember exactly where. ‘They’d sent for a parson and I was the first they caught up with, but by the time I arrived they had drunk his health in his own pickling fluid. Luckily it had all gone but they plied me with their own poteen, so I was soon as drunk as the rest.’

  Ten years on, Charlotte bit back the tears as she heard his laughing voice: ‘The singing of the hymns was particularly fine, as I recall,’ he had reported.

  No, a riotously drunken funeral service might well have passed uncensured in the outback, she reflected, but an inebriated young widow in a respectable house might draw some awkward questions down upon her, when considered in conjunction with the blood on her sleeve. And questions, as Charlotte was only too well aware, were something she had been taught to avoid.

  Yes, well … Several other guests at Waterloo House had seemed anxious to avoid questions over the last day or so, particularly those of the late American. She glanced over towards her companion. His colour was much better and he had regained his composure.

  ‘M’sieur?’ She waited until Mrs Montgomery had ceased her fussing and fluttering over her most elderly guest and was attending to the other people already congregating in the drawing-room, drawn irresistibly by disaster, then spoke in a low tone as she attracted his attention. ‘Do you not think we should go and change our attire?’ She lowered her gaze significantly to his own bloodstained coat and he gave an involuntary shudder. ‘There is no point, after all, in exciting alarm and misplaced questioning. I certainly have no desire to be quizzed on matters that have no bearing in this instance.’

  There was considerable intelligence as well as that sympathy that always seemed to lie between them in the pale blue eyes lifted to her own hazel ones and he rose at once with a brief nod of comprehension, only the sudden reaching for her arm betraying the agitation which still remained.

  ‘I have said it before,’ he murmured, as they moved unobtrusively out of the room, still filling with yet more assorted guests and hovering servants, ‘you are a remarkably intelligent and resourceful young woman, and a woman of decision to boot. If you will assist me to the stairs I can manage for myself, thank you.’

  In her own room Charlotte was glad to find that Jackson was out and about in Bath somewhere and she breathed a sigh of relief that Elaine was safely occupied in the King’s Bath and not here where she could not fail to be disturbed by the turn of events. Closer examination of her dress revealed that only the detachable cuff was stained, but rather than simply stitch in a new, clean cuff, Charlotte gave a slight shudder and donned one of her simple poplin gowns, in the tawny bronze colour that she had decided should serve as half mourning. It was the work of a moment to immerse the cuff in cold water and observe, with satisfaction, the way the blood instantly began to seep out of the fabric.

  Back in the drawing-room she discovered Mrs Montgomery dispensing tea to the Comte de Kersac, who now appeared quite composed, and a large, sandy-haired policeman.

  Inspector Nicholson’s round, blue eyes sparked with interest at the entrance of a young and personable woman and once the introductions had been performed he appeared to think Charlotte needed particular comfort and manly reassurance, taking her hand in his and patting it in an avuncular fashion.

  ‘There now, my dear young lady,’ he purred, ‘there can be no cause for you to be alarmed; we officers of the law are here to help you. Now pray take a seat, won’t you, madam? That’s right – that will do well, opposite the old gentleman.’ The last was in a loud whispered aside and Charlotte was perfectly aware that the count had heard and was amused by the inspector’s heavy tact. The policeman nodded to the Frenchman once more.

  ‘Now then, mounseer, if you wouldn’t mind just running through that again to get it clear in my mind. You decided to enter the house through the back premises, you say?’

  ‘I am an old man,’ was the simple reply, accompanied by the suggestion of a Gallic shrug. ‘The road becomes even more steep as you reach the brow of the hill and I wished to avoid unnecessary exertion, particularly on so warm a day.’ He paused to acknowledge the inspector’s sympathetic rumble.

  ‘I was already fatigued and possibly mopping my brow which must explain why I stumbled so clumsily upon the American gentleman’s body without seeing it. I fell to my knees, and then as soon as I had collected my thoughts I looked for a pulse. Alas none was evident so I dragged myself to my feet and managed to reach the shelter of a wall where, I regret to say, my shock and weariness overcame me once more.’ He pursed his lips and frowned. ‘At that point I beheld Mrs Richmond as she entered the mews.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so, thank you, mounseer, that is very clearly put. Well, Mrs Richmond, I’ve heard what Mounseer de Kersac has to say on the subject and now I should like to hear your tale.’

  Clasping her hands in her lap and looking a picture of innocence, Charlotte told her story. Oh lord, Ma, she thought. What would you and Will think of all this? Policemen patting me on the hand, elderly French aristocrats treating me as an equal, mysterious American detective agents lying dead at my feet. ‘Never forget, Char,’ Will had often reminded her during their all too frequent headlong flights from the law, ‘if you have no excuse to hand and nothing convincing offers immediately, you can always have recourse to tears. But mind you use them sparingly and only cry to give yourself time to think. Plenty of time for real tears when the danger is past.’

  Her ever ready, frequently inappropriate, sense of humour almost over-mastered her as she recalled Will’s laughing confession that he had himself once been driven to employ an emergency bout of tears. So astonished was his captor and interrogator that he had called for refreshments and during the interval, Will had made good his escape. It had been a close run thing, he told her, but luckily Charlotte had no need of tears or excuses on the present occasion – she was reserving her sorrow for the surprising Mr Tibbins for when she could be private – so she gave her evidence in a sedate and sober voice, keeping her eyes demurely lowered when not required to speak.

  ‘Now tell me, Mrs Richmond,’ the inspector enquired. ‘Did you see any suspicious individual running fr
om the scene of this dastardly crime? The mounseer here says he saw nobody, but your eyes, begging his pardon, are younger and sharper.’

  ‘I saw nobody,’ she replied, in a steady voice. ‘And heard nothing at all out of the ordinary. There is no other way out of the mews apart from the entrance on to the road. Though there is, of course, that narrow strip of grass to the side of Waterloo House, but that only leads round to the front door. I am not aware whether anyone was seen from the front of the house emerging from that passageway.’

  The inspector heaved a sigh and obediently diverted in the direction she had indicated. ‘Plenty of witnesses on hand out there to say there was no one who did that.’ He harrumphed and gave himself the pleasure of offering Charlotte comfort and support in the shape of a languishing glance and a further pat on the hand. ‘There’ll be an inquest, of course, but I have great hopes that a deposition from each of you will be sufficient, mounseer and madam. But to my mind there’s no real doubt. Some common thief, or one of the gypsies from down by the river, saw a chance and took the American gentleman by surprise. My first impression is that he was attacked for there is bruising to his chin and evidence of a wound on the side of his head … I beg your pardon, Mrs Richmond. Did you speak? No? Well, as I say, there is that wound and it looks to me as if he had been punched to the ground, perhaps hitting the kerbstone which would render him unconscious for a moment or so; there is certainly a further wound at the back of the head. At that point my guess is that the dastardly fellow noticed Mr Tibbins’s cane and the blade now visible after the fall, and stabbed him with his own sword-stick.’