‘Charlotte… ’ Blackstone said.
‘If you wish to pretend that it meant nothing, then that’s your right, and I won’t complain,’ Charlotte told him. ‘But if you feel as I do — that you finally discovered love again, and are willing to embrace it, rather than run from it — then you’ll make me the happiest woman in the world.’
‘There really are things we need to talk about, Charlotte,’ Blackstone said quietly.
‘And I know what they are. You want to tell me that a man like you is not willing to share me with Lord Bixendale. I understand that, Sam. Did you think that I wouldn’t? Well, I couldn’t bear it either. So I promise you, here and now, that I will see no more of him.’
‘I’m not here to talk about what happened between us in your apartment last night, and I’m not here to talk about whether or not we have a future together,’ Blackstone said firmly.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘To discuss the murder of William Kirkpatrick.’
Charlotte raised her hand, and smoothed down her hair.
‘I see,’ she said, a little coldly and a little disappointedly. ‘Then perhaps you’re right, and I had better sit down.’
‘You told me you’d only ever loved one man,’ Blackstone said, when she had returned to her stool. ‘What was his name?’
‘I thought you said that wanted to discuss William Kirkpatrick’s murder,’ Charlotte said evasively.
‘His name, Charlotte!’
‘I can’t see what his name has to do with you — or with anyone else, for that matter.’
‘It was Martin Swinburne, wasn’t it?’
Charlotte looked down at the floor. ‘Yes, it was Martin,’ she admitted in a whisper.
‘You were the woman who he and William Kirkpatrick fought over, not Tamara Simmons. But that had to be kept secret — because if Lord Bixendale had learned you had another lover apart from him, he would have stopped funding the theatre immediately. So Tamara Simmons pretended that Swinburne had been her lover, and was rewarded for it by being given bigger roles to play than she’d ever had before.’
‘That’s quite true, but —’
‘When Martin Swinburne was killed, you probably told yourself it was an accident, but there must have been a small part of you, at least, which suspected that William Kirkpatrick had arranged it.’
‘I couldn’t see that God would be so unjust as to take from me the love of my life in such a terrible way,’ Charlotte confessed.
‘I’m guessing the next bit,’ Blackstone admitted, ‘but it’s the only explanation that fits the facts.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Once Swinburne was out of the way, Kirkpatrick thought you would fall into his arms.’
Charlotte Devaraux nodded. ‘I think he really did love me, you know. Perhaps even more than Martin did.’
‘But you didn’t fall into his arms. In fact, you wanted nothing at all to do with him. And then, one night, he said something he shouldn’t have.’
William Kirkpatrick is clearly intoxicated when he accosts Charlotte at the stage door after the evening’s performance.
‘Come home with me, Charlotte,’ he begs.
‘What would be the point of that?’ Charlotte asks disgustedly. ‘Do you want to make love to me?’
‘Yes. It all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘Even if I’d agree, you’re too drunk to take advantage of it.’
‘Why are you so cruel?’ Kirkpatrick asks plaintively.
‘Why are you so persistent?’ Charlotte counters.
‘It’s months since Martin died.’
‘And I’m still mourning him.’
‘He didn’t care for you as much as I do. He wouldn’t have killed for you, would he?’
‘Of course he wouldn’t. And neither would .you.’
‘I did kill for you.’
‘I’m guessing all this, you understand, but I think it’s pretty close to the truth, isn’t it?’ Blackstone asked.
Charlotte Devaraux said nothing.
‘Of course,’ Blackstone continued, ‘in the morning, when he’d had time to calm down — or sober up — he denied he’d ever meant it. He probably claimed it had been no more than a joke, which he now realized was in very bad taste. But you knew that he’d been speaking no more than the truth, didn’t you, Charlotte? And that’s why you decided to kill him.’
‘Why I decided to kill him?’ Charlotte asked, horrified. ‘Why I decided to kill him?’
Blackstone shook his head sadly. ‘You’re a good actress, Charlotte,’ he said, ‘but even you are not that good.’
‘It’s preposterous!’ Charlotte said.
‘You might even have got away with it, if you’d known a little more about the poison you were using. But all you did know — all you’d learned on the George Theatre Company’s tour of South America — was that the toxin from the poison arrow frog was both quick-acting and lethal.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Charlotte said. ‘Creating the little old man was a touch of brilliance,’
Blackstone told her. ‘From the moment I’d talked to Thaddeus George — and seen the resemblance between him and the suspect — I began to think that the man I was looking for was wearing a disguise, and must have modelled his disguise on Thaddeus. But it never occurred to me — at least, not until everything else had fallen into place — that he might not be a man at all.’
‘Lunacy,’ Charlotte said.
‘But the touch I admire almost more than I admire the disguise is what you did with the knife,’ Blackstone continued. ‘A lesser woman than you would have taken the knife she’d commissioned, and substituted it for the fake one on the prop table. But there was always a risk you’d be seen doing that, and that people would begin to wonder why the principal actress would bother to go to the props room at all, when she had a boy to do all her running around for her. Then you suddenly realized there was no need to take such a risk at all.’
‘You make me seem very clever,’ Charlotte said.
‘You were very clever,’ Blackstone replied. ‘You see, you understood that all you actually needed to do was create the circumstances in which the knife could have been substituted. And that’s exactly what you did. The props master was called away to answer the phone call which you’d paid the operator to make, so the knives could easily have been swapped then. But they weren’t. The knife that young Horace brought to you was the fake one that you normally used on stage. The real one, the one you’d commissioned, was in your dressing room all along.’
‘You couldn’t possibly prove that,’ Charlotte told him.
‘Maybe not,’ Blackstone agreed, ‘but I think I’d have more than a fighting chance at it. You see, now he’s had both knives in his hands for the first time, Horace knows it was the fake one that he handled on the night of the murder, and a smart lad like him would make a very credible witness at your trial. But I don’t actually need to prove anything about the knife, only about the poison. And that’s where Dr Carr comes in.’
‘Dr Carr?’
‘You’ve never met her, of course — and I don’t think you’d like her if you did. But she’s a very clever woman — perhaps even cleverer than you — and she’s established just how long the poison takes to act under all kinds of different conditions.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed by that?’
‘Yes, I think you should be, because it’s that particular finding which points the finger of guilt conclusively at you.’
‘Go on,’ Charlotte Devaraux said, and there was now a hint of foreboding in her voice.
‘To have the effect that the toxin did have on William Kirkpatrick — to kill him almost immediately — it must have been smeared on the blade only shortly before he was stabbed. In other words, the blade had to have been poisoned in your dressing room, just before the third act. Only three people could have done it — Horace, your dresser, or you. Would you like me to arrest one of the others?’
Charlotte
shook her head. ‘No, of course I wouldn’t. That boy’s had enough trouble in his life already without having to go through that. And nobody would believe poor little Madge could be a killer, even if she said she was.’
‘So you’ll confess?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much point in doing anything else now, does there?’
‘Why did you decide to kill Kirkpatrick in the theatre, with an audience watching?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Oh, there were any number of reasons for that decision,’ Charlotte said, almost airily.
‘Why don’t you tell me what they were?’ Blackstone suggested.
Charlotte raised her hand in the air, as if she were holding the dagger.
‘With this knife, I will have my revenge for the evil you have visited on me,’ she said in her Lady Wilton voice. She paused, and smiled. ‘I wanted William Kirkpatrick to die on stage, just as his victim, poor Martin, had. And I wanted to be there when he died — so that I could see the look of fear in his eyes; so I could tell him, with the look in my eyes, that he was dying by my hand.’
‘And you think that he really did understand that, do you?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Oh yes,’ Charlotte replied. ‘A good actress can convey a thousand words with just one flash of her eyes, and, as you’ve admitted yourself, I am a very good actress.’
‘What were your other reasons for choosing to kill him in that way?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I thought it would put me above suspicion. I thought the police would devote all their efforts to finding out who duped me into killing Kirkpatrick, rather than wondering if I had been duped at all.’
‘And it nearly worked,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘In fact, for quite a while, it did work.’
‘There is one more reason I chose that particular method,’ Charlotte said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘It is perhaps less laudable and more selfish than the others, but I still cannot deny that it exists.’
‘And that reason is that you enjoyed it!’ Blackstone guessed.
‘I don’t think “enjoy” is quite the right word, Sam,’ Charlotte told him seriously. ‘I have never enjoyed my work as a process. A potter may get great pleasure out of creating a pot, but I have never experienced that same pleasure in creating a role. Nor did I experience it in planning the murder.’
‘It’s the effect, once the work is finished, that you care about,’ Blackstone said, with a sudden flash of insight.
‘I knew you’d understand,’ Charlotte told him. ‘I live to see my audiences react. And my audience back stage that night — actors all — were completely taken in by the way I played the role of the innocent woman who had been tricked into killing. Which must mean, when you think about it, that it was the finest performance of my life.’
‘Let’s hope you can put up one that’s just as good in front of a judge and jury,’ Blackstone said.
‘You still mean to arrest me?’ Charlotte asked, shocked.
‘I do.’
‘Even though you know that I killed for love?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that the man I killed was nothing but a murderer himself?’
‘I don’t have any choice but to arrest you,’ Blackstone said.
‘Of course you do,’ Charlotte said dismissively. ‘We all have choices, if only we have the courage to cast aside the rules and conventions which this bourgeois little queen and her bourgeois little parliament have decided to impose on this bourgeois little society.’
‘And which are enforced by bourgeois policemen and bourgeois courts,’ Blackstone added.
‘Exactly! But we could rise above all that. You and I could leave this theatre — and this country — forever. Think about it, Sam! We could live on a tropical island — just the two of us. I would cook for you, and care for you, and do whatever you wanted me to do. I would do it all gladly, sacrificing my life to your pleasure. Because I do love you, Sam. You know that, don’t you?’
Blackstone said nothing.
‘You do know I love you, don’t you?’ Charlotte Devaraux repeated.
‘I certainly believe you when you say it,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘But you’re such a good actress that how would I ever know when you’re telling the truth?’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The morning after Charlotte Devaraux’s arrest was the I second time that Lord Bixendale had chosen to come to Blackstone’s office — and on this occasion he looked no less resolved to get his own way than he had on his previous visit. ‘I am told, Inspector Blackstone, that you have great concerns over the condition of Mr Thaddeus George, who is currently incarcerated in Bethlehem Hospital,’ Bixendale said. ‘That’s right, I have,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘I’m always concerned when people are punished for things they didn’t do.’
‘These are concerns that I share,’ Bixendale said. ‘And you are quite right in your assessment of the situation — by all accounts, great wrongs have been done to the poor man.’
‘Great wrongs in which you yourself played a major part,’ Blackstone reminded him.
‘I admit to having made certain mistakes in the past,’ Lord Bixendale replied.
‘You do?’ Blackstone asked, glancing out of the window to see if, by any chance, the sky was falling down.
‘I do. And I am more than willing to correct them. That is why I have come to see you today — to assure you that I will do all within my power to have Mr George released from the asylum as soon as possible. Not only that, but, until he manages to get the theatre back on a sound financial footing by his own efforts, I am prepared to continue subsidizing him.’
‘That’s very generous of you,’ Blackstone said, sounding far from impressed. ‘Now let’s see the other side of the coin.’
‘The other side of the coin? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course you do,’ Blackstone said. ‘You’ve offered me the bribe — and very smoothly, too. Now tell me what you want in return.’
‘I think you’re forgetting your place, my good man!’ Bixendale said, clearly outraged.
‘And I think you’re forgetting that we’re standing on the threshold of the twentieth century, and that it’s getting much harder than it used to be for people like you to have people like me horsewhipped for what you consider to be their insolence,’ Blackstone countered.
Lord Bixendale took a very deep breath. ‘I didn’t come here to fight with you, Inspector Blackstone,’ he said. ‘I did not even come here to ask for your active co-operation.’
‘No?’
‘Emphatically not. All I need from you is a simple guarantee of your compliance.’
‘In what?’
‘I require an undertaking from you that you are willing to stand to one side — and do or say nothing — while the necessary procedures are enacted. In truth, I do not even really need your assurances at all — though it will make things somewhat easier if you willing to give them.’
‘What procedures are we talking about?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Charlotte Devaraux will not stand trial for the murder of William Kirkpatrick. Instead she is to be released from prison, and confined to an institution for the criminally insane.’
‘But she isn’t insane,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘Her doctors would, I think, disagree with you.’
‘And are they the same two doctors who decided Thaddeus George was insane?’
‘I will not dignify that question with an answer,’ Lord Bixendale said haughtily.
‘I’ll bet you bloody won’t,’ Blackstone said.
‘Even if she were not insane, should she really be punished for what she did?’ Bixendale asked reasonably. ‘The man she killed was a murderer, when all’s said and done. If he’d been arrested and found guilty of his crime, he’d have been executed. Does it make a difference whether he was hanged or poisoned? It might be argued that poison is swifter and more merciful.’
‘It might be ar
gued that he wasn’t a murderer at all — that he only said that he was in order to impress Charlotte with the depths of his love. But we’ll never know now, will we, Lord Bixendale? Because Charlotte decided to take the law into her own hands.’
‘I may not still be able to have you horsewhipped, but if you raise any objections to Charlotte’s transfer, I will certainly see to it that your career is destroyed,’ Bixendale said, with a harder edge entering his voice.
‘I’ll raise no objections,’ Blackstone said. ‘What would be the point? You have powerful friends and influence on your side, and all I have on mine is a belief that justice should apply to all equally. It would be no contest, would it?’
‘None at all.’ Lord Bixendale smiled. ‘That being the case — and taking you at your word — I believe we have no more to say to each other.’
He stood up. For a moment it looked as if he might offer Blackstone his hand, then he simply turned and walked to the door.
‘Might I be permitted to ask you a question before you leave?’ the inspector said.
Bixendale turned again. ‘I can see no harm in that, providing you can curb your customary insolence,’ he said.
‘I’ll do my very best,’ Blackstone promised. ‘Where is Charlotte Devaraux going to be confined? In Bethlehem Hospital? Or is it to be the county lunatic asylum?’
‘Bethlehem Hospital, as I believe you already know, does not cater for long-term illnesses of the kind she is suffering from,’ Bixendale said. ‘And as for the county lunatic asylum, that is certainly no place for a lady like Charlotte.’
‘Then where… ?’
‘She is to be entrusted to the care of the Bixendale Foundation for the Mentally Ill.’
‘And where is this foundation located?’
‘On my estate in Scotland. Charlotte’s doctors think the fresh country air there will do her good.’
‘Is it doing the other lunatics good?’ Blackstone wondered. ‘As a matter of interest, how many other lunatics are there?’
‘The foundation is still in the very early stages of its development,’ Bixendale said.
Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5) Page 23