Seated before her dressing table, the Duchess greeted her warmly. Flaring candles on either side of the tall mirror illuminated her face. Marianne was reminded, not pleasantly, of her brief theatrical career. So must she have looked on those evenings when she performed, with a mixture of excitement and stage fright alternately flushing and whitening her cheeks.
"I have sent Rose away, she was of no use whatever," the Duchess said. "It is your company I want, in any case. Will you stay with me and help me dress? I want to look my best."
Marianne assumed the Duchess was primping in order to leave her friends with a lasting and beautiful memory. It was a morbid-enough idea, but when the girl turned, to see the dress that was laid out across the bed, she knew that until that moment she had never fully understood the truth.
The gown was one she had never seen the Duchess wear. But it was not new; the style was years out of date and the white fabric had begun to yellow. There were even a few faint cracks along the stiff folds. The bodice was trimmed with the softest, most exquisite of handmade lace, like a drift of snowflakes. There was no other ornament. On the table beside the bed stood a vase of waxy white gardenias, the prized products of MacDonald's conservatory. A draft rattled the windows and carried the flowers' sweet, overpowering scent to Marianne's nostrils.
For an instant she thought she was going to be sick. Then – from what cause she never really knew – the last of the many changes of mood she had undergone took place; it was to stay with her until the end. It was plainly and simply pity.
"How perfectly beautiful," she said in a steady voice. "I must do my best to do justice to that gown."
She brushed the Duchess's hair till her arms ached and shaped it into a masterpiece of soft waves and curls, crowning it with the waxy flowers. She took her time; there was no hurry. At the Duchess's suggestion she brought her dress from her own room and they primped and laughed and admired one another like two young girls preparing for a ball. When all else was ready she slipped the white satin gown over the old lady's head and fastened the long row of tiny buttons. Then she stood back and clasped her hands.
"You are lovely," she said.
"One more thing." Around her neck the Duchess hung the gold locket that contained David Holmes's picture.
Then they went down together.
Marianne's new calm was sorely tested when she saw Roger Carlton's face change, at the sight of the satin wedding dress. But the doctor was magnificent. He behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, or was expected to happen. He talked, he told bad jokes, he flirted with the Duchess. Somehow he got them through the first bad minutes until Carlton revived and made spasmodic attempts to join in. Lady Annabelle did not make her appearance until they were ready to go in to dinner. She looked almost undressed without a cat in her arms; the orange hairs clinging to the front of her green velvet gown suggested that she had held Horace until the last possible minute, and Marianne had a sudden insane vision of a maid wrestling the animal away before allowing her mistress to leave the room. Perhaps it was the absence of her favorite companion that made her so ill at ease; she sat in silence, moving her hands restlessly and blinking her eyes until Marianne yearned to shake her.
She was unable to eat. The time had come upon her so quickly that she felt cheated; she wanted more time to think, to plan. But perhaps it was just as well. How could one plan for the unimaginable?
When the port was brought in, the Duchess rose. "Tonight we will go out together," she said in a calm, clear voice. "Horace, give me your arm, please."
Speechless, the doctor complied. The two went out, arm in arm.
Marianne turned to Carlton. "What are we going to do? We must do something."
"Do nothing." His eyes held hers. "Say nothing, do nothing. Whatever impulse may strike you, whatever force may compel you – resist it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but -"
"Always 'but.' " He smiled at her. He seemed in the grip of some strange excitement, but his smile was free of malice, the smile of a friend.
"Roger," Lady Annabelle said plaintively, "I don't feel well. Something is going to happen. Something bad. I don't know how I know that, but I do. Must I come with you?"
"I would like you to. Do you mind? You never have before."
"But this is different. At least let me bring Horace."
"Now, Lady Annabelle…" Carlton let out a brief, unamused laugh. "After all, what does it matter? They say cats are in tune with occult forces; why not?"
"Thank you, thank you." Lady Annabelle trotted out.
Carlton offered Marianne his arm. "Cheer up," he said. "The worst is yet to come."
"You have some scheme in mind," she said, as they walked along together. "Tell me what it is. I am half insane with worry."
"You have some distance to go before you break," was the seemingly callous reply; but Marianne sensed that it was not meant in a derogatory sense, and she was pleased. "I can't tell you," he went on rapidly – for they were approaching the White Room. "I do have an idea – but it is so wild, so unlikely that I can scarcely believe it myself; and even if it is true, it gives me no real guidelines by which to act… Trust me."
She had no opportunity to reply. They were at the door.
The room felt cold, despite a blazing fire and the illusory warmth of lamps and candles. The doctor pushed aside one of the draperies and looked out.
"It is a wild night," he said gravely. "God help any poor soul abroad in this winter darkness. Honoria, in the presence of your friends, I make one last plea. Do not do this."
"I will and I shall," was the calm reply. "Horace, dim the lights."
Lady Annabelle's breathless arrival added a touch of comedy to the otherwise macabre scene. She came in sideways, her shoulders hunched, though Horace's huge orange tail hanging down over her arm made futile any attempt to hide his presence. The Duchess did not comment, however, and Lady Anna-belle sidled crab-fashion into a chair.
No one suggested forming a circle or holding hands or any of the other controls usual to such meetings. As the light gradually dimmed, Marianne watched Carlton. His face grave, his eyes abstracted, he seemed deep in thought. She had not often seen him in a serious mood, and she thought it became him.
The doctor put out the last light and shifted the heavy screen before the fire. Marianne heard the creak of leather and deduced that he had taken a chair next to the screen rather than stumble across the room in the dark.
In the silence she heard the wind crying like a lost child. Remembering Carlton's warning, she clenched her hands and determined to follow his advice.
The doctor's voice suddenly exclaimed, "Nothing is going to happen. Honoria, I beg -"
A long, drawn-out sigh broke into this speech. It was followed by a loud intake of breath that went on and on until Marianne thought it would never end. When at last the expiration followed, it too was abnormally extended. The deep, slow breathing continued for several seconds before Marianne realized that it issued from Roger Carlton. His head had fallen forward onto his breast.
"Roger?" the Duchess exclaimed in utter astonishment.
"What?" the doctor cried. "What is it?"
"Be still! Not another sound!"
Carlton's body jerked convulsively. His head fell back against the high carved back of the chair.
"He is entranced," the Duchess exclaimed. "I never knew -"
From Carlton's lips came a voice that did not sound like his – a strained yet penetrating whisper.
"Murder… will out. After years… murder…"
Somewhere in the room someone's voice caught in a harsh gasp.
"Vengeance…" Carlton's voice droned. "Vengeance is mine…"
"What are you saying?" the Duchess whispered. "Who are you? David – David, is it you?"
A breath of icy air blasted the room, sending the heavy draperies billowing furiously. With a blasphemous oath the doctor leaped from his chair and sent the screen toppling over. The fire leaped up
, fanned by the wind; and in its light Marianne saw a tall figure standing in the window. It might have been male or female; it wore a long, shrouding black garment, and its head was covered. With the snowflakes swirling madly around it, it resembled some elemental spirit, born of the darkness and the storm. It lifted one arm and swept off its hat. The light shone on a cap of silvery fair hair.
The doctor shrieked like a mortally wounded animal. "Damn you! Have you come from Hell to haunt me? How many times must I kill you?"
Arms extended, fingers crooked, he plunged in a headlong rush toward the figure in black. It stepped nimbly to one side as he came at it; still shrieking curses, the doctor rushed out into the storm and was gone.
The man in black closed the windows and put out an arm to stop Carlton, who had gone in pursuit.
"You will only endanger your own life, my friend, by following. You had better stay."
Calmly, like a well-trained servant, he moved along the wall lighting the lamps. In their swelling glow Marianne saw him clearly: a tall, thin man, no longer young; his hair was not fair, but completely white.
When he removed his cloak, tossing it carelessly toward the chair, she saw that he was wearing the collar and cassock of a Catholic priest.
Carlton pressed his hand to his head. "I could not find him in this storm," he muttered, looking at the window. "It is too late now."
"It was already too late for him, long before this," the stranger said. "You will find him in the morning. It will be soon enough. You know where he has gone."
"To the waterfall, you mean?" Carlton said dazedly. "He did not kill you, then?"
"He tried." The stranger brushed the clustering curls from his high white forehead. A livid scar twisted from hairline to temple. "He did me a service, though he intended harm. My doubts and questions ended. All was made clear to me. I had found my true vocation and I followed it."
Smiling, he looked down at something at his feet; and Marianne saw that Horace the lethargic had at last found an object worth moving for. The cat was rubbing his head against the black-clad ankles and purring loudly. Holmes bent to stroke him.
"I knew your grandfather," he said whimsically. Horace let out a hoarse meow as if in response. With a final caress, Holmes straightened. "Lady Annabelle, I hope all is well with you."
Annabelle nodded. "It is. But… but -"
"I know." Holmes nodded gravely. "I came only for that."
He crossed the room, moving with the grace Marianne had heard described. The Duchess sat upright in her chair, her eyes wide open, her hands resting on the arms of her chair. Her lips were curved in a faint smile.
Holmes passed his hand over her brow, closing her eyes. Then he knelt by her chair, crossed himself and bent his head.
Not until after the funeral was Marianne in a fit state to untangle the final riddles. There had been much to do, for Lady Annabelle had retired with her cats and refused to come out, and Lady Violet, though she tried to help, was too obsessed with the latest evidence of the Devenbrook curse to be very useful. To Marianne, with Carlton's full assent and cooperation, went the mournful task of dealing with the Duchess's personal possessions.
When she left the church with Carlton after the simple service, they turned in silent accord away from the ducal carriage and walked slowly along the road. It was a mild winter day; the sunlight was muted by mist; the air was still.
"I thought he would be here today," Marianne said, after a long silence.
"He returned to Rome yesterday. He had already said goodbye to her, you know."
"I am still bewildered," Marianne said. "That he should be alive after all…"
"Did you think he was a ghost when he made that theatrical appearance?" Carlton asked with a smile.
"No. No, strangely enough, I never thought that. He does not convey an aura of ghostly terror. But it was cruel of him to leave her to grieve all those years."
"The saints are often cruel," Carlton said quite seriously. "Having their minds on higher things, they care little for the transitory agonies of this life. But do the man justice, Marianne. He must have suffered greatly. And, with all respect to a good, kind woman…"
"I know. She would never have let him go."
"You don't blame her?"
"Oh, no! Nor can I truly grieve for her. She had what few people have – the attainment of her fondest wish." Marianne was silent, remembering that desperate and oddly prophetic prayer: "David's hand… guiding me over the threshold."
Then she said, with a sudden change of mood from melancholy to vindictive, "It is the doctor I cannot forgive. How could he? And how in heaven's name did you come to suspect the truth? That was what you meant, was it not – to accuse him, with your melodramatic groans about vengeance and murder?"
Carlton looked somewhat sheepish. "It was not a good performance," he admitted. "But I had to act fast, before Gruffstone could begin his playacting, and I counted on the atmosphere supplying any deficiencies in my talent. Yes, I suspected Gruffstone – not of murder, in the beginning, but of being responsible for the tricks at the seances. I should have seen it long before I did; for if you will think back over all that happened, Marianne, you will realize that he was the only one who could have engineered everything."
"Yes, I see it now. In London, when the thing began, there were only the four of us. For a time I suspected the Duchess of tricking herself."
"So did I. But during the last seance but one Gruffstone became overconfident. I was seated next to the Duchess and I knew she never left her chair. The doctor, on the other hand, made sure he sat at some distance from us."
"I had an advantage you did not," Marianne said slyly. "I knew I was innocent."
"You were certainly the most obvious suspect," Carlton said. Then, as if to keep her from asking the question that came next to mind, he hastened on with his explanation. "I could see how the doctor might have engineered the majority of the tricks; remember he actually boasted of having studied the devices those 'charlatans' used in their seances. Phosphorescent paint on gloves and other objects, a chemical that became visible only after heat was applied – the lamp under the 'mysterious' writing was one of the largest, if you recall, and he could count on your wishing to brighten that dismal room; even the bust of Holmes, which he took from its place as he was closing the draperies and flipped dexterously onto the table while I was staring suspiciously at you. That made his task all the easier, the fact that no one thought of watching him. But the biggest stumbling block was your astonishing trance state."
"I cannot recall that, even now."
"No wonder. You were mesmerized."
"What?" Marianne stared in disbelief.
"Or hypnotized, if you prefer that term; it was coined by Dr. Braid of Edinburgh, who experimented with the procedure in the early forties. You may thank Mr. MacGregor, who will be joining our establishment tomorrow, for giving me that vital clue. I was so desperate by that time that I tried to pump him about drugs or other substances that could cause a person to fall into a seeming trance. He mentioned Braid, and Charcot, and a lot of other fellows I had never heard of, and it was like a light in a dark room. I saw how it might have been done. I interrogated Gruffstone and, sure enough, he had studied in Edinburgh when Braid was there. The technique is considered questionable by most physicians, so he never used it openly, but I have no doubt that many of his patients benefited by his experiments along those lines."
"I was very stupid," Marianne said. "But he seemed so kind, so strong -"
"That is why he was such a successful hypnotist. Especially," Carlton added, with a sidelong glance, "with a young, orphaned, impressionable, frightened -"
"Ninny."
"Not really," Carlton said tolerantly.
"You had a great deal on your mind. I don't believe I have ever met a young woman who has crowded so many adventures into such a short period of time."
"But why did he do it?" Marianne asked. "He was the last person I would have suspected of w
anting to harm her."
"He didn't want to. He knew she was mortally ill and doomed to die soon, so… Really, his motives are too complicated for a simple person like myself to understand. Hatred and jealousy of Holmes were part of it. After all his years of devotion, to see himself supplanted in her affections by an upstart like that…
"The night Holmes disappeared he was half mad with jealousy. Remember, Holmes's supposed psychic talents had been quiescent for a year and they were due to return soon. Gruffstone saw him gaining more and more of the lady's confidence; she had already spoken of making him her heir. The doctor did not know that Holmes was fighting a profound mental and emotional battle of his own. He believed in his powers and felt they were for good; but his church condemned him for using them. He was in an impossible dilemma.
"Gruffstone had no idea of this. He followed Holmes that night and demanded that he end his relationship with the Duchess. Holmes refused, saying he must follow his own conscience. In a fit of fury Gruffstone struck him and pushed him into the stream. He survived by a miracle – he uses that word quite literally, I assure you – and found, when he dragged himself from the water, that his path lay clear before him. He entered the priesthood and has served ever since.
"I did not begin to suspect Gruffstone of murder until quite late in the proceedings, when I was desperately seeking a means of forcing him to confess his antics in the seance room. The idea was so dreadful I could scarcely believe it; yet if the rest of my theory was correct, Gruffstone had every reason to wish Holmes dead. You see, his basic motive was the common shabby one of greed. You were there when I read the will."
"She left him ten thousand pounds," Marianne exclaimed. "Such a paltry sum!"
"You can afford to sneer at it, since you were left almost two hundred thousand."
"I have no intention of keeping it. I told you that." Marianne twisted the ring on her finger. "This is the only keepsake I want."
"How high-minded you are! Ten thousand pounds is a great sum of money for a poor doctor, I assure you, especially when he has a wounded son to take care of. But therein lies the greatest irony of all, to my mind; the only way Gruffstone could get his inheritance was by getting someone else much more. He knew the Duchess had put off making a will; it was likely that she would never do so. Hence the mad, brilliant scheme occurred to him – why not supply an heir whom she would wish to benefit, and so be inspired to do what she had postponed so long? He knew she would remember him, she had often expressed her intentions of doing so. And – mark the irony – the only heir who might rouse such an interest in her was another David Holmes. Holmes could not be resurrected – so the doctor believed, little knowing the truth – nor would he want to do so. But the Duchess had often mentioned her fantasy about a child of Holmes – that was all it was, her desire to believe that something of the man she loved remained on earth. Gruffstone hit on this as his means to an inheritance, and subtly fanned her vague hope into a burning obsession. He of all people knew how seriously ill the Duchess was. Time was growing short. So he began his search for a girl who could pass as Holmes's daughter. It took him almost two years, for finding the right person was difficult. She had to be an orphan, without kin who could prove her true parentage. And she had to be a lady of breeding; the Duchess would never accept a common girl of the streets as her dear David's child. He even used me in the search," Carlton added, with a disgusted look. "When I mentioned you -"
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