A Broken Vessel (24 page)

“What—what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. Is Rosemary dead?”

Avondale started violently. “No, of course not! Is that what Megan told you? If she did, she was lying—trying to get your sympathy. Damn her! Oh, damn her soul to hell!”

He flung open a cupboard and pulled out a brandy decanter. With shaking hands, he poured himself a glass and drank it down. His charm began to struggle to the surface. “I beg your pardon. How frightfully rude. Will you have a glass?”

“No, thank you. If Rosemary isn’t dead, where is she?”

“If I wouldn’t tell Megan, why in God’s name should I tell you?”

“To avoid my getting the wrong idea? It’s a devilish awkward thing, making young women disappear. It leads to very embarrassing enquiries. If you don’t explain, I shall have to tell someone about this. I shall feel a duty to see that something is done.”

Avondale stared at him as though stunned. Then he looked away slowly. He picked up the decanter to pour another glass, then changed his mind and set it down again. “You’re all wrong about this, Kestrel,” he said abruptly. “I haven’t made anyone disappear. Surely you can see Megan’s off her head?”

“Do you mean Rosemary is a figment of her imagination? She seemed real enough to you a few moments ago.”

“Rosemary is real. It’s this notion that I—made away with her—that’s a delusion.” He came closer, all persuasiveness, like a schoolboy sharing secrets. “Come, what did Megan tell you? What maggot has she got in her head now?”

“She said enough to make me curious. I know this wasn’t the first time she’d come to your house at night. And I suspect she’s been leaving you reminders of Rosemary.”

“She has—the devil fly away with her! Look here, Kestrel, we’re both men of the world. I’ll tell you the truth, but you’ve got to give me your word as a gentleman you won’t let it get about. You see, I’m engaged to be married. My cousin Ada’s just accepted me.”

He paused to give Julian an opportunity to congratulate him. But Julian only looked at him, his brows raised in cool expectation.

“Well,” Avondale resumed, “you can understand. I don’t want to fling a scandal in her face directly she’s promised to marry me. Rosemary is—she’s a relation of Megan’s. I—well, it’s the usual tale. I got into a scrape with her, and Megan found out about it and followed us to London. But Rosemary’s not with me anymore, and I can’t tell Megan where she is because, frankly, I don’t know. She’s probably gone on to some other fellow. Her sort mostly do.”

Julian had been debating over how much of his story to believe, but this last part he knew was a lie. Avondale must know what had become of Rosemary, because when Julian had asked him earlier where she was, he had flashed back,
If I wouldn’t tell Megan, why in God’s name should I tell you?
It was all very well if he chose to hide a mistress somewhere, or pension her off now that he was going to be married. Certainly it was no business of Julian’s. But what if he had hidden her in the refuge his father supported? And what if he could not reveal where she was because he knew she was dead?

Julian recalled Mary’s letter, abasing herself for an act of folly, putting out a feeler in the hope that some relation would forgive her and take her back. Could her letter have been intended for Megan, and could someone have intercepted it and passed it on to Avondale? Mary was killed on the night after Sally stole the letter. Perhaps Avondale moved swiftly to see that she never made a second appeal.

But questions loomed in Julian’s mind. If Avondale had Mary—Rosemary?—killed, it could not have been simply to hide their love affair from his future bride. Miss Grantham would realize he must have had mistresses. Even the most chaste, respectable girl understood that young men-about-town did not live like monks. No, Avondale would have needed a more compelling reason to be rid of Rosemary than that. Julian could think of no such motive that fit with Mary’s letter, or her behaviour at the refuge.

“That woman I met tonight,” he said, “Miss—?”

“MacGowan,” supplied Avondale unwillingly.

“She was obviously Scottish. Was Rosemary Scottish, too?”

“I don’t know why you say ‘was.’ Haven’t I told you, Rosemary is alive! Or if she isn’t,” he added hastily, “I don’t know anything about it.”

“But is she Scottish?” That was important. There was no indication, either from Mary’s letter or from the testimony at the inquest, that she was a Scot.

“She’s half Scottish and half English. What does it matter? Look here, I’d as lief not talk about her anymore. It’s a painful subject. You won’t tell anyone about all this, will you? I’d hate Ada to be hurt.”

“I don’t think you quite appreciate the quandary I’m in. I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but a woman appealed to me for help tonight. At all events, that’s how I interpreted her entrusting me with that message for you. She was angry and desperate. She obviously believes you’ve done Rosemary a mischief—”

“That’s rubbish! I told you, Megan is mad. You can’t credit anything she says.”

“She didn’t seem mad to me. In fact, I thought she was rather clever.”

“Well, she’s crafty. Mad people often are, I believe. They get an idea in their heads, and they act on it sensibly enough, but the idea is crack-brained to begin with—like my great-uncle who thought he was Henry the Eighth.”

“My dear fellow, you may be right, and Miss MacGowan may be as mad as a March hare, but I’ve got to satisfy myself that her fears for Rosemary are groundless. Otherwise, tiresome though it is, I shall have to let Bow Street or some such authority know this young woman is missing.”

“No, you mustn’t—Hang it, what do you want? What can I do to convince you?”

“Will you answer a few questions?”

Avondale walked back and forth, thinking hard. Julian felt sure he was trying to decide how much of the truth he dared tell. “All right, fire away. But you’ve got to give me your word you’ll keep all this dark.”

“If there’s no reason to believe Rosemary is in danger, I shall be glad to let the matter drop.”

“I suppose I’ll have to make do with that. What do you want to know?”

“When did you last see Rosemary?”

“In July.”

“Where?”

Avondale hesitated for a moment. “Brighton.”

Interesting. Birkett had told Dipper that his master did in fact go away in July. But he said Avondale journeyed north, not south, to judge by the clothes he took with him. And if Avondale had gone to a fashionable spot like Brighton, he would surely have taken his valet.

“How did you and Rosemary part?”

“She left me. I hadn’t known her very long—a few weeks. I met her in Brighton. She and Megan were staying there.”

“Where, exactly?”

“In a cottage, a little outside the town. I can’t describe the place precisely.”

Julian did not ask him to try. He felt sure the whole business about Brighton was a blind. But he wanted Avondale to go on talking. The more he said, the better chance there would be of teasing a few strands of truth out of his tissue of lies. “Your acquaintance with Rosemary seems to have begun and ended rather suddenly.”

“Well, those sorts of things do, sometimes. You know: you go away for a bit, think you want to be alone, then you get bored and start looking about. And if there happens to be a personable female, you take up with her, but it doesn’t amount to anything. One day Rosemary went off, I don’t know where, and I went back to London. But the devil of it is, Megan thought I knew where she was and came after me. And when I said I didn’t, she went off her head and accused me of hiding her, or—I don’t know what.”

“How long has Miss MacGowan been hanging about here, chalking
R
s on your door and that sort of thing?”

“A few weeks.”

“Since late September, or thereabouts? What was she doing between July and then?”

“How the plague should I know? Looking for Rosemary, I suppose.”

“If she thought Rosemary was with you, why didn’t she come to you at once?”

“I don’t know!” He walked rapidly back and forth. “Perhaps she couldn’t find me. Anyway, she doesn’t like me—hates me, in fact.”

“The feeling seems mutual.”

“Well, wouldn’t you hate a woman who followed you about, sank her claws into you and wouldn’t let go? I didn’t want any trouble with Megan. I’d have happily left her where I found her, but she clung on like a leech.”

“Why do you let her persecute you this way? At the very least, she’s damaged your property—slashed the hood of your carriage. You could have her up before a magistrate. You might even have her committed to Bedlam, if she really is mad.”

“Don’t you see, that would create just the kind of scandal I want to avoid!”

“But if she keeps up these sorts of antics, Miss Grantham is bound to find out sooner or later.”

“Then I’ll just have to tell her the truth. But I’m hoping Megan will tire of this game before it comes to that.”

“How often does she come here?”

“Lord knows. I’m never sure where Megan is, or what she might be doing.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”

That rang true. The frustration in his voice was unmistakeable.

“Did you know Megan before you met Rosemary?”

Avondale looked at him as an animal looks at a boy tormenting it through the bars of its cage. “No.”

“You always refer to her by her Christian name. That suggests a certain intimacy.”

“You can get very intimate with an enemy. More even than with a friend. You can’t always show your true self to a friend— he might not like what he saw! But it doesn’t matter what an enemy knows about you.”

“So Megan knows more about you than Miss Grantham does?”

“She knows—different things.”

“And Rosemary—how much does she know?”

“Not much.” Avondale smiled mirthlessly.

“How is she related to Miss MacGowan?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Everybody’s related to everybody else in Scotland.”

“Is her surname MacGowan, too?”

“Yes,” he said, after a moment’s pause.

Julian was tempted to sound him about Mary and the refuge. If Mary were Rosemary, and Avondale had a hand in her death, the mere mention of the refuge might frighten him into betraying his guilt. But he was clever, and Julian’s questions had put him on his guard. He might contrive to hide his shock, and without any real proof, Julian would simply be warning him to cover his tracks. Better to confront him with Mary’s letter after Sally had brought back whatever information she could about Mary’s life and death.

Avondale seemed rattled by Julian’s silence. “I’ve told you all I can about Megan and Rosemary. Can I count on you to keep it dark, for Ada’s sake?”

“Naturally, I shouldn’t like to distress Miss Grantham, or put you in a bad light with her.”

“Exactly so! It’s just a private matter—the sort of scrape any fellow could get into, only in this case it’s got a bit out of hand.”

“Evidently. But as it seems there’s nothing I can do for Miss MacGowan—”

“No, nothing!”

“—and as it’s really no affair of mine, I don’t see a need to mention it to anyone. I’m sorry I’ve had to cross-question you like this.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. To tell you the truth, it’s been rather a relief to confide in someone about all this,” His smile was engaging, boyish, candid—and Julian did not believe in it for a moment. Avondale had not confided in him. His relief came from thinking he had gotten away with—murder? It was too soon to say.

He talked briefly with Avondale about the hunter, then took his leave. On his way home, he wondered about Megan. Assuming she was not mad, what lay behind her quest for Rosemary? Why was she tormenting Avondale, and why was she so tormented herself? Was Rosemary so dear to her, or Avondale so hateful, that she was driven to savage his property, haunt his doorstep, accost his friends—sleepless, unkempt, a portrait of obsessive love, or hate? I’ve missed something, Julian told himself. I don’t know if Avondale’s led me astray, or I’ve got into a muddle on my own. I only know there’s a connexion I haven’t made. But where the devil is it?

CHAPTER
18

S
ally’s plan to keep an eye out for Caleb Fiske posed practical problems. The only time she had any leisure or privacy was at night, and her bedroom looked out on the back garden of the inmates’ house, rather than the street in front. She supposed that, if Caleb were dexterous enough, he could scale the back garden wall, but that would put him to a good deal of trouble and risk. When Mrs. Fiske had seen him, he was watching the refuge from Stark Street, which would certainly be his easiest, most prudent means of approach. So Sally decided she must keep her nightly vigil at the front of the refuge.

There was only one place in the inmates’ house where she could do that without being questioned or disturbed, and that was the area window in the wet laundry. The area was broad enough for her to get a pretty good view of the street, even if she did have to look up at it slantwise. On Tuesday night, she tiptoed down to the wet laundry, her footsteps echoing eerily on the uncarpeted stairs. She pulled up a table to the window and crouched on it, huddled in her big brown shawl. The street was quiet. An occasional drunkard weaved by, the watchman and the baked potato seller made their rounds, a beggar slunk along scrounging for horseshoe nails, but no one lurked about the refuge or seemed to be watching it. After an hour or two, she had to admit defeat and go back upstairs to get some sleep.