Cut to the Quick (19 page)

“If everyone is against me,” said Lady Tarleton, “if I must be cross-questioned like a common felon, then of course I have no choice but to submit. I have nothing to conceal. Though I’m afraid what I have to say will hardly justify the trouble you’ve taken to find it out. I dropped my scissors on the floor while I was working with it. It broke. I picked it up too hastily and cut my hand. It’s as simple as that.”

It’s anything but simple, thought Julian. How could you pick up a broken scissors from the floor, however carelessly, so as to cut your finger all the way from the knuckle to the middle joint? Oh, no, Lady Tarleton, that won’t do at all.

*

The servants had viewed the murdered girl’s body. Sir Robert found them in a fever of excitement, their horror mixed with fascination and a sense of their own importance. Here they were at the centre of a crime that might become as famous as the Ratcliffe murders! Most of them were full of pity for the girl, while a few said she was probably no better than she should be, but no one had the slightest idea who she was.

Sir Robert had no choice but to return to the drawing room and ask the Fontclairs and Craddocks to look at the girl. They were joined by a quaking Miss Pritchard, who had put Joanna and Philippa to bed with their doors securely locked. It was agreed that Sir Robert and Lady Fontclair would break the news of the murder to them early next morning, to make sure they did not hear of it first from gossip among the servants.

Meanwhile, Julian took MacGregor aside. “I want to thank you for putting a damper on what might have blown up into a very ugly quarrel between me and the Fontclairs. An affair of honour would have been deuced inconvenient just now.”

“It wouldn’t have come to that. Sir Robert's a sensible man, at bottom. He’d never have allowed what you young bucks are so wrongheaded as to call an affair of honour. All I did was give him

time to think, and let his conscience get the better of his family pride. That’s the Fontclairs’ besetting sin—they’ve all got at least a dash of it. Lady Tarleton’s the worst—she thinks she can ride roughshod over everything and everybody, just because she’s a Fontclair. The colonel’s too indolent, and that good-for-nothing son of his is too selfish, to give much thought to the family name. But make no mistake: If it were really threatened, they’d defend it quick enough, and they might be much more dangerous than Lady Tarleton, because she’s got scruples of a sort, and they don’t. Sir Robert’s different—he really tries to do right and not put his honour above England’s law, or God’s. But it’s a struggle for him—he’s head of the family, and the proudest of the lot of them. You don’t know what it costs him to hear you out with patience, when you put it to him that one of his family might have had something to do with the murder.”

“What about Miss Fontclair? Is she as fanatically proud as the others?”

“Isabelle? She’s a puzzle. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say she sets as much store by the family name as Lady Tarleton. What she’s got that Lady Tarleton lacks is self-control. She’s disciplined, like Sir Robert. Whether she’s got his moral sense is something else again.”

*

The dead girl lay face up on a divan in a small study. A quilt was wrapped around her up to her neck. In silence, the Fontclairs and Craddocks filed past her. Each of them held a candle to her face—looked at her—passed the candle to the next person—and withdrew into the shadows.

Julian stood unobtrusively near the head of the divan, so he could watch their faces as they looked at the girl. He hoped against hope he might learn something from their reactions. For it seemed more and more likely that one of them had killed her. Lady Tarleton, Craddock, Colonel Fontclair, Guy, Isabelle—none of them had a complete alibi for the time of death, and their statements ranged from dubious to unbelievable. Even Sir Robert and Lady Fontclair had each been alone for a quarter of an hour between half past four

and six—long enough to have stabbed the girl in Julian’s room and returned to the conservatory.

He found it hard to observe this ritual with the calm, alert detachment he needed. It was all very well to conclude, as a matter of logic, that one of these people must have killed her. It was quite another thing to see them filing slowly past her, and to picture each of them driving a knife into her living flesh. But he must not let his feelings cloud his judgement. Compassion was all very well, horror was only natural, but neither would do the girl any good now. The only thing of value left to give her was justice. And that was another reason—as if Dipper’s predicament were not enough! —why he must do everything in his power to solve the murder.

No one admitted to recognizing the girl. They got through the viewing fairly well—all except Guy, who stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth and ran out of the room. That might have meant something, or nothing, and the same could be said of all the suspects' reactions. Craddock's grimness, Lady Tarleton’s revulsion, the colonel’s dread—they could all be symptoms of guilt, or merely the natural responses of innocent people at the sight of a murder victim. Not that Julian would have described any of those three as innocent. They might not be guilty of murder, but they were each hiding something, he felt sure.

And speaking of hiding something, he would have to find out what Hugh and Miss Craddock lied about when Sir Robert was questioning them. Now that they had seen the dead girl in the flesh, they might be more willing to reveal anything they knew that could throw light on her murder. Maud was especially moved; there were tears spilling down her cheeks. To Julian’s surprise, she avoided both Hugh and her father, although Hugh offered her his handkerchief, and Craddock tried to put his arm around her. The only person she would accept comfort from was Lady Fontclair. But she took a moment to seek out Julian and whisper, “I just wanted to tell you, I’m sorry people are saying you had something to do with all this. / know you didn’t.” Julian could only be grateful he need not count Miss Craddock among the suspects.

Isabelle looked more shaken than Julian had ever seen her. After the viewing, she sat in a corner of the study, her hands clenched,

fighting for self-command. He went up to her and said gently, “You don’t have to stay here any longer. They’ll be coming soon to take the body away.”

She drew a long breath and rose. He offered her his arm, but she shook her head. “No, thank you. I can manage.”

They walked out together. After a while she said, “Do you suspect Aunt Catherine?”

“I don’t know what to think. I wish she’d told the truth about how she cut her hand.”

“Are you so confident you know when a person is telling the truth?”

“No, but sometimes it’s fairly obvious when someone is—mis-remembering.”

“I wonder you didn’t notice when your servant—misremem-bered—about going for a walk outside.”

“The people you trust are at a great advantage in lying to you. You don’t expect it. Which is why it’s just as well not to trust too many people.”

“1 suppose there’s no danger you might trust any of us.”

“Can I afford to?”

She gave him one of her cool, direct gazes. “I wouldn’t, if I were in your place.”

* 16*

It was after one o’clock in the morning when Sir Robert, MacGregor, and Julian finally sat down to dinner. Most of the household was in bed, although a few servants remained to wait at table. Rawlinson and Senderby had ridden to Alderton to arrange for the village mortician to come to Bellegarde and collect the girl’s body. Sir Robert thought it best to send it quietly to Alderton tonight, before news of the murder created a sensation in the village.

Rawlinson and Senderby also had instructions to bring back two men from the village, a carpenter and a stationer. They would be sworn in as special constables, charged with assisting Senderby in the murder investigation. It gave Senderby some satisfaction to think of waking up his neighbours in the middle of the night and pressing them into service as his deputies. All of Alderton had been so eager to force him into the office of constable! Now he would see how some of them liked pestering people with questions and searching people’s rooms, with Sir Robert Fontclair looking over their shoulders at every turn.

What remained to be decided was the fate of Dipper. Senderby's search of his room and belongings had turned up nothing of interest. He had been locked in Rawlinson’s office for several hours; he could not be kept there all night. Sir Robert announced his decision to MacGregor and Julian after they had dined, and the servants had

left them alone. “I intend to commit him to gaol—not the county gaol, but merely the lockup in Alderton. I don’t propose to charge him with the murder yet. I have too little evidence, particularly about the victim’s identity, to feel justified in binding him over for trial. But I have it in my power to hold him for three days, at the end of which time I shall consider releasing him, if no further evidence against him has come to light.”

“Will you let me stand surety for him instead?” asked Julian. “Only name an amount of money, and I’ll put it up.”

“I’m afraid that, where the crime is so serious, there can be no security short of confining the accused in gaol.”

“If he were to bolt, it would look like an admission of guilt. And he couldn’t get very far without being caught and brought back.” “You force me to be blunt, Mr. Kestrel. I cannot permit you to stand surety for Stokes, because I am not completely satisfied you had nothing to do with the crime yourself.”

“I see,” said Julian softly. “In that case, Sir Robert, I have another request. I should like to take part in your investigation of the murder.”

“What exactly do you wish to do?”

“I wish to be kept apprised of whatever you discover, and to make enquiries myself.”

“Do you doubt my ability to handle this investigation?”

“No, not at all. I just want to assist you. I’ve often been told it’s every Englishman’s duty to enforce the law. That’s why we supposedly have no need of police, and why any man can be called up on the order of a magistrate to help keep the peace.”

“I haven’t called upon you to help me, Mr. Kestrel.”

“I have volunteered, Sir Robert. I think it’s not merely my duty, but my right. My servant stands accused of the murder, and although I don’t believe for a moment you’ll find any more evidence against him than you have now, I believe that juries, faced with especially atrocious murders, like to find someone guilty. I don’t relish the notion of Dipper’s being hanged for want of any more plausible suspect turning up. Besides, it’s been hinted, and more than hinted, that I had a hand in the murder myself. My honour is implicated. With respect, I think you cannot refuse me.”

“I admit, there is something in what you say. Very well. You may take part in the investigation and make enquiries yourself, provided you can do so with discretion and without giving offence.” “Thank you, Sir Robert.”

“Don't think I'm unaware that your primary aim will be to determine whether one of my family is guilty. That you or anyone else could think such a thing pains and affronts me more than I can say. But I recognize that the possibility must be explored, and I should rather have you explore it, informally and quietly, than invite London policemen into my house to question my family and guests. If, a week hence, we haven’t come near to solving this crime, then I shall have no choice but to appeal to the Bow Street Runners. But I hope and trust that, with God’s help, we shall get to the heart of this matter ourselves.”

He rose and excused himself, saying he must find out if Rawlinson and Senderby had returned with the special constables. After he was gone, Julian said to MacGregor, “He could spare himself a good deal of anguish by turning over this investigation to another magistrate.”

“This is his ship, and he’s the captain. He won’t give up command unless and until there’s clear evidence one of his family had something to do with the murder.”

“And he’s invited me to ferret out that evidence, if I can. What a devil of a task. I wish I could believe the murderer was a housebreaker, or some disgruntled labourer bent on terrorizing the landed gentry. But the evidence just doesn’t point that way.”

He reviewed with MacGregor the problem of access to and from the house—above all, the impossibility that any stranger could have escaped without either being seen or leaving a door unfastened behind him. “That’s a poser,” MacGregor admitted. “But as to how the murderer got in—he could have come in with the girl. We know she sneaked in somehow, late this afternoon. If one could do it, why not two?”

“You're assuming she got in shortly before she was killed. And we don't know that, do we? She could have been here for hours, even days.”

“And nobody happened to notice her?”

“This is a very large house. She could have hidden in some unused room—or someone could have hidden her.”

“Confound it, Kestrel, this is a respectable English house—not something out of The Mysteries of l)dolpho\"

“I don't know. I’m beginning to feel distinctly like a character in one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. All right: Let’s suppose the girl got in within the last four-and-twenty hours. How might she have done that without being seen? Travis is positive no one climbed through any of the windows. That leaves us with the front door, the back door, and the French doors in the conservatory. Any one of them might have been left unlocked and unattended long enough for the girl to slip in. But how could she have known that? She’d be taking an immense risk, entering through one of those doors and hoping no one would be there to see her.”

“But, man, she got in somehow!”

“Oh, unquestionably. But I think she had the cooperation of someone in the house—someone who watched for her and let her in when the coast was clear. That would have been easier at night than in the daytime— No, perhaps I’m wrong. Guy told me dogs guard the house at night. She couldn't have come near without their raising an outcry.”

“Not if somebody they knew was with her,” MacGregor pointed out reluctantly.

“True.” Julian looked thoughtful. “Guy came in last night at one or two in the morning. I know because he stopped by my room. He was bosky, but still fairly lucid. He said he uses the back door to get in and out at odd hours.”