Cut to the Quick (30 page)

“It was partly that campaign. It wore down the hardiest of us. It went on for years, one skirmish after another, and one day we’d have the advantage, and the next day the French would. The heat was stifling, the terrain was rough, supplies were hard to come by. The Spanish were like wild animals, and our troops not much better. I was bored and restless. But in the end, it was that woman. I’ve never known another who could do to me what she did.

“I never told her anything important. It wasn't as though I sold my own men, gave them up to the French! Little things, that’s all I told her! Things the French probably knew about anyway. I didn't see her for long stretches at a time, and when I wasn’t with her, I worried about her being with other men. I was crazed with jealousy. I had an idea she’d be faithful to me if I kept her supplied with information. I didn't tell her anything of consequence, you’ve got to believe me! But those letters—I have a feeling they’d look pretty bad if they came to light now."

Sir Robert’s gaunt, patrician features were pinched with distaste. He had obviously heard all this before. “Neither Mr. Kestrel nor I is interested in your explanations. What we wish to know is whether your letters might have any bearing on the murder.”

“I don’t see how they could.”

“You can’t think of any reason to connect the girl with Mademoiselle Deschamps?” said Julian.

“What reason could there be?”

“The girl was foreign. She could have been a relation, or a servant.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Geoffrey muttered.

“When did you last hear from her? Mademoiselle Deschamps, I mean.”

“I lost track of her after the French were driven back over the Pyrenees. I was wounded and sent back to England at about that time. Gabrielle might have been killed—a lot of the French in Spain were. But she might have escaped to France. I never heard anything more about her. I’d all but managed to forget her, till Craddock turned up and said he had my letters.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what became of them?” asked Julian.

“I tried not to think about it. It would be like Gabrielle to keep them. She’d never let anything slip through her fingers that might be turned into money. But how the letters got in that jewelry box, I’m damned if I know.”

Julian considered. “If Gabrielle died, who would be likely to inherit her possessions?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she ever mention any family?”

“No/* He shifted in his chair, and looked miserably at Sir Robert. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Mr. Kestrel and I will continue to search for a link between the murder and this matter of your letters. You must understand that, if there is such a link, I can t shield you any longer. The whole story will have to come out.”

"What if there isn't a link?” Geoffreys hollow eyes shifted from Sir Robert to Julian.

“I assure you, Colonel, I have no interest in revealing anything Ive learned about your family that isn’t related to the murder.” Geoffrey rose heavily. “If you’re finished with me, I’ll go now.” “I have a few more questions,” said Julian. “On Thursday evening, Lady Tarleton and I found you in the gun room with Lady Fontclair. She was saying to you, ‘It’s wicked and wrong. Promise you will never think of it again.* What did she mean?”

Geoffrey’s ruddy colour deepened. “I was thinking I might just load one of the guns and—and settle my accounts. Cecily made me promise not to. She said I'd show more courage by facing up to things. And she said my death wouldn’t stop Craddock from using my letters against the family.” He paused, then asked hoarsely, “Anything else?”

“I was wondering if you're in the habit of carrying a knife.”

“I have a pocket knife,” stammered Geoffrey, eyes dilating. “Did you have it with you on the day of the murder?”

“I— I don't remember.”

Sir Robert moved away, as though he really could not bear to look at Geoffrey any longer. “If you’re satisfied, Mr. Kestrel, I think we can allow my brother to go.”

Geoffrey started toward the door, then turned and said piteously, “Have you got to tell Guy about my letters, and everything?” “We've been keeping it from Guy,” Sir Robert explained to Julian. “Geoffrey didn't want him to know, and I saw nothing to be gained by burdening him with the knowledge.”

“Does Hugh know?”

“We had to tell him. It wouldn't have been right to ask him to accede to Craddock’s demands without telling him what was at stake.”

“And Miss Fontclair?”

“She hasn’t been told. She takes such pride in our name and lineage that I wanted to spare her knowledge of this dishonour.” Geoffrey turned his face away, and hobbled slowly out of the room. Sir Robert looked after him stonily, then rang for the footman and told him he wished to speak with Mr. Craddock.

Oo she's told you about the letters, has she?” said Craddock to Julian. “I don't know what she expected to gain by it. Maybe she thought by putting me in a bad light she could implicate me in the murder. But she’ll pay a high price, if this business of the letters is made public. The Fontclairs can call off the marriage, but that'll be small comfort to them, compared with the ruin of Colonel Fontclair. I didn't realize she hated me so much she'd sacrifice her own brother to spite me.”

Julian said, “That seems no more strange than that you should sacrifice your own daughter to spite her.”

“What do you mean by that?” Craddock said sharply.

“I mean that, whatever wrongs the Fontclairs may have done you, Miss Craddock is innocent, and I think she deserves better than to be used by her own father as an instrument of revenge.”

“Don’t meddle in matters that aren’t your concern, boy! I won’t stand for it. I know what your game is: you want to scuttle the marriage between my daughter and Hugh Fontclair, so you can get Maud and her hundred thousand pounds for yourself. You’ve been making up to her ever since you got here—don't think I haven’t seen it. Well, you'd better know one thing at the outset, and I'll tell Maud the same: she’ll never see a ha’penny of my money if she marries any man but Hugh Fontclair.”

“My dear sir, I have no designs on either your ducats or your daughter. But I have a very high regard for Miss Craddock, and I won’t stand by and see her delivered up to an unwilling bridegroom, with a taint of blackmail on her that will poison her relations with him and his family for the rest of her life.”

"I didn’t force her to accept him! She made that choice.”

“She was choosing in the dark. She didn’t know what was at stake—how much harm she might do the Fontclairs if she re-fiised.”

“There was no reason she had to know that! All she had to know was that I’d found a fine husband for her—good family, good character, money of his own. It was a good, solid match—no father could have arranged a better! How I arranged it was a matter of business that didn’t concern her.”

“In your place,” said Julian, “I should have been ashamed to tell her, too.”

“By God, sir, you go too far!”

He raised a fist. Julian tensed himself to parry the blow. But Sir Robert got between them. “Mr. Craddock, you force me to remind you, it’s within my power to arrest you for an assault committed in my presence. As for you, Mr. Kestrel, be so good as to remember

I sent for Mr. Craddock, not so that you could quarrel with him, but to allow you to question him about a possible link between the murder and my brother’s letters.”

Craddock threw Julian a hard, wary look. “What do you want to know?”

Under questioning, he recounted how he had come upon the letters by chance, while making a visit of inspection to one of the pawnshops he owned. “It was in March, about three months ago. The jewelry box caught my eye. I thought Maud might like it. Vorpe—Silas Vorpe, who runs that shop for me—said he had put it out for sale about a month before, because he’d had it a year, and the owner hadn’t redeemed it or paid the interest.”

Craddock had inspected the box and discovered the secret compartment containing the letters. “I read them, and a nice mixture of whining love letters and military information they were. It fairly made me sick. My first thought was to turn them over to the

government and the newspapers. But it just so happened I'd recently read in the society papers about a celebration in the offing for Hugh Fontclairs coming of age. I got to thinking. I saw there was a better use for the letters. You know the rest.”

“Didn’t you want to know who’d pawned the jewelry box?*’ asked Julian.

“Of course. I asked Vorpe, but he couldn’t say.”

“Doesn’t he have to keep a record of the name and address of everyone who pawns goods with him?”

“He couldn’t find the record of this transaction. The man’s as dull-witted as they come. I keep him in my employ because he’s meek and does as he’s told, and I don’t think he cheats me—or no more than most of my underlings do.”

Julian was skeptical. “If he’d lost the record, how did he know a year had gone by since the jewelry box was pawned, and it was time to put it out for sale?”

“He attaches a duplicate ticket to each item that’s left in pawn, showing what was paid for it, and when it’s due to be redeemed. I told him he keeps too many different bits of paper about him. This isn't the first time he’s lost a record. I said if it happens again, he’ll get the bag.”

“Did he remember anything about the person who pawned the box?”

“No. I told you, the mans got more guts than brains. But in fairness to him, he has customers in and out all day, every day. He couldn’t be expected to remember one who came in more than a year before.”

“Does he know about the letters?”

“Not so far as I know. I didn’t tell him.”

“Have you any idea at all who pawned the box?”

“No. But whoever it was must not have known the letters were there, or didn’t think they were worth keeping,”

“Yes,” mused Julian, “that’s what Lady Tarleton said, too.”

“I’d still like to know why she told you about the letters.” Julian said, because he was curious to see how Craddock would react, “1 think she wanted to stop me asking questions about what happened between you and her twenty years ago.”

“You poke your nose into everything, don't you? What happened between me and Lady Tarleton is none of your business!'*

“I agree there's no reason to rake up that matter again," said Sir Robert. “It was thoroughly enquired into at the time—"

Craddock laughed shortly.

“I gave you a fair hearing,” Sir Robert insisted, “and you had nothing to say in your own defence.”

“I wouldn't answer your sister's accusations, because I knew there was no chance you'd take my word against hers.”

“Are you saying that my sister was lying?”

“Yes. She was lying.”

“You never tried to force your attentions on her?”

“She was lying,” Craddock said stonily.

“I won't deign to answer such an accusation.”

“Of course not. I know I'm not gentleman enough to quarrel with a Fontclair on equal terms.”

“It ill becomes us to quarrel at all, now that we're so soon to be linked by marriage. We owe one another at least an appearance of loyalty and respect.”

“If all you're asking for is an appearance, I think I can manage that.” He turned to Julian. “What do you mean to do, now you know about Colonel Fontclair's treason?”

“I mean to find out if it has any bearing on the murder. If it hasn't, it's no affair of mine.”

“I suppose you'll tell Maud about the letters?”

“Not unless I have to. I thought you might rather tell her yourself.”

Craddock eyed him grimly. “All right. I'll tell her. But don't think she'll come round me—make me change my mind. As long as I have the letters, I'll hold the Fontclairs to their bargain. And it'll be the worse for them if they don't keep it!”

He went out. Sir Robert sighed. “We'd better go to bed. We have the inquest in the morning.”

“Just a moment.” Julian told him about his visit to Mrs. Warren, and the information he had gleaned from her. It would probably come out in her testimony at the inquest tomorrow, and he would as soon not be had on the carpet for keeping it back.

He still said nothing about his finds at the old mill. On his way up to bed, he remembered Dick Felton, and his eagerness to help in the investigation. The boy was observant; he might well have a talent for that kind of work. At any rate, Julian meant to find out. He had just the job for an aspiring Bow Street Runner.

*

Sir Robert’s image appeared in Lady Fontclair’s dressing-table mirror. She turned and smiled at him. He came forward from the doorway and sat beside her, in the chair that was always kept there for him. Her maid edged discreetly out of the room.

He had come to tell her about Kestrel’s discovery of Geoffrey’s secret, and about the latest finds in the investigation. He had also come to watch her take down her hair, which always gave him a solemn, secret thrill. While he talked, she took out the pins one by one, and the dark silky mass spilled slowly down her neck and over her shoulders. The candlelight turned her few white hairs into lightning gleams of silver.

She listened attentively, asking a question from time to time. When he finished, she sat silent for a while. Then she said, “Mr. Kestrel seems convinced that Geoffrey’s secret and the murder are linked.”

“He suspects they are.”

“Does he think Geoffrey murdered that girl?”

“I’m sure he entertains the possibility.”

“But, Robert, you and I know that can’t be true!”

“My love, I’m not sure I do know that. Not long since, I would have said Geoffrey was incapable of passing secrets to the enemy in wartime. I don’t trust him anymore.”

“You can’t think he would kill a young girl in cold blood!”

“I don’t think so, no. But I can’t say—as I would once have said—that it is impossible.”

“My dear love, you look as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders.” She came round behind him and cradled his head against her breast. He closed his eyes. “You know, you mustn’t take Mr. Kestrel’s suspicions so much to heart. He’s worried about his servant being in gaol, and that makes him overzealous in trying