Cut to the Quick (39 page)

He paced frantically up and down the hall, imagining Miss Craddock weeping and humiliated and miserable—and more in love than ever with Kestrel, who would never have spoken to her like a brute and a villain. And, Lord!—what would Craddock do when he found out the engagement was broken? Would he carry out his threat to publish Uncle Geoffrey’s letters? Hugh felt that coals of fire were being heaped on his head.

Only one thing was clear. Even if Maud would never again consider marrying him—which was no more than he deserved—he must get down on his knees and beg her pardon for the monstrous things he had said. After that, it did not matter what became of him. And he went away to dress for dinner, with the air of young Werther on his way to his suicide chamber.

*

Hugh came down to the drawing room early, hoping to catch Miss Craddock alone before dinner. But she did not appear until nearly seven, and by then the whole company was assembled—all except Kestrel, for whom Hugh was always on the lookout when Miss Craddock was about. Hugh got entangled in a conversation with his father and Dr. MacGregor, from which he had some trouble escaping. He was making his way toward Miss Craddock at last, when Aunt Catherine stepped into his path. “Is Mr. Kestrel going to be late to dinner again?"

“I don’t know, Aunt,” Hugh said distractedly, his eyes on Maud.

“I suppose he's off grubbing for clues again, like the low, foul-minded Bow Street Runner he is at heart."

“I'm sorry you think so badly of the Runners,” said Kestrel's voice. “I'm beginning to have a great deal of respect for what they do.”

He was standing in the doorway of the drawing room, so that only the right side of his body could be seen. He remained there till everyone's eyes turned toward him in puzzled expectancy. Then he came all the way inside, so that they could see the gaudy patchwork sack draped over his left arm.

Guy jumped out of his chair. “Where did you get that?” Julian’s gaze had been sweeping the room, but now it fastened on Guy. “It belongs to Bliss, the pedlar.”

"But how did you—” Guy checked himself, looking around at the surprised faces turned to his. He sat down again, groping behind him for his chair as though in a daze. "I thought he'd left town. I thought he couldn't be found.”

“I sent Dick Felton to look for him.”

“You told me nothing of this, Mr. Kestrel,” Sir Robert protested. “I'm telling you now.” Julian spoke to Sir Robert, but his eyes remained fixed on Guy. “I'm going to make a clean breast of everything I've learned in the past four-and-twenty hours.”

Guy was shaking a little. “Why are you staring at me like that? You could drive a fellow distracted, coming after him with those eyes!” He started up out of his chair again. “Look here, if you know something, say it! Just say it! I—I can answer it. Tell me, for God's sake! If Bliss is spreading lies about me, I’d just as soon know what they are.”

Instead of answering, Julian reached into a pocket of his waistcoat and took out a small scrap of yellow cloth. He held it out to Guy. “What’s that?” Guy started back.

“I believe it’s the bit that was torn off the bottom of the murdered girl’s dress. I found it clinging to a jagged stone on the stairway.” “What stairway?” Sir Robert asked.

“The secret stairway that leads from my old room, where the body was found, to the back door in the servants* wing.”

A murmur of astonishment ran through the room. Guy staggered back as though from a blow. “Bliss can’t have told you about the passage! I never told him!—did I? I can’t remember—'*

"Guy!” cried Geoffrey. "What’s all this about a stairway, a passage?”

"But I know of no secret passage or stairway at Bellegarde,” Sir Robert said, bewildered.

"But you do, don’t you?” said Julian to Guy. "I make no doubt you could tell us all about it. That room was yours when you were a boy. You found the passage, but it seems you never told anyone about it. And a week ago today, you brought the girl known as Amy Fields through it to my room.”

Guy stared at him. Then, out of his throat came a choking noise that turned out, horribly, to be laughter. Once he started laughing, he could not stop. He fell back in his chair, gasping, "You devil, Kestrel! You devil!”

Geoffrey dropped his walking stick with a clatter, and covered his face. Lady Tarleton’s mouth fell open, but for once she had nothing to say. Hugh edged toward Maud and stood by her chair protectively. Isabelle bowed her head and turned her face away. Mark Craddock’s lip curled, and he looked at Guy with unutterable contempt.

Sir Robert closed his eyes. His face was ashen. Lady Fontclair went to him and put her arms around his shoulders. He reached out blindly and covered her hand with his.

"So,” said Guy, his eyes wild but his laughter abating, "I suppose Bliss told you everything.”

"I haven’t spoken to Bliss,” said Julian. "Felton couldn’t find him. All he found was this.” He indicated the patchwork sack.

"You mean—that’s all you have?” Guy gaped at the sack. Laughter convulsed him again. "You mean, if I’d only held my tongue— No, really, this is funny! It’s an absolute screamer, don’t you see? On the strength of a worm-eaten pedlar’s sack, I’ve put a rope around my neck! I don’t care. I’m glad it’s come out. You don’t know what hell I’ve been living through—keeping up appearances, wanting to know what the devil’d been found out about Amy, but afraid to seem too curious. What happens now—trial and execution? Oh, God.” He stopped laughing. A fit of trembling seized him. He shrank back in his chair and looked around him with terrified eyes.

Sir Robert said grimly, "As I’m still the magistrate in charge of

the investigation, I'll hear your confession and have Rawlinson take it down."

“I want to be there, Robert,” said Geoffrey. “You’ve got to let me be there with him.”

“Very well. I should like Mr. Kestrel to be there as well, as I have questions to put to him. And you, Doctor: I hope you will attend as an impartial witness.”

“But, Uncle—” Guy began.

Sir Robert rounded on him. “I'll hear nothing from you! You may speak on your own behalf—if there is anything you can say in extenuation of this—this atrocity—when you make your confession. I hope you mean to confess. I can't compel it, but I appeal to you, if you have any last, lingering regard for your name and family, to admit your guilt and spare us the humiliation of a trial.”

“Listen to me, Uncle, for God's sake—all of you!” Guy leaned forward, clutching the arms of his chair. “It’s true I brought Amy into the house. It's true I left her in Kestrel's room. But I won't confess to murder. I won’t, because, before God, you've got to believe me—I didn't kill her!”

A Nest of Secrets

(juy told his story in Julian's old room. Sir Robert chose to question him there so that Guy could explain exactly what had happened on the afternoon of the murder, and Julian could show where the secret passage was and how it worked.

The room looked enchanting in the early evening. The ebbing sunshine cast a soft glow on it, like a sprinkling of gold dust. But now its vibrant beauty was linked forever to ugly memories, There was the bed where Aimee had lain—where someone had tucked her carefully under the covers like a sleeping child. There was the wash-stand, where the murderer—Guy?—had washed off the blood from his hands, and perhaps from the weapon as well. The shieldback chair where Guy was sitting now was the chair on which Aimee had left her shawl and bonnet. Along the back of that chair was a scratch, corresponding to a scratch on the wall behind it. And on that same wall, above Guy's head, were the five faint smears of blood that seemed to have been made by a person's fingers.

Geoffrey pulled up a chair beside his son's. Sir Robert sat opposite. Julian stood before them, keeping all their faces in view. MacGregor paced back and forth, his head lowered like a charging bull's. Julian noticed he kept close to the door; perhaps he was afraid Guy would try to bolt. Rawlinson, unobtrusive as ever, took notes at the desk in the window recess.

'YouVe got to know it all from the beginning," said Guy, "or you'll never understand. Even then, you may not believe me. But, I swear, this is exactly how it was.

"I met Amy this past March. I saw her walking up Fleet Street with a bandbox on her arm. She was creeping along close to the wall with her head down, but I could see enough of her face to know I wanted a better look. I went up and tried to talk to her, but she took fright and hurried on. She wouldn't stop or so much as look at me—till I told her my name. That brought her up short. She was so much struck, I asked her if she knew anybody in the family. She said she didn't, but she'd heard we were an old county family, great guns among the Quality, that kind of thing. She asked all about us—what our names were, and where we all lived. When I found she was so dazzled by the name Fontclair, I played that card for all it was worth. Because once I got talking to her, I was pretty well floored. You don't know what she was like—I mean, you never saw her alive. She had this way of opening her eyes very wide and peeping up through her lashes. It drove me distracted. I had to have her. I don't know when I’ve wanted a girl so badly."

“Did she show a particular interest in your father?" asked Julian.

“I don’t think so." Guy frowned. “Well, maybe she did. I thought it was because he was a war hero. Amy was French, but she didn't seem to hold any grudge about the war. Maybe her people were royalists—I don't know, she never said much about them. She'd given herself an English name: Amy Fields. I don't know what her real name was. I never asked her.

“I met her pretty often after that. She'd find excuses to get out of the shop where she worked, and we’d talk in streets and public houses and even churches. I was always trying to get her into a carriage or a certain kind of house—you know the game—but she wasn’t having any. She'd walk and talk with me, but she’d hardly let me lay a finger on her. She said she didn’t want to go wrong and ruin her chances of getting respectably married. She said she'd never had anything to do with a man up to now. That might have been true. Hang it, it was true."

He shifted in his chair, wetting his dry lips. MacGregor, stony-

faced, poured him a glass of water. Guy, who had clearly been hoping for something stronger, drank it off resignedly.

"I dangled after her for about a month, and I was beginning to think the game wasn’t worth the candle, when something happened that changed everything. Amy saw the announcement of Hugh's engagement to Miss Craddock in the Morning Post. She asked me about it. I said there wasn't much to tell—only that Hugh’d got himself engaged to the daughter of a rich cit who used to work in our stables, and the family was pretty cut up about it. I didn’t mean to put ideas in her head, but I did. I could read her like an open book. She was thinking: If Hugh could marry so far beneath him, why couldn’t I?

"So then I knew how to come round her. I let on I might marry her—not straightaway, but later, when the family'd had a chance to get over the shock of Hugh's marriage. All right, of course I didn’t mean it. She ought to have known I didn't! How could I throw myself away on a little French ladybird—no money, no connexions? But she believed it, and that's how I got her to come away with me.”

Louisa’s words about Aimee and her colonel came back to Julian, with a new and tragic force: She used to daydream he'd adopt her, make her really his daughter. How could she resist the chance to become his daughter, by marrying his son?

Guy went on, “I got her to leave her trumpery hatshop and let me find her a place to live. But she got this maggot in her head that we had to keep our affair a secret. She was terrified my family would find out she was my mistress, and they’d never accept her as my wife. She wouldn't be seen in public with me, she'd have nothing to do with my friends or their women, she was dead set on living like a hermit till we were wed.

“I set her up in a house owned by a woman I know named Daphne Bane. She runs a couple of—young ladies' academies—but she also has a little house near Hampstead, where she holes up when things get too hot for her in town. I talked her into letting Amy stay there. It was a retired kind of place, so Amy didn't have to worry about people seeing me visit her.

“At first, her being so secretive was pretty convenient. She never went anywhere or saw anyone but Daphne, so'she couldn't get in the way of anything I wanted to do, or have jealous fits about other women. And she was never after me for money or expensive presents. I bought her some clothes and trinkets all the same—though I don't think she liked anything I gave her as well as that scallop shell she wore around her neck. She never took that off. I tried to make her once. I said if it came from another man, she'd no business to wear it now. But she said it was a symbol of some saint, that she wore for luck.

“I'd kept her for about a month, maybe six weeks, when I was asked on this visit to Bellegarde to meet the Craddocks. I thought about taking her with me—finding her lodgings in the neighbourhood, where I could visit her on the sly. But when I told her, she went into a blind panic. You'd have thought I was trying to drag her into the blackest pit in Hell. She wouldn't on any account go anywhere near Bellegarde or my family."

“She was probably afraid your father would see her and recognize her,” said Julian. “She must have known your family would do all they could to stop you marrying her, once they knew who she was—and who her mother was.”

“Why, who was her mother?” Guy looked at him blankly, then turned to Geoffrey. “What do you know about Amy?”

“I knew her and her mother once, a long time ago.”

“How did you— Oh, my God, Amy wasn't my sister, was she?” “No, no!”

“Thank God! I'm in trouble enough without that!”

“Never mind for the moment how your father knew Miss Fields,” said Sir Robert. “Go on.”

“Amy and I had the devil of a row. I said I’d had enough of her secrecy, and if she was so afraid of being seen with me, I’d take myself off for good, and be damned to her. She wept—she was a great one for tears, God knows where all that water came from, she never ran dry—and said she'd go anywhere with me but Bellegarde. And it all ended with my storming out and saying I was finished with her. I wasn't—not by half—but I wanted to give her a fright,