Death at the Theatre: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate: Book 2 (14 page)

There was another silence. I could see people glancing around from face to face, clearly wondering how they were supposed to react to his news.

Caroline was the first to speak. “Why – why, how extraordinary,” she said, wonderingly. I watched her clasp her hands together and look into the far distance, as if she were seeking to understand what I’d just told her. “Aldous – Aldous a killer. Who would have thought it? Why on Earth did he do it?”

I was silent. Was this for me to say or should I leave it up to the inspector?

He came to my rescue. He walked on a little further from Tommy, towards Caroline. I heard Verity gulp again, more of a retch than a gulp. I wanted so much to reassure her but at that very moment I couldn’t.

“Oh,” said the inspector and this time the steel was in his voice. “He wasn’t doing it for himself. He had a reason, but it was mostly to do with somebody else.”

Again, glances around the circle. Worried faces. I blinked in the glare of the spotlight and, for a moment, my dream of being on the enormous stage came back to me again. I remembered the voices that had sung and chanted. S
he’s done this before, a voyage of the heart, he’d do anything for her…

By now the inspector had reached Caroline. She looked up at him with a quizzical expression on her lovely face as he leaned closer in.

“Oh, yes, he had a good reason,” said the inspector, looking very steadily at Caroline. “Didn’t he, Mrs Bonnacker?”

The silence that followed was so long I could almost hear the woodworm chewing the boards of the stage. It was as if everyone held their breath.

It was Gwen who broke it. “I
knew
I’d seen the name,” she said, her voice so loud after the silence that we all jumped. All except Caroline, who sat as if frozen in ice. “I knew I’d seen it before, on that marriage certificate.”

“Yes, indeed,” said the inspector. He and Caroline were still gazing at one another, as rapt as lovers. “My men found that marriage certificate today when we searched your lodgings, Mrs Bonnacker. I wonder why you kept it? Were you hoping to persuade him to grant you a divorce? He would never have agreed to that, would he, Mrs Bonnacker? Caroline, if I may? He was a devout Catholic.”

He stepped back and the hypnotic spell was broken. Caroline looked down at the floor, her face still a neutral mask.

“So,” said the inspector. He continued on his slow way around the circle. Half the eyes of the group were following him, whilst half were gazing in horror at Caroline. She continued to look at the floor. I watched the profile of her face, the flawless contours of cheek and nose and chin, and wondered how it was that the outside of someone could be so deceiving.

Tommy spoke up, in a kind of faltering voice I’d never heard him use before. “I don’t – I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you, sir? It’s quite simple. Very simple, when you look at it. Miss Carpenter here, persuades her lover, Aldous Smith, to murder her husband. Because she won’t be able to marry her very rich, very powerful, very influential fiancé, if she’s already married, will she? Either that, or she’ll have to take the risk of marrying Sir Nicholas Holmes bigamously.”

I dared to sneak a glance at Verity and saw to my surprise that her face was buried in her hands. I could only risk a momentary glimpse though, as the inspector continued to speak.

“I think, Caroline, that your husband – that’s Gideon Bonnacker – contacted you some months ago. He was back in the country from Italy; rather hard up for money, travelling on a false passport. From what my men have dug up, he seemed to be involved in some pretty shady deals over in Italy. A spot of forgery here, a spot of embezzlement there. So he’s not a particularly nice character, is he? A gambler too. Wonder how he squared that with his Catholicism?” The inspector had walked further around the circle so that now he was next to me, looking across to where Caroline sat like an ice-queen, still frozen in one position. “Well, I digress a little. What I think, Caroline, is that he contacted you and began to blackmail you. Little cash payments here and there. We thought he’d won it at the racetrack, but there I think we were wrong. He was bleeding you dry, wasn’t he? And it wouldn’t have stopped. If you’d married Sir Nicholas as a bigamist, why, then he would have had even more of a hold over you. He had to be stopped, didn’t he?”

Caroline looked up at him. Her face was still blank but there was a spark, deep down in her eyes, which made me shiver.

The inspector patted Verity on the shoulder as he walked past her, but she didn’t react. He took no notice, circling the group again to walk closer to where Caroline sat.

“Poor Aldous,” said the inspector, softly. “He was very much in love with you, wasn’t he? What did you tell him about your upcoming marriage? That you didn’t mean to go through with it? That it was just a marriage of convenience and it wouldn’t make a difference to the real, the true passion you had for him, Aldous Smith?”

“I
knew
it,” Gwen said vehemently, again making us all, save for the inspector and Caroline, jump. “He was absolutely besotted with her, he’d have done anything for her. Oh, how
could
you, Caroline? How could you take advantage of him like that?” I got the impression that Gwen was more upset about Aldous’ feelings for Caroline being confirmed than she was about the fact that he had been a murderer.

Caroline got to her feet in one fluid movement, surprising us all. Both the inspector and I tensed. Caroline cast a scornful glance around us all, sweeping us with disdain. “Oh,
shut
up,” she said to Gwen, not even deigning to look her in the face. Gwen sagged back in her chair, mouthing her distress.

There was another short silence while Caroline and Inspector Marks took a tense measure of each other. Then, breaking the gaze, Inspector Marks gestured towards the edge of the stage, where a couple of figures detached themselves from the shadows.

Caroline saw the two uniformed officers approaching, and whilst her reed-straight posture did not change, something happened to her face. It weakened and crumbled, just for a moment, before she flung back her hair and lifted  her chin.

The officers had to take her past me towards the right hand stage steps. They hadn’t handcuffed her, but were holding her delicate upper arms, one big hand on each side. Caroline wasn’t protesting but as she neared me, she slowed and they allowed her to do so. I watched her, tensely, as she came to a halt opposite me. We stared at one another for a long moment.

“What an actress you were,” I said. I didn’t even know I was going to say it before I did and for once, it came out just right, perfectly pitched: sadness and disbelief there in equal measures.

For a moment I thought she was going to spit in my face. Then, with a shudder of something like pain twisting her face, she turned away and allowed her captors to lead her from the stage, leaving silence behind her.

Chapter Twenty Four

The silence only lasted seconds, of course. The moment the main doors to the theatre had swung shut behind Caroline and the police officers, the quietness was broken by Verity bursting into racking sobs.

“Verity—“ At last I could comfort her. I hurried forward and took her in my arms.

She sobbed for about five minutes, soaking the shoulder of my coat, which I hadn’t even had time to remove since we arrived at the theatre. Tommy and Gwen were there, soothing and stroking, and after another storm of tears, the tumult gradually tapered off, eventually leaving Verity drained and gasping.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thickened. “I’m just so
relieved
.”

“I know.” I let her sit up and squeezed her arm as she did so, in sympathy.

“You know?” She opened her mouth to say more, and I shook my head and nodded towards Tommy. Verity’s eyes went wide and she nodded after a moment.

Tommy, Gwen and the rest of the cast and crew were looking both shell-shocked and mystified. Little hisses were leaking from one group of people to another as the truth of what had happened began to filter through. The sound of people’s voices, shocked, exclaiming, even – oddly – triumphant, began to rise. People were perhaps realising that it wasn’t so very odd after all. They were actors, used to dramatic scenes, used to the power of a good story. It just so happened that, this time, truth had been stranger than fiction.

As the hubbub ebbed and flowed around us, I helped Verity to her feet and looked around for Inspector Marks. He was deep in conversation with Tommy, but as if he felt my gaze, he looked around and nodded, as if he’d heard my unspoken question.

“Let me take you ladies home,” he said, coming over to us. Tommy trailed behind him, looking as though he were waking from a not particularly pleasant dream. “It’s getting late, and I have a lot of work to do before the morning.”

Verity flung her arms around Tommy in a fierce bear-hug and he looked a little taken aback. He kissed the top of her head and released her.

“Come along, V,” I said and piloted her towards the stage steps, Inspector Marks following behind.

In the car on the way home, Verity collapsed back against the seat as if she were about to faint. She put her face in her hands momentarily.

“I thought
you
thought it was Tommy,” she said, in a voice that suggested she hadn’t quite cried out all her tears, yet.

“I know you did.” I looked out of the window at the lights and bustle of the pavements of London. “Well, I realised that’s what you thought when we were at the theatre. Oh, Verity.”

Verity sniffed. “I know, I know. My head’s been in such a whirl lately…I don’t know what I was
thinking
.”

“You were panicking,” I said, practically. “And—“ I added, to be fair. “If we’d just been able to talk about it – properly, I mean – you would have known there was no possible way Tommy would have done a thing like that. Not to mention it was impossible for him to be off the stage at the time of the murder.”

“I know,” cried Verity. “It was just that I thought – oh, I thought that—“ She broke off abruptly, looking at Inspector Marks who was sitting up front, silent but listening keenly. “I remembered Asharton Manor.”

I hadn’t even thought about that. “Oh,” I said. “Yes, I see.”

Verity swiped a hand under her running nose in a most unladylike manner. “Of course, now I look back, it seems ludicrous. Tommy would never do anything like that. I’ve just been so tired and worried lately about Dorothy, and with Aldous dying and everything…” She shot me a look that I interpreted as reproachful. “Joan, you refused to tell me who you thought the killer was. I thought that’s because you didn’t want to tell me because – well, because it was Tommy.”

I had to laugh. “V, do you think I would have been as calm as I was if I had thought it was Tommy?”

Verity smiled ruefully. “No. No, of course you wouldn’t.”

“You noodle,” I said, fondly.

Inspector Marks cleared his throat. “This is what happens when people don’t talk to one another,” he said. “Misunderstandings occur.”

“I know that now,” said Verity. She sniffed and sat up a little. “It’s just that – oh, I don’t know. I thought – well, I don’t know what I thought.”

“All’s well that ends well, Miss Hunter,” said Inspector Marks.

“Except for poor Aldous,” she snapped back.

“Your poor Aldous was a murderer,” Inspector Marks said, quite mildly. “It’s almost worse that he killed a man because somebody else persuaded him to. I suppose the defence might argue it was a crime of passion but… I wonder.”

Verity and I were silent and thoughtful. Then Verity said, tentatively, “Well, he obviously felt some remorse. So much so that he killed himself.”

“I wonder,” Inspector Marks said again. I looked at him sharply.

“What do you mean, Inspector?”

“Just that. I wonder whether he did indeed kill himself. That suicide note was awfully convenient, wasn’t it? And half the time, real suicides don’t even leave a note.”

“What are you suggesting?” I asked, just as my mind leapt along new pathways. I answered myself before he could. “You’re saying that Caroline Carpenter could have killed him, aren’t you, sir?”

“I don’t know.” Inspector Marks stared out of the window at the city beyond. “It’s a possibility that will be investigated.”

He lapsed into silence again and so did we. I was thinking about that suicide note. What had it said? Something like
I find it hard to believe I can carry on living
. Hadn’t Tommy said it was on a scrap of paper? That was strange in itself, wasn’t it? My mind reconstructed the scrap of paper, fitting it into a full sheet of notepaper, the rest of which was a love letter to Caroline Carpenter.
If your marriage to Sir Nicholas goes ahead, my dearest one, I find it hard to believe I can carry on living…

Now I
was
being fanciful. I shoved another mental image away, that of Caroline telling Aldous to meet her down by the river, on a dark and shadowed pathway. Had she pointed out something to him in the river, sparkling in the moonlight? And as he leaned forward to see, one push would have done it…

The police would look into it, I told myself firmly. So no more wild imaginings.

The car turned into our street and drew up alongside the pavement. Verity and I pulled our coats more tightly around ourselves. I wondered whether Mrs Watling would be waiting up for me and hoped not. I was too tired to go into explanations.

Inspector Marks opened the door and helped us both out onto the pavement. There was a chill wind blowing that hastened our goodbyes, and overhead a few glimpses of some distant stars were visible, here and there, as the smog blew apart for a few moments.

“Thank you again, ladies,” said the inspector. “I’ll be in touch.”

Verity gave him a quick, wan smile and began to walk down the basement steps. I hesitated, knowing I should follow her but somehow, unable to leave just yet. The inspector and I stood opposite one another for a long moment, shivering in the cold and silent.

“Well, Joan—“ He held out his hand to me. I put my gloved one out to shake it. Our eyes met and there was a breathless moment of hush, even over the hubbub of a London night. Slowly the inspector drew the glove from my hand and then clasped my naked palm in his own. His hand was warm and that warmth seemed to spread all the way through me, despite the chill of the night.

“Good night,” he said, in quite a different tone to the one he’d just used, when it was Verity and me standing there.

“Goodnight,” I said, barely able to get the breath into my lungs to answer him.

He handed me back my glove and waited until I was safely down the steps into the basement. It was only then that I heard the closing of the car door and the sound of the engine as the car drove away.

I almost floated into the kitchen to find it empty of Mrs Watling, thankfully, but with Verity sat slumped at the kitchen table, wearily pulling the hat pins from her hair. Romantic thoughts popped like a soap bubble as I went to sit opposite her. She was so pale and drawn, dark circles like two smudged thumbprints under her eyes, that it was only then I realised the strain she’d been under. I hadn’t helped; I hadn’t even really noticed, so caught up had I been in solving the case. I resolved then and there to be a better friend.

“Are you all right?”

She gave me a half smile. “Just exhausted, Joan. Mentally and physically.” She sighed and said, “I’ve made up my mind to ask Mrs Anstells for help. With Dorothy, you know. I can’t keep it all to myself any longer.”

“I think you’re wise. Do you want me to come with you?”

Verity shook her head, regretfully. “Thank you, Joanie but no. Forgive me but – but she would see it as an impertinence.” She sighed again and said “It’s bad enough that I tell her.”

I nodded. I understood. “You might find that it doesn’t come as quite such a surprise to Mrs Anstells than you think it might. She’s not a stupid woman. I’m sure she might have noticed something is amiss.”

“I hope you’re right.” Verity heaved herself to her feet. “I’ll go on up now.”

“Would you like me to make you a cup of cocoa?”

Verity smiled. “No, thank you, Joanie. But that’s kind of you.”

For a moment she paused in the doorway, and we smiled at each other and I felt our friendship settle back to how it had been. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then she turned and I listened to her tired feet dragging their way upstairs.

I stayed downstairs for five minutes, heating the milk for my own cup of cocoa and making the finishing touches to preparing the kitchen for tomorrow. By the time I got to our room, Verity was fast asleep, her head half-buried beneath the blankets. She’d left the bedside light on for me.

I got washed and undressed but, despite the cocoa, I didn’t believe I’d be able to sleep yet. There were still too many thoughts and feelings fireworking around in my head. I needed time to put my thoughts in order. I stood for a moment, in the middle of the room, undecided about what to do. Then, letting my feelings guide me, I let my hand reach out for my notebook and my pen. I sat down at the dressing table, tucking a shawl about my shoulders. The blank page lay before me on the surface of the desk, a challenge and a comfort at one and the same time. With one last glance at Verity, sleeping like a baby in her bed, I turned back to the notebook and, dipping the pen into the ink, began to write.

THE END