Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery (46 page)

“Not to mention the spotlessness of your own reputation,” I observed from my position by the table. “I doubt that Miss Sharpe would willingly speak now of what she knows, did her grave yawn before her; but shall you demand a similar vow from ourselves, Mr. Finch-Hatton? Such a request might appear quite reasonable, to a spinster of advancing years, who wishes only to sit quiedy at home; but to a man in commission of the peace for the neighbourhood—! One of some standing, too, whose honour must be seen as embodied in his word. I should not like to depend upon such a vow, Mr. Finch-Hatton; but perhaps you shall choose the surest path, and make an end to us all. What does Mr. Sothey advise?”

Sothey simply gave me a long look; then he led Anne Sharpe back to her chair, with a gendeness usually reserved for the aged or the infirm. She went as a condemned woman goes to the block—mute, stiff, and lost to inner contemplation. Her hand, when I touched it, was deathly cold.

“While Mr. Emilious is considering the most proper means of ensuring our silence,” I said, “you might endeavour to satisfy my curiosity, Mr. Sothey. I perceive now that Mrs. Grey's murder was the work of some days—the fruit of considerable planning. You were observed to enter the stable at The Larches, and emerge in the guise of a dark-haired woman mounted on horseback, a full two days before the lady's death. I comprehend the necessity of preparation—it is one thing to gallop in pursuit of a pack, as one has been riding all one's life; and quite another to attempt it sidesaddle, and in skirts.”

“I did not relish the prospect,” he replied. “But I thought it best to be prepared for every eventuality. And I was proved correct in the event. Mrs. Grey informed me at the race-meeting, that her husband had betrayed her; that her credit in France, and her every hope of a future life, was utterly in ruins; and she beseeched me to aid her in a desperate attempt—the kidnapping and torture of Valentine Grey. She thought to make him divulge the present whereabouts of the Spanish treasure promised to France. I loved Grey too well, and had worked too long in support of the funds' diversion, to accede to such a request.”

“And when you refused, she struck you with her whip.”

“My negative produced a dreadful passion,” he agreed. “She was never a soul under perfect management I informed her that I could not be a party to so heinous a crime; there were others, no doubt, who would gladly accommodate her.”

“Such as Denys Collingforth.”

He averted his gaze.

“And so you determined, that for Grey's sake and the sake of your … policy, that Mrs. Grey must die. Your careful preparation must be put into play. You waited for her in Collingforth's coach; and when she entered it a litde before the final heat—under the observant eyes of the entire Austen party—you strangled her there, with her own hair-ribbon.”

“I wonder that you did not hear the struggle,” Neddie said.

I shrugged. “For all his slightness, Mr. Sothey moves with considerable grace—I should judge him a man of some strength.”

Emilious Finch-Hatton paced restlessly before the kitchen hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. Now, I thought—when the two men were engaged in the relation of their tale—now was the moment to seize and bind them. They had practically admitted to the crime of murder; and yet, Neddie did nothing. Could it be that he was hesitating? Or that he doubted of his ability to prove either man's guilt?

And then I saw that his fingers had closed over a bread knife, and were sliding it by imperceptible degrees towards the edge of the table. I hurried myself into speech once more.

“I suppose, Mr. Sothey, that when the gruesome work was done, you put on Mrs. Grey's habit over your own suit of clothes. You are slight enough to have managed it, and Mrs. Grey was a well-formed woman. You added, however, two items—a black wig and illusion veil, under the brim of the lady's tricorn hat. How did you conceal them on your person, as you walked about the meeting-grounds?”

Sothey shrugged dismissively. “I wore, you may recollect, a prodigiously handsome hat, with a high circular crown. The wig and veil were concealed within, and devilish warm they made it, too.”

“Highly necessary, however, for the discouragement of the curious. But you did not mean to be under the observation of anyone very long. Arrayed in the scarlet riding habit, you quitted the chaise; retrieved Mrs. Grey's black horse from her tyger; approached the rail and threw yourself into the heat. That, if I recollect, was ultimately your undoing—for Miss Sharpe observed you jump the rail, and understood the alteration that had taken place, however litde she might comprehend or explain it.”

“She cannot have the least notion of what she saw,” Mr. Emilious broke in wearily. “Your entire history, Miss Austen, is the most extraordinary fabrication of humbug and lies.”

I smiled at him faintly. “I thought it unlikely, sir, that Lord Harold Trowbridge should possess an intimate friend; but knowing you now a little, as I do, I comprehend the extent of my folly. You can never have been 6n terms of intimacy with that remarkable intellect, 3lhd yet fail to profit from his example. Accept, Mr. Finch-Hatton, that you have underestimated the Austens; and be satisfied.”

“With the filly Josephine triumphant,” my brother said to Julian Sothey, “all that remained was to accept the plate with a careless grace, and drive your phaeton precipitately out of the grounds. A mile down the Wingham road, you discarded the habit; but at the last, you thought better of the wig and veil. It would never do for
them
to be found; we should have seen in an instant that it was not Mrs. Grey, but an imposter, who had paraded about the grounds.”

“We never thought to wonder what had become of the lady's hat,” I agreed. “That was very stupid of us. And what of Mr. Sothey's own? The prodigiously expensive, high-crowned affair, so admirably suited to the concealment of a wig?”

“I tossed it from the far window of Collingforth's chaise, before exiting from the near side, apparelled as Mrs. Grey,” he replied in a subdued tone. “It fell into the underbrush at the fringe of the race grounds—you will recall that the chaise was parked at the farthest extent of the carriages—and for all I know, it rests there still.”

“The fate of all things cherished and expensive,” I observed, “—to be lost at hazard, and well before their time. And once you had driven the phaeton along the Wingham road, I suppose your man was instructed to fetch you?”

“Of course not,” Sothey replied. “I walked back to the race grounds. To admit my valet to an intimate knowledge of my affairs should place me in the man's power; and that is not how an agent of George Canning's survives.”

“Nor, it would seem, does he survive by placing himself in a
woman's
power; but that, we may suppose, you could not help. I comprehend it all, Mr. Sothey, except for one thing—why did you choose to implicate Denys Collingforth?”

“I had lived long enough at The Larches to believe Collingforth capable of anything, Miss Austen. He was a man driven by his passion for gaming, and by the pressures his resultant debts exacted; little as he loved Mrs. Grey, he was completely in her power, and should be the obvious instrument of revenge against her husband. I could not allow their conference to take place.”

“And, too, Collingforth's chaise was one of the few bereft of an attendant party,” I mused. “Not so much as a groom was left to look after the horses. Yes, I see perfectly how it was. A fearful symmetry must dictate your choice.”

“I never believed he would be charged with murder,” Sothey protested. “The man might name an hundred witnesses to his conduct that day, and all of them at some distance from his chaise. I thought him in the clear.”

“Until my brother discovered his message in Mrs. Grey's habit.”

“I had no notion she would keep it about her.”

I studied him keenly. “So you wrote that summons yourself?”

He bowed his head. “I had seen Collingforth's hand a score of times—he was forever sending little missives, in acceptance of Mrs. Grey's card-parties. It was a simple matter for an artist to affect his hand.”

“So simple, in fact, that even his wife was fooled. How unfortunate for Mr. Collingforth! Besieged on every side, he bolted from town, rather than face the coroner— and thus fell a second victim to your schemes. But why weight his body and throw him in the millpond? Should you not have been better served by an appearance of suicide, and a note to that effect, scrawled in his handwriting?”

Sothey's eyes widened. 'You cannot believe that I murdered
Collingforthl
—An innocent man! I was never more miserable than when I learned the result of the inquest, and never more relieved than when I was told that he had fled. I thought it a benediction of Heaven, that one man at least might escape the fate of the condemned.”

“And when you learned of his murder?”

Sothey threw his hands skyward in a gesture of utter helplessness, then let them fall without a word.

The improver's protest had the ring of truth; but in such a case, who knew what might be believed? A jury of his peers should dismiss his claim without a second thought. The murder of Mrs. Grey would prove him capable of every infamy. And yet, what had he effected, against an avowed spy of the enemy, but a simple act of war? It was to Sothey, perhaps, that we owed the unsullied peace of the Kentish night, and the broken camps along the Channel. Such tangles were beyond my power of resolution; I knew only that I recoiled from the hand that could murder a woman from cold-blooded calculation, when I should not think twice about the death of an enemy soldier, in the heat of battle. There was a hypocrisy in this, that was hardly comfortable; and I read a similar confusion in my brother's eyes.

“If you have quite done,” Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton said, “I believe that Sothey and I should take our leave.”

He had risen from his seat, and withdrawn a duelling pistol from his coat; it was a lovely thing, of highly-polished wood, and silver handle. But the ball in its depths should suffice for only one, before Finch-Hatton must reload; and in recognition of this, he had trained the piece upon my brother.

“I suggest you place the knife upon the table, Austen, where I might see it.”

It was brilliantly done; had Finch-Hatton chosen to fix upon Anne Sharpe, he could not depend upon Sothey— on myself, and he should risk Neddie's heroics. As it was, my brother stood in all the horror of our regard—and considered, I suppose, of his nine children. He hesitated, glanced beseechingly at me, and then laid the knife in the middle of the worn oak.

“I regret the necessity of such brutal persuasion,” Mr. Emilious said sadly, “but dawn approaches, and Sothey's road is a long one. Pray make our excuses to your bewitching wife, Mr. Austen, and assure her that we bear her no ill-will for the nature of this flight. The extended tour of the grounds, I fear, must be deferred for another time.”

“There are many forms of justice, Finch-Hatton,” Neddie replied carefully, “and Sothey's shall find him. Of your own fate, I confess, I am less sanguine; you have the peculiar ability to remain always on the fringe of the field, an observer of the fray, or perhaps its truest instigator. Such men invariably live long and interesting lives; whether their reputations survive them, is another question. And now, pray get out, before I find a foolish courage, and take your ball in pursuit of the bubble reputation.”

Finch-Hatton shook his head, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Pray allow Mr. Sothey to bind you to your chair, Mr. Austen—and the ladies also—lest you hound us on horseback the length of England. We require several hours, I should think, for the effecting of this flight; and we cannot waste a moment. In a very little while, I assume, your cook will be about the matter of breakfast.”

And so it was done: Finch-Hatton remained to train his pistol on Neddie, while Sothey fetched some twine from the stillroom; we were bound into our chairs as tightly as knots could hold us, and left with the unpleasant sensation of pigs trussed for the slaughter. Only Anne Sharpe appeared too remote for sensation; she was very nearly in a swoon.

“Anne,” Sothey said desperately, as he knelt before her chair, “will not you throw up everything, and come with me?”

She turned from him with such an expression of horror, that his countenance went white. “Can every tender feeling be denied me? Can not you understand what I have effected for my King, my country? —Indeed, Anne, for the love of such an one as you?”

“Do not attempt to claim that you strangled Mrs. Grey out of love for me,” she retorted bitterly. “I have never understood what you are. From the first moment of our meeting, I pledged my heart to a creature of my own invention; and I reap nothing now but my just reward.”

He would have touched her then, but she shrank away; and in utter silence, he bound her hands.

“Where shall you go?” I enquired, as he came to me.

He merely shook his head. “Mr. Canning, I must believe, will have some use for a desperate man. There are any number of noisome holes throughout the world, where such an one might be hidden—and so die.”

When he bent to tie my wrists, I caught his fingers in mine. “Do not give way entirely to despair, Mr. Sothey. If these hands have shed some blood, they have also been the instruments of a remarkable beauty. In your art I glimpsed a little of Paradise; but there cannot be a garden without a serpent or two. I shall not soon forget the beauty of your works, or the genius I have glimpsed.”

“My genius, Miss Austen, is akin to Lucifer's; and I fear that he was cast out from Heaven.”

“There is something of the demon and the angel in all of us, Mr. Sothey,” I replied, “and I know that your angel shall prevail. Let that hope be your guide—the beacon in your darkness—that redemption, and atonement, might come to you at last.”

The knots tied, he bowed low over my coupled wrists and kissed the back of my hand. Then, his eyes averted from Anne Sharpe, he quitted the room without another word.

And so they left us.

I
T WAS A TEDIOUS INTERVAL, POSSIBLY AS LONG AS AN
hour and a half, before the first clatter of feet on the servants' stair announced the housemaids come in search of water. Anne Sharpe could provide no conversation to relieve the boredom of that passage; she was lost in a peculiar torment, that did not admit of speech; and the greatest kindness we could offer, was to respect her silence.