Midnight at Marble Arch (10 page)

“The servants had been excused for the night,” Knox replied. “The baize door to their quarters is pretty heavy. Sound-proof, if you take my meaning? If she’d wanted anything she’d have rung one of the bells and someone would have come, but a shout, especially from the front of the house, no one would have heard.”

Narraway imagined it. The baize door gave such privacy, locked you off from intrusion—or help. Perhaps one stifled cry, then a hand over your mouth, and only a muffled choking after that. If a servant heard anything at all, she would take it for a quarrel, and the last thing she would want would be to intrude on such a scene.

What were they used to, the well-trained servants in this outwardly respectable house? Did they recognize a mistress’s dismissal for the evening as a tacit command not to return?

He looked at Knox.

“Sorry, sir,” Knox said quietly. “This man may have stolen things, but the servants don’t recognize anything gone. And there’s very definitely been no break-in. The bolts across the front doors were undone. The butler and the footman have both sworn, without any hesitation, that the doors where she was found were closed only with the type of latch that shuts itself.”

“But the butler was alone when he found her; he wasn’t with the footman,” Narraway pointed out. It was a foolish observation. He knew it as he said the words, just as he knew what Knox would say in reply.

“Yes, sir,” Knox answered wearily. “He found her then he called the footman. Couldn’t really call one of the women. I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s a way around it, my lord. We can conclude only that she knew him and let him in.”

“Then we’d better find out who he was,” Narraway said grimly. “Any ideas?”

“Not yet. The servants are either very loyal or else they truly don’t know.” Again unhappiness filled Knox’s tired face. Narraway wondered if he was thinking of his own family. He had said he had a wife and daughters. His voice had altered when he spoke of them: there was a gentleness, even a pride in it. Narraway had liked him for that.

“Have you looked at Mrs. Quixwood’s diary?” Narraway asked. “Or spoken to her maid?”

“Yes. The diary doesn’t tell me anything,” Knox replied. “She was busy, lots of engagements, but very few names mentioned, none of them outside of what you’d expect.” He frowned. “Do you want to see it? Maybe …” He left the idea hanging in the air, on the edge of asking Narraway something, but clearly not quite certain if he wanted to, or how to word it.

“Yes,” Narraway answered. “I’d like to look. I may know some of the names, at least.”

Knox frowned. “Do you think … I mean …” His expression was bleak. “A secret acquaintance? If it’s true, then it’s going to be very hard to prove.”

“Rape?” Narraway said the word with distaste. “If that ends up being the case, then I’ll settle for proving it’s murder.”

Knox smiled at him, as if they had reached some kind of understanding. “I suppose you’d like to speak to the lady’s maid as well. Read the diary first. It won’t take you long. Then I’ll send for her.”

Narraway thanked him and went into the garden room to wait while a constable fetched Catherine’s diary.

The room was sunny and warm in the morning light, a curious sense of peace in it, in such a troubled house. It was surprisingly feminine, greens and whites, white woodwork around the windows. The curtains were patterned, but only with leaves, echoing the potted
plants, none of them with flowers. It was at the same time both bright and restful.

He was just sitting down on one of the rattan chairs when the constable brought the diary. He thanked him and settled down to read it.

He started in January. At first it was not very interesting, just the usual brief comments on the weather as it affected her daily life. “Very cold, streets slippery with ice.” “Ground quite hard, all very clear and glittering. Very beautiful.” “So wet today I really would rather not go out—I’ll get drenched no matter how careful I am.”

Then as the days lengthened and the weather became milder she commented on the first buds in the trees, the snowdrops, the birds. She saw a starling with twigs in its beak and wrote a short paragraph on the faith of building a nest when the days were still so dark. “How can such a small creature, who knows nothing, be so sure of a good future? Or is it only a blind and exquisite courage?”

The comments on the weather continued, with notes as to the flowers that had pleased her. Her botanical interest was written with acute observation, but mostly it was the beauty of the plants that moved her.

Narraway put the book down and wondered what Catherine Quixwood had thought as she had written those words. Was the loneliness he felt within the pages, the sense of confusion, hers or his own? Unwillingly he pictured her again, but lying on the floor. There had been such possibility of passion in her face, such turbulence, even in death. Or was he imagining that too?

He picked up the diary again and resumed reading it, paying more attention to where she had been and, when she had noted it, with whom.

As the weather grew more clement she had attended lectures at the Royal Geographical Society. After one on Egypt she had made a note of its excellence. Reading on, he saw that she had then gone to an exhibition of paintings of the Nile by various watercolorists, and then to the library to find books on Egyptian history.

In May she had gone to a lecture on astronomy. This time it was
not the night sky that drew her most enthusiastic comments, but the sublime order of the stars in their courses, from the most random comet or meteor to the most immense galaxies. There was too little room on the page for all she wanted to say to remind herself of her emotions, and her writing eventually became so small he could not read it.

Then she went back to the library and searched for other books on astronomy, and more lectures she might attend. In the following weeks she even went by train to both Birmingham and Manchester to learn more.

But, as Knox had said, there were very few names in the diary. Those that were present all seemed exactly the acquaintances one might have expected: other married women in Society of her own age and station, a couple of distant cousins, one unmarried and apparently of considerable means. Catherine seemed to enjoy her company when it was available. There were also two aunts mentioned, the vicar and his wife and business associates of Quixwood’s and their wives.

He read the entry from the day before she was killed, then closed the book. There was nothing further. He asked Knox if he might now speak to the lady’s maid, although he did not hold much hope of learning anything from her that would be of value.

Flaxley was a tall, spare woman, her brown hair liberally threaded with gray. The marks of grief were all too evident in her face. She came in and sat down opposite Narraway at his invitation, then folded her hands in her lap and waited for him to speak. Her back was ramrod straight, probably from a lifetime of self-discipline; every emotion within her seemed to have been drained away. She looked exhausted.

Narraway was deeply moved by her loyalty. He wondered for a fleeting moment how many people had inspired such sense of loss, even among their own families.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Flaxley,” he said quietly. He decided to be completely honest with her. “But the more I learn of Mrs. Quixwood, the more determined I am to do what I can to see that the man who attacked her is punished.” He chose very deliberately not to use the word “rape.” There was no need to distress Flaxley further.

He saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes.

“I am certain that if you had any idea how to achieve this,” he went on, “with as little unpleasant speculation as possible, you would already have told Inspector Knox. I have been reading Mrs. Quixwood’s appointment diary, and I feel I know her better than I did before.”

“Her appointment diary,” Flaxley repeated. She did not ask if he believed that Catherine could possibly have had any idea what would happen to her, but it was implicit in the lift of her voice and the contempt in her eyes.

“Do you believe Mrs. Quixwood would have opened the front door to a man she did not both know and trust?” he asked her.

“No, of course—” She stopped. Clearly she had not even considered the matter. “Was her … attacker not a thief?”

“I don’t know what he was, Miss Flaxley, but it’s clear he did not break into the house, which leaves only one other possibility—that she let him in. Indeed, that initially she had no fear of him. Therefore he was someone she already knew, quite well enough not to call a servant to attend her.”

She stared at him, her eyes filling with horror, her hands knotted in her lap so tightly that the knuckles shone white. He noticed with surprise how delicately boned they were. In their own way, they were quite beautiful.

“I will not smear her reputation.” There was anger in her voice, and warning. “But tell me, what can I do to help?”

He admired her for it. He hoped that she would be able to keep that resolve and it pained him that she would probably not.

“Please go through the diary with me and tell me which of her friends she kept company with, and something about each of them. I will call on them in due course, but your insight will be more acute than mine. You knew Mrs. Quixwood, and possibly her true feelings about these people rather than the socially polite face she showed. Also, I have learned to my cost that women can judge one another far more observantly than men can.” He allowed himself a very slight smile.

He saw it echoed in a momentary easing in her expression also.

“Yes, my lord, of course,” she agreed.

I
T TOOK
N
ARRAWAY THE
next three days to meet with eight of the people mentioned in Catherine’s diaries. He found it difficult, which surprised him. They were all women very like those he had known and mixed with all his adult life, and yet when speaking of Catherine, the artificiality of polite conversation between strangers irritated him.

He began with a cousin of Catherine’s, a dark, rather elegant woman with beautiful hair and a very ordinary face. Her name was Mary Abercrombie.

“Of course we are deeply grieved,” she said earnestly, but without any signs of pain that Narraway could see. “I don’t know what I can tell you; I was very fond of Catherine, of course. We grew up together.” She fidgeted slightly with her skirts. “But as so often happens, when we both married we drifted apart. Our tastes were … different.”

“But you still went to the British Museum together,” he pointed out. “Or was the entry in her diary incorrect?”

Mrs. Abercrombie smiled and looked down at her hands. Narraway had a fleeting and irrelevant thought about how much uglier they were than those of Flaxley.

“It was incorrect?” he prompted.

“Yes … and no,” she equivocated. “We did meet there, and visited a few of the exhibits. I ran into a friend and left to take tea with her. It was about that time in the afternoon. Catherine stayed on, I presumed by herself, but I don’t know. When I spoke to Rawdon a few days later at a reception, he implied that Catherine had returned home very late. I’m afraid I rather let her down by saying to him that I had left the museum before four o’clock.”

“And Catherine was not at the reception?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head, a shadow of disapproval crossing her face. “She found such light social exchanges rather tedious. So do many of us, but one must make the effort.” It was a statement, as if it were a fact agreed to by all.

Narraway wondered if she had made the remark to Quixwood on purpose. Catherine had been beautiful. Even in violent death the remnants of it were there in her face. Mary Abercrombie was agreeable enough and without obvious blemish, but she was no beauty, at least not to Narraway.

“Was that the last time you saw her?” he asked.

“Yes. Except briefly at a concert about two weeks ago.”

“Who was she with at the concert?”

“I’m not sure she was with anyone.” She raised her eyebrows slightly. “When we spoke she was alone.”

“Did that surprise you?”

“Frankly, no. Catherine was inclined to go to events alone. If it was something she wished to do, she would prefer to be alone to indulge in it, rather than go with company, who might require conversation from her.” Her disapproval of such behavior was clear, if still unspoken.

Narraway had a sudden vision of Catherine bent forward, listening to great, sweeping symphonies of music while the fashionable women around her were talking to one another, gossiping, flirting, or merely pretending to listen while they waited for the opportunity to recommence speaking. He imagined in her an inner loneliness he found disturbing, and frighteningly easy to understand.

Or was he simply projecting his own emotions onto her, because he had never known her alive and there was no one to refute his picture?

“Was there anyone to whom she was particularly close?” he asked.

“You mean someone who might know if she was … having an unsuitable friendship?” Mrs. Abercrombie asked, delicate eyebrows raised. “Possibly. But I cannot imagine that they would be indiscreet enough to speak of it, even had she been that foolish and disloyal. Poor Rawdon is suffering enough, don’t you think? And Catherine has certainly paid for any indiscretions.”

Narraway smiled coldly, feeling the temper like an ice storm inside him. “Actually, Mrs. Abercrombie, I was thinking of someone who might know if she was being troubled by unwanted attentions,” he corrected
her. “Men sometimes look at a beautiful woman and imagine she has given them some encouragement, when in truth she was no more than civil—or at most, kind. Denials do not always persuade them of their error.”

She opened her pale eyes very wide. “Really? I have never known anyone so … disturbed.”

“No,” he agreed without a flicker in his expression. “I imagine not.”

The anger burned up her face. “But most perceptive of you to have realized Catherine may have,” she retorted. “Remarkable, because apparently you did not know her. But then, perhaps you know women like her.”

“Unfortunately not,” he said, keeping his eyes on hers. “From all I hear, she seems to have been unique. Please accept my condolences on your loss, Mrs. Abercrombie.” He rose to his feet and gave a very slight inclination of his head.