The Black Swan (6 page)

She was astonished. “He would obviously have done it the night before, if your father had come home. Can you be sure it was the same man?”

“Absolutely. He had such distinguishing features. Moreover there was something about him … something I can’t describe … something purposeful.”

“You have told the police this?”

“Yes, and they are very excited about it.”

“Do you think it could be that this man is known to them?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. But I see that it could be. Oh, Rebecca, it was so good of you to come. I feel better now that you are here.”

“I know,” she said gently.

“Will you stay?”

“I shall until after the funeral. Then I shall take you back with me.”

“I suppose there has to be an inquest.”

“Certainly there will be. I’ll stay till it’s all over and then you can come back with me to Cornwall.”

“What of Celeste? I feel I should be with her.”

“She could come, too. You will both want to get away from this house for a while.”

“There will be changes everywhere,” I said. “I suppose we shall have to think of what we are going to do. At the moment I can think of nothing but his standing there. He looked surprised. I suppose it was less than a second but it seemed longer and there was my father … staggering, covered in blood. Oh, Rebecca, it was terrible.”

She put her arms about me and held me tightly.

“You must try to put that out of your mind. It’s over and there is nothing we can do about it. We’ve got to think of the future.”

“Yes. But later …”

“The children would love to have you with us,” said Rebecca. “And so would Pedrek.”

I nodded. I always enjoyed my visits to Rebecca. They were such a happy family. She had two lovely children, Alvina who was about six and Jake aged four. I found them interesting and amusing; I loved the sea and the moors and the air of remoteness; but all the time I was there I used to think of my father who, I knew, would be growing more and more restive, as he always was when I was away. So I had not been with Rebecca as much as I should have liked to be because of my father’s reluctance to let me go.

I could hear his voice coming to me now. “Going to Cornwall?”

“It’s some time since I’ve been.”

“Well, how long will you be away?”

“At least a month. It wouldn’t be worthwhile going for less.”

“A whole month!”

I knew that all my life I would be remembering such conversations and with them would come the heartbreak, the reminder that he had gone forever … killed by a man who did not even know him.

Rebecca knew well the state of affairs and she had never persuaded me to stay on, though she always hinted that she would be delighted if I did. There had always been something motherly about Rebecca as far as I was concerned. I had even seen it in her attitude toward my father. She had understood him as few people did, and that understanding had made her tender toward him.

London was obsessed by the news of my father’s assassination. It was not only the papers which were full of it. People strolled past the house, looking up at it and whispering. We could not help seeing them from the windows. I often found myself looking out at the pavement where my father had lain covered in blood, and across the road by the railings where that man had waited for him. If only I had known and been able to warn him.

There was the inquest—a painful ordeal which I had to attend. All interest was focused on me for it was my evidence which was of the greatest importance. I had been there. I had had a good view of the assassin whom I recognized as the man who had waited for my father on the previous night.

The verdict of the inquest was “murder against some person or persons unknown.”

My name was blazoned across the papers,
MISS LUCIE LANSDON, EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER OF BENEDICT LANSDON
. It came out about the little suppers I had waiting for him.

“He doted on her,” said Emily Sorrel, parlor maid.

“She was the apple of his eye,” said the housekeeper. “I never knew a father more devoted to his daughter,” the butler told our reporter. “Miss Lucie Lansdon was with her father in his dying moments.”

Celeste said the papers should be kept from me, but I wanted to know.

The day after the inquest Inspector Gregory came to see me. He was a big man with piercing blue eyes, a stern profile but a kindly manner; and he was very gentle toward me.

He said, “I shall be frank with you, Miss Lansdon. Your evidence has been of the greatest help to us. You gave us an accurate description of a man we want to interview and we believe we know who he is. He is Irish, a fanatical campaigner for Home Rule who has been under suspicion more than once. There seems an indication that your father’s death might have been brought about because of his opposition to the Home Rule Bill. The man we suspect has been involved in other outrages of this nature. We have wanted to interview him for some time. This has given us the chance to get him. We would have something concrete to bring against him. As a matter of fact we are detaining a man at the moment. I want you to come along and identify him. He will be with others. I want you to pick him out and if he is the man who shot your father we shall then have our man.”

“So … you have caught him then?”

“We are not sure. Of course, we are hoping he is our man. What we need is an assurance that he is. You were a witness of the murder and you saw this man quite clearly the night before the murder. So we want you to tell us if the man we show you is the same one you saw with the gun in his hand and the night before from your window. You will just have to pick him out of a group. It is very simple. I know it will be something of an ordeal for you, but it will be quickly over. I can tell you it will be a great relief to us and all law-abiding people if we can have this man in custody. We want to prevent him from committing more crimes like this one.”

“When do you wish me to come?”

“Tomorrow morning. We will send a carriage for you at ten thirty.”

“I will be ready.”

He touched my hand lightly. “Thank you, Miss Lansdon,” he said.

When he had gone, I kept thinking about the man and I wondered how he could have shot cold-bloodedly a fellow human being whom he did not know. He could not have paused to think of the misery he might be causing to a number of people. The opinion seemed to be that he did it to serve a cause. What causes were worth human lives and all the misery such crimes like this one could bring about?

I slept little that night. Once I got out of bed and went to the window. I looked out on the deserted street where the light from the lamp shone on the damp pavement. I was shivering, half-expecting to see that man there.

The next morning the carriage arrived.

I was taken into a room where Inspector Gregory was waiting for me.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Lansdon,” he said. “It’s just along here.”

He took me into a room where eight men were standing in a line.

“Just walk along and see if our man is among the others,” murmured the Inspector.

I approached the line. Some were tall, some short, some of medium height, dark and fair. I walked slowly along.

He was there—the fifth. I knew him at once. He had attempted to disguise the peak of hair by shaving it but by looking intently I could see its outline; and there was a faint white scar on his left cheek, which I could see he had attempted to conceal by some coloring matter. There was not a doubt in my mind as I went back to the Inspector.

“He is there,” I said. “The fifth in the line. I could see the outline of the peak of hair and he has tried to conceal the scar. The second time I did not see his hair but yet I knew he was the same man. And I know it now.”

“That is good. You have been of the greatest help to us, Miss Lansdon. We are extremely grateful to you.”

They took me back. I was exhausted. I kept thinking of that moment when his eyes had looked into mine. I could not explain the expression I saw there. He knew that I was aware of who he was. He must have seen me at the window that night; we had looked full at each other when he held the gun in his hand. His eyes were defiant, mocking, faintly contemptuous. Oh, yes, he knew that I had recognized him.

I went to my room when I arrived home. Celeste came in with a glass of hot milk on a tray.

“Was it such an ordeal?” she asked.

“It was just walking along a line of men and picking him out. He knew that I recognized him. Oh, Celeste, it was frightening. It was the way he looked at me … defying me, mocking me.”

“I expect he was very frightened.”

“I am not sure. Perhaps people like that who take life lightly don’t overvalue their own. What do you think will happen to him?”

“He’ll be hanged if he’s proved guilty.”

“He is guilty. It’s rather a sobering thought. But for me, it might not have been proved against him.”

“He would probably have betrayed himself in some way. He must have been caught up in that sort of thing before. The police are very clever. After all, they suspected him and got their hands on him very quickly. They must have known what he was and probably had been watching him, for it seems he was not unknown to them. The fact that you recognized him has made it easier for them to bring this charge against him.”

“But if they do hang him … it will be because of me.”

“No. It will be because he is a murderer who must die so that he cannot murder others as he did Benedict. You’ve got to see it that way. If he were allowed to escape there could shortly be another death, and other bereaved relations suffering because of his wanton act.”

“That,” I said firmly, “is how I must see it.”

Celeste said, “When it is all over you will go to Rebecca’s, I suppose.”

“Perhaps for a short stay.”

“We shall have to decide what we are going to do. I hope you won’t go away altogether.”

“You should come to Cornwall with me, Celeste … for a while at least. Rebecca suggested it.”

“I don’t know. I feel lost … unable to make decisions. I am so lonely … without Benedict … although I know he never really cared for me. But he was always so much a part of my life.”

“He did care for you, Celeste. It was just that he did not show it.”

“He could not show it because it was not there. He showered his affection on you … and your mother.”

“But, Celeste, he did love you. He was grateful to you, I know.”

“Well,” she said ruefully, “that is all over now.”

“And there are the two of us left. Let us stay together.”

She put her arms about me.

I said, “You are a great comfort to me, Celeste.”

“And you to me,” she replied.

My father was buried with a certain amount of ceremony. We should have liked it to have been done quietly, but in view of the circumstances we had realized that that would be impossible.

His coffin was hidden by flowers and there had to be an extra carriage to accommodate them all. Many, I thought ironically, had been sent by those who had been his enemies in life; but those who had been envious need be so no longer. Who could be envious of a dead man? He could now be remembered for his brilliance, his wit, his shrewdness, his hopes of a high post in government now cut short. They were talking about the certainty of his becoming Prime Minister one day … if he had lived. It was a great career cut short by a senseless murder, they said. My father, by dying, had become a hero.

The eulogies in the press were almost embarrassing. There was no mention of that early scandal which had blighted his hopes, the resurrection of which he had always lived in fear. It would appear now that he had been loved and admired by all.

Such is the glory attained through death; and the more sudden and violent the death, the greater the glory.

I read these accounts. Celeste and Rebecca read them. We knew them for the clichés they were, but did we allow ourselves to be swept along on the tide of insincerity? I suppose we did a little. But there was no comfort for me. I had lost him forever and there was a terrible emptiness left.

When the will was read we realized how very rich he had been. He had rewarded all his faithful servants with substantial legacies. Celeste was well provided for; Rebecca was left a considerable sum. As for the rest of his fortune, there was to be some sort of trust. It was for me during my lifetime, and after me it would go to my children; and if I failed to have any it was to be for Rebecca or her children.

The house in London was left to Celeste; the one at Manorleigh to me.

I had never thought a great deal about money and at such a time, with so much else to occupy my thoughts, I did not fully realize what this would mean.

The solicitors said that when I had recovered a little they would talk with me and explain what had to be explained. There was really no hurry. I could hardly give my attention to such matters now.

Rebecca said, “When this is all over, you will have to start thinking what you want to do. There will be changes, no doubt. The best thing for you to do … and Celeste, too … is to come back to Cornwall with me … away from all this. Then you will be able to see everything more clearly.”

I had no doubt that she was right, yet I hesitated. Joel would be coming home soon. I clung to the thought that I should be able to talk with him.

I had been so stunned by my father’s death that I had been unable to think of anything else. Now memories of Joel were coming back. I would not be alone. Joel would return and when he did he would help me to recover from this terrible shock.

In a way I longed to leave London. I should feel better in Cornwall. I loved Cador, the old family home, and I was always happy to be with Rebecca.

But I must be in London for the trial, and until that was over there could be no peace for me. I was sure my presence would be required; I was a key witness. There would be no point in going to Cornwall with this ordeal hanging over me.

I am sure, for the rest of my life, I shall never be able to escape from the memories of that courtroom. I would never forget the sight of the man in the dock. I tried hard not to look at him, but I could not help myself; and every time it seemed that his eyes were on me, half-hating, half-amused, half-mocking.