A Christmas Homecoming (15 page)

“I don’t even know who they are,” she said softly. “Charles’s mother chose them, and there they hang, watching us all the time.”

“There aren’t any women,” Caroline observed.

“Of course not. They’re councilors and owners of factories who gave great gifts to the poor,” Eliza told her. “I think they look as if they parted with their money hard.”

“They look to me as if they had toothache, or indigestion,” Caroline answered. “Perhaps they were very bored with sitting still. I don’t suppose they could even talk while they were being painted.” Then another thought occurred to her. “Didn’t any of them have wives, or daughters? A woman with a red or yellow dress would brighten the hall up a lot.”

“Charles’s mother chose them,” Eliza repeated. “Nothing has ever been changed since her day. Charles won’t
have it. He was devoted to her.” There was defeat in her voice, and a terrible loneliness, as if she were a stranger in her own house, unable to find anything that was hers.

“What about a painting of you?” Caroline suggested. “And surely he would love to have one of Alice? She has a lovely face, and if she wore something warm in color, she would draw the eye away from all those sour old men.”

“I don’t think so,” Eliza said, but she was clearly turning the idea over in her mind. “But you know, I think I’ll try asking him anyway. Tell me, Mrs. Fielding, was Alice’s play really any good? Please don’t make up a comfortable lie. It would not be kind. I think I need a truth to cling on to, even a bad one.”

“Yes, it was,” Caroline said honestly. “And by the time we had worked on it and rehearsed it that last time, it had become really excellent. There were some moments in it that were unforgettable. Above all it touched on the real nature of evil, not of attack by the supernatural, but seduction by the darker side of ourselves. Mr. Ballin was very clever, you know, and Alice
could see that. She had both the courage and the honesty to learn from him.”

“Thank you. That comforts me a great deal, although I don’t think Douglas will allow her to write another, or indeed to have that one performed properly, by people with the talent to understand it. It is … it is a great pity that it will not happen this Christmas.”

“Yes, it is,” Caroline agreed. “But please don’t give up hope for the future.”

“Douglas doesn’t like it. He won’t allow it. He has said so.” There was the finality of defeat in her eyes and in the downward fall of her voice.

“Are you sure?” Caroline asked with a growing fear inside her. Was
that
perhaps the reason for Ballin’s death? It would not only ensure that Alice’s play was not performed, but also be a kind of punishment for Ballin because he had been the one whose suggestions had brought the work to life, the vivid depiction of fear and the reality of evil.

“Oh, no!” Eliza breathed the words more than said them, following Caroline’s train of thought. “He wouldn’t—”

“Who wouldn’t?” Caroline asked, knowing Eliza had no answer.

Eliza gave a tiny gesture of helplessness but said nothing.

Caroline touched Eliza’s hand, and then went into the hall, leaving her a few minutes of privacy before the next demand on her time came from one servant or another, with their domestic concerns.

She found all the cast in the large withdrawing room, sitting around in various chairs reading or talking quietly to one another. Douglas Paterson was there as well, listening to Lydia describe something to him. Caroline could not hear the murmured words but she saw the animation on Lydia’s pretty face, and the delicate gestures of her hands as she gave proportion to the scene of her recollection. Douglas’s eyes never left her. He was oblivious to everyone else in the room, including Alice, who was talking with Joshua near the window.

Vincent, Mercy, and James were all reading, grouped close together as if only moments before they might have been involved in some discussion. None of them looked up as Caroline came in. Suddenly she felt the
same sense of exclusion that she knew Eliza must constantly feel. She was here, this was the right place for her to be, and yet she did not belong. She had never stood on a stage in her life, never played a part so convincingly that a vast sea of people in the shadow of an auditorium listened to her words, watched her face, her movements, while she held their emotions in her hands, moved them to laughter or tears, to belief in the world she created with just her presence. It was a magical art, a power she was not gifted with to share.

She turned away again and went back out into the hall with its grim portraits. Maybe she would never be a part of their art, but she had a skill they did not have. She would find out who had murdered Anton Ballin, and why.

he continued to struggle with the problem of where to begin. She had no authority to ask questions, no physical material to examine—not even the body, at the moment, although that would no doubt be discovered eventually. It could not be far away because no one
could possibly go far from the house, let alone with a body.

She would have searched Ballin’s luggage, but he had brought nothing with him except a small hand case. Why not? Presumably he’d had cases with him in the carriage that had been overturned. Presumably they were too heavy to carry in the snow. What had he brought in his hand case? At the very least a razor and a hairbrush? A clean shirt and personal linen? It meant that there were at least a few things that she could look at to get some sense of the man: quality, use, place where they were made or bought, anything that told of his personality or his past.

What would Thomas have done? Well, for one thing, being a policeman, he would have had the authority to question people.

She would probably learn nothing if she went to Ballin’s room and searched, but she would be remiss not to try. She could even ask one of the servants if they had noticed anything. But better to look herself first.

She knew where the other members of the cast had rooms, so she could deduce which Ballin’s must be. The family slept in a different wing. Of course it would be
possible to misjudge and end up in Douglas Paterson’s room, but she thought his was a little separated from the main guest wing, and so his room ought to be easy enough to avoid. It was really a matter of not being caught by a housemaid.

Ballin’s room turned out to be a very pleasant one, overlooking the snow-smothered garden. It was not as large as the one she shared with Joshua, but then Joshua was the most important guest. Ballin had been no more than a stranger in trouble, given shelter because the storm had left him stranded.

Or was that all it had been?

She stood at the window and stared out at the white lawn and the trees so heavily laden as to be almost indistinguishable one from another. Not a soul had passed that way in the last twenty-four hours, at the very least, perhaps not since the first storm struck.

She looked around the surfaces of the dressing table and the tallboy, the two chests of drawers. A hairbrush, razor, and strop, as she’d expected, but no pieces of paper, no notes. She turned to the bed. It was slightly crumpled, but not slept in. The sheets were still tucked tightly at the sides. He had lain on it, but not in it.

She looked at it more closely, but there were no pieces of paper, even between the folds of the sheets, or under the pillows.

She tried the drawers, and found only clean, folded underwear, presumably mostly that lent to him by Netheridge. There were two shirts hanging in the wardrobe, and a jacket, also borrowed. Ballin had died wearing his own clothes: the black suit and high-collared white shirt in which he had arrived. There was nothing in any of the pockets of the clothes in the wardrobe.

Where else was there to look?

There was a carafe of water on the bedside table, and an empty glass. She could not tell if he had drunk anything because the glass was dry, but the carafe was little more than half-full.

She bent and looked to see if anything could have fallen onto the floor and slid under the bed. She lifted the heavy drapes, but found nothing, not even dust.

Lastly she looked at the coal bucket by the fire, and into the cold grate. If she had received a note to keep an appointment at night, secretly, she would have burned it. It was the easiest and surest destruction.

There was a faint crust of gray ash at the edge of the cinders. But whatever the paper was it had burned through and curled over, subsiding on itself. If she touched it at all, even breathed on it, it would collapse into a heap of ash. However, she was sure it must have been a small note. But there was no way to prove it.

So Ballin had received the invitation, or the summons. The other person had come prepared, carrying the weapon.

She stiffened as she heard footsteps outside in the corridor, and a maid’s laughter. Surely Mr. Netheridge would have told the servants not to come into Ballin’s room?

Or would he? Would he even think of it? He had probably never experienced anything to do with murder before. Very few people had. Caroline must do something before the maid disturbed anything, and then tell Mr. Netheridge that the room ought to remain untouched.

She opened the door and came face-to-face with one of the housemaids, a tall girl with dark hair. The girl gave a little shriek and stepped backward sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Caroline apologized. “I wanted to make
sure that nothing had been disturbed here. Mr. Netheridge requests that you do not come into this room, under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

“Yes … yes, ma’am,” the girl said obediently.

Caroline wondered whether she should ask Eliza to lock the door. But if she did that, the maids would wonder where Ballin was. Perhaps it could be explained as an infectious disease? Would that be enough, or could curiosity still get the better of someone, driving them to look around the room?

Then again, how much did it matter? There was nothing in there, except the curled-over ash remnant of a note, which no one could read now anyway.

“Thank you.” She smiled at the girl and then came out into the passage, closing the door behind her. She would find Eliza immediately and apologize for giving her staff orders, and explain to her the necessity.

Eliza looked surprised when Caroline told her. “I … I never thought of it,” she admitted. “Mr. Netheridge thought it better not to tell them anything, which I find very difficult. They will not see Mr. Ballin, and they know perfectly well that he cannot have left. No one
could.” She bit her lip. “If they ask me, and the butler certainly will, what should I say?”

“I think perhaps that Mr. Ballin is ill and must not on any account be disturbed. Also that we are not certain if what he has might be contagious. But I would add that only if necessary.”

“Then why do we not feed him?” Eliza said reasonably. “Even the sick need to eat and drink, and also have their bed linen changed.”

“Perhaps we may know the truth before such an issue is obvious,” Caroline said gravely. “If not, perhaps then it will be time to tell them the truth we have.”

“Where could he be?” Eliza’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Well, he has not returned to a mysterious coffin somewhere,” Caroline assured her. “But we do need to know as much of the truth as possible, for our own safety, and to prevent any further tragedies.”

“Will it prevent tragedy?” Eliza looked at her candidly. “One of us here in this house must have killed him. There’s no one else, and there is no possibility whatever that it was suicide or accident. He could not have done
that to himself; even I can see that. Who carries around a broom handle carved to a spear point in the middle of the night, unless they intend to kill someone?”

“Nobody,” Caroline agreed. “And we will all be afraid and wondering until we find out who did it. Do you think there is any chance we can forget it and carry on as normal until the snow thaws and the police can arrive, and ask us all the same questions we can ask now, except days later when we don’t remember anything as sharply?”

“No. So what can we do?”

“There are three things we can agree about,” Caroline answered. “Who had the ability to kill him: that is, the means? Who had the opportunity: In other words, where were we all at the time it must have happened? And who would want to: Who believed they had not only a reason, but no better way of dealing with it?”