Cut to the Quick (41 page)

^M
I realized how lucky I was she'd been so secretive about our love affair. There was just a chance nobody would ever find out I'd had anything to do with her. Of course I'd have to square Daphne, and that would be expensive. But if I could fork out more than she’d get as a reward for laying information against me, she'd hold her tongue. There was no love lost between her and Bow Street; she'd as soon not have anything to do with them if she could help it.

“The most important thing was to get rid of Bliss. I knew where he was: he'd told me if I had any more errands for him, I could find him at the old mill. So when the household finally settled to sleep, I went out in that cursed rainstorm to see him. I found him asleep—and for half a minute, I understood ^hy people commit murders. I thought, all I'd have to do is fetch him a good, stiff plug on the brainpan, and he’d never be able to open his mouth to do me any harm. But, I don’t know, I wasn't bad enough, or brave enough, to take that route. I woke him up and gave him all the money I could scrape together in exchange for his promise to cut and run, and not breathe a word about Amy and me. Of course, when I saw Kestrel had that infernal sack, I thought he’d been found and had talked, and I lost my head.

“I've told you the whole truth now, I swear it. I expect it’s a crime to hide evidence, but that’s the worst thing I've done.”

There was a silence. Julian broke it. “When you cut a way for you and Amy through the Chase, what did you use?”

Alarm flashed into Guy’s eyes. “I didn’t have a knife, if that’s what you mean! When I said I cut our way, all I meant was I broke off branches and kicked away undergrowth.”

“Have you told us everything Miss Fields said when you and she quarrelled here?” asked Sir Robert. "Did she demand that you marry her? Did she threaten you in any way?”

“Threaten me? How do you mean?”

“Are you telling us you know nothing of the connexion between Miss Fields—or, rather, Mademoiselle Deschamps—and your father?”

“You all keep hinting about something between Amy and my father, but I’m blistered if I know what you mean.” He appealed to the colonel. “What’s all this about?”

“I hoped you’d never have to know,” Geoffrey said quietly. “But I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

Sir Robert rose and looked coldly at Guy. “In my judgement, the evidence against you is more than sufficient for an arrest. But I leave that decision to the magistrate who is taking over the investigation tomorrow. In the meantime, I shall treat you exactly as I did Mr. Kestrel’s servant when he was accused. Rawlinson, be good enough to take him to your office and lock him in there for the present. Then go to my office and write up a statement he can sign.”

“Do you have to lock him up?” pleaded Geoffrey.

“Do you suppose I can take his word—as a gentleman!—that he won’t try to escape?”

Guy flinched and looked away.

“May I go with him?” Geoffrey asked.

“Very well. But I warn you, if he makes any attempt at flight, I shall have him caught and dragged back, if I have to raise a hue and cry all over the county.”

Guy went out, flanked by Geoffrey and Rawlinson. At once MacGregor burst out. “I'm sorry, Sir Robert, I know he’s your nephew—but how can we believe any of that rigmarole he told?” “I believe him,” said Julian.

“You do, do you?” MacGregor’s eyes narrowed.

“I think it sounds exactly like him—leaving the girl locked in

here as a punishment for her and a joke on me. And it explains the locked door. If she were dead when he left her, why would he bother to lock her in?”

“To confuse us,” declared MacGregor. “And it worked, because you’ve been puzzling over that locked door from the beginning.” “He would have had to keep a very cool head, to be able to think of conundrums for us to solve, with the girl lying dead before him. And we know he was anything but coolheaded—in feet, he must have lost his head completely. Otherwise, why didn’t he hide her body in the secret passage?”

Sir Robert and MacGregor looked at each other uncertainly.

“Of course he'd have had to dispose of the bloodstained bedding, too,” Julian mused, “but a missing sheet and coverlet would have caused a good deal less commotion than a corpse. The fact that the girl’s body was left in the bed for anyone to find is the single best argument for Guy’s innocence. Only he knew about the passage. He could easily have hidden the body there and got rid of it later, on one of his nightly forays.”

“Perhaps he couldn’t get the passage open,” said Sir Robert.

“It opened very easily for me once I learned the knack of it, and Guy had opened it many times. But, you know, that brings up an interesting point—”

He stopped. The solution caught up with him—stared him in the face.

“What point?” said MacGregor impatiently. Then, in an altered tone, “Kestrel, are you all right?”

“Yes, doctor.” Julian drew a long breath. There could be no turning squeamish now. He had to finish what he had begun. “How do you suppose those smears of blood got on the panel where the secret door is?”

“Maybe Guy tried to open the secret door after he killed her, and couldn’t!” MacGregor said eagerly. “But he pressed against the panel, and blood from his fingers got on the wall!”

“You can’t move the panel by pressing against it,” Julian pointed out quietly. “The spring that opens it is in the window recess. And Guy knew that.”

“Well, how do you think the smears got there?”

“I think the girl was killed by someone who knew there was a passage, but didn't know how to get into it. The smears were made by that person's vain attempt to push open the door."

“How would the murderer have known there was a passage at all?" Sir Robert objected.

“From the girl. Suppose someone came in and found her here after Guy left. One of the first things that person would ask would probably be, how did you get here? And the girl might have said, I came through an opening in the wall—just there."

“But, great Heaven," cried MacGregor, “we're back where we started! Anybody who got talking to her might have found out she was the daughter of that Frenchwoman, and killed her to stop her revealing Colonel Fontclairs treason."

“No." Julian shook his head. “Not just anybody, Doctor. It's true we could still spin all manner of complex theories. Anyone could be lying, any two people could be giving each other an alibi. But if we assume all the suspects told the truth, just short of an actual confession, we know who the murderer is. The murderer can only be one person."

Sir Robert and MacGregor stared at him, afraid to ask, afraid to speculate.

“Of course," said Julian quietly, “it would be difficult to prove. But I don’t think we'll be put to the trouble of proving it. I think, now that Guy stands accused of the murder, the real murderer will confess."

*

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Mr. Kestrel. I had to give this to someone for safekeeping, and since you've played the principal role in the investigation, you seemed the right person. I also thought you would be the easiest person for me to face. Here. This is my confession. I wrote it while Guy was being questioned. You'll find in it everything you or the authorities might wish to know about the murder."

Julian hardly glanced at the sheaf of papers put into his hand. “I'm sorry."

“You don't seem very surprised."

“I felt fairly sure in the end it must be you. I hoped I was wrong.”

Isabelle smiled ever so slightly. “Sometimes you’ve hinted you had a tendre for me. I hope that isn't so. Because, strange to say, I have nothing against you, and I should be sorry to see you suffer. I wanted to be found out—to have the luxury of confessing and being punished. But I had to think of my family—the disgrace I would have brought on them. Of course, once Guy was accused, I couldn't keep silent any longer. Even if it had been someone other than Guy, I would have spoken. Even for my family's sake, I couldn't let an innocent person be blamed for my crime. You must believe me, I'm not so base as that.'*

“I believe you.”

She walked a little away from him. Even now his eyes lingered, with aching appreciation, on the slender, graceful curves of her body, the shimmering fall of her hair. Her fingers trailed absently along the top of a long table. She and Julian were in the library, where she had sent for him to meet her after the interrogation of Guy.

She asked musingly, “Would Guy have been found guilty, do you think, if I hadn’t spoken?”

“I don't know. I didn’t believe he was, once I'd heard his whole story.”

“I knew you were clever. I knew from the beginning that if anyone were to find me out, it would be you. How did you find me out in the end?”

“It was mostly a matter of timing. Guy told us he locked the girl in my room at a quarter past five, which meant she must have been killed between that time and twenty minutes to six. That eliminated Colonel Fontclair completely, since he was out riding from five o'clock until after six, and there was no way he could have got back into the house without being seen. Unless, of course, he used the secret passage, but he claimed not to know about it, and I believed him, since anyone who knew how to get into the passage would surely have hidden the body there. Sir Robert, Lady Fontclair, Lady Tarleton, and Craddock were all in the house between a quarter past five and six, but not in the right place at the right time. Because, since no one but Guy knew the girl was at Bellegarde, no one could have purposely sought her out, either to kill her or for any other

reason. Someone must simply have happened on her between a quarter past five and six, and no one was so likely to have done that as you.”

He halted. The sheer, unearthly strangeness of this conversation overcame him. Here he was calmly expounding his reasoning to Isabelle as she stood on the brink of disaster, all her ties to civilisation breaking, all her hopes of happiness draining away. But she looked at him expectantly, interested in his explanation. He realized she had long since parted company with happiness and civilisation. If she had ever been afraid to take the consequences of her crime, she was not afraid anymore.

He went on, “Lady Fontclair says she never left the conservatory between four o’clock and six. Sir Robert went to get a book from the library at one point, but that wouldn’t have taken him upstairs, or anywhere near my room. Craddock came in through the front door at twenty minutes past five, and he did go upstairs. But when he reached the top of the grand staircase, he would have gone toward his room at the front of the main house, not toward my room at the back. He remained in his room from then on, quarrelling with Lady Tarleton. And, of course, Lady Tarleton went nowhere near my room. She was searching Mark Craddock’s.”

“Aunt Catherine was searching Mr. Craddock’s room? Why?” “You still know nothing about the letters Craddock has?” “Letters that hurt my family, I suppose. I knew he must have some power over us, or Uncle Robert wouldn’t have agreed to the marriage between Miss Craddock and Hugh. But, no, I don’t know anything about any letters. How should I?”

“No reason. I used to think the letters had something to do with the murder, but I can see now that isn’t so.”

“Of course, once you’d eliminated all the others, you were left with me.”

“Yes. And I knew you had passed close to my room shortly before half past five, on your way to Miss Craddock’s to show her your design. Guy said he left Aimee crying hysterically in my room. I think you heard her crying as you passed by, and went in to investigate.”

“Yes. I felt odd about going into a gentleman’s room, but I

thought I ought to see what was wrong. Of course I was surprised to find the door locked, but the key was right there on the hall table, so I unlocked the door and went in. I would give anything to have that moment back, and to be anywhere but in front of that door, with the key ready to hand. But I was there—I went in—I talked with her—and I killed her, with the knife from my sketching box. Do you know why I killed her, Mr. Kestrel?”

“I think so. You don’t have to talk about it, if you’d rather not.” “How did you know? I don’t think anyone in my family did, and they had far longer to guess the truth than you.”

“But I was watching you very closely, trying to guess what went on in your mind, behind your eyes. Your family probably saw you less clearly, simply because they saw you every day. They took it for granted they knew you. They wouldn’t have dreamed you had anything to hide.”

“You suspected me from the beginning, then?”

“I didn’t suspect you of the murder. Though I did think you were holding something back, perhaps shielding one of your family. That gave me a reason to watch you—I suppose I should say, it gave me an excuse. You know I’ve been drawn to you from the moment we met.”

“And you know I warned you to stay away. I didn’t know then what disaster I’d bring on any man who cared for me, but I knew I could never feel anything for you. I hope you aren’t in love with me.”

“I could have been, all too easily. If you’d ever softened toward me even a fraction, God knows what would have become of me! They say Pygmalion loved a statue, but I don’t believe that’s possible. There has to be at least a hint of a living, breathing woman underneath. You never gave me so much as a glimpse of that woman in you. All I knew about what you felt, and what you must be suffering, I figured out from linking stray facts together, like so many beads on a string.”

“What facts?”

“Do you remember when you let me look through your sketch book? I was surprised to find you’d drawn everyone in your family except Guy Even on the page where you drew contrasting portraits

of all their feces, showing how the family features varied from one to another, he wasn’t there.”

*‘1 do draw him, though. At night when I can’t sleep I sit up and sketch him over and over. I don’t need any light to draw that face. Afterward I put the sketches under my pillow, and in the morning I look at them, and then I burn them. I always feared that if anyone saw a sketch I made of him, it would give me away. They all seem to show my feelings so clearly, the paper burns my fingers. But my sketchbook alone couldn’t have made you so certain.”