Cut to the Quick (9 page)

"It might be better if we went to my room. There's—something there I need to show you."

"As you wish." Sir Robert threw him a dubious look.

They went to Julian's room. He had kept the door locked while he was gone; now he opened it and stood aside. Sir Robert walked in. When he saw the girl in the bed, he stopped short, so that Julian nearly ran into him. "What is this?" he exclaimed. "Who is this woman?"

"I don't know. I found her here when I got back from riding."

"I demand to know the meaning of this, Mr. Kestrel. Is the girl ill?"

"The girl is dead."

"Dead! Are you sure?"

"She isn't breathing. She has no pulse. I put my ear to her chest,

but I couldn’t hear her heart. I held up a mirror to her face, and no mist formed on the glass. After that, I knew there was nothing to be done for her/*

It was strange to him how cold and detached his voice sounded. That was not at all how he had felt at the time, searching vainly for signs of life in the girl, unwilling to believe she could really be dead. But then he had seen the washstand—

“She’s turning cold,” said Sir Robert, who had been feeling for a pulse in her throat.

“Yes, only just. Perhaps she hasn’t been dead very long.” He added, “I haven’t disarranged anything in the room. It’s just as it was when I found her. You’re a magistrate, I believe?”

Sir Robert’s face was very still. Only his eyes were alive, staring down at the girl. It seemed to Julian that he had not heard the question. But at length he answered, without looking up, “Yes.” “Then I shall consider I’m reporting this crime to the proper legal authority.”

“What makes you so sure it’s a crime? We don’t know how the girl died.”

“Look.” Julian walked round the bed to the washstand. The gilt ewer, which ordinarily stood on a shelf beneath the basin, had been left on the floor. It was nearly empty, but the basin was half full of water. The water was a reddish colour, and the white towel draped over the towel rack was smeared with red-brown stains.

Sir Robert strode to the bed and flung back the bedclothes. The two men braced themselves for a grisly sight—but there was no sign of a wound. They gazed at the girl for a long time in silence.

She was small, slight, and delicately beautiful. Her hair was done up in a knot at the back of her head, but loose strands lay along the pillow, their red-gold colour uncannily bright. Her hands were at her sides, the fingers slack and slightly curled. Her legs lay straight, with the feet turned out. She was very pale. Blue veins showed through her skin, especially on her eyelids. She wore a pale yellow muslin dress, simple and modest, with puffed sleeves and a blue sash. An amber necklace encircled her throat.

“One of her earrings is missing,” Julian noticed. The other was still in her ear, a gold teardrop set with an aquamarine. He felt around her head and under the pillow, but the lost earring was not there.

He stepped back. His gaze travelled to the foot of the bed, where the bedclothes were piled. They consisted of a heavy crimson coverlet and a sheet. He looked at the sheet more closely, and all at once he stiffened. On the white linen was a red-brown stain shaped almost like a rose. He drew the sheet up to the girl's neck, and the stain came to rest a little way below her waist.

The two men looked at each other grimly. “We ought to have a doctor,*' Julian said.

“Dr. MacGregor is coming to dinner tonight.** Sir Robert looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter after six. He’s very likely on his way now. When he arrives, I'll ask him to examine the girl. In the meantime—” He surveyed the room. “Was there anything else out of order when you came in?”

“I haven't looked closely. Once I found she was dead, I only stayed long enough to make a quick search, to see if anyone was hiding here. I looked in the wardrobe and the water closet and behind the curtains, but there was no one here. I did find these, which I assume are hers.”

He showed Sir Robert the garments on the shieldback chair by the wall. There was a blue, grey, and yellow India shawl, a straw bonnet with long blue ribbons and a thick veil, a blue reticule of netted silk, and a pair of pale grey gloves.

“They’re lying just as I found them,” Julian said. He picked up a corner of the shawl. “This has been treated pretty roughly. Look, it’s stained with dirt, the fringe is tangled, and there are a good many pulled threads. The gloves are soiled, too. I wonder where she's been today?”

He went back to the bed. It might be useful to make a sort of catalogue of observations—and, useful or not, he found it a soothing way to occupy his mind. “Her dress is dirty, too, and there are grass stains all along the bottom. The hem’s been pulled down on the left side, and there's a piece of it torn away.”

Sir Robert said abruptly, “When were you last in this room before you discovered the girl?”

That stern, official tone chilled Julian. He realized they were no

longer talking as one gentleman to another. He was being interrogated. “I came here to put on my boots just before your son and I went riding. I think we left at about half past three.”

“Was anyone here with you?”

“My manservant. He helped me put on my boots.”

“Did he remain her .* after you left?”

“I think so, but I don’t know how long.”

“He will have to be questioned. And when did you return from riding?”

“A few minutes before six. I came straight up here, and that was when I found her. Here’s a strange thing: When I got here, the door was locked. The key was just outside, on the hall table. The last person in the room before me must have locked the door on his way out. Why? If the girl were dead—”

“Perhaps she wasn’t.”

“You think someone might have intended to lock her in?”

“I don’t know,” said Sir Robert. “But locking a door from the outside serves only to prevent someone inside from coming out, not .the other way around.”

“But if she was alive when whoever locked the door left her here, then how did she die?”

He bent over the girl, scrutinized her face and hair, and lifted her eyelids. Her blue eyes were clouded, the pupils unnaturally large. He looked closely at her hands, laying each one in turn on his palm and spreading out the small, childish fingers. His gaze scanned her limbs and lingered on her belly and hips. Despite the ominous smear on the lower part of the sheet, there were no bloodstains or tears in her dress to suggest rape.

“With your permission, Sir Robert?”

Sir Robert nodded. Julian carefully rolled the girl onto her side. The two men gasped, and Julian’s fingers tightened involuntarily in her flesh.

There was a small tear in her dress, midway down her back and a little to the left. The silk chemise underneath was torn, too, and the frayed material around the tears was sticky with blood. Julian delicately put a finger and thumb through the holes and parted the material. There was a wound in her back, about an inch long and pointed at either end. The sheet she lay on was soaked with blood where her wound had pressed against it.

He laid her down again gently. “A matter for the doctor, I think.”

Sir Robert put a hand to his brow for a moment and closed his eyes. When he took his hand away, his face was reasonably composed. “There’s a great deal to be done. Steps must be taken at once to investigate this matter. The household will have to be informed, and the servants questioned. There may well be someone in the house who knows the girl and can explain her presence here. I take it you have no idea who she is.”

“No. Not the slightest.”

Sir Robert eyed him narrowly for a moment. “I think you had better come with me for the present, Mr. Kestrel. I may need you further.”

Julian saw all too clearly that Sir Robert did not trust him. That was hardly surprising: the girl had been found in his room and his bed, after all. Yet it revolted him that he should be suspected of having anything to do with a vicious assault on a woman. For God's sake, keep a cool head, he cautioned himself. Don't give in to the urge to defend yourself, unless and until you've been openly accused.

They went out, and Julian locked the door behind them. He turned to find Sir Robert holding out his hand. “You'd best give me the key.”

Julian felt a strange reluctance to give it up. But Sir Robert was a. magistrate and the master of the house. He handed over the key, and Sir Robert put it in his waistcoat pocket. “Come,” he said. “We’ll go to my office.”

*

Sir Robert's office was on the upper floor of the servants' wing. He and Julian passed through the servants' hall on the way. Some of the servants were sitting round the communal table, talking and laughing after their dinner. Dipper was among them, chatting with a pretty maidservant in a mobcap (and doing rather well for himself, it seemed to Julian). Next door, the kitchen staff could be heard preparing dinner for the Fontclairs and their guests.

The servants stood up when Sir Robert and Julian came in. Sir

Robert told a footman to send Travis, the butler, to his office at once. Then he and Julian went out, followed by the servants* curious gazes.

While they waited for Travis, Julian asked, “Do you have to go through the servants' hall to get to your office?"

“Yes. The screens passage into the servants’ hall is the only means of access from the main house to the servants’ wing. I don’t relish constantly passing through the servants’ quarters, any more than they probably care for my coming among them unexpectedly. But I don’t choose to conduct estate or magisterial business in my family’s part of the house. Tenants and villagers come to see me or my clerk at all hours, with all manner of complaints about rents and tithes, or reports of petty crimes. I don't wish to have my family and guests disturbed by such matters."

Travis came in. He was an elderly man with a tonsure of bright white hair. His athletic frame and ramrod-straight stance suggested the retired military man.

Sir Robert issued a series of terse instructions. Travis was to gather all the servants in the servants' hall. Mrs. Cox, the housekeeper, was to keep order there and allow no one to leave without Sir Robert's permission. Anyone who disobeyed would be suspected of complicity in a felony. Rawlinson, Sir Robert's clerk, was to ride to Alderton at once and bring back Stephen Senderby, the parish constable.

Sir Robert gave no explanation for any of these orders, and Travis, though visibly startled, asked for none. Sir Robert eyed him measuringly. “I know you're well able to handle a gun. Take one from the gun room and load it. I want you to search the house as unobtrusively as possible, consistent with thoroughness. Report to me any evidence that an intruder has entered by any door or window. I trust you won't need the gun, but there is a chance you may meet with a stranger who'll give you trouble."

Travis stood straighter than ever. “What sort of intruder am I looking for, sir?"

“I don't know yet. When I've investigated this matter more fully, I shall be in a position to explain what’s happened and why I've taken these precautions. For the present, I am counting on you to act discreetly and conscientiously to secure the safety of Bellegarde."

“Yes, sir!”

“One more thing. You’ll find the door to Mr. Kestrel’s room locked. Don’t make any attempt to enter. But look carefully under his window for any sign that someone might have climbed in that way.”

Which we know can be done, Julian suddenly remembered, because Guy said he used to get in and out through that window when he was a boy.

After the butler had gone, Sir Robert said, “Travis is the man I most trust, of all the staff. He served under my uncle in the American war, and he’s been at Bellegarde for many years.”

“This Senderby—what sort of man is he?”

“Honest and dutiful. Not as resolute as perhaps a constable ought to be. I’m afraid the post was thrust upon him somewhat against his will. His usual employment is as a shoemaker and mender of harness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must tell Lady Fontclair what’s happened. I wish I could spare her this news, but I know she wouldn’t wish to be spared. She has always been, and always will be, in my confidence in any matter touching the welfare of this house.”

“May I be useful somehow?”

“Please be good enough to wait for me here. I won’t be long.” Left alone, Julian shook his head, thinking of Senderby. A shoemaker and mender of harness! Was there anything more incongruous and ill-suited for its purpose than the English system of police?

D. . MacGregor’s gig creaked and swayed as it pulled up in front of Bellegarde. For years now, the wheelwright in Alderton had been angling to build him a new one. But MacGregor had been driving his ramshackle carriage for well over a quarter of a century, and he had no intention of breaking in a new one, when this one had served him so well.

He climbed down from the gig, ignoring the twinge of rheumatism in his joints. Taking out his medical bag, which he carried with him even on. social visits, he went to the front door. He had no qualms about leaving the gig in the drive. He knew from long experience that the mare would stay put for the time being without anyone to look after her. She was not much to look at, but she was reliable. This was more or less MacGregor’s view of himself as well.

He rang the bell and stood drumming his fingers on the doorjamb till he heard the scrape of the door being unbarred. It opened, and Travis said, “Good evening, sir.”

This was MacGregor’s first surprise. Ordinarily the front door was opened by a footman. “Good evening, Travis. Anything wrong? You look a little green about the gills.”

Travis barred the door again, thrusting the heavy oak beam resolutely into its sockets. MacGregor eyed him sharply. He dined at

Bellegarde nearly every Friday evening, and he could not recall the front door ever being barred at this hour before.

‘Tm very well, sir, thank you,” said Travis, taking MacGregor’s hat. He would have taken his medical bag as well, but some instinct prompted MacGregor to hold on to it. “Would you be so good as to step into Sir Robert’s office? He asked me to bring you there directly you arrived. I’ll send a boy from the stable to look after your horse and gig.”