Death at Blenheim Palace (30 page)

Then he was gone. Kate went back to her chair, staring at the fire and thinking resentfully that sometimes it was very hard to be a woman.

And then she thought of the dead woman—drowned?—who had been taken up out of the lake, and her resentment dissolved into something else. Sadness, regret, pain . . . and the thought of death, the end of all things.

Death, that cancels everything but truth.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

 
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare

 
 
 
The woman’s body was laid out in the game larder, a small, stone-floored, stone-walled room off Blenheim’s East Court, with wide slate shelves, several long rows of ceiling hooks for hanging game, and a huge zinc-lined ice box. The rain-washed air blew in through the pierced metal of fly-proof windows, which were designed to keep the room cool. There were no gas or electric lights in this part of the palace, and Stevens—in pajamas, robe, and slippers, as was Winston—had brought in a paraffin lamp.

“I trust your lordship will pardon me for sending Badger home,” he said apologetically. “The poor man was wet through, and over-warm with the exertion of getting the body here. He trundled it up from the boathouse in a barrow.”

“It’s just as well,” Charles said. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow.”

“Said he found her in a net down by the dam,” Winston growled. “Didn’t want to explain what he was doing out on the lake at this time of night, and in a storm, too. Poaching, no doubt.”

“Don’t be too harsh with him, Winston,” Charles said. “Whatever he was up to, he’s done us a great service. And a service to the poor soul he found.” He knelt down beside the body, which lay flat on the cold stone floor. “Hold the lamp higher, please, Stevens.”

“Yes, m’lord,” the butler muttered. He did as he was bid, but turned his face away from the sight, and the lamp trembled in his hand.

Charles did not blame him. The woman had been murdered; that violent truth was told by the gaping slash across her jugular. But that and her sex—her hair was long and red-gold, she was heavy-breasted and dressed in a skirt and blouse—were the only truths immediately apparent. Her face was unspeakable, the features almost completely obliterated, and her hands had been chewed to the wrists.

“Pike,” Winston growled. “Vicious things, teeth like bloody sawblades. They’ll eat anything, alive or dead.” He made a gagging sound, and he too turned away. “But it’s not—I don’t believe that’s Gladys Deacon, Charles.”

“I agree,” Charles said gravely. “She has not the same figure. And the clothing is that of a servant.” He glanced up at Stevens, whose face was still averted. “Stevens, were you acquainted with Kitty?”

“Saw her, of course, m’lord,” Stevens said in a strangled voice. “When she was hired, and several times about the house. But I couldn’t—” He swallowed, tried to speak, swallowed again. “I couldn’t tell you if that . . . that
thing
is her.”

“Who can?” Winston asked.

Wearily, Charles stood up. “Stevens,” he said, “please be so good as to fetch Alfred.” He paused. “But don’t tell him why. I would prefer that he not know what to expect. And when you have brought him, you may go back to bed.” He smiled a little. “I should recommend a large brandy.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Stevens said gratefully. He cast a last glance at the corpse that lay on the floor. “Alfred’s doing the locking-up. It may take a while to find him.”

But Stevens must have located the footman quickly, for he was back within minutes. “Here’s Alfred, m’lord,” he said thinly, and departed.

Alfred stepped through the door. He was still in full livery, and his costume—powdered hair, maroon jacket, white breeches, white stockings—looked oddly incongruous in the cold, stone-walled room. He was, Charles thought, very young.

“You wanted me, m’lord?” Alfred asked with a deferential courtesy. “What can I—” And then he saw what lay on the floor, and stopped. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered. He lifted his eyes, suddenly wild and staring, to Charles’s face. “It isn’t!” he cried, his voice going taut and shrill. “It’s not her!”

“How do you know?” Charles asked gently. And then, when all that came out of Alfred was a kind of dying whimper, added, “Don’t you think you owe it to Kitty to be sure?”

Alfred was shaking so hard that his teeth seemed to rattle in his head. “I . . . I can’t,” he wailed. “That thing . . . it don’t look like her!”

Charles stepped forward and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, steadying him. “You were intimate with her,” he said. “Do you recall whether she bore any marks on her body? Any moles? Birthmarks?”

Alfred had thrown his arm across his face, as a man does when he cannot bear to look on something terrible, something inhuman. He was sobbing now, the sobs coming from deep within him.

“Any moles, Alfred?” Charles persisted, more authoritatively. “Any birthmarks?”

Alfred choked. “On her . . . her left sh-shoulder,” he managed. “A . . . a brown mark.”

Charles knelt down again and pulled the woman’s wet dress from her shoulder, far enough to see a dark brown birthmark about the size of a sixpence. He rearranged the dress, stood again, and spoke to Winston. “Kitty,” he said, although he had not doubted it.

Alfred’s sobs suddenly ceased, with a harsh, half-strangled sound. “She . . . she was murdered, wa’n’t she?” he whispered. His voice was thin and reedy, the voice of a lost child. “Somebody slit her throat?”

“Yes,” Charles said gravely, watching the emotions chase one another across the young man’s face: disbelief, grief, rage, disbelief again. Such was death, and encounters with death. “Do you know who did it?”

The long silence was filled only with the audible rasp of Alfred’s breathing. “No,” he said at last. “O’course not. How should I know?”

Charles studied the pale face. “Perhaps you did it yourself,” he remarked in a neutral tone.

Alfred’s eyes flew wide open in unfeigned shock. “Me!” he cried. “Me? No, never! I
loved
her! We was . . . we was going to Brighton and get married, we was!”

“That’s what you
say,
” Charles replied, more harshly now. “But perhaps Kitty wasn’t as anxious to marry you as you to marry her. Perhaps the two of you fell into a lover’s quarrel.” He held up his hand, stemming Alfred’s violent objection. “It’s happened before, many times. A woman rejects her suitor, he turns on her, and—”

“Oh, never!” Alfred said brokenly. “Oh, I’d never do anything like that.” He was sobbing again, his shoulders shaking. “Whatever else I’ve done, I’m no killer. And not Kitty. Never Kitty, I swear!”

“But someone did it,” Charles said. “If not you, then who?”

“P’rhaps she had another lover,” Winston put in helpfully. “One of the other servants. Or someone in Woodstock. A rival, Alfred.”

“No!” Alfred howled. He dropped to his knees, raising his clenched fists as if in torment. “Kitty didn’t have nobody else but me! We was going to be married, I tell you! We—”

“Well, then,” Charles said, more soothingly, “perhaps it wasn’t another servant. Perhaps it was someone who knew why she was here at Blenheim.”

“Why the
two
of you were here,” Winston added.

There was a sudden silence. “Why . . . why we was here?” Alfred managed at last. His glance, apprehensive, darted to Winston, then back to Charles. He looked cornered.

“Yes,” Charles said. “Someone else who was in on the robbery scheme. Bulls-eye, perhaps. Could Bulls-eye have killed her?”

Alfred got clumsily to his feet. “Bulls-eye? How d’ye know about . . .” He stopped, sucking in his breath. His lips had turned blue and he was shivering violently. He wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to stop shaking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anybody named Bulls-eye.”

“Of course you do, Alfred,” Charles said, unmoved. “Bulls-eye, at the Black Prince. He knew that you and Kitty were here at Blenheim, and why, and how it was all to be done.” He paused, adding thoughtfully, “Perhaps Bulls-eye was Kitty’s lover. Perhaps—”

“No!” Alfred cried. “Bulls-eye don’t care about Kitty, nor me, nor anybody. All he cares about is getting the job done.” He stopped, swallowing, seeming to realize that he had confirmed what he had tried to deny. “D’you know Bulls-eye, then?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t had that pleasure, but Mr. Churchill has,” Charles replied. “We know who he is, and where he is, and what he plans. And I think it’s possible that he killed Kitty, especially if he felt that she had become a danger to him, or a threat.” Alfred was biting his lip and Charles paused, letting that sentence sink in, before he added: “Did she say anything to you that might suggest that she knew the identity of the gang’s leader?”

Alfred was bewildered. “The . . . leader? She knew—?” He stopped, shaking his head back and forth, numbly. “How could she know? Nobody knows. How could—?”

“She didn’t mention a photograph to you, then?” Charles interrupted. “Or that she planned to have a go at Bulls-eye?”

Alfred was still shaking his head, but the color was beginning to come back into his face. “I don’t know anything about a picture. You . . . you think Bulls-eye killed her because she knew too much?”

“I believe it’s entirely possible,” Charles said. He narrowed his eyes at Alfred. “And I should think, if you truly loved Kitty, that you would want to do something about it.”

“Do something?” Alfred cried, as if he were heart-broken. “But what can I do? What can anybody do?” He held out his hands in a gesture of despairing helplessness. “Nobody can bring her back to life!”

“But you can help us bring Bulls-eye to justice,” Charles said. “If he killed her, you can see that he goes to the gallows for what he has done.”

There was another silence. Winston broke it with a dismissive cough and an amused half-smile. “I doubt that he has the stomach for it, Sheridan. After all, there’s some danger.”

“Not the stomach?” Alfred said, between his teeth. “You’ll see what stomach I have for danger, when it’s Kitty we’re talking about. You’ll see!”

“Then you’ll do it?” Charles asked.

Alfred looked down at the corpse on the floor. “I’ll do it—for her,” he said brokenly. “If it will get him, I’ll do it.”

“Perhaps we can begin,” Charles said, “by finding out what you know of the situation here.”

It took only a few moments for Alfred to tell what he knew, which turned out to be not a very great deal. Kitty had been the one who had the contacts with the gang, it seemed. She had recruited Alfred when they were both at Carleton House in Manchester, and she had obtained both their positions at Welbeck Abbey. When they were finished there, she’d got posts for them at Blenheim, working through a London agency. The two of them had been at the palace for a week or so when she told Alfred that a man named Bulls-eye was making the arrangements for the job, which would take place during the Royal visit. Alfred himself had met Bulls-eye only twice, once with Kitty, some weeks ago, and again more recently, at the Black Prince, when he had gone to ask about Kitty.

“I haven’t heard anything more from him,” he said, “until today, when—” He stopped.

Charles and Winston exchanged glances. “Yes?” Charles prompted. “What happened today?” Alfred was about to say that Ned had appeared, he thought, sent by Bulls-eye to make contact with him.

But Alfred appeared to have second thoughts about mentioning Ned. He shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything from him at all,” he said. “Don’t know whether they’re still planning the job. Nobody’s told me anything.”

Winston took a step forward. “Miss Deacon,” he said in a low voice. “Is she a part of this?”

“Miss Deacon?” Alfred said, sounding puzzled. “I don’t think so—but then, what do I know? As I said, nobody’s told me anything.” His eyes narrowed. “For aught I know, you two could be part of the gang. You could—”

There was a noise outside, and the door opened. Charles turned and to his surprise saw Kate in the doorway, still wrapped in her dressing gown. She was holding a lamp in one hand, its gleam shadowing half her face.

“I need to see you, Charles,” she said urgently.

In one stride, Charles was at the door, blocking her view of what lay on the floor. He pushed her outside and closed the door behind them. “I told you to go to bed, Kate.”

“I know,” Kate said. She had dressed and flung a shawl around her shoulders, but she was visibly shivering in the damp chill. “I wouldn’t have come looking for you, but I found this and thought you ought to see it right away.” She thrust a folded paper into his hand. “I went into your bedroom to get another pillow from your bed and noticed this, lying on the floor. Someone must have pushed it under the door. Please—you need to read both sides.”

Charles unfolded the paper and read it, as Kate held the lamp. Then he turned it over and read the note signed
T.E.L.
Ned’s note, written in his boyish hand.

“Damn,” he whispered. “I thought he was too smart to pull a grandstand stunt like this.”

“You have to go after him,” Kate said. “But please, dear, be careful.”

Charles put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her quickly. “I will,” he said. “Go back to bed.”

“Be careful,” Kate said again, and was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 
Arabic proverb

 
 
 
 
The rain had stopped but the damp wind licked at the candle in the lantern so that it flickered tremulously, casting grotesque shadows across the path to Rosamund’s Well. The darkness clung to Ned like a damp, suffocating shroud, a crowded darkness, dense with the darker bulk of ancient oaks, the lake filled with liquid ebony, the sky heavy with black, malefic powers. It was a noisy darkness, too, a babble of sly, secretive sounds: the joints of old trees creaking like old bones, the shrubby willows whispering treacherously, the black lake lapping greedily at the blacker shore, the faraway thunder rumbling in grim, deep-throated displeasure.