Death in the Setting Sun (28 page)

There were a great many dresses within, all over fussy and in rather poor taste. The Apothecary wondered about her husband, mentioned but never seen, and had a mental picture of him as rather elderly and preferring to remain solitary on his estates, wherever they might be. He went deeper into the press, rootling towards the back. And then he saw it and his heart skipped a beat. Thrown onto the floor, partially hidden by a hideous pink petticoat, was a red cloak. With trembling hands the Apothecary pulled it out and saw that it had a tear at the top, a tear which fitted the piece of material he had found perfectly. And down the length of the mantle, dried now but still recognisable, were patches of a dark sinister red. Inhaling deeply, John fought to bring his breathing under control but found that he was gasping like a child.

Then he heard it. Quite distinctly footsteps were making their way along the corridor and coming towards the apartment he was currently searching. He looked round frantically as the door to the living room opened. There was only one thing for it and that was to dive under the bed. Grabbing the cloak and shutting the press, the Apothecary did just that and lay there, smelling the dust with which the floor was thickly covered.

He was fairly certain it was Lady Theydon herself, for from a minute peephole between the bed cover and the ground he could see her shoes walking back and forth. Then there came a knock at the door and he definitely recognised her heavy voice saying, “Come.” The door opened and somebody entered the living room.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Lady Theydon, and rising from the chair into which she had sunk, she partially closed the bedroom door.

Within his hiding place, John cursed silently. Any hope of identifying the visitor had just been firmly dashed.

The voice said something and he heard Lady Theydon reply, “Stuff and nonsense, you really have to get a grip on yourself.”

There was a remonstrance and John unsuccessfully strained his ears to hear whether it was a man or woman who spoke.

“I’m sick and tired of you,” Milady went on. “I’ve covered for you and protected you at every turn. Why, I’ve even lied …” Here her voice dropped so low that the Apothecary could not catch the words, try though he might.

The other voice rose slightly but not enough for John to hear it properly.

“I’ve had enough of your schemes,” Lady Theydon answered firmly, standing up and starting to pace the room. “Why, if it weren’t for the …” Her voice faded

265 again as she reached the far side of the chamber and delivered the rest of her speech there.

The Apothecary cursed the fact that he was out of earshot, sure that whatever was being said was vitally important. Then he suddenly became still as the bedroom door was flung open fully.

“Get out of my sight,” ordered Lady Theydon thickly from the entrance. “I can’t bear even to look at you.”

There was the sound of marching feet crossing the living room and a loud bang as the door opened and closed. Then there was silence.

“Oh, God’s holy blood,” Lady Theydon said to herself, “do I deserve to be involved with a person so odious.”

John couldn’t help but think that anyone with such terrible taste in objets d’art definitely deserved all they got. None the less he felt slightly sorry for the woman.

An urge to answer a call of nature was beginning to make itself felt and the Apothecary prayed that Lady Theydon wouldn’t remain much longer. As if sent by heaven a bell rang loudly at that moment, making John jump, and Milady rose from the chair into which she had descended with a sigh.

“Oh pox,” she exclaimed crossly. “It’s the Princess.”

He heard her pause before the mirror and then, much to his relief, she stamped out of the room on heavy feet. Rising from his hiding place, the Apothecary brushed the dust from his clothes and hastened to the one and only water closet that the house contained.

*
 
*
 
*

That afternoon, just as the blood-red sun was starting to descend to the trees, the Apothecary walked to Bellow Bridge in order to clear his head and think. Once again there was a glittering frost which marked with white fingers everything it touched. The blades of grass were hard and harsh, the trees black and bleak, the sky filled with an icy veil which hung unmoving over the landscape. Only the little Bellow Brook tinkled over the stones that lay beneath the surface of the water. It seemed to John, then, that the whole world was silent, caught beneath the spell of this intensely cold winter, waiting and hoping for the return of spring.

He was just going to cross the bridge when he heard low voices and knew by their very urgency that their conversation was private. Instinctively he stood still.

Lady Georgiana was speaking, so low that the Apothecary could not catch what she said. But he heard the reply all right. The actor’s voice projected loud and clear.

“Oh, darling, I can’t believe that he is dead.”

“Can’t you?” she answered more clearly, and John’s heart sank at her tone.

“Well, it’s an awful shock of course but we can’t pretend that it hasn’t removed an enormous obstacle from our path.”

“Is that how you thought of Conrad? As an obstacle?”

“Well, darling, he was.”

“Michael,” she said, her tone as icy as the evening, “Conrad died a terrible death, stabbed in the stomach by someone or other then pushed into the bathing pool to drown. I won’t hear anyone run him down.”

“I’m not running him down,” Michael O’Callaghan stated with a note of despair. “I’m merely saying that with his removal the path is now clear for us.”

“Yes,” she answered, “suspiciously so.”

“What do you mean by that, pray?”

“You can take it any way you like.”

“No, wait a minute,” the actor said, an edge in his voice, “are you suggesting that I had anything to do with it?”

“If the cap fits,” she answered, and John could have wrung the silly girl’s neck.

“I take exception to that accusation,” Michael said nastily.

“So?”

“Just a minute, young lady. I can assure you that I knew nothing about his death. I was safely in Bellow’s farm, working.”

“At that hour of the morning you would have been in the far field,” she retorted with feeling. “And there would have been no one to see if you had slipped away for thirty minutes.”

The truth of this remark struck John hard and he started to wonder at the Irishman’s furious self defence.

“I’ll have you know, my Lady, that I worked hard all the morning, staying close to you instead of following my chosen profession on the stage.”

“That was a matter entirely for you.”

“No it wasn’t, by God. We decided to be together come what may, unless my memory is playing tricks. For that reason I stayed behind and got a job at the farm, and for my pains I’m accused of murder. Well, good evening to you, Madam. Now that you’re a wealthy widow I presume I am no longer good enough.” This was followed by the noise of Michael stamping off angrily into the frosty dusk.

To give her her due, Lady Georgiana behaved with dignity and did not run after him. Instead she started to walk back slowly towards the house. Behaving nonchalantly, John fell into step just behind her. Hearing him she whirled round with a little scream.

“Oh, Colonel Melville, you startled me. I wondered who it was.”

John bowed elegantly. “Only myself, my Lady. May I offer you my sincerest condolences on the untimely death of your husband.”

She turned to look at him, surveying him closely. “Are you sure we have never met?”

“One cannot be sure of anything in this life. Perhaps somewhere in London our paths crossed. Who knows?” She stopped walking and laid her hand on his arm. “How long have you been at the bridge?”

“If you are asking whether I overheard your conversation with Michael O’Callaghan, the answer is yes I did.”

“I see.”

“Are you sure that you really want to break with him? Is this not just a time of heightened emotion that has left you feeling uncertain.”

“You are very presumptuous, Sir. In fact I would say that you’re downright saucy.”

“I apologise,” John said, meaning it.

“I accept your apology.” They walked on in silence, then she said, “I have something to tell you. Indeed I would like your advice.”

“Please go on.”

“You say that I was wrong to quarrel with Michael O’Callaghan but the fact is that I don’t altogether trust him.”

John silently quivered. “Why is that?”

“You know that my husband was murdered in the Princess’s Grotto?”

“You will remember that it was I who found him.”

“Of course you did. Well, early that morning — very early — I met Michael in that very place. It was a brief meeting but the fact was that I left first and he remained behind saying that he would follow me in a moment or two so as not to arouse suspicion.”

She was being amazingly forthright with him and John wondered why.

“To come directly to the point, Colonel, it would have been easy for him to loiter there and do away with my husband.”

“Do you mean that they had an assignation?”

In the light of the moon that was just beginning to rise she turned frantic eyes on him. “That had never occurred to me. But yes, they might.”

“But for what purpose?”

“To talk about me, of course. What else?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

 
“
C
arte blanche!” Princess Amelia said triumphantly, and laid down her cards.

John, who had hardly been able to concentrate on his hand, said, “Oh well done, Highness, well done,” and resumed his thoughts about the more pressing events of the day.

He was making up a four at piquet and was effecting a poor showing of it, partly because his brain was buzzing with information and mostly because the Apothecary’s skills at gambling were limited to say the least of it.

Princess Amelia, who had insisted on playing cards before supper, said irritatingly, “I pride myself on my skill, Colonel. In less stressful times I would gladly teach you.”

“Your servant, Ma’am, as in everything. How is Eclipse, by the way?”

“Still coughing a little. That nice ostler, Jago, has some special liniment which he is applying to his chest.”

The third player, the Honourable Gerald Naill, said, “I always give my beasts a damn good dose of liquorice. That usually does the trick.”

Lady Theydon rolled her brown eyes and remarked plummily, “Of course my dear husband is a wizard with all animals but in particular horses. He treats them all himself, you know.”

“Yes, but he is not here, is he?” the Princess answered snappishly.

“Where are your estates by the way?” This from John.

“In Theydon Bois in Essex. Of course my husband spends most of his time there. He is somewhat older than I and prefers a quiet life.”

John could not help but smile crookedly at his correct assessment. “How wise,” he remarked.

She shot him a look but decided the comment was harmless and returned her attention to her cards.

The Apothecary took the opportunity to marshal his thoughts.

The conversation with Lady Georgiana had been most revealing. It would appear that she was one of those extremely beautiful young women whose emotions turned on a penny. Passionately in love with the Irish actor, presumably because he was difficult to secure, she had now turned violently against him and considered him capable of murder. But was he? Could her protests made with much anguish be an extremely clever cover for her own crime? Could she have waited in the bushes until she saw him depart and Lord Hope arrive, then gone in and killed him?

John cast his mind back to the performance and the possibility of her having killed Emilia. In common with most of the other actors, she had been missing fora while before she had returned to the salon in which the masque had been enacted. She would certainly have had time to slip into the woods wearing the second red cloak and murder his wife. His thoughts went back to Lady Theydon. Whoever it was who had killed Emilia, she had been an accomplice after the event. By hiding the cloak for them she was implicated in the crime. Yet today she had tired of that game and rounded on the guilty party.

The Apothecary thought back to those moments lying under the bed, surrounded by dust, and wished that he had been able to identify the person to whom Milady had been speaking. At least their sex would have helped. Yet really there was no male in the case other than the Irishman. He resolved to get to Bellow’s Farm and have a chat with Michael as soon as he could.

Lady Theydon laid a card and looked at the Apothecary expectantly. He stared blankly at her and was just about to state that he had lost the thread when a servant called from the doorway, “Supper is served, Highness.”

The Princess clapped her hands. “Ladies, gentlemen, let us go in. Leave your cards exactly as they are. We can return to the game afterwards.”

John stood up, much relieved, and looked round the room. The only missing person was Lady Georgiana who, as was to be expected, had taken to her chamber. Lady Featherstonehaugh and Lady Kemp were playing with Dr. Phipps and Priscilla Fleming, the last looking extremely pretty in masses of pale pink. In fact she had quite caught the eye of the gallant doctor who was