On a Desert Shore (26 page)

Chase approached Marina and conducted her back to her seat. “We're not finished, Miss Garrod,” he said. To the lawyers, he added, “But I suppose your business here is complete, sirs?”

“For the present,” said Endershaw. He nodded toward Mrs. Yates. “It is apparent that the court will need to appoint a new trustee, but I will leave that to you to explain to the family, Mr. Chase.” He snapped his fingers at Rourke, who hastened to retrieve the will and restore it to its portfolio. The lawyers bowed themselves out.

***

“Must we go on, Mr. Chase?” said Tallboys. “I think we all understand the terrible truth. It is unseemly to dwell on it more, particularly in a house of mourning. We've undergone a most distressing and fatiguing day. Whatever you have to say can wait.” As he spoke, he watched Anne Yates. He had every right to hate her for having duped him into authorizing Marina's confinement, yet there remained some impulse to protect. He wanted to spare the housekeeper, or perhaps to spare Marina.

“I've sent for another magistrate,” said Chase. “Given your close relationship to the prisoner, you can no longer act officially. After the inquest resumes to hear the new evidence about the purchase of the arsenic, Mrs. Yates must be committed for trial.”

Tallboys took this without a murmur. The family waited in taut silence. When the lady's maid Emma Todd, her face blotched and tear-stained, entered the room, she cast one quick, scared glance around and seated herself in the chair Chase indicated.

Removing his notebook from his pocket and donning his spectacles, Chase rose to his feet and began. “We won't keep you long, Todd. First, who directed you to give Miss Garrod the composing draught?”

“Mrs. Yates.”

“Every night?”

“Not always, sir.”

“The same dosage?”

“Sometimes she'd say I was to give Miss Garrod a little extra.”

“Did she ever explain why this medicine was prescribed?”

“Miss Garrod needed to be kept quiet like. But then the girl started to wander from her bed, and I thought maybe Mrs. Yates would bid me leave off with the dosing, but she didn't.”

“Why do you suppose that was?”

Todd's gaze had been lowered, but now she forced her eyes up to meet his. “Sometimes body and spirit would be worn out utterly, and Miss Marina would sleep for hours. At other times, the laudanum excited her. I think…I think it was intended she be driven out into the night to pursue the will-o'-the wisp.”

“The light in the garden. What do you know of that?”

“Nothing, Mr. Chase. But I'm sure that was Mrs. Yeats' doing. I saw it once myself from the window. If anyone else saw it, he'd have thought it was Miss Marina herself playing her tricks.”

“And the John Crow beads?”

“Why, that necklace was left on Miss Marina's pillow. No one would admit to putting it there. She could have taken it from her father's curio cabinet herself. But I'd seen Mrs. Yates coming out of her bedchamber that day when no one else was around. Later I told Miss Marina to remove the ornament, but she got ever so angry with me when I snapped the string accidentally. I only meant to help, sir.”

Chase paced the carpet a short distance and turned back. “You never told anyone of your suspicions? You didn't speak to Mr. Garrod or Mr. Honeycutt, for example?”

“I couldn't. I was afraid I'd be dismissed. You must believe me, sir.”

Marina said fiercely, “That's a lie, Todd. I saw my aunt slip money in your hand one day. She paid you to spy on me, and I won't have you near me anymore.”

Breaking out in a storm of tears, the lady's maid rushed to her mistress and tried to seize her hands, but the Reverend Tallboys barked out a command for her to leave the room. Sobbing, Todd complied.

When she was gone, Chase continued. “It was clear to me from the first that the malicious tricks were the work of someone in Miss Garrod's intimate circle. Someone, moreover, with knowledge of Obeah. Mr. Garrod had told me his daughter feared a curse. This was precisely what she was meant to believe— that she could not outrun a heritage that made her unworthy to be her father's child, that she could not cleanse herself of her mother's blood. She was to be driven mad, encouraged to think she'd brought a taint with her to England. It was to seem that in her madness she performed these tricks herself and didn't even know it.

“Then there was the fact that Mr. Garrod was so eager to see his daughter wed. This suggested that her marriage would play a central role in the disposal of his property, so I wondered what would happen if Miss Garrod didn't marry or didn't marry fast enough to suit her father. Two possibilities occurred to me. Either someone killed her father before he could make a new will or after he'd made a will that he'd threatened to change. Mr. Garrod played a dangerous game. He was impatient; he wanted his daughter settled in life. He was waiting to see if Honeycutt made any headway with the heiress since the London season had been a failure. If not, he meant to tell his nephew and Miss Garrod that they'd better get themselves engaged. I'm certain he shared his plans with his sister Anne Yates, respecting as he did her influence on her ‘children.'”

Chase said to Honeycutt, who had remained standing by the window, “I suspected that you, sir, had been playing the tricks to destroy Miss Garrod's chances and prevent her from marrying one of her other suitors. But after her father died, I began to see that you weren't the culprit. If you'd been named your uncle's heir and killed him to preserve that status, there was no reason for you to torment Miss Garrod further or have her locked away. If you weren't the heir, surely you'd want ready access to her so that you could try to convince her to wed you, which you stated several times was your goal. Perhaps you suspected your aunt or your sister of playing these tricks—but you made the mistake of assuming they acted for your benefit.”

“They all lied to me.” Honeycutt addressed Tallboys. “You lied, too, you scoundrel. You never told me your plans for my cousin.”

“I…I'm sorry, Ned,” said Tallboys. “Mrs. Yates advised that we save you the pain, and the girl's removal was to be temporary just until she recovered her senses. At any rate, I thought that—”

“Miss Garrod had poisoned her father,” cut in Chase. “And you, Honeycutt,” he added before he could be interrupted, “entertained the same possibility, as did your sister, though I suspect Miss Honeycutt, at least, had a good notion of the truth. Marina's guilt wouldn't have stopped you from marrying her if you'd been given the chance. But Mrs. Yates had other ideas. She would have let the year allotted in the will for Miss Garrod to marry elapse, thus effectively disinheriting her.”

Chase turned to Beatrice, his disgust evident. “Perhaps at first you did work to ensure your brother's inheritance. You knew something about the tricks all along, but you believed them intended to keep your uncle's money in the family.” He paused. “Did Mrs. Yates tell you of her plot to murder your uncle, ma'am?”

“My God, no! I too believed her when she said it was Marina revenging herself on us. It was only after I had time to think and she asked me to help persuade Mr. Tallboys to agree to the committal that I began to realize…”

“When it was too late for you to retreat,” said Chase. “Maybe you were too scared, if so much can be said on your behalf. I will say for you that you did not try to silence your uncle on his deathbed. You wanted to hear what he would say. He knew the killer had to be someone in his family—the nephew or the niece who stood to profit if his daughter did not wed. Or his sister who had made their interests her own. I'm quite sure he didn't suspect his daughter.”

“Marina,” cried Beatrice, jumping up from her seat to kneel by her cousin's chair, “can you ever forgive me? Yes, I suspected our aunt, but I didn't know, not for certain. I tried to talk to her today, stop her. You can ask Mrs. Wolfe. I think she heard us. Oh, Marina. It's true I envied your good fortune, but I swear I never meant you any harm.” Marina hesitated for a moment and deliberately averted her face.

“Return to your seat, Miss Honeycutt,” said Chase. Beatrice obeyed, her air of hopelessness making her appear suddenly much older. Chase looked at Marina, trying to convey reassurance. “Mrs. Yates miscalculated. Miss Garrod knew she wasn't mad. She fought back. Even I, hired to protect her, didn't believe in her at first because I couldn't see why she wouldn't have confided in someone. But I suppose the habit of silence, engrained from her early years, was too strong.” His eyes sought and held Marina's in mute apology.

Marina nodded. “I'll speak now, Mr. Chase. Aunt Anne, the way you crept into my room and leaned over me with those scissors in your hand last night…” She shuddered.

Mrs. Yates said nothing, and it was Chase who spoke. “Did you mean to terrify her in the dark, ma'am, so that she would be goaded into attacking you? You wished to reinforce the general belief in Miss Garrod's lunacy to justify having her put away in a private madhouse. You needed to prevent her from marrying anyone, even your nephew Ned Honeycutt, so that you could control Laurentum and Hugo Garrod's vast wealth. You knew Mr. Tallboys would not hinder you in your ambitions.”

Honeycutt went to the cabinet and poured himself a drink. He flung himself back into his chair and tossed down the brandy. “I've been a fool. My loving family has done its best to destroy me.”

“Ned…” protested his sister, but he refused to acknowledge her.

Chase said sarcastically, “Oh, I suspect that once Miss Garrod was either dead or confined to an institution for life, Mrs. Yates would have played matchmaker for you, Honeycutt. Found you a suitable bride to bear suitable babies. But that was for the future.”

He paused, dismayed to feel his throat closing with emotion. “The worst of the evil inflicted on Miss Garrod involved the bracelet made of
Abrus precatorius
seeds. The John Crow bean, a token of her island home and a sly reference to her mother's name—Joanna.” Chase glanced at Marina's wrist as he spoke, and everyone in the room followed his gaze. The bracelet with its beads of red and black was out of place in this conventional English library with its towering shelves and luxurious tables and sofas. Marina held up her arm.

“Todd has told you that the ornament was broken. But Miss Garrod restrung it and wore it in defiance of her tormenter.”

Chase went to stand in front of Mrs. Yates' chair. “The scope of this woman's malice is unfathomable. Imagine what this child endured all these months. Then after Mrs. Yates had committed murder, she crushed a few of these poisonous beads and hid them in the boiler room so that it would appear her niece had used them. To make sure this ‘evidence' was discovered in time, she instructed the gardener to inspect the mechanism. Her plan worked. The coroner's jury might have come in with a finding of murder against Miss Garrod and sent her to stand her trial had not my friend, Mr. Buckler, intervened and had we not convinced the coroner to adjourn the proceedings.”

“What was the poison?” demanded Honeycutt. “Did my aunt use the savage beads?”

“She did not. She put arsenic in the sugar.”

Beatrice gasped. “I had hoped the poisoning was the impulse of a moment, or intended merely to sicken the victims. But if it was arsenic, that means—”

“The murder was premeditated, yes. I have located the chemist who sold the poison, and he is prepared to identify its purchaser.” Chase flipped through the pages of his notebook, deliberately prolonging the moment. “Here it is,” he murmured. “
She was an old lady in a black silk gown, a respectable matron or an upper servant
.

“I've also learned that Mrs. Yates was absent from Laurentum for several hours on that day. There is, by the way, a public coach one can take to the city just a few steps from Laurentum's front door. It is through an innocent bottle of tonic that the druggist who sold the arsenic has been traced.” He looked at the housekeeper. “Why didn't you discard this bottle somewhere it wouldn't be found? I suppose you thought tearing off the label was enough.”

Mrs. Yates' composure wavered; her eyes flew to Chase's, seeming to burn from within with repressed fury and pain. He had no intention of showing any mercy. He wanted to find out if Anne Yates could be made to abandon her pose of gentility, could be made to hurt a little as she had hurt others, could be made to bare her foulness to the world. He could see a muscle twitching in her cheek, and her lips looked dry like paper.

He shook his head theatrically. “I needn't trouble us much further here. There's the key to the teapoy, which Mrs. Yates stole from the drawing room on the morning of the party and later left on the floor of the hothouse. There's the fact that she did not drink the tea and made sure that Honeycutt would be absent from the hothouse so that he would be safe. She also relied upon Mr. Tallboys' oft-stated resolve that he would not consume the costliest sugar. There too she miscalculated, but she was lucky in that her co-trustee, whom she knew she could manipulate, survived.”

When Chase saw realization striking Beatrice, he added grimly, “Yes, Miss Honeycutt. Your Aunt Anne was willing to risk your life. You were young. She probably hoped you would survive, but she didn't think anyone could ever suspect her, the person who had raised you and been a mother to you, of being the poisoner. She gambled with your life.”

Tears poured down Beatrice's face. “May I withdraw, Mr. Chase?”

Mrs. Yates stared at Chase's waistcoat, as if fascinated by his buttons. “In a moment, Miss Honeycutt,” he said. “Do you wish to withdraw too, ma'am?” he asked the poisoner. “Do you have anything you'd like to say first?”

Anne Yates lifted her brows at him and moved her foot a fraction of an inch so that it aligned perfectly with the other. He began to wonder if he'd been overconfident. The cringing chemist would make a poor witness—a clever defense-barrister might shake his identification of Yates as the woman who had purchased the arsenic. Also, arsenic could be put to so many household uses. Again, a clever barrister could suggest she had meant it to kill rats or something of that nature. No one had actually seen her put the poison in the sugar.