Serpent in the Garden (43 page)

The water seemed to soothe him, for he released his grip on the rim of the tub and lay back with eyes half closed, smiling to himself. Every now and then, however, he was racked with a spasm of coughing, and when Kitty held a cloth to his mouth, Joshua saw that his spittle was stained with blood.

They lifted him from the tub, dried him, and having dressed him in a nightshirt taken from his bag, laid him back on the daybed. Kitty then departed in search of some nourishment.

Cobb seemed a little revived, for he opened his eyes and looked at his clothes. “Did you bring my bag?” he suddenly said.

“Yes,” said Joshua. “I have it safe. You are wearing your nightshirt from it. Do not concern yourself about it anymore.”

“I thank you, Pope, for what you have done for me just now. You are not entirely the bad fellow I took you for.”

This sudden display of gratitude reminded Joshua of his earlier doubts. “Perhaps, on the contrary, it is you who are the bad fellow, Mr. Cobb.”

He looked alarmed. “What d’you mean, Pope? I came here at your invitation. You said I would be safe, yet I found myself arrested like a common prisoner. You have extracted me from that hellhole of your own volition.”

“I am sorry for your ordeal, but I fear it was partly your own fault for going scavenging downstairs at the dead of night.”

“I was half dead with hunger. What would you expect me to do?”

Joshua refrained from telling Cobb that if he had had an ounce of intelligence, he would have washed himself, waited till morning, and sent for the maid to announce his arrival in the proper manner. Although he had determined to dwell no more on the events at Astley, having Cobb before him once more rekindled Joshua’s curiosity. Incarcerated in the Roundhouse, Cobb could have had nothing to do with Caroline Bentnick’s death, yet he was irrefutably involved with much that had passed earlier. “Tell me frankly, Cobb, what it was that brought you to this country.”

“I came because I was charged to do so. I am an attorney-at-law. I was engaged in a matter of disputed property.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that. But as I understand it, Hoare took care of things at this end. You were employed to work for him in Barbados. You had no real reason to come to this country.”

Cobb looked thoughtful a moment. Joshua thought he caught something hidden in his expression. “Very well, I will tell you in all honesty what I told you before. Violet was my reason. You have seen her, Pope. Surely you can understand how I was driven to follow her.”

“And did she offer you any encouragement?”

He paused. “She was fond of me in Bridgetown. Otherwise I would not have come here. It was only after she came to Astley her mother found out and tried to intervene.”

“What did Violet do?”

“She said it wasn’t wise to cross her mother. That was why she pretended to fall for Francis Bentnick and said she wanted no more to do with me.”

“Pretended?”

“Aye. We still communicated from time to time, by letter and rendezvous in the garden.”

“But in Herbert’s desk I found a letter addressed to you in which she declared the relationship at an end.”

“She wrote that as a ploy, to convince her mother that our relationship was over,” said Cobb.

Joshua was unsure whether or not Cobb was deluding himself; certainly he seemed convinced of his own veracity. But would Violet really be capable of such duplicity? “How did Sabine know about the letter?”

“Sabine sent Herbert to the inn to plague me over my relations with Violet. I showed him the letter, as proof there was no longer anything between us.”

“In that case how did it find its way into Herbert’s desk?”

“When Hoare came he also pursued the matter with me and I gave him the same letter to read. But he took it from me and refused to return it.”

“So Hoare also took exception to your relations with Violet?”

Cobb swallowed thoughtfully and nodded. “He said my behavior was extremely unprofessional. To grow romantically involved with a person opposed to one’s client defied common sense as well as every legal rule of conduct he could think of. I was dangerously jeopardizing the outcome of our client’s case. He tried to get me to leave. But I wouldn’t. I wanted Violet, you see, Pope. Wouldn’t leave without her.”

“Tell me about the day Hoare died. You said you believed your life was in danger and that you were the intended victim. What makes you say so?”

“The evening before Hoare was found dead, I received a message. I believed it to be from Violet. The note asked me to meet her in the pinery at ten. It said she had something to tell me that would lift my spirits. I hoped that meant she would agree to come away with me.”

“So why did Hoare go in your stead?”

“Hoare happened to be present when the message was delivered and grew suspicious that there was still something between us. We sat together for some hours arguing about it. I denied that the message was from Violet and refused to say who it was from. I said it was no concern of his. During this time he made me take too much brandy. I fell asleep. He had drugged me, Pope, I’m certain of it.”

“What happened when you woke?”

“It was after midnight, so I had missed my rendezvous. I looked in my pocket and found the message gone. I went to Hoare’s room and found it empty. Guessing he had gone in my place to turn Violet against me, I went to the pinery to try to rectify matters.

“When I got there I found the place was like a furnace. I could hardly stand the heat, but I saw Hoare lying there. I don’t know if he was dead, but before I could ascertain what had happened to him, I heard footsteps approaching. Not wishing to be apprehended for trespass or whatever misadventure had befallen him, I followed my instincts and ran. I grew terrified. I dared not go back to my lodgings, for fear of being apprehended there. So I went into hiding, intending to bide my time till I could recover my belongings. But then you appeared and took them. And when you told me about the corpse, I realized that Hoare had been killed in my stead.”

“What made Hoare so anxious to keep you from meeting Violet? She wasn’t directly involved in the disputed property. Did he believe you wanted to persuade her to steal the necklace? Was that why Hoare wanted you away, because he thought you were after the necklace for your own gain? Did you kill him on account of his objections?”

Cobb gazed incredulously at Joshua, then broke into a mocking laugh. “What an imbecile you are, Pope, even to entertain such an idea! I had no need of the necklace. I told Hoare as much. That was partly why he grew so incensed with me.”

“So he did accuse you?”

“Yes, until I showed him my fortune. That maddened him still more, for despite my protestations, he knew I was lying. He could see there was no way to hold me from pursuing Violet, and as I said, the prospect of us eloping jeopardized the case and contradicted his notions of professional etiquette.”

“A fortune?” Joshua repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I had a stroke of good luck not long after arriving here.” Joshua’s face must have shown his bewilderment, for Cobb elucidated. “The tables, Pope.”

“I had no idea you were a gambling man.”

“I have found that for a stranger in any town it’s an efficacious way to forge acquaintances and pass a convivial evening.”

“Is that what you did when you got to Richmond? Went gaming?”

“Haven’t I just told you as much?”

The memory of raucous laughter now began to reverberate like an echoing gong in Joshua’s head. He vividly remembered his encounter with Arthur Manning and Manning’s reaction to the mention of Cobb’s name. “And do you recall with whom you played?”

For a moment Cobb tilted his head and swallowed silently. When he spoke he looked Joshua directly in the eye. “Of course,” he said evenly. “I won two thousand pounds in a run of only three nights from a man called Arthur Manning. Never dreamed of making such riches so easily. That was what I told Violet when I met her in the gardens. I had money enough to allow us to go back to Barbados, buy a house and some land, and our future would be assured. We had no need of the necklace or her mother’s approbation. It was only later I understood that making a fortune overnight is only a good thing if you live to enjoy it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? A fortnight after I had beaten Manning so roundly, Hoare was killed after he went to a rendezvous in my place. The message I was given agreeing to the rendezvous can’t have been in Violet’s hand, though it was close enough to fool me. Two days after Hoare’s death I was assaulted on the road up to the Star and Garter by a masked highwayman, whose physique bore a remarkable resemblance to Manning’s. The man shot me in the foot, giving me the limp that now afflicts me. That is why I determined to hide out until such time as I could regain my bag, and then save my skin by returning to Barbados. Give it to me now, I beg you.”

Joshua went to the corner, retrieved Cobb’s bag, and carried it over to him. “I will gladly give it to you, but I regret to tell you I doubt what you left there is still inside. I searched twice and found nothing of value.”

Cobb smiled grimly. He grasped the bag, delved inside, and retracted the leather case containing his traveling walking cane. He opened the case and took out the top section with its carved pineapple top. “I bought this before leaving Bridgetown to store my correspondence from Violet. It is made with a hollow compartment inside,” he said, unscrewing the pineapple finial.

Joshua watched in astonishment as Cobb shook the tube and a clutch of large white banknotes fell into his lap.

COBB HAD won a fortune from Arthur Manning. He had no reason to kill Hoare or steal the necklace. In view of Cobb’s story of the message and the subsequent attempts on his life, it seemed probable that Hoare had been killed by mistake. Cobb was the intended victim. What did that signify? Obviously the murderer couldn’t distinguish between Cobb and Hoare. That eliminated Violet and Arthur Manning, who both knew what Cobb looked like. He could also discount Herbert, who had called on Cobb at the Star and Garter, and Francis, who had met Cobb in the gardens at Astley. Only Sabine, who had not met Cobb, remained suspect.

Then another name sprang to his mind, one that he had never considered until now. Arthur Manning had been deprived of his fortune. His sister, Lizzie, had demonstrated her apparent devotion to him in innumerable ways. She had meddled in matters that were none of her concern. She had come to Joshua’s rooms in the dead of night and searched his room while he slept. She was frantic to trace her brother. Until now he had assumed this was simple sisterly devotion. Now it seemed there was more than this: her determination to find Cobb’s bag showed she was bent on retrieving the fortune her brother had lost. And if she was prepared to risk her reputation for her family fortune, what other actions might she be prepared to take for it? Murder perhaps?

Joshua poured himself a brandy from a Bristol glass decanter and thought back to the night she had entered his room so unexpectedly. He had known before that she was fickle; he had guessed her purpose, but he hadn’t properly understood. He should have questioned her more rigorously, demanded to know why she wanted the bag. It had nothing to do with the necklace. Having learned that Cobb was living as a vagabond and was eager to recover his bag, she must have guessed her family fortune lay inside it.

Joshua pondered the question of the necklace and the murder of Caroline Bentnick. Was Lizzie responsible for these two evil deeds as well as Hoare’s murder? In the case of poor Caroline, there was an obvious motive: Lizzie might have overheard Caroline declare she had seen something that would lead him to the murderer. In other words, Lizzie may have killed her dear friend Caroline Bentnick in order to save her own skin.

But what about the necklace? Could Lizzie have taken that too? Here Joshua grappled to find a clear reason for her doing so. If she had stolen the necklace because she was intent on saving her family fortune, why return the jewel after Caroline’s death? It seemed implausible that Lizzie was responsible for the theft. The disappearance of the necklace was separate from the murders. Either Arthur had taken it—unlikely, for if he had he wouldn’t have needed to come looking for Cobb’s bag—or, most likely, as Joshua had first supposed, it was stolen as a consequence of Charles Mercier’s disputed will. Mrs. Bowles was not Mercier’s daughter. More than ever he needed to find who was.

HAVING RECOVERED his fortune, Cobb seemed suddenly overwhelmed by his exertions. He lay back on the daybed and closed his eyes. Joshua covered him with a blanket. The fever was rising again; perspiration had gathered on his brow and he looked flushed. Joshua thought about calling for Kitty again or going downstairs to ask Bridget for her advice, but in the end he managed alone. He gave Cobb a hefty dose of an elixir he took regularly to soothe his nervous maladies and an opium pill. For good measure, he took a spoonful himself to help calm his own feverish thoughts. He passed the next two hours sitting by Cobb, sponging his head whenever the sweats appeared.