The Seance (45 page)

‘I understand he was once caught in a fire.’

‘Yes, Miss Langton. In Prague, it was, not long before I joined him. The hotel burned down; he was lucky to escape with his life. In those days he wore gloves even indoors, as well as his dark spectacles, and kept his beard very full; he told me it helped the skin to heal.’

‘It must have been a terrible shock to his friends,’ I ventured.

‘I imagine so, miss. The master never said, but I think he cut himself off from his old acquaintance, on account of his injuries. And of course he was away a great deal, the first few years I was with him.’

I glanced around the room, my mind racing. If Magnus
had
kept something from his past, I thought, what would it be? The pictures – those that I could make out through the gloom – all seemed to be landscapes.

‘Was Dr Davenant a connoisseur of painting?’ I asked, hoping he would offer to show me around the house.

‘Yes indeed, Miss Langton; it was a great interest of his. When he wasn’t in his study, you could always find him in his gallery upstairs. Mr Pritchard – the master’s solicitor – informed me yesterday that the collection is to go to the nation.’

‘Your master,’ I said, improvising recklessly, ‘did mention that he would be very pleased to show me around the gallery; of course I could not have imagined I would be here in such tragic circumstances ...’

Mr Brotherton drew a white handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at his eyes. I reminded myself sternly of all the evil Magnus had done, and waited for him to compose himself.

‘Forgive me, Miss Langton; I never thought I should see this day ...
I am sure the master would not have wanted me to disappoint you. If you are quite recovered, would you care to step this way?’

He led me up a flight of stone stairs, our footsteps echoing loudly in the stillness, and into a long, panelled room, much lighter than the one below. I had naively expected to see canvases crowded all the way up to the ceiling, but there was only a single row of pictures hung around the walls, and a great deal of thought had obviously gone into the placing of them. I set off around the room with Mr Brotherton at my elbow and my mind racing ahead of me. The study seemed the most likely place of concealment, but what reason could I give for wanting to see it? If I pretended to faint, would he leave me and go in search of a doctor? Surely not; he would ring for a maid; but I could ask if I might lie down for a little. And were there any other servants in the house? It seemed deathly quiet.

The bell-pull, I had noticed, was just inside the door by which we had entered. We had almost reached the far end of the gallery, and I was nerving myself to collapse at Mr Brotherton’s feet, when we came to a picture of a large manor house by moonlight. I had been moving mechanically from canvas to canvas, scarcely aware of what I was seeing, when recognition struck me like a blow in the face: I was looking at a picture of Wraxford Hall.

Moonlight blazed over the dark bulk of the house, silvering the slates and spilling along the uneven drive like pooled water. Branches intruded in wild profusion, threatening to overwhelm the house; chimneys with crooked pots and their attendant lightning rods hung stark against the brilliance of the sky. But the eye was drawn, most of all, to the mesmerising orange glow in the upstairs window, cross-hatched by a tracery of leadlighting, the glow reappearing more faintly in the two adjacent windows and more faintly still in the two next to those, beyond which there was only the dim radiance of moonlight on glass. The picture had no title, but the signature in the lower right-hand corner was plain enough: J.A. Montague, 1864.

‘How – how long, do you know, has this been hanging here?’ I said shakily.

‘Only a few weeks, Miss Langton. Dr Davenant liked to change the pictures around, you see.’

‘Do you mean he bought it as recently as that?’

‘I assume so, Miss Langton; he didn’t say. Though he did ask my opinion, when I was dusting in here one morning. Rather sinister, I ventured to say; it seemed to amuse him.’

‘And did he – do you know what house that is?’

‘No, Miss Langton.’

‘It is my own house, Wraxford Hall. Mr John Montague, the man who painted it, died two months ago . . . Did Dr Davenant ever speak of him?’

‘No Miss Langton, not within my hearing.’

‘Or of Magnus Wraxford?’

‘No, miss ... you don’t mean the gentleman who was murdered?’

‘So the world believes.’

The old man was silent for a moment, gazing uneasily at the picture, and then at me.

‘If you’ll excuse me, Miss Langton, I really must get on now; there’s a great deal to see to.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It was very kind of you to show me the pictures.’

Two o’clock was striking as I followed him down the stairs, lightheaded with relief. I am free, I thought, I can go straight to Regent’s Park, to Edwin; the shadow is banished.

‘What will you do now?’ I asked, hearing the echo of Ada Woodward’s question in my own.

‘Thank you, Miss Langton, I have been well provided for. Mr Pritchard was kind enough to tell me so.’

‘I am very glad to hear it,’ I said, thinking how strange it was that a man so monstrous could be generous to his servant. I looked back through the window as the cab rattled away and saw that Mr Brotherton was still standing on the pavement, gazing after me.

In my excitement I missed the way through the park, and so came upon Edwin from the wrong direction. He was seated on a bench, in sunlight dappled by the tendrils of a willow which was just beginning to show its leaves, all his attention fixed upon the path leading to the entrance, and did not turn until I was close enough to touch him. His face lit up; he sprang to his feet; we stood, or so it seemed, motionless for several seconds, and then I found that my lips were pressed against his, with my arms about his neck and my fingers twining themselves through his hair.

‘Then you love me too?’ he said when I drew back to look at him.

‘Yes, yes, I do,’ I said, kissing him again for emphasis. ‘And everything is all right; Davenant was Magnus, I have proof of it, and now we can tell the police what really happened ...’

I paused at the change in his expression.

‘I was so overjoyed to see you,’ he said, drawing me down upon the bench, ‘it drove all else from my mind. Tell me what you’ve found.’

‘John Montague’s picture of the Hall is hanging in Davenant’s gallery.’

I described the morning’s adventure, but, though he kept hold of my hand, the anxiety did not leave his face.

‘I don’t doubt you,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t proof. Anyone else – including the police – would assume that Davenant bought it in a sale – it’s far easier to believe. No; unless we can find someone who’ll identify the body as Magnus—’

‘But there is,’ I began, and stopped, seeing the difficulty. Ada – let alone Nell – would only come forward if the case were already proven. ‘I mean, there must be many people in London who knew Magnus well enough to recognise him, without his disguise.’

‘Yes, but the police won’t invite them to. As far they’re concerned, he’s Davenant, and I’m afraid the picture isn’t enough to change their minds. Force of belief; it’s what Magnus relied upon, coming back to London. He was a consummate actor; he thrived upon risk – even to the extent of hanging that picture, the moment he heard that the one man
who could certainly expose him was dead. He knew, aside from the disguise, that no one would recognise him because nobody expected to see him – as far as the world was concerned, he died in the armour at Wraxford Hall.

‘And even if, by some miracle, the body
is
identified as Magnus, you mustn’t tell the police, because they could still charge you with manslaughter, if they didn’t believe it was self-defence – and they might well not, since we’d be changing our story. No, dearest girl, you must leave it alone. You’re safe now,’ he said, drawing me closer to him, ‘Magnus is dead; your conscience needn’t trouble you any more.’

‘But it does,’ I said, ‘because Nell is alive; you mustn’t ask me how I know, but I do—’

‘And you still believe she may be your mother?’

‘Yes; more than ever.’

‘Then – do you know how to find her?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but – I can’t risk betraying her.’

Edwin gazed at me helplessly.

‘I don’t know what to say, dearest, except that I love you, and will do anything to help you, whatever you decide about Nell – only you mustn’t speak to the police. Will you promise?’

‘I promise,’ I said, whereupon he began to kiss me again, and I forgot about everything else until we were brought back to earth by a scandalised harrumph from a passing gentleman.

Edwin accompanied me as far as the turn into Elsworthy Walk; he wanted to come in and ask for my uncle’s blessing at once, but I told him that would only cause another explosion, a phrase which resonated uncomfortably as I climbed the steps and let myself in with my latch-key, to find Dora hovering white-faced in the hall. Two policemen, she whispered, were waiting for me in the drawing-room; they had arrived not
ten minutes after my uncle went out, and had been waiting for the past hour.

They were standing by the window, peering down into the street as I came in. One, massive and florid with luxuriant mutton-chop whiskers, was Sergeant Brewer, to whom Edwin had spoken at Woodbridge. The other, who might have been chosen for contrast, introduced himself in funereal tones as Inspector Garret from Scotland Yard, a tall, fleshless man with the manner of an undertaker. They declined refreshment, and took chairs with their backs to the window, so that I was obliged to sit on the sofa with the light full on my face. I saw that my hands were trembling visibly, and clasped them tightly in my lap. The sergeant produced a notebook and pencil.

‘You will understand, Miss Langton,’ said the inspector that we need the fullest possible account of the events leading up to this tragic – er – accident, and since we have not yet had a statement from you . . . I wonder, Miss Langton, if I might begin by asking why you felt it necessary to join the party. It would strike many people as unusual for a young unmarried woman such as yourself to accompany a group of gentlemen to such a remote and inhospitable place.’

‘Yes, sir’ – feeling my colour rise, and thinking too late I should not have addressed him as ‘sir’ – ‘but it is my house, and I was very much interested in the Wraxford tragedy – which is part of my own history; my own family history, that is.’

‘Very much interested – I see. And – er – may I ask whether there exists any understanding between Mr Edwin Rhys and yourself – an engagement, perhaps?’

‘Yes, Inspector,’ I said, praying he would not ask when we had become engaged.

He paused, to my even greater discomfiture, while the sergeant scribbled something in his notebook.

‘And had you ever met Dr Davenant before this – gathering?’

‘No, Inspector,’ I replied, wishing I could stop my voice from quavering.

He questioned me, step by step, about everything I had done from the time we arrived at the Hall until the departure of the rest of the party.

‘And why did you remain behind with Mr Rhys instead of taking a place in the carriage? You said at the time’ – leafing through his notebook – ‘according to Mr Raphael, that you wanted to look out some family papers for Mr Craik.’

‘Yes, Inspector,’ I said, wondering what Vernon Raphael had said to them.