Whom the Gods Love (17 page)

"Would he have been likely to tell you if he had?" 

"Probably not. He rarely spoke to me about Mrs. Falkland."

"Lady Anthea told me she thinks this was a woman's crime."

Clare winced.

"Do you have a theory about who the murderer was?" asked Julian.

"No."

"If you did, would you tell me?"

"That would depend." Clare walked back and forth thoughtfully before the fire. "I don't think a mere theory worth very much. I would have to have concrete proof before I accused anyone of murder. A charge like that is apt to take on a momentum of its own. It's so much easier to plant a suspicion than it is to remove it."

Julian stared—surprised, then searching. Could it be? No, it was too outrageous. And yet it would answer so many questions—or, rather, it would reveal that the wrong questions were being asked.

He put it out of his mind. An idea like that could not be let loose without proof to back it. "It was you who found Falkland's body."

"Yes." Clare stopped walking and stood very still.

"What went through your head?"

"Horror. Disbelief. Repulsion. He looked ghastly. He would have hated that—to be an object of disgust. But I don't think that struck me until later. I wasn't capable of reflection at the time. I only knew I had to do something, summon someone. So I found the butler and footman and brought them down to the study."

"You showed great presence of mind, telling them not to touch anything."

"I suppose I did. I'm not sure how I knew about that. I must have read it in accounts of crime in the newspapers." He sat down again, fairly collected now. Julian had the impression that, little though he cared to talk about the murder, he would rather discuss it than his relationship with Alexander. But there was one subject he would probably like even less. "Did Alexander ever meet your sister?"

Clare started. "No, I don't think so."

"You don't seem certain."

"I am certain. I mean, I feel sure my sister would have mentioned it, especially since Falkland's murder."

"She writes to you frequently, then?"

"No." He got up, scraping his chair. "No, not lately. May I ask—what has my sister to do with this?"

"Nothing that I know of. But you seem unwilling to speak of her, and in a murder investigation, anything people are reluctant to talk about becomes madly interesting. A really clever murderer would talk volubly about whatever seemed most likely to incriminate him. That would virtually ensure that no one took any notice of it."

"My not wishing to talk about my sister has nothing to do with Falkland's murder. You see, she—isn't very happy. You'll have gathered from looking at that book"—he gestured at the
Vindication
—"that she has unconventional views about the rights of women and their social role. It makes her discontented, keeps her from marrying or settling anywhere. I worry about her, but it seems I can't do anything to help her. I feel very responsible toward her. Our parents are long dead. She has no family except me and our great-uncle, who was our guardian."

"You say she lives with him in Somerset?"

"Yes." Clare's gaze slid away from Julian's. He went to the mantelpiece and leaned an arm on it, staring into the fire.

Julian followed and laid a hand on his shoulder, which went rigid under his fingers. "What are you afraid of, Mr. Clare?" 

"I'm not afraid."

"You're very young, and you're out of your depth. You need a confidant."

"Please—"

"Whatever burden you're carrying, it's too heavy to bear alone. Let me help—"

"No!" Clare broke away from him. "You—you don't know what you're saying. No one can help me—" His voice cracked like a boy's. He swallowed hard and pressed his hands together. "There's nothing more I can tell you. I didn't kill Falkland. I don't know who did. I wish—"

"What do you wish?"

"That I'd never seen him. That I'd never come to this place. That's what I meant when I said you couldn't help me. Unless you can turn back the clock, roll back the calendar, there's nothing you can do."

"I hope you'll change your mind and confide in me, while you still have the luxury of doing it of your own free will." Julian put on his hat, then paused and picked up the Wollstonecraft book. "May I borrow this? I'll take good care of it, as it's a keepsake from your sister."

"What do you want with it?"

"I have an idea it has something to tell me. If nothing else, it will educate me about the rights of women. I shouldn't think your sister would object to that?"

"I don't think she'd object to anyone's being enlightened on that subject," Clare sighed. "Yes, you may borrow it if you wish."

"Thank you."

Julian took his leave, wondering if the book really did have something to tell him. That Verity Clare was important, he had no doubt. Clare was obviously afraid for her. He might have been telling the truth when he said she never knew Alexander; certainly she was not at the party at which he was killed. But the possibility remained that Alexander had let an unknown person into the house. The hypothetical John Noakes—who might have been a Jane.

11: A Sporting Proposition

In keeping with his policy of appearing frequently in public and letting the Quality approach him with information, Julian betook himself to White's Club. As he entered the morning room, he saw a group of young men with their betting books out. The London beaux laid wagers on everything—not only racing, boxing, and cricket, but anything with an uncertain outcome: elections, love affairs, illnesses. When there was nothing else to bet on, they invented wagers, the more absurd the better. One young lord had recently sported two hundred pounds that he could hop on one foot the length of St. James's Street before a friend had finished reading a page of the
Morning Post
aloud.

When they saw Julian, they fell silent and cast him sidelong glances. He had no difficulty guessing what they were betting on now. He strolled up to them. "Well, gentlemen, what odds have you given me?"

They looked at each other, some amused, others a little nervous. At last one spoke up. "I've laid a hundred pounds that you'll solve Falkland's murder in a fortnight."

"Only a hundred?" Julian lifted his brows. "I'd back myself for five hundred, if I thought anyone would take me up." 

"I'll take that bet." It was Oliver de Witt, a dandy who had lately set himself up as a rival of Julian's. He was a wizened young man with a pinched, patrician face and a long nose that seemed designed to be either turned up or looked down.

"I shouldn't if I were you, de Witt," warned one of the others, laughing. "After all, Kestrel holds all the cards. Only he knows what he's found out about Falkland's murder and can say when he's likely to turn up a trump."

"I don't believe he's found out anything to the purpose," de Witt retorted coldly. "As I understand it, the Bow Street Runners have been baffled by this crime for days. There's no evidence, and not the merest
soupçon
of a motive."

"What a great deal you know about the case," Julian marvelled. "You didn't kill him yourself, by any chance?"

"Must I remind you, I wasn't at his party."

"No, that's true," said Julian. "I'd forgotten how select it was."

De Witt glared. "Mr. Kestrel, I shall be delighted to take your wager, with one slight modification. I'll stake five hundred pounds against your solving Falkland's murder in—not a fortnight, but seven days."

"Done," said Julian promptly.

They entered the wager in their betting books: the murder to be solved by noon on Tuesday, the tenth of May. A flurry of subsidiary betting broke out among the other men.

Felix Poynter sidled out from among them and took Julian's arm. "My dear fellow, I've been pining to talk to you. Come into the coffee-room."

Felix was about Julian's age, the son of an autocratic peer from the bleak northeastern counties. Julian suspected that the grey, barren landscapes of his childhood accounted for his taste in clothes, which certainly needed excusing. Today he was wearing a canary-yellow tailcoat, white trousers, and two waistcoats, the inner of scarlet satin, the outer with black and white stripes. His neckcloth was a cherry-coloured India print, splashed with blue and yellow flowers. A bunch of gold seals, all shaped liked chessmen, dangled from his watch-chain. He had an amiably rangy figure and curly brown hair that tended to stand on end.

The two young men sauntered into the coffee-room and sat down at a comer table. A waiter brought them coffee, biscuits, and freshly ironed newspapers. Felix moved the newspapers aside, taking care not to let the ink rub off on his gloves. "You must be quite close to finding out who killed Falkland." 

"Must I?" said Julian pleasantly.

"To make a wager like that, yes."

"Are you angling for a tip? That would hardly be sporting." 

"Of course not, my dear fellow. I just wondered how you were getting on. I'm a bit involved in it all, you know. I was at Falkland's party."

"Yes, I read your statement to Bow Street."

"Did you?" said Felix, interested. "Did I say anything coherent? I was in an awful fret, what with the magistrates glaring at me, and the clerks snickering and picking their teeth with penknives, and a gaoler rattling his keys as if he'd made up his mind to lock
somebody
up, and I would do nicely." 

"You were tolerably clear. You said you and Mrs. Falkland were talking, and she told you she had a headache and was going upstairs to lie down. I gather you thought the headache was genuine, and not simply an excuse to leave the party?" 

"Oh, yes. She looked quite green about the gills."

"Did you see Falkland leave the party about an hour later?" 

"No. I was with the crowd in the music room." Felix's eyes went dreamily out of focus. "Miss Denbigh was singing." 

Julian regarded him with tolerant exasperation. "I take it she's your latest
grande passion
?"

"You must admit, she's a regular stunner!"

"I admit she has a head very like a china doll's: pretty to look at, and probably stuffed with sawdust, to judge by her conversation."

"You're too demanding, my dear fellow. When a girl has a face like that, I don't ask for conversation."

"You don't ask for anything. Don't you ever tire of languishing at women from a distance?"

"Not at all. I like it excessively. It's the only thing I've ever shown any talent for. Ask my father."

"You've had practice, at all events. Before Miss Denbigh, there was Miss Somerdale—and before her Miss Warrington, afterwards Mrs. Falkland."

Felix looked at him more closely. He had very round, light-blue eyes, which tended to give him an expression of childlike surprise. "Do you mean something by that, old fellow? Am I
—under suspicion,
is that the right term?"

"I must own, I find it hard to imagine you creeping up with a deadly weapon on anything more sentient than a roasted fowl. I've seen you turn green at a cockfight, and whenever I hear you've been hunting, I suspect you of giving aid and comfort to the foxes. All the same, you were at Falkland's party, and you can't set up an alibi for the period between ten minutes to twelve and a quarter after."

"Well, of course not, my dear fellow. Who in the world goes to a party thinking about a thing like that? Only conceive of it: 'Good evening, Duke. Devilish good champagne, isn't it? Shall you be entering your horse in the Derby this year? Well, must toddle off and pay my respects to Lady Thingummy. Oh, and could you please remember we talked at precisely six minutes after twelve? Just in case you should be asked to give evidence about it later.'"

"Very amusing. But the fact remains you haven't an alibi, and you once had a
tendre
for the victim's wife."

"You could say the same of half the fellows at that party. Remember what a smasher Belinda Warrington was when she came out? She took the shine out of every other female that season. Scores of fellows wanted to marry her. Why, they used to come to blows over who would dance with her."

That was true, Julian thought. He himself had admired Belinda Warrington in those days, although he had never been in any danger of falling in love with her. There was something about her that put him off. The image of Diana, the virgin goddess, suited her all too well. Even her present grief and despair were on an Olympian scale: bleak and tragic, without tenderness. A man who really loved her might find it rough going. How did one penetrate armour like hers? Alexander had evidently charmed his way in—but there were few men like Alexander.

"Of course," Felix was saying, "from the moment she met Falkland, no one else had a chance with her. She fell to him like spoils to the victor."

"Did you mind that very much?"

"He gives me his owlish look," Felix informed an imaginary audience. "And of course I break down and confess that I've been brooding over Falkland's luck for months and waiting for a chance to knock him on the head with a poker. Oh, my dear Julian." Felix gazed at him in amused remonstrance. "Everyone could see that the match between her and Falkland was bound to be. Her beauty and wealth and his charm and talent belonged together. I wasn't likely to break my heart over that. It doesn't break in any event—it bounces. Else I should have nothing left of it by now."

Julian eyed him thoughtfully. "Do you know a Mrs. Desmond, by any chance?"

"Why? Is there a Mrs. Desmond who says she knows
me?
More important, is there a Mr. Desmond, and does he want my blood? It's really too bad, when I don't remember anything about it. I must have been in my cups—"

"My dear Felix, you're babbling."

"I know." Felix sighed. "This conversation is giving me rather a turn. It's all very well to make light of the murder, and bet on it and that sort of thing, but still, it
is
a murder."

"Yes. Tell me, did you like Alexander Falkland?"

"Of course. How could anyone help but like him?"

"I mean, was he your friend? Shall you miss him?"