Cut to the Quick (14 page)

All at once she drew in her breath. But how do 1 know the secret has nothing to do with the murder?

“Robert would never let London policemen come here, asking questions and interfering in our private affairs!” cried Lady Tarleton.

“They wouldn’t need to do that,** faltered Geoffrey. “Why should they question us? We don’t know anything about the murder. The thing for Bow Street to do is hunt around the neighbourhood for thieves or poachers—those kinds of people.”

“Don’t fool yourselves into thinking we won’t have to answer questions,” said Craddock. “If the murder’s not solved right away, we’ll all be asked where we were this afternoon, and what we were doing, and what we saw or heard.”

“Well, I didn’t see or hear anything to the purpose,” declared Lady Tarleton. “I was in my room all afternoon. I never came out till I went down to dinner.”

Craddock looked at her through narrowed eyes. She stared defiantly back. “Then I don’t expect the police will bother much about you,” he said at last.

Maud felt as if she could not breathe. She plucked at her father's sleeve and whispered, “Papa, I need to talk to you—please! Can we go somewhere alone?"

*

They went through the wide double doors into the music room. It seemed a lifetime, Maud thought, since she and Mr. Kestrel had talked here.

“Well, what's the matter?" Craddock asked.

“Papa, are you—" She swallowed hard. “Do you think you ought to let Lady Tarleton say things that aren't true?"

“What are you talking about?" he said sharply.

“She said she never came out of her room till dinnertime, and I know that isn't so."

“What do you know about where Lady Tarleton was this afternoon?"

“I only know about the end of the afternoon. She wasn't in her room, Papa. She was in yours."

He drew breath as though to shout, then stopped himself. His voice came out in a rasping whisper. “How do you know that?”

“Well, you know I went out this afternoon with Josie and Pippa and Miss Pritchard. Miss Pritchard and I got talking, and I thought how hard she works, and what a. dull life she has. And she isn't so very old. It would be nice for her to go on holiday and have a little fun once in a while—”

“Has this got anything to do with what I asked you?"

“Yes, Papa. Because I was thinking that, if Sir Robert and Lady Fontclair didn't mind, I'd invite Miss Pritchard to London for a few days. She could help with the wedding preparations. She so liked hearing about my trousseau, and the wedding breakfast, and everything.” She hurried on, seeing his patience was almost gone. “So when we got home, I went to your room to ask you if that would be all right. I was just about to knock on the door, when I heard Lady Tarleton's voice inside. And I was so surprised, I just stood there and couldn't move or do anything at all.”

He stared at her, his breath coming quickly. “And then what happened?*'

“I did something very wrong. I— I listened for a while. I'm sorry. It was just that the conversation was so strange. It scared me. I— oh, Papa, don’t look at me like that!”

“My God, how much did you overhear? What do you know?” Her throat closed up, and she could not answer.

“Tell me, damn it!” He took a few steps toward her.

“I— I was only there a few minutes! I don't know much at all! And what I did hear, I didn’t understand.”

“Tell me everything you heard, from the beginning.”

Maud repeated it all as best she could. “And then I heard footsteps,” she finished, “and I thought Lady Tarleton was coming out, and I ran to my room. I couldn’t face her. I felt so shocked and confused.”

“Have you told me the truth? Is that really everything you heard?” “Yes, Papa. I promise.”

He looked intently into her eyes. “All right, I believe you. Now listen to me carefully. You’re not to tell anyone about Lady Tarleton being in my room, and you’re not to repeat a word of what you heard us say. Do you understand?”

“But—but what if somebody asks what 1 was doing this afternoon? You said we might all be questioned by Sir Robert, or the Bow Street Runners.”

“Then you’ll say you went on an outing with the Misses Fontclair, and when you got home, you went to your room. You don't have to lie—just leave out the part about Lady Tarleton and me. It's got nothing to do with the murder.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? Of course I'm sure!”

“But some of what you and Lady Tarleton said sounded so strange. And there’s some secret between you and the Fontclairs, and I wondered—”

“Well, stop wondering! What's between me and the Fontclairs is my business, not yours. And I warn you, if you breathe a word about what you overheard Lady Tarleton and me say, you'll do more

harm than you can begin to guess. You don’t understand what you’re meddling in. The Fontclairs won’t thank you, and neither will I.”

“But if it might help solve the murder—”

“It won’t. Don't be a fool, Maud. You're going to be part of this family soon. You don't want to bring it into disgrace.”

For Hugh's sake, no, that's the last thing I want, she thought. I wish I knew what to do. If I'd only been able to find Mr. Kestrel before dinner, I could have asked him what he thought that conversation between Papa and Lady Tarleton meant. Now I can't talk to him about it. Because, as long as I don't know what harm I might do by telling anyone, how can I take the risk?

*

Sir Robert had much the same theory about the murder as Lady Fontclair. “I believe some intruder broke into the house, most likely bent on robbery. He brought the girl with him—they quarrelled —he killed her, and afterward fled from the house. Rawlinson, make a note to have the house searched. I want to know if anything is missing.”

“Yes, sir,” said Rawlinson, from his seat at the desk in the window recess. He had lit an oil lamp to relieve the dusk, and its ruddy glow illumined the stained glass behind him and conjured up long, wavering shadows on the walls of Julian’s room.

“I imagine you'd want to have the house searched in any case,” said Julian, “to see if there are traces of the girl or her murderer anywhere besides this room. I suppose we don't even know for certain she was killed in here, do we? She might have been killed somewhere else in the house and brought here afterward.”

“I can’t see the murderer traipsing about the house with a dead woman in his arms,” said MacGregor.

“No,” admitted Julian, “neither can I. All the same, it might not be a bad idea to look in the rooms nearby for bloodstains or signs of a struggle.”

“Make a note of that, too, Rawlinson,” said Sir Robert wearily. “For that matter, I can't believe this room’s yielded up all its secrets.” Julian lit a candle at the oil lamp and bent to examine the carpet. “There’s dirt on the carpet, and I don’t believe it was here when I left to go riding this afternoon. I remember my boots were muddy when I came back from the horse fair, and Dipper made a point of taking them away to be cleaned before I set foot in here.” He glanced critically at the feet of the other three men. “It doesn’t look as if any of us tracked the dirt in here. Whereas the girl’s shoes are very dirty, although she seems to have tried to scrape them clean.”

He picked up her shoes. They were made of pale blue silk brocade, torn, frayed, and very soiled. There were green stains on and around the soles. He pointed out jagged lines running through the grime on the bottoms, where she had evidently tried to scrape off the dirt.

“If it was the girl’s shoes—and possibly the murderer's—that tracked the dirt in here, it might give us some idea where in the room they went and what they did. The trouble is, there’s not enough dirt to make anything like a footprint.” He walked about with his candle, peering closely at the carpet. “Most of the dirt seems to be along the side of the bed nearest the door. There's some at the foot of the bed—but not a hint of it anywhere near the washstand, although we know the murderer went there to wash off the blood. I wonder if that means the murderer's shoes were clean? Insofar as there's anything like a trail, it leads this way.”

He walked from the door, down the length of the bed, and then to the left. He came to a halt at the wall, straightened up, and stood staring at the wood panelling. “Dr. MacGregor?” he said, without turning around.

The others joined him. By the light of his candle, they could see dark smears along the wall, hardly visible save at close range. The smears varied from perhaps one to two inches long. Three of them formed a horizontal line at eye level, about an inch apart from each other. There were two more smears, somewhat fainter, about a foot below and to the right.

“What do you think that is?” asked Julian, although he was fairly sure he knew already.

MacGregor scraped a little bit off with his thumbnail. “I'd say it's almost certainly blood.”

Julian took a few steps back and gazed around him. To the right, the wall turned a right-angle corner and gave way to the window embrasure. To the left was the fireplace. The intervening wall space, where the stains were, was about a yard wide. Just in front stood the shieldback chair where the girl’s shawl and bonnet were found. “Do you suppose this is where she was killed?” asked Julian. “Could be,” said MacGregor. “There are all kinds of possibilities. Maybe she’d just been laying her outdoor things on that chair when the murderer came up behind her and pushed her against the wall and stabbed her.”

“Or perhaps she'd decided she wanted to leave and came over here to put her things on again,'* said Julian. “There's a scratch along the back of the chair that suggests it might have been knocked against the wall in a struggle. Yes, look, there’s a scratch on the wall at the same level. And the scratches look freshly made."

Sir Robert frowned. “If the girl were held with her face to the wall and stabbed in the back, how did the blood get on the wall?” “The murderer could have touched the wall while his fingers were stained with blood,” said MacGregor. “That would explain the small separate smudges.”

Julian held up his hand to the wall and found that the three smears at eye level were about the right distance apart to have been made by a person's fingers, slightly spread. “I believe you’re right,” he said. “It looks as though someone had pressed against the wall, so, and smeared the blood downward from left to right. Each of the stains is somewhat darker on the left side. Do we know which hand the murderer used to stab her?”

“His right,” said MacGregor.

“So he was right-handed, and more likely to have had blood on his right hand than his left?”

“I'd say so, yes.”

“Then most likely he made the smears with a motion of his right hand from left to right.” Julian frowned thoughtfully. “You know, there are some problems with this notion that the murderer killed the girl here by the wall. This is the most conspicuous place in the room.” He pointed out the window to where the new wing branched

off from the main house. “Anyone looking out of a window along that side of the new wing would have a direct line of sight through my window to this very spot. Even with the trees obscuring the view, it would have been risky to kill the girl here.”

"Maybe the murderer had the curtains drawn,” said MacGregor. “Or, confound it, he might not have been thinking clearly! He might have been in a rage or a panic and not stopped to work out the geometry of who could see what from what angle.”

“That's certainly possible,” said Julian, so mildly that the doctor was a little ashamed of his belligerence.

“Hm—well—any other objections?" MacGregor asked. “Something more in the nature of a question. If I were to hold a woman against a wall and stab her in the back—something it's never even remotely occurred to me to do,” he added, seeing Sir Robert and MacGregor look at him narrowly, “—but if I did, she would most likely slump to the ground, and I should reach out to catch her. Or I might conceivably stand back and let her fall in a heap at my feet—but, either way, I wouldn't have any reason to smear blood on the wall with my hand.”

“Dash it,” MacGregor exclaimed, “you do know how to make everything three times more complicated. I don't know the answer to that riddle. Maybe the murderer was in shock or lost his balance after he killed her, and had to lean on the wall for support.”

“I suppose he could have caught the girl's body with one arm, and propped himself against the wall with his other hand,” Julian mused. “Although you wouldn't think he'd put his hand up so high as those top three stains. Of course, he may have been very tall.” Julian could not help glancing at Sir Robert, who, like all the Fontclairs, was of a lofty height. “He did move his hand farther down afterward. That would account for the lighter stains below and to the right. He'd rubbed off a good part of the blood on the first three smears by then.”

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Robert, “don't you think we've strayed from our principal task? Exactly where in the room the girl was killed, and whether the murderer leaned against the wall afterward, don’t bring us any closer to discovering who killed the girl, or how he’s to be found.”

“At this stage, do we really know what might turn out to be important?” said Julian. “We’re surrounded by scraps of information that don’t appear to make sense. The bloodstains on the wall, the feet that the girl was tucked under the bedclothes after she was killed, the door locked from the outside, the girl's presence in the house to begin with—there must be an explanation for every one of those things, and if we knew it, the murderer’s identity might fall into place as a matter of course. It reminds me of the lines of Pope I heard you reading to Lady Fontclair—something about all discord being harmony not understood.”

“When Mr. Pope wrote of harmony,” Sir Robert said sternly, “he meant the inscrutable pattern of God's work upon the earth.” “Cause and effect are part of that pattern. Every one of these effects must have a cause, and if we could guess the cause—”

“I understand your point, Mr. Kestrel. Thank you. Now I think we should return to the servants’ hall and see how Senderby is progressing. Also, Travis must have finished searching the house by now, and he may have found some indication of how the girl and her murderer got in.”