Cut to the Quick (23 page)

Look at it how you will, he thought, the same conclusion always results. The murderer must be a member of this household—some-

one who could let the girl in on the sly, take her to my room and kill her, and then go about his business as though nothing had happened. He would have to be an acrobat, or a magician, to get into the house, kill the girl, and disappear without a trace.

*

“Mr. Kestrel!”

“Yes, Lady Tarleton?”

“I want to speak to you. Come into the library.”

When they got there, she turned to face him, her head high, her blue eyes flashing. “My brother tells me you mean to go on playing the policeman, intruding on our privacy and asking us insulting, outrageous questions. I don’t know in what den of ill breeding you may have been brought up, but civilized people, when staying as guests in other people’s houses, do not accuse their hosts of telling lies and committing monstrous crimes.”

“I haven’t accused anyone. I’ve simply been asking questions. Some of the answers I’ve received make matters even less clear than before. Which means I'm obliged to ask more questions—at the risk, I know, of making myself a very unwelcome guest.”

“You’ve done rather more than ask questions, Mr. Kestrel! Last night you as good as accused me of telling blatant untruths.”

“I was puzzled by some things you said. That isn’t quite the same as branding you a perjuror.”

“A perjuror! How dare you!”

“Lady Tarleton, I beg your pardon if I’ve offended you. Believe me, if my servant's life, and my own honour, weren’t at stake, I would gladly take your word sooner than ride roughshod over your feelings.”

“You flatter yourself, Mr. Kestrel. I assure you, my feelings aren’t at the mercy of any such impertinent upstart as you. I don't know why you must needs meddle in the investigation, anyway. Why can’t you leave it to Senderby and the special constables? What do you suppose we appoint them for, if not to do the sort of necessary but distasteful work that a gentleman would never dream of stooping to?”

“If I saw someone drowning or about to be trampled by horses, I wouldn’t ask myself whether it’s a gentleman’s task to jump into the river or spring to the horses’ heads.”

“Oh, I see! We are to hail you as a hero, then.”

“I didn’t mean that!” he said, stung. He checked himself, got a grip on his temper, and smiled. A touch, Lady Tarleton, he admitted—but the bout is far from over. So, on guard!

As he turned back to her, his gaze lit on the chatelaine at her waist. He remembered she had worn it yesterday, too, before she changed for dinner. It had five slender chains, each with a ring at the end to hold some household item: a purse, a thimble case, a pincushion, a dainty notebook.

“What are you staring at?” she demanded.

“I was noticing that one of your chains is empty. Is that where you used to keep your embroidery scissors?”

“Again about my scissors! Is it a crime, Mr. Kestrel—is it a moral outrage—to drop an embroidery scissors and cut one’s finger picking it up?”

“One of us seems outraged, Lady Tarleton, but it isn’t I.”

“I suppose you expect me to show you the broken scissors. Shall I go and fetch it and prove I’ve been telling the truth?”

“That would be extremely kind of you. Thank you.”

She gaped at him. She had been speaking sarcastically, never dreaming he would have the effrontery to send her on such an errand. Yet she would not go back on the offer, once given. She has scruples of a sort, MacGregor had said of her, and it was true.

“Very well, Mr. Kestrel! I can’t tell you how contemptible I find you—demanding physical proof of a lady’s truthfulness! But if I must lay the scissors in your hands to make you believe me, so be it. Wait for me here.” She swept out.

While she was gone, he strolled about the library, spinning the two great globes, one terrestrial, one celestial, and running his eyes over the books. They were shelved in regimental order, according to author and subject. The volume of Pope’s verses was back in its place among Pope’s other works. He wondered how Sir Robert could have taken a quarter of an hour to find it yesterday.

“Here you are, Mr. Kestrel.” Lady Tarleton flung the scissors

down on one of the long, polished tables. “If there are any other demeaning errands you’d like me to run, please don’t hesitate to ask.
^M

“Thank you.” He picked up the scissors. It was badly damaged. The two pieces had come apart, and the thinner, sharper blade was dented and scratched. There were traces of a dark stain on it that looked like blood. Lady Tarleton’s blood, most likely—but, as MacGregor had said, there was no way to tell. This wicked little blade could certainly have been used to kill the girl. But stabbing a person, however viciously, would not have etched these scratches in the metal. On the other hand, neither would merely dropping the scissors on the floor.

“You’re still suspicious, aren’t you?’’ she said. ‘You mean to go on prying and persecuting us all—when the real, the obvious killer is already in gaol! And I for one will see him hanged with the greatest satisfaction!”

“I don’t think so, Lady Tarleton. Because before that happens, I swear I will take this house apart stone by stone and wring the heart of every person in it, till I find out who really killed the girl.”

Her hands went to her throat. “What— what are you going to do next?”

“Among other things, I’m going to question Mr. Craddock. I’d like to know more about that clearing in the forest he went to have a look at yesterday.”

She trembled. Her fists clenched and unclenched. “There are some things at Bellegarde you mustn’t meddle with.”

“That may be so. But there are other things I must meddle with, and the devil of it is, I don’t know which are which.”

“You’ll cause more harm than you can begin to guess! But you don’t care, do you?” She laughed bitterly. “A kestrel is a kind of falcon, isn't it? Mr. Kestrel, you were very aptly named for a bird of prey!”

*

Luncheon was served before Julian had a chance to talk to Craddock. Halfway through the meal, a servant brought word that Sen-

derby had arrived. Sir Robert and Julian hastily excused themselves and went to Sir Robert’s office.

Senderby had two people with him. One was a boy of seventeen or eighteen, with a ruddy face, unruly brown hair, and a snub nose. He wore a short coat, grubby trousers, and boots. The other was a middle-aged woman in a faded brown calico dress, the sleeves pushed up above her scrawny elbows. Her greying hair was scraped back from her face and covered with a limp straw bonnet.

“You know Mrs. Warren, sir/* Senderby said to Sir Robert, “and Dick Felton from the Blue Lion. They’re the only ones I can find that had any talk with the girl afore she died.’’

Mrs. Warren plucked at her apron. She looked as if she expected to be charged with the murder at any moment. Felton seemed to be enjoying himself. He stood rocking back on his heels and looking around him with shrewd, interested eyes.

Sir Robert said to them, ‘You have been brought here to give information regarding the young woman who was found dead in this house yesterday evening. My clerk”—he gestured toward Rawlinson—“will take down your statements and ask you to sign them. I urge you to be as thorough, accurate, and, of course, truthful as possible. This is a very serious crime, but with the help of conscientious witnesses like yourselves, I feel certain we will soon bring the murderer to justice.” He sat down at his desk. “Felton, please come forward. Preliminarily, your name is Richard Felton, and you are an ostler at the Blue Lion posting house in Alderton. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” The boy stepped forward eagerly. At a nudge from Senderby, he took his hands out of his pockets.

“When did you first see the young woman in question?”

“The day afore yesterday. She drove up to the Lion in a yellow bounder.”

“That is to say, a hired chaise and pair.”

“Yes, sir. She hired it in Hammersley. I reco’nized the postboy and the horses.”

“Hammersley is a village some ten miles south of Alderton,” Sir Robert told Julian.

“Yes, I remember. I changed horses there on my way up from London.”

“Did the girl come from London?” Sir Robert asked.

“I dunno where she started, sir. All I know is, Hammersley’s the last place she changed horses.”

“Had you ever seen her before?”

“I didn’t see her then, sir—not properly. She had a veil over her face. But I’ve been showed her body, and it’s the same young lady. No doubt in my mind about that.”

“Had she any baggage?”

“She had that bag, there.” He pointed to a blue worsted travelling bag with wooden handles, on a table behind him.

“Have you looked through it yet?” Julian asked Senderby.

“Yes, sir. I made a list of what’s in it.” He fumbled in his pockets till he found a paper, from which he read haltingly, “One blue dress, one handkerchief, one hairbrush, one looking glass, one nightdress, one cap, one—er—change of ladies* linen, one string of wood beads with a cross attached.’*

“A rosary?” asked Julian, surprised.

“I think that’s what it is, sir. I never seen one before.**

“A lot of foreigners mumble over beads,” said Felton. “They don’t know no better.”

“Was the girl a foreigner?” asked Sir Robert.

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you know?”

“By the way she talked, sir.”

“You mean, she spoke with an accent?” said Julian.

“That’s the ticket, sir.”

“What kind of accent?*’

“A foreign accent,*’ said Felton impatiently.

“I mean, from what country?**

“I don’t know that, sir.”

“Does anyone know?” Sir Robert asked Senderby.

“No, sir,” said the constable heavily. “She never gave her name to anybody or said much about herself.”

“Was there a name on anything you found in her bag?” asked Julian.

“No, sir.”

“What about papers, keys, merchant’s labels on her clothes?”

“No, sir.”

Sir Robert and Julian exchanged baffled glances.

Julian tried out a little French, Italian, and German on Felton, but it was no use: he could not match any accent with the murdered girl’s. Sir Robert bade him go on with his story.

“I helped her out of the chaise and got her bag out of the boot. She tipped me handsome, and I stayed around her for a bit, hoping to earn a little more off her somehow. Besides, I was curious about her. She was a stranger and a foreigner, and dressed like a swell. Pretty, too. I couldn’t make out her face too well, but she had as trim a figure as you’d ever wish to see.”

“The gentlemen don’t need to hear that,” chided Senderby.

“Sir Robert said to be truthful and thorough,” the boy retorted. “Anyway, I asked her if she was going to the inn, and could I carry her bag. But she held tight to it and looked around her, fiirtivelike. Said she’d rather stay some place quiet, not so public as the Lion. Asked me if I knew any place like that nearby. I told her about Mrs. Warren—how she’s got a room in her cottage that she lets to lodgers. I warned her it was a plain kind of place, not suited to the likes of her—begging your pardon, Mrs. W. But she said she didn’t care, so long as it was respectable. She made such a point of that, I began to think she must be a lady and not”—he winked—“a ladybird, if you know what I mean.

“The end of it was, she thought she’d like to stay there and asked if it was far. I said, It’s just a spit and a stride, miss. I’d be glad to take you there.’ But she jibbed at that—started backing away and said oh no thank you, she wouldn’t bother me to go with her, and would I just give her directions where it was. So I did. She tipped me again—plump in the pocket, she must have been—took her bag and walked off. I’d have liked to follow her and see what she was about, but just then the Paragon drove up, and I had to see to the horses and the passengers and all. So that was the last I saw of her—alive,” he finished darkly.

“What time of day was it?” Julian asked.

“If the Paragon was on time, which I think it was, the young lady must have arrived a bit before seven.”

“If she left the village on foot, other people must have seen her,” said Sir Robert.

“Most of the village was indoors,” said Senderby. “Either that or they were watching the Paragon. Nobody’s got eyes for anything else when the stagecoach is coming in. Still, a few people saw her walk away from the main village street toward the south footpath, that leads to Mrs. Warren’s cottage. After that, nobody saw her but Mrs. Warren—till she was found dead here.”

It was Mrs. Warren’s turn to make her statement. She got through the preliminaries well enough. Her name was Deborah Warren, she lived alone in a cottage half a mile west of Alderton, her husband had died some years ago, and she supported herself by growing vegetables and doing fine sewing for weddings and christenings. Her cottage, which she rented from Sir Robert, had a spare room she let to the occasional woman lodger.

“And, oh, sir, I hadn’t had a lodger in weeks, and I did need the money so, or I'd never have taken her in! Right from the start I feared she was no better nor she should be, what with her being a foreigner, and travelling all alone like that. Pretty, too, and dressed in them fine clothes—and no ring on her finger! But she looked well able to pay for her room and board, and I just couldn’t bring myself to turn her away. And she never did pay!” Mrs. Warren’s voice rose to a wail. “It’s a punishment on me, that I let a wicked girl under my roof! God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but she must have had something wrong about her, or she wouldn’t have got herself killed like that!”

“How much did she owe you?” said Sir Robert.

Mrs. Warren, who was dabbing her eyes with her apron, looked up and blinked at him hopefully. “I reckoned it out at two shillings ninepence, sir.”

“I shall take responsibility for the debt. Rawlinson, be good enough to pay Mrs. Warren before she leaves.’*

“Oh, God bless you, sir, thank you!” She blew her nose. “In all fairness to the young lady, I can’t rightly say she never meant to pay, for she went out yesterday morning leaving her bag with all her things in it behind her, like she meant to come back, only— only—” Her voice trailed away.