by Lisa Tuttle
“Please,” she whispered. “I should like to go home now.”
It was, in my view, the most obvious, childish attempt at manipulation, and yet it worked. Bella proved as liable to feelings of guilt as the most tenderhearted mother there ever was. “Oh—poor little Ann, you do look done-in. I am sorry, dear, I should not have made you come out.” Heaving a sigh, she turned to me. “You must excuse us…Will you come, too?”
“No—I must have a word with my friend. He will see me safely back to Wayside Cross. Are you certain you cannot wait a few more minutes?”
She only shook her head, mouth turned down ruefully. “Please, give him my apologies, and invite him to call tomorrow, or another day. I should very much enjoy meeting him some other time. And please tell Mr. Ott I was sorry to rush off, but that my sister is unwell. I know he will understand. Tell him…tell him I was very pleased to see him again, and only wish there had been time for us to talk. Tell him—”
Through all this, Alys had been tugging at Bella’s arm, and at last dislodged her, pulling her away in midsentence. Mr. Ott, although caught up in a discussion with Miss Goodall, did not fail to notice their departure, and from the yearning look that crossed his face I thought that, if not for the restraining presence of that other lady, so clearly one of his inner circle, he would have run and intercepted Bella at the door.
There was no need to hurry now, so I waited until everyone else had left, and I was alone in the hall with the two men before I approached them. Mr. Ott looked relieved when I passed Bella’s message on to him.
“Ah, of course. I understand. Poor little Ann. I had feared, if only for a moment, that there might have been a misunderstanding when I saw how Miss Bulstrode hurried away, but—”
Mr. Jesperson interrupted: “You mean you imagined she might still mistrust you since your attempt to blacken her name?”
Mr. Ott gave a start. “What do you mean?”
“I refer to your September meeting. Prior to then, you referred to ‘wisewomen’ rather than witches, feeling that the name witch had been debased, tarred with the brush of evil by the Christian church.”
“Yes, and so I firmly believe.”
“Then why, in the talk you gave in September, did you raise those old—and according to you now, false—specters of infant sacrifice and devil-worship, and declare there were women here in the county today who behaved so abominably?”
Mr. Ott stared at Mr. Jesperson with a wide, fixed gaze. After a moment, the tip of his tongue crept out to wet his lips. He cleared his throat. “Well, that is not right. Someone must have misunderstood what I said.”
“No, they understood exactly what you wanted them to understand. You are very careful in how you express yourself on these subjects. You know how ill feeling has been stirred up in the past by accusations of witchcraft. You knew, when you spoke of infant sacrifice and evil women, just how that would be interpreted, and believed, and spread to others…It was a deliberate and malicious act on your part.” Mr. Jesperson spoke without heat, as one who passes a final judgment, and remained unmoved by Ott’s faltering attempts to object.
“I know what you said. I do not ask if you said these things but only why. What did you think you would achieve?”
“Nothing! I did not mean—I was misunderstood!”
“Why did you do it?”
Ott drew a hand across his brow. “I…may have said a few things that were wrong. All right, I admit that I did. It was done in a moment of weakness. If you will allow me to explain…”
“Please do.”
Ott looked around, and so did I. A young man had come into the hall and was now noisily moving the chairs and stacking them against the walls. “Perhaps we should go somewhere else. My rooms?”
“As you wish.” We followed Felix Ott out of the hall, into the chilly night. The clouds had cleared away, and although the streets were still wet, the air smelled of sea spray rather than rain. A short walk took us to a fine stone house overlooking the seafront where Mr. Ott occupied the first floor.
The reception room was large and comfortably furnished; it was a trifle chill, but the makings of a fire waited in the grate, and Mr. Ott soon had it blazing. “Would you like anything to eat?” he asked. “Or tea? Brandy?”
“No, thank you,” said Mr. Jesperson before I could say that I did fancy a cup of tea. He stood blocking the doorway, staring across the room at the man standing before the fire. His expression was stern. “Let’s not drag this out, Ott. This is not a social call. I asked you questions that you have evaded, and they are questions I think I may answer for myself.”
Toying with the poker, Ott smiled uneasily. “Go ahead.”
“You called it a moment of weakness. Miss Bulstrode—Arabella Bulstrode—is your weakness. You asked her to marry you, she refused. You minded that refusal more than you could say. You were cut to the quick. You pretended to be her friend, but you were not. Perhaps it was, as you say, only a moment’s weakness, and soon regretted, but during that evening’s meeting you sought your revenge by painting her as a witch—not the sort of ‘wisewoman’ witch your School holds up for admiration, but the villain of legend, the devil-worshipping child-killer who never really existed, except as an excuse to torment and murder helpless old women. Did you really mean to stir up that atavistic fear in your listeners and create a witch hunt?”
“No!” He scowled down at the fire, then bent and carefully replaced the poker in the stand before turning to face his inquisitor. “I never meant anything. There was no plan. I lashed out in a moment of weakness—of vileness, I admit—that I regretted immediately. I let myself get carried away in that talk—I often am, when lecturing; some other spirit seems to take over. What was meant to be a sly dig, a hurtful jibe, somehow grew and changed into something worse. Afterward, I was horrified by myself. I could only hope my ill-judged words would not linger long in anyone’s memory. Fortunately, that meeting was not terribly well attended. She was not there to hear it, at least!”
He sighed, stepping away from the fire, gesturing at the plump sofa and padded chairs. “Please, won’t you be seated? We may as well continue this uncomfortable conversation in some comfort.”
I took one of the seats and after a moment Jesperson perched on another, but Felix Ott remained standing. “Are you sure you would not care for some refreshment? Whiskey or brandy, or a nice hot cup of tea?”
“No, thank you,” Jesperson replied again. “No more of your delaying tactics. I want your confession.”
Ott widened his eyes. “But you have heard it!”
Jesperson smiled grimly. “Not all of it. You have admitted your sin against the blameless Miss Bulstrode, but said not a word about what you did to Mr. Manning.”
He paled. “What do you mean?”
“You killed him.”
Ott staggered and all but fell into the nearest chair. “How—how—how…?”
Jesperson leaned forward, his gazed fixed. “As to that, you must enlighten us.”
Shaking his head helplessly, he replied, “I had nothing to do with it! And you know it was a natural death! No one’s fault.”
“Then why pretend you did not see him again after he left Cromer? Why did you lie to me? The game is up, man! You were with him in London. Either you went there with him, or you encountered him by chance, but in either case you invited him to your club. And there you were witnessed quarreling with him over a woman. When he left, you followed him, and when you caught him up—”
“No!” Ott straightened up as he protested, then sagged again. “I did go after him, yes, to try to stop him, but by the time I reached the street, he was out of sight. It was a foggy night. I had left it too late, I realized, and gave up any idea of pursuit, then and there, and retired to my room for the night.”
“Because you had no need to catch up to him,” Jesperson said. “You served him a drink laced with poison, and let him go, knowing he would be far away when he died, imagining there was nothing to connect
you to him. But you were wrong.”
“You are wrong,” Ott declared, his face flushed. “I did not kill Charles Manning. I had nothing to do with his death. The news came as a great shock—and sadness—to me. He was my friend. I had no reason to want him dead.”
“Oh, no?” Jesperson gave him a cool, skeptical look. “You were very angry with him, according to my witness. He meant to do something—you tried to argue him out of it, and failed. When words fail, men often turn to violence.”
“I did not kill him.”
“I should believe you now, despite your previous lies?”
Felix Ott frowned as he began to recover his self-possession. “You are not the police. You have no right to question me.”
“I told you when we met that I was inquiring at the behest of Manning’s family. This is still the case. You pretended you were willing to help me, but in fact you misled me. If you had nothing to hide, why not tell me the truth?”
“Excuse me, I must have a brandy,” Ott said, jumping up from his chair and crossing the room to a drinks cabinet. We watched and waited in silence as he took out a bottle and glass and poured himself a generous measure, from which he took a large swallow before he returned to his seat.
“I did not think it was your business. If I told you I had met Charles in London, if I had told you why he was there—” He shook his head. “I would not have her name dragged through the mud.”
“You had better tell me everything,” Jesperson said grimly. “Otherwise, I shall deliver you up to the police. There are poisons that leave little trace, and may stop a man’s heart—you could have had access to them, and you certainly had the opportunity. As for motive—jealousy is a strong one.”
“Jealousy?” He sounded incredulous. “How could I be jealous of Charles? He had nothing that I wanted—he was my acolyte—he did everything to please me.”
“You were overheard quarreling about a woman. And you have just told me—”
“That was not jealousy.”
Jesperson shrugged. “You wished to protect her from him.”
The hand not holding the brandy glass curled into a fist, and he struck the arm of his chair. “He told me—he brought it to me like a cat bringing a mouse to its master—that he meant to marry one of the Bulstrode sisters. He thought it would please me—please, yet also sting, this proof that he had succeeded where I had failed. That is how he thought of it—that we were alike; that we had the same end in view.”
“He told you he meant to marry Miss Bulstrode?”
Ott snorted. “He would have no chance with Miss Bulstrode, and he knew it! It was Ann—he found her the weakest link, young and foolish and susceptible to his flattery. But because she was so young, and because he had so little to offer, it would be a long engagement—and Miss Bulstrode, who is more like the girls’ parent than their half sister, decreed that a formal engagement should have to wait until Ann was older. Charles pretended to agree—but he was plotting a different outcome.”
“How long had you known?”
Ott took another gulp of brandy and shook his head. “I learned of the attachment for the first time that very day. I met Charles by chance, in London, and invited him to my club when he admitted he had time to kill.
“He was in a strange mood; nervy, excited, yet also repulsed—by himself, or his own intentions, as I realized later. He hinted at an assignation, a secret rendezvous, but when he’d taken a few drinks he confessed that he had talked Ann into coming to London and meeting him that evening. They would have supper in a private room, where he intended to have his way with her. If she was willing, all to the good; if not, he would force her. After that, he believed, there could be no impediment to their marriage, and no delay.” With a look of disgust, he paused to drink off the rest of his brandy.
“I was horrified, of course. How could he speak so casually of committing such an act against the girl he claimed to love? But he did not love her—that was his crime. He wanted her for what she represented to him—because he knew I had paid suit to Miss Bulstrode—he imagined it would be some sort of dynastic alliance, to have this old Norfolk family, with their ties to the ancient knowledge, connected to our School—oh, it was foolish.” He stood and made as if to get another drink, but then sat down again abruptly and put the empty glass on the floor.
“I tried to explain he had it wrong; told him in no uncertain terms he must not do such a dreadful thing—imagine, how she would feel about the husband who had forced her into marriage—but he would not be dissuaded. He had no money or prospects—she did—she must be his wife.” He sighed heavily, shoulders slumped. “I could not stop him. I tried—tried going after him, but he was already lost in the fog. So I went back to my room and I prayed.”
I suppose I must have moved, or made a noise of disbelief—my response, whatever it was, captured Mr. Ott’s attention, and he looked at me directly for the first time since he had started his story.
“Oh, yes, I prayed. Not to your foreign, desert god, but to the gods of this land. I asked them to intercede, to stop Manning before he could harm anyone.”
He turned his eyes away and gazed blankly at the floor. “I did not imagine such a fatal intercession, but, after all, one cannot dictate to the gods. My prayer was granted. Not as I should have liked it to be—the School has lost one of its sturdiest pillars—but the woman’s innocence was protected.”
“You would have us believe Manning was struck down by the power of some ancient god?”
He shrugged. “You may believe what you like. Charles died of natural causes, as the police surgeon found. But what caused his heart to stop?”
“Your prayer?”
Ott looked calmly at Jesperson. “It is no wonder you Christians have so little luck with all your prayers—such bloodless affairs. Mine was not like that.” He held out his hand, palm up, and we saw how it was lined and scarred; among the old scars was one more recent cut, red and inflamed.
“Only a few drops of my blood, but enough to make it more than a symbol. The gods granted my prayer. Does that make me a murderer?”
Chapter 20
An Appearance and a Disappearance
As we walked back to Aylmerton, I told Mr. Jesperson what I had written in the letter he had not yet had time to read.
“Cerbera odollam contains a poison so powerful, yet so little known in this country that its results would undoubtedly be seen as death by natural causes,” I said as we walked along the road under a large, bright moon. “And Mr. Ott knew where to get it. He was at one time a regular visitor to Wayside Cross, and even afterward he might have crept into the glasshouse secretly to steal one of those deadly nuts.”
“That presumes premeditation,” my friend objected gently. “Unless you think he always carried it with him, just in case a deadly poison might come in handy. From everything we have heard, the two men were on friendly terms, and Ott had no reason to wish any harm to Manning until he revealed his dastardly plan.”
I was not ready to give up my idea of Ott as a murderer. “But what if Ott had learned of it earlier—what if he had gone to London precisely with the intent of stopping Mr. Manning, and what Colonel Mallet witnessed was not their first argument, but the last of several?”
“How did Ott manage to administer the poison—the men did not dine together.”
“He could have put it in his drink.”
I thought this a reasonable suggestion until I saw Mr. Jesperson’s grin. “Even ground to powder, a nut that size would turn a glass of brandy into bitter, undrinkable sludge.”
“Well, maybe they did eat together, before they reached the club.”
“If Ott had already administered the poison condemning his onetime friend to death, is it likely they would have spent their last half hour together in bitter argument? No, Miss Lane, I understand you do not care for Mr. Ott, but he is not our killer. I have read about the effects of Cerbera odollam, and they do not include hallucinations or extreme emotional states.
It is reckoned to be a bringer of a swift and peaceful death. Does that sound like Charles Manning at the end?”
I had to admit it did not. “He looked terrified,” I agreed as the memory of the man’s face, pale and sweating and wide-eyed, came back to me.
“His pupils were dilated,” said Mr. Jesperson. “A common physiological response to opiates.”
“Well, then, who do you think killed him—and how?” I demanded, a bit nettled by his rejection of my best suggestion.
“Manning ingested something, either intentionally or unknowingly. It caused the hallucinations, and the great stress on his heart, which manifested as fear and anxiety, until finally the strain was too much and his heart could take no more.”
“But if you do not think Mr. Ott gave him this ‘something,’ who did?”
“Cunning Verrell.”
“What?” I stopped walking, then had to hurry to catch him up again. “Why should Cunning Verrell kill Charles Manning?”
“Oh, not intentionally,” he replied calmly. “And I may be completely wrong. It is certain that Verrell would not remain long in business—or indeed at liberty!—if his customers were dropping like flies. Spanish fly, the most famous aphrodisiac of all, known since ancient times, is also a deadly poison. The Medicis used it for both purposes. But that is an agonizing death, causing internal damage that could not have been overlooked during the autopsy.”
He shook his head. “Cunning Verrell will have his own recipe, and I would be willing to bet it includes something to make the heart race, as well as something to provoke wild dreams, and something else that looks like…er, the organ meant to be affected. As we found none of it on his person, Manning probably took a double or even a triple dose. And if he did suffer from some inherent weakness of the heart—which is possible, despite his brother’s ignorance of it—his excitement may have turned to fear, and quickly overtaxed his system, leading to death.”
