by Anne Perry
“I wouldn’t have spent my time infuriating the Prince of Wales, and the entire staff, about some damn plate!” He almost choked on the words. “The man’s a buffoon!”
It was really Julius she was trying to defend, but she spoke as if it were Pitt. “What could he have read from the evidence? There was nothing to prove who killed the woman, or even why anyone should want to.”
“Minnie worked it out!” he shouted in accusation. “She deduced it from the evidence.”
“What evidence?” Now she swung round to face him, as hurt and desperate as he was. The only difference between them was that Minnie, whom he had loved, was dead, and Julius was still alive, at least for a short while longer.
He did not answer. There were shadows around his eyes and the skin there was puffy, as if he were ill. She knew he had been obsessed with Minnie, beyond his ability to control it. She had seen men be like that over gambling, growing to hate it and yet unable to stop until they had lost everything.
Would she lose everything when they took Julius away and shut him up for the rest of his life? Was he really the man she thought she knew and loved, or a creature that existed only in her own hungers?
It was absurd, she and Simnel standing together in this beautiful room, total strangers at heart, attacking each other, while suffering the same pain.
“If you knew he was going to kill Minnie, why didn’t you do something yourself?” she asked. It was a cruel question, but he deserved it for accepting so quickly and so blindly that Julius was guilty. Julius was his brother! He should have had some loyalty, whether they were rivals or not. Minnie had destroyed his judgment, the things in him that were best.
“For God’s sake!” he burst out. “Don’t you think I would have if I’d known? I loved her! Minnie was…she was the most passionately, marvelously alive person I’ve ever seen. It is as if he had destroyed life itself!”
“Don’t you suppose he knew how alive she was?” she asked, hurting herself as she was saying it.
“He didn’t love her,” Simnel replied very quietly. “He didn’t deserve her.”
“You say that as if loving and deserving were the same thing,” she retaliated. They avoided looking at each other again. “In that case, Olga deserves you. Or hadn’t you thought of that?”
“You can’t help who you love,” he said between his teeth. “You can’t love to order. If you had ever really loved anyone, not simply chosen to marry them as the safest and most profitable alliance you could make, then you would know that.”
She could not accuse him of cruelty—she had been just as cruel herself. “The marriage where I loved was not offered to me,” she answered him. “Any more than it was to you, or perhaps to Minnie. You are totally naïve if you think we can choose to do or undo at will. Or that what you want will turn out the way you believed it would. Olga wanted you. It looks as if she still does, but do you suppose that will go on forever?”
“I loved Minnie,” he said again. “I don’t think you understand that. You never loved her. She knew you didn’t. You were jealous of the affection Cahoon had for her. He admired her in a way he never did you.”
Both of these things were true, but strangely it was the charge that she had not loved Minnie that cut deeper. She should at least have tried. She had been so lost in her own loneliness, too consumed in herself to imagine what Minnie felt. She looked at it now, honestly, and found it ugly. No wonder Cahoon had not loved her. She did not love herself very much either.
“I know,” she replied aloud. “But did you love Minnie? Or did you love the way she made you feel: passionate and alive yourself? And hate it! She made you behave like a fool. You loved her so much you didn’t care if everyone knew—and they did. You betrayed both your wife and your brother. Is that who you wanted to be, what you admired in yourself?” At last she turned to look at him.
His face was white. “You really did hate her, didn’t you?” he said very softly. “Why? Over Cahoon, or over Julius?”
She smiled. “At least you haven’t the arrogance to assume it was over you! Has it occurred to you that most married women will feel for each other when they are betrayed? Perhaps I hated her for what she did to Olga, as well as to Julius.”
His eyes were glittering. “Enough to kill her for it?”
“I thought you believed Julius did it—your own brother?” It was an accusation, all her fear and anger making her voice knife-edged.
“Well, it wasn’t me, and she was the one person Cahoon really loved,” he pointed out. “If it wasn’t Julius, then it must have been Hamilton. And why the hell would he? Face it, Elsa, whoever it is has killed at least three times: Minnie, that poor whore who only came here as part of her job, and the other wretched woman in Africa that we’ve all been trying to forget. Cahoon wasn’t even there, so it couldn’t have been him.”
“Then it must have been Hamilton,” she said simply. “Except that I don’t know it wasn’t you. Perhaps you were desperate to escape the hold she had over you. You might have been tired of endless lust and betrayal. You couldn’t help yourself. Every time she teased you, you responded like a trained dog. Maybe you despised yourself, and that was the only freedom you could achieve.”
“You are a passionless, pathetic woman, just as Cahoon says you are.” The words were forced out between his teeth, his voice shaking.
“Because I don’t go around in a red dress, taunting people?” she retaliated, but the charge stung. She knew Cahoon no longer wanted her. If he wanted anyone at all, it was Amelia Parr. She had seen that in his eyes, but it still hurt that he should say so to another man. It was a complete denial of her as having any value.
“Because you go around in a blue dress, ice cold, and afraid of your own shadow,” he replied. “And, God forgive you, you’re alive!”
“So are you!” she shot back. “And perhaps if you’d resisted your appetites instead of indulging them, Minnie would be too. Have you ever considered that? If Julius killed her, perhaps you drove him to it?” She had nearly said perhaps Olga did it. The words had almost slipped out.
He was white-faced, blotches of color on his cheeks. “Are you saying that if your wife prefers someone else it is just cause for you to murder her?”
“You had better hope not, or Olga may feel justified in killing you,” she answered him. “I would not blame her.” That was a lie. Rage against Simnel for accusing Julius, and the disloyalty of it, twisted inside her. And the bitter fear that he could be right was there, tiny, thin as a wire in the gut, but undeniable. She hated herself for it even more, but it was there.
Did she love Julius? Was love an unshakable loyalty, no matter what the evidence? A denial of your own values, your intelligence? Was it something that refuses to believe the ugly and shallow, that sees only the clean in a person, the desire to be brave, kind, funny, and gentle? Or does it also see the fears and the failures, the dreams broken, and still love the person? Is it tender to the bruised hope? Would she still care if Julius were nothing like her vision of him?
Was that love, or obsession, because his face had a beauty that haunted her mind, his smile and his hands, the pitch of his voice? Was it really her own dreams she clung to, and loved? How easy, and how unreal.
The door opened and Liliane came in, followed the moment after by Olga. Elsa made polite remarks. Simnel muttered something meaningless and turned away. No one knew what to say that was honest or anything more than platitudes to break the silence.
Elsa looked at the other women and wondered how many compromises they had made. Were they, in facing reality, in loving men in spite of their weaknesses or failures, more honest than she?
Doesn’t all love have a little blindness? How else does it survive? Isn’t believing in the possibilities of the good and the beautiful what inspires it into being?
Cahoon came in, and Hamilton Quase. They both looked haggard, skin blotched and hollow, Cahoon especially because he was also scratched by his razor. There was a curious lif
elessness about him, as though he were physically smaller. Hamilton had obviously already drunk more than was good for him. An air of miserable belligerence suggested he intended to continue. He deliberately avoided Liliane’s anxious gaze.
Dinner was ghastly. The places were set for six, and the absence of Julius and Minnie was glaring. The women did not wear black because they had not brought anything black with them, and the previous night they had dined in their rooms. Instead, they had chosen the darkest shades they had and a complete absence of jewelry. Conversation was halting and desperately artificial until Cahoon shattered the pretense.
“Has anybody seen that fool of a policeman since this morning?” he asked.
No one answered him. Eventually Simnel shook his head, his mouth full.
“It should be over by tomorrow,” Cahoon went on. “I don’t know why he couldn’t have settled it today.”
“Will we all leave?” Olga asked, looking from one to another of them.
Hamilton leaned back in his chair and regarded Cahoon over-earnestly.
“No,” Cahoon was terse. “The course of history does not stop for individual deaths, even of kings and queens, certainly not simply of those we love. I shall complete the negotiations with His Royal Highness, which will take only a little longer. After that we may all leave. Of course we shall have to find a suitable diplomat to take Julius’s place.”
“In fact, business as usual,” Elsa said coldly. “Why should we let mere death or damnation get in the way of a railway?”
“Don’t drink any more wine, Elsa. It isn’t good for you,” Cahoon said, without turning to look at her.
“Did Julius admit to killing Minnie?” Hamilton asked, suddenly sitting up straight again. “I assume he didn’t, and that was why the policeman was still wandering around asking questions. I heard he saw the Prince of Wales again today, and the Princess.”
Cahoon sat very still. His knuckles were white where his hand gripped the stem of his wineglass. “I imagine it is true,” he said, clearing his throat to try to release the tension half strangling his voice. “He is following the trail of detection that Minnie followed, only, God damn him to hell, he is too late to save her.”
“Detection?” Simnel said sharply.
“Don’t be so stupid!” Cahoon said savagely. “If Minnie hadn’t discovered the truth about that woman’s death, Julius wouldn’t have killed her too! Even that buffoon Pitt can work that out!”
“What detection?” The words were out of Elsa’s mouth before she thought of the consequences, then it was too late.
Cahoon turned in his seat to stare at her. He seemed to be considering an angry or dismissive answer, then changed his mind. “It had to do with monogrammed sheets, broken china, and a great deal of blood.”
Everyone around the table froze, food halfway to their mouths, glasses in midair. Liliane let out a little gasp, and choked it off. Hamilton put down his fork slowly.
Elsa waited. She knew from Cahoon’s face that he was going to tell them.
“It seems there was a piece of china broken,” Cahoon began. “Limoges porcelain, to be exact. Quite distinctive. The servants swept up the pieces and removed them…”
“From where?” Hamilton asked. “Not the linen cupboard!”
Elsa could feel high, hysterical laughter welling up inside her and put her hand over her mouth to stifle it.
Simnel leaned forward. “Are you saying it was from Julius’s room, and Minnie knew that? Why would the servants clear it up, anyway?”
A muscle ticked dangerously in Cahoon’s jaw. “No, of course not Julius’s room. It seems that the wretched woman either was killed in the Queen’s bedroom, or else it—”
“What?” Simnel exploded.
Liliane dropped her fork with a clatter.
Olga gave a cry that was instantly swallowed back, and the emotion behind it could have been anything.
“Her Majesty is at Osborne,” Cahoon pointed out. “It would be easy enough for Julius to have taken the wretched woman there—”
“But why?” Hamilton insisted. “It makes no sense!”
“A gentleman guest in Buckingham Palace rapes and guts a whore, and you’re looking for sense!” Cahoon shouted at him, his rage and pain at last breaking loose. “The drink has rotted your brain, Quase. I’m talking about what Minnie found out, not trying to explain it!”
Elsa could not bear it. She refused to believe Julius was the man Cahoon was painting him to be. “If Minnie told you all this, why didn’t you protect her yourself?” she accused him. “You blame Pitt for not arresting Julius sooner, but you didn’t tell him this, did you?”
Cahoon ignored her, but she knew from the tide of blood up his neck that he had heard. “Minnie realized the woman could not have been killed in the cupboard,” he said steadily. “And that the broken porcelain was the key.”
“Did she tell you?” Hamilton insisted.
“No, of course she didn’t!” Cahoon snapped. “I deduced it!”
“Too late to help her,” Elsa pointed out.
“Obviously!” he snarled at her. “That is an idiotic remark, and vicious, Elsa, very vicious.”
She was too angry, too desperate to care anymore if he humiliated her in front of the others. “But true. You knew Minnie, saw her and spoke to her every day, and you knew Julius,” she told him. “If you didn’t work it out until it was too late, aren’t you a hypocrite to blame the policeman because he didn’t either?”
The blood darkened his face. She was perfectly certain that if they had been alone together in that instant he would have struck her. She hated him for Minnie, for Julius, and because of her own guilt over not caring for Minnie. She had not protected her, nor had she been someone in whom Minnie could have confided the terrible things she had discovered. She could not defend herself; she could only attack.
“How does that prove it was Julius?” she asked. “Anyone could have gone along to the Queen’s room, if they knew the way. How did Julius know where it was? He had never been here before. How did he even get in?”
They all looked at Cahoon.
“How do you know it was the Queen’s room?” Hamilton asked curiously.
“Because that’s where the Limoges came from, you fool!” Cahoon snapped.
“How do you know? You saw it there?” Hamilton would not be persuaded without proof.
“The monogrammed sheets,” Cahoon was exaggeratedly patient. “And the fact that it was not the Prince’s room. I hope you are not going to suggest it was the Princess’s?”
Hamilton shrugged. “That seems logical,” he conceded.
“Thank you.” Cahoon gave a sarcastic little bow from the neck.
The rest of the meal was completed in near silence. The touch of silver to china and the faint click of glass seemed intrusively loud. When the final course was cleared away, Olga pleaded a headache and retired. The men remained at the table, and Elsa and Liliane withdrew to sit by themselves, both declining anything further and willing to excuse the servants for the evening.
The silence between the two women prickled with suspense and emotion tight and unspoken for years. They were both afraid for men they loved. For Liliane it was her husband, which was obvious and right. For Elsa, her love was so lonely and so burdened by uncertainty that the knot of it was like a stone in her stomach, a hard, heavy, and aching pain all the time. The situation was intolerable.
“Do you think Cahoon is right?” she began, her voice trembling. “I mean that Minnie worked out what had happened, from a few pieces of china and blood on some sheets?”
Liliane kept her back toward Elsa. The light shone on the burnished coils of her hair, tonight without ornament. The skin of her shoulders was blemishless.
“I’m afraid I have no idea,” she answered. “Minnie never confided in me.”
Elsa refused to be put off. “I had not imagined she would. If she had spoken to anyone at all, it would have been her father. I was thinking of the likeli
hood of it, even the logic. How did she know about the china when no one else did?”
“I don’t know, Elsa.” Liliane turned round at last. “I realize that you are naturally distressed about Minnie’s death, and that some understanding might ease it for you. It would give all of us the feeling of being rather less helpless than we are now, but I really have no idea what happened. It makes no sense to me, and I’m not sure that I even expect it to anymore. I’m sorry.”
She was lying. In that instant Elsa was certain of it. Liliane was afraid. It was there in the fixed stare of her eyes, which were not completely in focus, and the way she stood as if ready to move at any moment, in whatever direction safety lay.
“You don’t think it was Julius, do you?” Elsa said suddenly, and then the moment the words were out she knew she had said them too quickly. Her impulsiveness had lost her the advantage.
“I’ve told you,” Liliane repeated patiently, “I have no idea. If I knew anything, I would have told that policeman, whatever his name is.”
That too was a lie, but this time a more obvious one. Perhaps Liliane realized it because she looked away.
“What about the woman who was killed in Africa?” Elsa asked. “You were there. Was it just like these?”
Liliane was pale. “As far as I heard, yes, it seems so. That doesn’t mean it was for the same reason.”
“Oh, Liliane!” Elsa said sharply. “Credit me with a little sense. Hamilton, Julius, and Simnel were all there, and it has to have been one of them here too.”
Liliane turned away again, whisking her skirt around with unconscious elegance. “Presumably.” She said it with no conviction, in fact almost with indifference.
What was she afraid of? It could only be that it had been Hamilton. Or could it be some secret of her own? Cahoon had said there had once been a question of her marrying Julius, but her father had objected. Then Hamilton had helped so much, and with such gentleness and understanding at the time of her brother’s death, that she had fallen in love with him.
Maybe he was a far better man than Julius: more honorable, more compassionate, more loyal—all the qualities Elsa knew she admired. What did it matter if someone’s smile tugged at your insides and left your heart pounding and your hands trembling? That was obsession, unworthy to be spoken of in the same breath as love.
