The Butterfly Conspiracy

by Vivian Conroy

  “You think he killed her to stop the rumors about her mental condition? But I’m sure he could imagine people would whisper about it and draw their own conclusions.”

  “The inquest ruled it an accidental death. I have wondered if he paid someone for that ruling. My father always had a lot of power around these parts.”

  Merula shook her head abruptly. “You don’t know he was involved, Raven. Why torture yourself thinking he might have killed her?”

  She leaned over. “Isn’t it far more likely that someone else killed her? The same person who persecuted her? Who put the dead bird under her bed and all?”

  Royston gestured around him. “And that person also went through her things? Looking for what?”

  “We don’t know.” Merula studied the crates. “What were you looking for, anyway?”

  “More notes. Some were sent to me, but I’ve always thought there had to be more.”

  He took a deep breath before continuing.

  “Still, once I received the notes, I didn’t come here to look for them. To look for more evidence of how she died and why. Even eight years later, it might have been easier to solve it than it will be now. So much time has passed. I left for France to have a good time and forget about…”

  He jumped to his feet and paced the room. “I let her down, again! I didn’t save her when I was here with her and I didn’t save her memory either when I could have. I was … I don’t know what I was.”

  “I can imagine that the argument with your father shook you.” Merula watched his tense posture as he walked. “Perhaps you were afraid of discovering he was your mother’s killer. What would you have done then? Get him arrested? Or let him go free?”

  Royston halted and looked at her. “People say I’m just throwing away my money on useless things. But I couldn’t care less. I am doomed anyway. My mother dead by who knows what devious means and for what unspeakable reason. My father possibly involved. Either he was a coward who let her die or he might even have had a hand in her death. For my sake! I, the product of the match between these two unfortunate people. Each mad in their own way? I don’t know. I run around, traveling to places one should see and trying to make my name with inventions and all, before it ends in disaster. Before I start seeing blood on mirrors as well. Because I’m crazy or because I’m guilty. In the end, does it even matter?”

  Merula looked at him. Her heart ached for him, for what he had been through as a boy when his mother died, and later when he had received those notes and become so confused as to what he should believe. But she didn’t want to just be sweet and considerate to him. He needed to be rallied to fight.

  “If I sat here and talked like that, saying that in the end I would end up in prison and I would die by hanging, because of the butterfly—hatching it, bringing it, releasing it, getting my whole family into trouble, on the brink of disaster—would you believe me? Would you say I was right? No, you would fight me and urge me to defend myself and prove it was all different from what I believed. Or have been led to believe. Now do the same for yourself. Yes, your mother died, but we don’t know how and who was involved. Believe that she told the truth when she wrote those notes about being persecuted.”

  Royston looked at her. “There are two options and each has its own horrors. Either she was truly going mad and I might be about to follow her, one day or the other, or she was being persecuted and nobody helped her and she died all alone. Maybe she did jump into that pond in fear, running away from someone who drove her mad. Her death might have been an accident or suicide or whatever they want to call it, but I want to know if she was being followed that night. I want to know if someone was there when she died. Whether he or she helped her along by holding her under or just watched as the whole terror came to its inevitable conclusion. I need to know. But I have no idea how to find out. They’re all gone now. The people who were once here. I’m too late. My questions will go unanswered. That is what I deserve for not acting sooner.”

  “Raven…” Merula got up from her chair and walked over to him, putting her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry that the situation forced us to come here. I wish it was all easier and…”

  Royston looked into her eyes. “I’ve not been able to save her,” he said, “and I’ll never forgive myself for that. But I will save you. I swear it to you. I will save you.”

  Merula held his gaze, sensing the pain and the determination coursing through him. She knew he meant what he said and that he would do anything to help her survive this plight.

  But she also knew that with the mysterious butterfly conspiracy and their invisible enemies so close to them yet still so far out of reach, nothing was certain. His promise warmed her, as did the certainty that he’d be with her, supporting her. But in the end, none of them could make any promises that either of them would ever be safe again.

  CHAPTER 11

  In the bright morning sunshine, the house didn’t seem as lonely and sad as it had the previous night upon their arrival. Merula opened the curtains in the dining room and let the light flood in across the dusty table, the chairs, and the sideboard along the wall. She smiled as she saw the twinkle of a rainbow in the edges of the mirror.

  Galileo came in, holding a book in his hand, from which he read something to himself in an indecipherable murmur.

  Her “Good morning” was met with silence as he seated himself at the table, putting the book in front of him as he continued to read in deep concentration.

  Merula shook her head to herself and was about to go out and explore when Bowsprit appeared with a tray full of plates, cups, a polished coffeepot, and sandwiches. “I packed food before we left the city,” he explained. “It is not much of a breakfast, as we have no sausages and no scrambled eggs, but at least we have something to keep us going.”

  He nodded at Galileo. “What is he up to?”

  “I have no idea. But we could use a significant discovery.” Merula accepted a sandwich and a cup of coffee and seated herself to watch Galileo read.

  After a while, she asked Bowsprit, “Where is Royston?”

  “I think he went for a ride on horseback.” Bowsprit looked disapproving. “The horse is borrowed, so I hope he is careful with it. He can ride like a madman when he is in the mood for it. The horse, however, might not have any experience with cross-country rides.”

  Merula shook her head and sipped the hot coffee. She didn’t want to show worry but hoped Royston wasn’t still in the same grim mood in which she had found him in the room among his mother’s things. She glanced at Bowsprit, but as he and Royston had met later in life, he probably knew nothing about the events that had transpired here.

  Galileo looked up and said, “Oh. Hello there. Good morning.” He peered around him as if he had suddenly found himself in a strange place. “Breakfast? Right.” He reached for the sandwich Bowsprit had put before him and took a bite. “Good. Yes.” He looked down at the book again.

  “What is that?” Merula asked. “Can it explain anything about Lady Sophia’s condition?”

  “I couldn’t sleep and looked around in the library. Found this fascinating book about animal superstitions. Ravens being portents of death and all.”

  “Does it say anything about dead birds bringing bad luck?” Merula asked, her heart skipping a beat.

  “Enough,” Galileo confirmed. “What exactly it signifies depends on what kind of bird it is.”

  “And that book comes from the library here?”

  “Yes. Had to blow off all the dust before I could dive in.”

  “So it belonged to Raven’s father?” Merula asked.

  “Yes, it had an ex libris in front bearing his name,” Galileo said. “Several pages have been marked, so I think he found those particularly fascinating.”

  Her heart positively pounded now. “And what are those about?”

  Galileo leafed through the book. “Ah, here is one. The dead magpie signifying that something valuable was about to be taken away from the finder. M
agpies are thieves, you know that.”

  Merula nodded. “And you just picked that particular book off the shelf?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  Galileo shook his head. “It was on the writing desk. Hidden in a ledger.”

  “Hidden?” Merula echoed.

  “Yes, well…” Galileo flushed. “I don’t want Raven to think I pried among his father’s things. I was just having a look at the books, and when I saw the ledger, I was interested in when it had last been used. How long this place had been empty, you know. So I opened it and found it was hollow and contained this book. I just had to read it. The link between animals and superstitions is fascinating, as it is different for every culture. One people might consider an animal a sign of good luck, while others believe it is unlucky.”

  The door opened and Royston came in, a healthy color in his face. “That was great exercise,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “Ah, breakfast. Bowsprit, my man, you know how to make something out of even the direst circumstances.”

  “I try, my lord,” Bowsprit said with a smile. “Coffee?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he poured.

  Royston said, “Lovely weather too. But we can’t sit around and picnic all day long. We have to decide what we are up to next.”

  Throwing himself down on a chair, he sighed. “I just wish I hadn’t paid that little man five pounds for his useless information. Lady Sophia choking on an almond at a garden party three years ago. From now on I will refer to it as the most expensive almond in history.”

  “What did you say?” Galileo asked. “An almond? Lady Sophia choked on an almond?”

  “Yes, some neighbor of hers—a merchant he calls himself, but I wager he is losing money these days with his opium habit, and maybe gambling as well—attended a party three years ago where Lady Sophia displayed the same symptoms as at the lecture: turning red in the face, gasping, collapse. But it turned out she merely choked on an almond. You know, thing going the wrong way, cough, cough, problem solved.”

  “That is amazing!” Galileo cried. “It could explain everything.”

  “No, it could not. Because at the lecture there were no almonds. Or other nuts. And she never ate sweets. So she can’t have choked on a sweet, either. We checked all that already.” Royston sounded impatient.

  “No, I mean, the almond,” Galileo said, still waving his hand enthusiastically.

  Royston stared at him. “Are you deaf? I just told you there were no almonds at the lecture.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t matter. Three years ago Lady Sophia collapsed, you said. She turned red in the face, had difficulty breathing…”

  “Yes, because the almond she choked on was hampering her breathing. Somebody probably gave her a good pat on the back to get it out of her windpipe, and then it was all solved.”

  “No, no, no.” Galileo rose, his chair shoving backward so wildly it almost fell over. “People thought she almost choked on an almond. But that might not have been the case. Her strained breathing, the rash on her face, could be the result of a response to the almond.”

  “Excuse me?” Royston said. “I don’t follow.”

  Galileo kept waving his hands. “This is all very experimental, but there are all sorts of things that people have a response to. Foods mainly. They eat them and then their nose starts to water or they have to cough or they get a rash or they even lose consciousness. It is something in the food that affects them.”

  “Like poison,” Merula said, with wide eyes.

  “Yes, like poison, only it is not poison. It is the food itself that is doing it. They are sensitive to something in the food while other people can safely eat it and do not respond. We have to find a word for it, I suppose.” Galileo grimaced. “I am not up on all the details, as it is more of a medical thing, but it does have a very interesting chemical component. I mean, what exactly in the food causes their bodies to respond? There is so much about food that we do not know yet.”

  His face got a dreamy expression, as if he was pondering all the opportunities for research and amazing discoveries ahead.

  Royston said impatiently, “What are you trying to say about Lady Sophia?”

  Galileo sank back on his chair and said, “The information that man gave you could be the key to her death. You thought he meant to say a nut in her food got into her throat. But the nut caused her to respond. That means that if later in her life she came into contact with almonds again, she might have the same symptoms. Difficulty breathing, a rash, fainting.”

  Merula sat up, her hands on the table, trying to work out what it all meant. “So Lady Sophia believed that she had almost choked on something small and round and hard. That explains why she mashed all of her food. She wanted to avoid another incident. But in reality it was not the physical quality of the nut itself, its shape or its solidness, that caused the problem. It was something in the nut. A part that could also be in other things? I mean, almonds are in other things, are they not?”

  Galileo nodded. “In pastry, for instance.”

  “So Lady Sophia might have eaten almonds in some other form and that caused her collapse?”

  “Yes, that is possible.”

  Merula clapped her hands together. “That must be it. Her bluish lips were a result of her not being able to breathe properly, but Sir Edward thought it meant she had been poisoned with actual poison.”

  “If this is true,” Royston said, “the investigation of her body will not show any traces of poison like strychnine or cyanide.”

  “But that won’t clear my uncle per se,” Merula said, “as they can argue the butterfly’s poison is not known to them and can’t be traced.”

  Royston said to Galileo, “We heard what she ate before she left for the lecture. I’d have to ask the butler again in detail, but I don’t think a dish with veal would contain any almonds. How long would it take between contact and a response, anyway?”

  “I would think it varies from person to person.”

  “So that does not help us at all.” Royston’s initial enthusiasm faded fast. “We’d have to prove she had eaten almonds in some form. That she actually had a response to an almond before, beyond just choking on the nut itself. It will be difficult. I mean, how can we establish a firm relation between all of these things? Won’t it be too subtle for a jury?”

  Subtle, Merula thought, subtle …

  Bowsprit reached into his pocket. “Perhaps I can help, my lord. I took the liberty of going into the village, as I was aware it has a telegraph office.”

  “Such a small village?” Galileo asked in disbelief.

  Bowsprit smiled. “It was set up here especially for a certain local resident, who must be able to travel to London at the beck and call of a certain lady.”

  “You mean Queen Victoria?” Royston asked in awe.

  Bowsprit laughed. “Nothing quite so elevated, my lord. The lady in question is married, and whenever her husband leaves, she informs her lover, who rushes to her side. It is common knowledge that they don’t even send the telegrams to the house anymore but simply fly a banner on the roof of the telegraph office, which can be seen from the estate.”

  “You are making all of this up,” Royston said.

  Bowsprit didn’t confirm or deny this but simply produced a piece of paper from his pocket. “I took the liberty of telegraphing to the office in London, where your response about Lord Havilock’s time in India should come in, to ask for any news. This is what came back.”

  Royston pulled the missive from his hand and read. “Aha!” he shouted. “My friend writes that Havilock had to leave India after he almost killed someone. Beat him half to death after a loss in a polo game?”

  He shook his head. “Does show he has a violent streak. And he referred to this incident blandly when pressuring Lady Sophia to return his zoological specimens.”

  “Yes,” Merula said, “but a man who grabs another man and beats him over a lost game shows that he is hotheaded and doesn’t think about
the results of his actions. I mean, what was there to gain? The game couldn’t be won anymore, and Havilock just got himself sent off, out of India. His threat against Lady Sophia fits that image: it’s quite crude and not intelligent. But the death of Lady Sophia has something … smart and methodical about it. Especially if we assume it has something to do with her response to almonds. Then it was almost ingenious.”

  “Not like Havilock at all, is that what you’re saying?” Royston asked. “Hmm, yes, I see your point. And how would Havilock have known of the almond incident that happened at the garden party three years ago?”

  “Maybe he was there?” Galileo suggested.

  “No, he was in India then,” Royston said. “He could have heard about it, of course, but would he have understood what it meant? That requires more … medical or chemical knowledge.”

  Merula nodded. “You just used the word subtle. And that’s the key. If Lady Sophia’s death was no accident but part of a coldly calculated plan, then it was subtle. And Havilock’s actions are not subtle at all.”

  They all sat and thought about this in silence.

  Merula went over everything she had seen at the lecture. Lady Sophia’s attitude, her mannerisms, the look on her face, her symptoms right before the collapse. She had been so busy waving her fan. Had she been faint already? Had she waved air into her face to fight the faintness?

  Or to be able to draw breath? Had the response to an almond or almonds already started to hamper her breathing?

  Images whirled in Merula’s mind. The fan moving, the ostrich feathers ruffling in the breeze created by the motion, Foxwell wanting to take the fan from Lady Sophia’s hand but her holding on to it.

  The collapse, the screen being brought, the anxious waiting, the doctor’s arrival, the speculations of the fearful guests about poison in the room. Poisonous wallpaper. Being in the same room with it being enough to …