by Joan Smith
“The night Rosalie left, you said you knocked on her door and she didn’t answer. Bess said she packed Rosalie’s trunks.”
“If she did, she’s been lying for months. Why would she do that? And if she was lying, why would she tell you the truth now, all of a sudden?”
Maybe because she was afraid, and because she was leaving, and was not so bad a girl as to condone murder. She might help madame send Rosalie away in disgrace, but murder? “I don’t know. That’s what she told me.”
“She’d lie as fast as a dog would trot.”
We went into Laver’s room without knocking. It was next to Mr. Palin’s room, for ease of access. There was a lamp burning low, awaiting the valet’s return. I found the book, picked it up and headed to the door, moving quickly. I stopped suddenly at a sound that came from Mr. Palin’s room. Mr. Palin was away, and Laver was with Bobby. Who was in his room? The sounds were soft, secretive. I took the notion it was madame, but I was not inventive enough to imagine what she might be doing there, during his absence.
When I returned to Bobby’s room, Molly went downstairs. Laver was looking at the child’s latest art works.
“He’s a grand little artist, isn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes, he is talented, very creative and imaginative.”
“That’s the missus to the life,” Laver said, setting a page aside, with a shake of his head.
This surprised me. Bobby had never before attempted a likeness of Mrs. Palin.
“Shall we put the lady out while I give you a wash and put on a clean nightshirt?” Laver asked Bobby, in a joking way.
“Bingie go now,” the child ordered obediently.
I went no farther than to my own room next door, to wait and say goodnight to my charge. As soon as I entered, I knew she had been there. The scent of her perfume was quite noticeable. When? I had not been here since early afternoon, but I had been next door—would have seen her pass by. With my door closed, the perfume might have lingered for hours. I looked around to see if I could discover any visible traces of her, but everything appeared to be in its customary place.
She had been careful this time. No drawers disturbed. Laver brought the child to say goodnight.
With these distractions, I had not yet got around to looking at Bobby’s pictures, which I had put on my dresser as I entered. I did so then. The first item that hit my eye was a crude drawing of the mourning ring. It was recognizable by a large, black square, with a bunch of squiggles around it. The woman wearing it in the picture was quite obviously intended for Regina. He had colored the hair bright orange. The gown was indicated by a crooked line, roughly midpoint between the shoulders and waist, with a small line of circles around the neck, showing a necklace. He had caught something of madame’s haughtiness in the proud, stiff set of the head. The strangest part of the picture was the harsh, black gash that was meant for the mouth. It was turned down at both corners, giving her an angry, scowling look.
With bated breath, I lifted the sheet to examine the next drawing, wondering what other bizarre things the child had put onto paper. It was Rosalie, or a caricature of her, recognizable from his other drawing of her I had seen. Curly springs indicated her hair, with a smear of yellow dashed on in haste to complete the illusion. Her mouth was open in an agonized position, so realistic one could almost hear a howl of protest. On her finger rested the ugly mourning ring, drawn two or three times its normal size. That’s all.
No one else was depicted, nothing to indicate how the ring had got there. I was almost afraid to look at the next sheet. My fingers shook as I lifted Rosalie’s crude likeness aside. This one was senseless, surely a flight of fancy, though Bobby usually drew things he had actually seen—horses, carriages, Huck playing with a ball. It was a picture of Rosalie hurtling through the air, dark lines trailing behind her to indicate movement, the corkscrews of curls shooting straight up, as her prostrate body hurtled down. At the top of the page was a series of short, upright parallel lines with a horizontal line across the top. The parapet. She was falling from the parapet. Was it possible he had seen it, witnessed her murder, or accident, if it was an accident?
I had thought Rosalie and Bobby together had seen something that necessitated their deaths. This set my conjectures off on a new tangent. I remembered Bobby’s strange reaction when I had tried to quiz him about Regina. He would not or could not tell me why he disliked her. He had wanted to draw, and had set about it with a ferocious intensity. He had put down on paper what he had seen, why he disliked her. This was why someone had tried to kill him, to prevent him from telling me what he had just revealed through his drawings. He had seen Rosalie killed. Now I knew it too. And now the trunk had been ordered for me. I felt strangely detached, as though it were someone else’s demise I considered, and not my own. It was too farfetched to be real.
I was sitting on the edge of my bed, though I had no memory of going to it. I looked through the pictures again, rearranging them, and deciding their original order was the proper one. Madame wearing the ring, then Rosalie—killed with it, like April, then thrown from the parapet to make it look like an accident.
Mr. Palin was missing from the drawings, but obviously Regina could not have lifted Rosalie over that parapet by herself. “Must I tell the world what you did with poor little Miss Thompson....” So he had thrown her body over the parapet, to make it look like an accident. I could not believe he would contrive an accident to cover any murder perpetrated by Regina. No, he must be involved in the transfer of the ring from mistress to maid. It was not shown, but it must have happened. Any way I rearranged the pieces, he could not be left out. He took the trunk with her body in it away in the carriage, to “dispose” of it.
I could believe he thought her death accidental, but believed too that he was responsible for the accident. Was it he who had somehow got the poison, the curare, put on the ring? If so, he must have planned to murder someone with it. Madame wife? “How much would you take to disappear permanently?” And madame had ruled out the expedient of divorce.
But still I did not believe he had harmed Bobby. I didn’t have the whole truth yet, but I was approaching it now. I knew it, and knew as well my life was in jeopardy. Every caution must be taken, till I found the missing pieces. Even sitting alone in this room in an isolated corner of the house was madness. I got up to lock the door, wanting to be alone longer, to think, puzzle, plan. The hook was missing. It had been carefully unscrewed from the door, leaving a neat black hole in the wood. Preparations were already under way.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Before I had time to flee, I heard her footsteps, coming softly down the hallway. There was a gentle rustling of silken skirts, a polite tap at the door, still hanging ajar, a whiff of pungent perfume to announce Regina’s arrival. If she offered me the ring, I would take it, to find out its secret.
“May I come in, Jane?” she asked, not smiling, but wearing a harried frown that was by no means customary with her.
“Certainly, Mrs. Palin.” She was all alone, smaller than I; I could handle her if it came to a physical tussle.
She entered, shivered, and cast a commiserating look on me. “How cold it is here.” A quick look at her white hands, the fingers twisting nervously together, showed me she wore the ring, glistening black and evil on her beautiful white fingers.
“What is it, Mrs. Palin?” I asked, commanding my voice to be firm, to hide the palpitating of my heart.
“I think you know why I have come, Jane. You must get out of this place, while you can.”
“I can’t leave Bobby.” I did not offer her a seat, nor did I sit down myself. Our whole conversation was held as we stood, as though we had met on the street.
“Bobby is safe enough. He’d never kill him. He loves his son.”
“Kill?” I asked, with a wary flicker of my eyes to the ring. Her fingers never stopped working, twisting, writhing.
“You must know what is going on here, by now. April, Rosalie Thompson�
�who will be next, I wonder? Me—or you?”
I stared in bewilderment, but there was no denying madame seemed very much in earnest, and though she wore the ring, she did not offer it to me. “I don’t understand your meaning.”
“Don’t, or won’t? Don’t be fooled by his bouts of quite charming rationality. He is mad, Jane. Insane. Forget that you love him; I had to do it, when I learned the truth. He killed April, because he wanted me. Did it somehow with a slow-acting poison, I believe. But his passions, while violent, are not long-lived. Before long he tired of me, and wanted Rosalie. It was his plan to kill me, but Rosalie became, inadvertently, the victim instead. Whatever means of poison he employs, he is not necessarily present when it is used. I have come to believe my dose was in a spray perfume I gave Rosalie as a little gift when she did me a favor. Now he wants you, and is making attempts on my life again. I try to keep Martin with me as much as possible, and when my nerves can stand it no longer, I go away for a week. Last night—but there is no point bothering you with that.”
“Last night, it was Bobby and myself that were subjected to a fright. No one believed you were in Bobby’s room.”
“Martin did it, Jane, at my instructions. I have tried every civil means to be rid of you. Your tenacity in remaining here makes me at last reveal the truth. You can never marry him; he’s mad. I have been in touch with a mental doctor in London who is coming down to examine him. In secret, of course. I mean to introduce him as a friend, a houseguest only. His behavior is really quite irrational. He does dreadful things, usually under the influence of brandy, then feels guilty, knows he has done wrong, but is not clear of the details.”
“How should Martin’s frightening me and Bobby make me leave?” I asked, trying to discover how much, if any, truth there was in her story.
“It was my intention to blame it on you. We didn’t know you were with Bobby. Martin was to throw the lion’s head in your room after the child howled, then Robert would go running and discover it, and begin to suspect you were strange. A drinker, in fact. I tried to give him that notion earlier, you will recall. A second incident might have lent some credence to the notion.”
“I see,” I said, my anger somewhat mitigated by her confession, and by her apparent sincerity, for she did seem sincere.
“While you remain, Jane, my life is in danger. It is my hope the London doctor can treat Robert, cure him of this madness. You must go. It is our only chance.”
“I must have time to think about it.”
Her nervous agitation was communicating itself to me. My fingers too were beginning to rub together. Panic built up as I frantically scanned her story for loopholes. It was farfetched, but as far as cold facts went, I could find no irregularities. He was the one who had done something to Rosalie, not madame. My partiality for him made me always look for the fault in her, but the strain of living with a madman might cause her to behave strangely too. She might even be saving up her blackmail money to get away from him. But Mr. Palin had not pushed Bobby down the stairs. It was not he who had the trunk waiting for me.
“Why did you lie about Rosalie?” I asked, reverting in my panic to my prime interest.
“That is really why you came, is it not? You are like her, you know, especially when you are not wearing your spectacles. Robert mentioned the similarity to me. Knowing how he had loved her, I knew then he had transferred his affections to you. It was necessary to be sure who you were, which is why Martin brought your letter to me. We have treated you badly, Jane, but at least we have kept you alive, till now. I can’t guard you and myself forever.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Rosalie used to meet Robert on the parapet, where she took the child in the warm weather. I assume she took the perfume bottle I gave her out there, and sprayed some of it, killing herself. When he went to meet her, she was dead. To conceal he was trying to kill me, he threw her body over the parapet and let on it was an accident. I knew better, but by then I had no love or respect for your sister. She was no better than she should be. I saw no need for her death to bring disgrace on this fine old family. Harsh words, and harsh behavior on my part. I still love him, you see. That must be my excuse.”
“Why the story about the mourning ring, saying she had stolen it?”
“I gave it to her with the full intention of letting on she had stolen it, to have an excuse to turn her off. I was determined to save my husband, and protect my own interests. Just as I was raising my hue and cry over it, she was dying, on the parapet. It made a convenient way to explain her absence. I had Bess go into her room and pack up her things, then unpacked them and burned them. Robert put her body in the trunk and took it away. I truly do not know what he did with it.”
I was shaken, trembling inside and out from her devastating story. It had the ring of truth, fit in too well with my own conjectures and Bess’s tale to be false. She was wickedly self-interested, devious and an opportunist into the bargain, to hold her husband to ransom after helping him hide the murder, but the murder, it must be admitted, was not her doing.
“Yes, I know you despise me,” she said coldly, “but at least I am not a hypocrite. He has come back, you know, Robert. I heard him moving quietly about in his room. I expect he will be here, telling you some story, trying to make love to you. Or maybe he is busy figuring a way to murder me, since he will know by now I am back. Do you want that on your conscience? Go, while you can. You can take my carriage home to London. Oh, but he will learn of it, and be furious with me. God knows what he will do when he gets drinking, and flies into one of his black rages. Is there no one you can go to? That Mr. Rupert fellow in the village, the one you have been seeing. I’ll send him a message to come for you—tell Robert you have run off with him. That might cure him of this fascination he has for you. He is proud, very proud.” She spoke rapidly, nervously, her anxiety rising perceptibly. I was three-quarters convinced she told the truth. But if she offered me the ring ... She saw me looking at it.
“I suppose you want money,” she said. “I haven’t much. I can give you some jewelry. Oh, don’t worry, I don’t mean to say you stole it.”
I waited, holding my breath, for her to draw off the mourning ring. To my surprise, she reached up and unfastened a brooch from her lapel, a pretty gold flower with jeweled petals and center. “Take this,” she said. It set the seal of truth on her explanation. It wasn’t the mourning ring she meant to give me. It was harmless, only a superstition after all, its awful reputation. She had given it to Rosalie, as Bobby depicted, but only that she might accuse my sister of theft, and turn her off. I felt cheated. I wanted her to be the real villain, and she was only a conniving, selfish scoundrel.
“I have enough money.”
“Get ready to leave then. I’ll have Mr. Rupert pick you up at the side of the road, down at the end of our property. Don’t worry about your clothes. I’ll have them sent to you at the inn. Hurry!”
My impulse was to flee at the very instant. Madame looked at me, her face white and drawn. “It’s our only chance,” she said desperately. Then she turned and left, hastening back to her own room.
A moment’s confused consideration told me my best bet was to leave on the instant. Get out, like Bess. Never mind waiting for Mr. Rupert. He was no more to be trusted than the rest of them. Just go, run, flee to safety. Something could be worked out for Bobby’s future after I got free of this house. I picked up my pardessus, my purse, took one last look at the simple little room, then slipped softly down the front stairs.
No one was about. The front door was on the latch. I opened it and began my dart to freedom. Down past the little fountain in front of the house, down the drive to the main road. I turned toward the village, my mind running over and over madame’s story, looking for flaws, for loopholes that would prove her a liar, and a murderer. I would not go to Mr. Rupert. I would go to the train station, and take the first train to London, and safety. Let Scotland Yard handle the unsavory affair. It was too
dangerous for a lone female.
The night was cold. There was a weak emanation of light from the moon that had slid behind a mass of floating clouds. The ground underfoot was just turning from mud to ice. It would be hard for half a dozen paces, then turn to treacherous mud, causing the feet to slip and slide. I had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, far enough to be thoroughly chilled, for the hems of my skirt to be wet with mud and slow me down, when I heard a carriage approaching, coming from behind me.
Was it madame’s carriage, sending word to the inn to alert Mr. Rupert to come for me? Why had she not suggested I go to the inn in the carriage, if she was having it sent in any case? Suddenly, I knew my trust in madame was far from complete. It was imperative I not be picked up by her carriage. Was the trunk in it, waiting for me?
I darted into the bushes at the side of the road, crouched down behind them till the vehicle had passed. It wasn’t madame’s carriage at all, but one I did not recognize. The privacy of the hedge seemed a good idea. I stayed off the road, scuttled like a hare through the rough brush, parallel to the road, but hidden from any passerby. Should I stop at the local constable’s office? He would not be likely to take a servant’s word against the wealthiest man in the county. I hurried forward, tripping often over a rock or invisible bit of bush. My hands were cold and dirty, my toes freezing; worst of all, my breath was catching in my throat from fatigue and fear.
Farther from the road, in a few yards farther toward the adjacent meadowlands, the ground looked smoother. I ran toward this easier passage, skirting a bush, and went flying forward on my face, my two hands breaking the fall. I pushed to raise myself. As my head came up, my eyes alit on a crouching form by my side, just propped up against the bush. The sudden lurch of panic caused a strange sound to come from my throat, an animal, inchoate sound. I stared, discerning the outlines of a white face, the darker circles of eyes. It would not focus. The spectacles had come off in one of my falls. It looked like a woman.
