by Anne Perry
“Araminta,” Hester replied.
“Not alone.”
“No. I don’t know who helped her.”
Beatrice put her hands very slowly over her face. She knew—and Hester realized it when she saw her clenched knuckles and heard her gasp. But she did not ask. Instead she looked for a moment at Septimus, then turned and walked very slowly out of the room, down the main stairs, and out of the front door into the street to where Monk was standing in the rain.
Gravely, with the rain soaking her hair and her dress, oblivious of it, she told him.
Monk went straight to Evan, and Evan took it to Runcorn.
“Balderdash!” Runcorn said furiously. “Absolute balderdash! Whatever put such a farrago of total nonsense in your head? The Queen Anne Street case is closed. Now get on with your present case, and if I hear any more about this you will be in serious trouble. Do I make myself clear, Sergeant?” His long face was suffused with color. “You are a great deal too like Monk for your own good. The sooner you forget him and all his arrogance, the better chance you will have of making yourself a career in the police force.”
“You won’t question Lady Moidore again?” Evan persisted.
“Great guns, Evan. What is wrong with you? No I won’t. Now get out of here and go and do your job.”
Evan stood to attention for a moment, the words of disgust boiling up inside him, then turned on his heel and went out. But instead of returning to his new inspector, or to any part of his present case, he found a hansom cab and directed it to take him to the offices of Oliver Rathbone.
Rathbone received him as soon as he could decently dismiss his current, rather garrulous client.
“Yes?” he said with great curiosity. “What is it?”
Clearly and concisely Evan told him what Hester had done, and saw with a mixture of emotions the acute interest with which Rathbone listened, and the alternating fear and amusement in his face, the anger and the sudden gentleness. Young as Evan was, he recognized it as an involvement of more than intellectual or moral concern.
Then he recounted what Monk had added, and his own still smoldering experience with Runcorn.
“Indeed,” Rathbone said slowly and with deep thought. “Indeed. Very slender, but it does not take a thick rope to hang a man, only a strong one—and I think this may indeed be strong enough.”
“What will you do?” Evan asked. “Runcorn won’t look at it.”
Rathbone smiled, a neat, beautiful gesture. “Did you imagine he might?”
“No—but—” Evan shrugged.
“I shall take it to the Home Office.” Rathbone crossed his legs and placed his fingers tip to tip. “Now tell me again, every detail, and let me be sure.”
Obediently Evan repeated every word.
“Thank you.” Rathbone rose to his feet. “Now if you will accompany me I shall do what I can—and if we are successful, you may choose yourself a constable and we shall make an arrest. I think perhaps we had better be quick.” His face darkened. “From what you say, Lady Moidore at least is already aware of the tragedy to shatter her house.”
Hester had told Monk all she knew. Against his wishes she had returned to the house, soaked and bedraggled and without an excuse. She met Araminta on the stairs.
“Good heavens,” Araminta said with incredulity and amusement. “You look as if you have taken a bath with all your clothes on. Whatever possessed you to go out in this without your coat and bonnet?”
Hester scrambled for an excuse and found none at all.
“It was quite stupid of me,” she said as if it were an apology for half-wittedness.
“Indeed it was idiotic!” Araminta agreed. “What were you thinking of?”
“I—er—”
Araminta’s eyes narrowed. “Have you a follower, Miss Latterly?”
An excuse. A perfectly believable excuse. Hester breathed a prayer of gratitude and hung her head, blushing for her carelessness, not for being caught in forbidden behavior.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then you are very lucky,” Araminta said tartly. “You are plain enough, and won’t see twenty-five again. I should take whatever he offers you.” And with that she swept past Hester and went on down the hall.
Hester swore under her breath and raced up the stairs, brushing past an astonished Cyprian without a word, and then up the next flight to her own room, where she changed every item of clothing from the skin out, and spread her wet things the best she could to dry.
Her mind raced. What would Monk do? Take it all to Evan, and thus to Runcorn. She could imagine Runcorn’s fury from what Monk had told her of him. But surely now he would have no choice but to reopen the case?
She fiddled on with small duties. She dreaded returning to Beatrice after what she had done, but she had little else justification to be here, and now least of all could she afford to arouse suspicion. And she owed Beatrice something, for all the pain she was awakening, the destruction which could not now be avoided.
Heart lurching and clammy-handed, she went and knocked on Beatrice’s door.
They both pretended the morning’s conversation had not happened. Beatrice talked lightly of all sorts of things in the past, of her first meeting with Basil and how charmed she had been with him, and a little in awe. She spoke of her girlhood growing up in Buckinghamshire with her sisters, of her uncle’s tales of Waterloo and the great eve of battle ball in Brussels, and the victory afterwards, the defeat of the emperor Napoleon and all Europe free again, the dancing, the fireworks, the laughter, the great gowns and the music and fine horses. Once as a child she had been presented to the Iron Duke himself. She recalled it with a smile and a faraway look of almost forgotten pleasure.
Then she spoke of the death of the old king, William IV, and the accession of the young Victoria. The coronation had been splendid beyond imagination. Beatrice had been in the prime of her beauty then, and without conceit she told of the celebrations she and Basil had attended, and how she had been admired.
Luncheon came and went, and tea also, and still she fought off reality with increasing fierceness, the color heightening in her cheeks, her eyes more feverish.
If anyone missed them, they made no sign of it, nor came to seek them.
It was half past four, and already dark, when there was a knock on the door.
Beatrice was ashen white. She looked at Hester once, then with a massive effort said quite levelly, “Come in.”
Cyprian came in, his face furrowed with anxiety and puzzlement, not yet fear.
“Mama, the police are here again, not that fellow Monk, but Sergeant Evan and a constable—and that wretched lawyer who defended Percival.”
Beatrice rose to her feet; only for a moment did she sway.
“I will come down.”
“I am afraid they do wish to speak to all of us, and they refuse to say why. I suppose we had better oblige them, although I cannot think what it can be about now.”
“I am afraid, my dear, that it is going to be extremely unpleasant.”
“Why? What can there be left to say?”
“A great deal,” she replied, and took his arm so that he might support her along the corridor and down the stairs to the withdrawing room, where everyone else was assembled, including Septimus and Fenella. Standing in the doorway were Evan and a uniformed constable. In the middle of the floor was Oliver Rathbone.
“Good afternoon, Lady Moidore,” he said gravely. In the circumstances it was a ridiculous form of greeting.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Rathbone,” she answered with a slight quiver in her voice. “I imagine you have come to ask me about the peignoir?”
“I have,” he said quietly. “I regret that I must do this, but there is no alternative. The footman Harold has permitted me to examine the carpet in the study—” He stopped, and his eyes wandered around the assembled faces. No one moved or spoke.
“I have discovered the bloodstains on the carpet and on the handle of the paper knife.” E
legantly he slid the knife out of his pocket and held it, turning it very slowly so its blade caught the light.
Myles Kellard stood motionless, his brows drawn down in disbelief.
Cyprian looked profoundly unhappy.
Basil stared without blinking.
Araminta clenched her hands so hard the knuckles showed, and her skin was as white as paper.
“I suppose there is some purpose to this?” Romola said irritably. “I hate melodrama. Please explain yourself and stop play-acting.”
“Oh be quiet!” Fenella snapped. “You hate anything that isn’t comfortable and decently domestic. If you can’t say something useful, hold your tongue.”
“Octavia Haslett died in the study,” Rathbone said with a level, careful voice that carried above every other rustle or murmur in the room.
“Good God!” Fenella was incredulous and almost amused. “You don’t mean Octavia had an assignation with the footman on the study carpet. How totally absurd—and uncomfortable, when she has a perfectly good bed.”
Beatrice swung around and slapped her so hard Fenella fell over sideways and collapsed into one of the armchairs.
“I’ve wanted to do that for years,” Beatrice said with intense satisfaction. “That is probably the only thing that will give me any pleasure at all today. No—you fool. There was no assignation. Octavia discovered how Basil had Harry set at the head of the charge of Balaclava, where so many died, and she felt as trapped and defeated as we all do. She took her own life.”
There was an appalled silence until Basil stepped forward, his face gray, his hand shaking. He made a supreme effort.
“That is quite untrue. You are unhinged with grief. Please go to your room, and I shall send for the doctor. For heaven’s sake, Miss Latterly, don’t stand there, do something!”
“It is true, Sir Basil.” She stared at him levelly, for the first time not as a nurse to her employer but as an equal. “I went to the War Office myself, and learned what happened to Harry Haslett, and how you brought it about, and that Octavia had been there the afternoon of her death and heard the same.”
Cyprian looked at his father, then at Evan, then at Rathbone.
“But then what was the knife and the peignoir in Percival’s room?” he asked. “Papa is right. Whatever Octavia learned about Harry, it doesn’t make any sense. The evidence was still there. That was Octavia’s peignoir, with her blood on it, wrapped around the knife.”
“It was Octavia’s peignoir with blood on it,” Rathbone agreed. “Wrapped around a knife from the kitchen—but it was not Octavia’s blood. She was killed with the paper knife in the study, and when someone found her, they carried her upstairs and put her in her own room to make it seem as if she had been murdered.” His fastidious face showed distress and contempt. “No doubt to save the shame of a suicide and the disgrace to the family and all it would cost socially and politically. Then they cleaned the knife and returned it to its place.”
“But the kitchen knife,” Cyprian repeated. “And the peignoir. It was hers. Rose identified it, and so did Mary, and more important, Minta saw her in it on the landing that night. And there is blood on it.”
“The kitchen knife could have been taken any time,” Rathbone said patiently. “The blood could have come from any piece of meat purchased in the course of ordering supplies for the table—a hare, a goose, a side of beef or mutton—”
“But the peignoir.”
“That is the crux of the whole matter. You see, it was sent up from the laundry the day before, in perfect order, clean and without mark or tear—”
“Of course,” Cyprian agreed angrily. “They wouldn’t send it up in any other way. What are you talking about, man?”
“On the evening of her death”—Rathbone ignored the interruption, if anything he was even more polite—“Mrs. Haslett retired to her room and changed for the night. Unfortunately the peignoir was torn, we shall probably never know how. She met her sister, Mrs. Kellard, on the landing, and said good-night to her, as you pointed out, and as we know from Mrs. Kellard herself—” He glanced at Araminta and saw her nod so slightly only the play of light on her glorious hair showed the movement at all. “And then she went to say goodnight to her mother. But Lady Moidore noticed the tear and offered to mend it for her—is that not so, ma’am?”
“Yes—yes it is.” Beatrice’s voice was intended to be low, but it was a hoarse whisper, painful in its grief.
“Octavia took it off and gave it to her mother to mend,” Rathbone said softly, but every word was as distinct as a separate pebble falling into iced water. “She went to bed without it—and she was without it when she went to her father’s study in the middle of the night. Lady Moidore mended it, and it was returned to Octavia’s room. It was from there that someone took it, knowing Octavia had worn it to bid them goodnight but not that she had left it in her mother’s room—”
One by one, first Beatrice, then Cyprian, then the others, they turned to Araminta.
Araminta seemed frozen, her face haggard.
“Dear God in heaven. You let Percival hang for it,” Cyprian said at last, his lips stiff, his body hunched as if he had been beaten.
Araminta said nothing; she was as pale as if she herself were dead.
“How did you get her upstairs?” Cyprian asked, his voice rising now as if anger could somehow release a fraction of the pain.
Araminta smiled a slow, ugly smile, a gesture of hate as well as hard, bitter hurt.
“I didn’t—Papa did that. Sometimes I thought if it were discovered, I should say it was Myles, for what he did to me, and has done all the years we’ve been married. But no one would believe it.” Her voice was laden with years of impotent contempt. “He hasn’t the courage. And he wouldn’t lie to protect the Moidores. Papa and I would do that—and Myles wouldn’t protect us when it came to the end.” She rose to her feet and turned to face Sir Basil. There was a thin trickle of blood running down her fingers from where her nails had gouged the skin of her palms.
“I’ve loved you all my life, Papa—and you married me to a man who took me by force and used me like a whore.” Her bitterness and pain were overwhelming. “You wouldn’t let me leave him, because Moidores don’t do things like that. It would tarnish the family name, and that’s all you care about—power. The power of money—the power of reputation—the power of rank.”
Sir Basil stood motionless and appalled, as if he had been struck physically.
“Well, I hid Octavia’s suicide to protect the Moidores,” Araminta went on, staring at him as if he were the only one who could hear her. “And I helped you hang Percival for it. Well now that we’re finished—a scandal—a mockery”—her voice shook on the edge of dreadful laughter—“a byword for murder and corruption—you’ll come with me to the gallows for Percival. You’re a Moidore, and you’ll hang like one—with me!”
“I doubt it will come to that, Mrs. Kellard,” Rathbone said, his voice wrung out with pity and disgust. “With a good lawyer you will probably spend the rest of your life in prison—for manslaughter, while distracted with grief—”
“I’d rather hang!” she spat out at him.
“I daresay,” he agreed. “But the choice will not be yours.” He swung around. “Nor yours, Sir Basil. Sergeant Evan, please do your duty.”
Obediently Evan stepped forward and placed the iron manacles on Araminta’s thin white wrists. The constable from the doorway did the same to Basil.
Romola began to cry, deep sobs of self-pity and utter confusion.
Cyprian ignored her and went to his mother, quietly putting his arms around her and holding her as if he had been the parent and she the child.
“Don’t worry, my dear; we shall take care of you,” Septimus said clearly. “I think perhaps we shall eat here tonight and make do with a little hot soup. We may wish to retire early, but I think it will be better if we spend the evening together by the fire. We need each other’s company. It is not a time to be alone.”
Hester smiled at him and walked over to the window and drew the curtain sufficiently to allow her to stand in the lighted alcove. She saw Monk outside in the snow, waiting, and raised her hand to him in a slight salute so that he would understand.
The front door opened and Evan and the constable led out Basil Moidore and his daughter for the last time.
With fifteen William Monk novels under her belt and two more in the pipeline, celebrated mystery writer Anne Perry chats with Mortalis about her famed amnesiac detective, self-portraits, and the life of a writer.
Mortalis: You have been crowned the “queen of British historical mystery” (Chicago Tribune). That must be gratifying!
Anne Perry: I didn’t know that. It’s very nice.
M: For you, what are the ingredients of a good mystery?
AP: Tension, conflict, and characters that you care about. If you don’t care about people, it doesn’t matter who did the actual crime. It has to be about why, how did this happen? For me there has to be a distinct moral dilemma where I can believe that a person had no alternative. One reason I like writing mysteries is that it’s not just about who committed the major crime, but what you discover about all of the other characters under the pressure of investigation.
We all have things we’d rather not have made public; it might not be something seriously wrong but just jolly embarrassing. You don’t want to walk down Main Street with no clothes on. The question becomes, Will you lie to protect those you love? There’s always the temptation to evade the truth, fudge it, not to admit to something embarrassing. How honest will we be, how brave? What happens to our integrity when we’re pushed to the edge of admitting something embarrassing? Also, how will we deal with disillusion? Do we blame everyone else? Maybe we expected something unfair of someone and now must face the truth.
So I’d say it’s conflict and what we discover about the whole cast. And it must be believable. In the end, saying “He’s mad” is not an answer. And I’m very bored with “He did it for the money.” It’s been done so many times. I’m also tired of detectives who are social misfits.
