“Who is she? We don’t know. But we can make a few deductions. She must have come to the Count’s room by appointment. This is quite obviously the woman Edouard mentioned to Lady Duncan—the woman, the ‘she’ that the Scots noblewoman could not compare with. It is almost certain she is a commoner; otherwise she would not be wearing a robe from the Count’s collection. She must have changed right there in the bedroom. Then she and the Count quarreled—about what, we do not know. The Count had previously taken Lady Duncan’s pistol away from her and had evidently carelessly let it lay on that table you see behind the girl. She grabbed it and shot him. Then she changed clothes again, hung up the robe, and ran away. No one saw her come or go. The Count had designed the stairway for just that purpose.
“Oh, we’ll find her, never fear—now that we know what she looks like.
“At any rate,” Lord Darcy concluded, “the mystery is now solved to my complete satisfaction, and I shall so report to His Highness.”
* * * *
Richard, Duke of Normandy, poured two liberal portions of excellent brandy into a pair of crystal goblets. There was a smile of satisfaction on his youthful face as he handed one of the goblets to Lord Darcy. “Very well done, my lord,” he said. “Very well done.”
“I am gratified to hear Your Highness say so,” said Lord Darcy, accepting the brandy.
“But how were you so certain that it was not someone from outside the castle? Anyone could have come in through the main gate. That’s always open.”
“True, Your Highness. But the door at the foot of the stairway was locked. Count D’Evreux locked it after he threw Lady Duncan out. There is no way of locking or unlocking it from the outside; the door had not been forced. No one could have come in that way, nor left that way, after Lady Duncan was so forcibly ejected. The only other way into the Count’s suite was by the other door, and that door was unlocked.”
“I see,” said Duke Richard. “I wonder why she went up there in the first place?”
“Probably because he asked her to. Any other woman would have known what she was getting into if she accepted an invitation to Count D’Evreux’s suite.”
The Duke’s handsome face darkened. “No. One would hardly expect that sort of thing from one’s own brother. She was perfectly justified in shooting him.”
“Perfectly, Your Highness. And had she been anyone but the heiress, she would undoubtedly have confessed immediately. Indeed, it was all I could do to keep her from confessing to me when she thought I was going to charge the Duncans with the killing. But she knew that it was necessary to preserve the reputation of her brother and herself. Not as private persons, but as Count and Countess, as officers of the Government of His Imperial Majesty the King. For a man to be known as a rake is one thing. Most people don’t care about that sort of thing in a public official so long as he does his duty and does it well—which, as Your Highness knows, the Count did.
“But to be shot to death while attempting to assault his own sister—that is quite another thing. She was perfectly justified in attempting to cover it up. And she will remain silent unless someone else is accused of the crime.”
“Which, of course, will not happen,” said Duke Richard. He sipped at the brandy, then said: “She will make a good Countess. She has judgment and she can keep cool under duress. After she had shot her own brother, she might have panicked, but she didn’t. How many women would have thought of simply taking off the damaged gown and putting on its duplicate from the closet?”
“Very few,” Lord Darcy agreed. “That’s why I never mentioned that I knew the Count’s wardrobe contained dresses identical to her own. By the way, Your Highness, if any good Healer, like Father Bright, had known of those duplicate dresses, he would have realized that the Count had a sexual obsession about his sister. He would have known that all the other women the Count went after were sister substitutes.”
“Yes; of course. And none of them measure up.” He put his goblet on the table. “I shall inform the King my brother that I recommended the new Countess whole-heartedly. No word of this must be put down in writing, of course. You know and I know and the King must know. No one else must know.”
“One other knows,” said Lord Darcy.
“Who?” The Duke looked startled.
“Father Bright.”
Duke Richard looked relieved. “Naturally. He won’t tell her that we know, will he?”
“I think Father Bright’s discretion can be relied upon.”
* * * *
In the dimness of the confessional, Alice, Countess D’Evreux knelt and listened to the voice of Father Bright.
“I shall not give you any penance, my child, for you have committed no sin—that is, in so far as the death of your brother is concerned. For the rest of your sins, you must read and memorize the third chapter of ‘The Soul and The World,’ by St. James Huntington.”
He started to pronounce the absolution, but the Countess said:
“I don’t understand one thing. That picture. That wasn’t me. I never saw such a gorgeously beautiful girl in my life. And I’m so plain. I don’t understand.”
“Had you looked more closely, my child, you would have seen that the face did look like yours—only it was idealized. When a subjective reality is made objective, distortions invariably show up; that is why such things cannot be accepted as evidence of objective reality in court.” He paused. “To put it another way, my child: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
The Second Randall Garrett Megapack Page 124
