A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

Hugh and Sir Ogden let go of my hands and rise.

  “I gotcha!” a triumphant, familiar voice yells.

  Shock launches me to my feet. I grope through darkness, and my hand touches a rough tapestry curtain. I pull it back, and daylight sears my eyes. I blink at the spectacle before me. DeQuincey lies on his stomach, huffing and struggling, at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Mick straddles DeQuincey’s back. I look at DeQuincey’s chair at the table. Up from it springs a stranger who superficially resembles DeQuincey. He grimaces in embarrassment, then bolts.

  “A double,” Hugh says.

  The double must have been hiding somewhere, and he sat at the table after DeQuincey closed the curtains.

  Mick climbs off DeQuincey and points to the gallery. “I caught him up there. He was makin’ baby noises and doin’ hocus-pocus.”

  Hugh laughs. “You exposed the charlatan. Good work.”

  DeQuincey stands and straightens his clothes, flustered and indignant. Dame Judith marches over to him. “You tricked us.” She smacks his chest. “The nerve of you!”

  Sir Ogden, pale and shaken, wipes his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. “I knew it couldn’t be real.”

  “It was real,” DeQuincey huffs. “I saw Robin in a boat on the water.”

  “Come on, man. You were caught red-handed,” Hugh says.

  “All right, so I added a few tricks. I do communicate with the spirits, and they do show me things, but nobody will believe me unless there’s some, well, hocus-pocus.” DeQuincey glares at Mick. “I could have located Robin if you hadn’t interrupted.”

  “Mick, what were you doing here?” I ask.

  “I was explorin’ the house, and I saw people in here movin’ things around. I was curious, so I sneaked in and hid there.” Mick points to a cupboard between the bookshelves. “After the ghost session started, I heard somebody go up the stairs, and I followed him, and you know the rest.”

  I climb the stairs, see an object on the floor of the gallery, and hold up the telescoping metal rod with a small, stuffed glove at the end. “This is how he touched us and played the piano.” I sniff, smell smoke, and find a metal box with a glass lens at the end of a cylindrical protrusion. “Here’s a magic lantern. He used it to project a picture of a baby’s face.”

  “I was only trying to help. I can help.” DeQuincey’s lustrous eyes burn with zeal.

  “You’d best leave town before Sir Gerald hears that you swindled his wife,” Hugh says.

  DeQuincey extends clasped hands to Lady Alexandra. “Please believe me.”

  Lady Alexandra stands rigid, her complexion drained of color. Then she turns to Tabitha and says in a flat voice, “Tell the police to search every boat on every river in England.”

  Mick, Hugh, the others, and I stare in surprise. DeQuincey smiles with relief while Dame Judith says, “My dear, you can’t be serious.”

  Lady Alexandra raises her voice at Tabitha. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

  Tabitha scurries out the door. Lady Alexandra says, “I felt Robin’s presence during the séance. He’s alive. I know he’ll come back to me soon.” Her arms curve as if cradling her child. She beams her famous smile at the medium. “Mr. DeQuincey, I can’t thank you enough.”

  DeQuincey tugs his lapels and smirks at the rest of us.

  “Every boat on every river?” Mick says, astounded.

  “That would be a tremendous waste of time,” Hugh says.

  Although I know what it’s like to yearn for somebody so much, to cling to even the thinnest, falsest hope of a reunion, I warn Lady Alexandra, “While the police are busy chasing a fake clue, they could be missing real ones.”

  “Shut up!” Lady Alexandra turns on us, suddenly ablaze with fury. “Get out of my sight! Never come near me again!”

  11

  “I’m sorry for bustin’ things up,” Mick says.

  In need of fresh air and a chance to talk without being overheard, he and Hugh and I are outside Mariner House, strolling under a pergola built atop a brick arcade at the bottom of the garden. Pillars support wooden beams from which wisteria, climbing roses, and grapevines hang. Balustrades along the broad walkway guard the fifteen-foot drop to the lower level of the hill.

  “That’s all right,” I say. “You proved DeQuincey is a fraud.”

  “Do you think Lady Alexandra really believes in him?” Hugh asks.

  “She might.” If the medium I consulted years ago had tossed me a clue to my father’s whereabouts, I probably would have run myself ragged chasing it. “But I do think that when I asked her about the photograph of Robin, she wasn’t telling the truth.”

  When I fill Mick in on my theory that Robin died months ago, he reacts with awe and excitement. “You think Lady A killed him?”

  “Why would she?” Hugh is skeptical even though she’s a suspect in whatever misfortune has befallen Robin.

  “If there was something wrong with Robin, maybe she didn’t want him,” I say.

  Hugh winces at the reminder that his own mother cast him off because of his “wrongness.” I bite my tongue too late.

  “I bet she did kill him,” Mick says. “She musta snuck him out of the house at night and buried him out there.” He gestures at the scenery. Directly below us are kitchen gardens and a glass greenhouse. Beyond them, the wooded hillside descends sharply to more woods and the mist-shrouded heath. “And then she pretended he was kidnapped so nobody would know what she done.”

  Hugh raises his eyebrows, startled by Mick’s certainty. “We’ve all heard of women killing their children, but it’s a bit early in the game to jump to the conclusion that Lady Alexandra murdered Robin.”

  Mick’s face takes on a bitter expression I’ve never seen before. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He bends and scoops up some dried seedpods that have fallen from the hanging vines. “My ma left when I was six. She ran off with some bloke. Didn’t even say good-bye.” Mick hurls pods one by one over the balustrade. “I thought it was my fault.” He stares at his empty hands. “If I’d been a better kid, maybe she wouldn’t have gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hugh and I murmur in unison. We’re appalled that Mick blames himself for his mother’s departure, just the way I once blamed myself for my father’s—and because we too left Mick without a word. He must have thought we didn’t want him! I could hit myself for being so insensitively cruel.

  “Yeah, well.” Mick’s face reddens with embarrassment. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Maybe Lady Alexandra does have Robin’s blood on her hands,” Hugh says. “Out, damn’d spot!” He pantomimes scrubbing his hands.

  Mick smiles at Hugh’s clowning. “I’ll pump the servants for dirt on Lady A.”

  My own mother did me a terrible disservice when she lied about my father being dead. I begin to understand that all three of us have brought our histories to this investigation, and it’s complicating an already difficult job. “Mick, we need to be objective.”

  “I will,” Mick says, “but I think she done Robin in, and I’m gonna nail her.” He runs ahead toward the mansion.

  I think of Sir Gerald and wonder uneasily if I’m the one whose objectivity is deficient. “Mick could be right. Maybe we should be looking for a grave.”

  Hugh frowns into the distance. “I think we’re getting off track. If Robin is alive, something bad could happen to him while we spend our time investigating his supposed murder.”

  “That’s a good point.” I’ve no solid evidence that Robin’s photograph was taken postmortem. “We should focus on rescuing Robin.”

  #

  We borrow a carriage from the Mariner estate and spend the day riding along the streets of Hampstead, stopping at farms and villas around the heath and houses and shops in the town center to question the locals about the night of the kidnapping. None saw any of the Mariner household members or could provide any clues, and everyplace we went, we learned that the police had already been there and interviewed the same people.r />
  At seven o’clock in the evening, riding back to the Mariner estate, Hugh says, “Well, we dug up proof of one thing: the police are doing their job.”

  “But they’ve failed to pick up Robin’s trail, and so have we. It could mean he was dead long before the night of the supposed kidnapping.”

  “Don’t write him off yet.” Hugh’s manner is suddenly sharp, combative. “I’d really like to save the poor little boy.”

  I suddenly realize that this investigation is more than a job to Hugh. His life must seem so empty since he lost his family and social set, and Mick and I can’t fill the whole void. He needs a purpose to give his existence meaning, an accomplishment to prove his worth. Rescuing Robin Mariner would fill the bill.

  None of the family or guests joins us at table that night. They must have chosen to eat in their rooms. Alone except for the servants, Hugh and I dine sumptuously on braised leg of lamb with haricots, wine, and raspberry jam tarts. When we leave the dining room, we see Tabitha coming down the grand staircase. Her manner is furtive with an air of excitement. Hugh and I look at each other, then follow Tabitha along the deserted passage in the central wing of the mansion. The few gas lamps burning cast pools of dim light between long stretches of shadow. A draft whistles, voices drift from somewhere, and floors creak. Tabitha looks over her shoulder, and we flatten ourselves against the wall. It’s dark enough that she doesn’t see us. She hurries down a staircase. We wait a few moments, then descend to a gigantic ballroom. The many crystal chandeliers aren’t lit, but the ballroom sparkles like an underwater cavern in which luminous fish swim. On the walls, tall arches separated by marble pilasters converge toward the distant, invisible end. The arches on one side contain windows that overlook a terrace; on the other side, mirrors reflect light from gas lamps on the terrace and magnify the room to even greater proportions. The chandeliers also glint with reflections; their crystal pendants tinkle in the cold drafts that sigh through the air.

  The ballroom appears empty. I don’t see Tabitha anywhere.

  Hugh puts his finger to his lips, and we tread softly to mute the sound of our footsteps on the polished parquet floor that glimmers like a frozen lake. Amid the echoes that fill the ballroom, I hear whispers. I glimpse a dark shape in one of the windows, framed by the arch some fifteen feet from us. The shape separates into two human figures—a man and a woman. As Hugh and I stand concealed in the shadows, the man says, “It’s been too long.”

  His fluty voice is instantly recognizable, as is his tall, slender physique. It’s Raphael DeQuincey.

  “I’ve missed you so!” Tabitha says breathlessly. “To see you when other people are around and not be able to touch you—”

  The two figures merge again as DeQuincey embraces and kisses Tabitha. I watch in astonishment. When I saw them together this morning, they’d given no hint that they’re lovers. I wonder if, at the séance, Tabitha knew it wasn’t DeQuincey’s hand she was holding.

  “I waited for you in the summerhouse this afternoon,” DeQuincey says. “Why didn’t you come?”

  “I couldn’t get away from her. She made me redo her hair, and massage her back, and read to her, and on and on as usual until she finally went to sleep.” Tabitha moans. “I hate her. Oh, God, I hate her!” Tabitha’s agonized voice echoes across the ballroom.

  She’s talking about Lady Alexandra. I had no idea that Tabitha resented her servitude. Her meek facade concealed a world of emotions.

  “So do I,” DeQuincey says. “I have to smooch her bottom ten times for every penny of Sir Gerald’s money that she pays me.”

  They must have bonded over their hatred of Lady Alexandra. There seems no other reason the slick, handsome DeQuincey would fall for mousy Tabitha.

  “I never should have run away to London with her when we were girls.” Tabitha laughs, mocking herself. “We were going to be actresses. But she had talent, and I didn’t. The worst thing is, I think she knew it all along. She brought me with her to be her slave!”

  “I know, darling. It wasn’t fair to you.” DeQuincey’s sympathetic tone barely hides his impatience; he wants to resume making love.

  “When she became successful, I thought she wouldn’t need me anymore, and I could leave. But she said, ‘Nobody else can take care of me the way you do. Besides, where would you go? How would you live?’” Bitterness edges Tabitha’s voice. “She’s never paid me wages. I had no money. Our parents were dead; I couldn’t go home. She said that if I left, I was on my own.” The words gush from Tabitha as if from a bottomless reservoir of grievances. “When she married Sir Gerald, I asked for a pension so that I could be independent. He’s so rich, he could have afforded it, and he could have hired a hundred servants for Alexandra. But she said she couldn’t bear to depend on strangers, and he said that if she wanted to keep me, he wasn’t going to interfere. He’s as beastly as she is!”

  Tabitha’s voice turns ragged with tears. “After Robin was born, I asked them again. I told them I hoped to meet someone and marry and have my own baby. But they said no. They don’t care if I’m lonely and miserable and I die a childless old maid!”

  I see that Tabitha has abundant reason for her ill will toward Lady Alexandra and Sir Gerald. Did she act on it by kidnapping their son?

  “But you did meet someone,” DeQuincey says. “Yours truly.” He kisses her hair. “If you hadn’t stuck with Alexandra, you wouldn’t have met me.”

  “Yes. It was the happiest day of my life when you asked me to dance at her winter ball.” Nostalgia gentles Tabitha’s voice; she touches his cheek. “Do you know that it’s the one-hundred-twenty-fifth-day anniversary of that night?”

  “Yes, I know,” DeQuincey says, fond but impatient.

  A new question arises in my mind: If Tabitha kidnapped Robin, is DeQuincey in on it?

  Tabitha pulls away from DeQuincey, folds her arms, and gazes out the window like a prisoner yearning for the freedom beyond the bars of her cell. “One hundred twenty-five days since we fell in love, and how many more will it be before we can run away together to marry and start a new life?”

  He catches her hand, draws her back to him. “It won’t be long. I promise.”

  She resists his embrace. “But you’ve been saying that since—” He smothers her words with a kiss. “After everything that’s happened, how—?” Their clothes rustle as DeQuincey caresses her. Tabitha moans. “Oh, God, I want you so much!”

  Hugh and I cringe with embarrassment. Are they going to continue in front of us? I think of my own furtive lovemaking with Barrett, and I’m aroused in spite of myself.

  Tabitha reluctantly separates from DeQuincey. “I have to go, or Alexandra will come looking for me. If she should find out about us . . .”

  As she scurries away, Hugh and I step into the next arch so she won’t catch us spying. DeQuincey utters a sigh of thwarted desire, then follows. Hugh whispers, “I’m going to see what he does next,” and hurries after DeQuincey.

  Leaving the ballroom, walking down the dark passage through the central wing, I ponder the ramifications of the scene I just witnessed. Previously I’d been doubtful that Tabitha, Lady Alexandra, or Olivia had kidnapped Robin. I believe the kidnapper also murdered the lovers in the dinosaur park, and I can’t imagine the women capable of that. But Tabitha’s affair with DeQuincey suggests a new, disturbing possibility. Maybe Sir Gerald was wrong to deduce that one individual in his household was solely responsible for the kidnapping. I picture Raphael DeQuincey waiting outside Mariner House while Tabitha brings the swaddled baby to him. I imagine him bludgeoning Noel Vaughn and strangling Ethel Norris. But if he and Tabitha conspired to kidnap Robin, and they sent the ransom note and collected the money, then why have they neither eloped nor returned Robin?

  Maybe Robin died after he was kidnapped, while he was in the custody of Tabitha, who hates his parents.

  I climb the grand staircase, heading for my room. At the top, I glance out the window and see the foreshortened figure of a man appear
on the terrace below. The lamps outside are dim, a bowler hat covers his head, and a long coat with a cape over his shoulders disguises the shape of his body. Then he turns and looks up at the house, as if to see if anyone is watching him. I recognize him in the moment before I step away from the window to avoid his notice.

  It’s Tristan Mariner.

  When I peek outside again, he’s striding away from the mansion. Light flares from a lantern he carries. Then I’m racing down the stairs and out the door, spurred by curiosity. When I reach the rectangular pool, Tristan is far ahead of me; all I see of him is the lantern’s small, bobbing light in the darkness. I follow. He suddenly drops from view, as if the earth swallowed him. I quicken my pace. A thin crescent moon floats amid stars behind the mist that veils the sky, but I don’t see the flight of stone steps until almost too late. I teeter at the brink. As I cautiously descend, I hear Tristan’s footsteps. I find myself on the ground under the brick arcade on which Mick, Hugh, and I strolled beneath the pergola. In the distance, Tristan’s lantern moves through the kitchen gardens. I wonder if he too is secretly meeting someone.

  He slips through a gate in a wall, and I follow him along a trail that winds downward through woods so dense that I can hardly believe we’re only a few miles from central London. It’s so cold that I’m shivering; I wish I had my coat. The path curves, the terrain levels off, and the trees ahead glow in the moonlight that fills an open space beyond them. I stop at the edge of the woods. I hear water lapping. The wind rustles through grasses that fringe a long, broad pond whose gleaming black surface ripples with silver reflections. On the opposite bank, the triangular silhouettes of three pine trees stand like black spears arranged on end in descending order of height. Tristan stands near the pond, holding up his lantern. I suddenly remember that Hampstead Heath is a popular place for suicides. Many dead bodies are found in its ponds every year. My breath catches. Is Tristan going to drown himself?

  He walks into the pond. I don’t want him to know I followed him, but I can’t let a man die. I start toward him. Instead of sinking below the water, Tristan walks atop its surface. Amazement halts me. Then I see the wooden dock beneath his feet. Tristan stops at the end, sets down his lantern, and stands immobile for a long time while I fear that he’s going to dive in. If he does, I can’t save him; I haven’t been swimming since I was a child. Should I go for help? Could I find my way back to Mariner House in the dark?