A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “From my mother. She took care of our family and the men who worked on our farm.”

  I wonder if she’s nostalgic about the farm and regrets leaving it. Her manner reveals nothing. I think of her grudge against Lady Alexandra and wonder if she has something more serious to regret.

  Tabitha applies salve and a bandage to Hugh’s wound, then pours medicine from a bottle into a measuring cup. “Here’s some laudanum for the pain.”

  If Tristan would shoot Hugh and Olivia knock me off my horse to get rid of us, would Tabitha resort to poison? Before I can warn Hugh, he takes the cup, says, “Thanks,” and swallows the medicine.

  “You should go to bed,” Tabitha says.

  “I’ll wait while you tend to Sarah’s ankle.” Hugh obviously doesn’t want to leave me on my own.

  “I’ll be all right. You can go.” I must speak with Tabitha, and he still looks pale and shaky. I just hope nothing bad happens to him while we’re apart.

  After Hugh leaves, I sit on the table and remove my shoe. I’m self-conscious as I raise my skirt, peel off the brown wool stocking, and expose my thin white leg. A lady doesn’t show her bare legs, and nobody—not even Barrett—ever sees mine. The thought of Barrett fills me with guilt. Tabitha gently palpates my swollen ankle with her fingers, and I grit my teeth at the pain.

  “It’s just a sprain,” Tabitha says. “It should be fine in a day or so.” She fetches a roll of white cloth, cuts off a strip, winds it snugly around my ankle, and secures it with a pin. “Do you want some laudanum?”

  “No, thank you.” It will put me to sleep, and I need to stay alert. After I put on my stocking and shoe and slip off the table, Tabitha hands me a wooden crutch, but I’m not ready to leave. “Why are you so afraid that Lady Alexandra will find out you’re having an affair with Raphael DeQuincey?”

  Tabitha’s breath catches. “How did you know about it?” she whispers.

  “I saw you together last night.”

  Shame and fear join the dismay on her face as she realizes what I saw them doing. “Please don’t tell my sister!” She clasps her hands in entreaty.

  I feel an unexpected kinship with her because I too am engaged in a secretive love affair. “What would happen if Lady Alexandra found out?”

  “She would be furious!”

  If Inspector Reid were to learn that Barrett has been seeing me behind his back, he wouldn’t be so much furious as delighted to make use of the knowledge. “What could Lady Alexandra do to you?”

  “She’d make sure Raphael and I never see each other again.” Tabitha is shaking; her pale-blue eyes brim with tears.

  Reid once tried to expel Barrett from the police force. He might try again, to hurt both of us, and he might succeed. But although the threat scares me, I don’t feel as helpless as Tabitha thinks she is. “How could Lady Alexandra separate you?”

  “The same way she did years ago when I met a man. She made me choose between him and her. If I’d chosen him, she’d have cut me off without a penny. And he wasn’t well off. He couldn’t have supported me.”

  I can’t forget that Robin Mariner is missing, perhaps dead, and Tabitha may be responsible, but I also can’t help feeling sorry for her. “Why not leave Lady Alexandra and marry Mr. DeQuincey? If you both work hard, you can make a life for yourselves together.”

  Tabitha stares as if I’ve suggested they fly to the moon.

  “Other women do it all the time. They don’t have rich relatives to depend on.” My mother and I scraped by after my father disappeared, and I’ve always earned my own living. Despite the hardships, I enjoy my freedom.

  “Oh, but Raphael doesn’t want me to suffer. He wants to be able to take care of me before we marry.”

  Perhaps DeQuincey wants the fun of an affair but not the financial burden of a wife. A medium who tricks bereaved people would have no scruples about leading Tabitha on.

  “Last year, a grateful client gave Raphael three hundred pounds. He was going to use it to move to Bath. His business would be better there. I was going with him.” She wipes her wet eyes. “But the money was stolen. We couldn’t go. I’m afraid we’ll never be married.” Tabitha seems to recollect that I’m a detective, not a confidant, and she gasps. “I shouldn’t be telling you this!” Ducking her head, she scurries from the room.

  While I hobble up the grand staircase on my crutch, I mull over the story I just heard. Tabitha thinks three hundred pounds would have freed her from Lady Alexandra. Sir Gerald paid a ransom of a thousand pounds for Robin. If Tabitha’s story is true, then it confirms the idea I had when I eavesdropped on her and DeQuincey: they’re still here because they didn’t collect the ransom, which means they didn’t kidnap Robin. And unless she’s more talented at acting than she lets on, I think she was telling the truth.

  #

  Hugh’s room is an Arabian Nights fantasy. It has mosaic walls of blue, white, and gold tiles and a blue geometric-patterned carpet. A brass fretwork chandelier hangs from chains attached to the ceiling. Hugh, dressed in white silk pajamas, sits in the bed, whose padded headboard is framed by an arch cut into a lattice screen. The quilt that covers him and the pillows that prop him up gleam with gold and silver fabrics. Swags of gold-tasseled ivory satin drape the windows. An alcove contains a platform upholstered in blue velvet and strewn with multicolored cushions. Surrounded by all this splendor, Hugh looks like an invalid sultan.

  “What happened out on the heath?” I ask, sitting on a chair that must have been built as a sultan’s throne.

  “I told you, it was an accident.” Hugh yawns, drowsy from the laudanum.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t make such a fuss over nothing.”

  I stare, incredulous. “You could have been killed.”

  “Well, I’m still kicking. End of story.”

  “It’s not the end as far as I’m concerned.” His habit of being flippant at the wrong times has never seemed so annoying. “Why did Tristan shoot you?”

  “He didn’t mean to,” Hugh says, annoyed by my persistence. “He was reloading his gun, and it went off. I was in the way.”

  Still skeptical, I tell him what happened when I chased Olivia. “I think she tried to kill me. Just as I think Tristan tried to kill you.”

  “I think you’ve lost your marbles.”

  He’s not usually so rude, obtuse, or defensive. This investigation is bringing out the worst in him. “You made Tristan admit that he stands to gain from Robin’s death,” I remind Hugh. “He doesn’t want you to find out that he’s the one responsible for kidnapping Robin.”

  “Tristan doesn’t care about Sir Gerald’s bloody fortune. He took a vow of poverty. If he inherits, he’ll give the money to his mission in India.”

  I’m unconvinced. “Is that what he told you?” When Hugh nods, I say, “Did you ask Tristan where he was during the kidnapping?”

  Hugh sighs in exasperation. “I didn’t get around to it. But he wouldn’t have hurt Robin. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  I can’t believe he’s so determined to be so gullible. “How do you know?”

  “Some of us are better at reading people than others,” Hugh snaps.

  His jab at me hurts. I don’t want us to quarrel, but I have to say, “What about the man Tristan killed during the boxing match?”

  The silver-and-gold quilt rustles as Hugh stirs uncomfortably. “It was an accident.”

  My patience is fraying, my temper heating up. “Another accident. What an unfortunate coincidence. Did you ask him what he was doing at the pond last night?”

  Hugh shrugs. “Sorry.”

  It’s not like Hugh to drop the ball. I remember the tension in the atmosphere after the shooting. “What happened between you and Tristan before he shot you?”

  “Nothing.” Hugh’s gaze meets mine with deliberate, defiant effort. “What happened between you and Olivia while you were alone together?”

  My cheeks flush at the memory of our conversation and my unple
asant intuitions about myself. I lower my eyes.

  Mick runs into the room, breathless with anxiety. “Hugh! I heard you was shot! Are you all right?”

  “I will be if everyone would just let me rest.” Hugh looks pointedly at the door, then slides down in the bed and pulls the quilt over his head.

  #

  Mick and I take another stroll beneath the pergola. We go slowly because of my sprained ankle and crutch. Clouds gather above the heath, obliterating the sun that shone so brightly this morning. Wind rustles the hanging vines. When I tell Mick about the “accident,” he doesn’t buy Hugh’s story either.

  “I’ll talk to Hugh later,” he says. “Maybe by then he’ll be ready to rat out Tristan.”

  “Did you ask the servants if something is wrong with Robin?”

  “Yeah. They don’t know because they ain’t seen him in about six months.”

  “If Robin had been living here all that time, surely someone would have seen him.” My suspicion grows.

  “He was kept in his room, and nobody but Sir Gerald and Lady Alexandra and the nurses were allowed to go in there.”

  “Didn’t the servants think it was strange?”

  “Not really. Lady A told everybody it was because Robin was delicate, and there’s lots of diseases goin’ around.”

  Cholera, typhoid, measles, and tuberculosis are contagious and kill many children. “I suppose it could be true.”

  “Yeah, well, I think he wasn’t normal, and Lady A did away with him. And then she covered it up by pretendin’ he needed to be kept apart from everybody.”

  Another idea disturbs me even more. “If Robin has been dead for six months, and there was no baby in the nursery all that time, then Lady Alexandra isn’t the only person who knows it. So do the nurses.”

  “And so does Sir Gerald,” Mick says. “He’d have had to be in on the act.”

  I immediately rise to his defense. “If he were covering up Robin’s murder, he wouldn’t have hired Hugh and me. It would have been wiser for him to pay us for the photograph of the man in the dinosaur park and dismiss us.”

  “Maybe he thought you’d go pokin’ around anyway and wants you under his thumb.” Mick adds, “You told me to be objective. Same goes for you.”

  I’m just as eager to think that Sir Gerald is on the level as Hugh is to think the same of Tristan, and nothing I’ve said has changed Mick’s mind about Lady Alexandra. That all three of us are unfortunately lacking in objectivity bodes ill for our investigation.

  The sky darkens; the air thickens with the smells of earth and marsh. Across the heath, gray clouds spill into the distant hills. Raindrops splash the vines hanging from the pergola. Mick and I turn back toward the house, which now seems the dangerous repository of more secrets than I at first imagined.

  “If there is a cover-up, then Lady Alexandra and Sir Gerald probably aren’t going to admit it,” I say.

  “Yeah. That leaves the nurses.” Mick’s brow furrows in thought. “The afternoon nurse was fired—she’s gone. The morning nurse is an old battle-ax. When I tried to chat her up, she brushed me off like I was a fly. The night nurse is younger. Her name is Lottie. Maybe she’ll talk.”

  14

  The inclement weather and my sore ankle prevent me from roving the Mariner estate in search of people to question and clues to Robin’s whereabouts. I sit in the red brocade armchair in my room and prop my foot on a teak stool, but I can’t bear to waste a whole afternoon. Maybe I could develop the photographs I took yesterday. They may contain clues I didn’t notice at the time. My bathroom should suffice as a temporary darkroom.

  When I open my trunk of photography equipment, I discover that its lock is broken. Someone has pried into my belongings. The tools, trays, and bottles I carefully packed are all a jumble. Stacked under them are flat cardboard boxes of unused negative plates and photographic paper. They’re all sealed except the one at the bottom. I pull it out and remove the large envelope I hid there. The flap I sealed has been torn open. I slide out my photograph of my father in the dinosaur park. I sit on the bed, awash in troubling realization.

  Somebody in the Mariner household has seen the photograph.

  Whoever it is knows that Hugh and I were in the park the day of the murders and the ransom exchange. If it’s the kidnapper, then he—or she—must fear that we know who killed the lovers and collected the ransom money and it’s only a matter of time before we tell Sir Gerald.

  We’re in even more danger than I thought.

  I wedge a chair under the knob of my door, then steal into Hugh’s room through the connecting door and do the same for him. He’s asleep in bed; he doesn’t wake. Then I sit in my armchair, study the photograph, and think about the twenty-four years that my father has been gone. So much could have happened to him during that period. He was with his second family for a little more than a decade of it; the rest is a mystery. I wish I knew more about his second disappearance. Maybe it would provide clues to where he went, but I parted with Mrs. Albert and Sally on such bad terms that I doubt they would tell me anything. Then it occurs to me that I know just as little about his first disappearance. All I know is that my father didn’t come home and my mother said he’d died in a riot. Perhaps my childhood is like my photograph of the dinosaur park—it contains details that I failed to notice at the time or forgot. If I were to revisit the scene of my childhood, perhaps I would remember them. I’ve never done it because Clerkenwell harbors painful memories of losing my father, but now that my search for Benjamin Bain has become intertwined with my search for Robin Mariner, I can’t avoid it any longer. Tomorrow I must go back to Clerkenwell.

  #

  I don’t expect Hugh to come downstairs for dinner that night, but he does. His color is better, he’s impeccably groomed, and on the surface he’s his normal, cheerful self, but I feel coldness directed toward me. He’s not happy about our difference of opinion concerning Tristan Mariner. The only other person who joins us in the dining room is Sir Gerald. The nude marble statues along the walls observe us silently from their niches as we eat. On the dark terrace outside the window, haloes of mist glow around the gas lamps. Again I wonder whether Sir Gerald played a role in Robin’s abduction. I watch him with the cautious scrutiny of a deer presented with a wolf whose sheep’s clothing has torn enough for the fangs to show through.

  “I heard about the accidents,” he says. “Are you all right?”

  He looks as strong and hale as ever—remarkably well for a man whose child has been missing for seventeen days. I can’t help speculating that he’s done away with Robin and feels no remorse. But maybe he was even more vigorous before Robin was kidnapped. Maybe the man beside me isn’t a kidnapper but a diminished, grieving shadow of himself. I’m aware that I’m making excuses for Sir Gerald, trying to allay my suspicions.

  My suspicions don’t abate the thrill of excitement that his presence stirs in me.

  “Right as rain,” Hugh says nonchalantly.

  I start to say they weren’t accidents, but Hugh kicks my shin under the table. “Terribly clumsy of Father Tristan,” he says, “but these things happen. I once went to a fox hunt where a gun misfired and killed the vicar.”

  Indignant because he’s making excuses for Tristan, I frown at Hugh. Now I understand why he came down to dinner; he wants to prevent me from airing my idea that Tristan tried to kill him.

  “Bad luck,” Sir Gerald agrees. If he suspects that the shooting was deliberate or that we’re hiding something from him, he doesn’t let on.

  “I think Olivia deliberately knocked me off my horse,” I say.

  “Another of her pranks,” Sir Gerald says. “Sorry. I’ll have a word with Olivia.”

  The maid serves us mulligatawny soup, fragrant with curry. Hugh eats moderately. Sir Gerald shovels it in as if stoking his body with fuel. It’s delicious, but once again I have little appetite.

  “Anything else to report?” Sir Gerald asks.

  “Last night—” Before I
can describe Tristan’s visit to the pond, Hugh kicks me again.

  “Last night, we happened upon a steamy love scene between Tabitha Jenkins and Raphael DeQuincey,” Hugh says.

  Sir Gerald chuckles. “I wouldn’t have thought it of her.”

  Hugh relates the conversation we overheard. “Tabitha and DeQuincey could have kidnapped Robin for the money.” He sounds too eager to cast suspicion on them—and away from Tristan.

  “But if they had the money, they wouldn’t still be here,” I say.

  “The ransom money is collected, and Tabitha and DeQuincey are suddenly in the wind? Wouldn’t they think someone would put two and two together?” Hugh gives me a narrow smile; he thinks Tristan is the only reason I’m poking holes in our case against Tabitha and DeQuincey. I haven’t told him about my talk with Tabitha. “They would wait awhile, so it wouldn’t look suspicious.” He addresses Sir Gerald. “I recommend that you have them followed. They might go check on Robin, wherever he is.”

  “Good idea, but a little late,” Sir Gerald says. “I’ve had everybody under surveillance since I found that toy rabbit on the stairs.”

  Hugh and I exchange a glance, suddenly united in our dismay. What else hasn’t Sir Gerald told us? I see a guard lurking outside the dining room and wonder if the suspects aren’t the only ones under surveillance.

  “Not that it’s done any good,” Sir Gerald continues. “Whoever has Robin is being careful not to lay a trail to him. But maybe he’ll slip up.”

  The main course arrives—duckling ragout in onion and thyme gravy with parsnips and peas—and we eat in silence that vibrates with unspoken thoughts. Then Hugh says, “We were looking at the photograph of Robin and Lady Alexandra that appeared in the newspapers, and we wondered—” His face registers pained surprise; I kicked his shin.

  “We wondered who took it,” I say.

  Sir Gerald regards us with narrowed eyes; either he’s noticed that something is off between us or he’s displeased by my trivial question. “It was a photographer at the hotel on the Riviera where my wife took Robin last winter. I don’t know his name.”