Midnight at Marble Arch

by Anne Perry

  “What did you discuss?” Narraway asked.

  Hythe smiled for the first time, as if a pleasant memory had given him a few moments’ respite from reality. “Pre-Raphaelite paintings,” he answered. “She wondered what the models were thinking about, sitting still for so long while the artist drew them in such fanciful surroundings. We thought about where they had actually been—some studio or just an ordinary room—and if they even knew the legends and dreams into which they were painted.

  “Catherine was very funny. She could make one laugh so easily. Her imagination was … quite unlike that of anyone else I have ever known. She always had the right words to make one see the absurdity of things, but she was never mocking. She liked eccentricity and wasn’t afraid of anything.” His expression became sad. “Except loneliness.”

  “And Quixwood never noticed that, clearly,” Narraway observed.

  “A clever man, but with a pedestrian soul,” Hythe answered without hesitation. “Her soul had wings, and she hated being made to spend her time with her feet in the dust.” He bent his head suddenly. “I’m sorry; my judgment is unwarranted and cruel. She was just so alive; I hate whoever did this to her. They have spoiled something that was lovely and destroyed a friend I cared about. She was … she was good.” He seemed to want to add more. It was in that moment that Narraway knew Hythe was lying, in essence if not in word.

  “Just a friend?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yes!” Hythe jerked his head up. “Just a friend. We talked; we looked at pictures painted from great imaginations, at pages from books written on papyrus from the very first poets and dreamers in the world. We saw carvings of grace made by artists who died before Christ was born. She escaped from her loneliness, and I from my world of facts and figures, interest on loans, duty on imported treasures, and prices of land.”

  His voice trembled.

  “Haven’t you ever had friends, Lord Narraway? People you like enormously, who enrich your world, and without whom you would be poorer in a dozen ways—but you are not in love with them?”

  Narraway instantly thought of Vespasia.

  “Yes, I have,” he said honestly, feeling the warmth himself, for a moment.

  “Then you can understand.” Hythe looked relieved. The ghost of a smile returned to his pale face.

  Narraway felt a sudden stab of surprise, a question in his mind. What exactly did he feel for Vespasia? She was older than he by several years. He had been elevated to the House of Lords because of his skills, and possibly as a sop to his pride for being dismissed from his position as head of Special Branch. She had been born into the aristocracy. They had become friends by circumstance. He had begun a little in awe of her, and he was quite aware that she had never been in awe of him—nor perhaps of anyone else either.

  But she could be hurt. He had realized that only recently. Her feelings were far deeper than he had imagined, and she was not invulnerable. Was she also, occasionally, as lonely as Catherine Quixwood had been?

  He forced it out of his thoughts. He was concerned with Alban Hythe, and whether the younger man was guilty or not, and what it was he still lied about, even though the shadow of the noose hung over him.

  “Did you ever write to her?” Narraway asked a little abruptly.

  “No,” Hythe said urgently. “We met by chance, or …”

  “Or what?” Narraway demanded. “For God’s sake, man, they’ve charged you with rape, and the victim died. If they find you guilty they’ll hang you!”

  He thought Hythe was going to pass out. The last vestige of color drained out of his face and for a moment his eyes lost focus.

  Narraway jerked forward and grasped hold of his wrists and forced him upright.

  “Fight!” he said between his teeth. “Fight them! Damn it, give me something to use! If you weren’t lovers, then what the hell were you doing meeting a married woman in half the galleries around London? You have no room and no time to protect anyone else!”

  Hythe sat up against the hard back of the chair, breathing in and out slowly, trying to steady himself. Finally he lifted his eyes.

  “We met by arrangement,” he said huskily.

  Narraway bit back the angry answer that was on the edge of his tongue.

  “So why were you meeting with such elaborate care as to make it appear by chance?”

  “I promised her …” Hythe began, then tears of grief filled his eyes.

  “She’s dead!” Narraway said brutally. “And precisely three weeks after they find you guilty, you will be too!”

  The silence in the room was thick, as if the air had turned solid, too heavy to breathe.

  Had Narraway gone too far? Had he frightened Hythe into a mental collapse? His mind raced for something to do, anything to rescue the situation. He had been irretrievably stupid, lost his touch completely. No wonder they had retired him!

  “Hythe …” he started, his voice choking.

  The other man opened his eyes. “She wanted something from me,” he began, then released a heavy sigh. “Advice.”

  Narraway felt the sweat break out on his body and relief flood through him.

  “What kind of advice? Financial?”

  “Yes. She … she was concerned for her future,” Hythe said miserably. He was breaking his own professional code of honor by speaking of it, and it was obvious how profoundly difficult that was for him.

  Still, Narraway sensed an evasion. There was something incomplete. Hythe might feel guilty about breaking a confidence, but there was nothing immoral in a woman being afraid her husband was rash with money, even a husband usually skilled in such affairs.

  “Go on,” he prompted.

  “Her husband was involved in investments,” Hythe said quietly. “She was afraid that something he was doing would end up being disastrous, but he wouldn’t listen to her. She wanted to have her own information and not depend on what he told her. It was … detailed. It took me a long time to find it and I gave it to her piece by piece, as I could. Each time it fell into place she would ask for something further. She believed that some investments currently worth a fortune might become useless, and others gain enormously.”

  He was still lying, at least in part. Narraway knew it, and he could not understand why. Did Hythe still not understand his own danger?

  “Was she trying to save her husband’s finances?” Narraway asked. “Did she have money of her own, or expectations?”

  Hythe stared at him. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me why she needed the information, but I think it was more than that. I had the increasingly powerful feeling that she was afraid of something calamitous happening. I asked her, and she refused to say.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t press her.”

  “How many times altogether did you meet?”

  “A dozen maybe.” He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. “I liked her, but I never touched her in a familiar way, and I certainly didn’t rape her! Why on earth would I? We were friends, and both her husband and my wife were perfectly aware of it!”

  “You are sure that Quixwood was aware of it?” Narraway pressed.

  “Of course! He and I even talked about an exhibition at the National Geographical Society, photographs of Patagonia. He told me how beautiful Catherine found it: great sweeping wilderness country; all pale, wind-bleached colors, light and shadow. Superb.”

  “Did she speak to anyone else about the financial issues?”

  Hythe thought for several moments, then met Narraway’s eyes.

  “I don’t think so. From what she said to me, I gathered I was the only person she trusted.”

  “She came to you for financial information, but you said she was warm, amusing, a lovely woman.”

  “She was!”

  “And Quixwood was cold, without a true understanding of her?” Narraway insisted.

  “Yes.”

  “So she was lonely, maybe desperately lonely?”

  Hythe sw
allowed painfully. “Yes.” His voice was husky with emotion, guilt, and perhaps pity. “But I did not take advantage of that. I had no wish to. I liked her, liked … cared … but I did not love her.” He added no oaths, no pleas, and his words were the more powerful for it.

  “It’s not enough. You have to think harder!” Narraway leaned forward again, a note of desperation in his voice. He heard it and forced himself to speak more levelly. “Whoever it was that raped her, she let him in.” He swallowed hard. “She wasn’t afraid to be alone with him. What do you conclude from that?”

  “That she knew him,” Hythe said miserably. He shook his head a little. “It doesn’t sound like Catherine at all, not as I knew her.”

  “Then as you knew her, how do you explain it?” Narraway demanded. “What do you believe happened?”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried to work it out?” Hythe said desperately. “If she let the servants go then she wasn’t expecting anyone. Letting them all retire for the night like that makes it obvious; Catherine was never careless in that way. It would be … unnecessarily dangerous. What if a footman had come down to check a door, or the butler came to ensure she didn’t need anything? Isn’t that what actually happened?”

  “More or less,” Narraway agreed.

  “So the person at the door had to be someone unexpected,” Hythe argued.

  “But then why did she let him in?” Narraway persisted. “Why would the woman you knew have done that?”

  “It must have been someone she knew and had no fear of,” Hythe answered. “Maybe he claimed to be hurt, or in some kind of trouble. She wouldn’t hesitate to try and help.” He stopped abruptly. He made no display of grief, but it was so deeply marked on his face that it was unmistakable.

  Narraway suddenly was completely certain that Hythe had not raped Catherine or beaten her. Someone else had, but Hythe was going to face trial. The letter and the gift would damn him. And there was no one else to suspect. He felt a jolt of fear.

  Who was going to defend Hythe in court, at the very least raise a reasonable doubt? That would not clear his name, but guilt would hang him, and finding the right person after that would matter little. Hythe would be dead, and Maris a widow and alone.

  “Do you have a lawyer, a really first-class advocate?” Narraway asked.

  Hythe looked as if he had been struck. “Not yet. I—I don’t know of anyone …” He trailed off, lost.

  “I will find you someone,” Narraway promised rashly.

  “I can’t pay … very much,” Hythe began.

  “I will persuade him to represent you for free,” Narraway replied, intending if necessary to pay for the barrister himself. Already he had the man in mind, and he would speak to him this afternoon.

  He remained only a little longer, going over details of facts again so they were clear in his mind. Then he excused himself and went straight from the prison to the chambers of Peter Symington in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a short distance away. If any man would take on the case of defending Alban Hythe with a chance of winning, it was he.

  Narraway insisted on seeing Symington immediately, using the suggestion of more influence than he possessed to override the clerk’s protests.

  He found Symington standing in the middle of the well-carpeted floor, a leather-bound book in his hand. He had clearly been interrupted against his instructions. He was a handsome man in his early forties. Most remarkable about him were his thick, fair hair, curling beyond the barber’s control, and the dazzling charm of his smile.

  “My lord?” he said quietly, reproof in his voice.

  Narraway did not apologize. “A matter of urgency, it can’t wait,” he explained as the clerk closed the door behind him.

  “You’ve been charged with something?” Symington said curiously.

  Narraway was in no mood for levity. “Inspector Knox has charged a man with the rape of Catherine Quixwood, and therefore morally, in the minds of the jury, with her murder. I would like you to defend him. I believe he’s innocent.”

  Symington blinked. “You’d like me to defend him? Does he mean something to you, to the government, to Special Branch? Or is it just because you think he’s innocent?” There was amusement in his voice, and curiosity. “I presume he told you he is?” He put the book down on his desk, closed, as if it no longer interested him. “Why me? Or am I the only one you think fool enough to take it?”

  In spite of himself Narraway smiled. “Actually, the last,” he admitted. “But you are also the only one who would stick to it long enough to have a chance of winning. I really believe he’s innocent, and that there is something large and very ugly behind the whole case—maybe more than one thing. Certainly someone raped and beat the woman so badly she died as a result. She was a funny, brave, and beautiful woman. She deserves justice—but even more important, whoever did it needs to be taken off the streets and put where he can never hurt anyone else.”

  Symington raised his eyebrows. “Like a grave?”

  “That would do nicely,” Narraway agreed. “Will you take the case? I would like Hythe to believe it is without charge, because he doesn’t have the means to meet it. I’ll pay you myself, but he must never know.”

  Symington’s utterly charming smile beamed again. “I’m not a fool, my lord. The case sounds like a challenge. I think I can clear my desk sufficiently to give it my very best attention. And I’ll weigh the matter of my bill, and send you what I feel appropriate. I give you my word that Hythe will believe I do it for the love of justice.”

  “Thank you,” Narraway said sincerely. “Thank you very much.”

  He hesitated, wondering if he were risking the frail thread of trust he had just established with Symington—and yet it was the only hint he had that there might be someone else besides Hythe to blame. But he also believed that at least in some sense Hythe was lying, or at the very best willfully concealing something.

  Symington was waiting for him to speak.

  “Hythe admitted meeting Catherine Quixwood as often as her diaries suggested, but he said she arranged it. He said she wanted him to give her financial advice.”

  “And you believed that?” Symington said with a twisted smile. “Quixwood’s a financier himself, and an extremely good one.”

  “I know,” Narraway admitted. “Hythe said she was afraid Quixwood was into something dubious, and over his head. She wanted to know more about it. If she was afraid for her future, if he had been reckless, then that would be believable.”

  “Ah. But do you? Believe it?” Symington asked. “If he has any proof of it, why didn’t he tell Knox?”

  “I don’t know,” Narraway admitted. “He’s lying about something. I just don’t know what.”

  “But you’re sure he didn’t rape her?” Symington looked puzzled and not angry.

  “Yes,” Narraway answered, unable to explain himself.

  “Then I’ll take the case, try to win the trial,” Symington promised.

  “Thank you,” Narraway said.

  THAT EVENING NARRAWAY WENT out rather later than was customary to call on a woman alone, particularly one with whom he had only the slightest acquaintance. He stood in the small parlor of Alban Hythe’s house and told Maris what he had achieved.

  Maris was so pale that her dark dress, more suitable for autumn than summer, drained the last trace of the vitality from her face. However, she kept her composure and stood straight-backed, head high, in front of him. What effort it must be costing her he could only guess.

  “And this Mr. Symington will defend my husband, in spite of the evidence?” she asked. “Why? He can’t know that Alban is innocent. He’s never even met him. And we can’t pay the sort of money such a man as you describe would ask.” She struggled to keep control of her voice and very nearly failed.

  “Then I did not describe him very well,” Narraway apologized. “Symington cares far more about the case than the money.”

  She studied Narraway’s face for several moments, searching his eye
s to judge whether he was lying to her, or at the least prevaricating. Finally she must have come to the conclusion that he was not. But her words were interrupted by a maid at the door telling her that Mr. Rawdon Quixwood had called and wished to speak with her.

  Narraway was startled but, turning to look at the maid, saw that her face was completely expressionless. Clearly she was not surprised.

  Maris looked pleased.

  “Thank you. Please ask him to come in,” she instructed.

  The maid withdrew obediently and Maris turned to Narraway.

  “He has been so kind. Even with all his own grief, he has found time to call on me and assure me of his help.” She lowered her eyes. “I fear sometimes he believes Alban guilty, but his gentleness toward me has been without exception.” She gave a small, very rueful smile. “Perhaps he feels we are companions in misfortune, and I have not the heart to tell him it is not so, because it does seem that Catherine was more familiar with someone than she should have been. I would so much rather think that was not true, of course, but I have no argument that stands up to reason.”

  She had not time to add any more before Rawdon Quixwood came in. The hollowness of his face had eased a little, perhaps because at last someone had been arrested for the crime, even though the loss must still feel just as bitter.

  “Maris, my dear—” he began, stopping abruptly when he realized Narraway was also in the room. He checked himself quickly. “Lord Narraway! How agreeable to see you. I wonder if we are here on the same errand. I’m afraid I can offer little comfort. Perhaps you have better news?”

  Narraway met Quixwood’s eyes and found he could read nothing of what the man was thinking. The idea occurred to him that the effort of hiding his own pain might be the only way Quixwood could turn his mind from his grief.

  Still, Narraway found himself reluctant to trust him, or to risk wounding him still more deeply with the possibility that they had not actually caught his wife’s attacker.

  “I am still searching,” he replied quietly. “Without much profit so far, for all the information I can find. I hear contradicting stories of Mrs. Quixwood.”

  Quixwood gave a very slight shrug, a graceful gesture. “I daresay they are exercising the customary charity toward the dead who cannot defend themselves. I appreciate it. Women who are … assaulted … are often blamed almost as much as the men who assault them. The euphemisms and occasional silences are a kindness.”