by Anne Perry
“It’s too late to look for evidence now,” he said quietly. The taste of failure was bitter in his mouth. “Whatever we find, we couldn’t hope to prove it in a day.”
Pitt’s face was set hard with determination. “Then Symington will have to find a way to suppose, to raise possibilities and doubts.”
Narraway tried to calm his thoughts and compose some line of reasoning. “Is this how you work, Pitt?” he asked. “No, please don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
“Do you have a better solution? Aside from giving in, I mean?” Pitt reached for the toast. He was smiling, but there was tension in the lines of his body, and his eyes were perfectly serious.
Narraway swallowed. “What sort of a possibilities do you have in mind?” he asked.
“The women,” Pitt repeated. “Actually, it was Charlotte who suggested it. Apart from the business connection between Forsbrook and Quixwood, what about Eleanor Forsbrook? We haven’t thought about her very much.”
“She’s been dead for several years,” Narraway said patiently. “She can hardly have anything to do with this.”
“About four years, actually,” Pitt agreed.
“Then how can she be involved? None of it goes back that long, unless you think she’s responsible for Neville being … violent? Lots of young men lose their mothers. It doesn’t turn them into rapists.”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’ve no idea why Neville became a rapist. But it’s possible Eleanor was beaten by Pelham Forsbrook, and that she was running away with a lover when she was killed in a carriage accident.”
Narraway was confused. “So what if she was?”
“Well—who was her lover? What happened to him?”
“What are you thinking? That it might’ve been Quixwood?” Narraway said incredulously.
“Why not?” Pitt asked. “Then there could be a hatred between the two men; what if Quixwood deliberately advised Forsbrook to invest in the British South Africa Company, knowing he’d lose badly, and that is what Catherine suspected and was trying to guard against?”
“To save Forsbrook? Why?”
“Does it matter why? It could be she simply thought it was wrong. Or maybe that it would rebound on Quixwood and perhaps on her also.”
“But then why would Quixwood protect Neville? And how can we prove any of this?” Narraway’s mind was racing now, grasping for possibilities, for hope.
“I’ll look into the possibility that Quixwood could have been Eleanor Forsbrook’s lover, and for some evidence that Forsbrook beat her over it. Someone must have seen her body after the accident. If I can find the doctor and he’s someone I know, or at least can impress, he might be able to swear some of her injuries happened before her death. Just make sure Symington knows what we are doing, so that he can use whatever information we find.”
“I’ll go and see him again before court starts today. But one thing, Pitt: if Hythe’s connection with Catherine was strictly professional, why hasn’t he admitted the entire truth about the information he found for her? Why would he hang in order to protect Quixwood?”
“He wouldn’t,” Pitt admitted, biting his lip. “There has to be a reason for that too.”
“You’re supposing an awful lot of other reasons,” Narraway said unhappily.
“Yes,” Pitt said, taking the last mouthful of his breakfast. “I am.”
“And, truly, what has this to do with Angeles Castelbranco and her family?”
“I don’t know, except that I believe Neville Forsbrook raped her. And if he raped her, and he raped Alice, it isn’t ludicrious to suppose he could be connected to Catherine’s attack in some way. I want him off the street.”
“Would you like the moon as well?” Narraway asked, sounding more sarcastic than he meant to, only because he desperately wanted Pitt to be right.
NARRAWAY ARRIVED AT COURT early and was waiting for Symington when he came in, also early, in hope of preparing some kind of defense. When he arrived he was neat, immaculate as always, but his face showed lines of weariness, making him look older.
“I have no good news,” Symington said when he saw Narraway in the hallway, but led him into his chamber and closed the door behind them.
“Neither have I,” Narraway responded. “But I have some ideas.”
“A little late,” Symington replied wryly. “I’ll hear them anyway, though. Bower was good yesterday, with his questioning of Knox, and I have nothing to come back with. He’s calling Quixwood today, and I don’t know whether to attack him or not. Sympathy is with him entirely and I don’t know a damn thing to shake him.”
“I might,” Narraway replied. Quickly, he summarized what he and Pitt had discussed over breakfast.
Symington listened patiently, but there was no spark of hope in his eyes.
“Conjecture,” he said when Narraway finished. “It could be true, but there are big holes in your theories. The biggest one to start with: if Hythe was only getting financial information for Catherine, why hasn’t he disclosed the details of their exchanges? He knows any concrete information he can offer us might help save his life, after all.” He shook his head. “Secondly, you found no evidence in Catherine’s belongings that she was collecting financial evidence. If she made notes, what did she do with them? The diary is so brief and so careful it proves nothing. And thirdly, this still doesn’t offer the possibility of another suspect. If it wasn’t Hythe who raped her, who was it? If what you say is true, Quixwood himself is the most obvious choice as attacker—he found out his wife was investigating him and decided to put a stop to it—but we know that can’t be because he was with you at the time! Bower could call you to testify to that if he had to.”
“Yes, we know Quixwood didn’t rape her,” Narraway agreed. He tried to make his voice hopeful. “But we don’t know who put the laudanum into the wine. Just because the laudanum bottle was found with the wine and the glass in the cabinet, we assumed Catherine must’ve. But really, anyone could’ve done that, including Quixwood.”
“To say she did it herself seems a reasonable supposition, though, and that is what Bower will insist happened,” Symington responded. However, he stood a little straighter, shoulders more square, chin a little higher. “If someone else put the laudanum into the Madeira, it was either the rapist—which means he knew where the wine was, left her and went to get it, put the laudnam in, and then roused her and dosed her with it. Or else Quixwood put it there himself, which suggests very strongly that he had some ulterior motive, and that Catherine drank the wine without realizing it was laced. Frankly, neither of those sounds anywhere near as likely as her taking it herself in despair.”
Narraway nodded slowly.
“And Bower will say that even if Catherine didn’t do it herself, Hythe must’ve known where the laudanum was kept and fed it to her so she would die, and thus could not testify against him.”
“He beat her nearly to death, and then stayed in the house, risking the servants finding him, so he could fetch and mix laudanum and dose her with it?” Narraway edged his voice with disbelief. “Bower has painted Hythe as a raving madman who completely lost his mind and savagely raped a woman he had been in love with, because she suddenly rejected him. So why not just break her neck at that point?”
“True,” Symington agreed again. “But the bottom line is, if Hythe wasn’t her lover and their whole friendship, and the secrecy of it, was to do with finding financial information about Quixwood’s investment, or not, and his advice about it to Forsbrook, then why doesn’t Hythe just say so?”
“Perhaps either Forsbrook or Quixwood has some power over him?”
“Such as what?” Symington frowned as if he was searching his mind desperately for any thread to weave into a defense.
Pitt had said Charlotte told him to think of the women. She had meant Eleanor and Catherine. But what about Maris Hythe?
“If he’s found guilty and hanged, what will happen to Maris?” Narraway said aloud, a new urgency i
n him impelling him forward.
Slowly the light came into Symington’s vivid blue eyes. “Disgrace and probably destitution,” he said, letting his breath out slowly. “Hythe’s keeping silent to protect Maris. Quixwood must have promised to look after her.” He leaned forward, desperately urgent. “Find out if that’s true, Narraway! Get somebody onto it! Get Pitt—now! Today! Then maybe we have a chance.”
Narraway rose to his feet. “Can you send a message to Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould that I am pursuing evidence and will not be in court today? It is important.”
Symington smiled. “The beautiful Lady Vespasia. I should be delighted to have an excuse to speak to her. Of course I shall tell her. Do you wish me to say where you have gone, and what you are pursuing?”
“By all means. Thank you.”
VESPASIA WAS IN A seat reserved for Narraway himself and had received the message from Symington that Narraway had gone on an urgent errand. Symington had expressed no emotion in words, but there was a visible excitement in him that had no explanation other than hope.
As she sat watching the proceedings begin she could see no reason for hope at all, unless there really was some powerful new evidence that had totally eluded them before. However, she clung to that belief with difficulty when Rawdon Quixwood appeared. There was a buzz of heightened emotion when he took the stand. Vespasia felt her breath catch. The man looked ten years older: paler and withdrawn into himself. He climbed the steps up to the stand as if it cost him an effort. When he finally faced Bower he leaned very slightly against the railing to support himself. His dark hair was thick and tidy but his eyes were hollow and there was no color to his skin. He seemed thinner as well. His clothes hung on him. He wore black, as was appropriate for a man still in mourning for his wife. Looking at him as he faced Bower, no one could forget that he was the living victim of this terrible crime.
In the dock, Alban Hythe appeared like a man already sentenced to death.
When Quixwood was sworn in, Bower approached him with both respect and grave compassion.
“Mr. Quixwood, I regret having to call you to this ordeal at all, and I will make it as quick as I can so that you soon may be excused from this experience, which can only be a terrible suffering for you.” He said it quietly, but his voice carried in the utter stillness of the courtroom. No one stirred in the gallery. There was not even a whisper of movement. “Were there some other way, I would take it,” Bower continued. “But I promise you we will obtain justice for your wife, and it will not be much longer now.”
“I know that, sir,” Quixwood answered somberly. “You do only what is necessary, as justice demands. Please ask whatever you wish.”
There was a murmur of approval from the gallery, and several of the jurors nodded.
Bower inclined his head gravely, milking every moment for sympathy.
Vespasia had expected it, but she was still impatient. “Proceed with it, man,” she sighed under her breath.
As if he had heard her, Bower looked up at Quixwood.
“I have kept your testimony until last, Mr. Quixwood, because I want to give you the opportunity to sum up for the jury exactly what happened, as you are aware of it, and the desperate, even emotionally fatal blow that this terrible crime has dealt you. Let me begin at the beginning, so far as you are aware of it.”
He glanced up toward the dock, briefly. The eyes of all the jurors followed him to where Alban Hythe sat motionless, then back again at the silent, wounded figure of Quixwood.
As theater it was superb. Vespasia found herself clenching her teeth and wondering where on earth Narraway had got to and what he hoped to achieve now. Time was slipping away from them.
“Are you acquainted with the accused, Mr. Alban Hythe, sir?” Bower asked.
“Yes, I am. We have done business with each other on various occasions,” Quixwood answered.
“And do you know him socially also?”
“Much less so, but yes, we have attended the same functions from time to time.”
“Mr. Quixwood, were you aware of the friendship your wife had found with the accused, Mr. Alban Hythe? That they had met on a number of events over a matter of months, at lectures, museums, galleries, and so on, when neither you nor Mrs. Hythe were present?”
“I was aware they met on occasion,” Quixwood replied. “She mentioned something about his being very pleasant. I can’t remember any more than that.”
“Did you know that Mrs. Quixwood attended such events quite often?”
“Yes, of course I did. She had many interests, and friends. These were natural and very pleasant places to meet.” He sounded a little annoyed, as if Bower were tainting Catherine’s reputation gratuitously.
“But you had no idea that she was seeing him increasingly often, up to as much as two times in a week, toward the end of her life?” Bower went on.
Quixwood gripped the railing in front of him. “No.”
“Would you have acted differently had you known?” Bower asked.
“Naturally. I would have required an explanation from her, and then forbidden her to continue. It was foolish … and …” he swallowed convulsively, “… ill-considered, at best. As it turned out, it seems to have been tragic. I had no idea she was so … so emotionally fragile. I had not seen it in her character.”
Bower nodded sagely. “She had always been of good judgment until this … friendship?”
“Yes. Excellent. Catherine was a beautiful and gracious woman.”
“You were happy in your marriage?”
“Very. No one who knew Catherine would be surprised at it. Many men envied me my good fortune. And I held myself to be fortunate.” Quixwood stood quite still. Never once did his eyes stray up toward Hythe in the dock, or toward the jury.
“Did she ever give you cause to be concerned that she was forming a romantic attachment to another man? Please think carefully. I regret asking such an ugly question, but circumstances force me to.” Bower looked genuinely distressed.
“I understand,” Quixwood said softly. “If you please, let us get it over with. Allow me to answer the question you are leading toward too delicately.” He straightened his shoulders with an effort. “Yes, looking back with hindsight, it is perfectly possible that my wife was having an affair with Alban Hythe. He is a charming man and has many interests Catherine shared—interests I myself had not time to indulge in. She may have hungered for someone with whom to discuss them. It never occurred to me at the time. I trusted her absolutely. She had the freedom to come and go as she wished. We—we did not have children, and I asked no social duties of her except the occasional dinner party.”
Vespasia could feel a wave of sympathy for him emanating in the courtroom. The jury was all but overcome by emotion.
Quixwood took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “Perhaps I should have asked more of her; then she would not have …” He was unable to complete the thought aloud.
Bower did not press him.
“We have heard that you were attending a function at the Spanish Embassy when the police informed you of Mrs. Quixwood’s death,” Bower continued.
“Yes,” Quixwood agreed. “At the Spanish Embassy. I was in conversation with Lord Narraway when I was told … told that Catherine had been … attacked.”
There was a shudder of horror in the gallery, a sigh. Two or three women let out little moans of pity and grief.
“Quite so.” Bower nodded. “I regret raising the question, had you noticed any change in Mrs. Quixwood’s behavior over the last few months before the incident? Was she absentminded? Did she wear any very attractive new clothes? Did she seem to take more than the usual care over her appearance? Was she evasive about where she had been or whom she had met?”
Quixwood smiled bleakly and the pain in his face was evident.
“You are asking me if she was having a love affair. The answer is that I noticed nothing at the time. Perhaps I should have, but I deal in major finance, enormous sums of mo
ney, all of which belong to other people. It is a great responsibility. I paid her too little attention.” He blinked several times and took a moment to regain control of his grief.
Quixwood had said nothing against Hythe whatever, and yet at this moment Vespasia knew the jury would have convicted him without even retiring to debate the issue. The anger and the pain in their faces testified to it more vividly than words. Symington would have to be more than a genius, he would need to be a magician to turn this tide.
“Mr. Quixwood, I will not harrow you by asking you to describe for us your feelings as you traveled back home, or when you saw your wife’s body broken and bleeding on the floor, hideously violated,” Bower said gravely.
“Please tell the jury, Mr. Quixwood—briefly, if it is easier for you—what you yourself did after that terrible night, in order to assist the investigation. As much as you can recall. I am sure the Court appreciates that it has been a nightmare for you, one in which your memory may be imperfect.”
Vespasia was aware of the skill of the question, the careful making of room for error. It would be almost impossible now for Symington, who was furiously scribbling notes to himself, to trip him up. Was that on purpose because Bower feared Quixwood would make errors? Or was it a usual precaution he would have taken with anyone?
Quixwood hesitated, as if arranging his thoughts, then began. His voice was low and very clear, his eyes downcast. He looked like a man controlling terrible pain.
“That night, as I recall, I asked Lord Narraway to give me any help he could personally. He was very gracious, and seemed to me to care deeply, both for justice in general, and in this case in particular. I knew of him, of course, when he was head of Special Branch, but I found him in this instance a man of remarkable compassion. He seemed genuinely appalled at the savagery of the crime, and moved to do whatever he could to find out who was guilty. I’m not sure if I ever told him how much his support meant to me.”
