***
“You believe him, then, sir?” Carswell asked, as they emerged from Bow Street Police Office where the delivery of John Rhodes to the detective department had been gratifyingly well received. “That he has nothing to do with the murder? He has every motive, surely?”
“Yes, he does, but I don’t think he did it,” said Giles, turning up the collar of his coat against the dank cold of the night. “Come on, let’s go and find some supper and a bed.”
Because it was so late all they could find was a room in a grimly spartan hotel near to the station. Giles ordered a late supper of mutton chops and tea from the charmless landlady. The dining room was cold but she did not offer more coal for the fire, so they sat in their overcoats by a heap of crumbling embers. Carswell devoured the chops, fat and all, with the neediness of a man in the last stages of a serious hangover.
“I don’t entirely understand why we let him go,” Carswell said. “Are you not eating that, sir?”
“Too greasy for me. You can have it if you like.”
Carswell took the chop from Giles’s plate.
“From what I can gather from the Bow Street Office,” said Giles, pouring more tea, “Rhodes has more than likely been the mastermind behind an extremely complex fraud. You saw yourself how he clammed up when I tried to get anything out of him about his business. He could talk with astonishing frankness about seducing his own aunt but not about why he went away. Anyway, this fraud is so complex that I don’t think he would risk it by murdering his cousin. It will have taken months to set up. It is a fiendish piece of work, apparently, and it only came to light by the slightest chance. If it came off, it would mean he was comfortable for life. That’s why he had to leave Sir Sidney at that critical moment.”
“But his anger at his cousin – that was genuine, surely?”
“Yes, I think it was, but it was all rather convenient as well. He says he went to Northminster to remonstrate with his cousin, but the journey nicely served the purpose of conspicuously placing John Rhodes in Northminster at a crucial moment in the fraud. He flings his money and his name about the town. Why else stay so long? He had had it out with his cousin soon enough, giving him a nice bloody nose for the servant to tell me about. Meanwhile, the Bow Street men can’t lay a finger on the mysterious George Venner. He has vanished into thin air.” Giles drained the remains of his cup. The tea tasted cold and bitter.
“When Stephen Rhodes was murdered,” he said, replacing the cup in the saucer, “it was an unwanted development because he knows he looks culpable, but on the other hand, he cannot be too worried by it. He knows he isn’t involved in any way. There is no real evidence against him. He knows I can’t prove anything against him.”
“At least he’ll be got for the fraud,” Carswell said.
“I doubt it, somehow. Remember he’s now come into a substantial fortune. He can afford the best defence lawyers money can buy, if the fraud case can even be got up against him. But I think they will have a devil of a job proving he is George Venner. He is a master at misdirection.”
Carswell sat chewing at the bone of his chop.
“And,” Giles went on, “I have a horrible feeling that in six month’s time, we will find Mr John Rhodes nicely established at Sir Sidney’s house in Richmond, probably with an heiress wife and a life of unblemished respectability ahead of him.”
“Where’s the justice in that?” said Carswell.
“There isn’t any,” said Giles, glancing around him, at the dingy room, thinking of the comfortless night ahead of him, without even the prospect of hot water and a clean shirt in the morning. He felt utterly defeated. “Ye Gods, how I hate London!”
Chapter Twenty-four
The following afternoon, after his return from London, Giles found himself in Miss Hilliard’s office again. He wondered why he was really there. Was it just an excuse to be in her company? Sally might say so, but she was simply being an overprotective, good sister. Miss Hilliard had not behaved inappropriately and he had no intention of doing anything to disgrace himself. He had good reason to be there. But sitting there in the sunny room, with her smiling at him over the tea cups, it felt as though he was tasting some sweet illicit wine.
“I understand you had another encounter with Mr Carswell,” he said, getting down to business.
“He told you?”
“Yes, he did,” he said and then ventured, “I’m surprised that you did not mention it.”
“You are disappointed with me,” she said. “I am sorry. I thought of mentioning it, but then I decided I would not burden you with it. You have so much to worry about, without that troubling young man. I must say I am surprised he told you. One must give him some credit for honesty after all,” she said, “when I caught him creeping about like a common thief.”
“Although he acted wrongly, I think he was motivated by idealism,” said Giles. “You must understand that, being an idealist yourself?”
“You men, you will always defend one another,” she said, with a smile. “Yes, I do understand, Major, but I cannot forgive him – at least not yet. He is very rash and my easy forgiveness will not teach him the lessons he needs to learn, do you not think?”
He did not like to point out that Carswell was very far from learning any sort of lesson. She was no doubt used to seeing her charges bend their necks to her, and expected Carswell would do the same.
“And the girl, Abigail Prior, how is she?”
“She is recovering well.”
“Did you get Woodcroft in?”
“Why do you ask that?” she said.
“I would like his opinion on it,” he said, after a moment. “If there has been any impropriety –”
“Major Vernon I thought I made it clear to you – I believe that is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, Miss Hilliard, even in the best run establishments. There are elements you cannot control. It is one of the grim facts of leadership that occasionally things go awry.” She shook her head. “Please, ma’am, at least to consider the possibility? There is no disgrace in it for you. If something has gone wrong, if one of your staff or the girls have acted wrongly, it will not stain your character.”
“Do you not think so? That is just your opinion, of course. You are too just and generous a person, that is the difficulty. You do not think as the world thinks. A woman in my position – my very unusual position – well, the slightest thing will discredit her entirely. Even an investigation into such a matter as this. It pains me to think that you and Mr Carswell have discussed this! And now you speak of asking Dr Woodcroft’s opinion.”
“He would be discreet, I am sure of it.”
“I cannot risk that much, sir, I cannot!” she said, getting up.
She walked across the room, and her skirts swept against him, as he too got up from his chair. He experienced a moment of dreadful temptation. In such a small space, he had only to reach out and catch her arm. He could have easily pulled her into his arms. Instead he stood looking at her back, at the delicious hollow of the nape of her neck, as she bowed her head.
At length she straightened and turned back to him.
“You must trust me, Major Vernon. I ask you for your trust. A great thing, perhaps, but I feel that I can ask that of you, being the person you are.” She laid her hand on her breast. “I know that this could not happen here. I have taken such pains here that I know it, and I ask you accept to it and ask no more questions.”
She was undoubtedly a lady, and her word ought to have been sacred. But Carswell had given him evidence and that nagged at him, like a child pulling at his coat-tails.
“Ma’am, I wish I could, but I cannot,” he said. “I would like to see the girl and speak to her. I should also like to speak to Mrs Fulwood. And I do think Dr Woodcroft ought to be consulted. Or if you will not let me do that, let me advise you very strongly that you speak to them, and discover the truth of this.”
“You are very harsh to me, Major Vernon,” she s
aid, sitting down again.
“I do not mean to be,” he said. “You spoke of teaching lessons. Ma’am, you must allow me to teach you one now. Leadership involves courage, and you must show that courage now and examine your own circumstances. You may fear for your reputation, and I agree that the world will be harder on a woman in your position than a man. That is an undoubted fact. But the world will also give you credit for your courage and your openness. If you show them that you can put your own house in order – if that is what is required, and I do not say that it is – then you will be respected all the more for it.”
She sat there looking up at him as he said this, and he could not at once interpret her expression. He had expected he might see wounded pride or anger flash across her face as he delivered this lecture. Perhaps it was astonishment at his audacity in speaking so – not so much in what he had said, but the way he had said it, with perhaps too much warmth in his voice.
“Believe me, it is only because I admire you that I say this to you,” he added, attempting to explain himself, but the moment he had said it, he realised he had crossed a line. But her eyes, so ardent, so fixed upon him, had made him forget himself. Sally had been right. He was in danger, great danger here.
“Flattering though that is, Major Vernon,” she said, rising from her chair after a moment, “you are not in any position to admire anyone like that. I believe that your emotions are colouring your perceptions of this business. You say you are concerned for my reputation but I wonder if... forgive me, it is hard for me to say this – if my reputation will not suffer more from taking your advice than following my own conscience. Please, sir, I beg you, desist from this, for both our sakes. You must not meddle here, you really must not!”
“I am not meddling,” he said, a little taken aback. “This is a legitimate inquiry.”
“I have asked you to take my word that there is nothing amiss here. Will you not trust my word? If you admire me, as you say you do, be that wrong or right of you, you must trust me. Surely that much is implicit. Yet you do not seem to want to take my word on this. That strikes me as a poor sort of admiration, if there is no respect in it.”
He had to concede that there were a great many effective weapons in her armoury. He felt sorely wounded and he only wished he could prove her wrong. It might have been folly to want to attempt it, but an injured man only fights the harder to win the victory.
But he was not entirely sure what victory it was he wished to achieve. A conquest in the ordinary sense, of a man over a woman, was not possible here. He could not ask her to be his wife nor could he make her his mistress. But now he wanted some sort of possession, some sort of capitulation from her, an acknowledgement perhaps that the weakness that she induced in him was reflected in her own heart. Would that be enough to stop this, though, or would that only take him to the brink and beyond, to the place where he definitely should not go? If he knew her true feelings and they were as he wanted, he knew it would be impossible to resist.
And she would be worth it, he felt, as she faced him then, to have her for his own. It would be worth ruination and exile and all that would come of taking a woman like this as his mistress. So he pressed on, obdurately, glorying in the wounds she had inflicted on him, his blood now thoroughly roused.
“Yes, indeed, I should take you at your word, Miss Hilliard,” he said with a smile. “Any gentleman ought to do that. But I think we are a little beyond that. You owe me your trust, as much as I owe it to you, I think. Shall we negotiate over this?”
And he indicated the chair she had been sitting in. He wanted her sitting down again, and looking up at him.
“What an extraordinary thing to say,” she said. “What do you mean? Did you not understand what I said?”
“Please sit down, Miss Hilliard. Yes, I understood very well. You want my admiration as much as you say you dislike it. But you only want it cut to suit you, yes? Well, that is not the way with a man’s admiration.”
“You astonish me, Major Vernon. No, this is more than astonishing, this is alarming.”
“It is not really. You are made of stronger stuff than that,” he said. “Now sit down, and listen to what I have to say.”
“I will not sit down and listen to you making love to me. You know I cannot do that.”
“Did I say I was going to make love to you?” he said. “I had no intention of doing that. I can if you like, of course, but that serves no purpose, pleasant though it might be for both of us.”
“I would not have thought it possible, Major, that you...”
He took a step closer to her.
“Come now, it has been in your mind even though you know what my position is. You may believe yourself to be a citadel, Miss Hilliard, but there is a weak spot in every fortress. The enemy can always find a way in. And then you must negotiate.”
“You are a disgrace, sir. I should make you leave at once.”
“But you do not, do you? You sit and make me tea. You make me welcome. You treat me like some old cousin and sparring partner. I expect you would make a shirt for me if I asked, if that would not have the whole of Northminster chattering. But perhaps we ought to get away from the din.”
“You would seriously consider that?” she said, after a long moment. Her voice was a little breathy now and she had her hand at her throat, fiddling with the starched muslin frill of her collar. She had, he noticed, the most exquisite fingertips.
He looked down at her. She was within a step of him. He only had to move and she would be against him. He wondered if she would yield at once or resist for a passage and then yield. The latter, he suspected, and felt his own pulse racing at the thought of such a deliberate, delicious struggle. The very possibility of it now hung in the space between them.
“It would be well worth the trouble, I think,” he said, with all the lightness he could manage. He did not want her to die of shock.
She walked away from him then to the door.
“I really think you had better leave now, sir,” she said opening the door to him.
As he passed her, he felt her eyes on him, calm and appraising. She was considering his suggestion, he was sure, and he felt certain it would all be worth the trouble if she decided to say yes.
That he had not got any further with the business he came there for scarcely occurred to him.
***
Felix waited in the Major’s office, impatient to know what had happened at Brinklow. To distract himself he studied the quarto sheets pinned to the walls. Snow leant against him, desperate for his attention. Having been effectively abandoned during the London escapade had made her needy.
“Your master will be back soon enough,” he said, but the bitch was not consoled by that.
At last Vernon came in, looking muddy and windswept. Snow yelped with excitement and jumped up at him.
“I went for a ride,” he said, as much to the dog as to Felix. He stripped off down to his waistcoat and then hauled off his boots. Felix noticed he had a high colour.
“So what did Miss Hilliard say?” Felix asked eagerly. “Did you see Abigail?”
“No,” said the Major, pouring himself a glass of wine. He threw himself down on his chair by the fire and took to caressing Snow extravagantly when she pressed her obedient head to his knee. She whimpered with delight.
“But sir...”
“I see you are studying the case notes,” Vernon cut in. “Any insights? I am leaning towards the Cley family, you know. The sister and brother acting together, perhaps. You know she took botany lessons with Mrs Lepaige? She could easily have acquired the Datura stramonium. She’s a very clever young woman.”
“But did you see Abigail, sir?” Felix persisted.
“No,” he said. “But Miss Hilliard has it in hand. It will be thoroughly investigated, I promise you.”
Felix was not the least bit satisfied by this.
“How? What does she propose to do?”
“You must trust the lady,” said Vernon. T
his was not the answer Felix wanted and his expression must have made it perfectly clear. Vernon held up his hand to silence him and went on, “She knows what must be done. I was perfectly frank with her. Now, let’s eat,” he said. “And then I am going out with the Night Watch. It’s pay-day and that always means trouble for us. The town can get very lively. I suggest you get a couple of hours sleep after dinner and ready yourself. There’s always a great deal of work to be done in the small hours.”
Felix forced himself to hold his tongue on the subject, trying to console himself with the sure knowledge that the Major was a man of his word. They sat and ate their dinner and talked on a variety of subjects, touching on nothing controversial. They spoke of salmon fishing and poetry, and it was pleasant enough, but Felix felt that the Major was not himself. He seemed guarded and distant. Felix felt he was having dinner with an imposter. It made him very uneasy. Circumstances had made them more than acquaintances in a brief space of time, but now it was as if the slate had been cleaned and they had only just been introduced.
He went back to his rooms and attempted to do some work on his case notes but he could not. Instead, he went downstairs, ordered his horse and set out for Brinklow.
He had restrained himself from going earlier. It had been his ardent desire to go but he felt he should have permission from Major Vernon. He had wanted a sanction, but none was forthcoming. Neither had he been reassured. The Major had not seen Abigail nor told him all was well with her. His answers only threw up more questions. They did not quiet his mind.
The Butchered Man Page 21
