For his part, Albert could only seem to take in one bad piece of news at a time, and decided to tackle the bad pieces in order of appearance.
“You got us up here on a wild goose chase over this wedding of yours,” he began. “Even for this family, it’s a new low.”
“A wild goose chase?” Sir Adrian’s jowls quivered in mock, hurt outrage. “Surely your joy must be twice as much, to hear the happy event has already transpired. This way you don’t have to come up with a suitable present.”
Albert managed to focus his eyes into a glower. Only by firmly clenching his jaws together could he still the trembling that had set in around his features. Unfortunately, this pressure started off a tic in his right eye. Decades of his father’s indifference had not made betrayal, as he saw this, any less painful.
“I gave up an important meeting for this weekend. With-” (and here he invented wildly)-“with Agnus McGee, the producer.
Just to be here for this momentous non-event. This non-wedding.
At the very least you might not have wasted all our time.”
“Agnus McGee? Really?”
“Yes. It’s about his new play. That he wants me to be in.”
“Spear-carriers being thin on the ground in the West End?” said Sir Adrian.
“Not as a spear-carrier, goddammit.” His fist hit the table and a fork careened into a glass. Red wine spread slowly across the immaculate white tablecloth. Already, he hated himself, but he could not seem to stop. “I was never a spear-carrier.”
“Agnus owes me a favor. I could put in a word.” This from Ruthven.
Albert swung on him, unleashing the hounds of fury he could not quite bring himself to set loose upon his father.
“Shut. Up. I don’t need any favors from you.”
Anger pushed him further, desperately, to extremes. As he turned again to his father, he said, with elaborate insouciance:
“As it happens, Agnus wants me for the role of Clarence in his new play. A pivotal part, he says. He came to me”-and at this point, Albert stepped into role, completely forgetting he was invent-ing-“ to my flat. Last Monday night.” He nodded and set down his drink, as if having just settled a difficult point about the earth’s being round. “For a meal, he came. We had an Alsatian stew he’d told me was his favorite.”
“Oh!” cut in Sarah, knowing he was making it all up, and trying to shovel him out before he got in too deeply. “Bacheofe. Is that difficult to make?”
“Not at all. You know me, not much of a cook, but I just managed.”
Lillian and Ruthven exchanged glances.
“How very odd,” said Ruthven. “Lillian and I dined with Agnus Monday night.” Ruthven, busy dissecting the Stilton as he punched a new hole in his brother’s ego, did not even bother to look up.
“Then it must have been Tuesday night,” Albert snapped.
“Besides,” Ruthven went on inexorably, “isn’t Agnus a vegetarian? Rather tiresome of him, I think. It took us forever to agree on a restaurant.”
Sarah glanced from brother to brother in alarm, wondering if Albert’s eyeballs might actually detach from his head as he wound himself into an apoplectic froth. She didn’t need to look at her father to know what his expression would be.
For she could easily trace the thread of the conversation back to its source. Anyone without experience of Sir Adrian might have thought he had played a passive role in the conflict, with Ruthven the aggressor and Albert the easily aggrieved. An outsider might have been forgiven for thinking her father’s look of bafflement genuine: the hapless parent, mystified by the cutthroat, murderous dislike among his children, in spite of his own best efforts as peacemaker.
How, she wondered, did Father always so easily ignite the spark that led to a full-fledged conflagration?
“You have no right to say anything to me,” Albert was saying now.
“Oh, really. And you have rights?” Once again, Ruthven couldn’t be bothered to look up from his meal, which only pushed Albert nearer the edge.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Yes, I do have rights, dammit to hell.”
But Albert, catching the plea in Sarah’s eyes at that moment, with a monumental effort held his tongue.
“Don’t be tedious,” said Ruthven. “I was only trying to help.”
“I’ve had enough of this-this Happy Meal,” said Albert. For the second time that day, he stood and stormed with great dignity out of the room, only slightly spoiling the effect by tripping over the carpet fringe and nearly landing on his head.
Into the deadly silence that ensued Sir Adrian, having turned Cain against Abel once again, said:
“My book is going well. Quite well indeed. My publisher, that slave driver, will be very pleased. Would you like to hear a brief synopsis?”
“No.” This from several voices in unison. Only Violet said, “That would be lovely, dear. I confess I am rather curious.”
Only Natasha noticed when Sarah crept away from the table, missing her favorite pudding, in search of Albert.
***
She found him in the bottom of the garden, in the boxwood maze, sitting on the cold stone bench in the center. This bitterly cold night the plants wore a dusting of ice that sparkled under the moonlight like broken glass. The back of the house rose in the distance, a thin, undisturbed coat of snow resting like sifted sugar atop its crenellated towers and across its vast formal lawns. The wind that had shredded the sky earlier in the day had dropped, allowing thick, snow-laden clouds to lour overhead; a light powder fell in a steady perpendicular curtain. It all looked more than ever like the enchanted garden that had been part of their make-believe games as children.
Albert wore a heavy coat against the cold, along with padded mittens like boxer’s gloves. She was surprised he’d had the presence of mind to protect himself from the weather. He clenched and unclenched his fists in the outsized gloves, whether in anger or in an attempt to keep warm, she couldn’t tell. His face in the moonlight was planed in shadow and light, more like marble than flesh.
“I’ll kill that shit some day,” was all he said.
“Which one?”
Albert emitted a harsh laugh, shaking his head.
“You could always make me laugh, Sarah. Sometimes even intentionally. My God, I am afraid for you sometimes. The world will tear you to pieces.”
“Don’t worry about me, Albert. I may be tougher than you think.”
He eyed her doubtfully.
“Which one, you ask? Such a wide field to choose from, isn’t there? But at the moment, Ruthven. The world would be such a better place without him.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve often thought so myself. Him or George. At least, the universe would register that an irritant had been removed, somewhat like getting a cinder out of one’s eye.” She tapped an index finger against her upper lip meditatively, like a housewife trying to decide whether to paint or wallpaper the sitting room. Ruthven or George? George or Ruthven?
“I really didn’t mean George, at the moment,” said Albert.
“One of the great romances, there,” said Sarah.
“George and Natasha? You must be joking. And now, baby makes three. Great God. A little niece or nephew for us all. I don’t suppose Father will waste any time changing the will again, now there’s a Beauclerk-Fisk dynasty in the offing.”
“I actually was speaking of George’s love for himself. Now, there is a love that will last ’til the end of time.”
“Ha! Quite right. Still, Natasha seems to have got a leash on him, for the moment. At least, she seems to know how to play against his ego.”
“It won’t last,” said Sarah sadly. She traced a heart in the snow on top of the stone bench, then roughly obliterated it. “George is too unstable. The child will only make things worse, and I think Natasha knows it. But-it’s Father who is the center of the storm, as usual. Playing us off against each other, playing with us. It’s so silly, this whole charade about the marriage. Why does he play these stupid ga
mes?”
Albert tore his gaze away from the house, which seemed to have held him spellbound.
“I’ll kill that shit some day,” he said again.
“Albert, you mustn’t even think such a thing, much less say it. About any of them.”
“Why not? What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know. I suppose because-because people may believe you mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
“No! Whether you mean it or not, you mustn’t say it aloud.
People mustn’t know, don’t you see? I mean, if anything were to happen to Ruthven, or George, or Father, you’d be blamed. Don’t you see the danger?”
Albert looked at her closely, at the lines of anxiety furrowing her brow. She was frightened, he could see that. But why? Did she seriously think he was going to kill someone? Or was it simply frightening to hear him vocalize her own wishes and desires?
“Sarah,” he said gently. “The thought doesn’t necessarily become the deed, you know. But I agree, it doesn’t pay to let people into one’s mind too much. Look, anything said between you and me goes no further, right? Like when we were kids?”
Sarah nodded, putting on a brave smile.
“Like when we were kids. You tried to protect me, Albert. From Ruthven and Father both, and from George. Whenever they remembered I existed, that is. All in all, I was happiest when they forgot I did exist. I haven’t forgotten what you did.” Her voice rose in intensity. “I’ve forgotten nothing.” She wrapped her arms tighter against the cold. “Maybe, some day, I can repay you.”
A faint alarm sounded in the farther reaches of Albert’s brain.
“Sarah, exactly what is it you have in mind?”
10. ONE HEIR LESS
ALBERT SAT AT THE desk in his room in the small hours of the next morning, a frown of concentration distorting his handsome features. He’d slept only a few fitful hours, disturbed by a recurring dream in which he stood frozen onstage, in full costume and makeup, staring blankly at a hostile, hooting audience, lines forgotten. His fellow actors hissed at him from the wings. Suddenly he would realize he was in the wrong play altogether, but he couldn’t move off the stage: Someone had nailed his shoes to the boards.
Around four o’clock he’d given up hope of getting back to sleep. Remembering the manuscript, he put on a dressing gown against the chilly room and stoked the fireplace back to life, thinking he may as well spend the long hours until breakfast attempting to find out what the old man was up to.
“‘As soon none hive owl,’” he read aloud. “No, that can’t be it. This is worse than Chaucer. What the devil is he trying to say? ‘Nearly damaged bug loot, he went-’ No, wait, it’s ‘Nearly deranged by lust, he went-’ Went where?”
That American chap Jeffrey must be the only man alive who could read this scrawl. Albert doubted even his father could read these days what he had written, between his poor eyesight and fading health. The lines ran up and down the page like a printout from an EKG. Albert threw down the papers in disgust, then carefully gathered them again. He had a feeling whatever they were about, they were important. And he hesitated to ask Jeffrey for help.
No, he felt altogether it was not safe to ask Jeffrey.
But this was ridiculous; he’d never be able to sort the mess out himself. And he was beginning to worry that his father would sooner or later discover the manuscript was gone. For the first time, he wondered how his father had ever managed the cellar stairs to hide it in the first place. In any event, Albert felt he’d better put it back for now where he’d found it.
Then he had an idea, slapping his knees at the thought. Maybe he could enlist the aid of-what was her name? Mrs. Pepper? Mrs. Muffin? Something like that-a former secretary who was among the droves who had quit the job as fast as their legs could carry them. One had resigned, from a safe distance, by mail. But his father had often declared regretfully, for him, that Mrs. What’s-her-name had had a genius for being able to transcribe his handwriting (while never admitting he’d had anything to do with her abrupt departure).
Albert crept to his door and peeked out, knotting his silk gown more tightly about him. His room was one of four ranged along the corridor, at the end of which was a servant’s staircase leading to the attic and down to the kitchen. He thought for a moment he saw the door to the staircase closing-just the merest sliver of light that disappeared before he could be sure it had been there at all. He listened, straining, but could only hear the wind in the trees outside his own window, the eaves of the old building seeming to creak in response.
It is a truism that the more one tries to move stealthily, the more noise one seems to make. Every stair tread leading down from the first floor squeaked almost musically, each tread hitting a different register. In the darkness of the landing, he had a nearly fatal collision with a statue of Aphrodite, making a grab for her marble hips just before she could plunge from her pedestal. He inched along the downstairs hall: almost there now. He felt for the handle to the cellar door and braced himself for the whine of the old hinges.
The cellar stairs were worse; after groping for the light, he made his way down with aching slowness, pausing now and again to listen for sounds from overhead. Nothing.
As he approached the stack of crates from which he’d earlier retrieved the manuscript, he experienced a sudden, inexplicable tremble of apprehension: Something about the room was just that bit askew. Something was here or something had been taken away since his earlier visit.
He turned around, searching the shadows for whatever it was that was set to pounce. Maybe Agnes and her friendly ghost were starting to get to him.
So it was that he didn’t see Ruthven so much as sense that there was a shape huddled inside one of the glass-walled, walk-in cabinets. A dark round shape among the square boxes that hadn’t been there before, and that had no business being there now. Albert walked closer, cautiously, straining to see. A pile of laundry. No, not unless the laundry happened to be wearing bedroom slippers.
It was Ruthven and Ruthven was as dead as Dickens’ Marley. There was no doubt whatever about that. If the dark circle staining the floor around his head were not sign enough, there was also the odd angle at which his slippered feet were splayed in impossible directions.
Something splattered like dark paint across one side of the cabinet, something cascading down the glass in drying rivulets. Something that could only be blood, no matter how Albert’s mind scrambled for a different explanation.
Then there were the eyes. Most of all, the dark eyes-staring, accusatory, and quite, quite devoid of light, death having dried them of tears.
Albert, who had nearly tripped over many a seemingly lifeless corpse, but only on the stage, told himself that this was the real thing. Since it wasn’t in the script, he had no idea what to do. Fleetingly, he wondered if he should check for a pulse, before he realized he had not the least idea how to do so correctly, and no desire whatsoever to touch… it… him. He was shaking so much, anyway, he doubted he could have felt anything but his own heart, thudding madly against his ribs.
Worse, the sight of Ruthven, the thing that used to be Ruthven, was pathetic as much as frightening. He longed to at least straighten out the legs-Ruthven looked so uncomfortable there, against the cold stone floor in his climate-controlled cage.
Albert ran, the now-forgotten manuscript still in his pocket.
11. ST. JUST IS DELAYED
THE 999 CALL, MADE by an incoherent Albert, came into the Cambridgeshire Constabulary minutes later, which enterprise gauged Albert as a probable nuisance drunk and reacted accordingly.
Nonetheless, minutes later the Parkside Police Station dispatched one Constable Porter of Newton Coombe, a member of the Special Constabulary whose day job was pastry chef for the St. Germaine restaurant on Silver Street.
As Porter drove up to the imposing Gothic gate and saw the brass plaque announcing Waverley Court, he began to think he might be out of his depth. Wanting a break fr
om the monotony of petits fours, Porter had been finding police work met the bill. Until now. There was such a thing as too much excitement. Careening up the long drive to the house, he had time to think that if some nob really had got himself killed, he, Porter, didn’t want to be the first and only man on the scene.
A surly, olive-complexioned man admitted him at the front door. As Porter reluctantly entered the armored hall, gazing about him in wonder, a blonde man tumbled out of a nearby door, collapsing into his arms as he gasped, “Murder! Cellar! Murder!”
Albert, grabbing the constable by the lapels, nearly dragged him to the top of the cellar stairs. Porter hesitated, reluctant to go down and muck up a crime scene, and instead tried to calm Albert, who reached ever more hysterical pitches with each passing minute. Eventually wrenching himself free, Porter called for backup. A higher layer of law-and-order appeared twenty minutes later in the form of Detective Chief Inspector St. Just and Detective Sergeant Fear of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
“What’s all this then?” the larger detective asked as he stomped in, brushing past Paulo, precisely as if he were there to break up a pub fight. A barrel-chested man with legs like tree trunks, St. Just was the same height as his subordinate but gave the appearance of being twice the size.
Constable Porter made sure Albert was safely propped against the wall before leaving him to come forward.
“Bloke says it’s a murder. In the cellar, he says. Says it’s his brother. That’s about all I can get out of him.”
“You’ve not gone down to look?”
“I did not want to disturb a crime scene. No, Sir.”
“Let’s hope the poor bugger really is dead, then.”
The poor bugger really was dead, and he’d been dead awhile. St. Just thought it was little wonder the man who said he was his brother was in such sad shape. The body in the wine refrigerator or whatever it was called was a mess, the skull thoroughly crushed in. The face itself, however, was intact: In profile, it retained the aristocratic, pampered visage of what the coroner would undoubtedly describe as a well-nourished, middle-aged man. The corpse wore a satin dressing gown, the legs of striped pajamas visible beneath.
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