During an orchestral interlude between scenes, Roderick whispered, “Does she truly believe she can earn a living this way?”
I opened my lips to speak as some sisterly reflex prompted me to speak up on her behalf, but I was thwarted by having no voice with which to defend her. I had to settle for bobbing my head back and forth to indicate Maybe, maybe not.
He pulled a doubtful face. “She looks miserable. I’d be surprised if she ever sets foot on a stage again after tonight.”
It was true. One look at her strained expression had made it clear that she was not only terrified but also fully aware of how wretched a job she was doing. I ached with sympathy for her. There were few worse feelings than being stuck onstage having to continue a performance that one knew the audience disliked. I wanted to go backstage during intermission and try to bolster her confidence, for that could carry a performance even when ability was lacking. But without any voice to speak with, I felt helpless.
Nonetheless, when intermission came, I plucked at Roderick’s sleeve and indicated that we should go backstage.
We found my sister weeping in her dressing room. Gertrude stood by her side, evidently trying to calm her, and when she saw me approaching she gave a resigned shrug. I trusted Gertrude’s judgment, and she looked as though she had given up hope.
Polly was in a dreadful state. Tears had caused her makeup to run, so her face was gruesomely streaked with color. She had pulled off her wig, and her hair stuck out in all directions.
“Ah, the glamour of theatrical life,” said Roderick, and Polly gave a wail and began to cry harder.
Giving my husband a rebuking look, I sat down beside her and put my arm around her.
“I can’t help it,” Polly cried. “As soon as I stepped out there and saw all those faces staring at me, waiting for me to speak, it was as if everything went straight out of my head. I know every one of those people is sitting there watching everything I do and listening to everything I say.”
“Rather the point of theatrical entertainment,” Gertrude muttered, and I saw Roderick’s shoulders twitch with suppressed laughter.
Polly grabbed my arm. “Sybil, can’t you go on for me in the second half? You know all the speeches, and you needn’t wear the costumes—you can just throw that plaid over your dress. No one will mind.”
Gertrude’s expression attained such heights of incredulity at this moment that it was almost comical. Perhaps under other circumstances I might have been persuaded to step in for my sister. But as things were, as sorry as I felt for her, I had no choice but to refuse. I shook my head.
At my refusal, she turned mean. “You never do anything for me!” she accused. “The one time that I truly need your help, you desert me! I cannot believe how selfish you are.”
This was too much for Roderick. “You idiotic child, can’t you see that Sybil has lost her voice? It doesn’t matter how much she may want to save your worthless hide; she simply can’t do it.”
Polly gaped at me, her thoughts wrenched away from her own problems for the moment, and Gertrude gave a surprised exclamation. “The same thing happened to Narcissa,” she said. “That’s why she wasn’t able to go on tonight. I wonder if some sort of sickness is going around? I hate to think what will happen if anyone else catches it.”
Narcissa, too, had lost her voice? Roderick’s eyes met mine, and I knew that both of us were thinking that we would need to discuss that. It might change things utterly. If Treherne or No-Relation had poisoned her, that seemed to suggest that she had not been the motive for killing Atherton or poisoning me. If only I could speak long enough to talk the matter over with Roderick! I felt that I would give almost anything to have my voice back, even just for a quarter of an hour.
The sound of the orchestra tuning up again told me that intermission was nearly over. I rose, patting my disconsolate sister on the shoulder, and gave Gertrude a look of rueful sympathy before returning with Roderick to our seats.
“Why would someone try to poison Narcissa?” he whispered. “Or do you think the killer meant the poison for someone else? Either one of you—or even both—might have been an unintended victim, come to think of it.”
My mind was teeming with similar questions. The poisoner would know by now that he had not succeeded in killing either me or Narcissa. If one of us, or both, had been the target, what means might the would-be killer try next? And if he was after someone else, who could it be?
These reflections refused to permit me to concentrate my mind on the second half of Macbeth. This was just as well, for to the extent that I was aware of it, I saw no improvement in Polly’s performance. Her final scene, in which Lady Macduff was killed by Macbeth’s assassin, ought to have been full of tension and pathos. Instead, there was an audible sigh of relief in the audience when she at last met her end.
Roderick and I went to collect Polly after the final curtain to take her home, and I had time to scribble out a few messages to her as she was changing out of her costume. None of us suggested attending the opening-night reception. That would have been no less of an ordeal for her than the performance itself. Soon she and Roderick and I were in the merciful seclusion of a carriage on the way back home.
I held out the piece of paper on which I had jotted my thoughts and pointed to the first line. It isn’t your fault you were unable to concentrate, I had written. You are probably still shaken from the events of the other night.
Sniffling, she wiped at her tears with the back of her hand, smearing her makeup. “What events? Oh, you mean your friend’s death. I’ve been so busy I hardly thought about it.”
Roderick, who knew my aim, stepped in to help. “It’s natural for the full effect of such a crime not to be felt until some time later. It would be perfectly understandable if you’re only now beginning to gain some perspective.”
“Perspective?”
I pointed to the next line on the piece of paper. There may have been strange things that you and Martin noticed that might be very revealing. If you know anything that might implicate anyone, it would be wise to tell the police.
“What with Sybil and Narcissa both suddenly falling ill,” Roderick added, “it leads one to think it may not be accidental. While there exists even the slightest chance that someone is trying to silence witnesses, you ought to consider whether anyone has any reason to attempt to silence you.”
For some reason that seemed to irritate her. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she snapped. “Gertrude is probably right—it’s simply some illness that you and Narcissa caught. You’re just trying to make yourself more important by pretending it’s anything more than that.”
Sometimes I wished I were still young enough to get away with pulling my sister’s hair when she acted this way. As it was, I folded my arms so that I would not be tempted to resort to such a thing. Roderick again stepped in, though he sounded as out of patience as I.
“Sybil and I have more experience of the world than you, so when we tell you that you may be in danger, you’d be wise to take heed. Can you think of any reason you’d pose a danger to the killer? Any piece of evidence you haven’t disclosed?”
“I saw nothing,” she retorted. “I’ve no idea what Mr. Maudsley may have observed. I spent the entire evening inside at the reception speaking to Clement Griffiths and Mr. Fairbrother until meeting with Mr. Maudsley to join up with the two of you.”
“Then you and Maudsley weren’t together all that time?” Roderick asked, sounding as startled as I felt.
She jutted her jaw at him. “You needn’t scold me because I didn’t spend every moment with a chaperone! I’m eighteen years old, or nearly, and I don’t need someone watching over me every second. Mr. Maudsley and I agreed to meet between the two large fountains, and so we did. I don’t suppose I spent more than twenty minutes without him. Hardly enough time to be ruined!”
She did not know much about being ruined, evidently, but I chose not to educate her on this subject. I was trying to think through all the
implications of the fact that she and Martin had spent some of the evening apart. In one respect it seemed hopeful: perhaps Martin had observed something useful, some piece of evidence that might help to determine whether Treherne was the guilty party.
I hadn’t spoken to Martin since he had lent his aid to the effort to dislodge my father’s ghost. Now I decided that speaking to him about the night of Atherton’s death would be an excellent step.
WHEN I AWOKE NEXT MORNING, my first thought, even before my eyes were open, was to test my voice.
But I was every bit as mute as the day before. The best I could muster was a hoarse whisper.
“Remember what the doctor said,” Roderick urged when he awoke to find me struggling to speak. “Don’t strain. It will come right in its own time.”
Though I nodded and tried to smile, I could feel my mood sliding into despair. I couldn’t go through the coming months or years being unable to speak above a whisper. Even the most devoted and attentive husband would find it wearying to have his ear constantly in the proximity of his wife’s lips so that he could hear her every observation. And if whispering delayed my healing, even that would be denied me.
Roderick, noting my distress, squeezed me reassuringly.
“What is it that one says to children who’ve scraped their knee? I shall kiss it and make it better.”
I laughed, albeit soundlessly, but in truth the tender warmth of his lips on my throat was pleasant. More than pleasant, in fact. Downright distracting. When he ventured farther afield to apply the same treatment to other parts of me, I temporarily forgot about my vocal difficulties altogether... and so, to judge by what followed, did he.
But only temporarily.
“I miss your murmurings,” he said some time later as I lay with his arms snug around me. “Your soft little cries. A silent Sybil is scarcely my Sybil at all.”
I sighed. I certainly didn’t feel like myself, though thanks to his healing ministrations I felt worlds better now than when I had awakened.
“I’ve thought of a reason the killer might wish to silence you,” he added. Had anyone been privy to our conversation, they would have thought us the most peculiar married couple on earth, to follow a delicious tryst with such bloodcurdling thoughts. “It doesn’t account for Narcissa, though. What if someone fears that you’ll use your mediumistic gift to communicate with Atherton’s spirit and discover the identity of his killer that way?”
I had to fetch pencil and paper before I could comment. Once I had retrieved these and returned to the bed, I scribbled quickly, Perhaps Narcissa’s poisoning was a blind. She herself might have poisoned me out of fear that I would uncover evidence that would damn Treherne.
“And then she took the poison herself—in a nonfatal dose, of course—to hide her involvement,” Roderick mused. “It’s quite possible.”
She may even be faking, I wrote. A stab of envy surprised me with its intensity. What if I never get my voice back?
He touched my cheek, his stormy hazel eyes gazing steadily into mine. “We’ll be just fine. After all, as your husband it’s my place to speak for both of us, and it’s your duty to be meek and silent—”
Narrowing my eyes, I gave him a look into which I poured all the contempt I felt for that revolting idea, and he burst into laughter. “You really shouldn’t use such language, little wife.”
But when I didn’t laugh in return, he sobered.
“We can afford to seek out the best specialists on earth for the most advanced treatments they can offer,” he told me. “You remember what the doctor said—you may recover before much longer. Until you’re well, I’ll get you a slate and chalk. Or we can learn sign language. I have complete faith in your ability to rise above such a setback.”
Tears blurred my vision, and I squeezed my eyes shut fiercely to hold them back. I loved him for what he had said, but the problem was that I didn’t want to rise above my ailment. I wanted to be cured.
Then I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. There was nothing I could do about it at this moment, so I might as well put my mind on the other matter that was most pressing.
I wrote, I think we should call on Martin. He may know something that could be important. And that made me a little bit worried about him, to be honest, since it could mean he might fall afoul of the poisoner. We could warn him about that, although since he had not mingled with his former castmates recently the killer might find it difficult to locate an opportunity to strike out at him.
Roderick, somewhat to my surprise, didn’t object. “Why don’t you write to him and propose that we call on him later today.”
As soon as we rose and dressed, I did so, and Roderick rang for a porter to take the letter. But, to our surprise, the porter when he arrived handed Roderick a card.
Raising his eyebrows as he took it in, Roderick then handed it to me. It read Ivor Treherne.
Roderick gave me a questioning look. When I nodded in reply, he said to the porter, “Please tell Mr. Treherne we’ll be down in a moment.”
Chapter Sixteen
Treherne was waiting in a small coffee room that was otherwise empty. The man who turned to meet us at the sound of our approaching footsteps was a far cry from the one I had seen on the previous two occasions: the angry man of business who scented a scam, on the one hand, and the genial host and triumphant suitor, on the other.
This Treherne was as rumpled as though he had slept in his clothes, unshaven, pale, and wild eyed. For the first time he actually looked like someone unhinged enough to kill, and when Roderick took my arm and drew me close I knew that similar thoughts must be passing through his mind as well.
But Treherne’s first words shattered that thought.
“Thank heaven you’re all right,” he said to me, striding over and seizing my hand, though I had not offered it. “I didn’t hear what had happened until this morning. I haven’t left Narcissa’s bedside except to come to see you. You’re in no danger, I trust? You’ve consulted a doctor?”
“A multitude of them,” Roderick said, somewhat warily. “There seems to be no immediate danger aside from Sybil’s having lost her voice.”
Treherne didn’t seem to find that reassuring. “When did you find that your voice had gone, Miss Ingram?”
Roderick, of course, had to answer for me. “The morning after the reception.”
Releasing my hand, Treherne dragged his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been half out of my mind with worry. The doctors can’t agree on whether Narcissa’s voice will return or not. When I think of what I may have cost her—how much danger I put everyone in—”
“You put everyone in?” Roderick demanded. “How so?”
From the way my husband’s voice had sharpened, I knew that he was wondering if we were going to hear a confession. I squeezed his hand, feeling the pulse beat in my throat.
Treherne dropped onto a wicker divan. The delicate furnishings and luxuriant potted palms of the little room made a peculiar background for discussions of poisoning and murder.
“It must have been the champagne,” he said, sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head hanging down. “I can’t think of anything else that would have affected you both in this fashion, and so close together.”
“Do you mean you didn’t know?”
“About the wine? Good God, man, how can you think I would have put everyone at such a risk if I had known?”
I stared at him significantly and raised my eyebrows, and he groaned as my meaning made itself felt.
“Of course,” he said dully. “You think I killed Atherton. If I had, I suppose I’d not have hesitated to pass around tainted champagne, though to what purpose—”
“To eliminate witnesses,” Roderick said, though less coldly than before. “Sybil and I thought that she must pose some threat to the killer, so we supposed...”
That made Treherne sit up and stare at us. “That’s what you’ve been thinking? I had no idea that you believed I could stoop so low.”
“The fact is, we don’t know you,” Roderick said, not unkindly. “We know very little about you except that you argued with Atherton about money on the night that he was killed, and that the police had sufficient reason to charge you with his murder. From there to poisoning witnesses isn’t such a great step.”
Treherne put up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I see. From your perspective I suppose nothing must have seemed beyond me.” He stood, moving as if his bones ached. “All I can do is reassure you that I have never knowingly done violence to anyone. Now that I’m forced to consider that the wine may have been tainted with some corrosive, I’ll do my utmost to trace it to its source.”
“If you determine the cause,” Roderick said, “be good enough to inform us, so that we can tell Sybil’s doctor. That might be of great help in determining a course of treatment.”
“Yes, I can see that. And of course that will be true of Narcissa as well.”
He seemed on the point of departing, and I reached out to detain him before remembering that I couldn’t ask him the question that had sprung into my mind. I had forgotten to bring pencil and paper, and Roderick realized this at the same moment I did.
“I’ll get you something to write with,” he began, then paused. I touched the whistle, which I was wearing around my neck, to reassure him that I could signal for help in the unlikely case that Treherne tried to attack me in a busy hotel in the middle of the morning. Reassured, he gave a nod of understanding and left the room.
Treherne sighed. I resumed my seat, since he looked bone weary, and he seated himself again with a thankful air. “I feel as though this entire business has aged me twenty years,” he said “First Atherton, and now this...it’s my own fault, of course.”
My interest sharpened. What might he be about to confess?
“I know I’m too indulgent with Narcissa.” He sounded almost as if he were speaking to himself. “Even partnering with that poor fool Atherton was her idea. If I didn’t love her so much I could have taken a stronger line with her, refused to follow all of her whims.”
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