Ames had closed the door when they came in. They heard the reverend insert a key into the lock, turn it, and turn the doorknob to push open the door. But the reverend had not unlocked but locked the door, and he cursed softly now, with a querulous tone to his voice.
The key turned in the lock again, and with a horrid fascination, MacKenzie watched as the door opened.
“Thank you, Margaret,” Caroline said as the maid came in to fetch her supper tray. She leaned back in her chair, comfortably nourished on beef tea and scrambled eggs, ready to pick up a Diana Strangeways until her men-folk returned.
“I’ll be leaving soon, miss,” Margaret said.
“Yes, of course. Go ahead.”
As the maid went out, Caroline heard the grandmother clock in the hall strike the hour: eight o’clock. Surely, Addington and Dr. MacKenzie would be home soon.
Rain spattered on the lavender-glass windows, shuttered now against the dark, and the sea-coal fire murmured soothingly in the grate. Her ankle hurt a bit, but not as much as before. She wouldn’t try to walk down the hill to church tomorrow, however; she’d rest at home. She was safe here, she knew that, and yet—
She thought of them now, with Mr. Delahanty, returning to the South End, those dark, dangerous streets where another girl had been caught and killed. Oh, poor Agatha! However would she recover from this dreadful time?
Poor you, she corrected herself. If it had not been the Reverend Montgomery who came upon you … if it had been that homicidal lunatic—
Stop it. Addington would deal with it; she could do nothing more. Resolutely forcing her thoughts away from the scene at the Bower, she opened her book.
A short while later, she heard the front door knocker, and she looked up in alarm. Who had come? Not Addington and the doctor, safely home at last, for they had a key. Someone else, then, who might bring bad news, fresh news of disaster—
She heard Margaret going to answer. She strained to hear the caller’s voice, but the pocket doors were closed and she could hear nothing.
The doors slid open, but instead of Margaret, it was someone else who came into the room. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were wide—with fear? What had happened? Her cloak and bonnet, wet from the rain, dripped onto the carpet.
Caroline spoke first. “I can’t get up, Agatha. I twisted my ankle, and I—”
“There has been another death,” Miss Montgomery said abruptly.
Caroline saw Margaret hovering behind. Their eyes met, and Margaret was nodding even before Caroline could ask her to bring the universal prescription for all crises—which this obviously was—a tray of tea and cakes. Somehow, Margaret would manage to produce it before she left. She took a step back into the hall and pulled shut the doors, leaving Caroline and her friend alone.
“Yes. I know,” Caroline said to Miss Montgomery.
“You do?” For a moment, Miss Montgomery looked puzzled, but then she went on. “It was another one of our girls.”
“I know that too. Agatha, do come and sit down. Take off your things—why, you are soaked! Just put them on that chair.”
Caroline thought of the damage her friend’s dripping cloak would do to the already well-worn brocade—the dye would run, she just knew it—but this was no time, she chided herself, to be house-proud. Agatha was clearly in a state, and the important thing was to help her through it.
Miss Montgomery did not move at first. Then, as if at last she understood what Caroline had said, she unfastened her cape and let it fall to the floor. Slowly, as if she moved in a dream, she untied the strings of her bonnet, took it off, and dropped it onto the cloak.
“That’s right,” Caroline said soothingly. “Now come and sit down.”
Still moving slowly, one cautious step at a time, Miss Montgomery approached. With great care, as if every bone in her bony frame hurt her, she lowered herself onto the sofa opposite Caroline.
“How did you know?” she asked dully.
“Mr. Delahanty came to tell us. He has his office down in Newspaper Row, and he had word when the reporters were alerted. Agatha, I really do think—”
“Her name was Peg Corcoran,” Miss Montgomery said, still in that flat, deadened voice that Caroline found quite alarming.
“Peg—Oh, no!”
This seemed to jolt Miss Montgomery. “You knew her?”
“She was—yes, she was in my embroidery class, but worse than that—Agatha, I don’t imagine you knew it, but she was Garrett O’Reilly’s cousin.”
Miss Montgomery absorbed this in silence, her eyes darting back and forth as if she were trying to adjust her obviously erratic thoughts.
“His cousin?” she said slowly.
“Yes. He didn’t want it known, but—”
“They have arrested him.”
“Arrested him? Garrett? But that is wrong!”
“They said they caught him red-handed.”
“But that is monstrous!” In her agitation, Caroline had shifted slightly in her chair, and she winced at the pain in her ankle. Then she rushed on. “Agatha, I must tell you, Garrett was here earlier. Inspector Crippen interrogated him. He—Garrett—was badly frightened. Mr. Delahanty had told him to come to Addington if he needed help.”
“Is he here?” Miss Montgomery demanded.
“Who? Addington? No. Did you want to speak with him? I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
They heard a soft rapping at the pocket doors, and in the next moment Margaret came in bearing the tea tray, which she set on the low table beside Caroline’s chair.
“I’ll be off now, miss,” she said. “Cook’s on her way too. She says the gentlemen’s dinner is in the warming oven.”
“Yes, yes, go on, Margaret. And remember me to your sister.”
Miss Montgomery did not appear to notice the interruption. She stared at Caroline, blinking, her mouth working, her uncorseted body under her drab black dress as rigid as if she suffered rigor mortis.
Caroline glanced at the tea tray. Margaret had had the sense to supply a plate of sandwiches, thick and meaty. Agatha probably hadn’t eaten any dinner. A nourishing cold roast sandwich would do her good, and several cups of steaming Darjeeling, and a piece of lemon pound cake.
“Agatha, you must eat something. And then when Addington gets back, we’ll sort this out. I simply don’t believe that Garrett is capable—”
She had lifted the plate of sandwiches, and now she held it out to her friend. Miss Montgomery ignored it.
“Agatha, please. You must keep your strength up.”
“You are right, Caroline.” Agatha wasn’t talking about the food, Caroline realized. “Garrett didn’t kill that girl tonight—or the others.”
“No, of course he didn’t,” Caroline replied. The plate seemed very heavy, and so after a moment, she put it back on the tray. “So in that case—” She didn’t know how to continue. In that case, what? Or, more to the point, who?
“Do you know what that policeman told me?” Miss Montgomery asked.
“No.” Caroline cringed a little as Miss Montgomery’s pale, intense eyes fixed on her own. Of course, Agatha was always very intense, very driven, but just now she looked—
“He told me they found something clutched in Peg’s hand. He said it was a religious medal of some kind, but it wasn’t that.”
Not a religious medal. Caroline’s thoughts raced. She saw something small and round, glittering on her dining room carpet. She saw Agatha, bending down to pick it up.
Suddenly she felt ill, and the feeling had nothing to do with her injured ankle.
“Agatha—”
“Yes.” Miss Montgomery nodded, as if satisfied that Caroline had understood. “It was Randolph’s watch fob. If you remember, I told you I would return it to him, after he dropped it”—she looked around with a vaguely baffled expression, as if she had only just realized where she was—“at your dinner.”
Caroline swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat did not go away. Earlier that night
, she had thought she was being pursued by the Bower killer. Had she been?
“When the police realize what it is,” Miss Montgomery went on, “they will trace it to him. He will say he lost it, of course. As he did.”
“Agatha—”
Suddenly Miss Montgomery’s face convulsed into a rictus of hate. “I didn’t know,” she gasped.
“Know what, Agatha?” Caroline’s voice sounded odd in her ears, tinny and faint.
“That he planned to marry that woman in New York. He never told me. If it hadn’t been mentioned the other night, I might not know about it even now.”
“Agatha, about his watch fob—did you give it back to him?”
“That is what I will tell the police.” Miss Montgomery nodded again, as if she had settled something in her mind. “Not that I had it, but that he told me he’d lost it and then that he found it again.”
“But—”
“The only person who knows I had it is you, Caroline.”
Caroline tried to speak, but for a moment her voice wouldn’t come. She tried again. “You did return it to him?”
“No.”
The word hung in the air between them, echoing over and over again: Nonono.
At the rectory, the tall, bulky form of the reverend Randolph Montgomery came into the third floor room, followed by a female.
“What the—” Montgomery’s hand went to his coat pocket as if he reached for a weapon, but no weapon was forthcoming. Instead, he called: “Who’s there? Who is it?”
“Good evening, Reverend,” Ames replied with what MacKenzie thought was admirable calm. He reached up and turned on the gas in the lamps over the mantel. In the sudden, harsh illumination, MacKenzie saw that the female who had accompanied the reverend was young, tastelessly overdressed, and certainly no lady.
For a moment Montgomery did not reply; he stared, openmouthed, as if Ames were an apparition.
Then: “What the devil—Ames?”
“I am afraid so, Reverend.”
“But—what are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“I hired a cracksman.”
The reverend had gone pale, but now a flush mounted to his cheeks, and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. MacKenzie remembered his previous burst of temper—his sudden, alarming loss of control.
Montgomery took the female by the arm and shoved her toward the door. “Get downstairs,” he said brusquely.
With a frightened whimper, she obeyed. He shut the door behind her.
“Now,” he said heavily, turning back to Ames. “Explain yourself, if you can.”
Ames waited for a moment, as if he were trying to gauge the extent of the reverend’s anger.
“Another girl from the Bower has been murdered,” he began.
The reverend started at that; he blinked several times and ran his tongue over his lips.
“You didn’t know?” Ames asked.
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What do you mean, you don’t believe me? Why should I know that?”
“Because I believe you killed her.”
Montgomery did not reply at once. His mouth opened and shut, his eyes darted back and forth as if he sought escape—and yet he stood still, rooted to the spot. As if, MacKenzie thought, all his strength had been suddenly drained away, rendering him immobile.
Then at last he said, “You have taken leave of your senses, Ames.”
“I think not. I am merely trying to prevent a miscarriage of justice. The police have arrested one of your candidates in the case—”
“My candidate?”
“Yes. The Irish lad, Garrett O’Reilly.”
“Well, then, the case is settled, is it not?”
“Hardly.” Ames put out a warning hand. “Before you say anything more, Reverend, I should tell you that the police found an incriminating piece of evidence on the girl who died tonight. They believe that it was a religious medal of some kind, but I told them they were wrong. It was a gold coin of the Hellenistic period, a very fine Medusa head.”
Montgomery seemed to crumple. He remained standing, but he visibly withered, as if he had had some devastating emotional blow.
“That was your coin, Reverend, was it not?” Ames said quietly.
Montgomery put out his hand, still in its glove, and like a blind man feeling his way, moved into the room until he came to a tall-backed, brocade Queen Anne chair. For a moment, he gripped its back; then he came around and, with a groan, lowered himself onto the seat. He sat slumped, one hand covering his eyes. Ames shot a glance at MacKenzie as if to say, Be ready in case he begins to rage again.
But the reverend did not rage. He sat for a moment more, the picture of miserable dejection; then slowly, deliberately, he began to remove his gloves. They were very fine gloves, MacKenzie noted: soft black kid, looking brand new. He thought of the account book with its record of generous donations, and his mouth twisted in revulsion. Did Agatha Montgomery know of her brother’s thievery? Did she know and yet allow him to cheat her so that on the meager funds that remained after he’d taken his lion’s share, she could continue to pursue her life’s work?
“Brandy,” said the reverend hoarsely. “In the cupboard.”
Ames nodded to MacKenzie, who went to the sideboard, where he found a half-full bottle of Courvoisier. Pour for one or for all of us? he wondered. All of us, definitely. This night is only just beginning, and we all have a long way to go.
He gave snifters to Ames and the reverend and took his own. His knee was acting up very badly, and he wondered if Ames would mind if he sat. Easing himself onto a chair across from the reverend, he glanced at Ames, but Ames paid him no mind. All his attention was on Montgomery, who, now that he had taken a few restorative sips, seemed more like himself.
“A Medusa head,” he said to Ames.
“Yes.”
The reverend fiddled at his coat buttons and drew back the garment’s edges to reveal his watch chain stretched across his middle. “I had such a coin on this chain,” he said slowly.
“I know you did. I saw it.”
“But at some point in the last few days, I lost it.”
Ames regarded him, disbelief plain on his face.
“Damn you!” The reverend had regained his strength, and now he set down his glass and leaned forward in his chair, glaring at Ames. “Yes—I lost it. It dropped off, I don’t know where. I looked all over this place, I looked in the church, and at Agatha’s. Finally, I decided it must have fallen off in the street, and I gave up trying to find it.”
“Or possibly you lost it when Peg Corcoran was trying to fend you off,” Ames said.
“No!” thundered the reverend, in full-throated voice once more. “God damn you for the meddling, interfering bounder that you are, Ames!”
Meddling and interfering, possibly, thought MacKenzie, but bounder? No.
“What are you trying to do, man?” the reverend demanded. “Destroy me? Why?”
Ames glanced toward the bookcase. “Not that, Reverend, but I am trying to save an innocent lad from the gallows. I came here tonight—yes, we broke in, I admit it, and you are free to report me to the authorities—to look for evidence against you in the death of the Bower’s girls. As I was examining this room, I came upon a set of account books that record the sums you have collected for the Bower. More, I might add, than is shown in the book for the same year in the Bower’s office.”
The reverend gave a short laugh. “The books here will be destroyed this night, Ames, and where will you find your proof then?”
“By interrogating every person in the city who has ever given a penny to you,” Ames said. “And I promise you, Reverend, I will do that if I must.”
“A lengthy task,” the reverend replied. “You will be lucky to finish—”
“Before you hang,” Ames said flatly.
Only a faint tremor around Montgomery’s eyes betrayed any reaction to this. “Before I hang?” he replied
. “Before I hang? Ye gods, man, you most certainly have taken leave of your senses! You come here and accuse me—”
“There is blood on the wallpaper downstairs,” Ames said. “And the floor tiles have been freshly scrubbed—but not enough. You missed a place next to the wainscoting.”
A sound like a low growl came from the reverend. MacKenzie set down his glass and prepared to rise, ready to spring to Ames’s aid when Montgomery exploded.
But Montgomery did not explode. He sat tensed in his chair, that eerie, inhuman sound issuing from his throat, staring at Ames as if by his mere look, he could cause Ames to disappear.
“You seduced Mary,” Ames said.
The growling grew louder.
“And, having come upon a rich widow willing to marry you, you could not afford to have Mary inconveniently in the way,” Ames went on.
“No!” And now the reverend did explode. He sprang to his feet and faced Ames for a moment, glaring at him. Then with an oath he whirled, as if he were about to run down the stairs. But they could not lead him to safety, not while Ames lived.
He began to pace. Like an animal, MacKenzie thought: growling, every nerve alive with tension, ready to spring, ready to attack …
At last he came to a stop in front of the fireplace and put his hand on the mantel as if to steady himself.
“This is the hardest thing I have ever done,” he said. His tone had changed once more, as if, now, he were speaking to himself.
He paused, shaking his head as he peered at Ames. “She betrayed me,” he said.
“Who did? Mary? Under the circumstances—”
“No, no. Not Mary. Agatha.”
Through the heavy draperies they heard the bell in the church next door begin to toll the hour: eight o’clock.
Ames waited until the tolling stopped. Then: “How did she do that, Reverend?”
“She knew Mary was pregnant. She was unable to deal with that fact. Apparently, Mary not only told Agatha about her condition, she named me as the man responsible.”
“And were you?”
MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER Page 27
