Chapter 18: : Chapter 17

Damp, musty air, heavy with the weight of rock and earth, fluttered the flame of her lamp. She peered into the shadowy expanse revealed by the granite panel. Another passageway stretched before them, narrower than the main passage. ‘Did you know about this?’ she asked Charles.

He shook his head, dragged one of the crates over, and wedged it against the open panel. Without speaking, they started down the passage.

Charles had to stoop his head beneath the low ceiling. The linen of Mélanie’s shirtsleeves snagged against the rough rock as she brushed past. The path twisted, labyrinth-like. At last it widened into another cave, though this one seemed to have been carved out of the rock by human agency rather than nature.

Charles lifted his lamp and swung it round in an arc. The light fell not on granite but on age-darkened wood. A door with iron hinges, set into the rock. Instead of a conventional keyhole the lock was in the shape of a rose, with overlapping iron petals and the lock itself at the heart of the flower. Charles reached into his pocket and drew out his set of picklocks.

It took longer than usual, but after several minutes of jiggling and listening for the click of tumblers, the door swung inward. The light of their lamps spilled over the delicate blue and gold of an Aubusson carpet and the pale blur of furniture under Holland covers. Dark, gaping archways opened onto further rooms beyond. The carpet was spread over a dirt floor, but the walls appeared to have been hung with paper. Mélanie lifted her lamp, as did Charles, and realized the walls weren’t papered, they were painted. With a series of floor-to-ceiling murals, depicting characters from Shakespearean plays, though no production Mélanie had ever seen featured the scenes displayed here.

Hamlet—he seemed to be Hamlet judging by the black clothing and clichéd wild-eyed stare—was ravishing a golden-haired, white-clad Ophelia against a stone wall in a bizarre perversion of the ‘get thee to a nunnery’ scene. Gertrude disported with Claudius, Polonius, and a third man who was probably supposed to be old King Hamlet, though whether he was a ghost or in the flesh remained unclear. Romeo and Juliet were twined together in a position that appeared to defy the laws of physics. Desdemona and Othello were making the beast with two backs while Iago observed them from behind a tapestry. A black-veiled Olivia was enjoying the ministrations of an identical pair in blue doublets who must be Viola and Sebastian.

Mélanie stood still, breath caught at the sheer audacity of it, skin flushed with reluctant heat. Crude, blatant, yet undeniably arousing.

She drew a breath. As the initial assault of the pictures wore off, her other senses returned. The air wasn’t as musty as in the passage. She could smell the acrid tang of recently extinguished candles, the sour bite of wine, and a pungent, smoky scent that was unmistakable in its implications.

Charles must have smelled it at the same moment she did. He strode across the room and through the nearest archway. Mélanie followed. The archway gave on to a smaller room. A carved four-poster bed took up most of the chamber, a fairy-tale creation of white and gold and gauzy hangings. Two half-empty wine goblets stood on a table beside the bed. Charles jerked back the rumpled bedclothes. The smell wafted through the air. The sheets beneath were still damp.

He cast a glance at Mélanie, then looked round the room.

It, too, was painted with murals. These depicted the four lovers from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in every possible combination. Titania’s court were engaged in an orgy in a mural on the ceiling. The theme was echoed by the nude nymphs twining themselves round the table legs and the gilded bedposts. Something else gold glinted at each of the four corners of the bed. Finely wrought handcuffs and leg irons.

Charles saw the cuffs and irons a fraction of a second after she did. She felt his start of surprise. Sometimes she forgot that in many ways her husband was far more innocent than she was herself. Memories of her own past rushed through her, twisting her insides, making her skin crawl.

‘Search,’ Charles said. ‘Everywhere.’

They combed the room inch by inch, but it yielded no telltale strands of hair or conveniently dropped earrings. No taste of laudanum lingered in the wine goblets. The other rooms opening off the main room were decorated with variations on Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. More beds, a chaise longue, a hamper of fancy dress—with a great many low-cut bodices and codpieces and all manner of swords and daggers—and a collection of birch rods.

But nothing to identify the couple who had made love in the first room only hours before.

They returned to the main room without speaking. Charles lifted a corner of the Holland cover on the object in the center of the room. The lamplight gleamed off the polished wood of a table. The other Holland-covered objects proved to be a set of chairs upholstered in a tapestry that echoed the theme of the murals and a marble-topped Boulle sideboard with gilt comedy and tragedy masks on the doors. The interior was filled with crystal glasses etched with more erotic scenes and bottles of whisky, brandy, claret, and port. Behind them, Mélanie found a smaller brown glass bottle filled with a clear liquid. She unstopped it and sniffed. ‘Charles.’

He was shining his lamp beneath the chairs. Mélanie walked over to him, holding out the bottle. ‘Laudanum.’

Charles stared down at the bottle. The light of his lamp lit the hard planes and angles of his face from below. His eyes glittered with a rage that had snapped free of the last shred of control. He crossed to the door in two strides.

She caught him by the arm.

He jerked away, but she tightened her grip. ‘Darling, listen. This doesn’t prove anything.’

‘The bed. The sheets. The laudanum. Jesus, Mel, why do I even have to state the obvious.’ He turned to the door.

She grabbed him by both shoulders. ‘You want to storm into your father’s room and confront him, but what then? He’ll deny Miss Talbot was ever in this part of the house, he may deny he was here himself, and he’ll almost certainly deny he killed her. And he may be telling the truth.’

‘Damn it, Mélanie, the pieces are all here—’

‘You think your father brought Miss Talbot down here, shackled her to the bed, drugged her with laudanum, and raped her.’

He looked at her with a gaze night black with fury. ‘You saw what I saw.’

‘And then he cleaned her up, carried her to his own bedchamber, and strangled her.’

‘He could have strangled her here. Probably during the act.’

‘With the bellpull from his own bedchamber, which he happened to have brought with him? If he killed her here, it’s even more bizarre that he carried her to his own bedchamber and then conveniently screamed to wake us up. And don’t tell me it’s some devious plot to deflect suspicion, because it certainly isn’t working.’

‘Except on you.’ His gaze moved over her face. His shoulders were taut as a bowstring beneath her hands. ‘I admit you have a point. Especially about not having proof to confront him with. But someone had intercourse in that bed.’

‘Miss Talbot could have been here with a different man, who killed her and put her in your father’s room.’

‘Perhaps. Though as you pointed out, the killer would have had to know Father wasn’t in his room. And if Father was in the library all evening as he said, he’d have seen them using the passage.’

‘A number of people may have made love in this house last night. You and I did.’ Mélanie looked up at her husband and lover. Carnal images pressed in on them from all sides. The smell of stale sex drifted through the room. She felt Charles’s physical recoil from the thought that what had taken place in these rooms was at all akin to what they had taken from each other only a few hours ago. Yet didn’t the give-and-take of lovemaking often come down to an attempt to hold darkness at bay, whatever the circumstances? When he pressed her into the mattress and sucked at her flesh, had he been worshipping his wife’s body or trying to blot out the memory of his last talk with Honoria Talbot? When she wrapped her legs about him and dug her nails into his skin, had she been seeking communion or freedom from thought?

‘Suppose your father wasn’t reading in the library,’ she said. ‘Suppose he had an assignation in these rooms with one of the maids? He returned to his bedchamber to find Miss Talbot dead in his bed.’

Charles drew a breath, sharp as a dagger thrust. ‘That fits the facts, I’ll grant you. But I still don’t see how the hell the killer could have known Father would be away from his room. Unless the killer was in collusion with the woman with whom Father had the assignation.’

Mélanie stared at the paintings, looking for clues beyond the obvious. The characters were costumed in Elizabethan dress, but the full style of the women’s hair and the way their brows were plucked and their cheeks rouged had a more recent appearance. ‘I’d judge these were painted about thirty years ago.’

‘Yes, I’m quite sure these rooms are Father’s creation,’ Charles said in that light voice that she found so frightening. ‘I didn’t think he even liked Shakespeare. I won’t forgive him if I have these images running through my mind the next time we go to the theater.’

Mélanie glanced from Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius to Hamlet and Ophelia. ‘Several of these pictures are set at Elsinore.’

‘But leaving aside that it’s difficult to connect these rooms to Le Faucon de Maulévrier and an organization of Bonapartist officers, there’s no sign of the Elsinore League seal. Not even on the lock. Instead we get the rather heavy-handed rose symbolism.’

‘No. But if Cyril Talbot is or was Le Faucon, perhaps these rooms gave him the inspiration for the Elsinore League’s name.’

‘Perhaps. That’s as logical an explanation of the name as we’ve found so far.’

It seemed bizarre and yet somehow normal to be matter-of-factly discussing murder motives in a lamplit love nest with her husband, who was probably two steps away from a breakdown. ‘Charles—we don’t know where Tommy Belmont’s been since we saw him at McGann’s cottage this afternoon. Could he have been the man in the library, the man you chased into the passage?’

Charles grimaced. ‘It’s possible. I didn’t see or hear enough to know with any certainty.’

‘Was Tommy in Lisbon when Miss Talbot visited six years ago?’

This time Charles looked at her for a moment before he replied. ‘Yes.’

‘Did they see much of each other?’

His gaze moved over the paintings beyond her shoulder. ‘They danced together. They flirted, the way Tommy flirted with every pretty girl in Lisbon. I saw no evidence of anything else. But even if there had been something between them, that wouldn’t explain whom Tommy might have been meeting in the library. I’m quite sure the intruder was waiting for a man.’

‘He could have had a rendezvous with one of the servants to ask questions about Mr. McGann.’

‘So he could.’

‘Should we try to find him?’

Charles shook his head. ‘Tommy’s devilishly hard to find when he doesn’t want to be found, and the more he has to hide, the more our looking for him will put him on the defensive. Time enough to question him at our meeting tonight.’ He stepped back, breaking her grip on his shoulders. Control had returned to his face, but his gaze still gleamed with danger. ‘First we have to see how everyone reacts to the news of Honoria’s death.’

The Gold Saloon was already full when Mélanie entered it shortly after seven. She had gone to the nursery to visit the children, leaving it to Charles and Lady Frances to gather up the guests. Aspasia Newland, who had once been governess to Honoria Talbot and Evie Mortimer and was now governess to Lady Frances’s daughter Chloe, accompanied Mélanie to the Gold Saloon.

Sunlight, battling the morning mist, spilled through the windows, gleamed against the polished floorboards, brightened the gold silk wall hangings and the gilded moldings. Save for the early hour, it could have been any morning gathering of the house party. The company seemed curious about the reason they had been called together but not unduly alarmed. They probably assumed it had something to do with the disturbance outside that Mélanie had mentioned when she knocked on their doors in the middle of the night.

Miss Mortimer was passing round cups of coffee. Lord Valentine was sprawled on one of the gold silk settees that flanked the fireplace, his arm stretched along the back, brushing Gisèle’s shoulder. Gisèle was turned toward him, eyes bright with laughter at something he had said. Glenister, Kenneth, Lady Frances, and Charles stood talking by the windows. Charles was managing to look quite his usual self, if one ignored the tension in the set of his mouth. From this angle, Mélanie couldn’t see into his eyes.

It seemed insane that any of the company gathered in this white-and-gold room, talking and drinking coffee, had drugged Honoria Talbot with laudanum and strangled her. But was it any more incredible than the general who could sip Darjeeling from a silver tea service the morning after he had ordered the sack of a village? Civilization, Mélanie had learned firsthand, was a thin veneer, broken as easily as one could scratch the surface of a Sheraton writing table with a hat pin.

Miss Newland slipped into a chair in a corner of the room. Mélanie went to join David and Simon, who were standing not far from the door, beneath a Canaletto landscape. David smiled at her, though his eyes were dark with everything that had happened and everything he feared was to come.

Simon squeezed her hand. ‘I’m afraid I’m beastly in situations where a clever remark would be tasteless.’

David glanced at Miss Newland. ‘It was a good idea to ask her to join us. Are the children all right?’

‘Blissfully unaware that anything’s gone wrong. For once I have cause to be grateful that the nursery is so isolated from the rest of the house.’

As she spoke, the door opened and Lord Quentin slipped into the room. As usual, he could not have presented a greater contrast to his brother. Lord Valentine was the image of the fashionable young gallant—tasseled Hessians, elaborately tied cravat, artfully tousled golden hair. Lord Quentin had made only a token attempt to tie his neckcloth, and his dark hair was disordered not from effort but from the lack of it. His coat was rumpled, his shirt looked as though he had slept in it, and he hadn’t bothered to shave. He dropped into a chair near the door and then winced, as though the movement hurt his head. Miss Mortimer brought him a cup of coffee, eyes filled with affectionate reproof.

Glenister and Kenneth exchanged glances and moved to stand before the white marble Adam fireplace with its Venus and Jupiter andirons. David joined them.

Kenneth spoke first. All signs of his shock of last night were gone, save for the drawn cast to his features. He had shaved and dressed with his usual impeccable understatement.

‘My apologies for gathering you all together so early. I’m afraid I have sad—tragic news to impart.’ His voice was firm and resonant. He was, after all, a successful banister and a Member of Parliament. Charles might not share his father’s politics, but his skill as a speaker was a legacy from Kenneth.

Kenneth’s gaze swept the company. ‘In the early hours of the morning, I entered my bedchamber to find Honoria lying in my bed, strangled to death.’

The room went silent, the sort of silence that might follow a cannon blast in the midst of a ball.

Lord Valentine pushed himself to his feet. His cup tumbled from his fingers and thudded to the floor, spattering coffee on his biscuit-colored pantaloons. ‘My God. Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘We did,’ Glenister said. ‘Just now.’

‘David knew last night. If he hadn’t he’d look more surprised.’ Lord Valentine glared at David. ‘She was just as much our cousin as his.’

‘They told me because I’m acting as one of her guardians,’ David said.

‘But—’

‘For God’s sake, Val,’ Lord Quentin said. ‘She’s dead.’ He was staring at a patch of sunlight on the Turkey rug, as though he were looking into hell. Miss Mortimer, who was perched on the arm of his chair, put her arms round him and leaned her head against his shoulder. She was shaking.

Gisèle gave a high-pitched cry somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Charles moved toward his sister, then checked himself as Lady Frances went to her.

Lord Valentine transferred his gaze from his father to Kenneth. ‘I knew it was madness for Honoria to marry you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What the devil was she doing in your room?’

‘Valentine.’ Glenister’s voice had the snap of a whip.

‘By God, sir, we have the right to know. Honoria was practically our sister.’

‘Certainly you have the right to know,’ Kenneth said in a voice as cool as carved ice. ‘I haven’t the least idea what Honoria was doing in my bedchamber. I’d like to know myself.’

Lord Valentine’s chin jutted out. ‘She can’t have gone there willingly.’

Gisèle lifted her head from Lady Frances’s shoulder. ‘We never can do anything like a normal family.’ She looked at her father. ‘Honoria didn’t even survive to the wedding. At least Mama was married to you for twenty years.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gisèle,’ Kenneth said.

‘Ridiculous?’ Gisèle’s voice cracked on the word. ‘You can’t deny your women have a short life expectancy, Papa. Perhaps I should have warned Honoria—’ She gave another laugh that teetered on the edge of hysteria.

Lady Frances slapped her across the cheek. Gisèle drew a sharp breath. ‘Is that how you dealt with Mama, Aunt Frances?’

Miss Mortimer looked at Glenister. ‘Uncle Frederick? What happens now?’

Glenister exchanged a look with Kenneth and David, and then explained their arrangement with Charles about investigating the murder.

Lord Valentine’s face darkened as his father spoke. ‘You mean we have to answer any questions Charles chooses to ask us?’

‘Better him than the bailie,’ Lord Quentin said. ‘Or Bow Street.’ He scraped a hand through his untidy hair. ‘Surely what we need to do is find this intruder who was in the library last night.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Charles said, and went on to explain about the laudanum and the implications of the intruder waiting for someone in the library an hour or more after the murder.

Miss Mortimer was frowning in silent concentration. ‘One of us killed her.’ She gripped her hands together in her lap. ‘That’s what you’re saving, isn’t it?’

The ugly truth no one had yet dared voice hung in the air. Disbelief reverberated against the silk-hung walls and echoed off the gilded ceiling. ‘It’s beastly,’ Miss Mortimer said, ‘but there’s no sense pretending otherwise.’

Lord Quentin shot a look at her. ‘I suppose we could try to pin it on the servants. That’s customary in the circumstances. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

David cleared his throat. ‘I’m sure Charles will want to talk to all of us individually. I need hardly say that it’s in all our interests to cooperate with him. The sooner we learn the truth, the better for all of us.’

‘Except the killer,’ Lord Quentin said.

‘Quite,’ said David.

Simon leaned against the wall beside Mélanie, watching David with a concern that for once he didn’t take the trouble to mask. He must, Mélanie realized, be as worried about the strain on David as she was about the strain on Charles. Then, too, whenever David stepped into his official role, as now, Simon was forced to remain in the background. They had to maintain a fiction that they were just friends who shared lodgings, though they were closer than half the married couples Mélanie knew. Closer, by far, than she and Charles.

‘The intruder was in the library waiting for someone,’ Charles said. ‘Presumably someone in the house. It may have had nothing to do with Honoria’s death. If so, the simplest thing would be to explain now.’

No one volunteered such an explanation.

‘Did anyone hear anything last night?’ Charles asked. ‘Or see anything?’

‘Other than Mrs. Fraser knocking on our doors with a story about an outside disturbance?’ Lord Valentine said. ‘No.’

Miss Mortimer pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Honoria came into my room to talk about dresses for tomorrow—today, that is.’ A spasm of realization crossed her face. ‘That was the last time I saw her.’

‘Do you remember what time that was?’ Charles asked, his voice gentle.

Miss Mortimer frowned. ‘I suppose—it was a quarter past midnight when she left the room. I heard the clock in the corridor striking when she opened the door.’

‘Did anyone see her after that?’ Charles asked.

Silence reverberated through the room once again.

‘Do any of you know if Honoria was in the habit of taking laudanum?’ Charles asked.

‘Laudanum?’ Lord Quentin stared at him. ‘I shouldn’t think so. She was a confounded heavy sleeper.’

A crossfire of surprised looks darted his way.

‘As a child, I mean,’ Lord Quentin said. ‘I remember having the devil of a hard time waking her from naps on picnics.’

‘Val?’ Charles said. ‘Evie?’

‘Good God, I don’t know.’ Lord Valentine took a restless turn about the room. ‘I expect Quen’s right. He has a better memory than I do.’

Miss Mortimer drew a breath. She looked as though she was using every ounce of willpower to concentrate rather than burst into tears. ‘It’s true Honoria was a heavy sleeper, especially when she was younger.’ She hesitated, her dark brows drawn together.

‘But?’ Charles said.

Miss Mortimer looked up at him. ‘She’d been complaining of restlessness in the last few months. She never told me she was taking laudanum, but—I suppose it is possible,. Oh, dear. All I’ve done is muddle things more.’

‘The truth is frequently a muddle,’ Charles said. He turned to Honoria’s former governess. ‘Miss Newland? Do you know if Honoria ever took laudanum?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’ Her voice was level, though her numb eyes gave the lie to her composure. ‘But I left Lord Glenister’s employ five years ago. I can’t speak to Honoria’s habits in recent years.’

Lord Quentin pushed himself to his feet. ‘Can we see Honoria?’

‘Of course,’ Charles said.

‘Good God.’ Glenister stared at his son. ‘You can’t have any idea—’

‘She was strangled. I don’t see how it could be anything but horrific. She’s my cousin. I want to see her.’

Miss Mortimer stood beside him. ‘So do I.’

‘For God’s sake, Evelyn—’ Glenister said.

Miss Mortimer lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. ‘I’m not a baby, Uncle Frederick. I haven’t been for a long time.’

Charles exchanged a look with Mélanie. She nodded and felt in the pocket of her gown for her vinaigrette. She, Charles, the Talbot brothers, and Miss Mortimer went upstairs. Outside the door of Kenneth’s bedchamber Charles turned to Miss Talbot’s cousins. ‘She’s been dead for several hours. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a dead body, but with time—the appearance changes.’

Miss Mortimer looked up at him and forced a smile to her lips. ‘It’s all right, Charles. If I don’t see, I expect my nightmares would be worse.’

But when they filed into the room, Miss Mortimer gave a sharp cry. Lord Quentin put his arm round her and she pressed her face into his shoulder. Lord Valentine cast one look at the bed, then spun away, crossed to the washstand, and vomited into the basin.

Mélanie took a step toward him. Lord Valentine waved her away. He stood gripping the dresser, gaze fixed on the wall.

Miss Mortimer lifted her head from Lord Quentin’s shoulder and looked again at her dead cousin. ‘I don’t think I really believed it until now.’ She looked at Charles. ‘You were right. I’m glad I saw.’ She drew a deep breath, walked over to Lord Valentine, and put her arm round him. Lord Valentine pulled her to him in an awkward, brotherly hug.

Lord Quentin looked down at Honoria for a long, silent interval. ‘Fraser,’ he said at last.

‘Yes?’ Charles said.

Lord Quentin turned his head and fixed Charles with a hard stare. ‘Can you find the bastard who did this?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Charles said.

‘Good.’ Lord Quentin stared back at his murdered cousin. ‘And then you can leave it to me to finish him off.’