Chapter Eight
S kulking behind the large oak tree, whose branches spread as closely as she remembered to the first back window of Frances’s rooms, Constance gazed up at the second-floor windows. Like the rest of the house, they were all in darkness. Since Solomon had doused the lantern, they were relying on the moonlight, which, fortunately, was quite bright.
The country had a different quality of silence to the city—deeper, at once eerier and less dangerous. It was only harmless animals that rustled through the undergrowth, only owls and other nightbirds breaking it with their cries, not drunks or thieves or victims.
Constance brought her lips close to Solomon’s ear. “I’ll climb up and let you in the back door,” she breathed.
He cast her a disparaging look and at the same time swung himself up into the tree branches, deft, sure-footed, and as graceful as ever. A man of many surprises, was Solomon. But then, he’d been brought up in the country. No doubt he and his brother had run as wild as any.
Constance’s climbing skills had been learned in the city and had more to do with buildings, drainpipes, and pursuit by police. At least she was used to climbing in skirts. For tonight, she wore a darker, much simpler gown that had no need of crinoline.
She waited until he had climbed up to the next branch, and then moved when he did to avoid the tree shaking constantly. It was a simple climb, almost as though the branches had been trained in the right direction. And when they came to the window, there was a simple step from the branch to the window ledge, one needing only the well-worn foothold in the wall for balance.
Given how easy it was to reach, the window was probably locked, in which case they would have to climb all the way down again and try to pick the lock to the side door. Constance had been better at picking pockets than locks, but she might manage it…
Above her, she heard the faintest rattling as Solomon drew up the sash. She smiled into the darkness and watched his shadowy figure vanish. Then, as she climbed up to the final branch and shuffled along, he reached out of the window to catch her. She wanted to fume that she was perfectly capable, but they could not afford the noise, And, in fact, stepping onto the window ledge, she didn’t actually mind the extra security of his strong hands at her waist, assisting her to sit astride the sill and duck through.
He closed the window most of the way behind him and softly drew the curtains back into place.
Constance looked around her, found the shape of a large bed, and located a candle, which she lit from the flint in her pocket. It took longer than she would have liked, and the noise sounded bizarrely loud in the silent house. But eventually, by its flaring glow, she saw that the bed had been stripped of all but its curtains, the matching coverlet neatly folded on the thick feather mattress. There was nothing on the table except an oil lamp. Frustratingly, it looked as if the room had been stripped already.
Still, Constance moved toward the nightstand, which had a drawer.
It was empty. Solomon glided past her to the bare dressing table. On it stood only an almost-empty perfume bottle and silver-backed hairbrushes. He slid open the drawer and found a jewel case, and Constance brought over the candle for a closer look.
Frances had possessed a lot of jewelry—diamonds, rubies, turquoises, and stunning lapis lazuli. Some of it was very intricate and Eastern in appearance, so it had probably been made in India. But there seemed to be no false bottom in the case, no betraying notes or accounts beneath the jewelry or in the otherwise empty drawer.
As one, they moved through to the dressing room and began a long, thorough search among the dead woman’s many clothes. Constance felt behind drawers and furniture for anything a secretive woman might have hidden, but again they found nothing.
They moved through to her private sitting room, though Constance had begun to doubt the point. If she were right in her conjectures, Frances had been too wily to leave physical proof. In fact, Constance was feeling guiltily wrong . After all, Frances Niall was the victim of murder . Was it really right to blame her like this, just because of some nasty things she had said to Elizabeth and Sir Humphrey? After all, from her point of view at least, Maule had betrayed her.
At that point, Constance only kept looking because they were already here.
Like the dressing room, Frances’s sitting room appeared to have been left exactly as it was before she died. The furniture had been dusted and polished, the floors kept clean, almost like a shrine. But when Constance opened the first drawer of the surprisingly substantial desk, it was stuffed with papers. As if her family could not bring themselves to go through them. To go through her private things, like giving away her clothes, would be to acknowledge that she was gone from their lives altogether.
Swallowing hard, Constance glanced over her shoulder at Solomon, who was drawing a bottle from the pretty cabinet cupboard. He unstopped it and sniffed.
“Brandy,” he whispered. “Half full.”
So, the woman had liked a tipple. Unladylike, but hardly a crime.
While Solomon felt beneath the chairs and squeezed the cushions for signs of hidden items, Constance began to rummage in the drawer. There were bills for rather staggering amounts of money from dressmakers. Colonel Niall must have been both wealthy and generous. A small notebook had pages of initials and, beside each, what looked like reminder words or vague instructions.
CB– last position, law
PW – father, fear
There were pages of them, and there was no time to read them all. Would anyone notice if Constance took it with her? She set it on the desk while she rummaged beneath. The letters seemed to have been stuffed in anyhow. Some appeared to be from family and friends, with certain parts ringed or marked in some way, probably by Frances herself.
“Look,” Solomon murmured.
In the bottom drawer of the desk, he had found some rather racy sketches and books. But he had drawn them out to reveal what was behind. In the candlelight, a small treasure trove sparkled. Rings and bracelets, small crystal perfume bottles, cameos, small items both valuable and otherwise.
Jewelry she did not wear? Or things she hid from her family? Did she just not like them? Or had she stolen them?
Meeting Solomon’s gaze, Constance raised her brows, then returned to the letters.
One seemed out of place, on print-headed paper, such as a business would use. There was no clue as to what kind of business, no professional description such as a physician or solicitor might use, just the name— L. Dunne —and a London address across the top.
Holding the letter nearer the candle, she scanned it, and her stomach dropped. Something to do with tracing a child who had been adopted.
“Sol?” she said hoarsely, and he rose to read it over her shoulder. “She found Elizabeth’s baby.”
“She found—”
He broke off abruptly, for the door to the passage had suddenly opened and a man walked into the room.
*
Solomon saw at once that it was John Niall. No doubt the young man was aware only of intruders and had acted on instinct, for he dropped his candle, which immediately went out, and sprinted across the floor to attack.
Solomon threw up his fists, ready to defend himself and Constance. “Go,” he growled at her, in the faint hope that she could somehow get out unrecognized, shin back down the tree, and flee to safety before John—or the crashing sounds of their inevitable fight—raised the alarm.
But he should have known better.
Before John even got close enough to take a swing, she stepped between them, holding a pretty little silver-mounted pistol in her elegant, gloved hand.
“Halt,” she said quietly.
John all but skidded into stillness, his wide eyes lifting from the pistol to her face. His tight lips sagged. “Mrs. Grey?”
“Forgive me, sir,” Constance said quietly, hiding the little pistol once more in whatever pocket she had taken it from. “I find it best to halt such unexpected situations before they get out of hand. I can see you are wondering what on earth we are doing in your late sister’s rooms.”
“I can imagine what you’re doing.” His gaze flickered to the window. “And how you got into the house to do it.”
“You have used the route yourself, perhaps?” Solomon said smoothly, his fists back at his sides but still poised to act if necessary. He changed position so that Constance was no longer between him and John.
“Myself?” John said. “No, I never had cause, to be honest. But I know how Frances got out and in again when she was a girl. What exactly are you looking for?”
“Anything,” Constance said, “that might give us a clue as to what happened to your sister.”
“You could have asked,” John said haughtily.
“And what would have been Colonel Niall’s response?” Solomon asked. “Or yours?”
John shrugged. “The same, no doubt. I have no intention of allowing any scandal to break over my sister’s head.”
“It has already broken. She was murdered. People will always assume, rightly or wrongly, that she and her family are to blame for that.” As Solomon and his father had been blamed in so many ways for David’s disappearance…
John ran his fingers through his hair in a somewhat harassed manner. “You are right, of course. But still, I have to look after my father as best I can.”
“And you think the best way to do that is to prevent him or anyone else from discovering the truth?”
“Some of it,” John said steadily. Dropping his gaze from Solomon’s, he regarded the open drawers of the desk. “So what have you discovered to our detriment?”
There was no sign of the letter about the baby from L. Dunne. Solomon suspected Constance had pocketed that when she took out the pistol. John’s eyes were fixed on the bottom drawer and the little pile of treasures.
“Why would she keep such things there?” Constance asked.
“Who knows?”
“Then you don’t?” Solomon said quickly. “Do you know where they came from?”
John shook his head.
“Did she steal them?” Constance asked.
The head shake was more violent this time. “I doubt it. I really don’t know, but I suspect they were gifts.”
“From whom?” Solomon asked. He didn’t want the answer to be Sir Humphrey .
“Various admirers, I imagine,” John said. “She liked gifts. She used to show me things she had been given, especially when I had received nothing.”
Solomon frowned. “Then these are from years ago? From before she went to India?”
“Some of them certainly are.” John went back and picked up his dropped candle, putting it back in its holder before he went to the desk and lit it from theirs. Crouching down, he poked with his free hand among the hidden gifts.
He picked out a silver bracelet with a single diamond set in the middle of the band. “I don’t remember this one.”
“Why would she hide gifts?” Constance asked. “It makes no sense if she liked people to know about them.”
John’s smile was crooked and not exactly loving. “Only those who would be upset by them. Look, I can see you’ve guessed that Frances was not exactly what she pretended to be. It’s the cross my father and I bear. Please don’t make us do so in public.”
“What was she like?” Solomon asked. “Truly?”
“Truly? She could be spiteful, manipulative, and God help you if you were her latest…target.”
“Was Lady Maule her latest target?” Constance asked. “Is that why your father is so convinced she is the killer?”
John hesitated, then nodded curtly. “I think so. It crossed my mind too, and I couldn’t altogether blame Lady Maule for turning on her. Only I can’t see how she did it.”
“I don’t believe she did,” Constance said. “She is too patient with people. Who else was a target of your sister’s spite?”
John groaned and sat down in the nearest chair before springing back up again as he realized Constance still stood. A very polite young man, considering they had broken into his house. “I don’t know. It wasn’t really until that dinner at The Willows, when Frances and Lady Maule argued, that I really paid attention. Until then, I thought she—Frances—had calmed down into the person she should always have been. I thought India had been good for her.”
“Why did your father take her off to India?” Solomon demanded. “Had he worked out that Maule would not marry her?”
“Probably,” John said tiredly. “But that’s something else I don’t really know. I was at school and then university. I only went to visit them in India for the last couple of months and then returned home with them.”
“What did you think?” Solomon asked. “At the time?”
Again, John dragged his fingers through his hair and tugged it. “I thought she had grown too wild for my father to handle here. I thought he hauled her off before she did something from which she would never recover, socially or morally. In India, she could be surrounded by strangers, servants, soldiers loyal to my father.”
“Guarded?” Constance said.
“I thought maybe something like that. But when I finally went there, I saw no signs of it. Papa and Frances seemed to be getting on much better together, and I never heard a whisper of scandal. It was almost too good to be true, but I believed she had settled down after a wild girlhood.”
She had been about twenty-two when she left for India. Which made her wild girlhood somewhat extended.
“Did she know Sir Humphrey was married before you returned to Fairfield?” Solomon asked.
“Yes. She didn’t seem to care. She had moved on in her mind and heart, I suppose. And she no longer seemed so cruel or spiteful.”
Constance pounced. “Cruel?”
Even in the dim candlelight, his flush was obvious. “Well, she could be,” he said uncomfortably. “When she was young.”
“Physically or emotionally?” Constance asked.
“Both. It was as if…”
“What?” Constance prompted him.
He raised his eyes to meet hers. “As though she really didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. Even though she had the same upbringing as I did, such matters didn’t seem to penetrate. Either that or she simply didn’t care.”
“What do you really think happened to her?” Solomon asked. “If you don’t truly believe Lady Maule somehow murdered her.”
John shrugged. “I could more easily imagine Maule himself doing it, in a fit of temper. Frances really could try the patience of a saint, and if she was up to her old tricks again… But there was no sign of anyone’s temper on her. I would think it really was a freak accident, if it wasn’t…”
“Wasn’t what?”
He grimaced. “Do people like Frances have such accidents? Just to make life more comfortable for those she left behind?”
Solomon’s skin pricked. There was a terrible admission in John’s words, a guilt that wasn’t necessarily over something as heinous as the murder of a sister.
“Who do you think gave her the bracelet?” Constance asked suddenly.
John blinked, turning to look at it again. “I don’t know. Her latest admirer, I suppose. Though I can’t imagine even the head groom affording that kind of trinket.”
“Groom?” Solomon repeated, startled.
John gestured disparagingly with one hand. “It was a mere flirtatious glance on her part, though the man played along. I didn’t mean it seriously.”
“Then who was her latest admirer?” Constance demanded.
“I really don’t know. I didn’t want to.” A spasm crossed his face. “Do you suppose such willful blindness led to her death?”
“I doubt it,” Constance said kindly. “But we need to see the whole truth before we can tell what is relevant and what is not. We shan’t divulge anything about your sister that we don’t have to in order to find the culprit. May we talk to her maid again?”
“I’ll send her over to The Willows in the morning.” John walked across to the window and deliberately shut and locked it. “I’ll show you out by the front door, shall I?”
“That would be helpful,” Constance said shamelessly, bestowing upon John one of her brilliant smiles, which caused the poor young man to blink in bemusement.
“Just one more question for now,” Solomon said without moving. “What brought you here to your sister’s room in the middle of the night?”
John’s lips twisted. “I’d finally plucked up the courage to do what you’ve just done. Look amongst her private things.”
“Then you have no idea what is here?”
“Not beyond those .” He pointed at the hidden jewelry. “Which she always kept there.”
“You might take a look at the notebook on top of the desk,” Constance suggested. “And tell us if it means anything to you?”
John swallowed. Solomon guessed he really didn’t want to look into his sister’s circumstances. But he would, whether to save the task from his father, or to prevent any further visits from Solomon and Constance. Or, worse, the police.
“I’ll look,” he said resignedly. “Though I don’t promise to understand it.”
*
Worcester, Colonel Niall’s butler, had not slept well for months. Not since the family had come home to the Grange. Not since she had.
As a result, he was in the kitchen in his dressing gown, making himself a cup of hot chocolate, when he heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening. His head jerked up. Abandoning his chocolate on the table, he flew up to the entrance hall in time to see the shadows of two people vanishing out the front door. Mr. John, fully dressed, closed it behind them with an air of relief before he began to walk toward the staircase and saw Worcester standing there.
“I heard the door, sir,” Worcester said. “Is everything well?”
“I’m not very sure, to be honest. Mr. and Mrs. Grey, from The Willows, are sniffing around for my sister’s secrets.”
Worcester felt sick.
Perhaps Mr. John saw it, even in the dim light of two candles, for he said, “You don’t know anything, do you, Worcester?”
“Such as what, sir?” Worcester managed.
“Anything that might shed some light on what happened to Miss Frances.”
“Nothing like that, sir,” Worcester lied. “I’m sure the inquest must have got it wrong, and the poor lady just fell into the lake.”
“In her nightgown?”
“It’s odd, sir,” Worcester said with what dignity he could muster. “There is no denying that it is odd. But I don’t believe all these questions are helping anyone.”
“They’re certainly not helping my father.” Mr. John went on toward the staircase. “Get some sleep, Worcester. You deserve it.”
Worcester did, and Mr. John was a kind young gentleman to suggest it. Unlike his sister, who, despite all the upheaval since, Worcester was glad to see in her grave. Rot in hell, you evil witch.
*
“I don’t think there’s any malice in John Niall,” Constance said as they walked back to The Willows. “And yet…I find him a more credible suspect than I did before.”
“Why?” Solomon asked.
“Because he knows what his sister was—amoral, spiteful, and cruel.”
“We know what he said she was. Perhaps he is just throwing the net wider to confuse us with suspects we might never meet.”
“You still don’t believe she was that bad?” Constance asked.
“We have very little proof either way. Only the word of Sir Humphrey and Lady Maule, and John, who might have his own reasons for deflecting us.”
“Because he is the one who killed her?”
“He told us about a lover, and a flirtation with a groom. I don’t think he likes Lady Maule being suspected, but he’s quite happy to throw others into the shadow of the hangman.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Constance mused. “I suppose he is only helpful when we force the issue. And, when you think about it, he took our breaking and entering his family home in a very understated way. He would have been quite justified in rousing the household and throwing us out. Especially when I pointed a pistol at him.”
“And yet he didn’t,” Solomon said. “I wonder why?”
“Protecting his father?” Constance suggested. She sighed. “Or himself. Have we actually learned anything at all?”
“We have a few more places to look,” Solomon said. “Which may have been his intention in talking to us.”