Evidence of Evil (Murder in Moonlight #2)

Chapter Twelve

D etermined to find out something concrete before Solomon returned, Constance took an early breakfast and set off to call on Dr. Laing.

“Dr. Laing’s at his breakfast, ma’am,” the doctors’ housekeeper told her at the door, “and Dr. Murray’s out on calls. Beg your pardon, but are you sick?”

“No, you might call it more of a social call,” Constance said.

“One moment,” the housekeeper said with a sniff of disapproval. She vanished into a room opposite the consulting room where Constance had met Dr. Laing before, and a moment later returned and asked her to follow.

Constance was shown into a tiny dining room, where Dr. Laing rose from his chair and invited her to sit and have a cup of tea.

“I have a few minutes before my next appointment. Murray’s doing the visits today, since I was up most of the night with a difficult birth.”

“I hope the outcome was happy for all concerned.”

“Mother and child doing well so far,” he said, resuming his seat after she took her own. The housekeeper put another cup and saucer on the table, and he poured Constance some tea while the housekeeper sniffed again and departed. “Toast?”

“No, thank you. I breakfasted before I left The Willows.”

“What can I do for you this morning?” he asked civilly.

“I am still inquiring into the matter of Miss Niall’s death.”

A frown flickered on his brow. “Really, I can’t help thinking you should leave such matters to the policemen. Or even to your husband, who is, I understand, up in London.”

“He should be back today. But two brains are better than one, doctor, and three better yet. Which is why I want you to tell me about poisons.”

“Poisons?” he said, startled. “We found no trace of poison in Miss Niall’s stomach.”

“But they don’t all leave a trace, do they? I’m thinking particularly of plants like foxglove or monkshood.”

“There is no point in speculating, Mrs. Grey,” he said impatiently. “We will never know, never have proof if they leave no trace—and the poor lady is already buried, in any case. And then there is the matter of how she could possibly have swallowed such poison. Arsenic tastes of nothing, but we tested for that. Most plant poisons taste bitter, and she would certainly have noticed it in her food or drink. Then again, no one in her household was taken ill either.”

Constance placed her cup carefully back in its saucer. “In your opinion, doctor, is there any chance she might have taken it herself?”

His eyes widened. “Deliberately?” For a moment, she could see him thinking about it, considering it, and then discarding it. “I would not go down that road, Mrs. Grey. Her family has suffered enough.”

“I would never bring it up,” Constance assured him, “unless it was a genuine possibility and they were about to hang an innocent woman. Look, doctor, I never knew Miss Niall, but I have spoken now to many people who did, and it seems to me she was a troubled soul, constantly looking for something she never found. In your opinion, was it possible she killed herself? Was she that unhappy?”

Dr. Laing pushed his plate aside and grasped his teacup with both hands. “You are right, I think, that she was a troubled lady, in search of something. But that something was not death. Miss Niall was a lady of great spirit, a fighter. She would never give in to such despair. She would find another way.”

“Then we are left with sudden heart failure for no obvious reason—unless you can think of another way someone might have killed her without leaving any sign?”

“I can’t, or I would have said so at the inquest.”

He was very downright, but then, she was questioning his professional judgment.

“Of course you would,” she murmured.

Perhaps he heard the sigh in her voice, for he said more gently, “Take heart, Mrs. Grey. The truth may be obscure, but there is assuredly no evidence against Lady Maule. I believe even the Scotland Yard detectives are about to give up and return to London.”

“Leaving Colonel Niall free to say whatever he likes.”

“Give him time, ma’am. It is not yet a fortnight since he lost his daughter.” He reached for the last piece of toast, almost apologetically.

“Just to change the subject,” she said as he took a bite, “where do lovers meet in this neighborhood?”

He stilled for an instant, either in surprise or distaste or both. “You are asking the wrong man. I may be a bachelor, but I have no time for dalliance. Neither has Dr. Murray. A young doctor in his position has to be very careful of his reputation.”

“And in these parts, I expect everyone is your patient. At least potentially.”

“That is the way I regard it, and I have advised Murray accordingly.”

“I’m sure the advice is sound, and I wasn’t really expecting you to answer from experience, just from hearsay. Every neighborhood has its lovers’ lane or trysting oak.”

“There, you have the advantage of me. There is an old oak where couples carve their initials, but it is rather public for trysts!”

“Oh well, I shall ask around.” She took a last sip of tea and rose to her feet. He stood at once too. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your valuable free time, and thank you for your help.”

In fact, she realized as she took her leave, her last question had been foolish. Frances would not have trysted where other couples might have seen her. But Constance could hardly have blatantly asked about disused cottages with closed shutters or abandoned shepherd’s huts far from prying eyes. She had already outraged the poor doctor enough for one day.

It was at Laing’s garden gate she suddenly remembered Worcester’s words about Frances’s assignations.

“Sometimes she went out in the afternoon and didn’t come home until morning. Other times, she was gone a bare half-hour…”

Which surely meant at least some of her trysts were a less-than-fifteen-minute walk from the Grange. Allowing for no more than a quick kiss and perhaps an exchange of love letters, none of which Constance and Solomon had found in her rooms. Perhaps John had had better luck.

She turned right along the road leading to Fairfield Grange.

Frances had been pulled out of the lake wearing a nightgown her maid recognized but had not seen for some weeks, so her trysting place was somewhere she could keep such personal items, somewhere undercover where she and her lover could spend hours alone together.

On impulse, instead of going up to the gates of the Grange, Constance took a less-trodden path on the left that led between fields and toward a wooded area. She had not gone far, however, before a horseman skirted the woods and trotted along the path in her direction. He raised his hand in greeting, and she saw that it was John Niall.

She found she was relieved. She did not really want to go up to the house, which felt so unhappy and tense. Nor did she wish to run into Colonel Niall, whom she remembered as all grief and spite. Compared to those, John was a breath of fresh air.

“Good morning, Mr. Niall,” she said cheerfully as he trotted up to her, removing his hat. “I hope you don’t mind my trespassing.”

“Not in the slightest. In fact, I was on my way to The Willows, now that I’ve stretched old General’s legs a bit.” He replaced his hat and patted his horse’s neck. “Shall we walk down?”

“Why not?” It would be quicker to ask John than blunder about without knowing where she was going.

He dismounted and walked beside her, leading his willing horse by the reins.

Constance cast around in her mind for a way to ask what she needed to know without insulting his late sister.

Eventually, she said bluntly, “I’m looking for a love nest.”

Inevitably he looked startled and then alarmed, with just a hint of hope. “You are?” he said, and sat just a little straighter in the saddle.

“Following a certain path of inquiry,” she said. Was that disappointment in his eyes? Oh dear … “I have reason to believe certain local lovers met in some otherwise unused building, probably on your land. A semiderelict place, perhaps, an old barn, or shepherd’s hut, or woodsman’s cottage? My hope is these lovers might have seen something that would help us, only I need to find where they met to be sure.”

It was a thin story, and she was fairly sure he would see through it. He rubbed his gloved hand over his chin, perhaps trying to give himself time for thought. “I can’t really help you there. All our buildings are in use. Apart from an abandoned shepherd’s hut over the hill there.” He pointed with his whip into the distance.

“How long would it take you to walk to this hut?”

“Oh, at least two hours, unless the ground was muddy, in which case it would be three. Listen, I had a look through Frances’s notebook, and the other things in her desk.”

“Did you find anything interesting?” Disappointed at the apparent lack of love nests, she allowed herself to be distracted.

“The notebook initials could conform to the names of friends, neighbors, and servants,” he said uncomfortably. “And beside them, I think, were reminders of what she either had discovered about them or suspected. In order to pressure them into obedience if she needed to.”

“Like Bingham. And Worcester.”

“Precisely. The thing is…I don’t think they’re important.”

She stared at him, wondering if he had become as morally bankrupt as his troubled sister. “You don’t?”

“No.” He sighed. “My sister remembered the truly important things. The notebook was probably merely future planning for unforeseen eventualities.”

“She’d used some of them already.”

He said nothing, though she could almost feel his misery.

“Did you uncover anything else that might help us?” she asked.

“Not really. I found no love letters, nothing mentioning the gift of the bracelet you were interested in. But as I say, Frances kept the truly important things to herself.”

“Why?” Constance asked. “Did her servants—or even your father—keep close watch on her?”

“I suspect they might have when she was younger,” he said, twitching his shoulder. “When she came home, my father appeared to trust her more. But old habits die hard.”

And Frances’s habits, it seemed, had merely been driven under cover.

“Did you ever fear your sister was suicidal?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“Not even over, for example, Sir Humphrey’s marriage to someone else?”

“Frances wasn’t the type to give up. On anything.”

Did that include Sir Humphrey?

John drew in his breath. “Everyone else seems to be ignoring the fact that my sister was found dead in her nightgown. You don’t believe she came home at all that night, do you? Despite finding that she could get in and out of the house without being seen. Despite the fact that anyone else could, including yourself and your husband. And you don’t believe she sleepwalked. That is why you are looking for this love nest .”

“Could anyone sleepwalk out of a window? Besides, her maid had not seen that particular nightgown in weeks. Your sister could have hidden it with the other things in that bottom drawer. I just can’t think why she would.”

“Neither can I,” John admitted. “But there is another possibility. Whoever killed her dressed her in the nightgown just to tarnish her reputation.”

“We thought of that. But if that was the purpose, why not leave her naked?”

John’s mouth twisted. “Decency seems a ridiculous answer.”

“It does,” she agreed, a nagging thought resolving in her mind, “but it might well be right.” In fact, she wished Solomon was back so that she could discuss it with him. She needed to know what he had discovered in London.

“Well, I suppose I have no need to go on to The Willows now,” John said. “I seem to have told you everything I meant to.”

Though not necessarily everything he knew? “I’m sure Sir Humphrey and Lady Maule would be glad to see you,” she said.

His expression was uncertain, making him look even younger than his years. “Do you think so? I wondered if I would be unwelcome, considering my father’s accusations…”

“Sir Humphrey called on you,” she reminded him. “And frankly, a friendly call from you might well mitigate the nastier rumors.”

He seemed much struck by this and said little more until they reached the house. A stable lad ambled down to take John’s horse.

“You go in,” Constance said. “I have something else I want to do first.”

She felt his gaze on her back as she strode off toward the lake path. It was several seconds before she heard the crunch of his feet in the gravel as he headed to the front door. Constance hurried on.

She had a sudden urge to see the lake again, to approach it as Frances’s killer must have done.

A strong man could have carried her body from the house. But the wheelbarrow tracks had come from the other path, the one that led to the road connecting the village to The Willows and to Fairfield Grange. She prowled several yards along each path before returning to the lake, until she could almost imagine herself inert in the wobbling, bumping barrow, or clutched in a man’s arms, her nightgown trailing in the mud.

She stopped at the place Frances had probably gone into the water, imagined herself sinking beneath the lilies. Had the murderer stayed to watch, or just bolted as quickly as he could? Had he loved her as well as hated her enough to kill? She had been the kind of woman who could arouse all sorts of powerful and contradictory emotions—even in Constance, who had never met her.

“Where did you die?” she murmured.

Wherever, she had been brought here, to this spot, and tipped from the wheelbarrow into the lake…

Behind her, in the trees, leaves rustled, a twig cracked, and she shivered, feeling the hairs on her neck prickle. It suddenly felt as if Frances were with her, as though the dead woman’s spirit sensed she sought the truth.

Her family didn’t. They wanted it covered up even if it meant blaming an innocent person. No one had understood her in life, and they refused to look too closely at her death. Even the police were obstructed by everyone’s misguided pride or loyalty.

“A clue, Frances,” Constance whispered. “Whom did you really love?”

Humphrey …

It was all that made sense. Frances had been good in India, remaining true to him, and yet he had married another. Surely only hurt would have made her behave as she did to Elizabeth, seeking out her secrets, and to Humphrey, who had betrayed her. And she never gave up.

Constance stared into the lake at her own reflection, unwilling to think of him as the killer. Had they trysted here at the house? Beneath Elizabeth’s nose?

She could not imagine it. But someone had tipped Frances’s dead body in here…

Slowly, she bent, picked up a loose stone, and dropped it into the water with a splash—a tiny splash, surely, compared that made by a body. The ripples from the stone disturbed the water, distorting her reflection—until, with a sudden lurch of her stomach, she saw another figure reflected behind her.

She tried to spin around, but her foot slipped and hands pushed her hard. She skidded down the bank, grasping desperately for the dry earth that crumbled in her fingers. Water tugged at her skirts, soaked her feet, but it wasn’t the lake she feared. It was whoever had pushed her.

Floundering, she finally found a hold on the tree root poking above the ground and hauled herself back up the bank. She even rolled, as if that could have saved her from continued attack, and opened her mouth to scream for help.

But there was no one there.

Stumbling to her feet, she turned quickly, searching all around her. Trees rustled as a breeze blew through the leaves.

Someone is in there. The killer just tried to kill me, and I could not even see his face .

Her heart thundered, spreading chilled blood through her veins. Frustration warred with utter fear. She been so close to the killer. She had seen his face in the water, maddeningly distorted in the ripples, but it was a man, for he’d worn a tall hat…

He was still there, hidden among the trees and bushes. And she was still in danger.

Yet she had to know.

She took a step toward the place she had last seen him. A footstep sounded behind her, and she whirled around to face a man strolling out from the trees nearest the house.

*

Dr. Murray’s final call of the morning was on old Sarah Phelps. Not that she had summoned him, but he had heard her coughing rather worryingly in her yard yesterday evening and thought he should look in on her. Without charge, of course, for he doubted she could pay. He wouldn’t tell Laing, unless the cough was serious, for the senior doctor had already dismissed his concern.

“Sarah Phelps is as tough as old boots, and whenever she is ill, she sends for me.”

Of course, Laing had the odd mean streak, especially if he was not the one being noble about it.

People around here liked Laing, though, even if Murray thought he was the better doctor.

Walking up from the village past The Willows, he thought of Frances Niall with an intense blend of longing and regret. Wild and beautiful and inclined to spite, she had been like no one else he had ever met. He had yearned for her, but she had never looked at him, damn her, only at…

On impulse, he turned onto the path that led to the lake. He hadn’t gone far before he realized he was not the only person on those grounds. Curious, he stepped off the path and made his way through the trees instead, until he saw her.

Mrs. Grey stood very still, gazing into the lake as though it could offer up some precious treasure. Like the truth. Another beautiful, over-curious woman. For an instant, with the sunshine glinting off her golden-and-strawberry-blonde hair, she dazzled him. He suspected she dazzled most men.

If I were her husband, I would not leave her behind when I went to the city … A woman like that could make or break the career of an ambitious man. He wondered, vaguely, how ambitious Grey was, then hastily stepped back in case she looked up and saw him.

Impulse overcame him again, and he moved carefully closer.

*

It took Constance an instant to see through her own startled terror and recognize the man she had seen only yesterday.

“Mr. Darby,” she said faintly. Relief overcame fear, if only for an instant, for if Darby had pushed her, if Darby was the murderer, then Sir Humphrey could not be guilty. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Should she scream for help anyway? Should she bolt for the house?

“We have an assignation,” Darby drawled, all but swaggering toward her. His gaze, amused and lustful, was all over her. “Though it looks as if you have not waited. Mrs. Grey, have you been rolling in the hay—or indeed the earth—without me?”

“I beg your pardon?” she said frostily, while her brain tried to adjust. He was implying his pursuit was merely amorous, and now that she could think again, she was sure someone else was moving among the trees close by. Reluctant to take her eyes off Darby for long, she cast a hasty glance toward the sound, but saw no one.

“My dear Mrs. Grey, you are wet and filthy, and your hat is almost off your head. Allow me to—”

As he reached for her, she stepped smartly aside and straightened her own hat.

“I slipped into the water and had to pull myself out.”

“How awful! I wish I had been here earlier.”

“Weren’t you?” she said, holding his gaze.

His eyes widened with an expression of confusion. It looked genuine. “What do you mean?”

“Did you really not…see me falling in?”

“Of course I did not,” he said, sounding shocked. “Else I should have pulled you out. You must have got a terrible fright.”

Dare she believe in his sincerity? “At least you are in time to escort me to the house,” she said, setting off with rapid steps.

“Wait!” He caught her arm, forcing her to halt, for his grip was strong if not overtly threatening. “I like an eager woman, but are you sure the house is currently unoccupied?”

She blinked. “Of course it is occupied. By our host and hostess and at least one other caller, to say nothing of the servants.”

“Then let us stay here. The day is not cold and I find the risk of discovery, even by the odd yokel, adds a delicious fillip to such encounters.”

“I need to change my dress,” she said, pretending to misunderstand him. Most of her attention was still on the trees nearby. Was somebody else still there? Or had it only ever been Darby? She met his gaze once more.

Either he was very good at pretending lust or he had not just tried to push her in the lake. She suspected he was a little perverse in his tastes, but surely trying to drown someone was not much of a seduction technique?

But she had looked at him too intensely and too long, and inevitably he drew the wrong conclusion.

“There’s a little boathouse at the end of the lake,” he said huskily, running his fingers down her arm to close them around her hand. “Let me take you there. Any distress to your raiment is then easily explained by your almost falling in the water…”

She jerked her hand free. “Mr. Darby, you clearly have the wrong idea! I am a respectable, married lady and my husband is expected back imminently.” How many lies were there in that claim?

His arms closed around her. “You would be surprised how many respectable ladies are eager to enjoy me. I promise you delight, my lovely one.”

Constance stamped mercilessly on his instep. “And I promise you pain.”

He emitted a muffled howl, surprised into releasing her, but even as she spun away, he grabbed her once more, and now his expression was ugly and his grasp designed to hurt.

“There is a word for women like you. You can’t entice me all the way over here and give me nothing in return. To the boathouse with you. I’ll have what I came for one way or another.”

It was a long time since she had allowed a man like him so close. The inevitable panic swamped her, but even so, the instincts that had preserved her more than once already had her twisting and lifting her knee. Before it could connect, another voice spoke, cracking through the tense air like a whip.

“And what exactly did you come for?”

Solomon.