Chapter 17 #2
At the end of her rope, Mrs. Holcroft snaps, “You may also get ahold of yourself, Miss Burgess. As Nutting said, we are not fooled. Your illicit liaison with him is well known to me and Mrs. Braithwaite and no doubt many others. Neither one of you is as clever as you think, which is all to say this performance has grown tedious. I do detest a long, drawn-out affair. We are here to see the shawl Nutting gave you because it has been implicated in our steward’s murder.
If you will just get the shawl in question, it will prove that Nutting speaks the truth and is not involved.
Now please show it to the company so that we may be on our way. ”
These revelations have little effect on Miss Burgess, who remains as tranquil as ever.
“I am sorry to hear that, ma’am, because I really did believe we were discreet.
I am ashamed that my moral deficiencies have brought me so low as to expose me to this scene and even more ashamed that they have exposed you to it.
But even from my place of deep personal shame, I cannot get a shawl I do not have. Nutting never gave me an orange scarf.”
“Shawl,” I correct.
It is a habit.
Mr. Nutting persists in identifying it wrong.
And then I realize it is a slip.
Miss Burgess—wonderful, perfect, poised Miss Burgess—blundered.
“It is a shawl,” I say again, more forcefully this time as I shuffle forward in my seat. “Mr. Nutting calls it an orange scarf because he does not know the difference, but it is a shawl in Russian flame, and he did give it to you.”
“Ha!” Mr. Nutting cries triumphantly.
Miss Burgess glares hotly at me before turning her heated stare on her lover as she leaps to her feet.
“You are trying to send me to the gallows because you do not want to buy that little cottage in Marston Bend. I am sorry that you may have to sell some of your wife’s silver to cover the expense, but a promise is a promise! ”
“I promised you nothing!” he shouts, his cheeks turning purple again. “I might have grunted at an inopportune time, but I defy any court in the land to hold that an inarticulate rumble is a binding agreement.”
“Any court in the land, you say?” she replies with a jeer. “I am happy to hire a solicitor and bring that suit, which is why you are trying to tie me to this murder. You would rather an innocent woman hang than be publicly humiliated!”
Mr. Nutting waves his hand lavishly in the air, gesturing to the company surrounding him, and says, “Publicly humiliated? Publicly humiliated? What would you call this horrifying calamity if not public humiliation?”
Before Miss Burgess can propose her own name for the event, Mr. Holcroft declares that it would be better for all parties present if the two warring factions’ dispute was resolved privately among them.
Mama concurs, adding that the exchange is unseemly.
“Here, here,” Sebastian says approvingly.
Is he currying favor with my mother?
I think so, which is lovely and sweet.
The fastest way to Vera Hyde-Clare’s heart is to display primness and prudence.
But he is also expressing sincere discomfort.
We are all cringing in embarrassment for the unhappy pair.
“Miss Burgess, it is as my mother said,” Sebastian continues.
“We are trying to establish the chain of possession for the shawl that killed Keast. If you have the shawl Nutting gave you, then the trail ends here, and we will have to explore another line of inquiry. That is all. So if you would just present us with the garment in question, we will get out of your hair and leave you to your evening. We have no wish to inconvenience you longer than necessary.”
A tranquil smile spreads across Miss Burgess’s face as she regains her previous composure, and she lowers herself into the chair with the elegance of a society hostess serving tea to a duchess. “I do not have it.”
“Ha!” Mr. Nutting shouts in glee as the room erupts in noise, with Mr. Holcroft crowing over the wickedness of women and Chester calling his hostess a ruthless killer.
Over the din, Miss Burgess pleads her innocence, citing a robbery over and over until she is forced to scream to be heard. “It was stolen!”
“A likely story,” Mr. Nutting says with a chuckle.
She swears it is true. “On my honor, it was stolen by one of the servants—the housekeeper, I think. Her eyes turned as wide as saucers when she caught sight of it the first time. She recognized its value at a glance, as did I,” she says, then casts a bitter eye on Nutting.
“A fine one you are, telling me you cannot afford a cottage when you buy fripperies like that! I could pay a year’s salary for a housekeeper who does not steal from me, from just the silk alone, never mind the care of the stitching and design. ”
Unimpressed, Mr. Nutting points to his mistress and says, “There is your murderess, Miss Hyde-Clare. If my not having the shawl proved my guilt, then it doubly proves hers because I never denied it. As an innocent man, I readily admitted to having it in my possession. I trust you will pursue her guilt with the same assiduousness with which you pursued mine.”
Naturally, I will.
“Miss Burgess, may we see a sample of your handwriting?” I ask.
She greets this query with alacrity. “That is right! The letters from the killer, Eternally Devoted! They will prove I had nothing to do with it, for their handwriting will not match mine. An excellent suggestion, Miss Hyde-Clare. Thank you!” she says, dashing from the room and returning less than a minute later with a notebook clasped in her hand.
She passes it to me without a hint of concern. “There you go.”
Having made the comparison almost a dozen times today, I am extremely familiar with the penmanship in question and feel a disquieting tremor take hold as soon as I turn to the opening page.
The capital D.
It has the same elaborate swirl, the winding flourish to the left of the letter.
My heartbeat kicks up.
One letter is not proof, and without assessing them side by side, I do not even know if it is the same elaborate swirl.
Maybe it is a different elaborate swirl.
I hand Sebastian the book as I pull the letter out of my pocket and unfold it to reveal the salutation: “Dearest beloved.”
And there is the curlicue.
Are they indistinguishable?
Not quite.
Miss Burgess’s is a little looser and more flowing.
Even so, they are extremely similar, and the difference could be easily attributed to a hand trying to vary its familiar patterns.
But that is just one letter, so I look at the next and the next and the next.
They are all so alike, not conclusively identical but close enough that I can admit only the narrowest vein of doubt.
“Well?” Miss Burgess asks with an air of anticipation.
She expects to be exonerated, which I find unnerving.
Even knowing her tactic is to play a weak hand with conviction, I am disquieted by her cavalier impatience because it makes me doubt the obvious conclusion.
That is the point of her performance, I suppose.
Hesitantly, I show the two samples to Sebastian to ascertain his opinion, which she recognizes as an inauspicious sign.
“Why are you giving them to Mr. Holcroft?” she asks, her voice growing shrill with alarm. “You do not need someone else’s opinion. It should be as plain as day. It cannot be anything but plain as day, because I did not write the letters. I am not Eternally Devoted.”
Sebastian murmurs noncommittally, which increases her apprehension, and she swirls around the room, seemingly with no purpose, and then lands on Mr. Nutting.
“Tell her I did not read the book,” she says imploringly.
“The wretched gothic that Miss Hyde-Clare said inspired the letters. Tell her I did not read the book. You recommended it highly and gave me a copy, and it sat around the vicarage for weeks, and I told you that I read it because I did not want to hurt your feelings, but then you asked all sorts of questions about the plot and I had to admit that I did not read a word because I loathe gothics, which I had told you repeatedly, but you kept insisting this one was different.”
“Did I recommend it?” Mr. Nutting says coolly. “I do not recall.”
Overcome with frustration, she shrieks wildly before calling him a sniveling cur and alighting on Mrs. Holcroft, from whom she begs corroboration.
“You know it is true, because we discussed it. I mentioned that a friend had given me the book with the highest recommendation, but I could not bring myself to open it because I find gothics silly, and you told me I was right not to bother because you had opened it and found it the silliest bit of nonsense you had encountered in an age. You read only a few chapters and stopped. You remember that conversation, don’t you, Mrs. Holcroft? Please say you remember.”
“I do remember,” Mrs. Holcroft says soothingly.
But she looks at me with troubled eyes.
She knows the disavowal is a slight thing compared to the handwriting.
We all do.
If that is the whole of her defense, she will surely hang.
With almost pathetic gratefulness, Miss Burgess thanks the other woman for her recollection, then says with frantic repetition, “What else, what else, what else? A motive! A murder must have a motive, and there is none that can be ascribed to me. I did not wish Mr. Keast harm. I have no reason to! He was nothing to me. I rarely encountered him. What is my motive? For me to be the killer, I must have a motive. And I have none!”
“You were no more fond of his land policies than I,” Mr. Nutting says.
Miss Burgess swivels around again to face him.