Chapter Twenty-one
“I MANAGED TO sneak into his bedchamber without any trouble,” Byron was saying. They were walking on the path back to Jane’s house, where they were going to have breakfast, for Byron claimed to be famished, and Jane felt she’d worked up an appetite being desperately frightened.
“I see,” said Jane. “Just walked in.”
“Basically, yes. The tavern was open. I knew my way to the upper floors where the rooms are and we had walked about up there before, so I remembered where his room was. I went in and I searched and found it straightaway. Then I did something stupid.”
“Which was?” said Jane.
“I decided to confront him with it,” said Byron.
“Oh,” said Jane.
“He snatched the glass from me and dashed it on the ground. It shattered into little, tiny pieces, and he said, ‘I didn’t concoct it. I didn’t. I swear.’
“And I said, ‘What do you mean? Someone else gave you that glass of laudanum?’
“And he said, ‘Yes, it was meant to be a sleeping draught.’
“And I said, ‘I didn’t think you were there that night.’”
Jane interrupted. “Oh, yes! I had forgotten! He was with Mrs. Blethens. So, then, how did he manage it?”
“Right, well, he’s mad,” said Byron. “Because, what he said was, ‘I wasn’t!’”
Jane furrowed her brow.
Byron spread his hands. “Yes, exactly. So, anyway, here is what happened next. He got out a knife.”
“What?” said Jane.
“Oh, yes, and he put it here.” Byron gestured to his temple.
“Monstrous!”
“He said that no one would believe me if I told anyone he had done this. He said that maybe if you had been here, it would have been different, but that me, all alone, that I was not the most trustworthy source. He said that I drank too much and that I could have just imagined everything. He said that I was going to drink liquor until I passed out. That when I awoke, I could say anything I liked, but he would simply deny it. And then he handed me a bottle.”
Jane was all astonishment. “And you drank it?”
“He had a knife to my temple, madam!”
“Yes, but he was indicating that he wanted you to drink, so he might not have harmed you. Actually, it is odd. If he is so well-versed in murder, why not simply kill you?”
“Why indeed?” repeated Byron. “That’s all very confusing, is it not?”
“Well, whatever the case, he is wrong. You shall be believed. Here is what we are going to do. We are going back to my house, have some breakfast, and then we are going to write a letter directly to the magistrate, and he will come and start an inquest, I think, because he must start one, after all, and there will be a trial!”
Byron considered. “Yes, I suppose there’s no reason to think that it’s anyone else besides Hardy at this point.”
“None at all.”
“It’s only that it doesn’t make sense,” said Byron.
“WELL,” SAID MRS. Austen at the breakfast table, “I don’t think you can simply allow that man to be running around free while you wait for the magistrate.”
Byron was buttering his third piece of toast. “No?”
“No!” said Mrs. Austen. “He assaulted you and kept you prisoner, my lord. That demands immediate action.”
“Right, well, if I were the sort of lord who had loyal, erm, anyone, I could maybe snap my fingers and order some vassals or what-have-you to come and take him off my keep and throw him in my dungeons—”
“No, be serious for a moment,” said Cassandra. “He is a murderer. He is dangerous. Something must be done. We need to go to Mr. Eves.”
“It’s only,” said Jane, “that this is exactly what Mr. Eves would want.”
“Yes,” said Byron, pointing at her. “Isn’t it, though?”
“What are you saying?” said Mrs. Austen.
“We know that Mr. Eves dislikes the existence of the tavern in town,” said Jane. “He would like the thing sold and turned into some other sort of establishment entirely.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Austen, “well, probably so there is less competition for his inn.”
“Well, probably,” said Jane. “The fact remains that he was happy when Mr. Seward was going to sell it. But now that Mr. Hardy and Mr. Seward may be reaching an arrangement between the two of them and the tavern will continue on just as it always has, that must anger Mr. Eves.”
“You think he planted the cup of laudanum in Mr. Hardy’s room?” said Cassandra, horrified.
“Hmm,” said Jane, eyeing Byron.
He continued buttering his toast, eyeing Jane back. “Hmm.”
“No,” said Jane. “That’s ludicrous. He wouldn’t get a man framed for murder simply to stop the tavern from being there. Would he?”
“What bothers me,” said Byron, “is that we still don’t know anything about that ladder.”
“Yes, that bothers me as well,” said Jane. “Who moved that ladder over there and why?”
“Yes, and if it was so secretive,” said Byron, “why leave it there for us to find the next day?”
“It’s a ridiculous way to have a secret lover’s tryst,” said Jane.
“It really is,” said Byron. “It had to have been up there for some other reason.”
“Oh, and why were you climbing it?” said Jane.
“You had to bring that up,” muttered Byron.
“I’m only saying that there are a number of loose ends,” said Jane.
“Even if Mr. Hardy did not commit the murder,” said Mrs. Austen, “he needs to be punished for what he did to you last night, Lord Byron.”
Byron considered. “Perhaps. And, as I was saying, if I were the sort to have vassals or lackeys or—”
“I’m not saying you challenge him to a duel or something—”
“Me? Duel?” Byron gestured at himself with his toast. “I have a clubbed foot.”
Everyone stared at him, blinking.
“And anyway,” said Byron, “dueling is illegal.”
“Yes, obviously,” continued Mrs. Austen, “so that is why I am not suggesting it. But something must be done about the way he treated you.”
Byron sighed.
“He likely is the murderer, though, Mama,” said Cassandra. “So, that is why, when we write to the magistrate, everything will be taken care of.”
“I think we should go back to the Welling household,” said Byron.
“Yes,” said Jane. “Just to try to get to the bottom of this. If we’re writing to the magistrate, we must have an accurate picture of what happened, after all.”
“So, you go and get yourself captured and badly treated, and you go and put yourself in danger rescuing him,” said Cassandra, pointing first at Byron and then at Jane, “and now, it’s all just happening again, is it? You’re back to delving into all this?”
Jane looked down into her plate, bowing her head. She did not look at Byron. “I did say I would stop all this.”
“Yes, you were very firm,” said Byron, nodding at her. “But I have to say that you said all this before I was taken captive and badly abused—”
“Well, that can’t be a reason for Jane to accompany you now!” exclaimed Cassandra.
“He said he wouldn’t have done it if Miss Jane had been there,” rejoined Byron. “So, for my own safety, truly, I think we must go together and speak to Mr. Welling. I cannot go on my own, not without you. It would be too dangerous.”
“You are appalling,” said Cassandra, shaking her head at him, but there wasn’t truly much rancor in her voice.
“I know,” said Byron. “I do keep trying to be less appalling, I really do, but I never seem to manage it.”
“THE LADDER?” SAID Mr. Welling. “Yes, I did realize it was my ladder that next day.”
Byron and Jane were in Mr. Welling’s sitting room, clutching cups of tea. It was midmorning, far too early for callers, and Mr. Welling was not pleased about it. His wife was not even dressed, her hair still in rags for curling, sitting up at a desk in her dressing gown going through letters.
They knew this because Mrs. Welling’s voice carried down the stairs when she cried, “Heavens, visitors at this hour, and me with my hair still in curling rags and in my dressing gown going through letters. You’ll have to speak to them, Ronald!”
Mr. Welling was not seated. He was standing behind a couch, leaning over it, holding onto the back.
“And the only reason I saw that ladder was because I was going to the tavern to see Miss Seward’s body, which had been laid out, and it only makes sense for us to go this way.
” He gestured to the back of his house. “There’s a little through-way with a gate that means we end out on the main street.
Otherwise, we’d go out the front and have to walk all the way round, which is blocks and blocks.
Much faster to cut through that way. But that way, you see, the back of the tavern is on display there, and Miss Seward’s window, and there was my ladder. ”
“Right,” said Byron. “And so, you didn’t put it there.”
“Goodness no,” said Mr. Welling. “In all truth, as I’m sure you’re aware, I personally do not place ladders anywhere. I would direct my staff to do such a thing.”
“And in this case? Did one of your staff place the ladder?” said Jane.
“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Welling, pushing off the back of the couch and beginning to pace behind it.
“But if so, none of them would admit it to me. They all played dumb. I asked, then, if the shed door had been left unlocked, if someone could have come in and taken the ladder themselves, and they all said it was possible, they didn’t know. ”
“Right, a random person takes your ladder and climbs up into Miss Seward’s window,” said Byron.
“I don’t think it’s that,” said Mr. Welling. “Here’s what I think. I think whoever put that ladder up there thought they’d be around to get it taken down and wasn’t. So, my feeling is that it was Miss Seward herself who ordered the ladder be put there.”
Byron furrowed his brow.
Jane lifted her chin. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“Only insomuch that Miss Seward is giving orders to your servants,” said Byron.
“Well, it wouldn’t have to have been mine. It could have been her own. Apparently, the shed was unlocked.” Mr. Welling gestured above his head. “Anyway, after we saw the ladder, that night, I had my boys go up and get it and put it back in the shed. So, I have it back now.”
“Would Miss Seward not have her own ladder?” said Jane.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Welling. “The truth is, though I know we own a ladder, it’s not something I spend much time thinking about. No one comes to me and asks if they can borrow the ladder, you see.”
“Right, who would they come to?” said Byron. “Your butler, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Welling.
“Well, could we speak to him, then?”
Mr. Welling shrugged at them both. “I suppose. But if he knew this, you’d think he would have told me, do you not?”
“Yes,” said Jane. “In that case, you’d best let us go and seek him out instead of calling him here to speak to us now. If he is worried about some kind of retaliation from you, he won’t be honest.”
“If he’s done something that requires me to retaliate against him, I wish to know what it was,” said Mr. Welling.
“Oh, well,” said Byron, “if he has, we’ll be sure to tell you.”
“NOW, YOU NEEDN’T worry,” Byron was saying to the butler at the Welling house, Mr. Yarbreath, “I have told Mr. Welling I would report if you’d done something wrong, but I swear I shan’t tell him a word.
You can be quite reassured that we shall not say anything and nothing bad will come from whatever you confess to us. ”
They were downstairs, near the kitchen, just outside the butler’s pantry, and the butler himself was gazing at them both with very round eyes.
Jane thought that Byron shouldn’t go about promising things that he could not deliver. After all, what if the butler were the murderer? Something bad, indeed, would come of his telling them that.
“I am all off balance, I must say,” said the butler. “What is this regarding?”
“This is regarding the ladder that belonged to this household and that was propped up against Miss Seward’s window. Would you have been the person to get permission from to use the ladder?”
“Certainly not. I would leave such sundries to the gardener.”
“The gardener,” said Lord Byron. “All right. Well, then, I suppose we need to speak to him, then.”
“Pardon me,” said the butler, “but who are you?”