Chapter 22
THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER
Truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
—William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure
I was depressed that night, as I had not been since Edward’s death.
Mindful of Brisbane’s warning, I started every time Aquinas spoke to me.
I waved Henry off when he would have lit the fire in the study, and I dismissed Morag as soon as she had unlaced my corset, pleading a headache.
The only peace I had had the entire evening was the hour I spent with Simon, chatting and reading the newspapers.
But even that had been tinged with regret.
His face had grown thinner still, and his hands, when they held mine, were like twiggy bundles of bones under his skin.
I left him, feeling desperately sorry for myself.
When he passed and the Ghoul moved on, I would be alone in a mausoleum of a house with a staff I no longer trusted and a brother I never saw.
I heard an occasional quork from behind Val’s door, so I knew the raven was still in residence, but I did not have the heart to scold him.
I paced a good deal, and found it difficult to get to sleep, the more so because I now refused the little remedies that Morag was so proficient at concocting.
I took to reading, far into the night, until my eyes burned and the words swam on the page.
When I did finally sleep, my dreams were ragged and dark and I woke often, cursing Brisbane and wishing I had never found the threatening note in the drawer.
Even as I muttered the words, I knew I did not mean them.
However difficult, however impossible, I wanted the truth, even if it meant unmasking one of my own.
Yet I could not believe that an inhabitant of Grey House had harmed Edward, was capable of harming me.
I firmly believed that the danger had come from outside.
But how? I had tried to convince Brisbane that the house was frequented by guests and family, but he had been disinterested, preferring to focus his accusations upon my own staff. How could I possibly get him to direct his attentions outside Grey House, where the true perpetrator lay?
After a good deal of rumination, it came to me.
In order to force Brisbane to look outside Grey House, I had to prove to him that there was nothing of interest in it.
I would undertake to prove the innocence of my staff, and in doing so, I would eliminate my own people as potential villains.
Then Brisbane, seeing the error of his ways, would be properly abashed, apologize prettily, and we would pursue the true perpetrator.
I liked this plan very much. It was neat, tidy, and above all, it permitted me to score over Brisbane. The only trouble was devising a method of actually proving the innocence of my staff. There was only one means that came to mind, and I did not like it at all.
Unfortunately, Brisbane was quick to point it out to me when I saw him the following day.
“You will have to search Grey House,” Brisbane said flatly. He was watching me closely, waiting for my impassioned refusal. But I surprised him.
I sipped coolly at my tea. “Of course. I had already planned to do so.”
His expression was wary. He had not expected to find me so tractable.
And I had not expected to find him so much improved.
He was looking so much better, in fact, that if I had not seen him so ill with my own eyes I would never have known he had been unwell.
We were on the terrace of Madame de Bellefleur’s villa, taking tea while she busied herself inside, tactfully out of earshot, although neither Brisbane nor I had asked her to leave.
Her own natural delicacy dictated her withdrawal while we discussed business.
I was rather sorry to see her go. She had greeted me even more warmly than before, and I found myself very glad to see her.
“I am surprised that you are amenable to the suggestion, considering your earlier vehemence.”
I raised my brows lightly at him. “Was I vehement? I don’t recall.”
“You questioned my sanity,” he returned with a touch of asperity.
I smiled sweetly. “Yes, I do recall that. As a matter of fact, I do still think it a daft notion. However—” I put up my hand to stem his interruption.
“However, I am willing to concede the possibility that someone at Grey House was involved. I fear the only way to put that particular suspicion to rest is to establish without question the innocence of my staff. And the only way to accomplish that is to search their rooms.”
“All of Grey House,” he corrected.
I suppressed the little ripple of irritation I felt at his bossiness. He was still recovering, I reminded myself, and though his temper was vastly improved, he was still a trifle prickly.
“I do not see the purpose—” I began.
“The purpose would be clear if you applied your considerable intellect for even a moment,” he said coldly.
“If the perpetrator is an inmate of Grey House, he may share his quarters with someone else. That means that any evidence of his wrongdoing—poison, glue pots—would best be hidden in some neutral part of the house, someplace that would not implicate him if it were discovered.”
I sipped again at my tea, torn between my pleasure at the slightly peachy undertones of the Darjeeling and impatience at my own stupidity. Really, I was going to have to start thinking things through before I opened my mouth. I was going to have to start thinking like a criminal.
“That’s it,” I said suddenly.
“What is it?” Brisbane’s voice was weary and I wondered if his strength was beginning to flag.
“I do not know how to think like a criminal,” I said with some excitement. “If I knew how to think like one, I could probably unmask one.”
“It does help,” he returned dryly.
I tipped my head and regarded him from crisply shined boots to clean, waving hair. “You seem to have no difficulty with that. Have you a criminal past?” I asked, joking.
To my astonishment, he flushed. It was almost imperceptible, but I watched the edge of dull crimson creep over his features.
“What a perfectly stupid question,” he commented, his voice as controlled as ever. But in spite of the even tone, his colour was still high and I knew that I had struck a nerve.
“Your past is your own concern, of course,” I said lamely.
I had never been so socially inept as I managed to be with Brisbane.
How exactly did one extricate oneself from an apparently valid accusation of criminality against one’s investigative partner?
There were no rules for this in the little etiquette books with which Aunt Hermia had drilled us.
I stumbled on the best I could. “I mean, who among us has not stolen a sweet from a shop as a child?”
Brisbane’s complexion returned slowly to normal, but his hand had gone to his throat and he was rubbing absently at the spot where I knew the Medusa pendant hung beneath his shirt.
I had just opened my mouth to mention it, when I realized that I was not supposed to know about that pendant.
I gulped at my tea, now gone stone cold, aghast at how nearly I had given myself away.
He was irritated enough with me as it was.
I did not think he would ever forgive knowing I had been with him during his illness.
“I will of course search all the rooms of Grey House,” I said quietly. “Even my own. I take your point. You are quite correct.”
He was silent a moment, his black eyes thoughtful.
“This is more difficult for you than you had anticipated.”
I nodded, tears springing suddenly to my eyes. I blinked them back, determined not to let them fall.
“I warned you when it began. But you thought I was simply being cruel.”
I bit my lip in silence. The tea had grown scummy. I placed it on the table, careful lest my trembling fingers upset the porcelain.
“I underestimated the difficulty, yes. And you were cruel.”
“And correct.” His voice held no trace of triumph, only certainty. He had known from long experience what this would cost me, and I had not listened.
I shrugged. “It does not matter now. I have thought how easy it would be to put an end to this, to resume my life and pretend none of this ever happened. But I cannot. It is changing me, has changed me. And I do not know yet if it is for the better.”
He did not pity me, and I blessed him for that. Had there been any sympathy, any kindness in his eyes, I would have crumpled. But that cool, appraising stare pricked at my pride. I raised my chin, determined to retain my dignity at least. And as always, he told me the truth, unvarnished and plain.
“You will not know until it is done. And then, only you will know if the cost has been too high, if the change has been too great.”
I nodded, and our eyes met. We were comrades now, bound more closely than lovers, it occurred to me.
Lovers may quarrel and part company. We were linked, irreparably, until this thing was finished.
And in one of those rare moments of harmony, I knew that he felt it as well, this bond that we could neither explain nor break.
I did not know if he was comfortable with the knowledge, or if perhaps he resented it. But he knew it as clearly as I did.