Chapter Fourteen #2
“The straw that broke the camel’s back, perhaps,” Solomon said. “I suspect it has been building for some time and she has learned to hide it. My own feeling is, she is terrified by the urges toward self-destruction, and that is why she hid the gun. But it needs to be looked at.”
“Why?” Harvey asked blankly.
“We need to know if it has been fired.”
Harvey’s jaw dropped. “Are you mad? Her son?”
“It is unlikely, I agree. But if she came across evidence of Percy disappointing her in some way… Look at it and set both our minds at rest. Is it clean? Or has it been fired?”
“She wouldn’t clean it. She doesn’t know how, or even that it’s necessary. She only ever fired it once when I showed her how, twenty years ago, when I first gave it to her. I cleaned it that time and it has never been fired since.”
As he spoke, he was taking the weapon apart, examining the chamber and the mechanism. “There is still a bullet in the chamber, and the gun is still clean, but not recently so. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. He had already looked for himself, but he had wanted to see Harvey’s reactions. “Later, perhaps, you would show me your own pistol. And no, of course I don’t suspect you—you were with us, apart from anything else. As with you wife’s, it is a matter of eliminating the weapon.”
Harvey looked slightly mollified. “I will keep a closer eye on Etta, perhaps speak to Owens… She missed Percy terribly, you know, when he wasn’t here. She worried for him, constantly.”
“Why?” asked Solomon, who suspected Etta had more idea of her son’s imperfect behavior that his father did.
Harvey shrugged tolerantly. “You know what mothers are like when their children leave the nest.”
“I would like to ask your permission for something else,” Solomon said, when nothing further appeared to be forthcoming.
“To send our assistants to Percy’s rooms in London, to see if his pistol is there, or if there is any other clue as to who might have killed him.
It would save time if they examined the London evidence while we continue our investigations here. ”
“You think someone followed him here from London?”
“We understand he came into contact with some nefarious characters,” Solomon said vaguely. He kept Percy’s other offensive behavior to himself for now.
“I can give you a letter for Percy’s manservant,” Harvey said.
“He might have packed up Percy’s things by now, but he won’t have got rid of anything.
” An involuntary shudder shook him, and Solomon tactfully looked at his port.
“You join the ladies. I’ll write you a note to send to your people now. And one to Darren, too.”
“Thank you,” Solomon said, rising to his feet.
*
As the mystery of Percy’s murder deepened and darkened, Constance’s personal problems began to resolve and clarify.
With that terrifying glimpse into Solomon’s unhappy past came greater understanding and appreciation of him, his strength, and his goodness.
And her sheer good fortune in being his wife.
And in that, she seemed to find her own better self, so as she and Etta sat alone in the drawing room after dinner, she remarked on the excellent meal and asked what Percy’s favorite dishes had been.
Etta cast her a suspicious glance, though Constance was motivated only by her knowledge of the comfort women could be to each other, whether rough and ready or gentle, or just listening.
After the first stiff words, torrents of them broke from Etta’s lips, and Constance sat beside her and listened, as she always had in the past, not as an investigator but as a friend.
Etta stopped for only a moment when Solomon entered the room. Being both sensitive and tactful, he wandered to the far side and read the newspaper, while Etta lowered her voice and kept talking.
She only stopped when Harvey entered and gave two sealed letters to Solomon. An expression of guilt had entered her face, a worry that her chatter about their dead son might upset him. Constance ached for that, for she sensed they both needed to talk and grieve together.
They had a quick cup of tea and then Solomon and Constance excused themselves. Before she rose, Constance took Etta’s hand and gently squeezed it.
“Thank you,” Etta whispered. “I didn’t expect you to be so kind.”
Constance could only smile, though the truth was, Etta had helped her too.
“I don’t think she did it,” she told Solomon as soon as they were alone.
“She already suspected what Percy was, and at least some of how he behaved. Her real worry about Adelaide was that she would somehow take advantage of his worse nature. But she knew it existed, and she feels all the guilt for that. It hasn’t helped her self-worth or her melancholia, which Percy seems to have made worse by his alternate neglect and sneering.
She and Harvey weren’t born to the gentry and were desperate for Percy to be a real gentleman. ”
“And so brought him up to be an entitled, selfish pr—man.”
“They indulged him too far for too long. His mother thinks the love of a good woman, like Lady Phoebe, would have saved him. She might’ve been right.”
“We’ll never know. Do you want to write to Janey, or shall I?”