Chapter 10 The Widow Under Suspicion #3
Marianne gave almost nothing. She had heard disturbance, come down, found Helena near the body, and sent for Bell and the police.
She spoke of family order, of shock, of the necessity of preventing servants from contaminating the room.
She admitted she had been dressed because she had not yet retired.
She gave no reason for remaining dressed so late beyond correspondence.
When Carver asked what correspondence, she said family correspondence.
When he asked which family, she said hers.
When he asked whether the letter might be seen, she told him it had not been completed and therefore could not be relevant.
Constance admired, unwillingly, the efficiency of the refusal. Marianne lied, if she lied, like a woman who had never needed to hurry.
At last Carver sent for Constance.
The study in daylight was worse. Night had softened Jasper's death by making it part of darkness.
Morning made it factual. The sheet-covered body remained on the rug.
The desk showed every displaced paper. A constable had marked the position of the lamp, the decanter, the chair, and the open private catalogue.
The torn page edge still showed from the binding.
Constance stood near the threshold until Carver pointed to a chair far from the body.
"Sit, Miss Brown. You look as if scholarship has brought you closer to death than advertised."
"Scholarship often concerns the dead, Inspector. Usually they have been dead longer and are less likely to cause inconvenience to the living."
"A composed answer. Is it true?"
"Not entirely. I am frightened. I would prefer not to be, but preference has shown little authority since midnight."
Carver's mouth moved in what might almost have been approval. "Then we shall do better with truth than composure. Tell me about the book."
Constance described the main library catalogue, the alternate hand, the missing shelf mark, Jasper's private note, the scrap she had copied, though not yet the place she had hidden it.
She spoke carefully because precision was the only protection she owned.
She did not accuse. She did not conceal that she had begun to suspect the library mattered before Jasper died.
When she finished, Carver said, "You should have told someone earlier."
"Lord Dacre was the person with authority over the collection, and Lord Dacre was the person whose conduct made the missing entry suspicious.
Telling him that I suspected concealment would have been professionally foolish and personally unsafe.
Telling Lady Dacre would have burdened a woman already under his power.
Telling Lady Marianne would have placed the information into the hands of the person most devoted to family control.
Telling Roland would have been like placing a candle in a room full of unpaid bills. "
Carver stared at her. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a short breath that might have been laughter if the room had permitted such a thing. "And telling the police?"
"There were no police here yesterday. There was only the house."
"Fair." He turned a page. "What did you hear last night? Use the words you remember, not the sense you have given them since."
Constance repeated the fragments: not yours to use; everything in this house has been mine to preserve; you will not put it on her; the world put it on her the day she took my name.
Saying them aloud made them more dreadful because they no longer belonged to memory alone. Carver wrote without interruption.
"The second voice?"
"I cannot identify it. I thought it might be a woman, but the walls distort sound. It was controlled, not hysterical. Angry, perhaps. Low. I wish I could be more useful."
"Useful witnesses often begin by admitting where they are useless. Did you see Lady Dacre near the study?"
Constance forced herself not to look toward the door. "I saw a figure cross the lower hall. Dark fabric. A pale hand at the sleeve. I could not see the face. The height could have been Lady Dacre's, but that is not identification."
"Could it have been Lady Marianne?"
"Yes."
"A maid?"
"Possibly, if she were dressed in dark clothing and moving with unusual confidence."
"A woman from outside?"
"Less likely, unless she knew the house."
Carver tapped the pencil once against the notebook. "You understand what your uncertainty does?"
"It keeps me honest."
"It also keeps Lady Dacre exposed."
The sentence struck where he intended. Constance's hands tightened in her lap. "I will not lie to protect her. Lies rot protection from inside. Agnes has already made that error because love and fear cornered her. I will not add another falsehood and call it loyalty."
"Do you love Lady Dacre?"
Constance's heart stopped so cleanly that for a moment she heard only the fire. Carver watched her with the mild brutality of a man who knew the value of sudden questions.
"I have known Lady Dacre less than a week," she said.
"That answers a different question."
"It answers the only question you can properly ask me in a murder inquiry.
I have observed that she was harmed. I have observed that her household was afraid.
I have observed that Lord Dacre controlled the very papers I was hired to arrange.
I have also observed that visible motive can be used to obscure hidden motive.
If those observations make me seem partial, then perhaps impartiality has been defined too often by people who never noticed suffering until it became legally convenient. "
Carver did not write for several seconds. "You speak dangerously well."
"I have not found that speaking timidly makes danger polite."
"No. It only makes it comfortable." He closed the notebook.
"You will remain available. You will not examine any Dacre papers without my knowledge.
You will prepare, in writing, a list of the missing or altered catalogue entries you had identified before Lord Dacre's death.
If you have notes already, you will preserve them.
If you have removed any paper from the library or this room, now is the moment to say so. "
Constance thought of the scrap beneath the lining of her satchel. It was not a Dacre paper, she told herself. It was her copy of words. Not the original. Not removed from the study. The distinction felt legal rather than moral, which meant it was probably dangerous.
"I have my working notes," she said. "I will preserve them."
Carver watched her a moment too long. "See that you do."
When Constance left the study, she found Helena alone in the conservatory at the rear of the house.
Someone had persuaded her at last to surrender the bloodied glove, which now lay with the police.
Her right hand was bare, pale, and marked at the wrist where Jasper's grip had left its recent testimony.
The conservatory smelled of wet leaves, cold soil, and faint decay.
Green light filtered through rain-washed glass, softening Helena's blackened exhaustion without relieving it.
"He asked you about me," Helena said.
"Yes."
"And you answered carefully."
"Not carefully enough, perhaps. He sees more than the others."
"Men who see still decide what their sight is worth.
Jasper saw everything he wanted to injure.
Dr. Bell saw enough and made silence into bedside manner.
Roland sees money even when grief stands in front of him.
The inspector may see more honestly, but honesty in a man with authority can still become a blade. "
Constance came no closer than the nearest orange tree. "He asked if I loved you."
Helena closed her eyes. The bare hand at her side trembled once, then stilled. "That was indecent."
"It was effective."
"What did you say?"
"That I had known you less than a week."
A faint, wounded smile touched Helena's mouth. "A cataloguer's evasion. True, insufficient, and placed exactly where the shelf requires it."
"Would you rather I had said no?"
Helena opened her eyes. For a moment, the conservatory held no murder, no law, no dead husband waiting under a sheet.
It held only the terrible pressure of what could not yet be spoken.
"I would rather you had never been brought into this house.
I would rather you had never learned to read a bruise through silk.
I would rather I were the kind of woman who could ask you to stay without knowing what staying may cost. Since none of those wishes has authority, I will ask something smaller.
Do not let pity persuade you that I am incapable of darkness. "
"I know you are capable of anger. I know you are capable of hatred. I know you may have wished him dead. None of that frightens me away from the question of whether you killed him."
"And if I had?"