Chapter 14 The Dead Husbands Book #3
Constance heard the double meaning and knew Marianne had heard it too. Not a literal corpse, but the body Jasper had treated as possession, evidence, property, correction.
Marianne's hand closed on the edge of the door. "I will send for Inspector Carver. No one leaves this room."
"Good," Constance said. "He should see the book exactly where it was found."
"Not exactly," Marianne said. "You have already opened it."
"I recorded its position first."
"Recorded," Marianne repeated. "What a blessed word. It makes intrusion feel holy."
"It makes memory less obedient."
For a moment, Marianne looked almost amused. Then her gaze sharpened.
"You think yourself very brave, Miss Brown.
You have mistaken proximity to disgrace for moral importance.
Lady Dacre's tragedy has flattered you. It has allowed you to imagine that your plain trade in paper makes you a defender of women, a challenger of men, perhaps even something more tender and heroic in private.
But you are not family. You are not law.
You are not safe. When this ends, if it ends, you will find that society has an excellent memory for women who stood in rooms where they had no right to be. "
Helena moved before Constance could answer. She stepped fully between them now.
"Then society may begin with me," Helena said. "Miss Brown entered because I brought her. If blame must be dressed for the morning, put my name on it. The world has already practised saying it."
Constance turned toward her. "Do not."
Helena did not look back. "I told you suspicion should earn its keep."
Marianne's mouth tightened. "How noble widowhood has made you."
"No," Helena said. "Widowhood merely gave the house a quieter night. Nobility has nothing to do with it."
The footsteps that came next were heavier. Inspector Carver appeared behind Marianne in the doorway, wearing his coat over a loosened collar, as if he had not fully retired. A constable stood behind him.
He looked at the scene without speaking. His eyes took in the dead man, the two women, Marianne, the open cloth, the book.
"No one move," he said.
"We have been told that already," Constance replied before she could stop herself.
Carver's gaze flicked to her. "Then consider yourself unusually well instructed."
He entered and crossed to the table. He did not touch the book.
First he looked at the cloth, the ribbon, the surrounding objects, Jasper's covered hand, the distance from the table to the door.
Constance felt, despite everything, a sharp respect.
Carver looked at the room as a room, not as a scandal.
"Who found it?" he asked.
"I did," Constance said.
"How?"
She removed the anonymous note from her envelope and gave it to him.
"This was pushed beneath the library door after you left.
I copied it, preserved the original, and came here because the instruction suggested the volume was not among the shelves.
Lady Dacre found me before I entered and came with me. "
Carver read the note. His face gave away nothing. "Lady Dacre?"
"That is accurate," Helena said. "I knew the servants' passage. I showed it to her."
"Why not send for me?"
Constance answered. "Because whoever sent the note might have moved the book before you came. Because the family already wishes me removed. Because I feared formal delay would become disappearance. Those are reasons, not excuses."
"Good. I dislike excuses. Reasons are at least useful before I reject them."
He looked at Marianne. "You entered when?"
"Moments ago. I heard movement."
"From where?"
"My room."
"Your room is not near this door."
"Sound travels strangely in houses at night."
"So does intention."
Marianne's eyes cooled. "Inspector, I came upon two women interfering with evidence beside my brother's body. If you are determined to find impropriety in my arrival rather than theirs, then your method has become eccentric."
"My method has always been eccentric to those who prefer I look where they point." Carver turned to Constance. "You opened the volume."
"Yes. After sketching its position."
"Why?"
"To confirm whether it was D.IV.19 and whether it contained the hidden material suggested by the catalogue irregularities. It is D.IV.19. It has a compartment cut into pasted leaves near the back. The compartment is empty. I found this fragment inside."
She handed him the folded notebook page.
Carver opened it carefully. The tiny scrap looked absurd beneath his large, practical fingers.
"...band's..." he read. "Could be many things."
"Yes. But one possibility connects with the phrase I found earlier, the dead husband's book."
Marianne gave a quiet, contemptuous breath. "A phrase without source, a fragment without word, a note without author, and a cataloguer without authority. We are rich in shadows tonight."
"Shadows are useful," Carver said. "They prove something has stood before the light."
He directed the constable to watch the door and then examined the book without moving it more than necessary. Constance noticed that he used his own handkerchief. He opened the compartment, inspected the cut leaves, and studied the clasps.
"This was made some time ago," he said. "Not cut tonight."
"No," Constance said. "The compartment is older. The removal from it may be recent."
"Can you tell what size of paper it held?"
She leaned in, careful not to touch. "Folded. Narrower than the page by perhaps two inches. Not a full parchment. A letter or legal memorandum, folded twice or three times. The pressure marks suggest it remained there long enough to shape the pasted leaves."
Wroth appeared at the door just then, drawn by the commotion, his hair disordered and his spectacles slightly crooked. When he saw the book, all color left his face.
Constance saw it. Carver saw Constance see it. Marianne saw both.
"Mr. Wroth," Carver said gently. "You look as if the dead man has spoken."
Wroth's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "That volume should not be here."
"Where should it be?"
"In the library."
"It was missing from the library."
"Then secured," Wroth said. "I mean, if removed, it should have been secured. Lord Dacre was particular. He would not have allowed it to lie beside, beside..."
He glanced at Jasper's covered form and failed to finish.
"You knew the volume," Constance said.
Wroth looked at her with sudden dislike. "I knew of it."
"As a book?"
"As an item in the family archive."
"As an item containing a hidden compartment?"
"Miss Brown," Marianne said sharply.
Carver raised one hand without looking at her. "Let him answer."
Wroth swallowed. "I was aware that certain family devotional volumes contained private memoranda. That is not uncommon in old houses. Families used books as repositories for records before modern filing habits became consistent."
"What memorandum was in this one?" Carver asked.
"I do not know."
"You went pale before you knew which volume it was."
"The shelf mark was mentioned in the sealed instructions. Naturally I understood its significance."
"Did Lord Dacre ever show you the contents?"
"Not recently."
The room changed again.
Carver's voice remained mild. "Not recently is not no."
Wroth closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked much older. "Years ago, I saw a folded paper kept in that compartment. I did not read it fully. Lord Dacre did not permit me. I saw enough to understand it related to a domestic settlement, perhaps an older claim upon family property."
"Whose claim?"
"I cannot say with certainty."
"Say without certainty."
Wroth looked toward Marianne.
There it was. Tiny, almost instinctive. A child looking toward a governess, a clerk toward a master, a solicitor toward the true keeper of family consequence.
Marianne's face was still.
"Mr. Wroth," Carver said, "do not look to Lady Marianne unless she keeps your memory in her pocket."
Roland's voice came from the corridor. "If she does, Inspector, she has kept several of mine there too."
He entered half dressed, hair disheveled, smelling faintly of brandy and alarm. His eyes went straight to the book. "Ah. The sacred object has emerged from its shrine. How very Jasper. Even dead, he insists on a prop."
"Lord Roland," Marianne said, "leave."
"No. I have been asked for my movements, my debts, my expectations, and my grief. If there is a book capable of explaining why my brother left accusations like party invitations, I intend to see the cover at least."
Carver looked at him. "You knew it too?"
Roland shrugged, but the gesture failed. "I knew Jasper fussed over it. He once told me that some books are worth more dead than read. I assumed he was being unbearable about collectors. He was often unbearable about collectors."
"Did you remove it?"
"No. If I had stolen a family secret, I would have had the decency to choose a portable one. That thing looks like it would accuse a man through his waistcoat."
Despite herself, Constance almost smiled. It vanished when Helena spoke.
"What older claim?" Helena asked.
No one answered.
She looked from Wroth to Marianne, then to Roland. "You all know something."
Roland's mouth twisted. "I know rumors. The Dacres are built from rumors mortared over with legal language.
There was some old question about a widow, or a woman not called a widow because the title would have inconvenienced a man.
Jasper enjoyed letting me know there were papers that might make my expectations difficult if he ever tired of me. "
"A widow," Constance said. "The older widow's claim."
Wroth flinched.
Carver noticed. "Write that down," he told the constable.
Marianne's voice cut through the room. "This has gone far enough.
Whatever private family material once rested in that volume, it has no necessary bearing upon Jasper's murder.
A household object was moved. A compartment was emptied.
That may prove theft, curiosity, blackmail, or panic.
It does not alter the fact that Lady Dacre had motive, opportunity, and blood upon her sleeve. "