A Christmas Homecoming (19 page)

And as she understood that, she knew why his killer had moved the body.

Shuddering with cold and horror, she gingerly pushed Ballin away and stood up. She must go and tell Joshua. If nothing else, they must put the body in some decent place, not leave him lying on the ground by the icehouse. None of the servants, rising early to prepare breakfast, must find him.

She tramped back through the snow to the back door. Thank heaven it was still slightly ajar. Her teeth were chattering from the cold.

She walked slowly through the scullery into the kitchen. She was trailing water behind her. Her whole coat was covered with snow from when she had fallen, and her skirt was wet at least a foot above the hem.

Where had she seen Ballin’s true face before? It was in a photograph, she was sure of that, definitely not in person. But his name had not been Ballin. She would have remembered that. Anton. Had it been Anton something-else?

She was in the hallway now. Only a couple of candles were alight. The tall clock said it was nearly three in
the morning. She reached the bottom of the stairs and started up, holding her soaked skirt high so as not to trip over it.

She was almost at the landing when she remembered. The photograph had been in the green room of a theater: Joshua had pointed it out to her because he felt that the man in it was a great actor. Anton Rausch. A handsome face, powerful. And there had been a tragedy connected to him. He had killed some actress in a murder scene in a play. A knife. It was supposed to have been a stage prop, a harmless thing whose blade would retract when it met resistance. Only it had not retracted, because Anton had replaced it with a real knife.

Or someone had.

It had ruined his career.

She realized she was standing still at the top of the stairs. The cold ate through the fabric of her clothes and chilled her flesh.

She walked to her own bedroom and opened the door. She still had the lantern, and she set it down on the dresser.

“Joshua,” she said calmly.

He stirred.

“Joshua. I know who killed Ballin, and why. I found his body.”

He sat up, fighting the remnants of sleep. Then he saw her clearly. “Caroline! What happened?” He started to climb out of bed.

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice steady. “I’m cold, and a bit wet, but I’m perfectly all right. I found Ballin’s body.”

“Where?” He was up now. He reached for his robe, warm and dry, and put it around her. “Did you say you know who killed him, or was I imagining it?”

“Anton Rausch,” she said quietly. She was shivering uncontrollably now.

“Ballin?” he said incredulously. “Oh, God! Of course. I should have known the voice. I saw him play Hamlet! I only met him in person once. Oh, heaven, I see.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“Yes. Vincent. He was the other actor involved in that tragedy. He was the lover of the actress who died. Anton Rausch was her husband.”

“Then he came here for revenge? But how could he know Vincent was here? And why now? That was years ago.”

“Perhaps Anton could prove his innocence now. I don’t know.”

“But if he attacked Vincent, for revenge, then Vincent is not guilty of murder. It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she argued. “And again, how did he know Vincent was here?”

Joshua shook his head. “It wasn’t a secret. The theater knew where we would be, the manager, several others. It just wasn’t advertised because it was a private performance.”

“But if Ballin attacked him—I still think of him as Ballin—why didn’t Vincent defend himself?” she asked.

“Because Anton didn’t attack him,” Joshua said quietly. “Think about it, Caroline. If Anton had attacked Vincent with that sharpened broom handle, then Vincent would have injuries: tears on his skin at least, wrenched muscles where they fought, bruises, perhaps rips in his clothes. Vincent must have attacked Anton, taking him by surprise. He went armed. He intended to kill Anton before Anton could prove who actually changed the knives that night.”

She tried to imagine it. “How could Anton prove such a thing, after all this time?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps a dying confession. A stagehand, a prop man. We’ll never know now.”

“Then why didn’t Anton just tell the authorities, and have Vincent arrested?”

“There are lots of possibilities. Perhaps he wanted Vincent to do something for him, a repayment other than having to answer to the law.”

“Poor man,” she said quietly. Joshua took her hand. “We can’t leave him lying in the snow by the icehouse. Should we waken Mr. Netheridge and tell him?”

“Yes. I think so. Since this is his house, he deserves to know. We have taken enough liberties already.”

“Have we?”

He smiled. “Yes. Very definitely. And unfortunately we won’t even be entertaining his guests on Boxing Day.”

“But you will help Alice, won’t you?”

“Of course. We might even perform
Dracula
sometime.” He smiled with a wry twist of his lips, his eyes very gentle. “But we will have to find another Van Helsing.”

n the morning, breakfast was eaten, largely in silence. Then Mr. Netheridge asked the guests to leave the withdrawing room for a certain matter of business he had to attend to, all but Joshua, Caroline, and Vincent. Perhaps no one except Caroline noticed that the butler and three footmen were waiting in the hall.

“Is this about Alice … Miss Netheridge?” Vincent asked curiously when the doors were closed.

“No,” Netheridge replied. “I think perhaps Mrs. Fielding will explain it best.”

Vincent was standing in front of the great stained-glass window. His back was to the magnificent view it partially concealed, even though it was possible to see through its paler sections the sunlight on the snow beyond.

“How melodramatic,” he said, looking at Caroline. “You seem to have acquired a taste for acting yourself. But you need more practice. Your timing is poor, and timing is everything.”

“Actually, I prefer to work with the lights,” she responded. “So much depends on which light you see
things in. Anton Rausch has taught me that,” she replied.

Vincent paled. Suddenly his body was stiff, his hands clenched.

“I found his body,” she added simply. She touched her own cheek. “The makeup had slipped, and I recognized him from a photograph I once saw in a theater. He was a great actor, better than you, Vincent. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Nothing to do with that actress, beautiful as she was.”

Vincent’s face hardened. “He came for revenge. He didn’t know who had fixed the blade at the time it happened, and of course they jailed him. He must have worked it out, or somebody else did, and told him. He attacked me. He came at me with that broom handle, spiked at the end like the blade of a halberd.” He lifted his shoulder a little, his gaze steady on her face. “Wicked-looking thing. I barely had time to defend myself and turn his lunge back against him.”

“Vincent, don’t make more of a fool of yourself than necessary,” Joshua said wearily. “You are at the end of this. There is no way you could have turned a weapon that length against the man holding it. And there are
no wounds on you. You attacked him, to keep the truth from coming out. I’m sure he did want revenge, at a price you could not afford.”

It was Netheridge who moved toward Vincent. “The snow is thawing. We’ll be able to get a man out to fetch the police by tomorrow. Until then we’ll lock you in one of the storerooms—”

Vincent sprang suddenly and without any warning. He leaped forward and grasped a light wooden chair. If he smashed it, then one of its legs would make a dagger of hard, sharp-pointed wood. But Caroline was faster; she picked up the onyx ashtray from the table nearest her and threw it at him. He ducked it, caught his arm in the huge velvet curtain, and lost his balance. He fell backward, dragging the curtain with him, fighting hard and panicking. There was a splintering crash and the whole vast stained-glass window buckled and flew outward, Vincent with it. His thin scream echoed back in the air, and then stopped abruptly.

Caroline felt the sudden rush of cold air, and at the same moment heard in the silence the church bells in the distance, ringing out Christmas morning in Whitby.

Slowly she walked over to the gaping space and forced herself to look down. Vincent lay on his back on the paved courtyard two stories beneath, arms and legs splayed like a broken doll in the snow.

She heard movement and felt Joshua’s arm around her, holding her tightly, close to him.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said, his voice catching a little. “I’d rather it were this way, for Vincent as well as for us.”

“I suppose so,” she agreed softly. She turned back from the clean, icy air, retreating into the room again.

Eliza was staring at the remnants of the window, her face ashen.

“I’m so sorry,” Caroline apologized.

Netheridge cleared his throat and put his arm around Eliza. “Not your fault, Mrs. Fielding. It was a tragedy that just happened to end here. It isn’t a quick thing. Mr. Singer let the evil in a long time ago, and it must have been like a rat, gnawing at his soul all these years. I’ve learned a thing or two from your play, the bits I’ve seen, and what Eliza’s told me about. Made me think I’ve been holding on too tightly to things I
shouldn’t have. Kept too many doors shut for too long. Time to open them, time to let the good in, too.”

Caroline nodded very slowly, and smiled at him.

Behind her, other church bells joined in the welcome of the day when, briefly, gloriously, all mankind is at home.

T
o those who face the unknown
with courage