A Most Novel Revenge (20 page)

“That was a rotten business,” he said at last.

I didn't have to ask him what he meant. He wasn't talking about Isobel's death, but that night seven years ago. It seemed that no one who had been there at the time had been able to forget it. I suspected that, though they had not all been responsible for Edwin Green's death, each of them felt a certain responsibility for what had happened. They had reveled in the frivolity of youth, and they were still paying the price for it.

“Yes, I imagine it was awful.” I hoped my sympathy would inspire him to reminisce further, and it seemed to have worked. I wondered if any of them had ever had the opportunity to discuss it with someone who had no preconceived ideas about the incident.

“Edwin and I grew up together, perhaps you'd heard that.” He didn't wait for my answer but continued, as though he was afraid to stop himself. “We went to war together and came home together, and I thought that perhaps he would be my brother if he married Beatrice. I would have liked that.”

“It seems that everyone was rather fond of him, excepting Mr. Glenn.”

“And Collins,” he said. “He and Collins got into more rows than I can count. Of course, they were in some sort of business together, and Collins was forever saying that Edwin had no head for it.”

This was new information. I hadn't heard of any bad blood between Edwin Green and Mr. Collins. Freida had told me distinctly that everyone but Bradford had been friendly with Edwin Green. It seemed that was not the case.

“What sort of business?” I questioned casually.

“Some investment or other that Collins had been involved in in South Africa. Mines, I think. I remember Collins received a telegraph that week that made him fly into a rage. Then, of course, Edwin was killed and there was nothing else to be done about it. Collins made a good deal of money in the end, I think.”

This was a curious development. I wondered why there had been no mention in Isobel's book of volatile business dealings between Mr. Collins and Edwin Green.

“Just as well for Edwin that he died, really. Might have been just as well for any of us not to have survived that night … I'm sorry. I shouldn't say such things. I don't mean them, you know. It's just that…”

He stopped, and for a moment there was no sound but the gentle rippling of the water and the melancholy call of a bird somewhere in the distance.

I ought to have felt uneasy sitting there with him, I was sure. There was something in his tone, some bitterness that I didn't like. But somehow I didn't feel as though I was in any danger. Whatever malice had been in him was in the past. It still ate at him, but there was a finality to it as well.

“I understand that he had had too much to drink,” I said hesitantly. It wasn't, perhaps, nice of me to press him in his obviously emotional state. Nevertheless, I felt I should take advantage of this moment, when he was inclined to talk.

“I don't remember much about that night. None of us do, really. We all gave our accounts to the police, of course. Couldn't very well tell them that we were too far gone to know what was happening. But it's all sort of a haze, like a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare.”

I said nothing, giving him time to collect his thoughts, to decide what he wanted to say. At last he continued.

“Edwin and Bradford had had a row that night. I'm sure you've heard about that.” He laughed bitterly. “If you've read Isobel's book, you'll know most of what happened.”

“I've read some of it,” I conceded. I had not yet reached the part of the book that recounted Edwin Green's death. After I had read the chapter aloud to him, Milo had made it very difficult to concentrate on reading.

Reggie nodded. “Most people read it. Rotten luck for Bradford.” He rubbed a trembling hand across his mouth, and it was almost as though he was drinking from an invisible glass. “They came to blows, though they were both too intoxicated to do much harm to each other. I think it was Isobel who stepped in at the last and kept them from going at each other's throats.”

I found this interesting. Everything I had seen of Isobel Van Allen indicated that she enjoyed provoking confrontation, not putting a stop to it. But perhaps that was an unfair assessment of her character. I had not known her, but I had seen a glimmer of something other than cold malice beneath the mask of incendiary behavior.

Reggie had stopped, but my silence seemed to encourage him, and he went on.

“After a while, things began to become a blur. It was cold in the summerhouse. One of the servants had started a fire, but we had let it go out. Most of us decided to go back to the house, though we were not in much condition to get there. We had all had too much to drink, and some of us had had worse than liquor. I'm surprised we all made it, in fact. It was lucky only one of us was found frozen on the lawn.”

His voice trailed off and I wondered if he would continue.

“It was very cold that night?” I asked to gently prod him on.

“Yes. Very cold. I had had far much too much to drink,” he said again. “I wandered into the drawing room and passed out on the sofa.”

I wondered where Isobel Van Allen had been at the time. She and Reggie had been lovers, but I also recalled that things had not been going well between them. Perhaps she had gone to her room alone.

“I woke up hours later, very much disoriented. It was no longer dark, but it was very cold in the drawing room. I remember thinking that it must be what the dead feel like, stiff and cold. I had no idea…”

He was quiet again for a moment and I left him with his thoughts. I didn't want to press too much. I felt as though he needed to tell me in his own time and in his own way. It would be better for him that way. And, in all probability, the information would be more useful.

“I thought I would wander into the dining room, perhaps find something to eat for breakfast. It was then I heard the screams.”

His voice trailed off for a moment and I waited. He reached into his pocket and removed a cigarette case. He offered me one, which I declined, and then set one between his lips, shielding the flame of his lighter with his hand.

He breathed in deeply then blew out a cloud of white smoke into the cold air and then went on, his eyes on the lake.

“I didn't know what was happening at first. I went out into the entrance hall and Freida came in, still screaming and white as death. I don't know that I've ever seen anyone so pale.”

“Everyone was there? In the house, I mean?”

He nodded. “I don't know where they all spent the night. They came running from various places and various stages of undress. We all ran out of the house and charged toward the summerhouse, as though there was something we could do. The cold air was refreshing. I remember that it felt good on my aching head, the cold wind.”

He took another long draw on his cigarette before continuing.

“We got nearly to the summerhouse, and all knew at once that it was far too late, by then. He was already stiff. And his eyes were wide open, staring.”

I resisted the urge to shudder that had nothing to do with the wind. How awful it must have been. How terrible to wake up to such a thing. I could well understand why it had been so difficult for all of them to move past it.

“I'd seen my share of bodies, of course, in France,” he said, and his voice had lost some of the haunted note that had been in it a moment before. “Friends just as good as Edwin Green.”

“But this was so unexpected,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did you think, at the time, that Bradford Glenn might have been in any way responsible?”

“I thought that it was just what it appeared to be. A man had taken too many drugs and had drunk too much alcohol. I never had a thought of anything else.”

I remembered what I had overheard him say to Beatrice in the breakfast room, about wondering if it was possible that Isobel Van Allen “knew.” What was it that he thought she might know?

“It must have been a shock when Isobel Van Allen wrote that book,” I said.

He swore under his breath. “Yes. She was always writing things. It was a great dream of hers to write a novel. She wrote often in the summerhouse, scribbling stories and things. I suppose she saw this as her chance. What happened here was in every paper in London.”

“And she chose to exploit it,” I said.

“I shouldn't have been surprised. She was forever having photographs taken of us, and she would stash articles from the gossip columns we were mentioned in away in her desk drawers like they were prizes we had won. It was fame she was after. She was willing to get it any way she could.” He sighed. “Isobel always got what she wanted, one way or another.”

“That must have been difficult for you, especially since she was a woman you cared about.”

“I hated her,” he said, tossing down his cigarette and grinding it beneath his boot. “I suppose that's a wicked thing to say, now that she's dead. But it's the truth. There was a time when I would have done anything—anything—to make her love me. Now I can't believe that there was ever a time when I didn't despise her.”

If that was the case, I wondered where exactly he had been at the time of Isobel's murder.

“It was a terrible thing for me,” I said, “finding her body that way.”

“Yes, I can imagine. All that blood … Still, she earned it, didn't she? It's her own fault that she's dead.”

I said nothing, and he seemed suddenly to come to himself.

He shook his head, smiled ruefully. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said such things to you.”

“Please don't apologize, Mr. Lyons.”

“Reggie,” he said with a tired smile. “We're friends now, aren't we?”

“I hope so,” I said. I certainly didn't want to be his enemy.

 

18

REGGIE DIDN'T SEEM
ready to leave the lake, so I walked back toward the house alone.

I wasn't sure if I had learned anything new, but I felt that there was something in his story that had given me some idea I just hadn't quite been able to take hold of yet. That was how I felt about this entire thing, as though the pieces were all scattered about my feet, and I was picking them up at random, trying to make some sense of them.

Reggie Lyons was a complex gentleman, to be sure. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of his story. I didn't think that he had killed Edwin Green, if indeed Edwin Green had been murdered at all. If anyone had had a reason to murder Isobel Van Allen, however, it was Reggie. Their love had soured, and she had betrayed him, taken advantage of a personal tragedy, and cast a shadow upon the Lyons name.

No, it would not surprise me if he had wanted her dead, but by all accounts he was horrified by the sight of blood. It seemed unlikely, then, that he would have stabbed her repeatedly. Of course, there was no predicting what one might do in the heat of passion.

I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear the voice until it called me the third time.

“Mrs. Ames!” I looked up to see Gareth Winters coming from the direction of the stables.

He was not wearing a coat and his face was pink with cold. His pale eyes were bright in the morning light, his curls tousled by the wind, and I was struck again by his golden good looks.

“Good morning, Mr. Winters.”

“I've just come from the stables,” he said as he reached me. What he was doing in the stables at this time of morning and, more to the point, why he had chosen to tell me this, I couldn't imagine.

“Oh, I see.”

“Have you made up your mind about the painting yet?” he asked.

His conversational shifts were dizzying. I had not thought much more about it. Part of me was hesitant to commit to the venture, but I also knew that it might be my only chance for an extended conversation with the flighty Mr. Winters. Perhaps he would be more comfortable within the familiar surroundings of his milieu. It was worth a try.

“I think I would like you to paint me, after all,” I said.

He smiled. “Excellent.”

“But I'm afraid I won't be able to disrobe,” I added quickly.

He shrugged. “Very well. I suppose one can't have everything, can one? In evening dress, perhaps?”

“That ought to do nicely.” I thought over the garments that Winnelda had packed for our trip to Lyonsgate. “I have a dress of silver satin that might do.”

He shook his head decisively. “No, blue.”

He was not questioning if I had a gown of blue. It seemed a foregone conclusion that I would have one at my disposal. It turned out, however, that he was correct. Milo favored me in blue, and, as it tended to complement my coloring, I often wore the shade.

“We should start as soon as possible,” he said. “We don't know how long we will have, after all.”

I was certain that he must mean we would all be going home soon, but, given the events of late, his turn of phrase made me a bit uneasy.

“Very well,” I said. “Perhaps this afternoon?”

He nodded. “That would be excellent.”

“I shall look forward to it then.”

I was prepared to leave him then and go into the house for breakfast, but he was looking at me in that watchful way again, and I hesitated, wondering if there was something more he wished to say.

“Do you like horses, Mrs. Ames?” he asked. Another strange question. I really didn't know what to make of Gareth Winters.

“Yes, I suppose I do,” I replied. “My husband is very fond of them and keeps an excellent stable.”

“Will you come into the stables with me for a moment?” he asked at last.

I hesitated. I felt as though I could trust Mr. Winters, but I didn't much want to stake my life on it. After all, someone at Lyonsgate was a murderer, and I had no reason to believe that it could not be the man standing in front of me.

He seemed to have realized that I was debating his intentions and offered an explanation for his odd request.