There came a moment’s silence. Livvy decided it best that no one else be privy to this conversation. Nonchalantly, she positioned herself by the little table that stood against the wall.
Jael’s voice was muffled. “You’d stand by me, popinjay?”
“Were you as clever as is generally believed,” responded Hubert, “you might guess I would. Although I don’t promise that my devotion is so unswerving that I would go to the gallows in your place. Stop fidgeting, or I will never get this portrait right. Short of having my neck stretched in lieu of yours, I’ll help in whatever way I can. Providing you are honest with me, that is.”
Jael replied that she had no intention of being honest, and that if Hubert continued to harass her they would soon come to blows. She then added that it would suit her to a cow’s thumb if they set aside this talk and engaged in more personal intercourse. The latter statement was couched in shockingly blunt and vulgar language. Livvy, leaning against the little table in an awkward position that placed her ear in the nearest possible proximity to the door, deduced that Hubert was again painting his companion in the nude.
“For all love’s witchcraft lurks in flashing eyes?” murmured Hubert. “Do you take me for a flat?”
“Sweet Christ! Maybe I’ll set out straightaway for the tinker’s camp.”
“I doubt the life would suit. By no stretch of the imagination, and I have a considerable imagination, can I see you begging hay for the horses, or bread in the streets.”
Jael snorted. “Aye? You don’t know what I have and haven’t done.”
“That is the point, is it not? In any event, what I think — and for the record, I
don’t
think you should hang, my treasure — isn’t pertinent. Sir John, however, is likely to decide you held a grudge against the Hallidays, on Giuseppe’s behalf.”
“So I do,” said Jael.
“I question your use of the present tense: how many of the family are left? To continue: Sir John is certain to deduce you’re somehow involved in the current events. Shall we set him to rainbow chasing? Lead him to think that by your presence you hoped to stay Giuseppe’s hand? Such nobility of purpose! No, don’t poker up. We must take action, Jael.”
“Not we: I. You’ll stay out of this.”
“I confess that I would like to, but you must recall our Chief Magistrate’s suspicious mind. You might additionally recall his opinion of
my
character. If you continue to grimace in that extraordinary manner, precious, you’ll become quite bracket-faced.”
Jael remarked that Sir John had the wrong sow by the ear. She then repeated her warning that Hubert should stay clear.
“Oh ye of little faith,” he said. “Whom
should
Sir John have by the ear?”
Hubert was not alone in breathlessly awaiting a response; Livvy was so engrossed in the conversation that she came perilously close to tipping the table over on its side.
“Do you wish me to tell the future?” inquired Jael. “I cannot. But I can tell you one thing: the dueling pistol found by Connor Halliday’s corpse was one of pair owned by his twin.”
“Fascinating!” said Hubert. “And how do you know that?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Your tinker friend is in this business up to his gold earrings. He hated the Hallidays and owned a shoe-throwing horse. One can hardly blame Sir John for leaping to certain conclusions. I am having difficulty not leaping to them myself.”
Jael hissed out a breath. “May my life dissolve instantly, may my two eyes fall from my head, if I was in any way involved in Connor Halliday’s death.”
There was a brief, highly suspenseful, silence before Hubert spoke again. “You relieve me. You would relieve me even more if you assured me you don’t know who
was
.”
Livvy had more than a passing interest in Jael’s answer. Not Jael’s voice came to her, however, but Austen’s, from the vicinity of her left ear. “Why are you bent over like that? Shall I fetch a basin? Are you going to cast up your accounts?”
Abruptly, Livvy straightened. Her stepson was wearing fustian pantaloons and a nankeen jacket. “I’m fine. Merely a bit dizzy. You’ve been hedgerow-shooting? Had you any sport?” she asked as she placed herself between him and the bedroom door.
“Three brace of partridge and some wood pigeons.” Austen explained how the Castle’s gamekeeper had treated his damp gunstock with a particular preparation of his own. “Ned is looking for you. I almost forgot.”
“I’ll go and find him.” Austen looked so much like his father that Livvy‘s heart hurt in her chest. “You should get out of those damp clothes.”
Austen refrained from pointing out that he’d been on his way to change his clothes when distracted by her queer behavior. He watched Livvy walk down the hallway to the stairs. No sooner had she passed from sight than he turned back to the little table that stood in such interesting proximity to a certain door.
It was clear as daylight that Livvy had been snooping. Austen was a lad who benefited greatly from example, and he additionally bore a distinct resemblance to his inquisitive great-aunt. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took up the listening-post.
Had she given the matter proper consideration, Livvy might have anticipated that her stepson would do that exact thing. She had no thought to spare for Austen, however; her mind was furiously engaged. Hubert suspected Jael of involvement in the recent events, but why? What was Jael’s relationship to the mysterious Giuseppe?
Was
Bow Street’s Chief Magistrate on the wrong track, whatever that might be? Conjectures buzzed like angry wasps in Livvy’s brain.
She understood Sir John’s reasoning. Jael wouldn’t have found it difficult to persuade the tinkers to claim she’d been at the camp when in fact she had not.
Livvy found Ned in the solar, seated in the old oak pew, a saucer on the table beside him, and a cigar in his hand. Bluebeard perched atop the gigantic sextant. Casanova crouched at its base, twitching his tail.
Livvy bent awkwardly and scooped up the tomcat. “You wanted to speak with me, Ned?”
Cautious of her condition, he put out his cigar. “I have given it every consideration, and conclude that I must.”
Casanova was very large, and very heavy. Livvy collapsed on the backless sofa with the cat on her lap. “How serious you sound. Things cannot be so bad as all that, Ned.”
“Can they not?” he said. “Of the armies that ravaged France, none was more cruel and vicious than her own. They burned and plundered and ravished indiscriminately even in defeat. They even sacked the chateau of the Emperor’s mother during the march from the Seine to the Marne.”
Livvy liked her husband’s cousin — at this point in time, she liked her husband’s cousin considerably more than she liked her husband, liking not necessarily going hand-in-hand with love — and she regretted both Ned’s nightmare experiences and his tendency to share those experiences with the world.
Definitely, she didn’t want him to share them at the moment. Her belly wouldn’t remain quiescent long, were it subjected to tales of blood and gore. “You might be less anxious if you put such matters out of your mind.”
As if he had not tried to do so! Ned clenched his jaw. The great Wellington himself had said that nothing but a battle lost could be half as melancholy as a battle won.
The Duke had said also that wise people learned when they could, and fools learned when they must. “It is not just in war that men act badly,” Ned pointed out.
What was the best response to such a statement? Livvy didn’t know. From the perch to which he was now attached at an angle of forty-five degrees, Bluebeard offered a suggestion that some unknown individual should be hung from the yardarm. “What are you trying to tell me, Ned?”
“Yesterday I went to the Hall.”
“You saw Amanda? Is she in good health?” Casanova rolled over on his back, indicating that a display of affection would not come amiss.
“One might assume so. I found her embracing a gentleman.”
“You— Ah. Perhaps you mistook what you saw?”
“I believe,” Ned retorted stiffly, “that I am capable of recognizing an embrace when I observe one, no matter how overheated my brain. That wasn’t all I recognized.”
Livvy felt a pang of premonition. She should have stayed in bed. She wished she might return there, and pull the covers over her head.
She had stopped petting Casanova. The cat nipped at her hand. Livvy shoved him off her lap. He thudded to the floor.
The whole business of war, Ned reminded himself, consisted of a man finding out what he didn’t know by means of what he did. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Livvy, but there is no doubt—”
“Then don’t
tell me, because I shan’t believe you. Because if I
did
believe you, I would have to— Oh, blast!” Livvy sprang up and bent, retching, over a tall Oriental vase.
Feeling helpless, Ned patted her back.
Observed Bluebeard, “Gobble-cock.”
Christmas Day dawned cool and bright and festive. Farmhouses and cottages brimmed with mistletoe, holly, and good cheer. The younger members of the community busied themselves with the contents of their stockings; their elders prepared for the traditional feast of roast beef and plum pudding, mincemeat and roasted crab; the more adventurous found numerous reasons to pause beneath the kissing-bushes that hung from the rafters and anywhere else there was space. Later the Yule logs would be brought home, and tales told over possets and frumenty. Come evening, the carolers and string-choirs would set out on their rounds.
Crump had set out on his rounds also. These had less to do with Yule logs and mistletoe than his desire to avoid being raked over the coals by Bow Street’s Chief Magistrate. He sat in the taproom at the Four Nuns, staring into his pint. Abel Bagshot had verified that the Honourable Hubert Humboldt had indeed demanded admittance to the inn on a certain morn, and at a shockingly early hour. If what the innkeeper said was true, and Crump had no real reason to believe it wasn’t, Hubert was absolved of any connection with Connor Halliday’s death. Even the enterprising Humbug would have found it difficult to simultaneously sample ale at the Four Nuns and lurk with murderous intention in a leafy copse several miles away.
Crump hadn’t singled out Hubert. He suspected no one and everyone, including the occupants of both Castle and Hall. If Hubert seemed above suspicion, at least in the current matter, Crump hadn’t ruled out Lady Bligh’s other house guests. Young Austen was an unlikely candidate, being only nine years old. On the other hand, lads of his class were skilled riders at that age, and also familiar with firearms. Lady Dorset appeared even more unlikely, being
enceinte
, but Crump had previous, rather harrowing, experience with the fancies that populated a pregnant female’s brain. Lord Dorset and Sir John had joined the hunt together, but that didn’t mean his lordship couldn’t have slipped away unseen. For that matter, Sir John could have slipped away from the other hunters, and for no better reason than Dulcie had asked him to, not that that was likely either, Lady Bligh being more than capable of getting on a horse and riding out to shoot Connor Halliday herself.
As for the occupants of the Hall, Lady Halliday was held to be a peabrain, while Rosamond Fellowes was not; both apparently had held Connor Halliday in no great regard, and neither had a satisfactory alibi for the time of the man’s death. Thus far the sole solid conclusion Crump had reached was that Abel Bagshot knew more than he was saying about recent events. When questioned about a horse that habitually cast off a shoe, the innkeeper launched into description of the contest that had been the highlight of the fair: two rustic gladiators stripped to the waist, delivering short chopping blows with their naked fists, dislodging teeth and beating each other’s noses flat, while blood spurted everywhere; the final blow, delivered to the jugular with the full force of the arm shot horizontally from the shoulder, knocking the recipient several inches off the ground. The victor didn’t emerge unscathed, one of his eyes having been torn from its socket during the melee.
Having had his fill of village gossip, the Runner took his leave, aware that behind him his host drew a deep breath of relief.
Crump proceeded to the stable, requested his usual nag, and mounted warily. Had the day been warmer, and the distance shorter, he would have traveled to Halliday Hall on foot.
Even on horseback, his progress was not swift. Abel Bagshot had assigned him a docile hack. Still, better to travel at the pace of a tortoise than ride hell-for-leather, as had happened, and without his cooperation, in the past. Crump settled more comfortably in his saddle, lit his pipe, and returned to his thoughts.
Connor Halliday had been a man held in universal loathing, except maybe by Lady Dorset, according to Sir John. Lord Dorset, to all appearances, had an unbreakable alibi. The disHonourable Hubert was equally blameless, according to Abel Bagshot. Lady Dorset had been with the Baroness; Ned Sutcliffe had been with Lady Halliday. All the Baroness’s houseguests were accounted for, except Jael.
The tinkers swore that, on the morning of Connor’s death, Jael had been visiting their camp. Crump had spoken with Gypsy Joe’s woman, in his caravan, which was simply and neatly furnished, containing a berth-like bed, a chest of drawers, two chairs and a table that hung from hinges on the wall. He had recognized the woman at once as the sort of doxy who infested the Thames, lived in foul rookeries such as St. Giles, frequented resorts in the Haymarket where the worst characters in the city met to drink rotgut gin and concoct crime. The Runner knew how to deal with females of her sort. When she refused to alter her tale under threat of either gallows or imprisonment, Crump concluded that Jael had indeed been there.
The local blacksmith had provided no additional enlightenment. Amazing, how no one could recall a horse that habitually cast off a shoe. Crump suspected that, when he located the animal, he’d also find Gypsy Joe. The tinker must surely still be in the neighborhood. He wouldn’t have gone off and left behind everything he owned.