The Lady of Lyon House (25 page)

I put the clippings down and picked up a book lying on the desk. On the fly leaf, beautifully embossed, was the name Philip A. Mann. I was not surprised. I had already guessed that Philip Ashley was Clinton Mann's son. Not content with what Scotland Yard was doing, he was conducting his own private investigation of the crime. I began to remember little things he had said and done. They all fit in place.

I was puzzled. Why had he been following
me?
I certainly had nothing to do with any crime. The police said there was a woman involved, but she was a brunette. She was the woman in the photo gravure, of that I was certain. I had never seen the woman before, or had I? There must be some reason why Philip Mann was so interested in me. When I had accused him of watching me, he had said he was watching “over me,” as if I was in some danger that he knew about.

Everyone seemed to have been watching over me: Mattie and Bill, Edward Lyon and Corinne, Philip Ashley Mann. Each had expressed concern for my safety in some way or other, each had given me warning.
Don't go to the village alone, don't wander around in the woods at night, don't talk to strangers
. Mattie had sent me away from London because it wasn't safe for me to stay there. Now Devonshire was no longer safe.

It had something to do with the Mann case—I knew that now. Somehow or other I was involved. Had I accidentally seen something, something I could not recall? Was the mysterious brunette one of the girls at the music hall, and had I observed something that would be incriminating to her, something I had since forgotten? These questions revolved in my brain, tormenting me, and I put my hands to my temples, trying to stop the throbbing. My cloak slipped from my shoulders and fell to the floor in a dark blue heap.

The newspaper clippings had given a particularly gory description of the murder. They described the fatal beating with relish, leaving nothing to the imagination. It had been called one of the most brutal slayings of the century.
And now those killers were looking for me
. That was the reason for all the secrecy, all the caution. The men who had murdered Clinton Mann intended to murder me. I did not know why, but it was a certainty that froze my blood.

They had already murdered Agatha Crandall. They could not be far. Perhaps they were moving in at this very moment.

I do not know how long I sat there, paralyzed with fear. The room had grown dim, heavy shadows filling the corners and blurring the edges of furniture and canvas. Only a few weak orange rays of fading sunlight seeped in through the tightly closed shutters. In a few moments, there would be total darkness. The house seemed to close in around me. It was dark and isolated. The wind was banging the shutters I had broken open; they slapped loudly against the house.

The floor creaked in one of the back rooms.

I flew to the front door, my heart pounding violently. The door was locked from the inside. I fumbled with the catch with awkward fingers. The floor creaked again and a soft, shuffling sound followed.
I was not alone in Dower House
. Someone was moving stealthily down the hall. The brass bolt flew back with a loud click as I flung the door open. I didn't pause once; I ran across the lawn and hurled myself over the fence and raced down the road. I ran until I could run no longer.

I stopped—feeling as though my lungs would burst.

I looked back at Dower House, far away now. It looked peaceful. A blur of orange light washed over the walls, and long brown shadows crept across the yard. The door stood open, as I had left it, but no one came out. I shivered, standing there in the middle of the road. I had left my cloak, and the wind was cold on my bare arms. No one had pursued me. I had given in to a moment of hysteria, and my imagination had been over active.

I stood there panting, trying to calm myself.

I walked slowly down the road towards Lyon House. My sides ached from running. My head still throbbed, and there was a voice inside. It was a scratchy whisper, and it repeated the same words over and over. I shook my head, but the voice kept whispering. “Man,” it said, “Ashley. Go see Beau. Go see Beau.” I had not been able to make sense of Agatha's drunken gibberish before, but now I understood it. She was telling me about Philip Mann, and what had sounded like “Go see Beau” in that broken whisper came clear now.

There was something in the gazebo.

I knew what I
should
do. I should go to Corinne and tell her what I had discovered, or I should wait until Edward came back from London and tell him. I was involved in something extremely dangerous, and it was sheer folly to act on impulse, but I could not wait any longer. I had been surrounded by clouds of mystery for so long that I did not feel I could possibly endure any more. I had to act now. I had to see for myself what Agatha's cryptic message had meant.

I skirted the gardens of Lyon House, moving quickly and silently among the thickening shadows. All light had faded from the sky now, and it was a dark blue, streaked with black. The air was hazy, and the tree limbs were like inky black fingers reaching out of the haze. I heard the river. I stepped to the edge of the clearing where the gazebo stood.

The boards had been ripped off the front and I could see inside. Someone had been here recently. I stepped across the clearing and stood before the gazebo, staring inside. There were no floorboards; a mound of earth reared up inside. It was a grave.

I did not hear the woman come up behind me. When I turned, she was only a few feet away. She was wearing the red satin dress adorned with jet beads. The black feather boa was wrapped about her arms. Her dark eyes stared into mine, and then they peered at the mound of earth.

“Corinne Lyon,” the woman said. “She never recovered.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
T WAS
a beautiful face with fine structure and rich coloring impossible to capture in a photo gravure. The dark eyes glowed, the lids delicately shadowed, fine brows curving in natural arches above. The lips were soft and pleasantly rounded, and below each high cheekbone there was a fragile hollow. It was a face I had seen thousands of times as I stared into the mirror. The coloring was entirely different, but the features were almost identical. The hair fell in natural waves, so rich in color that the black had dark blue sheens.

“I had to do it,” she said.

“I never suspected,” I replied.

“I am an actress,” my sister Maureen said. “A fine one, too, even if I do say so myself. Portraying Corinne Lyon was an easy task. She was quite a flamboyant old dame. The part required no subtle shadings, no real art at all. I just had to rant and rave and throw my weight about. The make up was rather difficult, but I got used to it after a while.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you do it?”

“Julia”—she whispered. “Don't ask me. Please—just go back to the house. I never wanted to involve you in this. I don't want to involve you now. We'll be gone in a little while, and you can go back to London and it will all be over. Will you do that?”

“You are the woman in the Mann case,” I said.

“You know?”

“Just a little. Enough—” I said. My voice was cold.

“You—you think I'm a criminal, don't you?”

“Aren't you?” I asked crisply.

“No!” she said passionately. “I never wanted any of this! I never wanted any of it to happen—”

For a moment I thought she was going to break down. Her voice was strained and her eyes were full of urgent pleading. Then she gained control of herself. She drew her shoulders back and tossed one end of the boa over them. The gesture was regal. When she spoke again there was an intrinsic dignity in her voice.

“I have never been perfect,” she said. “I have lived in—in my own style, and it's not the style in fashion today. I have done things that would not be considered proper, but they were proper for me, for my way of life. I will not apologize for them, Julia, not even to you. I have lived my way because I've had to. It's never been easy.”

“I know that, Maureen.”

“No,” she said. “You don't know, and I wouldn't have you know. I have always wanted you to be—everything I could never be. That's one of the reasons I never tried to see you. I sent what money I could and left the rest up to Mattie and Bill. I knew they'd do the best for you, and I was not able to do anything more.”

We were still standing by the gazebo. It was dark now. The air was thick with hazy blue shadow. A few bright points of starlight were beginning to frost the sky, and the moon was struggling to rise above a bank of clouds. I could see my sister clearly. Her face was suffused with emotion, and it was lovely with a poignant loveliness that made me want to cry.

“I see that I must tell you everything,” she said. “If I don't, you will think much worse—”

“Tell me, Maureen. I have to know.”

“Yes, I see that now. I must hurry. He'll be coming soon, and we will have to leave. I don't know where to begin—”

“Begin with Clinton Mann,” I said.

She hesitated for a moment, her eyes searching mine, and then she began to speak in that beautifully modulated voice.

“I met Clinton Mann at an art gallery,” she said. “I go to those places frequently. I love to see beautiful things, perhaps because there have been so few of them in my life. We started a conversation, and he asked me to tea. I—I was very impressed with him, and I could see he liked me. He was much older, of course, but very distinguished, very kind. There was something—magnetic, and I hoped that at last I might be able to have something stable in my life, even if the stability was just being the mistress of a man like him. Does that shock you?”

“No, Maureen,” I replied quietly.

“Three days after we met, he gave me the key to his apartment. He lived over the galleries, you know, and the key opened the main door downstairs. He had mentioned the exhibit, but I had paid little attention to it. Then—how shall I say this—Bart and Jerry found out about my friendship with Clinton Mann. They were staying at the same hotel I was in at the time, a sordid place, so ugly. Earlier, when I was really down—desperate, no food, no money, no hope—I had had a—friendship—with Bart. He was a brute, a monster, but he kept me from starving. I hate to think of those days.”

I said nothing. I was trembling slightly.

“They stole my key. They went to the galleries. They stole the stones and murdered Clinton Mann. I got there just after they'd gone. I had thought I had misplaced my key, but when I saw what had happened, I knew they had taken it. I knew they had done this. I—I saw Clinton on the floor. I saw the blood—”

“Maureen,” I pleaded. “Don't. You don't have to tell me any more. I'm sorry. I don't want you to—”

“I must,” she said, and her voice was calm. “I must tell you all so that you won't think—terrible things about me. Bart and Jerry went back to the hotel, very casual about the whole thing. They went out to dinner, as though nothing had happened, and I broke into their room. I found the jewels and I took them. I was—so frightened.”

She paused for a moment. In the silence we could hear the crickets under the stones and the sound of the river as it washed along the bank. It was cold. I folded my arms about my body, shivering. Maureen did not seem to notice the chill. She was oblivious to it. Nothing was real to her now but the horror of the story she was relating.

“I wanted to go to the police, but I knew I couldn't do that. They do not have much respect for people like me. I knew they would think I was involved—and I was, however indirectly. I knew I had to leave immediately, before Bart and Jerry got back to their room. I went to the music hall and told Mattie what had happened. I had no money. She gave me enough to come here to Lyon House—”

“Why Lyon House?” I asked. “Were you and Edward—”

“We had been,” she said, before I could finish my question. “We had been keeping company for a long time, every time he came to London. I never loved him—he's selfish and vain and quite cruel in his way—but there is a physical thing between us. I'm not proud of it. It is something I cannot help. It's there, and I—I am its slave. I tried to break away from Edward, but it was impossible. I had hoped that the friendship with Clinton Mann would give me the strength I needed. But it did not work out that way. I came to Lyon House. I came at night, secretly, bringing the jewels with me. I met Edward in the garden.”

“The mysterious woman,” I said to myself.

“Corinne Lyon was still alive then, but she was dying. There was no question of that. She was so old and she had lived so outrageously, riding every morning, working herself into a fury over the least little thing. Edward took me in, and I stayed in a room upstairs, hiding all day long. At night we would meet in the gardens and talk, plan. He said he would help me. Then Corinne Lyon died—”

“And you took her place,” I said.

“Yes. No one knew she had died besides Agatha Crandall. Edward made a deal with her. He told her what had happened and promised to give her part of the money the jewels would bring. He did not intend to give them back. He never intended to do that, but I didn't know it then. His plan was—fantastic, so fantastic that I believed it would work. I had to hide. I knew the police would be looking for me, and so would Bart and Jerry. No one knew about my liason with Edward. There would be nothing at all to connect me with Lyon House.”

“So Corinne Lyon ‘recovered,'” I said.

“Edward buried her here in the gazebo. He'd hidden the jewels here earlier. The next morning I got up, making a remarkable recovery. The first thing I did was dismiss all the servants in a fit of temper. Corinne had hired and fired servants at a shocking rate, so there was nothing unusual about it. The new servants would be less likely to discover the hoax, as they had not been around the old woman before. I took down the portrait of Corinne Lyon that hung in the gallery, and I simply became her. I wore her clothes, her wig. I went riding every morning as she had done. I fooled everyone. Sometimes it seemed I really
was
Corinne Lyon, even to myself.