"Do you mean to imply that she might concoct some lie if she were forewarned?"
"Let's say rather that I'd like to gauge her reactions for myself."
Sir Malcolm's face relaxed into a smile. "Mr. Kestrel, you must be the most tactful man in London."
"Tact and tactics, Sir Malcolm, are the stuff of which investigation is made."
*
In the afternoon, Julian went home for a session with his tailor. His hobby of detection could not be allowed to interfere with his profession of dress. The tailor measured him for some sporting garments for the autumn and made yet another attempt to persuade him to pad his coats. "The very latest fashion, Mr. Kestrel!" he pleaded.
"My dear man, if I
followed
the fashions, I should lose any power to lead them. And not for you nor anyone else will I consent to look like a pincushion with legs."
"Of course I didn't mean to imply you
need
it, sir. Not like that Mr. de Witt." The tailor was not above disparaging one dandy to another. "He's one that would benefit from some padding here and there."
"De Witt's thinness suits him. He looks like an elongated sneer."
"You won't change your mind then, sir?"
"On no account."
"As you wish, sir." The tailor sighed and bowed himself out.
Peter Vance arrived soon after. He had been making enquiries about Mrs. Desmond in the neighbourhood of Cygnet's Court. "And I don't mind telling you, sir, it's been to no more purpose than to give a goose hay. The neighbours—shopkeepers, mostly—never knew aught about her. Kept herself to herself, it seems. Some folks remembered her maid, Fanny Gates, because she used to make purchases for her mistress or fetch her hackney coaches. She was a plain, drab woman, by all accounts, square-faced and stocky, and timid as a mouse. Looked as if she'd been knocked about the world a good deal and bore the bruises. She usually wore the clothes Mrs. Desmond had on when she approached Mrs. Falkland: a brown and white checked dress and a white cap with lappets."
"Those aren't the clothes the brickfield victim was wearing. But I can't think whoever went to so much trouble to obliterate her face would leave her lying about in her usual dress."
"She may have had a better one for Sundays."
"Or she may not have been the brickfield victim at all."
Vance shrugged. "One thing all the neighbours agreed on: she was afraid of her mistress and anxious to keep on her good side."
"Yes, that's what Mrs. Wheeler said."
"She's a rum customer,
she
is!" Vance chuckled. "I went to see her first thing and nearly had my head talked off. If ever a woman's tongue ran on wheels, hers does! But she couldn't tell me any more than she told Dipper. And that maid of hers is so soft-headed, I couldn't get anything out of her at all. In the ordinary way, she'd have been our best witness. Maids always make common cause in neighbourhoods like that and know all each other's secrets."
"Cygnet's Court does seem an ideal place to hide a
chere amie.
In fact, any amount of immoral or illegal things could go on there without anyone's finding out, particularly on Friday nights when Mrs. Wheeler is away. That's all the more reason not to neglect the criminal classes. Last night Dipper bought drinks for half the thieves and light-skirts in the neighbourhood, without learning anything to the purpose. I shall send him out again tonight and see if he fares any better."
"Hard life, being your servant." Vance grinned.
"It does have its compensations."
"What'll you do in the meantime, sir?"
"Wednesday is the weekly ball at Almack's, so I shall go and dance with debutantes and become as elevated as one can on weak cherry cordials. And of course I shall see if there's anything more to be gleaned about Alexander Falkland." He pondered. "I wish there were some way we could find out more about the brickfield victim. I have a strange conviction we'd unravel this whole mystery if we only knew why it was necessary to destroy that woman's face."
15: Night Visitors
That evening, while Julian was at Almack's dancing with debutantes and drinking cherry cordials, Sir Malcolm was alone in his library, remonstrating gently with the portrait of Alexander.
"Why did you do it? Why did you feel you had to deceive me? Did you think I expected—did you think the world expected—you to be perfect? That you had to be a brilliant lawyer as well as a skilled art collector, a devoted husband, a charming host? Didn't you know I'd rather have had a flesh-and-blood son, with all his faults, than a sublime, exotic creature I couldn't hope to understand?
"I suppose you thought I'd never find out. My poor boy, how could you know death was waiting for you round the next corner, and all your secrets were about to be dragged out into the light? I wish to Heaven I could see you just once more and ask you—tell you—"
He broke off helplessly. The truth was, he could never have had this conversation with the living Alexander. Something about Alexander had set intimacy at defiance. He had been like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope: too many colours, too many facets, nothing one could fix on for long at a time. Who knew what had lain beneath that surface? There might have been anything, or nothing—
"Sir?"
Sir Malcolm spun around, hoping Dutton had not heard him jabbering to a painting. I must keep my wits together, he thought. We can't have the neighbourhood saying I'm going queer in my upper story.
Dutton brought in a salver with a card on it. Sir Malcolm read the card and looked up, startled. "What does he want?"
"He's asked to see you, sir."
Sir Malcolm took a turn about the room, running his fingers through his hair. "I suppose you'd better show him in."
Dutton bowed and went out. He returned a moment later with Quentin Clare, who halted just inside the doorway, hat in hand, to signal that he did not mean to stay. Sir Malcolm motioned to Dutton to leave them.
They stared at each other across the room. Sir Malcolm felt confused, indignant, shy. What do you say to a man you hardly know, to whom you've been pouring out your deepest thoughts and ideals for months, in the belief that he is somebody else?
"I was afraid you'd refuse to see me, sir," said Clare. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you had."
"I couldn't see turning you away. But, frankly, I don't know what we can have to say to each other."
"You can have nothing to say to me, sir. And what I have to say can be said very quickly—then I'll go. I only want to tell you how sorry I am for deceiving you as I did."
"Why did you do it?"
"At first, just because Alexander asked me. You'd tried a case of forgery in the Spring Assizes that involved a dispute over hearsay evidence. Alexander asked me for some ideas on the subject, so he could seem knowledgeable about it when he wrote to you. You wrote back to him in such detail that he said he had no notion how to respond. He asked me to write a letter for him. I agreed. I didn't know he would want me to go on doing it. And I never counted on—" He looked down, colouring.
"On being found out?" said Sir Malcolm ironically.
"No, sir." Clare lifted clear grey eyes. "On enjoying the correspondence so much. I began it for Alexander's sake; I continued it for my own. I had no one to talk to about what I was reading and thinking. My father was a barrister, but he died when I was very young. I haven't many friends. Most of the time I don't mind that. I prefer to be alone. But writing to you—it got under my guard somehow. I looked forward to your letters. I forgot how wrong it was. I forgot deliberately, because I wanted to go on doing it—" He swallowed hard. "Please believe me, sir, I was stupid and selfish, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Goodnight, sir."
"Wait!" Sir Malcolm sprang forward and caught his arm. "You can't make a speech like that and then take yourself off! And the way you look now, I'd be afraid of your making a hole in some river. There's no call to make such a tragedy of this. You were very wrong, but I forgive you. I'm always forgiving people. It's a constitutional infirmity."
He drew Clare to the fireplace, sat him down, and tugged on the bell-pull. Dutton appeared. "Bring us a bottle of port, will you, Dutton?"
"Yes, sir. May I suggest, sir, if Mr. Clare means to stay for any length of time, his horse ought to be taken round to the stable. It's tethered to the front gate at present."
"To be sure, yes," Sir Malcolm agreed. "You can't leave a horse there—the street's not wide enough. See to it, Dutton." Clare was looking so dazed and bewildered that Sir Malcolm could not help smiling. But he said nothing more until they were settled with their port. "You know, you remind me of myself at your age: bookish and solitary and taking everything too seriously. I wanted to be a don, you know. I meant to live out my life at Oxford, immersed in study."
"Why didn't you?" Clare ventured.
"My uncle died suddenly and left me a baronetcy that had got separated from the landed property that went with it. I had to live up to the title, and that meant achieving some worldly success. More important, my uncle had left his daughter alone and unprovided for. I hadn't planned to marry—a fellow of a college can't, of course—but I had to look after Agnes. So we were married, and I left Oxford and began to study for the Bar. But Agnes died a few years later, and I was thrown back on my old monkish habits. Looking back, I can see I was wrong to live that way. At your age, a man should be getting to know live people as well as dead languages. You should go to the theatre and the Cider Cellar, practise boxing at the Fives Court, and get into scrapes with girls. Am I being too personal?"
"No, sir. I should say you were entitled, after—well, everything that's happened. But I don't like those things."
"There's time enough to live the life of the mind once the body is wearing out."
"The life of the mind is the only life I should ever care to live."
"Have you tried the other?"
"In a way, yes, I have." Clare looked steadily into the fire. "And I've learned that the mind is the only safe place—safe because the world can't see inside, and mock or demean what it sees."
"You know, you're a very strange young man."
"Oh, sir." Clare smiled suddenly. "You have no idea."
"Well, as long as you're here, and I can't persuade you not to bury yourself in books, I should like to ask what you meant in your last letter when you said you thought Helen got the best of the debate with Hecuba in
The Trojan Women.'
"
They began to talk about Euripides. From there they progressed to Greek drama in general, then to Greek history. They compared Herodotus with Thucydides, and both of them with Tacitus. They debated questions no one would ever be able to answer, such as whether Plato or Xenophon had drawn the more accurate portrait of Socrates, and what had really gone on at the Eleusinian Mysteries. They were refighting the battle of Salamis, using inkwells and sealing wax for ships, when the clocks in the house began to chime midnight. They looked at each other incredulously.
"I never meant to stay so long," said Clare. "I had no idea how late it was."
"Nor I."
Clare hunted about for his hat, then turned to Sir Malcolm and held out his hand shyly. "Well—goodbye, sir. I hardly dared hope you'd forgive me, much less be so kind as you've been. Thank you."
"See here, Mr. Clare. You haven't yet atoned for what you've done."
"What—what do you mean? What can I do?"
"Come and see me again. Come whenever you can. We'll talk about Greek, the law, your future. You've chosen a very competitive calling—you'll need guidance, patronage, if you're to make the most of your talents. I can help you."
Clare's eyes stretched wide with astonishment. "Sir, I don't know what to say. I couldn't ask anything from you, after—"
"Now let's not hear any more about that. If you won't think of yourself, think of me. I've lost my son twice over. First he was taken from me in the flesh, then the man I thought he was—the man who'd written me those letters—turned out to be an illusion. I'm all at sea. I don't know what other lies he may have told—what else about him may not have been real."
"But why me?"
"Because you wrote the letters. You're the living embodiment of that spirit I thought was Alexander's. Only you can restore to me something of what I've lost. Mr. Clare, you have no father, and I have no son. What more natural than that we should fill each other's need?"
"I think," said Clare in a low voice, "Mr. Kestrel suspects me of killing your son."
"Mr. Kestrel suspects everyone. That gives me the luxury of suspecting only those I choose. Now what do you say? Is it a bargain?"
Clare drew a long breath. "It's a bargain, sir."
They shook hands, then Sir Malcolm rang for Dutton to light Clare to the stable. After he had gone, Sir Malcolm found himself face to face with the portrait again. But now he was more at peace, his loneliness relieved. And he suddenly knew it was a very old loneliness, going back much further than his son's death. He had never been more alone than when he was with Alexander.
*
Almack's was more than usually slow. Julian found out nothing of use to the investigation. Alexander's acquaintances were all eager to know how it was progressing—a subject on which Julian remained enigmatic—but they had nothing new to offer beyond wild, often malicious speculation. Among the sporting set, the betting had branched out from whether and when Julian would solve the crime to which of the suspects would turn out to be guilty. Adams was the favourite. Valere came second, perhaps because some of the gentlemen thought their own valets would be likely suspects if they themselves were murdered.
The dancing continued late into the night, but Julian went home at about one. Dipper let him in and relieved him of the bicorne hat he carried under his arm. Almack's imposed an absurdly outdated dress code on men: tight pantaloons resembling knee-breeches, silk stockings, and folding
chapeau bras.
The Duke of Wellington had once been turned away from the door for wearing trousers.