He next went to Bow Street. Vance was not there but was expected later. Julian hoped he was enjoying a little hard-earned leisure with his wife and children in Camden Town. He left his card, writing on the back of it:
"New developments. I am on my way to see Sir Malcolm & will call again when I return.
"
He reached Sir Malcolm's house at about half past noon and was shown into the study. As he should have expected, Clare was there. He and Sir Malcolm had just returned from church and were looking up some point of law, their heads bent over a book.
"Mr. Kestrel!" Sir Malcolm came forward and wrung his hand heartily. "I was wondering what had become of you. I saw Vance yesterday, and he told me you'd left town on some mysterious mission."
"There's nothing mysterious about it. I went to Montacute to see Miss Verity Clare."
Clare's head came up from the book, his grey eyes dark in his white face.
Sir Malcolm was facing away from him and did not see. "Did you meet her? Did anything useful come of it? What did she—" He broke off, suddenly feeling the tension between Julian and Clare. He looked from one to the other. "What's wrong?"
"Miss Clare doesn't live in Montacute with her uncle," said Julian. "She never has. And I understand from the uncle, George Tibbs, that Mr. Clare knew that perfectly well."
"Where—" Clare moistened his lips. "Where did he tell you Verity is?"
"Why don't
you
tell me where she is? Then we can compare the two accounts and see which seems more plausible."
"Look here," broke in Sir Malcolm, "I see no reason to assume that Quentin is going to lie!"
"He's already lied, Sir Malcolm. He told us his sister was in Montacute, knowing full well that she wasn't. So I should be interested to know what story he means to tell now."
"What does it matter?" Clare asked, hardly above a whisper. "What has Verity to do with your investigation of Falkland's murder?"
"That is precisely what I'm trying to find out."
"But I swear to you, on my—my—"
"Honour?" Julian let the word vibrate in the air, then added more gently, "You can't say it. I'm not surprised."
Clare looked away.
"Why must you go on with these deceits and evasions—against your will, against your nature, against the law you aspire to serve? It isn't too late to make your peace with your conscience and tell us the truth. Where is Verity?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Can't, or won't?"
"Can't."
"Why not?"
"I can't tell you that, either."
"Did she kill Alexander?"
"No!" That word rang out almost defiantly.
"Did you?"
"No." Clare dropped his head in his hands.
"You're in a perilous position, Mr. Clare. Men have been taken up on suspicion for much less."
"I don't see any need to resort to threats!" Sir Malcolm said sharply.
"This isn't a threat," said Julian. "Refusing to answer questions in a murder investigation is obstructing justice. I feel rather absurd, having to point that out to two lawyers, but there it is."
"He's right, you know, sir," Clare told Sir Malcolm gently. "Mr. Kestrel, I can tell you nothing about my sister. If you think that makes me guilty of Falkland's murder, you may have me taken up. I won't leave London. You'll find me in my chambers, should you wish to send a constable." He turned to Sir Malcolm. "Under the circumstances, sir, the only honourable thing I can do is to break off our acquaintance. I won't take advantage of your kindness, when I can't give you perfect candour in return. Goodbye, sir. And thank you, with all my heart, for all you tried to do for me."
He bowed and went quickly away. Sir Malcolm stared after him. The next moment he ran out, calling, "Quentin! Wait! We must talk about this—"
He returned soon after, looking black as a thundercloud. "He's gone. I couldn't stop him. What do you mean by insulting him in that fashion?—a friend of mine, a guest in my house!"
"For God's sake, Sir Malcolm," Julian said wearily, "this is a murder investigation. I warned you—"
"Don't tell me again how you warned me your investigation might turn up shocking information. You haven't turned up anything shocking about Mr. Clare except that he won't tell you where his sister is. That hardly makes him a murderer."
"There's considerably more to be said against him than that. He wrote those letters to you in Alexander's name, and he won't tell us why. I think Alexander had some hold over him, and he can't reveal that without telling us what it was. If that's true, he had a double motive to kill Alexander: anger at being blackmailed and fear that the blackmail would continue, even grow worse."
"And what are you suggesting this blackmail was about?" Sir Malcolm demanded coldly.
"I should guess, about Verity. Alexander may have known some secret that would harm her if it were revealed. It's also possible he had a love affair with her."
"This passes all bearing!" Sir Malcolm strode about, waving his hands. "First you credit Adams's story that Alexander was keeping Mrs. Desmond, and now you think Verity Clare was his mistress as well!"
"It may be simpler than that. You're overlooking the possibility that Mrs. Desmond
is
Verity Clare."
"What?"
"They're both tall, slender young women with fair hair and light eyes, and they've both disappeared. I don't know why a strong-minded young woman who admires Mary Wollstonecraft should turn into a shallow light-of-love, who furnished her house like a brothel and apparently conducted it like one as well. But if Miss Clare chose to assume that character, she might well be able to carry it off. Tibbs told me she was a talented actress and could mimic any sort of manner or voice."
"This all sounds like the rankest speculation. But let's suppose there's something in it. Are you saying that Alexander had a love affair with Verity Clare and blackmailed Quentin about it, and Quentin killed him to stop the blackmail and protect his sister's reputation?"
"Perhaps. But you could equally turn the whole theory on its head. Alexander was blackmailing Clare about something that had nothing to do with Verity. Verity found out about it and arranged to meet Alexander secretly on the night of his party. She killed him to free her brother, and Clare knows it and is trying to protect her. In some ways, that makes more sense. Everyone says she's the bolder and less scrupulous of the twins."
"Oh, Lord!" Sir Malcolm pressed his palms to his head, as if he were trying to keep too much in it at once. "Suppose Verity
is
Mrs. Desmond: who was the driver of the gig—the gentleman who spirited a woman away from Cygnet's Court on the night of the Brickfield Murder?"
"Clare, rescuing his sister? Alexander, disposing of her? Some other man, running away with her behind Alexander's back? Whoever he was, he was mixed up in the Brickfield Murder. And I'll lay any odds that, if he wasn't Alexander, Alexander knew who he was and what he'd done."
Sir Malcolm said stonily, "I don't want Quentin taken up on suspicion—not yet. I'm not prepared to believe in his guilt—not on the evidence you've mustered so far."
"I grant you, I'm richer in theories than in facts. I shall do what I can to remedy that. I don't think it's necessary to imprison Clare in the meantime. He won't run away."
"He's not a coward."
"He's not a fool."
"Why must you be so hard on him?"
"In part," said Julian thoughtfully, "because I'm wary of being too lenient. He does draw on my sympathies—and I don't like it. I feel I'm being taken in, and I don't know how or why."
"You trust Eugene, in spite of the evidence against him."
"I have yet to catch Eugene in a lie. If I do, I shan't show him any mercy."
Sir Malcolm waved his hand in a bitter, defeated gesture. "What does it all matter to you, anyway? If Eugene or any of the suspects should disappoint or betray you, it won't mean much. What's one person, one friend, to you, more or less? But I've lost my son, my chance of a grandchild, and everything of Belinda but the empty shell upstairs. Then Quentin came along, and suddenly it was all bearable. Better than bearable—I was happier than I've been in Lord knows how long. I wanted him—I needed him—and you've driven him away."
What do you want from me? Julian thought. Don't solve your son's murder. Adopt Clare in his place. Bury the truth under a load of sentiment, and be damned to the investigation. But you'll be haunted the rest of your life—not by Alexander, but by justice left undone.
He asked point-blank, "Do you wish me to give over the investigation?"
Sir Malcolm stared back at him and did not answer. Dutton came in. "Peter Vance is here to see you, sir, with two young persons."
"Young persons?" echoed Sir Malcolm.
"Yes, sir. He said you'd wish to see them."
"We'd better have them in, I suppose." Sir Malcolm waited till Dutton was gone, then said, "I can't answer your question now. Ask me again after Vance and the young persons have gone."
The young persons proved to be a slender girl of about sixteen, with a small pointed face and large dark eyes, and a sandy-haired boy a year or two older, whose sun-baked skin, stubby, callused fingers, and vague odour of the stables told Julian he must be a post-boy or ostler. They were both dressed in their Sunday best: the girl freshly pretty in a flowered muslin frock, the boy ill at ease in a stiff, clean neckcloth and polished boots.
"'Afternoon, sir!" Vance greeted Sir Malcolm. "Glad I've found you at home. And you, Mr. Kestrel—I got your note and hoped I'd be in time to catch you here. Sir Malcolm Falkland, Mr. Julian Kestrel, this here is Miss Ruth Piper, and this is Mr. Benjamin Foley. They came to Bow Street this morning in answer to the advertisement we posted about the gig and horse."
He took a piece of grimy parchment from his pocket and held it out. It read:
PUBLIC OFFICE, BOW STREET
6 May 1825
50 GUINEAS Reward
Whereas, on the night of the
22nd April,
Alexander Falkland, Esq. was foully and brutally Murdered, and whereas, on the night of the
15th April,
a woman as yet unidentified was beaten to death in a brickfield southeast of Hampstead:—Notice is hereby given, that whoever shall give Information of the gig and horse described below, believed to have some connexion with either or both crimes, shall receive the above Reward by applying to the Chief Clerk at the Public Office, Bow Street.
A description of the gig and horse followed.
"I got to the office just in time to interview 'em," Vance went on. "Then I took 'em to see the gig and horse, and they recognized 'em straightaway. There was no magistrate on a Sunday morning to take their statements, so I brought 'em out here to tell you what they told me."
Ruth curtsied. Ben touched his forelock and shifted from one foot to the other.
"I'm very glad the two of you have come," Sir Malcolm said warmly. "You must have heard of the murder of my son a few weeks ago. We've been searching high and low for information that might lead us to his killer, and I shall be grateful for anything you can tell us that might light our way."
Julian was impressed. Whatever Sir Malcolm's private doubts and conflicts about the investigation, he could put them aside long enough not only to question these witnesses, but to woo them a little, put them at their ease. Julian could understand why he was so successful in court. He also saw clearly for the first time how much Alexander's famous charm had owed to his father's example.
Ruth curtsied again. "I'm sure we should like to help you, sir. But, sir, I can't believe the gentleman that drove the gig had anything to do with any murder. He was ever so kind. He wouldn't have hurt anyone."
Ben glowered at her. She lifted her chin and looked defiantly back.
"Perhaps we might begin at the beginning?" Julian suggested. "Where did you see the gentleman, and when?"
"It was the night of April the fifteenth," she answered readily.
"How do you remember that so precisely?"
"Because I keep a diary, sir. I wrote about the gentleman that night before I went to bed."
"You're an inestimable witness, Miss Piper," said Julian, smiling. "Now, where did you see this gentleman?"
"At the Jolly Filly, sir. It's my father's inn, in Surrey, just south of Kingston."
"Surrey," Julian mused. That was nowhere near Hampstead and the brickfield; in fact, it was on the opposite side of London, across the river. What could have been the gentleman's business there? "Please go on."
"He came at about eleven, sir, or perhaps it was closer to half past. He left his horse to be fed and watered—Ben looked after it, he's one of our ostlers—and came into the coffee-room to have a warm. It was a damp, misty night. Later it rained dreadful hard, but that was after he'd gone."
"Yes." Julian nodded. "Now, this is very important: Was he alone when he arrived?"
"Yes, sir," said Ruth.
"Did he speak with anyone while he was there?"
"Only me, sir. When he come into the coffee-room, I asked if I might fetch him a drop of something. I help to wait on the customers, you see. He ordered coffee with curacao, and when I brought it he talked to me—asked me how long I'd worked at the inn and whether I liked it. Then he—well, he flirted with me a bit—asked me if I had a sweetheart, that sort of thing. But he didn't mean anything by it—he was just passing the time while his horse was being looked after. He was kind. He made me feel—I don't know—as if I was the nicest girl he'd ever met."
Ben glowered more than ever.
Julian turned to him. "Meanwhile you were feeding and watering his horse?"
"Yes, sir. And it weren't much of a horse, for such a fine gentleman! A skinny old roan with a ewe neck, just like it says here." He pointed to the advertisement. "And his carriage was nothing but a shabby old walnut-shell. He ain't real quality, I says to Ruth—you can always tell a true gentleman by his cattle. But would she listen? Not her!"
"I told you," Ruth said impatiently, "that can't have been his regular carriage. He was incog—incog—in disguise. Just like a hero out of a novel!"