"You must see, Sir Malcolm," Julian pointed out gently, "you haven't exactly made a case for his innocence."
"I haven't, have I? Well, by all means question him. Question anyone you like-—I give you
carte blanche.
Where shall you begin?"
"With Vance. I shall try to arrange to see him this evening. Then tomorrow I should like to inspect Alexander's study and the rest of his house."
"Why don't I meet you there? I can let you in, introduce you to the servants, and answer any questions you may have. I'd like to watch you, see how you go about your investigation. You don't know how helpless I've felt—waiting and wondering, receiving reports from Vance, but not really knowing what's going forward, or how I might be of use."
"Very well. Shall we say ten o'clock?"
"Ten o'clock it is. I can't tell you what your assistance means to me, Mr. Kestrel. You've given me hope. Perhaps in time you'll give Belinda hope as well."
Julian thought it would take more than a solution to the murder to lift Mrs. Falkland's spirits. He did not know what was behind her dull despair—shock or grief or guilt. But one thing seemed clear: it did not matter to her who had killed her husband.
3: Letters
"It's as I expected," said Julian, surrendering one booted foot to his manservant. "Sir Malcolm wanted to talk to me about his son's murder. Not only that—he's asked me to help Bow Street solve it."
Dipper removed the boot with one smooth tug. "You going to have a go, sir?"
"I seem to have agreed, yes."
Dipper nodded approvingly. Mr. Kestrel needed the challenge of another murder investigation. He needed it himself. He had been accustomed to live by his wits until a few years ago, when Mr. Kestrel came to London and took him on as his valet. What Mr. Kestrel had done before that, Dipper did not exactly know, but he felt sure his master had not been a mere idler—he knew life too thoroughly and took care of himself too well. Nowadays their life was too easy—or would be, if Mr. Kestrel had not developed this singular interest in murder.
Julian shifted position to let him take off the other boot. "You know all the servants' gossip. Tell me: what was Alexander Falkland's reputation below stairs? Did he stint the servants on beer money, shout at the butler, make love to the maids?"
"He was a first-rate master, by all accounts, sir. It wasn't so much the wages he paid, though they was up to the mark. It's that he treated his slaveys—I dunno, like they had feelings, same as him. He said 'please' and 'thank you,' and told 'em when they done well, and if some'ut went wrong, he'd laugh about it, like as not, 'stead of cutting up rusty. His man—he's a
mounseer,
his name's Valere—took it mortal hard when his master croaked, and now he's in a stew 'coz the killer ain't been nabbed. Says if this was France—"
"—the killer would have been found at once, and we'd all be celebrating over
foie gras
and Chambertin. Actually, he has a point. These investigations are haphazard affairs in England—that's what comes of having no regular police. The Bow Street Runners are clever and effective, for all the fashionable world's efforts to make them out buffoons, but their force is too small and too dependent on private rewards. That the old law-enforcement institutions go creaking on only makes things worse: the Runners are at odds with the parish constables, the unpaid justices of the peace look down their noses at the paid magistrates, and the watchmen get quietly drunk each night and ignore the whole lot of them. And whenever Sir Robert Peel attempts to bring some order to this chaos, he meets with horrified cries that a professional police would be the downfall of English liberties. One wonders what the devil Parliament is thinking of—I seem to be making a speech."
"Yes, sir." Dipper went on tranquilly laying out Julian's evening clothes.
"I hadn't meant to. It disrupts the temperate, philosophical frame of mind necessary for dressing. By the way, did you know our old friend Peter Vance is in charge of investigating Falkland's murder?"
"Is he, sir?"
"Yes. As soon as I've dressed, I'm going to write him a note, and I want you to take it to Bow Street directly."
"Yes, sir."
"You look something less than eager. I thought you and Vance got on tolerably well, for all that you used to be on opposite sides of the law."
"Yes, sir. It's just that it feels a bit queer, going to Bow Street o' purpose, 'stead of being pulled in. Makes me skin crawl, sir."
"I'm afraid I'm obliged to trample on your sensibilities. I want Vance to call on me tonight and bring any papers he has on the investigation. If it's any consolation, I shan't need you again until late in the evening. So have a drink or two with any servants you know who happen to be at liberty. And while you're about it, tell a few of them—in the
strictest
confidence, mind you—that I've undertaken to help Sir Malcolm Falkland solve his son's murder."
"If I do that, sir, it'll be all over town by morning."
Julian smiled. "So it will."
Dipper asked no questions. It was an article of faith with him that his master had excellent reasons for all he did, however mysterious it might seem. "You dining out, sir?"
"No. Have some cutlets and a bottle of claret sent up from the coffee-house down the street. I'm going to dine with Alexander Falkland."
"Sir?"
"To be precise, reading his letters."
*
While he waited for dinner to arrive, Julian glanced through the evening's post. It was mostly the usual invitations and bills. But there was also a letter, addressed in a quick, surprisingly legible scrawl. No amount of governess's training would ever teach Philippa Fontclair a lady's hand.
Julian had met Philippa a year ago at her father's country house, where he had had his first confrontation with an unsolved murder. He had also become the mistaken object of her brother Hugh's jealousy, because he had befriended Hugh's distraught bride-to-be, Maud Craddock. Since then, he and Philippa had kept up a correspondence. If she had been older, her parents would probably have put a stop to it, for she was a girl of pedigree and wealth, while he was a rootless, unpropertied man of fashion. As she was only twelve, their friendship was eccentric but unthreatening. They exchanged news, anecdotes, and opinions, Julian taking care not to let too worldly or irreverent a tone creep into his letters. He felt very responsible toward her. It was almost like having family.
He took the letter into his study, broke the seal, and unfolded it. It read:
Bellegarde 30
April 1825
Dear Mr. Kestrel,—Thank you for the globe you sent me for my birthday. It's very handsome. I especially like the sea monsters in the oceans. Sometimes I spin it, close my eyes and touch a place, and imagine I'm there. I should like to go on a long journey and write a book about it, like Marco Polo. Pritchie clucks her tongue and says you're putting ideas into my head. Wouldn't you think a governess would approve of that?
Now I'll tell you a secret. I'm going to be an aunt! Pritchie says I mustn't write that to you, as it's indelicate, but I think that's silly, don't you? We're all glad about it, though Hugh is rather anxious and keeps running about fetching Maud cushions and things that she doesn't want. She's very nice about it. I don't feel the least bit like an aunt, but perhaps that's why it takes so long to happen—so that people will have time to get used to it.
I'm afraid everyone here is very cross with you. I was, too, at first. You see, Dr. MacGregor told us his old teacher Dr. Greeley was going to give up his London practice and go to live at some poky watering place, and Dr. MacGregor was thinking of moving to London and taking over his patients. He said it was you who proposed it—he would never have had such a hare-brained idea on his own. We were all very indignant that you should be angling to take him away from us, when we all love him and we've had him so long. But then I thought it over and decided we were being selfish. Dr. MacGregor's lived here practically all his life, and perhaps he's quite bored—I know I should be. I think he could do to be shaken up and have the dust knocked off him, like beating a carpet. I told him so—a bit more politely than that, because everyone thinks I haven't any tact, but I do. And he said I was in league with you and you'd probably been writing to me behind his back. As if I couldn't make up my own mind, without that!
I must stop now, or I shan't be in time for the post. I have the honour to remain, sir, yours respectfully,
Philippa Fontclair.
Don't you like the sound of that? It's how Papa's solicitors sign their letters.
Julian smiled, refolded the letter, and tucked it into the blotter on his desk. Then a shadow passed over his face. He had never stopped to think how he might distress the Fontclairs by trying to lure Dr. MacGregor to London—as if he had not done enough, unmasking a murderer in their midst! He had genuinely thought MacGregor might relish a more exciting life and a more varied and challenging practice. But he had been selfish, too: he liked the peppery, blunt-spoken surgeon and wanted him near him. He was so real, so truly respectable—a Rock of Gibraltar in Julian's dizzy, deceptive world.
He especially wished he had MacGregor here now. In his first two murder investigations, he had honed his ideas on MacGregor's pugnacious skepticism, like sharpening knives on a whetstone. Well, he would just have to do without him. He could hear the man from the coffee-house arriving with his dinner, and it was time to immerse himself in Alexander Falkland's letters.
*
Even Alexander's handwriting had charm. It was graceful without being affected, easy to read but not so regular as to lack character. That much was apparent from a cursory glance at the letters; whether their content would live up to Sir Malcolm's description was another matter.
Julian arranged all the letters in order by date, Sir Malcolm's alternating with Alexander's. Then he read through the whole correspondence. And before he had gone very far, he understood why Sir Malcolm had been so impressed by the scope of Alexander's knowledge. History, classics, philosophy, government—he had a thorough grounding in them all. Some of the legal discussions were obscure: he and Sir Malcolm explored concepts like
assumpsit
and
quantum meruit
with an ardour incomprehensible to anyone not a lawyer. But Alexander was concerned about broad human questions as well. At one point, Sir Malcolm wrote cynically to him about the use of defence lawyers in criminal cases. It was not so long ago, he observed, that an accused felon could only bring a barrister into court to argue narrow points of law. Now counsel were permitted to cross-examine witnesses, sometimes even address the jury. It would not be long before they took over the prisoner's defence altogether. How would the jury gauge guilt or innocence, when a great fog of legal oratory and sleight-of-hand came between them and the defendant?
Alexander sympathized with his father's impatience but could not share it:
I've often heard it said that a prisoner's demeanour in court is the most reliable measure of his honesty and good faith. But only consider, sir, how often the guilty are more glib and persuasive than the innocent! Innocence stammers in shame when confronted with an accusation, while guilt anticipates blame and has all manner of fictions ready to hand. Then, too, a criminal charge carries with it such a taint of guilt that, without the aid of defence counsel, an impressionable juror may lose sight of the presumption of innocence that is a prisoner's first hope and safest refuge. Every man—but above all the poorest, least educated, most vulnerable of the King's subjects—should be able to summon eloquence and wisdom to speak on his behalf, before he is deprived of liberty or life.
Another of Alexander's letters spoke admiringly of what he called "the American adventure in democracy." In reply, Sir Malcolm reminded him that slavery, abolished in England half a century ago, still flourished in the land of liberty across the water. Alexander acknowledged this regretfully, then went off at a surprising tangent:
Slavery, I think, is a matter of degree, not merely of definition. To be sure, a person is a slave who works against his will in harsh conditions, without the power to leave his employer or collect the wages his labour deserves. Certainly that is the plight of the Negroes in the United States, but it's equally the condition of many men, women, and children in our factories. I think I know what you will say: the political economists have proved that government interference in the management of factories undermines the principles of free labour on which our prosperity depends. I'm afraid you'll think me naive, sir, but how can it be that, to support the nation's textile trade, a child of nine must needs work in a mill twelve hours a day? If the world is really so constituted, then I can only say, sir—the world must be changed.
If Sir Malcolm was right that Alexander had contemplated going into politics, Julian thought, these views would not have won him many friends among the propertied interests that controlled most Parliamentary seats. Was that why he had hidden his more serious side from his friends—because he preferred not to show his true colours until he had established himself in politics?
Julian finished the last letter and sat back, musing. The correspondence was intriguing—yet, at a practical level, wholly useless. Alexander's letters shed no light on his personal life or his relationships with anyone except his father. In fact, the lack of even a glancing reference to his wife, his brother-in-law, or his many friends was curious. It was almost as if he had wanted to shut them out—to escape from the life he had seemed to enjoy so much. Julian could only conclude that there had been two Alexander Falklands. And the solution to the murder might well hinge on which of them had been the intended victim.
4: Last Night on Earth