She paused, lowered her eyes, and said quietly, "Now I can tell you about the child. You're both too considerate to ask, but you must be wondering who the father was. It was Mr. Adams. I knew, because Alexander and I were estranged both before and after—I was with Mr. Adams. I first suspected my condition before Alexander was killed, but it wasn't till after he was dead that I was sure. It was like a nightmare. I would give birth to a child everyone would think was Alexander's. People would lavish admiration and attention on it, and all the time I would know—I would know—" Her throat closed. "The worst part was, Mr. Adams might guess the truth, and it would bind me to him forever. He isn't a man to keep away from his own child. I believe the men of his nation cleave very closely to their flesh and blood. I would never be free of him, I would always be reminded—I couldn't bear it. I had to stop the child from being bom.
"I thought of taking my life. It seemed more just. Why should I live, when the child must die? But two things held me back. I couldn't desert Eugene in the same cruel, contemptible way his father had. And—it sounds base, I know—but it galled me that people would believe I did it out of grief for Alexander.
"I had no one to advise me. People say there are herbal compounds, secret methods—I didn't know what they were. I tried drinking turpentine. Papa's housemaid keeps a bottle in her closet, for making furniture polish. It made me terribly sick, but it didn't bring about the result I'd wished. I was still recovering when you came to see me, Mr. Kestrel, the day you agreed to investigate Alexander's murder."
"Yes," he said, nodding, "I remember you were ill then."
"I had to think of something else—something that wouldn't give rise to suspicion that I'd miscarried intentionally. If that became known, the whole truth would have to come out. And I was afraid of what Mr. Adams would do if he knew I'd tried to kill his child. I had to think of some way to disguise what I was doing—to throw everyone off the scent.
"That's why I arranged the accident as I did. I wanted it to look as if someone had deliberately tampered with my saddle. I hoped people would assume the same person who killed Alexander had tried to kill me, or his child. I was sorry to make such a cruel use of Phoenix, because he's innocent and devoted to me and didn't deserve to suffer. But I couldn't think of another way.
"I did lose the child, but everything else went wrong. Eugene came back, after all the efforts I'd made to put him safely out of the way. And you turned up on the morning of the accident, Mr. Kestrel, when I'd made all the preparations, and it was too late to cry off. Other people might have drawn the wrong inferences, asked the wrong questions. You were too clever and clear-sighted for that. But did you know why I'd done it? Did you guess what had happened between Mr. Adams and me?"
"Not precisely. But I knew it was in order to throw you together with Adams that Alexander arranged for Mrs. Desmond to lure you to her house. That was on a Friday, the first of April. Fridays were the only days when Mrs. Desmond's neighbour, Mrs. Wheeler, was away. Adams told me he'd visited Mrs. Desmond's house once, early in April, and seen Martha there. When I asked him how he knew it was Martha, he said he'd seen her clearly by the sunshine streaming through the fanlight. Mrs. Wheeler said Alexander only called on Mrs. Desmond at night; if he'd paid a daytime visit or allowed Adams to do so, it must have been on a Friday, when he knew the inquisitive Mrs. Wheeler would be away. In short, Mrs. Falkland, I was convinced that you and Mr. Adams had been to Mrs. Desmond's house on the same day. The next day, Adams forgave Alexander a debt of thirty thousand pounds. And when you saw Adams at your party a few weeks later, you left precipitately. So I suspected Adams had taken some advantage of you. But I never doubted your honour, or saw you as anything other than the innocent victim of a base betrayal."
"Innocent? How can you speak of me so? I killed my own child!"
"Not in the eyes of the law," Sir Malcolm pointed out gently. "According to Blackstone, an abortion isn't murder if it takes place before the child has quickened in the womb."
She shook her head despairingly. "I don't know who Blackstone is, but I know he can't absolve me of the guilt I feel. Why haven't you accused me of killing Alexander, Mr. Kestrel? You must see I had every reason to want him dead, and if I could plot my accident, I could surely plot a murder."
"No, Mrs. Falkland. You didn't kill your husband. But I think you know who did."
"Wh-what?"
"You said you arranged the accident so that people—Adams in particular—would assume the same person who killed Alexander had attacked you."
"Yes," she said warily.
"How did you know Adams hadn't killed Alexander himself? How
could
you know—unless you knew who had killed him?"
She drew in her breath but did not answer.
"Are you willing to tell us who the murderer was?"
"No. No. I won't give anyone up to the law for doing what I'm glad was done—for ridding me of a husband I hated, and the world of an enemy to everything honourable and good."
Julian shrugged. "Then I shall have to submit my proofs." He reached into an inside pocket of his coat and took out Fanny's little topaz cross. "This belonged to Mrs. Desmond's maid, Fanny Gates. Mrs. Desmond says she wore it all the time." He described how he had found it in the hidden recess. "There was also some jewelry that Mrs. Desmond claims is hers."
"But what does it mean?" Sir Malcolm faltered.
"It confirms what we've suspected for some time," said Julian gently. "That Fanny was the brickfield victim, and that Alexander killed her. He must have taken the cross from her body after she died. The reddish substance caked into the chain could be brickearth or blood—perhaps both. After going to so much trouble to smash her face, obliterate her identity, he wouldn't have left her wearing an ornament someone might recognize as hers. But he must have felt it wasn't safe to dispose of it—or of Mrs. Desmond's jewelry, either—so he hid them in the secret compartment he'd devised when he designed the study."
Sir Malcolm held out his hand for the cross. Julian gave it to him. He gazed at it long and intently. It lay on his palm, a silent, remorseless witness. At last his fist closed around it. He lifted his head, and his eyes met the laughing eyes of the portrait of Alexander.
He flushed and came to his feet. Striding to the portrait, he tore it from the wall and smashed it against the mantelpiece. The frame cracked; Alexander's face dissolved in a burst of shredded canvas.
Mrs. Falkland gasped and fell back faintly against her pillows. Sir Malcolm spun around in quick concern. Flinging the portrait aside, he rang for Dutton and ordered him to fetch Martha. Then he dropped down beside Mrs. Falkland, chafing her hands and softly calling her name. Julian hunted out the decanter and poured her a glass of brandy.
Martha ran in, a smelling-bottle in one hand and a cloth soaked in vinegar in the other. She elbowed the men aside and administered the bottle to Mrs. Falkland's nose and the cloth to her brow. Her eyes flickered open; she sat up weakly.
Julian slipped out and went upstairs to the drawing room. Marianne was sitting on the sofa, amusing herself by going through Mrs. Falkland's work-box.
"I'm sorry to have left you alone so long," he said. "Will you come downstairs again?"
She pouted a little but went with him willingly enough. "You might tell me what's been happening. I can't think why you brought me here, if it was only to leave me cooling my heels."
"Grant me another minute or two, and I'll undertake to make everything plain."
They returned to the library. Marianne swept in with her nose in the air. "I warn you, I shan't stay if people aren't civil to me. That stuck-up wife of Alexander's has been perfectly horrid—"
She halted, gazing across the room. Martha was still bustling about Mrs. Falkland, plumping her pillows and tucking a rug around her feet. She looked up at Marianne without interest. But Marianne came a few steps closer, staring at her incredulously. "Fanny! Isn't it?" She turned to Julian in bewilderment. "You said she was dead!"
"She is. This is Martha Gilmore, her sister—and the murderer of Alexander."
30: The Iron Weapon
Martha slowly straightened up.
So you've found me out,
her stolid gaze seemed to say.
What now?
The others stared in amazement—all except Mrs. Falkland, who looked sad but unsurprised.
Sir Malcolm came to his feet. "What—how—I don't understand—"
"The cross was what gave her away," said Julian. "If it hadn't been found, Alexander's murder might never have been solved."
"If I may speak, sir," Martha interposed, "it wasn't a murder. It was an execution."
"It wasn't for you to pass sentence on him," Sir Malcolm said gravely. "We all know what he was. Even I, his own father, admit he deserved to die. But who were you to be his judge and jury?"
"I was Fanny's sister, sir. That was judge and jury enough for him."
Sir Malcolm turned back to Julian. "But how on earth did you find that out? That Martha and Fanny were sisters?"
"Not merely sisters. Twins, and identical. It was the only explanation that fit all the facts." He looked thoughtfully at Martha. "You've puzzled me for some time. Suspicious circumstances swirled around you, but I couldn't link any of them clearly to the murder. First, there was your asking to speak with Alexander on the night he was killed, to tell him Mrs. Falkland wouldn't be returning to the party. Both Clare and Adams were certain you'd said nothing else, done nothing out of the common. But Clare said Alexander seemed disconcerted, and shortly afterward he went down to the study, where he was killed.
"Then there was Adams's story that he'd seen you at Mrs. Desmond's. I couldn't conceive why he should have invented such a thing. But you swore on your honour as a Christian that you'd never been there, and I didn't believe that was an oath you would take lightly. And of course it was the truth—but not the whole truth. You must have known it was Fanny, not you, Adams saw."
"I guessed as much, sir."
Julian nodded. "After I found the cross, I remembered Adams's description of you as he'd seen you at Mrs. Desmond's, then later at Alexander's party: same broad shoulders, same square face,
same cross around her neck.
I should have realized I'd never seen you wear a cross or any other ornament. But it was such a small detail, it passed me by.
"Now I see what must have happened. You'd been spying on Alexander, searching his rooms, and you came upon the cross. Somehow you pieced together that he'd killed your sister. On the night of his party, you put on the cross, then called him out of the drawing room on the pretext of giving him a message from Mrs. Falkland. That was how you disconcerted him—not by anything you said, but by wearing the cross he'd taken from his victim after he killed her.
"He knew, of course, that you and Fanny were twins. It probably amused him to give his wife and his mistress identical maids. It was another piece of
trompe l'oeil
—his cleverest and cruelest. When he saw you wearing Fanny's cross, he must have asked himself, did you have one just like it, or had you found your sister's—the one thing in the world that could link him to the Brickfield Murder? He couldn't rest till he'd gone down to the study to see if his hiding place had been disturbed. You lay in wait for him, and when he went to the shutter-case to open the secret cupboard, you struck."
"Is all this true?" Sir Malcolm asked Martha.
"Yes, sir," she answered calmly.
"Of course," said Julian, "you didn't count on being seen that night by Adams, who'd seen Fanny not long before. That was one clue that gave away your twinship. Another was your manner toward Mr. Clare. When I called here last week, I was struck by the way you spoke to him: gently, and with a familiarity very unlike you. I see why now: he'd been talking about his devotion to his twin sister, and that was something you could understand. In fact, you must have sympathized all the more keenly because your own twin was dead."
Martha nodded heavily. "Fanny and I were parted many years ago, and the Lord didn't see fit to bring us together again in this world. But I never forgot her or ceased to hope I'd find her. We came into the world together. She had my blood, my flesh, and even my face."
"Which is why Alexander destroyed her face," said Julian gently. "If anyone detected her resemblance to you, that might attract the authorities' attention to him, your employer. It was a slim chance, but one he couldn't afford to take."
They were all silent for a time, taking it in. Julian could have added one more proof of Martha's guilt, but he did not want to reopen the painful subject of Mrs. Falkland's accident. It had not escaped him that Mrs. Falkland had sent Martha away beforehand, just as she had banished Eugene. There was no reason she should have felt a particular need to give Martha an alibi—unless she knew Martha had killed Alexander and hoped, by absolving her of one crime, to mask her guilt for the other.
"Why did he do it?" Sir Malcolm asked bleakly. "What had the poor woman done?"
"Perhaps she simply knew too much about him," said Julian. "She saw Adams arrive at Mrs. Desmond's house and probably had a good idea what he'd come for. And she knew all about Alexander's life with Mrs. Desmond. It's possible she tried to blackmail him, as Mrs. Desmond did. But all we know of her suggests she wasn't bold or unscrupulous enough for that. All the same, Alexander may have felt it wasn't safe to let her live."
"But why did he go so far as to kill her?" Sir Malcolm spread out his hands in bewilderment. "He only put Mrs. Desmond in a madhouse."
Julian glanced consideringly at Marianne. "Mrs. Desmond told me that, in Alexander's eyes, Fanny was worthless—her life was of no account. He may not have thought it worth the trouble to find some ingenious means to dispose of her."
"But why in Hampstead?" Sir Malcolm wanted to know. "He'd taken Mrs. Desmond to Surrey. Why should he go all the way to Hampstead to kill Fanny?"