“She has confessed it. The motive is largely immaterial.”
I snapped the case closed and straightened, fixing him with a basilisk stare. “You gave Father your word you would investigate. You know perfectly well the courts may grant her leniency should there be cause for it.”
“Yes, and she is the proper one to supply it. Sniffing through Snow’s things will not tell us what we need to know to save Lucy from the noose.”
“You are a brute,” I told him. I moved to the wardrobe and eased it open. Snow had been a bit more careful with his clothes than the rest of his things, or at least the footman who had unpacked for him had been. The garments were neatly hung, and his shoes were arranged on the floor of the wardrobe with precision.
“I do not understand you,” I complained, feeling the pockets of Snow’s clothes for anything unexpected. “Were you not the one who preached to me that stones must never be left unturned in an investigation?”
“Yes, if one has nothing more pressing.”
I ducked back out of the wardrobe to look at him. “It is half past two in the morning. What engagement can possibly be more pressing than searching Snow’s rooms?”
He said nothing, and after a moment, it occurred to me he had not heard me at all. His eyes had a faraway look, and it was apparent he was listening closely to something on the other side of the door.
I felt a quick, sharp lance of misery. Surely he could not have a liaison planned with Charlotte? She had been icy and aloof when she retired for the evening. She had neither looked at him nor spoken to him after it was revealed that he was an inquiry agent. But what if he meant to cajole her, to soothe her to sweetness, affection even, with an explanation? If any man could do it, it was Brisbane. I had more cause than most to appreciate the devastating effect of his charm when he chose to employ it.
Before I could ask what he was about, Brisbane eased open the door and slipped out, closing it silently behind him.
“Men,” I muttered, returning to the wardrobe. I continued to complain to myself as I searched. I did not relish putting my hands into the pockets of Snow’s clothes, or into the toes of his shoes. The only time I had ever handled Edward’s clothes had been after his death when, as a good widow, I packed up his belongings and sent them to charity.
I was just about to admit defeat when I thrust my hand into the last shoe and my fingers touched something hard and lumpy. I turned the shoe over and emptied it into my palm. It was a handkerchief, knotted securely. It took some minutes to release the knots, but I did so, careful not to damage the fabric. Inside, I found a tiny collection of jewels. There was a string of amber beads, a bracelet of flowers fashioned out of coral, a brooch set with turquoises and seed pearls. And in the midst of them sat a clever little jade monkey, his tail curved like a question mark.
I looked over each piece carefully, making note of the engravings. They were dainty, delicate things, suited to a lady’s boudoir, and I could not imagine how Snow had come by them. I wrapped them carefully in the handkerchief, touching the embroidered monogram lightly with a finger as I slipped the little bundle in my pocket. There were two mysteries to solve now, I reflected. First, why had Lucy killed Lucian Snow? And why were my Aunt Hermia’s jewels in his possession when he died?
THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER
We that are true lovers run into strange capers.
—As You Like It
Despite my iron resolve to search Snow’s bedchamber thoroughly, the room was growing colder by the minute, and I was uncomfortably aware that I had not yet solved the mystery of the phantom. I knew it for pretense, of course, a childish trick to alarm the superstitious. But I could not like the idea of someone playing tricks when there were other, more sinister events afoot. A man had been murdered in my home, and it was not impossible that his death had some connection, however tenuous, to our spectre.
Certainly, the costume of a phantom could be assumed for entirely innocuous reasons. An assignation, for one. Not only would a spectral disguise keep people at a distance if one happened to be spotted, it also rather neatly preserved one’s incognito. Certainly it might have been Sir Cedric, but I had little doubt Lucy intended to hold him at bay until she was properly married. Given her mother’s sad history, Lucy would have marked her lesson well and insisted upon a ring before submitting to the ultimate caresses.
But Sir Cedric was not the only gentleman with a lady love at Bellmont Abbey, I realised with a start. Father had brought Hortense under his roof, a notion that did not bear thinking about, I decided with a shudder. I liked Hortense very well, but the idea of Father playing the Casanova was faintly distasteful. Besides which, Father would never think it necessary to don a disguise to pay a nocturnal visit to hisinamorata.He would be discreet, I was certain, but haunting his own hallways was carrying things a bit too far.
That left Brisbane. Instantly my mind whipped back nearly two years in time, to a conversation I had had with Portia as we strolled in Hyde Park. I had just met Brisbane for the first time, and Portia was entertaining me with tales of his exploits, both as a fighter and a lover.He uses disguises sometimes in the course of his investigations…for discretion…he came to her once dressed as a chimney sweep. Quite invigorating, don’t you think?
Ruthlessly, I pushed the memory aside. I refused to torment myself with thoughts of him and Charlotte. He did not mean to marry her, and whatever his game with her, I meant to discover it.
And then there was Plum, I thought, dread rippling in my stomach. I had seen him once or twice watching Charlotte with some warmth. Her manner toward Brisbane had been correct and deferential, but not affectionate. Perhaps, for her part, the marriage to Brisbane was a means of securing her future. And if her heart was not involved, she might well permit herself to engage in a dalliance with Plum. For Plum’s part, he was a great admirer of beauty, and not overly scrupulous if the beauty belonged to another. The fact that donning ghostly draperies and lurking in corridors was just the sort of lark Plum would find hilarious did not comfort me.
I shook myself, ashamed of my doubts. Plum’s amorous exploits in Italy—and they had been legion—had been restrained compared to most of the travellers we had encountered. Everyone went to Italy to dally with thesignorinas. Holiday romances were one thing. To assume he would interfere with a betrothal was another, and I resolved to put the notion from my mind.
I extinguished the light and crept to the door, easing into the corridor. There was no one about. Brisbane had disappeared, and in spite of his twitchiness, there was no sign of the spectre. On a whim, I turned my steps to the staircase and made my way silently downstairs. It was slow going, for the moon had disappeared entirely, and I had to hold the banister, feeling each step carefully beneath my slipper before I descended another tread. At the bottom a lamp glimmered faintly, the night-light that Aquinas always left lit—a single brave little flame, wavering in the chilly draughts. It threw shadows down the main corridor, but I steeled my resolve and made my way toward the chapel. At the opposite end of the nave I could just make out Maurice, his claws and teeth terrible in the half-light.
Another turn and I was at the chapel, the doors firmly closed, William IV asleep at his post. His head was sunk low on his chest, bobbing heavily with each slow breath.
I clicked my tongue at him. “Really, this won’t serve. Do wake up,” I said, poking at his shoulder. Suddenly, he gave a great shudder and slid down in the chair. He gave a deep, resonant snore and muttered in his sleep.
I bent swiftly and smelled his breath.
“Dead drunk,” I murmured. He smelled strongly of brandy and there was a faint, seraphic smile curving his lips.
I stepped over him and put my eye to the keyhole of the great doors. The key had been lost ages ago and never replaced. Now the enormous keyhole was a tidy little window on the chapel and its erstwhile inhabitants. Not surprisingly after her ordeal, Lucy was curled onto a crude pallet of blankets, sleeping deeply, her mouth agape, one hand flung above her head. Emma was slumped next to her, a hand tucked in Lucy’s. The tableau touched me. I was close to my own sisters, Portia in particular, and I could only imagine the anguish Emma must be feeling at the possibility of losing her beloved girl to the hangman’s noose.
It seemed like an intrusion to spy upon her grief. I turned to leave then, and saw something gleam out of the tail of my eye. I peered closer and realised it was a brandy bottle, tipped on its side and quite empty. I looked at the slumbering footman and bent swiftly to look under his chair. No bottle or glass there, I observed. How then did he manage to become intoxicated?