‘We know that,’ said Miss Austen calmly, butting in again– that really had to stop, ‘but unfortunately the ton has not yet had time to dig into the crime as it happened right as the season ended. When they come back, the gossip will flare up again and we wish to douse the flames before they spread.’
With a nod, Susannah acquiesced. ‘It was a normal morning. Hah!’ She rubbed her hand over her face wearily. ‘I suppose that’s the way of this kind of thing– it blows up out of the blue, the storm that sinks the ship. Like the one that killed my brother off Portland.’
‘You were on duty?’ prodded Dora when Susannah looked as if she’d run out of words, wandering in memories of those she’d lost.
Susannah forced her spine to straighten. ‘Yes– very busy, in fact. We were about to move to Queen Anne Street and were on the point of getting into the carriage. I’d packed her favourite gown– she was going to a p-party.’ Her voice hitched and she trembled, hugging her arms to her sides.
Dora shot Miss Austen a look, warning her not to interfere. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Hebditch had brought the carriage round, so I came down the stairs with the mistress. I saw Lorenzo just there.’ She pointed to the entrance. ‘So I asked him to open the door for madame, you know, like he normally would. He ignored me– just brushed past us as if we weren’t there.’
‘He didn’t attack thecomtessewhen he had the chance?’
‘No, not then. He went upstairs as if he owned the place. It weren’t right– I knew something was off about him, but what could I do? Then we heard gunfire. Thecomtecame to the top of the stairs, staggering– he wasn’t a young man so I thought he’d had an accident with his pistol when packing it up for the journey– but then Lorenzo appeared behind him and… and stabbed him in the back. When thecomtefell, we saw that Lorenzo had a pistol in the other hand– the one he’d fired, I suppose, because he didn’t use it.’
Dora gazed at the top of the stairs, imagining the ghoulish tableau playing out. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’ Susannah gulped. ‘We all stood here like statues, shocked to pieces. It felt like a play– like they’d staged it and thecomtewould get up and laugh at our faces– but it was real.’ She repeated it in a lower tone. ‘It was real.’
‘And then?’ said Dora quietly.
‘Lorenzo stepped over thecomteand rushed down the stairs. I thought he was going to make a run for it, but he came at us and stabbed thecomtessein the breast.’ She touched the place on her chest reflexively. ‘Why? What harm had she ever done him? If he had a quarrel with thecomte, then that’s a matter between men, but to stab a woman who had no weapon, who did nothing to provoke him? The savage– the bloody, beastly savage!’ She fisted her handson her lap. ‘I wish I’d had a knife to kill him myself– I would’ve rammed it in his throat– but the coward turned tail when we all started moving out of our shock. He ran back upstairs, got the other pistol from thecomte’s room– it must’ve been already loaded because seconds later he shot himself in the mouth. Blew his brains out– I know because I had to mop up after him, though, thank God, I didn’t see him do it.’
Three bodies in less than five minutes, thought Dora. The Jacobean playwright, John Webster, would’ve been proud of that bloody denouement. ‘Did thecomtessesay anything, about why he did it, I mean?’
Susannah shook her head. ‘She never had a chance. We called in two surgeons to aid them but neither thecomtessenor thecomtespoke. They just died quietly, which if you knew them you would understand was out of character. If she could’ve done so, she would’ve cursed Lorenzo, or asked for a priest, something. She wouldn’t have wanted silence.’
The rest is silence, thought Dora, reminded ofHamlet. No wonder Susannah had found it like a play– it had the choreography of a staged death, a fittingly operatic ending. ‘Then I’m sure she would appreciate you speaking up for hernow. Tell me, Susannah, was there any sign that Lorenzo was going to do this? The inquest said a fit of insanity, but what do you think?’
The maid shivered. ‘Don’t you believe them. He wasn’t mad. He knew exactly what he was doing, planned it even.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I caught him firing a pistol a few weeks before, didn’t I? When I asked him what the hell he thought he was playing at’—she glanced at Miss Austen—‘pardon my language…’
‘Do go on,’ said Miss Austen. ‘It sounds like an occasion where strong language is warranted.’
‘Too right it is.’ Now she’d got the story off her chest, Susannah was rallying. The wan maid was transforming into an avenging one. ‘He told me it was an accident. An accident? Pig’s swill! No, I think he was practising– I think he’d already decided to kill thecomte. Did they tell you he brought a can of oil with him and put it inside the carriage? I think he was going to burn us all alive in there if he got the chance. Vicious bastard.’
‘Why would he do that?’ asked Dora as Miss Austen looked away. That curse was a little strong for the lady.
‘’Cause he hated everyone– hated thecomtefor telling him off when he didn’t do his job properly, thecomtessefor scolding him– me as well for when I took him to task for firing that pistol indoors. I was lucky he didn’t stab me. No, he wasn’t mad. He was angry, so very angry.’
Perhaps it really was the case of a servant who snapped and ran amok in a killing rage? The inquest might’ve been broadly right in seeing it as an isolated incident.
‘It is strange for anger to burn so slowly, to plan and plot,’ said Miss Austen softly.
She was right, thought Dora. Killing in a red rage was one thing. Letting a scolding fester for a couple of weeks, buying oil, not striking out at thecomtesseat first but returning to finish thejob, that all sounded like premeditation. And he fired the pistol before all of that happened. He did that first.
The loaded pistols were a piece of the puzzle that she needed to understand. ‘Susannah, did you think it odd that your master and mistress kept loaded weapons in their bedrooms?’
She shrugged and looked away. ‘It weren’t my place.’
Which meant she had thought it strange.
‘Who were they afraid of? Not Lorenzo, clearly, as he had the run of the house.’
‘I don’t know, miss, but thecomtedid say he had enemies “over the water”. He became afraid in the last few months, told us all to take precautions and not to talk to strangers.’ Susannah grimaced. ‘It seems I didn’t learn that lesson ’cause I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’
