He’s drinking tea again, and as Alessandro and I come into the room, he finishes up his current cup and gestures to the teapot on the counter behind him. “I’ve just made a fresh pot,” he says. “So if you fancy—”
“No, thank you,” Alessandro says. He pauses.
I can’t come to his rescue. I don’t know how to say it either. How toaskit. So I just sit down at the table next to Wilson, and pray that the conversation will be quick.
Wilson smiles at both of us, a sad, tired smile. “You’ll allow an old man another cup? I thought it might be tonight,” he says, taking his cup to the counter behind him to prepare his tea. “I’ve been wondering when it would happen, and tonight…well, I had a feeling.” He returns to the table, setting his cup down carefully.
“Itwasyou.” Alessandro, still standing, speaks in a hushed voice. “It was you,” he says again.
Wilson gives a slow nod. “I killed your father. And I’m sorry to have caused you such problems. But you must understand, it was for Beth.” He takes a long sip of the tea. “All for Beth,” he says afterward.
“Your granddaughter,” I say. “Beth—or Elizabeth. Lizzie Barker. Now Lina Lamond.”
“Yes. She…” He pauses, and gives me that same grandfatherly smile, then pulls out the photograph I saw him looking at the other day. He taps on one of the babies in the picture and then looks up at me. “She’s not a baby anymore, of course. She reminds me of you a little, Mr. MacCallum. Young. A little naive. But she knows what she wants—like you do.”
Alessandro’s hands grip the back of the chair he’s standing behind, and I can see he’s choosing his words carefully. “Did you introduce her to my father?”
“Goodness me, no. She came out from England just a year or so ago. Very ambitious—very determined to break into Hollywood. She begged me to introduce her to your father, knowing the influence he had in the industry, and when I refused, she engineered a meeting with him herself. They met at one of those parties he liked to attend.”
“And she caught his eye,” I say.
Wilson looks so sad I think I might cry myself. “In the end, she was completely unrecognizable to me. The hair, the makeup, the clothes—that wasn’t my little Beth. But she didn’t want or needmyapproval. She swore me to secrecy about our relationship. She had fake papers made up—a work visa, for Hollywood. And a new birth certificate. Ambitious, as I said. And for a time, Ciro made her very happy. I thought—hoped—that my reservations were unfounded.”
“But he broke it off,” Alessandro says. “That day.”
“Yes. He broke it off that day.”
“So you killed him for spurning her?”
“Of course not!” For the first time, Wilson becomes a little more animated, the horror in his voice very real. “It wasn’t just that he broke it off with her—I would have beenrelievedabout that. But I’d just brought in the mail…I was opening it for him as he spoke to that producer on speaker phone, talked about my Beth, both of them insulting her, saying the most terrible things…and then, when your father hung up, he asked me to fetch Master Julian. I knew what that meant.” He looks Alessandro hard in the face. “You know what it would have meant, too. Beth is not the kind of girl to give up easily. When she wants something…”
He takes another long sip of his tea, his hand shaking, and when he sets the cup back in the saucer, it’s with a clatter. Alessandro takes it in, his dark eyes going from the teacup to the teapot and back to Wilson’s face.
“And then?” he asks.
“It was a moment of sheer panic,” Wilson says. He’s sweating, his high forehead shining in the overhead lights. “I had the letter opener there in my hand—I knew that if Master Julian were given an order, he would carry it out. All I could think was…if Don Castellani cannot give the order, then…”
“I see,” Alessandro says quietly. “So you killed him. Then threw the weapon into the incinerator—why? To hide your prints?”
Wilson gives a sad little laugh. “I’m not entirely sure, sir. There were no prints, after all. I was wearing gloves, as usual. No, I think it was sheer habit. Your father insisted on it—anything that might be useful to the authorities should be put into the incinerator. I’d stabbed him and disposed of the weapon almost before I knew what I’d done.”
“The guards didn’t see?” I ask. “You must have come back out afterwards, but they didn’t mention…”
“I’m afraid I lied to you, Mr. MacCallum. That door there—” He nods at the door in the other wall. “Idohave a key. Your father liked me to come and go without anyone knowing, so no one would see his mail, understand his routine, learn his private business. He was a secretive man.”
“But no man is a hero to his valet,” Alessandro says. “Or, indeed, his butler.” He takes a long breath. “I wish you had come to me, Wilson. From the start.”
“No, sir,” Wilson says firmly. “That would have been unforgivable. Indeed, when you came into the study there and saw me there, I almost confessed right away. I’d come back to…to see if it was reallyreal. If I really had…and I had. And expecting you to do anything but that which was required of you—to avenge your father’s murder—it would have been…” He gropes for the word. “Inappropriate.”
“Is that what you expect me to do now?” Alessandro asks. “Take vengeance?”
Wilson’s smile is almost a grimace. He really is sweating, the perspiration soaking his high collar. “I’ve tried to take care of that for you myself, sir. All part of the service.”
“What?” I grab at his hand, alarmed. “What do you mean?”
He pats my hand awkwardly, his face contorting now. “I’m sorry about the note,” he says, looking over to where Alessandro is still standing. But his eyes don’t seem to focus. “I was wrong about that. I thought you were like your father, Master Sandro—but you’re not. I can see that you and Mr. MacCallum will make each other—each other—”
He gasps, arching in his chair. “Mr. Wilson!” I leap up, his hand still in mine. “We’ll call for a doctor—”
