“It is very common, unfortunately,” Michael said sympathetically.
“But this!” she cried. “The child… I confess, I suspected something. Having no sight, I am unusually alert to the other senses, and sometimes I thought… sometimes there was a hint of female perfume about him. I chose not to think about that. Well,men will be men, and sometimes they cannot help themselves. I told you of our arrangement after Tess was born, so it does not surprise me to learn that Arthur was unable to restrain himself. Celibacy is not a natural state. But my jewellery — that is a very different matter.”
“It is theft, and a capital offence, if it had been discovered and you had chosen to pursue the matter.”
“Which I never would, of course. He must have known that.” She paused, then said slowly, “How much? How much money did he raise from selling my jewels?”
“In all, eight thousand pounds.”
She fell silent again, and Michael said nothing, allowing her to come to terms with this discovery in her own way.
At length, she sighed again. “He has a house… in Pickering,” she said in a low voice. “Perhaps the money is there?”
“It is leased to a Mrs Mayberry, a widow, who has been in residence for some fifteen years now. She says that Mr Nicholson has never been there. Her dealings are all with the attorney.”
“Perhaps he has an account with another bank?”
“We have only found two, one in York where the bulk of his fortune is kept and a smaller account with an attorney in Helmsley, which he used for small expenses — paying his tailor and so forth.”
“How large is this fortune?” she said, frowning. “His will said that Tess was to have the residue of hisfortune, but it seemed an odd word to use. I had never suspected he had a fortune tucked away.”
“After your jointure is accounted for, and the small bequests, it amounts to almost ten thousand pounds, accumulated slowly in small amounts over the years.”
“That is… not a vast deal of money,” she said thoughtfully. “A modest dowry for Tess, but not a fortune. I suppose he saved alittle from his stipend as chaplain and his winnings at the card table. Over thirty years, it might add up to that amount.”
“It might,” Michael said. “But it does not include the eight thousand pounds.”
Again she lapsed into silence.
When it seemed that she would not speak again, Michael said gently, “Do you see in what a quandary this places me, Lady Alice? If you had discovered that your husband was systematically stealing from you, might you not have wanted to kill him?”
“But I did not know about this!”
“So you say, but—”
“Do notdareto call me a liar, sir!” she cried, quivering with indignation. “I did not kill my husband!I knew nothing of the jewellery, nothing of the child, nothing of this axe that the murderer used. How do you think I could possibly get hold of an axe I did not even know existed?”
“Do you want my honest answer, my lady? I think you are an extremely resourceful woman, who can do far more than most people imagine. It would be very easy for you to sit quietly in a corner, listening. No one needs to tell you anything, you would just overhear it. You know every inch of this castle, but only you can creep around at night without needing a light. Only you could enter your husband’s bedroom unobserved. Anyone could have wielded that axe, even a woman, but only you could murder your husband and then say, with perfect plausibility while covered in his blood, that you discovered him already dead. And only you have a reason to hate him, for stealing your precious jewellery.” He hesitated, but he had gone too far now to withdraw. “And I have to say, my lady, you are by far too calm for a new widow.”
As he spoke, he saw her gradually crumple, her hauteur melting away. “Too calm?” she whispered. “Do I seem calm toyou? Oh, if you could only see the agony in my mind! My husband was not perfect… was very far from perfect, but I never saw that side of him. To me he was everything that was good and kind and devoted, and I loved him… Iadoredhim with every fibre of my being.” She paused, with a little sob, tears coursing down her cheeks. “He was my sun and moon and stars… my entire world. My life was immeasurably brighter when he came into it, and now… now I am condemned to live in darkness for ever.”
For a moment, her tears overwhelmed her, and she rummaged in her sleeve for a handkerchief, her whole body shaking as she wept piteously. Abruptly, her head lifted.
“What am I to do without him?” she cried. “I cannot live… cannotexistwithout my darling Arthur! Oh God, what is to become of me? I almost wish…” She heaved a breath, then said more moderately. “I should not say this, for it is wicked, but almost I wish you would send me to the Assizes for this crime, for then I would hang and I would be with my beloved Arthur all the sooner. But I do not believe you truly think I killed him.”
Michael knelt at her feet, pushing his own larger handkerchief into her hands, and speaking with the utmost gentleness. “I do not believe it, no. But if not you, then who was it? Who hated him enough to kill him?”
“No onehatedhim. He had no enemies that I know of, but you have already demonstrated that there was much about him that I did not know.”
“Then who disliked him? Who quarrelled with him? Who didhedislike?”
She mopped her eyes with his handkerchief, and took another long breath. “Quarrels… there have been quarrels. He and Tess fell out last year, but I hope you are not suggesting that his own daughter killed him.”
“What was the quarrel about?”
“A man… not surprisingly, given her age. Girls of nineteen can be very foolish. Tom Shapman, a woodworker in Birchall village. Entirely unsuitable, and Arthur put a stop to it at once, which Tess was not at all happy about. Who else was there… let me see… Lord Farramont never got on with Arthur, but then Farramont is a dull, humourless man, so they had nothing in common. Kent… they did not exactly quarrel, for Kent never quarrels with anyone, but Arthur had some concerns over him, all the same. Charles and Caroline… no, they never quarrelled with Arthur, not even the mildest disagreement, but they were never close to him, either, which was odd when he was their brother-in-law, and much the same age. Arthur was closer to my father, in fact. They were such good friends, you cannot imagine. But when he died… Charles and Arthur were never close.”
She lapsed into thoughtful silence, and after a while Michael thought it necessary to say, “Anyone else? Mr Walter or Mr Eustace? Any of the girls?”
