Pietro went on. “When Beatrice read the notebook, she was changed. She explained to me that it contained evidence Lorenzo had been murdered but not by whom. She was enraged, tormented by grief. I consoled her,” he said, his eyes filming with tears. “I explained to her that we must let the dead bury the dead. We had no guarantees, you understand, of how much time we should have together. Her health, it was so precarious. I could not bear for her to spend a single day in unhappiness. I thought she agreed.”
“But she did not,” I pressed.
He covered his eyes once more. For a long moment there was no sound in the room except the ticking of the mantel clock and the count’s mournful breathing. At last he composed himself and resumed his tale. “She did not. I had no idea. I swear this upon my honour, upon my soul.” He grasped my hands in his and rose up in the bed, his eyes glittering feverishly. “You must believe me. I will swear upon everything I hold holy. I did not know.”
“When did you learn the truth?” I asked gently.
“After dinner, the first night. Tiberius showed us the cuttings about the deaths of Kaspar and Alexandre. The threats written in the margins—I knew her hand immediately. I concealed my horror until we were alone and then I confronted her. We quarrelled, but I understood her. She was avenging Lorenzo. It was a blood debt, you understand. And blood debts must be paid.”
He lapsed back onto the pillows, a ragged sob escaping his throat.
“And now it is finished. The gods have taken her, my precious Beatrice.” He rolled towards the wall and covered his face with his hands.
CHAPTER
28
We left Pietro in a somber mood. It was difficult to view a man’s grief when displayed so nakedly. Such exhibitions of emotion are more common to the Latinate temperament, and I was not certain whether to admire his connection to his heartfelt sensibilities or deplore them with stout Saxon resolve. In any event, Stoker and I were silent as we left him. It seemed obvious we should have a council of war, and without being overheard. As so often happens betwixt two souls with such strength of attachment, we intuited each other’s thoughts and made our way outside. There is nothing so revivifying as fresh air, and too much time inside has a deleterious effect upon Stoker’s mood. We passed through the door to the terrace and our footsteps led us to the rose garden, and where I would have paused at the little bower, Stoker continued on in the direction of the Megalosaurus.
“Surely you have spent enough time with the creature,” I began, but he turned with a vaguely triumphant air.
“I had a word with Collins last night and told him to leave all as it was. I intend to investigate the scene of the crime.”
I smothered the urge to stamp my foot. I ought to have considered such a step, and it was thoroughly galling to realise he had had thepresence of mind during the tumult of the previous evening’s events to secure the place.
“I presume you are satisfied with Pietro’s reactions,” I began as he rowed us across to the island. “At least enough to absolve him of being Beatrice’s partner in vengeance. He knew nothing of her activities until the night before her death.”
“Which he may have engineered himself in order to stop her murdering again.”
“You are determined to think the worst of him! But how?” I asked. “By what method would he have introduced the poison?”
“Direct consumption,” he assured me. “There was no mark of a hypodermic syringe upon her person. And preparing an inhalation of the stuff is extremely dangerous as well as difficult. It would require scientific knowledge and equipment, neither of which Pietro possesses. Far easier to feed it to her.”
I pondered this, ignoring his remarks about Pietro. “You say you are certain it was not in the dishes we shared last night, but perhaps a dose was slipped into a portion served only to her?”
He shook his head. “Strychnine is bitter, notoriously so. There is no dish that might mask it except a very strong coffee and we had none before she collapsed.”
“Then perhaps some refreshment sent to her room earlier in the day?” I suggested.
“That is the trouble. I have been thinking, and her collapse was so swift, so sudden. Part of that may be attributed to her heart condition, but it also speaks to a large dose taken quite near the time of her death.”
“How near?”
He shrugged. “Given that she wouldn’t have required as large a dose as a healthy woman to kill her, I should think an hour? Perhaps more? It is an imprecise thing under the best of circumstances and I have no means of investigating properly.”
I smiled in triumph. “And during the whole of the dinner, Pietro was seated nowhere near Beatrice. He could not have poisoned her.” I broke off, frowning. “In fact, no one could. If, as you say, strychnine is bitter—”
“One of the bitterest substances on earth,” he assured me.
“And it was not fed to her at the table, then when and how?”
“That is what we must determine,” he said as the little boat bumped against the island’s shore. He tied it off and strode away, leaving me to catch him up. Just as we approached the monster, I stopped, pulling Stoker to a halt. He opened his mouth to remonstrate, but I clapped a hand over it, tugging him behind a handy rosebush.
“Veronica, would you care to explain exactly for what purpose you have waylaid me?” he demanded in a furious whisper.
“There is someone inside the Megalosaurus,” I whispered back. “No doubt the murdering fiend has returned to the scene of his crime to retrieve a clue that would implicate him in Beatrice’s death.”
“Of all the cotton-headed, wool-witted— How can you possibly know that?”
