I turned to J. J. “That, I think, is your cue.”
Sir James blustered again as she rose and came to stand beside my chair. “Must we be bothered by the tittle-tattle of maids now?”
“This young lady is not a maid,” I told him. “J. J. Butterworth is an investigative reporter frequently published in theDaily Harbinger.She is a journalist of note, and I believe she has a piece of evidence pertinent to this case.”
I gestured and J. J. reached into her pocket. Wrapped in a handkerchief was a small glass bottle shaped like a scallop shell. I turned to Pietro. “Count, do you recognise this bottle?”
“Yes, it is the bottle my Beatrice used to carry her tonic. It is engraved with her monogram.”
J. J. turned the bottle so that Sir James and Tiberius could see the silver cap, incised withb d’a s.
“Undeniably Beatrice’s tonic bottle, the one used to poison her with strychnine—the one Augusta took from her dead body as she lay upstairs,” I said.
Pietro gave a low, mournful moan.
“Where did you find it?” Tiberius enquired.
J. J. nodded towards Augusta. “In Lady MacIver’s dressing room. Not even hid properly, just stuffed into her toilet case.” It had occurred to me that the missing piece of the entire puzzle was Beatrice’s tonic bottle. If Augusta had—as I believed—retrieved it after poisoning Beatrice, she would have had no opportunity to dispose of it. I had instructed J. J. to begin her search as soon as Augusta was released from her room. The fact that she had arrived in the drawing room a scant few minutes after Augusta meant she had made quick work of the task—and knowing J. J. she had hared down to the drawing room so as not to miss a second of the proceedings.
Tiberius nodded gravely. “Incontrovertible evidence, I think, James.”
“You dared search our things! You sneaking, conniving, little—” He surged out of his chair, but before he could lay a finger on J. J., I plucked a minuten from my cuff and drove it into his wrist.
He howled in outrage and fell back, plucking the pin free and sucking at the bright red bead of blood that welled up.
“I’ll have you up for assault for that,” he assured me.
“Do feel quite free to bring charges,” I said with a tight smile. “And I will be certain to make sure that J. J.’s newspaper publishes every detail of what has happened here.”
He puffed again, like an adder will before it strikes, but Stoker raised a lazy finger.
“Sir James, I literally have one hand tied, but I will still thrash you into the next century if you threaten either of these ladies with violence again.”
Something in his face gave Sir James pause, for the baronet changed tack. He subsided into his chair, muttering, his complexion quite puce, as I looked at J. J. She flicked me a glance of annoyance. We had had the situation well in hand, but some men will only ever respect the strength of other men. It was frankly exhausting.
J. J. slipped the bottle back into her pocket and returned to her chair.
After a long moment, Sir James turned to Augusta. “But why? Why would you want Lorenzo to die? You barely knew him.”
Augusta roused herself at last, turning to her husband with a look of contempt. “Barely knew him? I lay with him, James. I knew him, carnally. You made rather a bad bargain in our marriage, I am afraid. You got no virgin bride on your wedding night.”
Angry colour suffused his cheeks. “Augusta, it is not your fault that bastard forced you—”
Augusta’s laugh was sharp and cruel. “Forced me? Iseducedhim, James. I wanted him. And I had him.”
“I do not believe it,” he said stubbornly. “I cannot believe it. You are unwell, these are sick fancies.”
“Fancies! James, my god, can you not face the truth like a man? Shall I tell you what it was like? Perhaps then you will believe it. Very well. I went to his room. I took off my clothes and I got into his bed. I touched him and I kissed him and we did whatever we liked with one another. It was the only time in the whole of my life I have understood what it meant to be satisfied.”
The lash of her words must have stung him deeply, for James shook his head, dumbly, as a donkey will do when it cannot decide in which direction to go.
Her anger subsided as soon as it had flared, and when Augusta spoke again, it was milder, a note of pity threading her words. “But I did not want to marry him. I wanted to marry you and he would have prevented it. He said he would tell you everything because of his precious honour. You would have broken our engagement and I could not have that.”
It took a moment for the full implication of her statement to penetrate his shock. “Do you mean to say you killed him solely to marry me?”
“Yes, James. I wanted our life together. Our homes. Our boys. And I did what must be done in order to make that happen.”
She raised her chin, daring him to sit in judgment on her, and I realised then she was not sorry. She justified what she had done, and moreover, she would do it again if faced with the same choice.
