Something of this must have finally communicated itself to James, because he looked at her in horror. “You do not regret it, do you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“No,” she said, folding her hands calmly in her lap. “I regret nothing.”
“You’re mad,” he said, shrinking back in his chair. “I do not know you.”
“I did what must be done,” she repeated.
“You killed a man!” James said, shrinking further still. “You killed a man.”
“A man who would have destroyed any chance at the life we have made for ourselves,” she told him.
“But Beatrice—” he began.
“Beatrice would have happily killed me for the sake of vengeance,” she said shortly. “You cannot blame me for that.”
“It was cleverly done,” I told her. “Murders committed with audacity and a complete lack of fear. The only loose end was Lorenzo’s notebook.”
“It haunted me,” she said. “I did not even know if the thing still existed or if it had been with the rest of his things. And even if Beatrice had it in her possession, had Lorenzo written anything damning in its pages? I had to try to find it.”
“That, with the tonic bottle, was why you volunteered to sit with her body when she was first carried up to her room,” Stoker said.
She nodded. “Yes. But there was no time. As soon as Pietro left her, I had only a moment to retrieve the bottle before you came in and sent me off to bed. I had to sit up half the night, waiting for James to fall asleep so I could slip back downstairs and search again. I spent ages, looked through everything, but still I could not find it. I began to hope that Beatrice had never had it.”
“It was with me,” Pietro said wearily. “When we quarrelled the previous night, she showed me the notebook as proof that Lorenzo had been murdered. I confiscated it, told her I would keep it with me until we had the chance to discuss things properly. I held it as a bond for good behaviour, told her if she harmed anyone else, I would burn it, this treasured possession of her brother’s. I kept it in my pocket. It was still in my evening coat when she died.”
“And then we come to the matter of attempting to take Veronica’s life,” Tiberius said wearily. “There is no possible justification, Augusta.”
“I pushed her,” she said with astonishing frankness. But sheseemed almost relieved, as if she had lived too long behind a mask and was content for everyone to know her as she actually was. “I pushed her quite deliberately. I intended for her to die, and that is premeditation.” She smiled at Tiberius, a ghost of her usual winsome expression. “Is it to be the hangman’s noose for me?”
James, who had been silent through the recitation of her crimes, leapt suddenly at her, hands at her throat, screaming abuse as he throttled her. Stoker and Tiberius dragged him off, pinioning his arms at his sides. Still he flung invective, spittle flecking his moustaches as he trembled in rage. Augusta had scarcely attempted to defend herself, putting her hands up only for the worst of the blows. Her hair had come undone and she smoothed it, her fingers shaking a little as she did so.
Stoker eased James back into his seat. “Stay in that chair or I will lash you to it,” he warned. James’ colour was not good, mottled red and white, perspiration dampening his brow. “You are not my wife,” he said to Augusta as he subsided into his chair. “I renounce you.”
“But sheisyour wife,” Tiberius pointed out. “And you are responsible for her.”
“I am not responsible for that monster,” James began. He broke off, dropping his head in his hands. “Oh, my poor boys! What’s to become of us? The scandal of it all will ruin them.”
The room fell to silence, broken only by his ragged breathing and the ticking of the mantel clock. At length, I ventured a suggestion.
“It does not have to be their ruination,” I said. James lifted his head. Augusta did not even turn to look, so spent was she by the confrontation.
“What do you mean?” James demanded. “This means the law and prison and a trial, all of it written up in the most lurid newspapers for all and sundry to see. She will be hanged, damn you. And the MacIver name, dragged through the mud and tainted forever.”
“What if it were not?” I asked. “What if there were a way to keepher name out of the newspapers? What if she were not hanged, and no one ever knew about any of this?”
They turned to me as one and I laid out my idea, elaborating and building as I went. When I finished, silence reigned once more until Tiberius spoke. “It must be left to Pietro to decide. It is his justice which must be satisfied.”
James turned anguished eyes to Pietro. “Please, man.” His voice broke as he pleaded. “I do not ask it for her. But for my boys. It is the only way they may have a hope of escaping this. And she will pay. I promise you that.”
Pietro drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The weight he had been manfully shouldering seemed to drop away. “Beatrice believed vengeance was the only way. But I am a modern man. And I believe justice which harms the innocent is no justice at all. I will agree, James. For the sake of your sons.” James gave a broken exclamation of gratitude as Pietro held up a hand to stop him. “But I will have a confession from her hand, and witnessed by those in this room. I will keep it as my insurance that she will never be permitted to go free.”
“Done,” James said, putting out his hand. Pietro took it after a moment, and it was finished, a gentleman’s agreement that disposed of a murderess without so much as a look in her direction.
CHAPTER
35
Augusta was once more locked in her room, but she made no attempt to escape. The next morning, when the closed coach arrived, she emerged, dressed soberly, in a plain black gown, no jewels or fine lace. The coach from Milverton House had brought the director of the asylum and two muscular attendants, who escorted her into the carriage as we watched from the hall. She did not turn back, although the doctor tarried on the step.
