She came closer. “You smell like you’ve been drinking again!”
“Well, that wasn’t truly by choice,” he said. “Let’s go. I shall tell you everything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I MANAGED TOsneak into his bedchamber without any trouble,” Byron was saying. They were walking on the path back to Jane’s house, where they were going to have breakfast, for Byron claimed to be famished, and Jane felt she’d worked up an appetite being desperately frightened.
“I see,” said Jane. “Just walked in.”
“Basically, yes. The tavern was open. I knew my way to the upper floors where the rooms are and we had walked about up there before, so I remembered where his room was. I went in and I searched and found it straightaway. Then I did something stupid.”
“Which was?” said Jane.
“I decided to confront him with it,” said Byron.
“Oh,” said Jane.
“He snatched the glass from me and dashed it on the ground. It shattered into little, tiny pieces, and he said, ‘I didn’t concoct it. I didn’t. I swear.’
“And I said, ‘What do you mean? Someone else gave you that glass of laudanum?’
“And he said, ‘Yes, it was meant to be a sleeping draught.’
“And I said, ‘I didn’t think you were there that night.’”
Jane interrupted. “Oh, yes! I had forgotten! He was with Mrs. Blethens. So, then, how did he manage it?”
“Right, well, he’s mad,” said Byron. “Because, what he said was, ‘I wasn’t!’”
Jane furrowed her brow.
Byron spread his hands. “Yes, exactly. So, anyway, here is what happened next. He got out a knife.”
“What?” said Jane.
“Oh, yes, and he put it here.” Byron gestured to his temple.
“Monstrous!”
“He said that no one would believe me if I told anyone he had done this. He said that maybe if you had been here, it would have been different, but that me, all alone, that I was not the most trustworthy source. He said that I drank too much and that I could have just imagined everything. He said that I was going to drink liquor until I passed out. That when I awoke, I could say anything I liked, but he would simply deny it. And then he handed me a bottle.”
Jane was all astonishment. “And you drank it?”
“He had a knife to my temple, madam!”
“Yes, but he was indicating that he wanted you to drink, so he might not have harmed you. Actually, itisodd. If he is so well-versed in murder, why not simply kill you?”
“Why indeed?” repeated Byron. “That’s all very confusing, is it not?”
“Well, whatever the case, he is wrong. You shall be believed. Here is what we are going to do. We are going back to my house, have some breakfast, and then we are going to write a letter directly to the magistrate, and he will come and start an inquest, I think, because he must start one, after all, and there will be a trial!”
Byron considered. “Yes, I suppose there’s no reason to think that it’s anyone else besides Hardy at this point.”
“None at all.”
“It’s only that it doesn’t make sense,” said Byron.
“WELL,” SAID MRS. Austen at the breakfast table, “I don’t think you can simply allow that man to be running around free while you wait for the magistrate.”
