Buckingham Palace Gardens (33 page)

“Obviously!” he snarled at her. “That is an idiotic remark, and vicious, Elsa, very vicious.”

She was too angry, too desperate to care anymore if he humiliated her in front of the others. “But true. You knew Minnie, saw her and spoke to her every day, and you knew Julius,” she told him. “If you didn't work it out until it was too late, aren't you a hypocrite to blame the policeman because he didn't either?”

The blood darkened his face. She was perfectly certain that if they had been alone together in that instant he would have struck her. She hated him for Minnie, for Julius, and because of her own guilt over not caring for Minnie. She had not protected her, nor had she been someone in whom Minnie could have confided the terrible things she had discovered. She could not defend herself; she could only attack.

“How does that prove it was Julius?” she asked. “Anyone could have gone along to the Queen's room, if they knew the way. How did Julius know where it was? He had never been here before. How did he even get in?”

They all looked at Cahoon.

“How do you know it was the Queen's room?” Hamilton asked curiously.

“Because that's where the Limoges came from, you fool!” Cahoon snapped.

“How do you know? You saw it there?” Hamilton would not be persuaded without proof.

“The monogrammed sheets,” Cahoon was exaggeratedly patient. “And the fact that it was not the Prince's room. I hope you are not going to suggest it was the Princess's?”

Hamilton shrugged. “That seems logical,” he conceded.

“Thank you.” Cahoon gave a sarcastic little bow from the neck.

The rest of the meal was completed in near silence. The touch of silver to china and the faint click of glass seemed intrusively loud. When the final course was cleared away, Olga pleaded a headache and retired. The men remained at the table, and Elsa and Liliane withdrew to sit by themselves, both declining anything further and willing to excuse the servants for the evening.

The silence between the two women prickled with suspense and emotion tight and unspoken for years. They were both afraid for men they loved. For Liliane it was her husband, which was obvious and right. For Elsa, her love was so lonely and so burdened by uncertainty that the knot of it was like a stone in her stomach, a hard, heavy, and aching pain all the time. The situation was intolerable.

“Do you think Cahoon is right?” she began, her voice trembling. “I mean that Minnie worked out what had happened, from a few pieces of china and blood on some sheets?”

Liliane kept her back toward Elsa. The light shone on the burnished coils of her hair, tonight without ornament. The skin of her shoulders was blemishless.

“I'm afraid I have no idea,” she answered. “Minnie never confided in me.”

Elsa refused to be put off. “I had not imagined she would. If she had spoken to anyone at all, it would have been her father. I was thinking of the likelihood of it, even the logic. How did she know about the china when no one else did?”

“I don't know, Elsa.” Liliane turned round at last. “I realize that you are naturally distressed about Minnie's death, and that some understanding might ease it for you. It would give all of us the feeling of being rather less helpless than we are now, but I really have no idea what happened. It makes no sense to me, and I'm not sure that I even expect it to anymore. I'm sorry.”

She was lying. In that instant Elsa was certain of it. Liliane was afraid. It was there in the fixed stare of her eyes, which were not completely in focus, and the way she stood as if ready to move at any moment, in whatever direction safety lay.

“You don't think it was Julius, do you?” Elsa said suddenly, and then the moment the words were out she knew she had said them too quickly. Her impulsiveness had lost her the advantage.

“I've told you,” Liliane repeated patiently, “I have no idea. If I knew anything, I would have told that policeman, whatever his name is.”

That too was a lie, but this time a more obvious one. Perhaps Liliane realized it because she looked away.

“What about the woman who was killed in Africa?” Elsa asked. “You were there. Was it just like these?”

Liliane was pale. “As far as I heard, yes, it seems so. That doesn't mean it was for the same reason.”

“Oh, Liliane!” Elsa said sharply. “Credit me with a little sense. Hamilton, Julius, and Simnel were all there, and it has to have been one of them here too.”

Liliane turned away again, whisking her skirt around with unconscious elegance. “Presumably.” She said it with no conviction, in fact almost with indifference.

What was she afraid of? It could only be that it had been Hamilton. Or could it be some secret of her own? Cahoon had said there had once been a question of her marrying Julius, but her father had objected. Then Hamilton had helped so much, and with such gentleness and understanding at the time of her brother's death, that she had fallen in love with him.

Maybe he was a far better man than Julius: more honorable, more compassionate, more loyal—all the qualities Elsa knew she admired. What did it matter if someone's smile tugged at your insides and left your heart pounding and your hands trembling? That was obsession, unworthy to be spoken of in the same breath as love.

Liliane looked back at her, her face softer, almost as if she felt a moment's pity. “Minnie must have spoken to her father,” she said quietly. “Who else would have told him that she was asking all these questions? It must have been what she was hinting about at the dinner table the night she was killed. She was taunting him, you must have seen that.”

“What for?” Now Elsa's mind raced from one wild, half-formed idea to another. Had Minnie learned it was Julius? Or, fearing that her father's hatred of him would tempt him to blame Julius and even alter the evidence, she had told him that she would defend her husband, whether she loved him or not? She was the only one who was never afraid of Cahoon. Perhaps that was what he loved in her the most.

Had she loved Julius after all? Was the whole affair with Simnel only a way of trying to stir Julius to some response, a jealousy if not a love? Poor Minnie: too proud and too full of passion to plead, too lonely to confide in anyone, and perhaps wounded too deeply by what might have been the only rejection in her life that mattered to her. Nothing before that had prepared her for it; she might have had no inner dreams to strengthen her.

And Elsa had offered her nothing but rivalry. How miserable, how small and utterly selfish of her. She was ashamed of that now that it was too late.

Liliane was watching her, her beautiful eyes concentrating, seeing beyond the need for answers into the reasons for it.

It was Elsa who looked away. Part of the turmoil inside her was jealousy. She recognized the taste of it with a kind of bitter amusement at herself. Julius had courted Liliane and lost her to Hamilton Quase. Had that always been at the heart of it? He had never fallen out of love with her. Minnie knew it, and it was only Elsa who didn't.

“You can't do anything,” Liliane said quite gently. “Nothing can be changed now, except to make it worse.”

“I suppose you're right,” Elsa conceded, although she was lying even as she said it. She would rather pursue the truth, even if she found that Julius was guilty, than surrender without knowing, and betray her dreams by cowardice. Deliberately she changed the subject to something else, utterly trivial.

Liliane seemed relieved.

         

T
HEY ALL RETIRED
early. There was nothing to say. Even the men no longer had the heart to talk of Africa, and yet conversation about anything else was stilted and eventually absurd. The absence of Julius and Minnie was like a gaping hole that everyone tiptoed around, terrified of falling into, and yet was drawn to by a sort of emotional vertigo.

When Elsa excused herself she was uncomfortably aware that Cahoon followed her immediately, almost treading on the hem of her dress as she went into her bedroom. Bartle was waiting for her and Cahoon ordered her out, closing the door behind her.

Elsa felt a quick flutter of fear. She backed away from him, and was furious with herself for it. She stopped, too close to the bed. He could knock her onto it easily, but if she moved sideways it would of necessity be toward him. She refused to speak first. It was what he was waiting for: the sign of yielding, the impulse to placate him.

“You are making a fool of yourself, Elsa,” he said coldly. “If you want to ruin your own reputation, I don't care. But you are still my wife, and I won't have you behave hysterically once we leave here. If you can't control your imagination and have some dignity, then you will have to be looked after, perhaps in some appropriate establishment where you will not damage either of us.”

He meant it. It was not just an expression of temper, it was a threat. She saw it hard and real in his eyes. She found her knees were shaking, and it cost her an effort to remain standing straight and looking at him.

“You mean a madhouse, like Julius,” she murmured. “That would be convenient for you. Then you can have an affair with Amelia Parr without my getting in the way.”

“You are not in the way, Elsa,” he replied. It was damning. Nothing else could have obliterated her so completely. “Leave the murders alone, or you will find out a great deal more about Julius than you wish to know.” His eyes gleamed, as if somewhere inside himself he were laughing savagely at her absurdity.

In that moment she made up her mind to fight him. If there had been any irresolution in her before, it had vanished. She was ashamed that it had taken her so long. This had nothing to do with Julius; it was for herself, to be the person she wanted to be, not the one too absorbed in her own needs and fears to think of anyone else, or see the possibility that Minnie's bravado hid the fact that she felt pain as well.

She drew in her breath to tell Cahoon, and then realized how foolish that would be. What if Julius was not guilty, but had been made to look it? Wasn't that what she was trying to believe? But by whom if not Cahoon? Was it because he hated Julius for loving Liliane, and not Minnie—because he felt the insult and the pain on her behalf?

No, there was another clearer and much more understandable motive. It was glaring, now that she could see it. Cahoon wanted to put her away so he could marry Amelia Parr. If she were innocent, the good wife she had so far appeared to be, then he had no excuse to set her aside. And he would never damage the reputation he had won with such care. He wanted that peerage desperately. He was like a starving man dreaming of food; only in his case it was respectability, belonging, the acceptance he had longed for and that had eluded him all his life.

He must make Elsa appear so bad in the eyes of society that no one would blame him for putting her aside. They must feel that if they were in his place, they would have felt no choice but to do the same.

If she fought for Julius now, when he seemed undeniably guilty of murder and madness, not once but three times, then it would be simple to convince them she was also having an affair with him. She would have betrayed her husband and his daughter—exactly the sins she had denied herself. But who would believe her?

That meant that she must either not fight, or if she did so, then she must win!

“Really?” she said, keeping her voice level with an effort so intense her fingernails bit into her palms, and she was glad of the folds of her skirt to keep them hidden. “That would surprise me. I don't think we will find out anything at all. I think we are going to keep it all very quiet. You wouldn't want to have taken so much trouble to woo the Prince of Wales and then cause such a scandal that he had to drop you in the end, would you?”

His face darkened and he took two steps toward her. He was so close she could feel the heat of him and smell cigar smoke and the faint odor of his skin. She did not move, although it was hard to keep her balance and not flinch. She had meant what she said as a half-submission, half-evasion. He had taken it as a threat. She was not being clever.

He swung back his hand and slapped her across the cheek, sending her staggering. The bed caught her behind the knees and she fell onto it on her back, helpless.

He leaned over her, one hand on either side, and bent down so his face was only a foot above hers. “Don't fight me, Elsa,” he said between his teeth. “I am not only stronger than you are, I am cleverer, wiser, and braver. I am also your husband, which makes me right according to the law. They won't hang Julius, they will simply lock him away. Don't interfere.”

There was nothing she could say, but she did not avert her eyes from his.

He waited for her to answer, still leaning over her.

“Do you intend to remain there all night?” she asked. Her face hurt and she felt it burn hot. Deliberately she relaxed her body. “You will get tired before I do,” she added.

He straightened up abruptly and walked out, slamming the door behind him. She got up quickly and locked both the dressing room door, which connected with his room, and the door to the passage. Then she lay down on the bed, shaking so violently she felt as if the whole frame must be juddering with her.

She had no idea how long it was before she finally sat up again, calmer, and began to think. She had left herself no option but to fight. At last she had made a decision. It might be the wrong one, but it was better than losing because she had never found the passion or the courage to try.

Minnie had discussed enough of the truth to be killed in order to silence her. Apparently a broken Limoges dish had been important. Cahoon had described it: white and blue with a little gold. At the time she had imagined it quite clearly; a pedestal dish, with gold lattice around the border and a picture in the center of a man and woman sitting very casually on a garden seat. The blue was in their clothes. She thought of it like that because that was the only Limoges that she could remember seeing. Of course this one could have been any shape or design.