Page 55 of Ambition (The Chaplain’s Legacy #6)
O livia was numb. It was too terrible even for tears.
The recreation of the murder had seemed almost like a silly game, but the outcome had been more horrible than she could ever have imagined.
Eustace, a murderer! He had tried to kill Walter, his own brother, just like Cain and Abel in the Bible, and she could hardly imagine a worse sin.
Brothers and sisters should love and cherish each other, surely, and even if it happened that they did not get along, it would be utterly disloyal to act upon it.
One should not so much as speak disparagingly about a kinsman. But murder!
And then the even more horrible news that Eustace had shot himself. ‘An accident with a gun,’ everyone said, but what was he doing cleaning his guns at such a time?
It was Robert, dear, gentle Robert, who explained it to her, and persuaded her that it was for the best. Now there would be no trial, and no possibility that an Atherton might be hanged.
He sat with her for hours, holding her hand with gentle sympathy, but nothing and no one, not even her beloved Robert, could ease her grief.
***
T he next morning, the investigators met for the last time in the old schoolroom.
On the sideboard, the axe sat once more, beside the gun used to shoot Mr Bertram.
No one knew quite what to do with them now.
Pinned to an old blackboard was the plan of the castle, showing where everyone was at the time of the murder, and on the table, weighted down at the corners with two decanters and a writing standish, the larger plan which showed the position of everyone at the time of the shooting of Bertram Atherton.
“This is not the ending everyone hoped for, Michael,” Pettigrew said sombrely.
“Would you have preferred a trial at the Assizes and a public hanging?” Michael said.
“I had begun to hope we would never find the answer,” Pettigrew said. “It might have been better so. This family has suffered enough.”
“But then he might have tried again to kill Mr Bertram,” Luce said. “At least this way his death can be passed off as an accident and no one outside the family need know the dreadful truth.”
“Let us hope so,” Pettigrew said. “Now it can all be put behind them. Thank God you realised yesterday who the murderer was, Michael.”
“Oh, I already knew it was Eustace. I could not work out why, that was all, until I saw the importance of his inability to distinguish left from right, and remembered that Walter was not in his usual room.”
“How did you know it was Eustace?” Luce said. “Because he lied to you?”
“That made me suspicious, certainly. I was investigating the brutal murder of his uncle by marriage, after all. Any innocent person would have told the truth at once. Yet I could not find a flaw in his alibi. Even if it was not Daisy Marler in his bed, he had someone with him, and an entire household who swore he could not have left the house that night. He was involved in so many ways, and yet that seemed an unbreachable difficulty. Kent Atherton was equally involved, and had no alibi. And yet… Kent has such an open, honest face. Eustace always had a darker side to him.”
“Even a murderer can look honest,” Pettigrew said. “I never suspected Eustace for a moment.”
“It was the gun that first made me wonder, the gun used to shoot Mr Bertram Atherton.” Michael crossed the room to pick it up, laying on the table in the centre of the room.
“Such a nondescript weapon, is it not? So many guns are works of art, beautiful and memorable, but naval issue guns are merely practical. Unusual to see outside the navy, too. There are none in the Corland collection. But Eustace had several at Welwood, I have seen them, yet he swore he did not recognise this one. Now that may have been true — he might know his own collection so well that he could confidently say, ‘This is a gun I have never seen before.’ But he should have mentioned his own naval pistols. He should have said, ‘I have several of this type, but this is not one of mine.’ That is what an honest man would have said. Instead, he allowed everyone to think he had never seen such a thing before. That was what made me start to think about him seriously.”
“He wanted to marry Miss Franklyn, too,” Pettigrew said thoughtfully. “If Mr Bertram had died…”
“Precisely,” Michael said. “He wore black that night of the grand ball, did you notice? Everyone else wore pale silk breeches, but he wore black. All the better to pass unnoticed as he ran to the cheese store, and to hide any scuffs of dirt when he hid in the bushes awaiting Bertram. So then I fell to thinking about it. I wondered, if he was the murderer, how he might have done it. Laudanum, of course, to drug everyone into a deep sleep. One of the old horses from the field opposite. And a saddle… he must have had a saddle hidden somewhere. And then I remembered Miss Peach’s words. ”
“‘I am almost certain of the murderer’s identity now. I only need to find the saddle, and then I shall have the proof ’,” Luce said softly.
“Precisely. She said she would look in the obvious place for it, and where would be more obvious than the place where she had hidden her own saddle for the mule? So I set out to find that, and when I did, I had only to search a little further to find the saddle Eustace must have used. Once I knew that his alibi was worthless, everything else fell into place and I knew he must have killed Nicholson. But I did not know why until yesterday. You set me thinking, Luce, when we stood on the stairs and you talked about mazes, and going to the left and right. All of a sudden, the words of Lady Farramont popped into my head.”
“She said he made a terrible murderer,” Luce said, puzzled.
“Exactly,” Michael said. “He was confused over left and right, even in his own home from childhood. On the night of the murder, when it was dark and he would have been on edge in case he was discovered, he could easily have taken a wrong turn and murdered the wrong person. The wrong person! Once that thought had occurred to me, I wondered who his real target might have been and then it was obvious.”
“If he had not made that mistake,” Pettigrew mused, “if he had succeeded in murdering his brother, would the case have been easier to solve, do you think?”
“There would have been a clear motive, certainly,” Michael said thoughtfully.
“Eustace would have been the obvious beneficiary. But he had a solid alibi, and it would have looked like a random intruder who snatched up the axe opportunistically, just as he intended. And since we had not the secret life of the sainted chaplain to investigate which kept us here for months, our enquiries would have run into the ground almost at once. We would have abandoned the case in a month or less.”
“Then you think he would have won?” Luce said sharply. “He would have been Viscount Birtwell, the heir, and we could not have done anything about it? Michael, I am disappointed in you. Surely it would have been easier to solve the case if he had murdered the right man?”
“Only if I had realised the importance of his inability to distinguish left from right,” Michael said.
“I knew of it very early on, but it was not until I had seen him take a wrong turn on the stairs that I understood he could get lost even in his childhood home. Think about it, Luce. Every other important clue — the gun, the saddle, the laudanum, stalking Miss Franklyn, recreating the murder — all happened recently. If Walter had been the one murdered, we would have been long gone before discovering anything useful. It is only chance that the case has now been solved, and not by any skill of mine.”
“Except that of dogged perseverance, Michael,” Pettigrew said.
“If Walter had been killed, you would have suspected Eustace right from the start, instead of being… how shall I put this? Let us say you were swayed by his apparent affability in showing you his collection of weapons. You liked him, in short, so although you suspected him as much as you suspected anyone, you put no extra effort into investigating him. Not until you discovered that he had lied to you, anyway.”
Michael smiled ruefully. “It is true. I did like him, and not just because of our shared interest in weapons. He seemed to be so helpful, looking everywhere for Miss Peach. He truly was looking for her, of course, to ensure she knew nothing vital, but I confess, when he found her body, and showed me the many places he claimed to have looked for her, I was convinced he was on our side. He is very plausible, and if it had been Walter he killed, I would not have uncovered his perfidy at all, I am convinced.”
“I do not like to contradict you, but you know I am always right,” Pettigrew said smugly.
“If Walter had been killed, Eustace would have been the obvious suspect, and therefore you would have been haunting Welwood every day to work out how he did it. You would have noticed that the field opposite held not just donkeys and pack ponies, but a few riding horses, too. Then you would have looked for the saddle, and you would have found it before long. The case would have been far easier to solve. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that you would have solved it within a week.”
Michael shook his head. “You are very kind to say so, Pettigrew, but no, I have displayed nothing but ineptitude from start to finish this year. Maybe it is time I retired altogether.”
They all protested loudly, and eventually he laughed.
“Very well, very well. Have it your own way.” He picked up the gun again.
“I think I may keep this, if the earl does not object. The axe, too, perhaps. I doubt any of the Athertons wish to keep it . They will be reminders of my own fallibility, if I ever again become overconfident.”
***
M ichael was helping Luce finish packing when a knock on the door heralded the appearance of Mr Kent Atherton.
“May I come in?”