Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“I’ve only had a chance to talk to Beasley, so we’ve got just his version of what happened,” Cobb said. “But I gotta say he’s the only one of that whole bunch who ain’t gone bear-serk on us. The women are squallin’ like heifers with their teats tied, an’ that fella Armstrong’s as drunk as a skunk. The mute seems fine, but he ain’t sayin’ much, of course.”

“Beasley heard Tessa scream at twelve-thirty?”

“Well, you’ll need to interro-grate ’em yerself, but what he told Sarge an’ me when we got here a while ago, was a woman’s scream woke him up, an’ by the time he got himself awake an’ figured out where the scream’d come from, he found Ensign Hilliard standin’ over the body with both hands wrapped ’round the handle of the sword.”

“But what was Merriwether doing in Tessa’s room after midnight?”

Here Cobb glanced beseechingly at Withers, who grimaced and said, “It gets worse, laddie. Hilliard was seen going into the girl’s room with her about eleven o’clock, laughing and carrying on like lovebirds.”

“That’s right,” Marc said. “Owen Jenkin left him there shortly thereafter and we rode home together. But Rick had promised the major he would do nothing dishonourable and, in fact, would stay no more than half an hour for a single glass of sherry.”

“And he may well have kept that promise,” Withers said solemnly. “We found Tessa comatose on the bed there, and it’s possible Hilliard may have dozed off. The room was quite dark when Beasley entered it with a candle in his hand, except for the little swath of moonlight coming through the window and that stub of candle beside the bed. Cobb and I speculate that Merriwether must have come in a bit later expecting Tessa to be alone, probably with evil intentions on his mind.”

“That makes sense,” Marc said, thinking hard. “We spent yesterday afternoon watching the actors rehearse, and all three of us saw Merriwether make an improper gesture while carrying Tessa in his arms. And, I must admit frankly, she seemed to approve of the assault, though her guardian, Mrs. Thedford, did not.”

“And if it was almost dark in here,” Cobb added, “he mightn’t’ve spotted Hilliard dozin’ on the settee an’ …”

“And forced his attentions on the young lady,” Withers said as delicately as he could.

“And you think Rick heard Tessa scream for help, woke up, grabbed the ashtray-”

“Or the butt of his sword,” Withers said. “It’s smeared with blood, too, so we can’t be sure.”

“In either case he smashed the villain on the back of the head to prevent his ravishing the girl,” Marc said with a rush. “Which means he was justified in his actions. Tessa did scream, did she not? That’s the critical point.”

“Loud enough to wake Beasley up at the other end of the hall,” Cobb said.

“But why not any of the others?”

“That’s easy,” Cobb said. “Armstrong was pissed to the gills in his room. When Frank got up here shortly afterwards, he went in to check on him and the old sot couldn’t remember what country he was in.”

“But Mrs. Thedford’s room is next to this one, a thin wall away.”

“That’s so,” Cobb said, “but she was asleep in that little bedroom on the far side of her … whaddycallit-”

“Her suite.”

“-with wax plugs in her ears, accordin’ to Beasley, who woke her up,” Cobb finished.

“And Jeremiah is deaf.”

“An’ the other woman, the one who played the connivin’ mistress, was stayin’ downstairs with the Franks.”

“So you figure Hilliard bashed Merriwether’s brains in, probably because he had been wakened suddenly, was confused, heard and saw a young woman he was desperately in love with being assaulted by a large stranger clad only in a nightshirt-remember, Merriwether was almost six feet tall and powerfully built-and simply reacted as any officer and gentleman would have in the circumstances?”

“I wish that were so,” Withers said sadly. “Then there would be some hope for Hilliard. But when Beasley got here, no more than two or three minutes after the girl screamed, Hilliard was stooped over the blackguard about to pull his sword out of Merriwether’s chest. And that, in any court in the kingdom, is premeditated murder.”

It was simply impossible for Marc to accept this version of events. Hilliard’s passion and romantic folly might account for the reflex action of defending his lady’s honour by any means within his reach. But then to have drawn his sabre and, looking down into the face of Tessa’s disabled assailant, raise it above his head with calm deliberation and drive it through Merriwether’s chest-well, that was something he was absolutely certain Rick Hilliard would never do. Not even in the heat of battle. The very thought of such an ignominious act was monstrous.

“I figured at first,” Cobb said, “that maybe one person banged on the noggin and another put the sword in. But there wasn’t enough time. Beasley come runnin’ from the end of the hall where the stairs are, so nobody could’ve dashed in an’ done the stabbin’ an’ run back out again without Beasley seein’ him.”

“And the girl couldn’t’ve done it,” Withers said. “Even if she was faking being unconscious, she isn’t strong enough to have driven that heavy sword into Merriwether, not even in a rage. Besides which, she would’ve been covered in blood.”

“Like the ensign was,” Cobb felt obliged to add.

“Well, I’m going to question Clarence Beasley very closely, you can be sure. We’ve only got his word for all this.”

“It seems the mute was on the scene shortly as well,” Withers said. “And Hilliard, of course.”

“Has Rick said anything about this? Surely he’s denied it.”

Withers fielded that query with reluctance. “He’s said very little. He’s fanatically worried about the girl, but I’ve given her a sleeping draught and put her into Madge Frank’s care for the night.”

“He hasn’t admitted anything?”

“All he says is that he fell asleep while he and the girl were sparking on the settee, and when he woke up he was standing over the corpse in the dark and wondering what had happened-when Beasley came in and found him.”

“But surely he couldn’t have slept through a woman screaming rape and be uncertain whether he had hit Merriwether on the head, waited till he was flat on his back and then skewered him, while the blood gushed all over him? And, don’t forget, he also had time to go back to the settee, sit down for a spell, then get up and go over to retrieve his sword. And all this while sleepwalking? I don’t believe it for a minute.”

Dr. Withers was standing beside the night-table that held Tessa’s little candle, a half-full decanter of sherry, and two empty glasses. He ran the decanter, unstoppered, slowly under his nose, then, very carefully, took a minuscule sip and let the wine roll over his tongue. “He may not have been sleepwalking.” He pushed his nostrils into each of the glasses. “Laudanum,” he said. “A lot of it. Enough, I’d say, to knock an elephant to its knees.”

“But that means that both Tessa and Rick were drugged,” Marc cried, his hopes rising. “And there’s only one reason I can think of why that would happen. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that Merriwether slipped in here sometime yesterday-everybody in the troupe knew that Tessa took a glass of sherry before she went to bed after a performance-and put laudanum into the decanter. He couldn’t have known that Rick would be up here sharing the sherry with her when he first put the opiate into it. Later on, I’m sure he knew Rick was in Tessa’s room, and maybe he was inflamed with jealousy, and came across the hall, peered in, and found both of them comatose. And I’d lay odds that he decided then and there to have his way with the girl, and when she woke later, she would assume Rick had been her assailant. How she might have reacted, we don’t know, but Merriwether certainly knew how Mrs. Thedford would have taken the outrage. So the blackguard would be able to enjoy Tessa and have Rick take any consequences. All he had to do was snuff the candles out and set about the dastardly deed.”