Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“Well, that’s plausible,” Withers said. “But how will we ever know what really happened if Tessa and Hilliard were indeed unconscious? And if they’d had more than a mouthful of this stuff, they would have been. Neither of them can give us rational testimony.”

“In the meantime,” Cobb said, “we got a witness who swears he saw Hilliard with the murder weapon in his clutches an’ with the whole front of his tunic covered in blood. You’ll see it for yourself.”

“And, alas,” Withers said with a sad shake of his head, “with his flies wide open.”

“You’re not implying that Rick was the girl’s attacker? That’s preposterous.”

When neither Withers nor Cobb responded to that assessment, Marc continued. “There must be blood on Merriwether’s privates!”

“There was blood everywhere-on both men.”

“Well, if there’s a court-martial, I’ll argue that Rick was drugged, dazed, provoked to his actions by the noblest of motives, and was therefore not wholly responsible for what he may have done.”

“You gonna take out yer law-yer’s licence again?” Cobb enquired.

“Even so,” Withers said, “it’s a stretch to claim that a befuddled man with altruistic intent pulled a battle-sword out of its scabbard and drove it unerringly through the centre of Merriwether’s chest so forcefully that it stuck in the floor under him.”

“Damn it all, that’s what I’m saying!” Marc shouted. “Dazed or sober, my friend Rick Hilliard could not have done that. He had already saved the girl he loved from harm. He had maimed the assailant. What could possibly have incited him to such a senseless, despicable act?”

“Maybe it was this,” Cobb said, holding his lantern high over Tessa’s bed.

There on the white, freshly starched sheet was a bloodstain, no bigger than a virgin’s fist.

Having covered the body with a sheet and snuffed the candles, the three men went out into the hall.

“I don’t want the corpse moved or anything else touched in there,” Marc said. “I’ll need to examine the room in the morning light. And we can’t have anyone who might conceivably have been involved going in overnight to tamper with the evidence.”

Dr. Withers reached into his medical bag, pulled out a wad of sealing wax, softened it in his fingers, and pushed it into the slim crack between the door and the sash near the floor. “How’s that?” he said with a wink. “You’ll know if a mouse tries to break and enter.”

Cobb was leaning over the sill of the hall window that overlooked Colborne Street. “Nobody’s come in here,” he said, dragging a finger through the thick dust. “Least not since the invasion of Muddy York.”

“Unless the interloper was part monkey, able to climb vertical brick walls,” Withers added, “you’ll have to devote your attention to those people who were in this building from eleven o’clock onward.”

“And if they’d tried a ladder under the girl’s window, it’d’ve been stickin’ out on Colborne Street like a roofer’s thumb,” Cobb said. “But I’ll check the alley an’ street fer any signs just the same.”

“Someone could have hidden around the stage area and waited for his chance,” Marc said, grasping at straws.

“Then how did the bugger get out again?” Cobb said. “Frank swore to the God of all Orangemen that the front doors an’ privy-exit were barred from the inside right after Major Jenkin left. And when he lit out fer Government House, he went out through his own quarters with his wife standing watch. Anybody leavin’ that way couldn’t’ve barred the door after them from the outside: when Sarge and I got here, those theatre doors were still barred.”

Marc sighed.

“An’ there’s no other way out of the theatre,” Cobb continued, “except through the tavern, an’ that door was locked with a slidin’ bolt by Frank before he went to bed, as usual.”

They were now heading down the only stairs towards the stage and the tavern just behind it.

“All right, all right,” Marc said testily. “It’s a long shot, I confess. Certainly we’ve got to focus on the actors first, though I’m not going to rule out Ogden Frank or his wife, or even Thea Clarkson: any one of them could have left their quarters, slipped through the barroom, unbolted the door behind the bar on this side of the stage, sneaked up the stairs, and been a party to murder.”

“An’ sneaked back before Beasley got out into the hall, I suppose,” Cobb said. “An’ drippin’ blood all the way?” They had spotted no bloodstains on the hall carpet, but only a thorough examination in daylight would settle the question.

“They could have been in it together! The lot of them!”

Withers pushed open the door to the tavern. “Might I suggest that we begin by looking at the obvious evidence first, then move on to the fanciful speculation?”

They emerged into a well-lit room and peered over the bar at a most arresting tableau: two rather shortish men of a middle age, each uniformed, were wrestling over possession of a set of leg irons.

“You are not gonna put this man in chains unless I say so!”

“I bear the authority of the governor, and this man is now my official prisoner! I order you to release these shackles so that I may secure the felon.”

Wilfrid Sturges, erstwhile sergeant-major in Wellington’s peninsular army and chief constable of the five-man municipal police force, gave a sharp pull on his half of the shackles and almost succeeded in wresting the whole from Barclay Spooner’s grip. Without outside intervention, there was no doubt as to which combatant would eventually triumph. Although both men were of slight build, Lieutenant Spooner, aide-de-camp to Sir Francis Bond Head, was a man whose aggressive movements and gestures could only be described as rigidly crisp but otherwise ineffectual, while Chief Constable Sturges was slimly muscular and deceptively quick, a tough little beagle of a man. Behind them, slumped in a captain’s chair with his chin in his hands, was Rick Hilliard. He looked like the sole survivor of a sanguinary battle.

“Gentlemen, would you please drop those shackles,” Marc barked at the belligerents. “No one is going to put Ensign Hilliard in chains. I’m in charge of this investigation, and I’ll determine who’s to be labelled a prisoner and a felon.”

Marc’s outburst distracted Spooner long enough for Sturges to recover the leg irons and stuff them into his overcoat pocket. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I was just attemptin’ to persuade Mr. Spooner ’ere on that very point.”

“You are interfering with the Queen’s business,” Spooner spluttered, whether at Marc or Sturges was not clear, as his moustache, ruthlessly trimmed, twitched at one end and then the other.

“Are you suggesting that I am not in charge of this investigation?” Marc demanded.

“Not in the least, sir. You deliberately misapprehend my intentions. I made the not unreasonable assumption that a man brandishing a murder-weapon smeared with the victim’s blood-and his roger hanging out-was, in the least, a prime suspect. Further, as the officer designated to contain the political consequences from this catastrophe, I was endeavouring to put this upstart policeman in his place.”

“We’ll see who’s the upstart,” Sturges said, his face reddening. “As far as I can see, we have a civilian murdered, possibly by an army officer, in a buildin’ clearly under my jurisdiction.”

“And this civilian, as you so quaintly put it, just happens to be a foreign national, making this potentially an international incident. In any event, the governor has seen fit to put Lieutenant Edwards and me exclusively in control of matters here. Mr. Frank had no authority to invite you to interfere. Do you wish me to report your insolent insubordination to my superior when I return to Government House?”