Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Genius of the Place

“And when you refused, she struck you with her whip.”

“My negative produced a dreadful passion,” he agreed. “She was never a soul under perfect management I informed her that I could not be a party to so heinous a crime; there were others, no doubt, who would gladly accommodate her.”

“Such as Denys Collingforth.”

He averted his gaze.

“And so you determined, that for Grey's sake and the sake of your … policy, that Mrs. Grey must die. Your careful preparation must be put into play. You waited for her in Collingforth's coach; and when she entered it a little before the final heat — under the observant eyes of the entire Austen party — you strangled her there, with her own hair-ribbon.”

“I wonder that you did not hear the struggle,” Neddie said.

I shrugged. “For all his slightness, Mr. Sothey moves with considerable grace — I should judge him a man of some strength.”

Emilious Finch-Hatton paced restlessly before the kitchen hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. Now, I thought — when the two men were engaged in the relation of their tale — now was the moment to seize and bind them. They had practically admitted to the crime of murder; and yet, Neddie did nothing. Could it be that he was hesitating? Or that he doubted of his ability to prove either man's guilt?

And then I saw that his fingers had closed over a bread knife, and were sliding it by imperceptible degrees towards the edge of the table. I hurried myself into speech once more.

“I suppose, Mr. Sothey, that when the gruesome work was done, you put on Mrs. Grey's habit over your own suit of clothes. You are slight enough to have managed it, and Mrs. Grey was a well-formed woman. You added, however, two items — a black wig and illusion veil, under the brim of the lady's tricorn hat. How did you conceal them on your person, as you walked about the meeting-grounds?”

Sothey shrugged dismissively. “I wore, you may recollect, a prodigiously handsome hat, with a high circular crown. The wig and veil were concealed within, and devilish warm they made it, too.”

“Highly necessary, however, for the discouragement of the curious. But you did not mean to be under the observation of anyone very long. Arrayed in the scarlet riding habit, you quitted the chaise; retrieved Mrs. Grey's black horse from her tyger; approached the rail and threw yourself into the heat. That, if I recollect, was ultimately your undoing — for Miss Sharpe observed you jump the rail, and understood the alteration that had taken place, however little she might comprehend or explain it.”

“She cannot have the least notion of what she saw,” Mr. Emilious broke in wearily. “Your entire history, Miss Austen, is the most extraordinary fabrication of humbug and lies.”

I smiled at him faintly. “I thought it unlikely, sir, that Lord Harold Trowbridge should possess an intimate friend; but knowing you now a little, as I do, I comprehend the extent of my folly. You can never have been on terms of intimacy with that remarkable intellect, and yet fail to profit from his example. Accept, Mr. Finch-Hatton, that you have underestimated the Austens; and be satisfied.”

“With the filly Josephine triumphant,” my brother said to Julian Sothey, “all that remained was to accept the plate with a careless grace, and drive your phaeton precipitately out of the grounds. A mile down the Wing-ham road, you discarded the habit; but at the last, you thought better of the wig and veil. It would never do for them to be found; we should have seen in an instant that it was not Mrs. Grey, but an imposter, who had paraded about the grounds.”

“We never thought to wonder what had become of the lady's hat,” I agreed. “That was very stupid of us. And what of Mr. Sothey's own? The prodigiously expensive, high-crowned affair, so admirably suited to the concealment of a wig?”

“I tossed it from the far window of Collingforth's chaise, before exiting from the near side, apparelled as Mrs. Grey,” he replied in a subdued tone. “It fell into the underbrush at the fringe of the race grounds — you will recall that the chaise was parked at the farthest extent of the carriages — and for all I know, it rests there still.”

“The fate of all things cherished and expensive,” I observed, “—to be lost at hazard, and well before their time. And once you had driven the phaeton along the Wingham road, I suppose your man was instructed to fetch you?”

“Of course not,” Sothey replied. “I walked back to the race grounds. To admit my valet to an intimate knowledge of my affairs should place me in the man's power; and that is not how an agent of George Canning's survives.”

“Nor, it would seem, does he survive by placing himself in a woman's power; but that, we may suppose, you could not help. I comprehend it all, Mr. Sothey, except for one thing — why did you choose to implicate Denys Collingforth?”

“I had lived long enough at The Larches to believe Collingforth capable of anything, Miss Austen. He was a man driven by his passion for gaming, and by the pressures his resultant debts exacted; little as he loved Mrs. Grey, he was completely in her power, and should be the obvious instrument of revenge against her husband. I could not allow their conference to take place.”

“And, too, Collingforth's chaise was one of the few bereft of an attendant party,” I mused. “Not so much as a groom was left to look after the horses. Yes, I see perfectly how it was. A fearful symmetry must dictate your choice.”

“I never believed he would be charged with murder,” Sothey protested. “The man might name an hundred witnesses to his conduct that day, and all of them at some distance from his chaise. I thought him in the clear.”

“Until my brother discovered his message in Mrs. Grey's habit.”

“I had no notion she would keep it about her.”

I studied him keenly. “So you wrote that summons yourself?”

He bowed his head. “I had seen Collingforth's hand a score of times — he was forever sending little missives, in acceptance of Mrs. Grey's card-parties. It was a simple matter for an artist to affect his hand.”

“So simple, in fact, that even his wife was fooled. How unfortunate for Mr. Collingforth! Besieged on every side, he bolted from town, rather than face the coroner— and thus fell a second victim to your schemes. But why weight his body and throw him in the millpond? Should you not have been better served by an appearance of suicide, and a note to that effect, scrawled in his handwriting?”

Sothey's eyes widened. 'You cannot believe that I murdered Collingforth ! — An innocent man! I was never more miserable than when I learned the result of the inquest, and never more relieved than when I was told that he had fled. I thought it a benediction of Heaven, that one man at least might escape the fate of the condemned.”

“And when you learned of his murder?”

Sothey threw his hands skyward in a gesture of utter helplessness, then let them fall without a word.

The improver's protest had the ring of truth; but in such a case, who knew what might be believed? A jury of his peers should dismiss his claim without a second thought. The murder of Mrs. Grey would prove him capable of every infamy. And yet, what had he effected, against an avowed spy of the enemy, but a simple act of war? It was to Sothey, perhaps, that we owed the unsullied peace of the Kentish night, and the broken camps along the Channel. Such tangles were beyond my power of resolution; I knew only that I recoiled from the hand that could murder a woman from cold-blooded calculation, when I should not think twice about the death of an enemy soldier, in the heat of battle. There was a hypocrisy in this, that was hardly comfortable; and I read a similar confusion in my brother's eyes.