Stephanie Barron - Jane and The Wandering Eye

“Ah — his murderer.” Mr. Elliot turned his back upon the Marquis and paced towards the mantel, his eyes roving about the panelled walls to either side. “The fellow, you would have it, who dropped from the window. A man should require wings, my lord, to achieve such a distance from casement to paving-stone. But perhaps your murderer came disguised this e’en as a bird. Or an imp of Hell, intent upon the snatching of a soul. We may wonder to what region Mr. Portal has descended, may we not?”

“Mr. Elliot!” Maria Conyngham cried. “Remember where you are, sir!”

The magistrate bowed benignly and crossed to the anteroom window. A quick survey of the ground below, and he summoned a constable with a snap of the fingers.

“You there, Shaw — to the chairmen, and be quick! You are to enquire whether any observed a flight from the sill of this window.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Mr. Elliot,” the Dowager broke in, “my footmen, Jenkins and Samuel, attempted to pursue the assailant some moments after his flight. But having little notion of the villain’s appearance or direction, alas, they could not find him.”

“Naturally not. Their slippers,” Elliot rejoined with a critical air, “are hardly conducive to pursuit. Lord Kinsfell—”

“Mr. Elliot?”

“For what reason did you follow Mr. Portal into this room?”

“I did not follow Portal anywhere,” the Marquis objected hotly. “I thought him already thrown out of the house.”

“Indeed? And upon what pretext?”

A brief silence; the exchange of looks. Lady Desdemona attempted an answer.

“Mr. Portal had so far forgot himself, Mr. Elliot, as to behave with considerable impropriety before Her Grace’s guests. My brother thought it best that he be shown to the street before his actions became insupportable.”

“That is a gross prevarication!” Hugh Conyngham burst out. “Had your brother not seen fit to challenge poor Portal to a duel, my lady, he might yet be alive!”

“A duel?” Mr. Elliot enquired with interest. “And what could possibly have inspired a duel, pray?”

Lord Kinsfell drew himself up to his full height — which was not inconsiderable. He was a very well-made young man. “I am not at liberty to say, Mr. Elliot. It was a matter of some delicacy.”

“An affair of honour, in short.”

“As all such matters must be.”

“Of that, my lord, I am hardly convinced. Duelling is murder, as you must be aware.”

“In cases where one of the opponents is killed, perhaps,” the Marquis replied dismissively.

“Are you so certain of your aim, my lord, as to intend to miss? Or so contemptuous of Mr. Portal’s?”

Lord Kinsfell did not reply, but the colour mounted to his cheeks. “It is of no account whatsoever what I intended, for Portal is dead, and by an unknown hand.”

“Is he, indeed? And why, may I ask Your Grace,” the magistrate continued, with a glare from under his eyebrows at the Duchess, “was Mr. Portal not conveyed to the street?”

“Whatever my grandson’s feelings, I deemed it necessary to comport myself as befits a hostess,” Eugenie replied with dignity. “It seemed to me more suitable to allow Mr. Portal an interval of rest and quiet, until some member of the company should be able to escort him home.”

“Yes, I see.” The magistrate’s beady black eyes, so reminiscent of two currants sunk in a Christmas pudding, moved from the Marquis to the Dowager and back again. “And so you entered this room, Lord Kinsfell, in the very midst of Mr. Conyngham’s declamation?”

“I did.”

“And to what purpose?”

“I meant to pass through it to the back hall, and proceed thence to my rooms. I was utterly fagged, if you must know, and desperate for quiet.”

Mr. Elliot glanced around. “Pass to the hallway where , my lord? For I observe no other door than the one by which you entered.”

Lord Kinsfell strode impatiently to the far side of the fireplace, and pressed against a panel of the wall. With a creak, it swung inwards — a barely discernible door. “It is intended for the ease of the servants, but it makes a useful passage when the main door to the hall is blocked.”

“As it would have been during Mr. Conyngham’s recital.”

“Obviously. The door from the drawing-room to the back hall stands to the right of where Mr. Conyngham was positioned. I should have had to force my way through the greater part of the company to attain it. And that I did not wish to do.”

“Commendable, I am sure. Mr. Conyngham must certainly regard it thus,” Mr. Elliot said slowly, and reached a well-fed hand to the silently swinging door. “Very cunning, indeed. May I request a taper, Your Grace?”

The taper was duly brought from the fire, and held aloft in Mr. Elliot’s hand; the magistrate leaned into the passage, and snorted with regret. “How very disappointing, to be sure. Not a cask of gold, nor an abducted princess can I find — nothing but a cleanly-swept hall of perhaps a dozen yards, such as one might see in any well-regulated household. You are plainly no friend to intrigue and romance, Your Grace. For of what use is a passage, if it be not dank and cobwebbed, and descending precipitately to a subterranean cell?”

Not even Maria Conyngham found strength to protest at this; but her looks were hardly easy. She followed Mr. Elliot’s every move, as he closed the passage and threw his taper into the fire. To Lord Kinsfell he turned at last, and enquired, “And who among Her Grace’s household is familiar with this passage, my lord?”

“Everyone, I must suppose,” replied the Marquis.

“Very good, my lord — you will please to sit down. Mr. Conyngham!”

“Mr. Elliot?”

“Were you long intending to declaim your passage from Macbeth —or spurred to the act by the whim of the moment?”

“I was requested to perform by the Dowager Duchess, when first the invitation to Laura Place was extended.”

“So it was a scheme of some weeks’ preparation, I apprehend?”

“To recite a part of which I am so much the master, must require a very little preparation, sir,” the actor replied stiffly.

“Quite, quite — but you do not take my meaning, Mr. Conyngham. The interval of the speech was intended as a piece of the evening’s entertainment — in short, it was planned?”

“It was.”

“Capital! And how long did you spend in prating and posing?”

“Mr. Elliot!”

“Oh, God’s breath — answer the question, man!”

Hugh Conyngham’s air of contempt deepened visibly. “I should judge that I spoke for no less than five, and no more than ten, minutes, sir.”

“During which time Mr. Portal met his end.”

“So we must assume.”

“Any cries? Any scuffle?”

“Nothing of the sort — until, that is, Lord Kinsfell entered the room.”

Mr. Elliot heaved a sigh, and threw his corpulent frame onto the settee. It creaked beneath his weight. One blunt-fingered hand caressed his chins, and the other lay limp upon his knee. He seemed to be waiting for something — divine inspiration? But no — it was the return of the constable named Shaw. The man appeared and claimed the magistrate’s attention.

“Well, my good fellow? Was our Devil’s imp observed?”

Constable Shaw shook his head. In so anxious a moment, the gesture must be eloquent. I felt my hopes to sink.

“Lord Kinsfell!”

The Knight inclined his head.

“You persist in refusing to offer some explanation for your conduct?”

The Marquis’s colour was high, and I detected the effects of anxiety in his countenance. “I do not understand you, Mr. Elliot. I have offered the only possible explanation under the circumstances.”