Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

Monk hated it. Futilely he tried again to think of any way he could to avoid exposing Menard even now.

The door opened and Callandra Daviot came in, meeting Hester's eyes, seeing the intense relief in them, then the contempt in Fabia's eyes and the anguish in Menard's.

"This is a family concern," Fabia said, dismissing her. "You need not trouble yourself with it."

Callandra walked past Hester and sat down.

“In case you have forgotten, Fabia, I was born a Grey. Something which you were not. I see the police are here. Presumably they have learned more about Joscelin's death-possibly even who was responsible. What are you doing here, Hester?"

Again Hester took the initiative. Her face was bleak and she stood with her shoulders stiff as if she were bracing herself against a blow.

"I came because I know a great deal about Joscelin's death, which you may not believe from anyone else."

"Then why have you concealed it until now," Fabia said with heavy disbelief. "I think you are indulging in a most vulgar intrusion, Miss Latterly, which I can only presume is a result of that same willful nature which drove you to go traipsing off to the Crimea. No wonder you are unmarried.''

Hester had been called worse things than vulgar, and by people for whose opinion she cared a great deal more than she did for Fabia Grey's.

"Because I did not know it had any relevance before," she said levelly. "Now I do. Joscelin came to visit my parents after my brother was lost in the Crimea. He told them he had lent George a gold watch the night before his death. He asked for its return, assuming it was found among George's effects." Her voice dropped a fraction and her back became even stiffer. "There was no watch in George's effects, and my father was so embarrassed he did what he could to make amends to Joscelin-with hospitality, money to invest in Joscelin's business enterprise, not only his own but his friends' also. The business failed and my father's money, and all that of his friends, was lost. He could not bear the shame of it, and he took his own life. My mother died of grief a short while later."

"I am truly sorry for your parents' death," Lovel interrupted, looking first at Fabia, then at Hester again. "But how can all this have anything to do with Joscelin's murder? It seems an ordinary enough matter-an honorable man making a simple compensation to clear his dead son's debt to a brother officer.''

Hester's voice shook and at last her control seemed in danger of breaking.

"There was no watch. Joscelin never knew George- any more than he knew a dozen others whose names he picked from the casualty lists, or whom he watched die in Scutari-I saw him do it-only then I didn't know why."

Fabia was white-lipped. "That is a most scandalous lie-and beneath contempt. If you were a man I should have you horsewhipped."

"Mother!" Lovel protested, but she ignored him.

“Joscelin was a beautiful man-brave and talented and full of charm and wit," she plunged on, her voice thick with emotion, the joy of the past, and the anguish. "Everyone loved him-except those few who were eaten with envy." Her eyes darted at Menard with something close to hatred. “Little men who couldn't bear to see anyone succeed beyond their own petty efforts." Her mouth trembled. "Lovel, because Rosamond loved Joscelin; he could make her laugh- and dream." Her voice hardened. "And Menard, who couldn't live with the fact that I loved Joscelin more than I loved anyone else in the world, and I always did."

She shuddered and her body seemed to shrink into itself as if withdrawing from something vile. "Now this woman has come here with her warped and fabricated story, and you stand there and listen to it. If you were men worthy of the name, you would throw her out and damn it for the slander it is. But it seems I must do it myself. No one has any sense of the family honor but me." She put her hands on the arm of her chair as if to rise to her feet.

"You'll have no one thrown out until I say so," Lovel said with a tight, calm voice, suddenly cutting like steel across her emotion. "It is not you who have defended the family honor; all you've defended is Joscelin-whether he deserved it or not. It was Menard who paid his debts and cleaned up the trail of cheating and welching he left behind-"

"Nonsense. Whose word do you have for that? Men-ard's?" She spat the name. "He is calling Joscelin a cheat, no one else. And he wouldn't dare, if Joscelin were alive. He only has the courage to do it now because he thinks you will back him, and there is no one here to call him the pathetic, treacherous liar he is."

Menard stood motionless, the final blow visible in the agony of his face. She had hurt him, and he had defended Joscelin for her sake for the last time.

Callandra stood up.

"You are wrong, Fabia, as you have been wrong all the time. Miss Latterly here, for one, will testify that Joscelin was a cheat who made money deceiving the bereaved who were too hurt and bewildered to see him for what he was. Menard was always a better man, but you were too fond of flattery to see it. Perhaps you were the one Joscelin deceived most of all-first, last and always.'' She did not flinch now, even from Fabia's stricken face as she caught sight at last of a fearful truth. "But you wanted to be deceived. He told you what you wished to hear; he told you you were beautiful, charming, gay-all the things a man loves in a woman. He learned his art in your gullibility, your willingness to be entertained, to laugh and to be the center of all the life and love in Shelburne. He said all that not because he thought for a moment it was true, but because he knew you would love him for saying it- and you did, blindly and indiscriminately, to the exclusion of everyone else. That is your tragedy, as well as his."

Fabia seemed to wither as they watched her.

"You never liked Joscelin," she said in a last, frantic attempt to defend her world, her dreams, all the past that was golden and lovely to her, everything that gave her meaning as it crumbled in front of her-not only what Joscelin had been, but what she herself had been. "You are a wicked woman."

"No, Fabia," Callandra replied. "I am a very sad one." She turned to Hester. "I assume it is not your brother who killed Joscelin, or you would not have come here to tell us this way. We would have believed the police, and the details would not have been necessary.'' With immeasurable sorrow she looked across at Menard. "You paid his debts. What else did you do?"

There was an aching silence in the room.

Monk could feel his heart beating as if it had the force to shake his whole body. They were poised on the edge of truth, and yet it was still so far away. It could be lost again by a single slip; they could plunge away into an abyss of fear, whispered doubts, always seeing suspicions, double meanings, hearing the footstep behind and the hand on the shoulder.

Against his will, he looked across at Hester, and saw that she was looking at him, the same thoughts plain in her eyes. He turned his head quickly back to Menard, who was ashen-faced.

"What else did you do?" Callandra repeated. "You knew what Joscelin was-"

"I paid his debts." Menard's voice was no more than a whisper.

"Gambling debts," she agreed. "What about his debts of honor, Menard? What about his terrible debts to men like Hester's father and brother-did you pay them as well?"

"I-I didn't know about the Latterlys," Menard stammered.

Callandra's face was tight with grief.

"Don't equivocate, Menard. You may not have known the Latterlys by name, but you knew what Joscelin was doing. You knew he got money from somewhere, because you knew how much he had to gamble with. Don't tell us you didn't learn where it came from. I know you better than that. You would not have rested in that ignorance- you knew what a fraud and a cheat Joscelin was, and you knew there was no honest way for him to come by so much. Menard-" Her face was gentle, full of pity. "You have behaved with such honor so far-don't soil it now by lying. There is no point, and no escape."