Anne Perry - A Christmas Homecoming

There was a stunned silence.

Douglas was white to the lips. “Of course it isn’t!” he said savagely. “How dare you say such a thing? The man was arrogant, and probably a charlatan, but I didn’t do anything to him at all. Look at your fellow players. It has to be one of you.”

It was Vincent who answered, his eyes wide in disbelief. “One of us? Why, for God’s sake? It was this house he came to. It is entirely conceivable that he had actually heard that Mr. Netheridge was entertaining his friends with a group of professional actors in his daughter’s drama, even though he claimed he had no idea. Maybe that was why he showed up. Even if it were not, how would Ballin know specifically who we were? One has to assume it was someone here he came for, someone he expected to find.”

Netheridge’s face flushed dark. “I’ve never seen the man before, or heard of him!” he protested. “Neither has anyone in my family, and that includes Douglas.” He was clearly horrified, but also afraid. His big hands clenched at his sides and he started to take a step forward, before changing his mind.

“There is no point in trying to lay blame on one another,” Caroline said as levelly as she could. “We would all rather it be a crime committed by someone who broke in from outside, a random act that had nothing to do with any of us, but that would be childish and naïve. No one has come or left. Either it was a sudden quarrel so violent that it ended in death, or else he already knew someone here—who either lives here or is visiting—and an old quarrel was renewed. It doesn’t matter. I doubt anyone is going to admit to either.”

“Maybe he attacked someone, and they had to defend themselves?” Eliza said shakily. “That would mean it wasn’t their fault, wouldn’t it?”

Caroline slowly looked around at them all. For a moment her heart was pounding and her mouth dry with the hope that that could be true. Then the dead man, beyond all further hurt, would be to blame. Even as she thought that, she knew it was likely a false hope, but one she could not give up on easily.

“No one looks to be hurt,” she said at last. “No one is dirty or torn, as if they had been in a fight for their lives. And surely if that were the case, the party would now admit it?”

“One of the servants?” Mercy said immediately.

Caroline gave a little shrug. “Why would Mr. Ballin be in the corridor to the theater in the middle of the night, attacking one of the servants with a broken-off and sharpened broom handle?”

“How do you know it was sharpened?” Douglas challenged her.

“Because it wouldn’t have speared him if it were blunt,” she said with weary patience. “This is not a play, this is real. It has to make sense; we have to look at facts to figure out what’s true.”

“We must wait for the police,” Netheridge said, taking command again. “Until then there’s nothing we can do. Please, everyone, go back to bed, and get whatever rest you can. Douglas and I will go and move the poor man so that none of the servants find him. They’re a sensible lot, but this will distress them, naturally. I think it would be a good idea if we merely say that Mr. Ballin was taken violently ill and died. We can amend that when the police come.”

Caroline rose to her feet. “You can’t do that!”

“I beg your pardon?” It was a rebuke, not a request.

“Of course he can,” Douglas said sharply. “You’ve had a shock, Mrs. Fielding. Let your husband take you upstairs and perhaps you have a headache powder you can take … or something …” He trailed off lamely.

Caroline remained where she was. “You can tell the servants whatever you think is best to keep some sort of calm in the house,” she said to Netheridge, ignoring Douglas. “But Mr. Ballin was murdered. I quite see that you have to put his body somewhere more suitable than where it is, but not tonight in the dark. If you bolt the door to that part of the house it can be done in daylight, but it would be most unwise to do it alone …”

“My dear Mrs. Fielding, it will be unpleasant, but there is absolutely no danger whatever, I assure you,” Netheridge said patiently. “He is a perfectly ordinary man of flesh and blood, and the dead do not hear us. There are no such things as vampires, or the undead—”

“Of course there aren’t!” she cut him off angrily. “But he was murdered. Anyone moving him before the police get here may be accused of altering the evidence …”

“What evidence? We can’t leave him there, woman! He’ll … smell! The natural—”

“I’m not suggesting we leave him there,” she corrected him. She was beginning to tremble. “But we need to be there, all of us, or at least several of us, when we move him. One of us did that to him. We don’t want the police to accuse any of us of tampering with evidence that would have indicated guilt …”

“Such as what, for heaven’s sake?” Netheridge pretended to be outraged, but understanding was already beginning to show in his eyes.

“Such as proof that Ballin knew his attacker on a more personal level, or that there was some quarrel that took place between them,” she answered. “Something on his clothes or his person that would indicate who was the last one to see him alive. All sorts of objects are possible to discover at a crime scene, either because they were left accidentally, or because they were left on purpose by someone wishing to implicate someone else; or, conversely, not to discover, because they have been purposely removed.”

“She’s right,” Mercy said incredulously. “But how on earth do you know these things? Who are you?”

“I am Joshua’s wife,” Caroline replied. “But I have a son-in-law who is a policeman, and he has solved dozens of murders—scores. Please … let us use sense as well as compassion. We’ll all go together, in the daylight, when we can see the body, the floor around, anything that can tell us what happened. We need to protect ourselves from unjust suspicion by the police, as well as anything else.” She stopped, swallowing hard, her mouth dry.

“You are quite right, of course,” Netheridge agreed more calmly. “Thank you. Fielding, perhaps you would come with me while I lock the door from the hall to the corridor. As Mrs. Fielding points out, we need to take the proper care to be above suspicion. I shall see the rest of you at breakfast at the usual hour. Until then, please take whatever rest you can.”

Caroline sat up in bed waiting for Joshua to return. It seemed like ages, although it was probably little more than five minutes before he came in and closed the door. He looked very shaken.

“The corridor has been locked,” he said quietly. “Are you going to be all right?” He looked at her anxiously, trying to read beyond the calm words she was saying.

“Did you look at him?” she asked.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Only briefly. I suppose Netheridge wanted to make sure you hadn’t had a nightmare or something. I’m afraid it’s definitely Ballin, and as you said, someone killed him. That sort of thing couldn’t have happened by accident.” He touched her hair, then her face. “I wish I could have protected you from this. I knew there’d be difficulties, quarrels in the cast, but I never imagined it could end in violence.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said, surprised at how calm she sounded. “It’s probably to do with Netheridge, not us, but we must be prepared to deal with whatever happens.” She smiled bleakly. “You know, I’m really very angry. We had finally made a decent play of it, and now we can hardly perform it, given the circumstances. Added to which, I very much liked Mr. Ballin, odd as he was.”