Kate Morton - The Clockmaker's Daughter

Lucy remembered Edward’s account of the night that he met Lily Millington. She and Clare and Mother – even their maid, Jenny, who was listening from where she was pouring the pot of breakfast tea – had exchanged fond, knowing glances when he told them that he’d had to walk the whole way home because he had been so transfixed by the young woman’s face, so excited at the prospects that it presented, that he’d managed somehow to lose his wallet. Forgetfulness in the face of inspiration was so in keeping with Edward’s nature that none of them had thought to question it – not to mention, his wallet had been as empty as it ever was, so recovering it was of no great consideration. But according to Inspector Wesley, the wallet had not been lost at all; it had been taken – stolen from Edward by that man, Martin, at the very moment that Edward had believed himself to have been coming to Lily Millington’s rescue.

‘You mark my words,’ the inspector said, ‘because I’ll eat my hat if I’m wrong. A man doesn’t spend thirty years wading through the rot and the filth of London’s streets without learning a thing or two about the despicable elements of human nature.’

And yet, Lucy had witnessed the way Lily Millington looked at Edward, the way they were together. She couldn’t believe that it was all a ploy.

‘Thieves, actresses and illusionists,’ the inspector said with a tap to the side of his nose when Lucy said as much. ‘Cut from the same cloth, they are. Great pretenders, tricksters all.’

Viewed through the prism of Inspector Wesley’s theory, Lucy could see how Lily Millington’s actions might not have been exactly as they had seemed. And Lucy had observed Lily with the man. Martin. That’s what she had called him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she’d said, and, ‘You must go, Martin. I said a month.’ And the man, Martin, had replied, ‘You did, but you’re a fast worker, one of the best,’ and he’d held up a pair of tickets and said, ‘America … the land of new beginnings.’

But Lily hadn’t left the house with Martin. Lucy knew that she hadn’t, for Lucy had locked Lily Millington in the hideaway. She was sure she could remember feeling proud when she revealed the hidden chamber.

Lucy tried to say as much, but Inspector Wesley only said, ‘I know all about the priest hole. That’s where you were hidden, Miss Radcliffe, not Miss Millington,’ and he reminded her of the bump on her head and told her that she should rest, calling for the doctor: ‘The child is confused again, Doctor. I fear I’ve worn her out with my questions.’

And Lucy was confused. Because it was impossible that Lily Millington could have remained in the stairwell hiding place all of this time. It had been four days now since Martin had come to Birchwood. Lucy could remember how it felt within the tiny cavity, how difficult it was to breathe, how quickly the air had staled, how desperate she’d been to escape. Lily Millington would have called out for release long ago. No one could have stayed in there this long.

Maybe Lucy had got it wrong, after all? Maybe she hadn’t locked Lily Millington away? Or, if she had, maybe Martin had released her and they’d run off together, just as the inspector said. Hadn’t Lily told Lucy that she’d spent her childhood in Covent Garden; that she’d learned the coin trick from a French illusionist? Hadn’t she called herself a pickpocket? Lucy had presumed at the time that she’d been joking, but what if Lily Millington had been working with that man, Martin, all along? What else could she have meant when she said that she’d told him she needed one month? Maybe that’s why she had been so eager for Lucy to run back to the woods, to leave them to it …

Lucy’s head hurt. She screwed her eyes tight. The bump must have jumbled her memories, as the inspector said. She had always placed the utmost value on being accurate, disdaining those who abbreviated or approximated and did not seem to realise that it made a difference; and so she made a solemn decision not to say anything further until she was 100 per cent certain that what she remembered was true and correct.

Edward, naturally enough, refused to accept the inspector’s theory. ‘She would never have stolen from me and she would never have left me. We were going to be married,’ he told the inspector. ‘I’d asked her and she’d accepted. I’d broken off the engagement with Miss Brown a week before we came to Birchwood.’

It was Fanny’s father’s turn to wade in then. ‘The lad’s in shock,’ Mr Brown said. ‘He’s not thinking straight. My daughter was looking forward to her wedding and was discussing plans for the occasion with my wife on the very morning that she left for Birchwood. She would most certainly have told me if her engagement had been cancelled. She said nothing to that effect. Had she done so, I’d have had my lawyers involved, I can assure you. My daughter had a spotless reputation. There were gentlemen with far more to offer than Mr Radcliffe lining up to ask for her hand in marriage, but she wanted to marry him. There’s no way I’d have allowed a broken engagement to spoil my daughter’s good name.’ And then the big man broke down, sobbing, ‘My Frances was a respectable woman, Inspector Wesley. She told me that she wished to spend the weekend in the country where her fiancé was hosting a group at his new house. I was pleased to lend her my coachman. I would never have allowed her to attend the weekend if not for her engagement and she would not have asked.’

This reasoning was good enough for Inspector Wesley and his Berkshire counterpart, particularly when it was further cemented by Thurston, who took the inspector aside to inform him that he was Edward’s closest confidant and that his friend had never breathed a word about breaking off his engagement to Fanny Brown, let alone entering a second engagement with his model, Miss Millington. ‘I’d have talked him out of it if he had,’ said Thurston. ‘Fanny was a wonderful young lady and a sobering influence. It’s no secret that Edward has always had his head in the clouds; she managed to bring his feet back firmly onto the ground.’

‘It was your weapon that was used in the murder, was it not, Mr Holmes?’ the inspector had asked.

‘Regrettably, yes. A decorative piece only. A gift from Mr Radcliffe, as it happens. I’m as shocked as anyone that it was loaded and used in such a way.’

Lucy’s grandfather, having learned about the missing Radcliffe Blue, had decamped by then from the Beechworth estate, and was only too happy to round out the description of Edward. ‘Even as a child,’ the old man told the inspector, ‘he was filled with wild ideas and wilder inclinations. There were many times when he was growing from a boy to a man that I despaired. I couldn’t have been happier or more relieved when he announced his engagement to Miss Brown. He seemed at last to have set himself on the right track. He and Miss Brown were to have been married, and any suggestion from Edward otherwise signals nothing more than a sad loss of his senses. Natural enough in the face of such terrible events, especially for one with his artistic temperament.’

Mr Brown and Lord Radcliffe were right, Thurston said soberly; Edward was in shock. Not only had he loved and lost his fiancée, Miss Brown, he was forced to accept that he was responsible for the horrific events, having brought Lily Millington and her associates into his group of friends. ‘It wasn’t as if he didn’t have fair warning,’ Thurston added. ‘I told him myself some months ago that I’d noticed certain items of value missing from my studio after he and his model had come to visit. He left me with quite the black eye for even daring to suggest such a thing.’