things one discovers alone. He’d have died to save a heath with skylarks, or a bluebell wood.” Her voice was trembling. “A cold lake with reed spears in it, a lonely shore where the light falls on pale sandbars.” She gulped. “It’s hard to believe they are all still just the same, and he can’t see them anymore.”
He was too full of emotion himself to speak. His thoughts included his father as well, and all the multitude of things his mother had treasured.
“But lots of people love things, don’t they?” She was looking intently at him now. “And there were parts of him I didn’t know at all. A terrible anger sometimes, when he thought of what some of our politicians were doing, how they were letting Europe slip into war because they are all so busy protecting their own few square miles of territory. He hated jingoism, really hated it. I’ve seen him white to the lips, almost so choked with it that he couldn’t speak.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you think there will be war, Mr. Reavley? Sebastian wanted peace . . . so much!”
Joseph saw Sebastian’s face in the fading light again, as clearly as if he had been in the room with them.
“Yes, I know he did.”
“I wonder if he would be surprised to see how much turmoil he’s left behind.” She gave a tiny laugh, almost like a hiccup. “We are tearing ourselves apart trying to find out who killed him, and you know, I’m not sure if I want to succeed. Is that wicked of me, irresponsible?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” he answered. “We are going to be forced to know.”
“I’m afraid of that!” She stared at him, searching his face.
“Yes,” he agreed. “So am I.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
On the evening of Friday, July 17, Matthew again left London and drove north toward Cambridge. It was a fine evening, with a slight wind piling clouds into bright towers of light high up in a cobalt sky—a perfect time to be on the road, once he had left the confines of the city. Long stretches opened up ahead of him, and he increased speed until the wind tore at his hair and stung his cheeks and in his imagination he thought what it would be like to fly.
He reached Cambridge at about quarter past seven. He came in on the Trumpington Road with the river on his left and Lammas Land beyond, past Fitzwilliam, Peterhouse, Pembroke, Corpus Christi, and up the broad elegance of King’s Parade with shops and houses to the right, and intricate wrought iron railings to the left. He passed the ornate spires of the screen that walled off the Front Court of King’s College, then the classical perfection of the Senate House, with Great Saint Mary’s opposite.
He pulled up at the main gate of St. John’s and climbed out of the seat. He walked stiffly to the porter’s lodge and was about to tell Mitchell who he was and that he had come to see Joseph, when Mitchell recognized him.
Within a quarter of an hour his car was safely parked and he was sitting in Joseph’s rooms. The sun made bright patches on the carpet and picked out the gold lettering on the books in the case. The college cat, Bertie, sat with his eyes closed in the warmth, and every now and again his tail gave a slight twitch.
Joseph sat in shadow. Even so, Matthew could see the weariness and the pain of uncertainty etched in his face. His eyes looked hollow in spite of his high cheekbones. His cheeks were thin and there were shadows that had nothing to do with the darkness of his hair.
“Do they know who killed Sebastian yet?” Matthew asked.
Joseph shook his head.
“How’s Mary Allard? Someone told me she came here.”
“She and Gerald are staying at the master’s house. The funeral was today. It was ghastly.”
“They haven’t gone home?”
“They’re still hoping the police will find something any day.”
Matthew looked at him with concern. He seemed to lack all vitality, as if something inside him were exhausted. “Joe, you look bloody awful!” he said abruptly. “Are you going to be all right?” It was a pointless question, but he had to ask. He had some idea of how fond Joseph had been of Sebastian Allard, and of his acute sense of responsibility, perhaps taken too personally. Was this additional blow too much for him?
Joseph raised his eyes. “Probably.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “It just takes a day or two. There doesn’t seem to be any sense in this. I feel as if everything is slithering out of my grasp.”
Matthew leaned forward a little. “Sebastian Allard was extraordinarily gifted, and he could be more charming than anyone else I can think of, but he wasn’t perfect. Nobody is entirely good—or bad. Someone killed Sebastian, and it’s a tragedy, but it’s not inexplicable. There’ll be an answer that makes as much sense as most things ever do . . . when we know it.”
Joseph straightened up. “I expect so. Do you suppose reason is going to be any comfort?” Then before Matthew could answer he went on. “The Allards brought Regina Coopersmith with them.”
Matthew was lost. “Who is Regina Coopersmith?”
“Sebastian’s fiancee,” Joseph replied.
That explained much, Matthew thought. If Joseph had not known of her, he would feel excluded. How odd that Sebastian should not have told him. Usually when a young man was engaged to marry he told everyone. A young woman invariably did.
“His idea, or his mother’s?” Matthew asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. I’ve talked with her a little. I should think it’s his mother’s. But it’s probably irrelevant to his death.” He changed the subject. “Are you going home?”
“For a day or two,” Matthew replied, feeling a sense of darkness inside him as he recalled the anger he had felt listening to Isenham the previous week. The wound was far from healed. He thought of his father and the interpretation Isenham had had of his actions, and it felt like an abscessed tooth. He could almost ignore it until he accidentally touched it, then it throbbed with all the old pain, exacerbated by a new jolt.
Joseph was waiting for him to go on.
“I went to see Isenham when I was up last weekend,” Matthew said finally. And then he recounted his conversation with the former army man.
Joseph listened thoughtfully.
“I talked to him for quite a long time,” Matthew concluded, “but all he told me that was specific was that Father wanted war.”
“What?” Joseph’s voice was angry and incredulous. “That’s ridiculous! He was the last man on earth to want war. Isenham must have misheard him. Perhaps he said he thought war was inevitable! The question is, was it Ireland or the Balkans?”
“How would Father know anything about either?” Matthew was playing devil’s advocate and hoping Joseph could beat him.
“I don’t know,” Joseph answered. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t. You said he was very specific that he had discovered a document outlining a conspiracy that would be dishonorable and change—”
“I know,” Matthew cut across him. “I didn’t tell Isenham that, but he said Father had been there, and was . . .” He paused.
“What? Losing control of his imagination?” Joseph demanded.
“More or less, yes. He was kinder about it than that, but it comes to the same thing. I know you’re angry, Joe. So was I, and I still am. But what is the truth? No one wants to think someone they love is mistaken, losing their grip. But wanting doesn’t alter reality.”
“Reality is that he and Mother are dead,” Joseph said a little unsteadily. “That their car hit a row of caltrops on the Hauxton Road and crashed, killing them both, and whatever document he had, whatever it said, wasn’t with him. Presumably whoever killed him searched the car and the bodies and found it.”
Matthew was forced to carry on the logic. “Then why did they search the house for it?”
“We only think they did,” Joseph said unhappily, then added, “but if they did, then they must have thought it important enough to take the risk of one of us coming back early and catching them. And don’t tell me it was a petty thief. No valuables were taken, though the silver vase, the snuffboxes, the miniatures were all in plain
