A moment of silence

each of his companions in turn, she felt that they, too, were watching her progress with interest. The boards creaked alarmingly beneath her feet and she expected at any moment to be confronted by the butler in his nightshirt, armed with a cudgel and intent upon defending his master’s property from burglary.

Her heart was beating so hard when she reached the end of the gallery that the light in her hand was shaking. She stopped and listened at the head of the stairs. And very faintly, from one of the best chambers on the landing below, she heard the sound of hurried footsteps. Carefully setting her own candle down upon the floor, she leant over the banister, but she could discern no light below her. She stood for several moments with the cold polished rail beneath her hands, listening so intently that she scarcely dared to draw breath. There was the sound of a door opening, the faint gleam of a candle’s light flickered across the white wall of the stairwell, then there were more footsteps. A second door opened and the light was gone.

All was quiet again in the big old house. There was nothing now but the faint creaking of ancient floors and, very faint and distant, the same spluttering snore. Satisfied that she had not been detected, Dido took up her candle and turned into the dark passage in which was hidden the painting of Sir Edgar and his domain.

By candlelight it seemed larger than ever and it was not easy to study. The candle would light only a fragment of it at a time and the unsteady beam shimmered distractingly over the surface of the oil-paint. But there was Sir Edgar, just as she had recalled him in her dream: proud and self-important with his dog and his wife… And with his gun slung easily and negligently upon his arm as if it were a natural part of him.

She understood now.

How can a gun be carried without being seen?

The answer was plain. A gun could be carried by the master of the estate without anyone remarking upon it. They were so used to seeing it there upon his arm as he strode about the place that they would not think it worth mentioning. It was simply a mark of his status. A kind of symbol of that power of life and death that he had over every creature within his domain.

No one had thought to say that they had seen Sir Edgar walking about at three o’clock in the afternoon with a gun, because they were so used to seeing it.

And that was how the murder had been accomplished!

But this picture held other, much more disturbing, secrets.

Very slowly she raised her candle, fearing to see what she knew she must. There was no escaping it. There was the great tree spreading its shade over Sir Edgar and his lady – and she saw now that it had the unmistakable narrow leaves and spreading crown of a walnut tree. She moved the candle; there, stretched out below the green bench was the very view that she had looked upon as she spoke with Mr Lomax – the only difference being that here were the colours of summer rather than autumn and the ploughed furrows in the distance were replaced by stooks of harvested corn.

It was no wonder that the picture had been hidden away!

She moved her candle back and took one last look at the man, woman and child grouped beneath the tree. Then she crept along the gallery of watching eyes to the window seat and sat herself down to think.

The distasteful calculations must be made. It was, in fact, all a matter of arithmetic. As if she were once more back in the schoolroom, Dido applied herself to the hated subject and, with difficulty and rather more use of her fingers than should have been necessary, she worked out the sums.

And the sums showed her that, although almost everything she had so far concluded might be right, there was a great deal that she had missed. She had a sudden vivid memory of Mr Lomax sitting by the fire in the morning room and passing his hand across his face, sighing as if he was relieved at the answers she had given to his questions.

Of course he had been relieved. He had, for a moment, feared that she had uncovered the real secret of the Montagues.

She turned to the window and gazed out across the silent moonlit lawns that were striped black with the shadows of yew bushes, and she reckoned up the figures again.

This was the all important calculation: 1805 take away 23, equals 1782.

If Richard Montague was indeed twenty-three years old – as she had been told – then he must have been born in 1782. But the walnut tree in the park had been felled in the Great Storm of 1780.

It was as if Swisserland had been moved and she must begin to put her map together all over again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dido was abroad very early the next morning, reminding herself of another of Shakespeare’s characters (whose name and play, as usual, escaped her memory) who said ‘not to be abed before midnight is to be up betimes’. For the truth was that she had not succeeded in closing her eyes all night.

Her first visit was to Catherine’s bedchamber, where, sitting upon the edge of the bed, she asked, ‘Catherine, my dear, do you love Richard Montague very much?’

Catherine sat up blinking, shocked and still stupid with sleep. ‘Of course I do.’

‘If,’ said Dido, ‘if it could be shown that his honour was not compromised by what has happened here – that he has, in fact, acted with integrity throughout – would you wish to stand by him, no matter what difficulties and embarrassments he may have to face when the truth is revealed? Would you wish to fulfil your engagement?’

‘Yes,’ said Catherine, still blinking and clearly bewildered by the early visit and the sudden questions. ‘You know I would.’

‘Yes,’ said Dido, patting her hand. ‘I think I do.’

‘Aunt Dido, what is this all about?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about, my dear,’ she said, getting up. ‘Go back to sleep now.’ But, at the door, she stopped. ‘Oh, there is just one more question. Are you quite sure that when Mr Pollard came to Mr Montague at the ball, he did not show him anything? A letter perhaps?’

‘No, I am sure he did not.’

‘Why are you so certain that he did not?’

‘Well, because I saw his hands. When Mr Montague stepped back, I saw Mr Pollard’s hands very clearly, and they were empty.’

‘You are quite sure that you saw his hands?’

‘Yes. Quite sure.’

‘I see.’

‘Aunt, why must you wake me up to ask these questions?’

‘Because, my dear, I believe hands are a very important part of this mystery… And the rats, of course,’ she added, half to herself. ‘I am beginning to understand now just how important the rats are.’

And then she left before Catherine could say anything more.

Her next visit was to Annie Holmes, who was coddling an egg for her daughter’s breakfast and who was clearly alarmed by the sight of such an early caller – and even more alarmed by the questions that she asked.

From the lodge cottage she walked across the park to the chapel and spent some time in looking at its monuments. Then, deep in thought, she started back towards the house.

The dawn had been grey and damp, but now the sun was beginning to break through the mist, turning the trees of the park into long black shadows and the drops of moisture that clung to every blade of grass into sparkling jewels. In spite of her pattens, the dew penetrated her shoes and chilled her feet, but she did not hurry. Indeed, as she approached the house, her steps became slower and slower, for she was reluctant to arrive before she had decided how she should behave when she was there. How – and to whom – should she reveal what she had discovered?

As she left the park and came into the gardens – where the sun was turning the great fountain into a shower of light and striping the gravel with the shadows of the yews – the bell in the stable tower began to toll slowly and mournfully, clanging out a terrible, unnamed dread into the bright morning air.

The sound made her afraid, though she hardly knew of what, and she began to run up the steps of the terrace before the house. She had just gained the lower terrace and was standing to rest beside the fountain, her