‘But, you see,’ he continued, ‘the point is, you are quite right. I did mean to take the letters away …’
‘And you went to the room just before Anne and I?’ cried Dido, thinking of that little trace of tobacco smoke.
‘You are quite right! I did. I left Portinscale and young Crockford in the billiard room and slipped away upstairs pretty soon after dinner.’
‘But …’
‘But,’ he said leaning forward, his hands still clamped upon his knees, ‘I was like Old Mother Hubbard. The cupboard was bare.’
‘The letters were already gone from the desk?’
He nodded. ‘Not a single one left!’
‘I see.’ She was forced to consider this for several minutes, her eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue-grey skeins of smoke drifting about the candle-flame. ‘And do you know,’ she asked at last, ‘whether any other member of the company went to Miss Fenn’s chamber that night? Did you see anyone else on your way there?’
He shook his head. ‘Saw no one, I’m certain of it. Only the surgeon.’
‘Mr Paynter?’
‘Just coming away from poor Miss Lambe’s room. Last visit of the day, he said. And, to do that fellow justice, he’s been very good. Three times every day he’s been here. More than a bump on the head merits, in my opinion – but then, every man knows his own business best.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Dido a little absently – for she was now watching her companion very closely and wondering how much he might know about the woman his mother had recommended as governess …
‘Those letters, Miss Kent, they must be found, you know. Found and destroyed.’
‘Destroyed?’ She raised a questioning brow.
‘Well, you know …’ he looked down, slapped his plump hands upon his legs. ‘The poor lady is dead. No need to rake up old secrets. No need at all.’
‘Secrets?’ began Dido eagerly. ‘You believe …’
But the gentleman had now returned to his old refrain. ‘Why, it’s a bad business,’ he declared, sitting back in his chair. ‘A bad business all round! I tell you honestly, Miss Kent, I wish the poor lady could have been left in peace where she was. I wish young Henry’d never taken it into his head to drain that pool. It was a foolish trick!’
‘A trick!’ She leant forward across the papers on the table. ‘Mr Harman-Foote, am I to understand that Mr Coulson did not have your permission to breach the dam?’
‘No, he did not! I never gave my permission for it. Would never have given my permission. Told him so as soon as ever I saw what was going on!’
Dido stared.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘if you do not believe it, look here upon our plan. There, do you see?’ She followed the thick pointing finger and saw, drawn quite clearly in the neat black lines of the draughtsman, the shape of the little lake in exactly the same place it had always been. She looked more closely and saw there, among the grand new vistas and terraces, the outline of the watercourse – completely unchanged.
She had been entirely mistaken! It would seem that the question to ask was not: why had the damn been rebuilt? But: why had it ever been broken down?
‘Mr Coulson chose to drain the pool?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Said Mr Harman-Foote. ‘But it seems it was James Laurence that persuaded him into it. It was some foolish notion of his.’
Chapter Thirty-One
… Well, here I am, Eliza, in this scene of pleasure and dissipation, Bath: and settled at the White Hart, in a comfortable and spacious dining room with a very fine view of the Pump Room’s entrance. As usual, whenever I find myself in this town, I am wishing that I had the superiority of mind to be properly disgusted with it. But shops, society and amusements do have their charms even when one is six and thirty and I am not altogether sorry that I have come, though I am by no means certain that I shall succeed in gathering the information I require.
I have met Mrs Nolan.
She is mistress of a small, but well-respected school in Gay Street, who sometimes keeps on girls as ‘parlour boarders’ when they have no settled home; but unfortunately Penelope is the only young lady occupying that position in her household at present – so there is no close companion to whom I can apply for information.
I suppose Mrs Nolan is a little over fifty years old and she has more than a hint of the North Country in her voice. She has a pale, soft, placid appearance – except for her eyes which are small and black and particularly shrewd. She wears the most remarkable hats I ever set eyes upon, with a great many ribbons and large silk flowers in surprising places. But, though the hats are silly, I suspect the head beneath them is sensible enough.
Yesterday I contrived a tete-a-tete and attempted to ask about Penelope’s connections – in a roundabout way. I was not at all successful! I was given to understand that ‘the poor lass has not a soul in the world to care for her but me, for I’ve had the charge of her since she was but five years old’. And, when I pressed to know who it was that had placed her at the school, I was immediately put off. ‘Nay, Miss Kent, that is a kind of information which a woman in my situation never discloses.’
Ah well, I suppose I should not have expected her to confide so easily; and I am sure I respect her the better for her discretion. I have not yet determined how she is to be worked upon, but I think I must make a great effort to secure her trust.
Mr Lomax is not yet arrived in Bath, and will not be here until the day after tomorrow. So I fear there will be little time for our ‘honest and open discourse’. I was amused, by the by, that you should consider the experiment we have undertaken ‘a little dangerous’. What possible danger can there be in our only talking to one another?
Silas has neuralgia; got, so Harriet says, from sitting in a draught in the carriage. He has taken laudanum and has been in his chamber all day. Harriet has taken Lucy away to the shops – where I suspect she is sedulously guarding her from the captain’s dangerous company. And I am at peace beside my window – which is very pleasant indeed after the noise and confinement of our journey. The late afternoon sun is shining down in the street, making the stone of the buildings glow. All the fashionable hats of the hurrying ladies – and the fine figures of the gentlemen loitering in the Pump Yard – appear to great advantage in its cheerful light. Little knots of people are gathered under the colonnade and …
Ah, now that is very interesting, Eliza!
I have recognised one of the figures lounging under the colonnade. It is Captain Laurence! And he is in conversation with an elderly, rakish-looking man whose appearance I do not like at all! He has a fat, dissipated face, a scarred cheek, a quizzing glass – and a very ill-mannered interest in every young lady who walks past him … And the captain – yes, I am not mistaken – the captain, though he has neither the ugly countenance nor the glass, certainly shares the interest. There now! the two of them are putting their heads together and grinning insolently at a little party of schoolgirls.
How very distasteful! I wish that Lucy could see it; it might work her cure.
I confess I am increasingly puzzled by the captain. He is, I am sure, engaged in some very deep scheme. Though I suppose that his contriving to get the pool drained does rather argue against his having killed Miss Fenn – unless he is a very strange murderer indeed: one who wishes the world to know of his crimes.
Upon reflection, I rather think that he is not the guilty man himself; but that he knows something about the poor woman’s death. You will remember that, according to the housekeeper, he was in the habit of following Miss Fenn. Well, is it possible that he followed her upon the evening of her death? That he saw her go to the pool and afterwards suspected that she met her death there?
But why should he wish to bring the remains to light? And why should he do it now – after being content to let them lie hidden for fifteen years?
