The Price of Murder

“I would have said the same,” said he. “But there is such a disparity between her view of Elizabeth and the girl who emerges from Mistress Quigley’s testimony that it is necessary to accept one or the other.”

“Bear in mind though, sir, that the girls had not seen each other for near five years, or perhaps more. It could be that Clarissa was, without intending it, passing judgment upon the ten-year-old girl she had known then. Most of us, I think, are bored by ten-year-olds.”

“Hmmm,” said he, “an interesting theory. Let me put it to her. Ask her to come in here, will you?”

“That is all then, sir?”

“I should think that quite a lot. ’Tis not every lad who gets himself sent off to Newmarket for a race meet.”

“For which you may be certain that I am indeed grateful,” said I with a properly impudent grin upon my face.

I was then up and out of the room before he could change his mind.

Clarissa was in the kitchen, sitting at the table where I had left her. She looked up as I descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, relieved at my careless manner. It was only as she pointed to the chair beside hers with the pen in her hand that I noted that she had been writing in what she called her “journal-book.” After I had presented it to her the Christmas before, I had only glimpsed it two or three times as she carried it about. Not that she was secretive about it: nevertheless, there was a certain sense of privacy about it to which, in my mind, she was well entitled. I took the chair she had indicated and sat down. She was, I think about to speak.

“He wants to see you,” said I.

“Oh dear,” said she. “Is it. .” She left the sentence unfinished, just as she did the next: “You didn’t. .”

“No, no, no,” said I. “Nothing like that. I think what he really wishes is to talk to you about Elizabeth Hooker.”

“Oh, really?” She seemed let down somewhat, almost disappointed. “Well, all right”-laying her pen aside, closing the journal-book, and marking her place with a blotter-“That’s not so frightening.”

She stood and, with a forced smile, she marched away and up the stairs. I watched her go.

After the first few minutes of sitting and waiting for her to return, my eyes fastened upon Clarissa’s journal-book. Now, ordinarily, I would not think of invading her privacy by reading such a document. Nevertheless, there were other factors involved. First of all, when I face a period of waiting, I become quite desperate for something-anything! — to read. I recall having said something about this some months before. In any case, she knew of this; she had been forewarned. Secondly, she had left the journal-book out upon the kitchen table within my easy grasp. It was there before me as a temptation-nay, more, as a provocation. It was almost as though she wanted me to open it up and read. What was I to do? My eyes played over the book for some minutes (well, two or three, anyway), and, at last, I found that there was naught to do to solve the problem, but to reach out for it and open it up.

What greeted me, at first, surprised me, for I found pictures-an abundance of them in nearly every corner and margin of every page. Pictures of what? Oh, flowers of one kind or another, buildings and trees. And faces- faces of all sorts, men, women, and children, some of them quite skillfully done. She was not without talent, certainly-yet she had quite successfully hidden it from all of us-or so I supposed.

As for what she had written therein, the text wound about her drawings, in some instances taking on the shape of the object with which it shared the page. A number of them seemed to be books in synopsis, mere ideas for books, or the beginnings of books. And some of the faces that surrounded these entries might well have been the faces of the characters as she visualized them. Could the faces have come first? An interesting supposition, that.

Thus entranced, I paged through more than half the journal-book, which is to say, near all that she had written in it. Yet ’twas not her text that stopped me and held me there: again, it was the drawings, the sketches, the pictures. One of them, that one of a bearded man, that could be none other than Black Jack Bilbo-and the face beside his, a woman, there was something about it-Marie-Helene? Of course! Then did I find on the overleaf a rather good sketch of Tom Durham, and below it, another male face, which I could not quite recognize. There was something familiar about it, yet. .

I turned back to the beginning of this section and began to read:

“Why not [she wrote] a book about Jeremy and me? It would be great fun and a considerable relief to write of events just as they happened. I would be relieved of the need to plot, which I find so difficult. And after all, the events of our lives, arranged in order, and perhaps tightened up a bit are just as exciting as any can be read in a romance, and the sentiments presented in it would be real as can be. I could include, perhaps even begin with, the capture of Marie-Helene by Black Jack Bilbo and their eventual escape. In a sense, that happened to Jeremy and to me as well as to them. But no, to begin there would be to lose too much of our story, Jeremy’s and mine-individually and in concert. Ah, how romantic it will be to trace our early history-the squabbles and the wrangles that persisted intolerably long until they end-as they will-in wedded bliss. Should I use real names? I’m not sure. In a way, it matters little what names I give them if they are well-described. To speak of a certain blind magistrate would surely bring only one man to mind. And if I were to describe another as a lexicographer from Lichfield, he would-

There did her projections end, for at that point I must have appeared with the invitation from Sir John that she come and join him for a talk. And by a strange coincidence of events, I did hear her step upon the stairs at just that moment. Hurriedly I replaced her journal-book, making every effort to fix it in the exact angle in relation to the ink bottle. Afterward, I wondered why I was so careful to put the book back in place just as it had been, for I would have words with her about it, or know the reason why I should not.

She appeared, stepping sprightly with a smile upon her face.“Well,” said she, “that was not so bad. No, not bad at all.”

“I thought it would not be,” said I rather coolly.

’Twas not what I said, but the manner in which I said it that seemed to disturb her. She looked at me closely as if to find the reason for the slightly sullen expression written upon my face.

“What ails you?” said she.

I said naught but looked her straight in the eye.

She settled down in the chair at the table wherein she sat before her interview with Sir John. Looking about her, she suddenly understood and started to laugh.

“You’ve been looking at my journal-book, have you not?”

“Well … I …”

“Admit it,” said she with a proper chuckle. “I was half-hoping you would read through it in any case. What did you think of it?”

“Well. . I. . that is. . I thought your drawings were very good,” said I, thinking it better to begin upon a positive note. “I’m amazed that you’ve kept your light under a bushel for so long. Have you no wish to study? To learn to paint?”

“No, not a bit of it. Women publish books. They don’t paint portraits. I draw pictures to amuse myself and to help me in my writing.” With that, she leaned back and looked upon me with curiosity. “But that’s not what has set you going, now is it?”

“Well, no,” I admitted.

“What then? It was what I’d written, of course.”

“I suppose it was.”

“Were you surprised to find that I’d not made a diary of it-the kind all girls keep when they’re eleven or twelve?”

“Perhaps a little.”

“Disappointed?”

“No!”

“But what was it upset you so to find I’d made of it a repository for all my ideas for writing?” (But the question was rhetorical and not truly directed at me.) “I know! It was the last thing in the book, was it not? That