“Well may you ask, Joanna. Well may you ask.” A strangely triumphant smile broke on Mrs. Thane’s countenance. “I have an idea the Magistrate shall be
“Whatever are you about, Augusta?” Mrs. Wildman demanded. “You look positively in alt!”
“Perhaps it is a natural elevation of feeling, Joanna, at the reflection that sinners may cast no stones!”
“Sinners?” Mrs. Wildman repeated blankly.
“There shall be no more talk of Adelaide creeping from her marriage bed in the dead of night, once
Mrs. Wildman emitted a sharp scream, and flung her hands to her breast, with a look of such terror on her visage that I quite felt for the silly woman; her daughter Louisa hastened to her aid with a vinaigrette, which I must imagine was often employed for the purpose of regulating her mother’s spirits. And there, too, was Thane.
“Dear Cousin Joanna, I fear you are overset,” he observed with solicitude. “Pray allow me to escort you upstairs.”
“Never mind playing off your airs, Julian,” Louisa said crossly. “
She was supported in this by her sister; and the three Wildman ladies quitted the room in high dudgeon—and probably a measure of relief.
Fanny rose from her chair and curtseyed to the Thanes. “Indeed, you have been very kind—but Miss Austen and I must take our leave.”
“Before your father’s business is concluded?” Adelaide enquired. “My husband is even now in his hands, Miss Knight. I collect it is the coroner’s assumption that poor Andrew somehow discovered the existence of his rival, and killed him in a passion of jealousy.”
“Do sit down, Miss Knight,” Julian urged. “I should never forgive myself if you were to leave us, while the issue of Andrew’s fate still hung in suspense.”
Fanny looked to me in bewilderment. She had not the slightest idea whether to be firm, and beg that the tilbury be brought round, or to linger at the request of the Thanes. She had no notion her father wished me to learn what I could of the interesting grouping now before us. Theirs was the strangest complex of frankness, on the one hand, and determined suppression on the other, that I had ever witnessed in a family; and I wondered whether the casual boldness of both children was the sole weapon available to combat so repressive a parent.
Mindful of Edward, I determined to adopt a similar bluntness and decide Fanny’s quandary. I retained my chair, and smiled warmly at Adelaide MacCallister.
“Whatever the coroner may have suggested, my brother shall weigh against all that he observes and is told. He must pursue the obvious—and forgive me, Mrs. MacCallister, but in such a case as this, your husband
“Indeed?” the bride said. “Then I may begin to hope.”
Julian Thane emitted a short bark of laughter. “Hope! Tell me, Addie—in which direction does hope lie? Must we hope that
“Julian!” hissed Mrs. Thane.
He thrust himself out of his chair and began to pace before the fire like a caged animal. Fanny, I observed, had flushed becomingly and her eyes glittered as she watched his progress; Thane’s energies were palpable in the room, a current that ensnared and compelled. He was unlike any young man she had yet encountered in Kent, and knowing too much of rogues myself, I sympathised with her fascination.
“Do not be a fool, Mamma,” he muttered. “If James’s pistol fired the killing ball, then some
“Nonsense,” she said quellingly. “It is as Joanna says—a footpad did away with Fiske, and stole the gun from Chilham first.”
Thane stopped his revolutions upon the hearth and stared at her in disbelief. “Good God, Mamma! Do you wilfully cultivate the credulous?”
The lady shrugged defiantly. “I do not see why my explanation should be any worse than another. Indeed, I regard it as the truth.”
“Perhaps that is because you are not in possession of all the facts,” I interposed quietly, before she could respond. “There is the matter of the tamarind seed, for example.”
A pause followed these simple words, a pause so profound it was as tho’ air and light had left the room, paralysing all within it except myself.
I glanced from one Thane to another, conscious of Fanny’s confused hesitation beside me. “It
“How do you … we cannot know it was Curzon who …”
“I advise you most strongly, Adelaide, to say nothing further to this woman,” Mrs. Thane spat out. Her suspension of breath had subsided; her gaunt face was livid with fury. “Despicable presumption! She is no better than her brother’s spy! I must beg you to leave us at once, Miss Austen!”
Fanny rose, and with a swift bob was halfway to the door when Julian Thane reached her, and clasped her wrist.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t go—yet. Your aunt interests me strangely.” He shot me a look. “What are you talking of, with your tamarind seeds? I know nothing of them, tho’ my sister and parent obviously do.”
“Were you not present when the footman presented a gift to Mrs. MacCallister, in a silken pouch, in the midst of the ball? He had received it of a stranger—a
“When was this?” Thane demanded.
“During Andrew’s toast,” Adelaide supplied faintly.
“Ah. I
“Inside was a collection of largish brown beans,” I explained. “Or so I thought them to be. Mrs. MacCallister received them with little pleasure.”
Thane crossed to Adelaide, and stared at her broodingly. “You told me nothing of this.”
“I thought it irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant, Addie! Fiske sends you his calling card—”
“Enough, Julian!” Mrs. Thane bellowed.
“It was only later,” I persisted, “when we discovered a similar bean in Mr. Fiske’s pocket, that the coroner explained to me what it was.”
“Curzon had a tamarind seed in his pocket?” Adelaide repeated. “I suppose it slipped from the pouch. It
“The seed did not slip from the pouch,” I said.
Adelaide lifted her head from her hands and stared at me. “How can you possibly know that?”
“Because it was twisted inside the note that summoned him to his death,” I explained. “A sort of token— perhaps that he might put faith in his murderer?”
Her dark eyes were wide and pitiful in her pale face, all hint of gaiety vanished; and her brother, for the moment, was deprived of speech.
Our interrogation had reached this interesting point, when Andrew MacCallister entered the room.
Chapter Fifteen