may have your photograph.’
Angela rose and paced the room, muttering, ‘Must think, must think.’
Rose got to her feet as well. ‘Now that you know the situation . . .’ she was beginning when Angela strode to the book-shelves and lifted out an ugly-looking pistol and levelled it at Rose.
‘Sit down,’ she barked.
Rose and Daisy sank back in their chairs. Daisy remembered throwing herself in front of Rose last year to protect her from a bullet. Somehow, she didn’t think she would ever have the courage to do that again.
‘I detest flittery little debutantes like you, Lady Rose, smug in your own beauty, poking your nose into other people’s business. That fool, Mrs Jerry, said that she couldn’t take any more and was going to the police. I was not blackmailing her for money, but I wanted her to join my society and work for me. I lied and said I had my own photograph back but had kept the one of her. She laughed in my face. So I doctored that champagne and put it in her room and then strangled the old bitch while she lay unconscious.’
‘So no one other than Freddy Pomfret was trying to blackmail you?’
‘No.’
Rose moistened her dry white lips. ‘So it was you who shot Freddy?’
‘Yes, and I enjoyed doing it. I ransacked his flat but couldn’t find anything. Where did you find it?’
‘He had put the material in a cigar box and given it to Tristram Baker-Willis for safekeeping.’
Angela gave a harsh laugh. ‘Amateurs, blundering greedy amateurs out to destroy my reputation. Do you know that the Duchess of Terford has just joined my society? A duchess!’
‘Please do put down that gun,’ said Rose, striving to keep her voice level.
‘No, must think, think, think. Ah, you, Levine, you will go back and fetch that photograph and if you are not here with it after an hour, I will shoot your mistress.’
‘I ain’t leaving her!’ said Daisy.
‘Go, Daisy,’ said Rose. ‘You know what to do.’
Daisy looked at her for a long moment and then got up and hurried from the room.
Harry was seated in front of Lord Alfred. He slowly drew the bundle of letters from his pocket.
‘How much?’ demanded Lord Alfred.
‘I am not here to blackmail you. In fact, if you can tell me one thing, I will give them to you.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Did you shoot Freddy Pomfret?’
‘No, I swear on my life I didn’t. I wanted to. I knew I would go to prison if those letters were ever made public’
‘How did he get hold of them?’
‘I met a young artist called Jimmy Portal. He was not a very good artist but he was very beautiful. He pursued me and I was seduced. Then I was terrified of it coming out, knowing I would be sent to prison. I returned his letters. He waited for me outside The Club one evening. He thrust his letters at me and said I must keep them forever. I told him harshly that I wanted to have no more to do with him. Pomfret told me afterwards that he had witnessed the scene from the window of The Club. He saw me hurrying off and saw Jimmy throwing the letters in the gutter. He nipped out and got them.
‘He bragged that it was the letters that gave him the idea of being a blackmailer. He was a keen amateur photographer and said he had compromising pictures of Mrs Jerry and Mrs Stockton. He said he had just realized a way of getting money to buy a title. I paid. Of course I paid.
‘Then when I went to Farthings and saw you there along with Mrs Stockton and Mrs Jerry, I was afraid.’
‘Did anyone else try to blackmail you while you were at Farthings?’
‘Yes. Mrs Stockton whispered that she had destroyed the photograph of her but had kept the letters. She said I must work for her society and travel with her. Then she told me that Mrs Jerry was going to go to the police. I was prepared to flee the country, but then she died. I knew Mrs Stockton had probably done it, but what could I do? You know what happens to fellows like me in prison.’
Harry felt a spasm of dread. Lord Alfred’s voice held the ring of truth.
He had sent Rose blithely off to see Angela Stockton, and Angela was a murderess.
‘Excuse me.’ Harry got to his feet and rushed from the room.
Lord Alfred looked at the letters lying on the table. He picked them up and took them to the fireplace. He took out a silver box of vestas and struck one and held it to the edge of the packet until a flame took hold and then he threw the burning packet into the fireplace.
He sat down again and covered his face with his hands and wept.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Oscar Wilde
Rose felt sick. Angela’s eyes were glittering with a mad light, but the hand holding the gun never wavered. Rose tried to think coolly and calmly but jumbled thoughts raced through her brain. That famous line from adventure stories she had read – ‘With one bound he was free’ – tumbled into her brain. Would Daisy bring the photograph or would she find Captain Cathcart and get help? Her mother had insisted she go back to wearing ‘proper stays’ and a steel had edged itself loose and was cutting into her. The whalebone stiffening in the high collar of her gown was digging into her neck. If she had accepted Tristram’s proposal and settled for an uneventful married life, she would never have landed in this mess. ‘If you shoot me,’ said Rose, finding her voice, ‘how do you expect to get away with it?’
‘I will leave the country and hide abroad. They will never find me.’
‘If you have to leave the country, Mrs Stockton, what is the point of wanting the photograph? Your reputation will be ruined by this mad action of yours.’
‘
Rose was aware of the bell-rope next to her chair. If only she could tug it, a servant would appear, and surely this whole household of servants wasn’t party to the murders.
‘What happened to Murphy? What happened to Mr Pomfret’s manservant? Did you kill him, too?’
‘I paid him to leave for Ireland. He was glad to accept. He didn’t know I’d killed Pomfret but I didn’t want him in that flat in case he found that photograph. I said I was looking after him out of kindness and to honour Pomfret’s memory.’
Rose put her hand to her forehead and swayed in her chair. ‘I feel faint,’ she said.
‘Then faint,’ snapped Angela.
Rose swayed in her chair nearer the bell-rope. Then, as if about to lose her balance, she seized the bell- rope.
The double doors of the drawing-room opened and a footman stared at the tableau and then retreated. Rose could hear him running down the stairs.
To her amazement, Angela, in her fixed concentration, had not even noticed.
But suddenly a voice shouted from downstairs, ‘We’ve got to get the police!’
Angela’s eyes widened and her finger tightened on the trigger.
Rose threw herself to one side, tipping her chair over onto the floor, just as the gun went off with a deafening report. The recoil jerked Angela backwards and she gave a howl of pain and dropped the gun.
Rose sprang up from the floor. She fell on Angela, screaming and clawing and biting, dragging her out of her chair while Angela fought to get the gun. Angela was wiry and strong. She rolled Rose under her and her bony hands encrusted with rings fastened around Rose’s throat.
And then Harry erupted into the room, followed by Becket and Daisy. They had met Daisy in the street as she was running to get help.
