swayed a moment before falling to the floor in a dead faint.
“God Almighty!” Drummond said in a strangled voice.
Pitt felt his stomach lurch, but he went forward and stood by the side of the bed staring down at it.
Sholto Byam and Frederick Anstiss lay side by side in the big four-poster, both naked. Anstiss was drenched in blood, his throat cut from side to side, his head lying awkwardly at a half angle, his eyes wide in horror. Byam was beside him, more composed, as if he had expected death, even welcomed it, and his haggard features were ironed out, all the anguish gone at last. A broad-bladed knife lay beside him and both his wrists were gashed. The surrounding area of the bed was dark red with deep-soaked blood, as if once the act was done he had not moved but lain there almost at peace while his life poured away.
Somewhere behind them in the doorway a housemaid was screaming hysterically over and over again, but the footman was incapable of helping her. There was a sound of running feet.
On the pillow beside Byam’s head was a letter addressed not to Drummond but to Pitt. He reached over and picked it up.
By now you probably know the truth. Micah Drummond told me you had found the other half of the letter to me, and you know it was not Laura who wrote it, but Frederick. Laura did not love me, poor woman. I will never forget the night she came and found Frederick and me together, in bed.
Many women might have kept such a secret, but she would not. He and I killed her, and gave out the story that it was an accident. We kept the suicide idea in case anyone did not believe that she had slipped. It was better than the truth, and of course it was what I told Drummond when that devil Weems began to blackmail me.
But when he tried it on Frederick it was a different thing-the letter was in Frederick’s hand, and when Weems realized that, however he did, perhaps he had some letter or agreement to meet, then of course Frederick had to kill him. Weems knew the truth, not only about us, but presumably he guessed we had killed Laura as well.
Whether or not Frederick would have betrayed me when he was arrested, I don’t know-and perhaps it hardly matters now. I have loved him all these years, and he professed to love me-that he could have blackmailed me for the African loans and corrupted the best thing I did is beyond my ability to bear, or to forgive.
He has ruined me, and all I believed in, both love and honor. I shall see that he dies with such a scandal London will never forget it.
There is nothing more to be said, this is the end of it all.
Sholto Byam
Pitt passed it across to Drummond.
Drummond read it slowly then looked up, his face ashen.
“God, what a mess.”
Beyond the doorway Waterson, gray-faced, was standing like a man stricken. Someone had taken the housemaid away. The footman was still on the floor.
“You’d better go and tell Lady Byam,” Pitt said quietly. “It will come better from you than anyone else. I’ll clear up here.”
Drummond hesitated only a moment, guilt, realization and pity fighting in him.
“There’s nothing else to do,” Pitt assured him. “It is all finished here-we must care for the living now.”
Drummond took his hand and squeezed it fiercely for a moment, wringing it so hard he bruised the flesh, then swung around on his heel and went out.
Pitt turned back to the bed, and very gently pulled up the bedspread to cover the faces of the dead.
Anne Perry
