The Murders of Richard III (20 page)

“Oh,” said Strangways in a stilled voice. “So you're one of those.”

“One of what?”

“Liberated women. You have to degrade men to make yourselves feel superior. I came to England to get away from them,” Strangways cried. “But they're here too. What's biting you? You'd be quite a woman if you'd only accept the role you were meant for.”

Thomas could have hugged himself. He watched Jacqueline's face solidify into something that could have been enlarged and carved on Mount Rushmore. Only her eyes were alive. They shot out green sparks.

“Oh, what a shame,” she said in a voice of saccharine sweetness. “I've hurt your feelings. I've dared to imply you might be wrong about something. Forgive me. I will accept your admonition. I will not offend you by presenting my weak, female attempts at reason.”

“Wait a minute,” Thomas said, no longer amused.

Jacqueline turned on him.

“You're one too,” she cried, accurately but unjustly. “You're all alike! This whole weekend, all you were after…You didn't think I knew that, did you? You can go to hell, Thomas, and take him with you.”

She stalked off down the path, emitting sparks that were almost visible.

The two men stared at one another across the
vacant space her departure had left. Strangways was still red in the face. Thomas smiled at him.

“Thanks,” he said, and followed Jacqueline out.

He found her, finally, in Philip's room. The actor, fully dressed, was stretched out on the bed. He and Jacqueline were talking in low tones. They both looked up when Thomas stopped in the doorway. Jacqueline looked straight through him at the opposite wall. Thomas went away.

Bed was out of the question now. He was too keyed up to sleep. He wandered downstairs in search of coffee and found Wilkes replenishing the serving dishes. The butler greeted Thomas with his usual smooth imperturbability, but his shadowed eyes held a horrible memory.

Thomas accepted coffee and refused food. He had just seated himself when Frank came in. He greeted Thomas curtly, poured himself a cup of tea, and sat down at the far end of the table.

“No breakfast?” Thomas inquired.

“Gawd, no,” Frank said feelingly. “What was in that last posset of punch?”

“More than you know.” Thomas realized the other man didn't know what had happened. He rather fancied himself as a raconteur, and the tale lost nothing in his telling of it. By the time he finished, Frank was wide awake and staring.

“I can't believe it. This fellow must be insane. You mean we were all drugged?”

“Most of us, anyhow.”

“Jacqueline wasn't drinking,” Frank muttered. He looked up, caught Thomas's eye, and said quickly, “No, old chap, I'm not accusing her, I simply meant…You say Sir Richard still refuses to call in the authorities?”

“That's right. I disagree, but I understand his feelings. Ridicule would mar the grand effect he hopes to make today.”

“That isn't the only reason.” Frank hesitated. “I may be betraying a confidence, but in my opinion matters have gone too far for normal reticence. Sir Richard has family reasons for wanting to keep this affair quiet.”

“Percy?”

“The Ponsonby-Joneses are Sir Richard's only relatives,” Frank said. “If the boy did plan these tricks, he should be in an institution. He's not legally responsible for his actions.”

“Then you're against calling the police too?”

“I'm about to marry the boy's sister, after all. And there are humanitarian considerations. He will end up in a nursing home in any case. Why not do it quietly, without scandal?”

“But in the meantime he's potentially dangerous.”

“I'll see to it that he's not dangerous,” Frank said grimly. “I plan to watch him from now on.”

“It might be more useful to watch his mother. She's next on the list—”

He broke off with a start. Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones had entered the breakfast room.

Her night of dissipation had left her looking as haggard as a person one of her fleshy girth could look, but it was not her ghastly face that made Thomas's eyes bulge. Arm in arm with Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones was Jacqueline. She guided the older woman to a chair at the table—a tug boat steering a liner—and helped her into it.

Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones obviously knew of her new status as the next victim. The woman was not only queasy and ill; she was terrified. Only the stiff upper lip required of her class kept her from howling, but she clung to Jacqueline with pathetic desperation.

In what could only be called a misguided attempt at distraction, Frank greeted his future mother-in-law.

“Good morrow, madam. How does your Grace?”

“Aoow!” The sound might have come from Shaw's Eliza Doolittle. Thomas contemplated Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones with new interest. Had Sir Richard's cousin married beneath him? If so, the
guttersnipe had learned her lesson well. Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones recovered herself; with one hand on her palpitating bosom, she glowered at Frank. “How can you continue this jest?” she boomed. “Must you remind me—”

“I'm frightfully sorry. But there's nothing to worry about, honestly. Forewarned is forearmed. We'll not let anything happen to you.”

Thomas noticed that Frank did not address Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones directly, avoiding the use of any terms of affection or even familiarity.

“Frank is right,” he said. “We'll all look after you.”

The offer did not soften Jacqueline, who was still looking at him as she might have looked at a squashy beetle.

“Where is Sir Richard?” she asked coolly.

“He'll be down before long,” Frank said. “I passed him in the hall.”

However, the next to come was not Sir Richard, but Kent. Alcohol couldn't hurt him much, Thomas thought; he was probably pickled in the stuff. Bright-eyed and beaming, he headed for the sideboard and loaded his plate with a heap of food that induced a unanimous shudder among the others.

“How are you all this morning?” he asked genially.

“Apparently you don't know,” Thomas began, hoping to tell the tale again.

“Apparently
you
don't know,” Kent said coolly, “that when I awoke a short time ago, the first thing I saw was a severed head.”

He took a huge bite of coddled egg and was silenced, briefly. Then he went on, “Rather inadequate job, that one. More annoying than frightening. I understand the other joke of the evening was more effective. Met Weldon upstairs and he told me about it. Sorry I missed the excitement.”

Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones muttered something in which only the words “cold-blooded monster” could be distinguished. Kent raised his head.

“Yes, I am cold-blooded,” he said, sounding pleased. “Rather that than soggy emotionalism. None of this would have happened if you hadn't been such bloody sentimentalists.”

“What do you mean by that?” Frank demanded.

“Good morning, good morning.” The appearance of the rector saved Kent from answering, if he had intended to; he smiled enigmatically and returned to his breakfast.

Rawdon and the rector had come down together. They had met Sir Richard and heard the latest news. Beneath their formal expressions of
shock and regret, Thomas observed a certain morbid enjoyment of the new sensation. He had to remind himself that neither of them—nor Kent, for that matter—had actually seen the appalling tableau in the library. Second-hand sensations were hard to take seriously.

The newcomers were immensely interested, however, and Rawdon was about to plunge into an animated discussion of the latest atrocities when Ellis, glancing at the quivering bulk of Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones, tactfully intervened. Conversation became casual. Jacqueline succeeded in distracting Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones by discussing dressmaking. It was the last subject Thomas would have supposed either lady to be interested in; if he had thought about the subject at all, he would have expected that Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones patronized professional dressmakers. But she discussed patterns and pinking shears and other technical matters with growing enthusiasm, as Jacqueline's skillful questions drew her out.

“Do you mean,” Jacqueline asked respectfully, “that you made those lovely costumes Liz has been wearing?”

“Yes, indeed. After all, dressmaking was once my—” Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones stopped in the nick of time. “My hobby,” she went on, with an artificial
cough. “As a young girl. Costume design, I mean to say.”

“Where is Liz?” Thomas asked.

“Still asleep.” It was Frank who answered. Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones glared at him.

“And how do you happen to know that?”

“I looked in on her before I came down.” The young lawyer looked her squarely in the eye. “And on Percy. I intend to continue looking in on them, all day.”

“An excellent idea,” said a voice from the doorway. “But it won't be necessary, Frank.”

Weldon was wearing the standard uniform of the weekending old-fashioned Englishman—shabby, well-cut tweeds. Only his shoulder-length hair reminded them of the Plantagenet monarch—the hair and the grim expression. Weldon had changed. He was no longer the lighthearted host, but a man deeply involved in a cause.

He had collected his two young relatives and stood between them. Percy looked sulky and reluctant, but his face brightened at the sight of food. Pulling himself free of Weldon's grasp, he shambled toward the chafing dishes and began heaping his plate.

Liz wore a pants suit of a shade of ash rose that set off her exquisite complexion. The knit
fabric fit like a glove from shoulder to hips. Thomas noted that although Sir Richard had had an arm around Percy's shoulders, he did not touch Liz.

Liz drifted toward the table. Her eyes had a blank, unfocused look, as if she were still feeling the effects of the drug. Frank got quickly to his feet and guided her to a chair.

Sir Richard remained standing. Even without the help of crown and royal robes, he was an imposing figure. “I hope you all enjoyed the banquet,” he asked genially.

There was an unconvincing murmur of agreement.

“Splendid. We'll have an even better meeting this afternoon.”

Thomas happened to be looking at the rector. He saw that ingenuous gentleman's face fall. Had Ellis hoped Weldon would cancel the meeting? If so, he didn't know his host. Thomas did. He had little hope of success, but felt he had to make the attempt.

“Dick,” he said, “I really think you ought to call off the meeting today. Or if you insist on going ahead with it—do the whole thing yourself. Get everyone out of here—the lot of us.”

“An excellent suggestion.” Lady Ponsonby-Jones nodded her head. “Of course your family
will not desert you at such a time, Richard, never fear. But the others—”

“I resent the implication,” said the doctor angrily. “Good Lord, you can't suspect me, Dick? We've known one another for—”

His was not the only dissenting voice. Thomas caught Jacqueline's eye and was encouraged by its expression. She had decided to forgive him for the dastardly sin of being male.

“Just a moment,” she said, her voice cutting through the rising chorus of complaints. “Thomas is right, and you are acting like a group of spoiled children. Do you enjoy being knocked around, humiliated, frightened? If Sir Richard has any sense, he'll throw us all out.”

Weldon's smile only touched one side of his mouth.

He's getting to look more and more like that damned portrait, Thomas thought in alarm. It's not a hobby any longer, it's an obsession. Was it possible that Sir Richard had come to believe…

The sudden suspicion was obscene; yet Thomas couldn't get it out of his mind, even when Weldon spoke in the familiar, gentle voice. The timbre of the voice had not changed, but its tone had. Where had he acquired that unmistakable voice of command?

“My dear Jacqueline, I appreciate your concern,
but I cannot accept your suggestion. In any case, it is too late for the course of action you suggest. The television people have arrived.”

In the silence Thomas heard vague sounds outside. Loud voices muffled by distance, the rumble of vehicles…

“They are now beginning to set up their equipment,” Weldon said. He was still smiling that disturbing, distorted half-smile. “But believe me, all reasonable precautions have been taken. Two of my stoutest young servants are guarding the doors of the Hall; no outsider can penetrate into the rest of the house.” His steady eyes swept the assembled group. “I have taken another precaution. Mr. Strangways is locked in his room. No”—he was addressing Kent, who had started to rise, his ugly little face set—“no, General, you are not to go near Mr. Strangways. I am not sure he is guilty; I am merely eliminating a possible source of danger. I intend to take the same precaution with Percy, as soon as he finishes feeding himself.”

Percy dropped his fork. Bits of scrambled egg flew like snowflakes.

“What did you say?” he demanded shrilly.

“I am about to lock you in your room,” said Weldon. “Have you finished? Take along some toast, if you like; you will be incarcerated for
some time, and I know you are not accustomed to going without food for more than a quarter of an hour.”

“But Richard…” said Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones.

“No, my dear, my mind is made up. It is for Percy's own good,” he added gently.

Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones subsided, with an agonized glance at Percy. Her meekness maddened her son. He burst into a furious speech whose epithets were more or less equally divided between his mother and his cousin. He backed slowly away from the table as he shouted. Thomas had never doubted Percy's emotional instability; now he was ready to believe it might be more than a mild neurosis.

“Percy,” said Weldon quietly.

Percy stopped shouting. He was drooling with rage and excitement. “You can lock me up,” he said, licking his lips. “But you can't keep me there.”