The Shadowcutter (44 page)

Carswell rested back on his heels, frowning.

“Nothing?” Giles said.

“Nothing,” Carswell said. “He’s gone.” He slid his hand under the dead man’s neck. “Fracture of the third vertebra, I’d say, judging by the dislocation. No-one survives that. If he had fallen differently, there might have been some chance. But that flower trough is the culprit.”

“And that,” said Giles, pointing up at the intricate ironwork balcony which was now dangling by a single hinge from the side of the building. “It must have given way under his weight.”

Carswell looked up at it and grimaced.

“Damnable things. I attended the post-mortem of a woman was killed by one of those in Edinburgh. She fell onto the railings below. He’s had a mercifully quick death. She was alive for some hours.” He gave a slight shudder.

“I don’t understand it,” said the manager. “We are very careful about checking them for rust and decay.”

“Possibly not careful enough,” said Carswell getting up. He took off his coat and was about to lay it over the corpse.

“One moment,” said Giles, catching sight of something on the man’s forehead. He squatted down and peered at it. A red mark in the skin, as if something had been pressed hard against it.

He pointed it out to Carswell and said, “Any idea what might have caused that?”

“
Not immediately.”

“Cover him up,” said Giles, turning over various possibilities in his mind. He got up and turned to the gardeners. “Did any of you see what happened?”

“No, sir, we just heard him hit the ground,” the elder of them said. “We were working just down there, clipping that hedge, with our backs to the hotel.”

“He gave this great cry,” said the other. “Chilled me blood, it did. And by the time we got here, he was wheezing away and then he was gone. Just like that, in no more than a snap of your fingers.” He shook his head. “God rest his soul.”

“You are acquainted with the gentleman, sir?” said the Manager to Giles. “And his family?”

Giles could not help sighing slightly, thinking of the dark-eyed boys at the fencing rooms that morning and how this news would hurt them.

“Yes. And I will go and speak to them. They do not seem to be aware that anything has happened. Will you send for a constable? The coroner will need to be informed. Mr Carswell, are you happy to leave him? I think you may be needed upstairs.”

“Natural justice?” said Carswell as they climbed the grand staircase.

“Perhaps,” said Giles.

They went straight into the suite, into the reception room where he had so recently made his excuses to Don Luiz, where the candles to the late president still burned before his portrait and the curtains were drawn. There was no-one there.

“Now which room was it?” he said going to the right-hand door. It opened onto a passageway, with rooms opening on both sides. Mercifully, There was no sign of the women and children.

“That one, I should say,” said Felix, and opened the door.

He was right. The sash was pushed right up and the muslin curtains drawn to one side to allow easy access to the balcony. A chair had been placed by the window, and on a small table nearby was a box of cigars.

“So was he in the habit of sitting there with his cigar?” said Giles. “This looks like his dressing room.” There was a writing desk with many papers on it.

“And then wandering out onto the balcony with it?” said Carswell, who was at the window looking down.

“You know more about the habits of smokers than I do,” said Giles. “But perhaps the ladies objected to him smoking inside.”

“How long have they been staying here?” Carswell said. “If he went out more than once or twice a day, a man of his size – it could have seriously damaged the balcony, particularly if it was already in a parlous state. Perhaps it just gave way today. He leant back too far and goes toppling back? Dear God.”

“Luiz, Luiz?” A woman’s voice at the door – it was Dona Clara.

Giles went to the door and opened it, his heart leaden. To have to break such news –

She was with the children and their nursemaid. They had clearly all been out in the gardens at the front of the hotel for a brief post luncheon stroll, and had therefore seen and heard nothing.

It proved impossible to keep Dona Clara from the window and seeing the fallen giant on the terrace below. She rapidly became hysterical from the shock and her screams brought the other servants running in, and increased the horror of the revelation. The handsome boys who had been at the fencing lesson stared at him and then at their howling mother.

“Dona Blanca,” Giles said to Carswell, who was attempting to calm Dona Clara. “Where is she?”

“We need her,” said Carswell. “Dona Blanca?” he said to one of the servants. “Where is she?”

One of the boys went running out of the room and Giles followed him, guessing he had gone to fetch her. They crossed the darkened shrine to the President and into the passageway beyond. The boy was about to knock on the door but Giles put his finger to his lips. His mind was filling with uncomfortable thoughts about why she had not at once appeared when Dona Clara began screaming.

“Go back to your mother,” he said to the boy.

He knocked but there was no answer. He gently tried the door. It was not locked. He opened it a chink and saw she was there, and sitting in a shadowy corner on a low chair.

“May I come in?” he asked, opening the door a little wider. Now he noticed she was holding something but had concealed it in the folds of her black skirts.

She did not answer. Another glance revealed a box lying open on the dressing table. It looked like a pistol case. Was that a weapon she was holding?

He came in a little further without waiting for her permission, and carefully closed the door behind him. He saw the powder flask now and the capper beside it. There was a loaded gun somewhere in this room. Was it a pistol that had made that mark on Don Luiz’s forehead?

He came closer to her. She seemed to stiffen as he approached – she was wary, watching him as carefully as he watched her, her breast rising and falling conspicuously. He thought he saw her hand stir. Was she tightening her grip on the pistol?

“Ma’am?” he said.

“Yes?” she said at last.

“Don Luiz is – “

“Dead. Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“An accident,” he said.

“No.”

“It looks very like one.”

“It was not,” she said and buried her other hand into the folds of her skirt.

“He fell. That balcony was not sound.”

“But he would not have gone out there had I not –”

Now she moved her hands, the folds of stuff fell aside and revealed the gun. Her right hand was firmly on the pistol butt, while the fingers of the left were curled about the barrel, cradling it, as if it were something very precious to her.

“It’s loaded, I think?” he said, stepping a little closer. “You should give that to me, ma’am.”

She shook her head and lifted it in both hands towards her breast, and so it lay there, rather in the manner of a saint clutching a crucifix in a religious painting.

“Juan gave me this. He taught me to use it too. He was always more worried for my safety than his own. In fact, he sent all the way to Texas for it. It is the latest thing. It has a revolving chamber. One can shoot five bullets in succession. Quite an instrument for an execution, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ma’am, give that to me, I beg you.”

“No, I am not done with it yet,” and with shaking hands she aimed the gun towards her temple.

“Please,” he said softly, edging towards her.”For the love of God, please give me that. That is a worse crime than anything you think you may have done. Please do not. You are afraid, yes, but there is nothing to fear. Let God judge you. Do not judge yourself. Do not.”

Steeling himself he reached towards her hand and laying his own over it, pulled it away. She struggled against him but he had the better of her. She yielded, and the pistol tumbled from her hand. It crashed to the floor.

She stared at him, her eyes filling with tears.

“Oh, dear God –” she said.

He bent down and picked up the gun. His own hands were trembling and clumsy as he made it safe again – the mechanism was unfamiliar, and the darkened room did not help him.

“I am going to clean this and put it away,” he said. “No-one saw you with it. This need go no further.”

“You would do that?” Her voice was strangled with tears. “A man in your position –”

“The weapon was not discharged. The death was an accident.”

She rose to her feet and crossed herself.

“You are an angel, truly,” she said.

“No, far from it. It is just –” He found it a little hard to speak. “I find some satisfaction in helping you. Justice is sometimes elusive.”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh dear Lord it is. And I lost my patience. That is what happened today. I grew tired of telling myself that I will go back to Santa Magdalena and plunge myself into the dirty politics and the factions, and fight and fight to get justice for my dead husband!”

“Was it something in that letter?”

She nodded.

“It proved without doubt something that I had long suspected. He had been embezzling government funds, over some years, bleeding the country dry. Juan and I knew there was corruption and I always felt it was close at hand, but never could prove it. And then the proof came today, and I had it in my hand, and I could not bear it any more. I wanted it to be over. I came back here and tried to pray for guidance but there was nothing. Just this feeling of helplessness.”

She broke off and walked across the room, her hands pressed to her face.

“And Ramirez was being despicable!” she went on. “You had him so riled up, Major Vernon. You had beaten him at fencing, and then refusing to come to lunch! He was so suspicious! He started needling me, asking all these questions about you and Felix. Then he said that Felix was the image of Lord Rothborough and wasn’t that interesting? I knew then that one of his spies had found out that I had made enquiries about Felix and he was far ahead of me in the game. I knew I had to do something. Something snapped inside me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. So I came in here and got out the gun. And I went back to him in his study where he was smoking one those disgusting cigars, and –”

“You did not fire the gun,” he said.

“But I meant to. I wanted to. I threatened him. I had it pressed to his forehead. That’s why he went back out onto the balcony. I forced him out there.”

“And the balcony was unsound and he fell,” Giles said. “We all make mistakes. All of us.”

“You too?” Her hand was on his arm.

“My wife was killed,” Giles said. “Not three weeks ago. It was that day when you were first with Lord Rothborough. I found out who was responsible and I tried to force a confession out of them, but I lost my temper and overplayed my hand. I failed and now I have ruined my case. Because of my actions Laura’s killer will probably never be punished.”

He put the last piece of the gun back into the box. He shut the lid.

“If you gave me a gun and an opportunity –” he said, and brushed his fingers across the top of the box. There was an engraved plate bearing an inscription in Spanish. “What does that say?” he said.

“It says, ‘From Juan to his little dove Blanca.’” She gave a sigh. “So what shall I do now?”

“Go to Dona Clara and the children,” he said. “They will need you.”

She nodded and went to the glass where she wiped away the tears, and adjusted her lace cap. He opened the door for her and she walked past him, her carriage now that of a queen about to make an entrance. In short it was a miracle of self-possession.

He followed her the few paces into the central reception room. The little boy who had showed him the way had not gone back to his mother but was standing there, waiting for Dona Blanca. He ran towards her as she came in and she fell to her knees and took him into her arms, whispering to him in Spanish and letting him cry out his heart.

That, he told himself firmly, was enough to justify his actions.

Chapter Forty-three

“That mark on his forehead,” said Felix. “I have an idea what it might have been.”

“It was merely a blemish,” Major Vernon said, with a suspicious lack of curiosity.

They were driving back to Ardenthwaite at a little past seven. It felt like midnight.

“It is the sort of mark a pistol might make. What if he were forced out onto the balcony and then fell?”

Major Vernon did not answer. Instead he began to massage his temples.

“I noticed a box on Dona Blanca’s dressing table,” Felix went on. “That looked like a pistol case.”

“What on earth would she be doing with a pistol case on her dressing table?” Major Vernon said. “It was, no doubt, just a box.”

“Did you not notice it, sir, when you were talking to her in there?”

“Sometimes there are questions that we should not ask aloud. That you certainly should not. Draw what conclusions you like, but keep them to yourself. For the sake of the lady in question, for your own sake –” Major Vernon made a gesture that suggested the sweeping away of some debris from a table top. “Please?”

It was not a command. It was a pained request, almost a supplication.

Felix felt his mouth dry. What exactly had passed between Dona Blanca and Major Vernon? They had been alone together for a strangely long interview.

He, for his part, had been astonished by her composure on learning the news. She was shaken, it was clear enough, but the needs of the others had been her first priority. She had brought a sort of order to the whirlwind of hysterical chaos that that Dona Clara’s extreme distress had unleashed into those about her. She knew how to deal with them all – be comforting and calm, give orders and make arrangements. She became the centre of authority. It was easy to see to how she had got her reputation as a leader.

He had not exchanged a word with her alone. He had only been able to take a public leave of her with all the usual formality, and that had felt entirely inadequate. He had been tempted to run back to her, afraid for her in some fashion, his heart stirred up in a way he could scarcely deal with.