Whom the Gods Love (16 page)

The inquest resulted in a verdict of willful murder by a person or persons unknown. Subsequent enquiries proved vain. Then the news of Alexander Falkland's murder all but drove the Brickfield Murder from people's minds. Julian could not but contrast the assiduous hunt for Alexander's killer with the rather perfunctory investigation into the brickfield woman's death. It was inevitable, of course: Alexander had been a darling of the
beau monde,
while the brickfield victim was apparently a nobody, and her murder was important chiefly to the labouring classes, who might have to walk alone through abandoned brickfields at night. No one had associated the two crimes. And why should they? Julian thought. What could the sordid beating of an unknown woman have to do with Alexander Falkland, beloved of the gods, struck down in the flower of his youth and promise?

Except, of course, that both crimes were connected with Hampstead. Except that they happened just a week apart, and in each case the victim was fatally bludgeoned with an object conveniently to hand: a piece of brick from the brickfield, and the poker in Alexander's study. Coincidence? Perhaps. But if it was not, then for the third time in his career of solving crimes, Julian would have to identify an unknown female victim and try to fathom who had had reason to kill her.

*

From the window of his hackney coach, Julian gazed out at legal London in the bustle of term-time. Black-clad solicitors with tightly furled umbrellas and blue bags held whispered colloquies with clients. Ink-stained clerks rushed about with menacing sealed documents or sat hunched over desks at dingy windows. Even the local shopmen were cogs in the legal machine: booksellers, robe-makers, law-stationers.

Julian got out of his hackney in Carey Street, at the gateway to Lincoln's Inn. Shabby-genteel men in dirty neckcloths and patched boots shuffled out of his way; presumably their business was with the Insolvent Debtors' Court down the street. He passed through the gateway and asked the porter to direct him to Quentin Clare's chambers in Serle's Court.

Serle's Court was a neat, gravelled square with a fountain and a diminutive clock tower in the centre. Rows of handsome brown-brick houses ran along three sides; the fourth was open to give a view of the gardens beyond. Julian ascended the creaky wooden stairs of No. 5 and found Clare's chambers by the name painted on the door. He knocked.

A door opposite opened, and a spindly young clerk in green spectacles looked out. "Mr. Julian Kestrel?"

"Yes."

"He's expecting you. He arst me to tell you he was called away, but he'll be back directly. Go on in if you like—he won't mind."

Julian was not sorry to have an opportunity to look around Clare's chambers in private. He thanked the clerk and went in.

The chambers consisted of a parlour and bedroom. The parlour was sparsely but comfortably furnished, remarkable only for its enormous quantity of books. They ranged over every shelf, cluttered up the mantelpieces and window sills, and stood in rows along the skirting-boards. Most were worn with reading; some of the bindings had been broken and lovingly tied or glued together. Julian opened a few at random and found that many passages were underscored, and notes had been written in the margins in a neat, light hand.

Not surprisingly, legal tomes occupied a prominent place: Blackstone's
Commentaries,
a forbidding treatise called
Principles of Pleading,
and a variety of books on trials, evidence, and the criminal law. But there were also political economists like Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus; historians from Herodotus and Livy to Gibbon and Guizot; Greek and Roman philosophers and their modern counterparts, including Hegel (in German) and Saint-Simon (in French). Traditional political thinkers like Burke and Locke stood cheek by jowl with the utilitarian Bentham, the evangelical Wilberforce, the radicals Godwin and Paine. And there were dramatists and poets in numerous languages, both living and dead.

Evidently Clare was far more of a scholar than the Bar required, or his tongue-tied manner revealed. Here might lie the explanation for the friendship between him and Alexander, which had surprised so many of Alexander's worldly friends.

Perhaps Clare had appealed to Alexander's intellectual side—the side that devoured books on law and political economy, wrote long philosophical letters to his father, and worried about the plight of factory workers.

One book in particular caught Julian's eye: Mary Wollstonecraft's
Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
He had read it some years ago in Paris, in a contraband French translation; the restored Bourbon monarchy did not look kindly on such revolutionary sentiments. In England the book was not absolutely proscribed, but no respectable woman would read it, and most men regarded it as scandalous rubbish.

He took it down and leafed through it. The binding was frayed and faded, the pages so brittle it was hard to turn them without the corners dropping off. Like the other books, it had notes in the margins, but the handwriting was different: quick, firm, impetuous. One sentence had been circled in blue ink and studded with exclamation points:

I love man as my fellow, but his sceptre, real or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, not to man.

The same hand had written
"Yes, yes, yes!"
beside the passage:

... if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. It is true, they could not then with equal propriety be termed the sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man; but they would be more respectable members of society, and discharge the important duties of life by the light of their own reason. "Educate women like men," says Rousseau, "and the more they resemble our sex the less power they will have over us. " This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.

As Julian was closing the book, it fell open to the flyleaf. There the bold blue pen had dashed off:

My dearest Quentin,—I want you to have this, my best-beloved book, so that when you're reading and writing and dreaming about the rights of men, you'll remember the wrongs of women—those thousands of human souls who have no voice in Parliament and no status in law. But, most of all, remember your sister, who loves you more than all the world,

Verity

"Mr. Kestrel," said a quiet, rather husky voice.

Julian turned. "Good morning, Mr. Clare."

Clare started to speak again—then he saw the book in Julian's hand. His eyes dilated, and the words died on his lips.

"I beg your pardon for taking this down from the shelf." Julian spoke lightly, affecting not to notice his discomfiture. "It's so rarely seen and has such an infamous reputation, I couldn't resist the opportunity to look at it. I hope you're not offended at my reading the note on the flyleaf?"

"Not at all, it's quite all right."

"I wasn't aware you had a sister."

"She—she doesn't live in London."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I should have liked to meet her—she seems a remarkable woman."

"Yes—she is."

"Where does she live?"

"In Somerset, with our great-uncle. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting—I was called away briefly. Please sit down." 

"Thank you."

"I'm afraid I haven't anything to offer you to drink. I could send to a public house—"

"You needn't on my account."

"Oh. Thank you. I mean—" Clare did not seem to know what he meant. He hung his hat on a peg and sat down opposite Julian, twisting his fingers together.

He was in his early twenties, pale, with a narrow face and fair, straight hair that tended to fall into his eyes. They were fine eyes, grey and serious—his one claim to good looks. He was thin and rather delicate. As if to hide this, he wore loose, ill-fitting clothes: a black frock coat and trousers, a buff waistcoat, and a white cravat wound thickly around his neck. Julian, who was accustomed to learn a good deal about people by how they dressed, observed that his clothes were country tailoring, serviceable but without style.

"I want to thank you, first, for agreeing to talk with me so readily," Julian said. "You make my task far easier. I should like to ask you some questions about the night of the murder, and about your relationship with Alexander Falkland."

Clare shifted in his seat. "Of what importance is my relationship with him?"

"It's merely background. How did you meet him?"

"We were both students here. He didn't live in chambers, being married, but he was obliged to dine in Hall a certain number of times per term—keeping term, we call it. We dined in the same mess."

"When did you first meet?"

"A little over a year ago, when Falkland started here." 

"You were here already?"

"Yes. I started the previous term."

"How did you and he become particular friends?"

Clare looked away, pushing the unruly hair back from his brow. "Last year, in Easter term, I was taken ill at dinner. I think I may have eaten a bad oyster. Falkland offered to help me back to my chambers. I tried to dissuade him, because there's a rule that if you leave Hall before the final grace is said, you lose credit for that day's attendance, and I didn't want him to forfeit the dinner on my account. But he insisted, and I was too ill to prevent him. After that—" He paused and seemed to choose his words carefully. "An intimacy grew up between us. He would come to my chambers, and I would go to his parties. He was good enough to introduce me to his friends."

"What sorts of things did you and he talk about?"

"The sorts of things you'd expect. The practice of law, trials we'd seen, social engagements."

"What did you see in him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why did you like him? What made you choose to be his friend?"

"I think it was he who chose me."

"Why?"

Clare hung fire, then said quietly, his eyes on the carpet, "I don't know."

"Let me be frank with you, Mr. Clare. What I find most enigmatic about this crime is Alexander himself. There's a great deal I don't understand about him. And I have an idea that you knew him extremely well—better than his father, perhaps even better than his wife. I'm afraid I distress you?" 

Clare had risen and was shading his eyes with his hand. "This is—very painful—very difficult—"

"He was as dear to you as that?"

Clare buried his face in his hands.

Julian gave him a moment to recover. When he lifted his head, he was flushed, but his eyes were tearless. "I'm sorry. Please go on. You said you thought I knew Falkland better than those closest to him. I hope you're mistaken. I should be sorry to think I'd usurped a greater share of his confidence than his family."

There was a pause. Then Julian asked, "Do you look at your watch very frequently?"

"I don't think so," Clare said, surprised.

"In your statement to Bow Street, you said that on the night of the murder you left the party at twenty-five minutes to twelve and went into the hall for a breath of air. At twenty minutes to one, you went downstairs and saw the light in the study. Why were you keeping such close track of the time?"

"Because I intended to go home after the supper was served at one, and I wanted to see how near to that time it was." 

"Why were you planning to go home at one?"

"Because it was the earliest I felt I could leave without being discourteous." Clare got up and began to stir the fire. "I don't like parties. I feel very out of place at them."

"Yet you went to a great many of Alexander's."

"He asked me."

"Were you in the habit of doing everything he asked?" 

Clare's hand shook, causing the poker to clatter against the bars of the grate. "No." After a moment, he added more steadily, "He liked me to come to his parties. He took great pride in them. And he thought it would advance my interests to meet people of consequence. I'm afraid I didn't make very good use of the opportunity. I never know how to put myself forward, or what to say in company."

"When you left the party the first time, you observed a conversation between Falkland and his wife's maid, Martha. She told him Mrs. Falkland wouldn't be down again that evening. And, according to you, he looked peculiar."

"Yes. Taken aback, disconcerted. I don't know why." 

"You're certain she said nothing more to him than you've reported?"

"Quite certain, yes."

"You said David Adams was standing behind Falkland, and after Martha left he looked at Falkland malevolently. I believe that was your word?"

"It may have been."

"You must realize that if Adams was angry with Falkland that night, it tells heavily against him."

Clare pushed his hair back from his brow again. "I don't wish to implicate Mr. Adams. I hardly know him. I'm only reporting what I saw."

"Adams withdrew into the drawing room, and Falkland went over to you and took your arm to lead you back there as well. So there must have been a short period when you and he were alone in the hall?"

"Yes."

"Did he say anything to suggest he was about to go downstairs to his study?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

Clare showed his first sign of impatience. "In light of what happened afterward, I shouldn't be inclined to forget it if he had."

"Did he tell you he was going upstairs to see his wife?" 

"He didn't tell me specifically. He told everyone, after we'd gone back into the drawing room."

"Lady Anthea thinks he and Mrs. Falkland had quarrelled, and that was why she retired from the party."

"Yes, she hinted as much to me."

"She followed you about, I believe, trying to pump you for information."

"Yes. That's why I went downstairs—to escape from her questions and insinuations."

"Was there some basis for them? Had Falkland quarrelled with his wife?"

"I have no idea."