No Graves As Yet

She smiled very slightly, and her voice was very gentle. “You didn’t do quite that, Joseph. You were his teacher, and you saw and encouraged the best in him. But you are an idealist. I daresay none of us are as fine as you think.”

Again her love for Beecher rushed into his mind, and the hard, abrasive thought that Sebastian had known of it and used it to manipulate Beecher into things painfully against his nature.

“No,” he agreed quietly. They had reached the shade of the next archway and he was glad of it. “I think I have learned that. I wish I could help you with Mary Allard, but I’m afraid she is too fragile to accept the truth without it breaking her. She is a hard, brittle woman who has built a shell around herself, and reality won’t intrude easily. But I’ll be here. And if that is any help at all, please turn to me whenever you wish.”

“Thank you, I fear I will,” she replied. “I can’t see the end of this, and I admit it frightens me. I look at Elwyn and I wonder how long he can go on. She doesn’t seem even to be aware of his presence, let alone do anything to comfort him! I admit, sometimes I am so angry I could slap her.” She colored faintly; it made her face vivid and uniquely lovely. He was aware of her perfume, which was something delicate and flowery, and of the depth of color in her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said under her breath. “It’s very un-Christian of me, but I can’t help it.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Sometimes I think we imagine Christ to be a lot less human than He was,” he replied with conviction. “I’m sure He must feel like slapping us on occasion—when we bring our grief not only upon ourselves, but upon everyone around us as well.”

She thanked him again with a sudden smile, then turned to walk away back into the sun toward the master’s lodgings.

Joseph sensed the tension mounting all afternoon. He saw Rattray carrying a pile of books. He walked quickly and carelessly, tripping on an uneven paving stone at the north side of the quad and dropping everything onto the ground. He swore with white-lipped fury, and instead of helping him, another student sniggered with amusement, and a third told him off for it sarcastically.

It was left to Joseph to bend down and help.

He met a junior lecturer and encountered several sarcastic remarks to which he replied calmly, and in his annoyance unintentionally snubbed Gorley-Brown.

The ill feeling finally erupted at about four o’clock, and unfortunately it was in a corridor just outside one of the lecture halls. It began with Foubister and Morel. Foubister had stopped to speak to Joseph about a recent translation he was unhappy with.

“I think it could have been better,” he complained.

“The metaphor was a little forced,” Joseph agreed.

“Sebastian said he thought it referred to a river, not the sea,” Foubister suggested.

Morel came by and had gone only a few steps beyond when he realized what he had overheard. He stopped and turned, as if waiting to see what Joseph would say.

“Do you want something?” Foubister asked abruptly.

Morel smiled, but it was more a baring of the teeth. “Sounds as if you didn’t hear Sebastian’s translation of that,” he replied. “That’s the trouble when you only get bits! It doesn’t fit together!”

Foubister went white. “Obviously you got it all!” he retaliated.

Now it was Morel’s turn to change color, only it was the opposite way, blood rushing to his cheeks. “I admired his work! I never pretended otherwise!” His voice was rising. “I still knew he was a manipulative swine when he wanted to be, and I’m not going to be hypocrite enough to go around saying he was a saint now that he’s dead. For God’s sake, somebody murdered him!”

There was a roll of thunder overhead and a sudden, wild drumbeat of rain. No one had heard footsteps approach, and they were all jolted into embarrassment when they saw Elwyn only a couple of yards away. He looked bowed with exhaustion, and there were dark smudges under his eyes, as if he were bruised inside.

“Are you saying that means he must have deserved it, Morel?” he asked, his voice tight in his throat and rasping with the effort of controlling it.

Foubister stared at Morel curiously.

Joseph started to speak, then realized that his intervention would only make it worse. Morel would have to answer for himself, if he could make his voice heard above the drumming of the rain on the windows and the gush of water leaping from the guttering.

Morel took a deep breath. “No, of course I’m not!” he shouted above the roar. “But whoever did it must have believed they had a reason. It would be much more comfortable to think it was a lunatic from outside who broke in, but we know it wasn’t. It was one of us—someone who knew him for at least a year. Face it! Somebody hated him enough to take a gun and shoot him.”

“Jealousy,” Elwyn said hoarsely.

Beecher emerged from the doorway of the lecture room, his face white. “For God’s sake, be quiet!” he shouted. “You’ve all said more than enough!” He did not appear to see Joseph. “Go on back to your work! Get out!”

“Rubbish!” Morel exploded, ignoring Beecher completely. “That’s absolute bloody rubbish! He was a charming, brilliant, conspiring, arrogant sod who enjoyed his power over people, and for once he went too far.” He swung his arm wide, almost hitting Foubister. “He made you run errands like a boot boy. He took Rattray’s girlfriend, just to show everyone that he could.” He glanced at Beecher and away again. “He got away with all kinds of things nobody else did!” His voice was almost a scream above the rain.

“Shut up, Morel, you’re drunk!” Beecher shouted at him. “Go and put your head under the cold tap before you make even more of a fool of yourself. Or go and stand in the rain!” He jerked his hand toward the streaming window.

“I’m not drunk!” Morel said bitterly. “The rest of you are! You don’t have any idea what’s going on!” He jabbed his finger viciously in no particular direction. “Perth does! That miserable little bastard can see through us all. It’ll give him a kick to arrest one of us. Can’t you see it in his face—the glee? He’s positively smacking his lips.”

“Then at least it’ll be over!” Foubister yelled it as if it was an accusation.

“No, it won’t, you fool!” Morel shouted back at him. “It won’t ever be over! Do you think we can just go back to the way we were? You’re an idiot!”

Foubister launched himself at Morel, but Beecher had seen it coming and caught him in full flight, staggering backward to pitch up hard against the wall, Foubister in his arms.

Outside the rain was still roaring and hissing over the rooftops and bouncing back off the ground.

Beecher straightened up and pushed Foubister away. Foubister swung around to face Morel, Joseph, and Elwyn. “Of course we won’t be the same!” he choked, his voice a sob. “For a start, one of us will be hanged!”

Elwyn looked dazed, as if someone had hit him also.

Morel was white to the lips. “Better than going to war, which is where the rest of us will end up,” he lashed back. “He was always afraid of that, wasn’t he—our great Sebastian! He—”

Elwyn lurched forward and hit Morel as hard as he could, sending him staggering backward to strike his head and shoulders on the wall and slither to a heap on the floor.

“He wasn’t a coward!” Elwyn gasped out the words, tears streaming down his face. “If you say that again, I’ll kill you!” And he aimed another punch, but Morel saw it coming and stumbled out of the way.

Beecher was staring at Elwyn in disbelief.

Elwyn jerked forward again, and Joseph grasped his arms, exerting all his strength to hold him, surprised to find it sufficient. “That was stupid,” he said coldly. “I think you had better go and sober up, too. If we don’t see you again until tomorrow, that will be more than soon enough.” Elwyn went slack, and Joseph let him go.

Beecher helped Morel to his feet.

Elwyn glared sullenly at Joseph, then turned and walked away.

Morel shook himself and winced, then mumbled something, touching his jaw tentatively and smearing blood across his mouth.

“Maybe that will teach you to keep a wiser tongue in your head,” Joseph said unsympathetically.

Morel said nothing, but limped away.

“Coward . . . ?” Beecher turned the word over as if he had discovered a new and profound meaning in it.

“Everybody’s afraid,” Joseph responded, “except those who are too arrogant to realize the danger. It’s an easy word to fling around, and it’s guaranteed to hurt pretty well anyone.”

“Yes . . . yes, it is,” Beecher agreed. “And I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do about it. Isn’t there anything worth salvaging out of this? God knows what!” He pushed his hair off his forehead, gave Joseph a sudden, bright, gentle smile, and went back the way he had come.

The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started. The wet stones of the quad steamed, and everything smelled sharp and clean.

Joseph continued on to his rooms. But he knew that he needed to face the fact that he was afraid Sebastian might have been morally blackmailing Beecher. He had either to prove it to be true, and perhaps destroy one of the best friends he had ever had, or else to prove it untrue—or at least that he was innocent of Sebastian’s death—and release them both from the fear that now invaded everything. He must not avoid it any longer.

He walked across the quad and into the shade of his own stairway. The conclusion that Beecher and Connie Thyer were in love had become inescapable, but without any proof, how could Sebastian have blackmailed Beecher? Was that a delusion, one of the many born of fear? Now was the time to find out.

He turned and walked very slowly back out again and across to the stair up to Sebastian’s rooms. The door was locked, but he found the bedder, who let him in.

“You sure, Dr. Reavley?” she said unhappily, her face screwed up in anxiety. “I’n’t nothin’ in there as worth seein’ now.”

“Please open it, Mrs. Nunn,” he repeated. “It’ll be all right. There’s something I need to find—if it’s there.”

She obeyed, still pursing her lips with doubt.

He went in slowly and closed the door behind him. It was silent. He drew in a deep breath. It smelled stale. The windows had been closed for over three weeks, and the heat had built up, motionless, suffocating. Yet he could not smell blood, and he expected to.

His eyes were drawn to the wall. He had to look because he could think of nothing else until he did. It was in his mind’s eye whichever way he faced, even if his eyes were closed.

It was there, paler than he had remembered, brown rather than red. It looked old, like something that happened years ago. The chair was empty, the books still piled on the table and stacked on the shelves.

Of course Perth would have been through them, and everything else, the papers, the notes, even his clothes. He would have to, searching for anything that would point to who had killed him. Obviously he had found nothing.

Still his own hands turned automatically through the pages of the notes, held up each book and ruffled it to find anything loose, anything hidden. What was he expecting? A letter? Tickets to something, or somewhere?

When he found the photograph he barely looked at it. The only reason it caught his attention at all was because it was Connie Thyer and Beecher standing together, smiling at the camera. There were trees close to them, massive, smooth-trunked, autumnal. Beyond them there was a path winding away toward a drop to the river, and up again at the far side. It could be anywhere. A couple of miles away there was a place not unlike it.

He put it down and moved on. There were other photographs: Connie and her husband, even one of Connie and Joseph himself, and several of students and various young women. He thought one was Abigail, standing beside Rattray and laughing.

He went back to the picture of Connie and Beecher. Something about it was familiar. But he was sure he had never seen it before. It must be the place. If it was somewhere near here, then he would know it, even though it was not the same place as the other pictures.

He held it in his hand, staring at it, trying to recall the scenery around it, the bank of the river beyond the camera’s eye. It went upward steeply. He could remember walking it—with Beecher. They had been eating apples and laughing about something, some long, rambling joke. It had been a bright day, the sun hot on their backs, the stream rattling loudly below them. Little stones loosened and fell into the pool, splashing. The shadows were cool under the trees. There had been wild garlic. They were heading uphill, toward the open moorland, with huge, wind-raked skies—Northumberland!

What had Connie been doing in Northumberland with Beecher? Almost before he had finished asking, the answer was whole in his mind. He remembered her taking a holiday late the previous summer, just after he had come to Cambridge. She had gone north to visit a relative, an aunt or something. And Beecher had gone walking alone; Joseph had been mourning Eleanor and refused even to think of such a thing. He needed to be busy, his mind occupied until exhaustion took over. The thought of so much wild, solitary beauty was too powerful to bear.

But where had Sebastian found the photograph? A dozen answers were possible: found during a visit to Beecher’s rooms, slipped out of the pocket of a jacket left over a chair, or even from the contents of Connie’s handbag when it tipped over.

Was that what had unnerved Beecher to the point he had so openly criticized Sebastian, and at the same time allowed him to get away with such slipshod, challenging behavior? He was afraid. This was proof.

He put it into his pocket and turned to leave. The room was stifling now, the air heavy, choking in the throat. He fancied he could smell the dried blood on the wall and in the cracks of the floorboards. Did one ever really get such things out?

It was time to face Beecher. He went out and closed the door behind him. He felt stiff and weary, dreading what was to come.

It was windless and hot in the late slanting sunlight as he crossed the quad and went in through the door on the far side and up the stairs to Beecher’s rooms. He dreaded having to be so blunt about what was a private subject, but nothing was truly private anymore.

He reached the landing and was surprised to see Beecher’s door slightly ajar. It was unusual because it was an invitation to anyone to interrupt whatever he was doing, and that was completely out of character.

“Beecher?” he called, pushing it a few inches wider. “Beecher?”

There was no answer. Could he have slipped out to see someone, intending to be back in a moment or two, and simply left the door ajar?

He did not like to go in uninvited. He was going to intrude painfully enough when it was inevitable. He called out again, and there was still no answer. He stood, expecting to hear Beecher’s familiar step any minute, but there was no sound except the call of voices in the distance.

Then at last there were footsteps, light and quick. Joseph spun around. But it was Rattray coming down from the floor above.

“Have you seen Dr. Beecher?” Joseph asked.

“No, sir. I thought he was in his rooms. Are you sure he isn’t?”

“Beecher!” Joseph called again, this time raising his voice considerably.

Still there was silence. But it would be most unlike Beecher to have gone out and left his door open. He pushed it wider and went inside. There was no one in the study, but the bedroom door beyond was also ajar. Joseph walked over and knocked on it. It swung open. Then he saw Beecher. He was leaning back in the bedroom chair, his head lolled against the wall behind him. He looked exactly as Sebastian had: the small hole in his right temple, the gaping wound on the other side, the blood drenching the wall. Only this time the revolver was on the floor where it had fallen from the dead hand.

For a moment Joseph could not move for horror. It lurched up inside him, and he had the thought that he was going to be sick. The room wavered, and there was a roar in his ears.

He breathed in deeply and tasted bile in his throat. Gradually he backed out of the door and through the outer room to find Rattray still waiting on the landing. Rattray saw his face and the words were hoarse on his lips. “What is it?”

“Dr. Beecher is dead.” Joseph’s voice sounded strangled, as if his lungs were paralyzed. “Go and get Perth . . . or . . . someone.”

“Yes, sir.” But for several seconds Rattray was unable to move.

Joseph closed the door to Beecher’s rooms and stood for a moment gasping for air. Then his legs buckled and he collapsed onto the floor, leaning his back against the door lintel. His whole body was shuddering uncontrollably, and the tears ran down his face. It was too much; he could not bear it.

At last Rattray went, stumbling down the first two or three steps, and Joseph heard his feet all the way down, then a terrible silence.

It seemed an eternity of confusion, horror and soul-bruising misery until Perth arrived with Mitchell and, a couple of paces behind him, Aidan Thyer. They went in past Joseph, and a few moments later Thyer came out, gray-faced.

“I’m sorry, Reavley,” he said gently. “This must be rotten for you. Did you guess?”

“What?” Joseph looked up at him slowly, dreading what he was going to say. His mind was whirling; thoughts slipped out of his grasp, no coherence to them, but he knew they were black with tragedy.

Thyer held out his hand. “Come on. You need a stiff shot of brandy. Come back to the house and I’ll get . . .”

Oh, God! Joseph was appalled as one thought emerged from the rest: Connie! She would have to be told that Beecher was dead! Who should tell her? It was going to be unbearable for her, whoever it was, but what would be least terrible? Her husband . . . alone? Could she mask her own feelings for Beecher? Was it even conceivable that Thyer knew?

Had Beecher taken his own life, knowing that the truth would come out and that he’d be blamed for Sebastian’s murder? Joseph refused even to think that he might actually have done it—but the possibility hung on the dark edges of his mind. Or was it Aidan Thyer who had made it look like suicide, standing there in front of him, with his grave face and pale hair, his hand outstretched to help Joseph to his feet?

The answer was something he could not evade. Yes, he should go to the house, whether it was he or Thyer who told Connie. She would need help. If he did not go and there was a further tragedy, he would be to blame.

He grasped Thyer’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, accepting Thyer’s arm to steady himself until he found his balance.

“Thank you,” he said huskily. “Yes, I think a stiff brandy would be very good.”

Thyer nodded and led the way down the stairs, across the quad and through the archway toward the master’s lodgings. Joseph’s mind raced as he walked beside him a little dizzily, every step drawing him closer to the moment that would end Connie’s happiness. Would she believe Beecher had killed Sebastian? Had she even known of the blackmail? Had Beecher told her, or had he borne it alone? Or had the photograph been his?

And might she think it was Aidan Thyer? If she did, then she might be terrified of him herself. But Joseph could not stay there forever to protect her. What could he say or do so that she would be safe after he left? It was his responsibility, because he was the only one who knew.

Nothing. There was nothing anyone could do to save her from ultimately having to face the husband she had betrayed, at heart if not more.

They were at the door. Thyer opened it and held it for Joseph, watching him with care in case he staggered and tripped. Did he really look so dreadful? He must. He certainly felt it. He was moving in a nightmare, as if his body did not belong to him.

It seemed interminable moments before Connie appeared. For seconds she did not realize there was anything wrong, and she said something pleasant about having tea. Then slowly the look on Thyer’s face registered with her, and she looked at Joseph.

Thyer was about to speak. Joseph must act now. He stepped forward a couple of paces.

“Connie, I’m afraid something very dreadful has happened. I think you had better sit down . . . please . . .”

She hesitated a moment.

“Please,” he urged.

Slowly she obeyed. “What is it?”

“Harry Beecher has killed himself,” he said quietly. There was no way to make it any better or gentler. All he could do now was try to save her from a self-betraying reaction.

There was an instant’s terrible silence, then the blood drained from her face. She stared at him.

He stepped between her and her husband, taking her hands in his as if he could hold her together, in some physical fashion bridging the gulf of aloneness. What he really wanted was to shield her from Thyer’s sight.

“I’m so sorry,” he went on. “I know you were as fond of him as I was, and it is the most awful shock, on top of everything else that has happened. It was very quick, a single shot. But no one yet knows why. I’m afraid there is bound to be speculation. We must prepare ourselves.”

She drew in her breath in a stifled little cry, her eyes wide and empty. Did she understand that he knew about them, that he was saying all this to give her whatever protection there was?

Thyer was at his elbow with two glasses of brandy. Joseph straightened up to allow him to give one to Connie. Had he any idea? Looking at his white face and pinched mouth told him nothing. It might as easily have been only the horror of yet another tragedy in his college.

Joseph took the brandy offered to him and drank it, choking on the unaccustomed fire of it in his throat. Then he felt it blossom inside him with artificial warmth, and it did help. It steadied him, gave him a little strength, even though he knew it was only temporary, and changed nothing.

Thyer took over. “We don’t know what happened yet,” he was telling Connie. “The gun was there on the floor beside him. It looks as if it is maybe the end of all this.”

She stared at him and started to say something, but the words died in her throat. She shook her head, whimpering in pain she would always have to conceal. No one would understand; no one would offer her sympathies or make allowances for her grief. She would have to bear it alone, even pretend it did not exist.

That was something Joseph could do for her; he could share his own loss of a friend, recall all the good things about him and let her borrow his grief. Without the embarrassment of saying so, or requiring any confession or acknowledgment from her, he could let her know that he understood.

He stayed a little longer. They made meaningless remarks. Thyer offered them each another brandy, and this time he had one himself as well. After about half an hour, Joseph left and walked in a daze of grief back to his own rooms for one of the worst nights he would ever endure. He sank into sleep at last a little before one, and was engulfed in nightmare. He slipped in and out of it until five, then woke with a tight, pounding headache. He got up, made himself a cup of tea and took two aspirins. He sat in the armchair and read from Dante’s Inferno. The passage through hell was vaguely comforting; perhaps it was the power of Dante’s vision, the music of the words, and the knowledge that even in the worst pain of the heart he was not alone.

Finally at eight o’clock he went outside. The weather was exactly as it had been nearly all summer—calm and still, with a slight heat haze on the town—but inside St. John’s suddenly the pressure seemed to have lifted.

Joseph met Perth, who was setting out across the quad.

“Ah! Morning, Dr. Reavley,” Perth said cheerfully. He still looked tired, shadows around his eyes, but his shoulders were squared and his step was lighter. “Shame about Dr. Beecher. Oi know he were a friend o’ yours, but mebbe it’s the best way. Clean end. No trial. Best for poor Mr. Allard’s family, too. Now the public don’t need to have all the details.”

The words, with Perth’s unquestioning assurance, crystallized the anger inside Joseph. All Perth knew was that Beecher was dead and the gun was found next to him, yet he was happy, almost gleeful, to take it for granted that he had killed Sebastian and then himself. Arguments boiled up in Joseph’s mind, along with fury at Perth’s willingness to believe without looking any further. What about the others? They had known Beecher for years. Was all that carried away as if by a single flash flood? He wanted to shout at Perth to stop, to think, to weigh and measure. It was nothing like the man Joseph had known! How dare Perth, or anyone, be so certain?

But then Joseph himself had not seen the affair with Connie Thyer, right under his nose! Or that Sebastian had seen it and was using it in subtle blackmail. How well did he know anyone?

And it was all hideously reasonable. The words died on his lips. He was really only angry because Perth was relieved. Everyone would be. The suspicion had stopped. They would be able to start rebuilding all the old friendships that had been the fabric of their lives.

“Are you so very sure?” he said thickly, his voice strained.

Perth shook his head. “Makes sense, Reverend. About the only answer what does—when you think on it.”

Joseph said nothing. The courtyard seemed to waver around him, like a picture blurred by rain.

“Looks like the same gun,” Perth went on. “When we test it, Oi reckon we’ll find as it is. Was a Webley that killed Mr. Allard. Did Oi ever tell you that.”

Joseph stared into space, trying not to visualize it. Whatever had happened to Beecher, the scholarly, dry-humored man he had known, the good friend, that he would have killed Sebastian to protect his own reputation? Or was it Connie’s? Thyer could have overlooked it if no one knew. Such things happened often enough. But to have made it public would be different. No man could ignore that. Beecher would have lost his position, but he could have found another, even if not in such a prestigious university as Cambridge, if not even in England! Surely better anything rather than murder?

Or was it to protect Connie? Perhaps she would have been divorced by Thyer. But even that was something they could have lived with.

And would Sebastian really have sunk so low as to tell people? It would have ruined Connie and Beecher, and made Thyer the butt of pity. But it would have broken forever Sebastian’s own image as a golden youth. Surely he would not have done that simply to exercise power?

“I’m sorry, Reverend,” Perth said again. “Very sad thing, an’ hard to believe it o’ friends. That’s the trouble with a calling like yours. Always reckoning the best o’ folk. Comes a shock when you see the other side. Now for me, Oi’m afraid it’s no shock at all.” He sniffed. “Still a shame, though.”

“Yes . . .” Joseph pulled his thoughts together. “Yes, of course it is. Good day, Inspector.” Without waiting for a reply he walked away toward the dining hall. He did not want to eat, and he certainly did not want company, but it was like getting into cold water—better done quickly.

In the hall there was the same slightly hysterical air of relief. People launched into conversation, then stopped suddenly and burst into high-pitched, self-conscious laughter. They were not sure whether it was decent to show their happiness that the weight of suspicion was gone, but they dared to look at each other, because words were no longer guarded against hidden meaning. They spoke of the future; they even told jokes.

Joseph found it intolerable. After a couple of slices of toast and a single cup of tea, he excused himself and left. They were behaving as if Beecher had not been one of them, as if they had not lost a friend in the most hideous way imaginable. The moment real friendship was put to the test they cut and ran.

That judgment was unfair, but it would not leave his mind, for all the sensible reasoning he used. The hurt was too great.

He was not certain whether to go back to the master’s lodgings or not. He did not want to intrude on Connie in what must be a time she would bear only because there was no possible alternative. One could not die purely from misery. He had discovered that after Eleanor’s death.

But even if he did not go specifically to see Connie, he should speak to Mary now that Beecher’s death was generally accepted as the close of the case. They would be leaving to go home, and if he waited, it might be too late; it would seem as if he were indifferent.

He was shown into the sitting room by the parlor maid, and a few moments later Connie appeared. She might have doubted within herself whether she should wear black or not, but even if she had considered that it might be too revealing of her emotions, she had cast aside such caution. She wore a fashionable silk dress with a deep sash and pleated tunic, black from neck to hem, and black shoes. Her face was as white as chalk.

“Good morning, Joseph,” she said quietly. “I imagine you have come to see Mrs. Allard. She has her vengeance now, and she can leave.” Her eyes expressed the fury and the pain she dared not speak aloud. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Thank you for coming yesterday evening. I . . . I . . .”

“You don’t need to thank me,” he interrupted. “I liked him very much. He was my best friend, right from the beginning.” He saw her eyes fill with tears, and it was almost impossible to continue, his own throat was so tight. He could scarcely breathe from the weight constricting his chest.

At that moment Mary Allard came in through the door.

“Oh, good morning, Dr. Reavley.” She still looked proud and angry, and she was dressed in unrelieved black. It flattered her olive complexion but not her gaunt body. “It is good of you to come to wish us goodbye.” There was a faint softening in her voice.

He could not think what to say to her. Nothing in her yielded or offered warmth.

“I hope the resolution of the matter will give you some measure of peace,” he said, and an instant later wished he had not. In saying that, he had wished Beecher’s death to give her peace, and he felt like a betrayer.

“Hardly,” she snapped. “And I would not have expected you, of all people, to suggest it!”

Connie drew in her breath. She stared back at Joseph defensively. Her voice shook when she spoke. “You have been willing to allow it said that my son blackmailed this wretched man over some sin or other, God knows what—no one will tell me—and that he murdered Sebastian to keep him quiet.” She was trembling with bewilderment and unanswered pain. “The suggestion is monstrous! Whatever he had done, or Sebastian knew about, Sebastian would never have put pressure upon him, except to persuade him to act honorably.” She gave a little gulp. “Obviously that failed, and the miserable man murdered Sebastian in order to protect himself. Now not only has this damnable place taken my son’s life, but you would like to take from him as well the very memory of who and what he was. You are beneath contempt! If I do not meet you again, Dr. Reavley, I shall be much better suited.”

Her words were both arbitrary and unjust. He was angry enough to retaliate, but the words did not come easily.

“People will say what they wish to say, Mrs. Allard,” he said stiffly, his mouth dry. “Or what they believe to be true. I cannot stop them, nor would I, any more than I can stop you saying whatever you wish to about Dr. Beecher, who was also my friend.”

“Then you are unfortunate in your choice of friends, Dr. Reavley,” she snapped. “You are naive, and think too well of many people, but not well enough of others. I think you would be better served by some long and deep contemplation of your own powers of judgment.” She lifted her chin a trifle higher. “It was civil of you to come to wish us goodbye. No doubt you considered it your duty. Please accept that it is done, and feel no need to call upon us further. Good day.”

“Thank you,” Joseph said with unaccustomed sarcasm. “That puts my mind greatly at ease.”

She swung round and glared at him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I shall feel free not to call upon you again,” he answered. “I am obliged to you.”

She opened her mouth to make some reply, and to her fury the tears flooded her eyes. She swung around and marched out, black silk skirts crackling, shoulders stiff.

Joseph felt guilty, and angry, and thoroughly miserable.

“Don’t,” Connie whispered. “She deserved that. She has been behaving for three weeks as if she were the only person in the world who has ever been bereaved. My heart aches for her, but I can’t like her!” She took in a long, deep breath and let it out in a sob. “Even less now.”

He looked at her. “Nor I,” he said gently, and they both stood there, smiling and blinking, trying not to weep.

Joseph spent the rest of the day in a haze of misery. At night he slept poorly and rose late, grief washing back over him like a returning tide. He missed breakfast altogether, and forced himself to go back to the dining hall for luncheon. He had expected the conversation still to be about Beecher’s death. He was startled to find instead that it was about yesterday’s newspaper headlines, added to by this morning’s. Somehow he had not taken any notice until now.

“Troops?” he said, turning from one colleague to another. “Where?”

“Russia,” Moulton replied to his left. “Over a million men. The czar mobilized them yesterday.”

“For the love of heaven, why?” Joseph was stunned. A million men! It was shattering and absurd.

Moulton stared at him dourly. “Because two days ago Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia,” he replied. “And yesterday they bombed Belgrade.”

“Bombed . . . !” The coldness went through Joseph as if someone had opened a door onto a freezing night. “Bombed Belgrade?”

Moulton’s face was tight. “I’m afraid so. I suppose with poor Beecher’s death no one mentioned it. Ridiculous, I know, but the death of someone we know seems worse than dozens or even hundreds of deaths of people we don’t—poor devils. God only knows what’ll happen next. It seems we can’t stop it now.”

“I’m afraid it looks as if war in Europe is inevitable,” Gorley-Smith said from the other side, his long face very grave, the light shining on his bald head. “Can’t say whether it’ll drag us in or not. Don’t see why it should.”

Joseph was thinking of a million Russian soldiers and the czar’s promise to support Serbia against Austria-Hungary.

“Makes our troops in the streets of Dublin look like a very small affair, doesn’t it?” Moulton said wryly.

“What!” Joseph exclaimed.

“On Monday,” Moulton told him, raising his wispy eyebrows. “We sent the troops in to disarm the rebels.” He frowned. “You’ll have to pull yourself together, Reavley. It seems Allard was a bit of a wrong ’un after all. And poor old Beecher lost his head completely. Woman’s reputation, I suppose, or something of the sort.”

“Of the sort,” Addison said sourly from the other side of the table. “Never saw him with a woman, did you?”

Joseph jerked up and glared at him. “Well, if it were something worth blackmailing him about, you wouldn’t, would you!” he snapped.

Gorley-Smith raised his glass. “Gentlemen, we have far larger and graver issues to concern ourselves with than one man’s tragedy and a young man who, it appears, was not as good as we wished to believe. It seems that Europe is on the brink of war. A new darkness threatens us, unlike anything we have seen before. Perhaps in a few weeks young men all over the land will be facing a far different future.”

“It won’t touch England!” Addison said with contempt. “It’ll be Austria-Hungary and east, or north if you count Russia.”

“Since they’ve just mobilized over a million men, we can hardly discount them!” Gorley-Smith retorted.

“Still a long way from Dover,” Moulton said with assurance, “let alone London. It won’t happen. For one thing, think of the cost of it! The sheer destruction! The bankers will never let it come to that.”

Addison leaned back, holding his wineglass in his hand, the light shining through the pale German white wine in it. “You’re quite right. Of course they won’t. Anyone who knows anything about international finance must realize that. They’ll go to the brink, then reach some agreement. It’s all just posturing. We’re past that stage of development now. For God’s sake, Europe is the highest civilization the world has ever seen. It’s all saber rattling, nothing more.”

The conversation swirled on around Joseph, but he barely listened. In his mind he saw not the oak-beamed dining hall, the windows with their centuries of stained-glass coats of arms, but instead the evening sun shining long and golden across the river. He saw Sebastian staring at the beauty of Cambridge—the architecture as well as the glories of the mind and the heart treasured down the centuries—and dreading the barbarity of war and all it would break in the spirit of mankind.

Joseph still found it impossible to believe that Sebastian had really been a grubby blackmailer. And Harry Beecher. How could he have killed Sebastian?

And was any of it tied to the murders of John and Alys Reavley? Had Sebastian witnessed their deaths and known who was responsible? Or was that only a hideous coincidence? How could it have anything to do with Reisenburg and whoever had killed him?

Or the worst thought of all: Was Sebastian blackmailing Beecher not over Connie but over the Reavleys’ deaths?

Or was there someone else who had taken advantage of Beecher’s love affair to hide the fact that it was he whom Sebastian was blackmailing? Someone Sebastian had seen lay that string of caltrops across the road?

Or was Joseph simply trying, yet again, to avoid a truth he found too painful to believe? For all his proclaimed love of reason, the faith in God he professed aloud, was he a moral coward, without the courage to test the truth, or the real belief in anything but the facts he could see? Did he trust God at all? Was it a relationship of spirit to spirit? Or just an idea that lasted only until he tried to make it carry the weight of pain or despair?

He laid down his napkin and rose to his feet. “Excuse me. I have duties I must attend to. I’ll see you at dinner.” He did not wait for their startled response, but walked quickly across the floor and out of the door into the sun.

It was time he looked at Sebastian’s murder without any evasion or protection for his own feelings. He must have at least that much honesty. Perhaps he had not really accepted it until now. His emotions were still trying to absorb the death of his parents.

He was walking aimlessly, but swiftly enough to distract anyone from speaking to him.

Sebastian had been shot early in the morning, before most people were up. According to Perth, it had been with a Webley revolver, probably like the one that had killed Beecher. No one had admitted ever seeing such a gun in college. So where had it come from? Whose was it?

Surely the fact of having such a thing indicated intent to kill. Where did one buy or steal a gun? It was certain beyond any reasonable doubt that the same gun had been used both times, so where had it been that the police had not found it?

He walked over the Bridge of Sighs and out into the sun again. He knew St. John’s better than the police possibly could. Surely if he applied his mind to the problem, he could deduce where the gun had been.

He passed a couple of students strolling, deep in conversation. A man and a young woman in a punt drifted lazily along the river. Three young men sat on the grass, absorbed in conversation. Another sat alone, lost in a book. Peace soaked into the bones like the heat of the sun. If they had read the same news as Moulton and Gorley-Smith, they did not believe it.

Where could one hide a gun that it would be retrievable, and in a condition in which it could be used again? Not the river. And not where anyone else would find it, either casually or because they were looking for it.

He stopped on the path and stood facing the college. As always, its beauty filled him with pleasure. From the Bridge of Sighs the fine brick was met by white stone sheer down into the water. Further on there was a short stretch of grass sloping to the river. The walls were smooth except for the windows, all the way up to the crenellated edge of the roof with its dormers and high chimneys.

But Perth’s men had been up there.

All except the master’s lodgings. In deference to the Allards, they had merely looked at it from the next roof over, from where they could see everything. The drainpipes down were wide at the neck, to catch the runoff from the roof behind. An idea stabbed his mind. Was it possible? It was the one place, so far as he knew, where no one had looked.

Could Beecher have put it there after killing Sebastian? And could he have retrieved it again in time to take his own life with it? But even if Joseph was right, there would be no way to prove it now.

Perhaps he could deduce it if he tried. Where should he begin? With everyone’s movements after the discovery of Sebastian’s body. Anyone climbing on the roof of the master’s lodgings would have risked being noticed, even at half past five in the morning. At this time of the year it was broad daylight.

He started to walk slowly.

Was it possible they had kept it somehow concealed temporarily and then put it in a safe place later? Had it been in the top of the downpipe, it would have taken only a few moments to place it: a quick visit to one of the attic rooms with a dormer window, open it wide, lean far out and drop the gun, perhaps wrapped in something. Even a scarf or a couple of handkerchiefs would disguise the outline, then a few leaves.

If that were the answer, then it could only have been done from the master’s lodgings. He could not imagine it was one of the servants. That reduced it to Aidan and Connie Thyer, Beecher if he had seen Connie there, and whoever else might have visited.

Whoever it was had to have concealed the gun very soon after Sebastian’s murder was committed, because the police had started the search within an hour of their arrival.

What would he have done were he in that situation? Hidden it in the undergrowth in the Fellows’ Garden until he was free to go back and get into the master’s lodgings unobserved.

And to retrieve it again? Perhaps much the same.

It came back to Connie and Aidan Thyer—and perhaps Beecher. He could not believe it was Connie, but the more he thought of it, the more likely did it become that it was Thyer. Perhaps it was he whom Sebastian had seen on the Hauxton Road. Perhaps it was even he who was behind the plot itself. He was a brilliant man with a position of far more power than most people realized. As master of a college in Cambridge, he had influence over many of the young men who would, in a generation’s time, be the leaders of the nation. He was sowing seeds the world would reap.

Now that the thought was in Joseph’s mind, he had to test it until it was proved one way or the other. And there was only one place to begin. He would hate doing it, but he could think of no alternative.

He walked slowly back to the Bridge of Sighs and into St. John’s, then across the inner quad to the master’s lodgings. Thyer himself would be in the library at this time in the early afternoon. He hoped Connie would be at home.

The parlor maid let him in, and he found Connie standing at the window staring out at the bright flowers in the Fellows’ Garden. She made an effort to smile at him. “Thank you for coming yesterday,” she said a little huskily. “It was kind of you.” She did not explain what she meant, and turned away again almost immediately. “I’m relieved the Allards have gone home and Elwyn has moved back to his own rooms. But the house is unnaturally quiet now. It seems like silence rather than peace. Is that absurd?”

“No,” he answered. He hated what he was about to do, the more so because if it proved anything at all, it might be something she would infinitely prefer not to know. “I need to ask you one or two questions. . . .” He hesitated, not sure how to address her. Her Christian name was too familiar; using it would be taking something of a liberty. And yet to address her as Mrs. Thyer was both cold and bitterly ironic.

She was only mildly curious. “About what?”

He must do it. He could feel his body stiff and he was standing awkwardly. “I found a photograph in Sebastian’s rooms.” He hated this. He saw her stiffen, and he knew instantly that she was aware of it and that it meant all that he had supposed. “You met Harry in Northumberland. I know the place it was taken. He and I walked there.”

The tears filled her eyes. “He told me,” she whispered, her voice choked. “I didn’t go there to meet him. It was almost by accident.” She gave an awkward, lopsided little shrug. “I should have stopped myself. I knew it was wrong, and I knew what it would lead to—but I wanted it so much! Just once to have . . .” She looked away from him. It was a moment before she was able to compose herself. “Some passer-by took the photograph. Harry kept it. It must have fallen out of his pocket when his coat was over the arm of the chair. He was frantic when he discovered it was gone. I didn’t know Sebastian had it.” Her face was touched with a rare, terrible anger. It frightened him.

“Connie . . .”

The expression vanished again, drowned in misery.

He had to go on; there were other things that he had to know. There was no more time to spend in patience. “About the morning Sebastian was murdered, and the day leading up to the time Harry died.”

“I don’t know anything useful.” Her voice was flat again, emotion buried far below in a sea of pain too deep to dare touch.

“And about Sunday, the day the archduke and duchess were shot in Sarajevo,” he went on.

She swung around. “Oh, God! You can’t think Harry had anything to do with that! That’s idiotic!”

“Of course I don’t!” He denied it vehemently, but his mind went to the yellow Lanchester mangled and broken, and his parents’ bodies covered with blood. Until the moment of saying it, the thought had not entered his mind that Beecher could be guilty of that, but now it was there, a tiny shard, like a dagger.

She was staring at him incredulously.

“No!” he said again, forcing a smile, this time in the face of the absurdity of Beecher being responsible for the assassination in Sarajevo. “I simply used that event to bring the day to your mind. If you remember, it was also the day my parents were killed.”

“Oh!” She was stunned and utterly contrite, her face crumpled in pity. “Joseph, I’m so sorry. I had completely forgotten! With—” She took a deep breath and held it a moment. “With murder”—she forced herself to use the word—“here in college, an accidental death, even two, seems so much . . . cleaner. What is it you need to know? If I can tell you, of course I will.”

Now was the moment to say what he had to. “I think someone may have seen what happened. Do you know where Harry was about noon that day?”

The color swept up her face. She must have felt its heat, because her eyes betrayed her as well. “Yes. It couldn’t have been he,” she said.

He could not let it go quite so delicately. “Are you certain, as a fact, not a belief?”

“Absolutely.” She looked down, away from him.

“And the morning Sebastian was killed?” He chose the slightly softer word, blunting it where he could.

She turned a little to look out of the window again. “I got up early and walked along the Backs. I was with Harry. I can’t prove it because we kept to the trees. We didn’t want to be seen, and there are quite often other people around, mostly students, even at five or six.”

“Then it is not possible that Harry could have killed Sebastian,” he said, watching for the slightest shadow in her eyes or alteration in the rigidity of her body that would betray that she was lying to protect him, even now that he was dead.

She turned to face him, her eyes wide, brilliant. “How can you be sure?” she said, not daring yet to grasp the hope. “We didn’t meet until nearly six. Sebastian could have been killed before that, couldn’t he?” She was pale now, perhaps wondering if Beecher had come to her straight from having murdered the one man who threatened them both.

“Where did you meet?” he asked.

She was confused. “Where? I went over the Bridge of Sighs, because it’s enclosed and no one would have seen me, then walked to the beginning of the trees. He was there.”

“He didn’t come to the lodgings?”

Her dark eyes widened. “Good heavens, of course not! We’re not completely mad!”

“When was the next time he was there?”

“I don’t know. Why? About two days, I think. I had the Allards by then, and everything was a nightmare.”

A warmth began to ease inside him. Beecher had definitely not killed Sebastian, because he had had no time to hide the gun! Not if it had been on the master’s roof—and the more he thought of it, the more certain he became that that was where it had been. “And before he shot himself?” he asked.

She stiffened again, her face white. “I saw him in the Fellows’ Garden the evening before, just for a little while, almost fifteen minutes. Aidan was due home.”

“Did he go inside?”

“No. Why?”

Should he tell her? Caution said not . . . but she had loved Beecher, and the thought that he had committed murder and then suicide was a bleeding wound inside her.

Yet if he explained, then she would work out for herself the only terrible alternative: that it was someone who had access to the roof of her house, her husband. She would be a danger to him then, and would he kill her, too?

Would she work it out, even if he did not tell her? No. It all depended upon the gun having been hidden on the roof. He dared not let her deduce it.

“I’m not sure,” he lied. “When I’m certain, I’ll tell you.”

“Did Harry kill Sebastian?” Her voice was trembling, her face ashen.

Would she guess anyway? “No, he couldn’t have,” he answered. “But say nothing to anyone!” He made the warning sharp, a message of danger. “If he didn’t, Connie, then someone else did! Someone who may kill you. Please, say nothing at all, to absolutely anyone . . . including the master! I may be wrong.”

That, too, was a lie; Joseph had no doubt he was right. Aidan Thyer might kill, but he was certain in his heart that Harry Beecher had not. And if Connie had been out on the Backs early in the morning, then Aidan Thyer could have been anywhere; certainly he could have been in Sebastian’s rooms. And Thyer could have killed Sebastian for the same reason—because he was blackmailing any or all of them over exposing Connie’s affair.

Or it could have been Thyer Sebastian had seen on the Hauxton Road.

“Say nothing,” he repeated even more urgently, touching her arm. Her wrist was slender under his fingers. His mouth was dry, his hands sweating. “Please—remember it is murder we are dealing with.”

“Two murders?” she whispered.

“Perhaps,” he replied. He did not say it could be four—or, if Reisenburg had been murdered also, then five.

She nodded.

He stayed only to give her a few words of assurance, then walked slowly back in the bright sun, cold in his flesh and his bones.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Joseph walked slowly across the quad. The sun was hot in the early afternoon, but it felt airless. His clothes stuck to his skin. There were no clouds that he could see in the blue distance bounded by the crenellated tops of the walls, but it felt like thunder to come. The electricity of it was already inside him, an excitement and a fear that he was on the brink of the truth.

Where had Aidan Thyer been on the afternoon of Sunday, June 28? Whom could he ask that Thyer would not hear about it? Connie had been in the garden with Beecher. If Thyer had been on the Hauxton Road, where would he have told people he was? And who would remember now, over five weeks later?

He could not ask Connie; she would know why he was asking, and then no matter how hard she tried, it would surely be beyond her to conceal that knowledge from Thyer himself.

He was walking more and more slowly as he tried to make up his mind. Thyer had come late to the cricket match. Would Rattray, who had captained the St. John’s side, know where he had been before that? It was worth asking him. He turned and went rapidly back in through the door at the farther side and up to Rattray’s rooms. He was not there.

Ten minutes later Joseph found him in a corner of the library between the stacks, scanning the bottom shelf.

“Dr. Reavley! Are you looking for me, sir?” he asked, closing his place in the book in his hands.

“Yes, actually I was.” Joseph bent to the floor, looking along the row curiously. They were on warfare and European history. He regarded Rattray’s thin, anxious face.

Rattray bit his lip. “It looks pretty bad, sir,” he said quietly. “The kaiser warned the czar yesterday that if Russia didn’t stop within twenty-four hours, Germany would mobilize, too. Professor Moulton reckons they’ll probably close the world stock exchanges pretty soon. Maybe even by Monday.”

“It’s a bank holiday,” Joseph replied. “They’ll have all weekend to think about it.”

Rattray sat back on the floor, legs out in front of him. “Do you think so?” He rubbed the heel of his hand along his jaw. “God, it would be awful, wouldn’t it? Who could imagine five weeks ago that some lunatic in a town in Serbia, of all places, taking a potshot at an archduke—and Austria’s got loads of them—could blow up into this? Just a short time, barely more than a month, and the whole world’s changed.”

“Six weeks ago, nearly.” Joseph found the thought strange, too. Then his parents had been alive. Six weeks ago tomorrow would be the Saturday John Reavley had driven the yellow Lanchester to Little Wilbraham and talked to Reisenburg—and found the document. That night he had telephoned Matthew in London. The next day he had been killed.

“We played cricket at Fenner’s Field,” he said aloud. “You captained the side. I remember being there, and Beecher, and the Master.”

Rattray nodded.

“Sebastian wasn’t,” Joseph continued. “He was late coming back home. I expect the master wasn’t pleased. He was one of our best bats.”

“Rotten bowler, though.” Rattray smiled. He looked close to tears, his voice a little thick. “No, the master was pretty cross when he did come, actually. Sort of caught him by surprise that Sebastian wasn’t playing.”

Joseph felt cold. “When he did come?”

“He was late, too!” Rattray pulled a slight face. “Don’t know where he’d been, but he arrived in a hell of a temper. He said he’d been stuck on the side of Jesus Lane with a puncture, but I know he wasn’t, because Dr. Beecher came that way and he’d have seen him.” He sighed and looked away, blinking hard. “Unless, of course, you can’t believe Dr. Beecher anymore. I just can’t—I can’t understand that!” He chewed painfully on his lower lip to stop it trembling. “Everything’s sort of . . . slipping apart, isn’t it? You know, I used to think Sebastian was pretty decent.” He looked at Joseph. “He had some odd ideas—used to waffle on about peace, and that war was a sin against mankind, and that there wasn’t anything in the world worth fighting for if it meant killing whole nations and filling the earth with hate.”

He rubbed his jaw again, leaving a smudge of dust on it. “A bit too much, but still sane, still all right! I never thought he would do something really squalid, like blackmail. That’s filthy! Beecher might have been doing something out of line, but he was a decent chap—I’d have staked anything you like on that.” He pushed his hair back off his forehead in a gesture of infinite weariness. “I’m beginning to wonder if I really know very much at all.”

Joseph understood his confusion profoundly. He was fighting his own way through the same desperation, trying to make sense of it and regain his own balance. But there was no time for the long, gentle conversations of comfort now. “Where do you think the master was?” he asked.

Rattray shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Or why he should say something that wasn’t true.”

“But he was in his car?” Joseph persisted.

“Yes, I saw him drive up in it. I was waiting for him.”

“Thank you.”

Rattray looked curious. “Why? What does it matter now? It’s over. We were all wrong—you and me, everyone. Beecher’s dead, and our quarrels don’t amount to much if there’s going to be war and we’re all drawn into the biggest conflict in Europe. Do you suppose they’ll ask for volunteers, sir?”

“I can’t see that we’ll be involved,” Joseph replied. “It will be Austria, Russia, and perhaps Germany. It’s still possible they’re all just threatening, seeing who’ll be the first to back down.”

“Maybe,” Rattray said without conviction.

Joseph thanked him again and went out of the library and back to the first quad to see Gorley-Smith. There was a vital question to ask now, and he dreaded the answer. He was surprised how deeply it cut into his emotions to believe that Aidan Thyer was guilty of killing John and Alys Reavley. And for what? That was something he still did not know.

He knocked on Gorley-Smith’s door and stood impatiently until it was opened. Gorley-Smith looked tired and irritable. His hair was untidy, he had his jacket off, and his shirt was sticking to his body. It very obviously cost him some effort to be civil.

“If you came to apologize for dinner, it really doesn’t matter,” he said abruptly, and started to push the door shut again.

“I didn’t,” Joseph answered him. It was clear that there was going to be no opportunity for subtlety. “Beecher doesn’t seem to have left any note, or wishes of any kind. . . .”

Gorley-Smith suppressed his momentary annoyance. “No, I don’t suppose he did. Look, Reavley, I know he was a friend of yours, but he was obviously driven beyond his sanity by whatever it was that young Allard was pressuring him over, and I’d really rather not know the details. I don’t think we should speculate.” His face was filled with distaste and with the anxious desire to avoid embarrassment.

Joseph knew what was on his mind. “I was going to ask you,” he said coldly, “if Beecher had any opportunity to speak to the master around about that time. He might have some ideas what we should do. As far as I know, Beecher had no close family, but there must be someone who ought to be informed as discreetly as possible, in the circumstances.”

“Oh.” Gorley-Smith was taken aback. “Actually, I don’t think so. Whatever sent him over the edge must have been rather sudden, and as it so happens, I know the master was in a meeting for at least two hours before we heard about it, because I was there myself. I’m sorry, Reavley, but you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

“You’re quite sure?” Joseph pressed. He wanted it to be true, and yet it made nonsense of the only answer he could think of.

“Yes, of course I’m sure,” Gorley-Smith replied wearily. “Basildon went on interminably about some damned building fund, and I thought we were going to be there all day. It was mostly the master he was arguing with.”

“I see.” Joseph nodded. “Thank you.”

Gorley-Smith shook his head in incomprehension and closed the door.

Once again Joseph made his way over the bridge to the Backs. The air was cooling at last, and the light shone through the flowers in rich colors like stained glass. The trees across the grass barely shimmered in the faint sunset wind, and there was no sound but the call of birds.

If Aidan Thyer had not killed Beecher, and Beecher had not killed Sebastian, then what was the answer?

He walked slowly, his feet silent on the dry grass. He passed into the shade of the trees. Here it smelled cooler, as if the greenness itself had a fragrance.

Who else could have put the gun on the roof of the master’s lodgings? Or was he wrong about that after all? He went back to the beginning of all that he knew for certain. Elwyn had come to his rooms, almost hysterical with shock and grief, because he had gone to fetch Sebastian for an early morning walk by the river and found him shot to death. There was no gun there. Anyway, no one had ever suggested Sebastian had any reason on earth to take his own life. No one who knew him had ever imagined such a thing.

The police had been called and had searched everywhere for the gun, but had not found it. Everywhere except the funnel openings to the drainpipes on the master’s roof.

Of course, it was always possible there was another answer he simply had not thought of. Maybe someone had quite casually walked out with the gun and put it in another college—or had given it to somebody else.

Except that unknown person had retrieved it with no difficulty in order to shoot Beecher.

Joseph concentrated on who could have shot Beecher and who might have wanted to. Everyone seemed to assume after Beecher’s death that he had killed Sebastian. But had anyone assumed it before?

Mary Allard? She would have had the fury and the bitterness to kill. But how would she have known where the gun was, or got herself to the roof for it?

Gerald Allard? No, he had not the passion, and he also would not have known where it was.

Joseph was opposite Trinity now. The wind was rising a little, whispering in the leaves above him, and here in their shade the light was fading rapidly.

Elwyn? He could not have killed Sebastian. He was accounted for in his own room at the time. Besides, he and Sebastian had been close, even for brothers, and so unalike as to have been rivals in very little. They admired each other’s skills without especially wanting to possess them.

Nor could Elwyn have had anything to do with crashing the Lanchester. He had been in Cambridge all day.

But he had been in and out of the master’s lodgings seeing his mother, trying to comfort her and offer her the support his father seemed incapable of giving. He could have retrieved the gun if he had known it was there.

But how could he have known? Had he seen it somewhere? Could Beecher have hidden it there? For whom? Connie? The thought was ugly, and the pain of it sat so tight in his chest he could hardly breathe. Had Beecher been protecting her?

And had Elwyn assumed it was Beecher who had shot Sebastian? That would have been motive enough to have killed him and deliberately left the gun there to make it seem like suicide, an admission of guilt.

Except that he was wrong.

In the shadows Joseph could hardly see the path at his feet, although there were echoes of light across the sky. He walked onto the grass again. Outside the avenue of trees there was still that tender, airy dusk that seems neither silver nor gray. He looked at the horizon to the east, where the depth of the coming night was a veil of indigo.

In the morning he would have to face Connie again and put it to the final test.

He slept badly and woke with a nagging headache. He had a hot cup of tea and two aspirins, and then as soon as he knew Aidan Thyer would have begun his college duties, he went across to the master’s lodgings.

Connie was surprised to see him, but there was no shadow in her eyes. If anything, she seemed pleased.

“How are you, Joseph? You look tired. Have you had any breakfast? I’m sure Cook could make you something if you wish.” They were in the sitting room with the light slanting in through the French windows.

His stomach was knotted far too tightly to eat, and the aspirins had not yet had much effect. “I have been thinking a great deal about what must have happened, and I’ve asked a few questions.”

She looked puzzled, but there was neither hope nor fear in her face.

“The police never found the gun after Sebastian was killed,” he said. “Although they believed they searched everywhere.”

“They did,” she confirmed. “Why do you say believed? Do you know of somewhere they didn’t look? They were here. They searched the entire house.”

“When?”

She thought for a moment. “I . . . I think we were about the last. I suppose they came here only as a matter of form. And at first Elwyn was here, because he was desperately shocked and grieved, and then of course his parents.”

“Did they search the roof?”

Would she lie to protect herself, even if it was only to leave the matter closed? Was it she who had originally started the subtle suggestion that the love affair over which Beecher was blackmailed was not with her but with Sebastian himself? That was a repulsive thought. He pushed it away.

“They were up on the next roof,” she replied thoughtfully, remembering it as she spoke. “They can see all of this one from there. It’s not so big. Anyway, I really don’t think anybody could have been up there. We would have heard. How can you hide a gun on a rooftop? It would be obvious.”

“Not if it were poked barrel first into one of the funnels at the top of a downpipe,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “You could reach those from the dormer windows. It could be anyone who was in this house!”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Aidan? Harry?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Neither of them had the opportunity. Harry could not have killed Sebastian—you told me that yourself. Weren’t you telling the truth?”

“Yes! Yes, I was!” she assured him. “You don’t think Aidan? But why? Not over . . .” Again the blood flushed up her cheeks. “He doesn’t know,” she said huskily.

“What about Elwyn?” he asked her. “Could he have found the gun there and taken it to kill Beecher, believing Beecher had killed Sebastian?”

She stared at him, misery and grief swimming in her eyes.

“Could he?” he repeated.

“Yes.” She nodded. “But how would he know it was there? Who killed Sebastian? I can’t believe Aidan would have, and I know I didn’t. And it wasn’t Harry, so who was it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m right back to the beginning with that. Who else could have put the gun up there? He would have to have come through the house.”

“No one,” she said after a moment. “It must have been somewhere else. Unless . . .” She blinked several times. “Unless Aidan was hiding it for someone. Do you think he would have done that, and Elwyn knew?”

“Perhaps, but why?” And the moment the words were spoken he knew the answer. It was back to the document again, but he dared not tell her that. “Of course, it depends upon other things,” he added.

She opened her mouth to ask, then changed her mind. “The police, the whole college, think that Harry killed Sebastian,” she said instead. “And that when he thought they were about to arrest him, he killed himself.” Her voice was shaking. “I wish I could prove that wasn’t true. I loved him very much, but even if I hadn’t, I don’t think I could allow anyone to be blamed for something terrible if I could prove they were innocent.”

“Then I think we had better go and tell Inspector Perth. I imagine we can find him at the police station in the town.”

She hesitated only a moment. She might never have to do anything that would cost her more than this. Once the words were said, she could not ever return to this privacy, this safety of unknowing. Then she took a step forward, and he followed her out of the room and to the front door.

They walked to the police station. It was less than a mile, and at this hour in the morning it was still cool and fresh. The streets were busy with tradesmen, early deliveries, shoppers seeking a bargain. The footpath was bustling with people and the roadway loud with hooves of horses pulling wagons and drays, delivery carts, and a doctor’s gig. There were several cars and a motor van with advertisements printed on the side, and, as always, dozens of bicycles. Only if one listened carefully did one hear a different tone in the voices or realize that conversations were not about the weather and there was no gossip. It was all news, carefully disguised anxiety, forced jokes.

Perth was busy upstairs, and they were obliged to wait over a quarter of an hour in tense, unhappy impatience. When he finally arrived, he was less than enthusiastic to see them, and only when Joseph insisted did he take them to a small, cluttered office where they could speak without being overheard.

“Oi don’t know what you want, Reverend,” Perth said with barely veiled impatience. He looked tired and anxious. “Oi can’t help you. Oi’m very sorry about Mr. Beecher, but there’s an end to it. Oi don’t know if you’ve seen the papers this mornin’, but the king o’ the Belgians has gone against his own government and mobilized all his armies. There’s a whole lot more at stake than any one man’s reputation, sir, an’ that’s something we can’t tossle about no more.”

“Truth is always worth arguing about, Inspector Perth,” Connie said gravely. “That’s why we fight wars: to keep the right to rule ourselves and make our own laws, to be who we want to be and answer to no one but God. Dr. Beecher did not kill himself, and we believe we can prove it.”

“Mrs. Thyer—” Perth began with exaggerated patience.

“You never found the gun, did you!” Joseph exclaimed. “Until it was by Dr. Beecher’s body.”

“No, we didn’t,” Perth admitted reluctantly, anger sharpening his voice. It was a failure he did not like having pointed out to him. “But he must have known where it was, because he got it back again!”

“Did you search his rooms?”

“O’ course we did! We searched the whole college! You know that, sir. You saw us.”

“There must be somewhere you missed,” Joseph said reasonably. “The gun did not dematerialize and then reappear.”

“Are you bein’ sarcastic, sir?” Perth’s eyes hardened.

“I am stating the obvious. It was somewhere that you did not look. I have spent some time considering where that could be. You looked on the roof, didn’t you? I can remember seeing your men up there.”

“Yes, we did, sir. Very thorough, we were. Not that there’s a lot o’ places on a roof as you could hide a gun. Quite a big thing, a revolver, an’ not the same shape as anything else. Not to mention that metal shines in the sun.”

“What about the bucket at the top of a drain pipe?” Joseph asked. “With the barrel pointing down and the top covered with, for example, an old handkerchief, suitably dusty, and a few leaves?”

“Very good, sir,” Perth conceded. “That could be. Except we looked.”

“How about the downpipes on the master’s lodgings?” Joseph asked. “Did you look there, too?”

Perth stood absolutely still, his face frozen.

Joseph waited, aware of Connie holding her breath beside him.

“No,” Perth said at last. “We reckoned . . . nobody’d be able to hoide anything there unless they went through the master’s lodgings to do it. Are you saying as they did?” The last was addressed to Connie.

“Elwyn Allard was in and out of the house a great deal while his mother and father stayed with us,” she replied, her voice very nearly steady. “He was there within an hour of Dr. Beecher being shot.”

Perth stared at her. “If you’re saying that he shot his brother, Mrs. Thyer, you got it wrong. We thought o’ that. Lots of families don’t get on all that well.” He shook his head dismally. “Brother killing brother is as old as the Bible, if you’ll excuse me saying so. But we know where he was, an’ he couldn’t’ve. You’d not understand the medical evidence, mebbe, but you’ll have to trust us in that.”

“And Dr. Beecher didn’t do it, either,” she said, her voice tight as if her throat would barely open. “He was with me.” She ignored Perth’s expression of incredulity. “I am perfectly aware of what time it was, and of the impropriety of it. I would not admit to it lightly, and I can barely imagine what my husband will feel if it has to be public—or what he will do. But I will not allow Dr. Beecher, or anyone else, to be branded for a crime they did not commit.”

“Where were you . . . and Dr. Beecher, madam?” Perth asked, his face sour with disbelief, and perhaps disapproval.

Connie blushed, understanding his contempt. “On the Backs along the river, Inspector Perth. At this time of the year, as you say, the daylight hours are long, and it is a pleasant place if you wish to talk unobserved.”

His expression was unreadable. “Very interesting, Oi’m sure. Why didn’t you mention this before? Or has Dr. Beecher’s reputation suddenly got so much more important to you?”

Her face tightened. She was white about the lips. Joseph could see how intensely she would like to have lashed back at Perth and withered him, but she had already given away her weapons. “Like others, I’m afraid I thought Sebastian Allard had been blackmailing him over his regard for me and the indiscretion of it for both of us,” she replied. “I thought he had killed himself rather than have it exposed, which he believed was going to happen because of the investigation into Sebastian’s murder.”

“Then who did kill Sebastian, Mrs. Thyer?” Perth asked, leaning forward a little across the desk. “An’ who put the gun down the drainpipe on your roof? You? If you’ll excuse me saying so, we only got your word that Dr. Beecher was with you. Same as we only got his word that you was with him . . . an’ he ain’t here to back you up.”

She understood perfectly, but her eyes did not waver from his. “I am aware of that, Inspector. I do not know who killed Sebastian, but it was not Dr. Beecher, and it was not I. But I believe that if you investigate a little further, you will find that Elwyn Allard shot Dr. Beecher, and you cannot find it difficult to understand why, since you yourself assumed that Dr. Beecher was guilty of killing Sebastian.”

“Oi’m not sure as how Oi do believe it.” Perth bit his lip. “But Oi suppose Oi’d better go back to St. John’s an’ ask around a bit more, leastways find out if anyone saw Elwyn near Dr. Beecher’s rooms just before he were shot. But Oi still don’t see how he could have known where the gun were if it were in the pipe from the roof of the master’s lodgings!”

“The gun was on the floor, by Dr. Beecher’s hand,” Joseph said suddenly. “Did you do any tests to see if that was where and how it would fall if dropped from a man’s hand after he was shot?”

“An’ how would we do that, sir?” Perth asked dourly. “We can’t hardly ask somebody to shoot theirselves to show us!”

“Haven’t you ever seen suicides before?” Joseph was thinking rapidly. How on earth could he prove the truth he was more and more certain of with every moment? “Where do guns fall after the shock of death? A gun is heavy. If you shoot yourself in the head”—he carried on regardless of Connie’s gasp—“you fall sideways. Does your arm go down as his was, and the gun slither out of your fingers? For that matter, were there any fingerprints on it?”

“Oi dunno, sir,” Perth said sharply. “It was plain it was suicide to me, seeing as you yourself showed us that Sebastian Allard had been blackmailing him into doing all kinds o’ favors for him, things as he wouldn’t do o’ hisself, an’ ruining his name as a professor.”

“Yes, I know that,” Joseph said impatiently. “But I’m talking about proof. Think back on it now, with other possibilities in mind! Was that how a gun would fall?”

“Oi dunno, sir.” Perth looked troubled. “Oi suppose it were a bit . . . awkward. But that ain’t proof of anything. We dunno how he sat, nor what way he moved when he were shot. Begging your pardon, ma’am. Oi’d like to spare your feelings, but you ain’t making it possible.”

“I know that, Inspector,” she said quietly, but her face was ashen.

Joseph’s mind was racing urgently. “Surely, Inspector, if we could prove that the gun was in the bucket at the top of the drainpipe on the master’s roof, that would also prove that Dr. Beecher could not have got it to shoot himself?”

“Yes, sir, it would. But how are we going to prove that? Guns don’t leave nothin’ behind, an’ if it were there, likely it were wrapped in a cloth or something, to keep it from being seen, or getting wet.”

Wet. The idea was like a lightning flare. “We had rain the day Beecher was killed!” Joseph almost shouted the words. “If there was a cloth around the gun, then the whole thing would have blocked the drain! There are barrels at the bottom of the drainpipes in the Fellows’ Garden! If one of them is dry, that’s your proof! And he would choose that side, because the other overlooks the quad, where it was far more exposed.”

Perth stared at him. “Yes, sir, if it’s clear now, Oi’d take that as proof.” He started toward the door, barely waiting for them to follow. “We’d best go an’ look now, before it rains again an’ we’ve lost it all.”

It was a short walk back to St. John’s, and they did not speak as they dodged between pedestrians on the narrow footpaths. It was already getting warmer as the sun beat down on the stone.

They went in through the front gate past Mitchell, who looked startled and unhappy to see Perth again, then across the first quad, through the archway, and across the second. Then, since the gate was locked, as usual, they hurried through the master’s lodgings into the Fellows’ Garden.

Joseph felt his pulse quicken as they passed between the flowers, the perfume of them heavy in the stillness, and stopped in front of the first water barrel.

He glanced at Connie, and she back at him. His mouth was dry.

Perth looked into the barrel. “About a quarter full,” he announced. “Near as Oi can tell.”

Connie reached out and took Joseph’s hand, gripping him hard.

Perth moved to the middle barrel and looked in. He stood still, a little bent.

Connie’s fingers tightened.

Joseph felt his heart pounding.

“It’s dry,” Perth said huskily. He turned to look at Joseph, then Connie. “Better check the last one,” he said softly. “Oi think you’re right, Reverend. In fact, seems like for certain you are.”

“If it’s dry,” Joseph pointed out, “then there was something wrapped around the gun. It might still be there, especially if there’s still no water at all.”

Perth stared at him, then very slowly he turned away and bent to peer up the drainpipe. “Reckon as there is an’ all,” he said, pursing his lips. “Come most o’ the way down. Oi’ll have to see if Oi can get it the rest.”

“Can I help?” Joseph offered.

“No, thank you, sir. Oi’ll do it myself,” Perth insisted. He took his jacket off, reluctantly handing it to Joseph, then rolled up his shirtsleeve and poked his arm up the drainpipe.

There were several moments of frustrated silence while he wriggled without effort.

Connie walked over to the delphiniums and plucked out one of the canes that held them up. She returned with it and offered it to Perth.

“Thank you, madam,” he said, tight-lipped, and extended a dirty hand to take it from her. Three minutes later he retrieved a piece of canvas awning like that used on the punts at night. It was almost a foot square, and there were smudges of oil near the middle. Perth held it to his nose and sniffed.

“Gun oil?” Joseph asked huskily.

“Yes, sir, I reckon so. Suppose Oi’d better go an’ have a few words with Mr. Elwyn Allard.”

“I’ll come with you,” Joseph said without hesitation. He turned to Connie. “I think you’d better stay here.”

She did not argue. She let Joseph and Perth out of the side gate into the quad, then went back into the house.

Joseph followed Perth across toward Elwyn’s rooms. He knew it would be desperately painful, the more so because he could understand the passion of hatred, the compulsion that had drawn Elwyn to defend his mother from grief. And perhaps also the hunger within him to do something sufficiently powerful to make her grateful to him, even if she did not know why. Then she might emerge from her obsession with Sebastian long enough to acknowledge that she still had one live son who was equally worthy of her love.

They found Elwyn in Morel’s rooms. They were studying together, discussing alternative translations of a political speech. It was Morel who answered the door, startled to see Perth again.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” Perth said grimly. “Oi understand Mr. Allard is here.”

Morel turned just as Elwyn came up behind him.

“What is it?” Elwyn asked, glancing from Perth to Joseph and back again. If he was afraid, there was no sign of it in his face.

Joseph spoke before Perth could answer. “I think it would be a good idea if you were to come to the police station in town, Elwyn. There are a few questions you may be able to answer, and it would be better there.”

Perth glanced at him, a flicker of annoyance across his face, but he conceded.

“If you want,” Elwyn agreed, the tension greater in him now, too.

Morel looked at him, then at Joseph. Finally he turned to Elwyn. “Do you want me to come?”

“No, thank you, sir,” Perth cut him off. “This is a family matter.” He stepped back to block the stairway door. “This way, sir,” he directed Elwyn.

“What is it?” Elwyn asked halfway down the steps.

Perth did not answer until they had reached the bottom and were outside in the quad.

“Oi’m taking you in for questioning, sir, regardin’ the death o’ Dr. Beecher. Oi thought it easier for you if Mr. Morel didn’t have to know that at this point. If you give me your word to come without making a fuss, there’ll be no need for ’andcuffs or anything like that.”

Elwyn went white. “H-Handcuffs!” he stammered. He turned to Joseph.

“If you wish me to come with you, then of course I will,” Joseph offered. “Or if you prefer me to contact your parents, or a lawyer, then I’ll do that first.”

“I . . .” Elwyn looked lost, stunned, as if he had never considered the possibility of this happening. He shook his head, bewildered.

“Mr. Allard’s an adult, Reverend,” Perth said coldly. “If he wants a lawyer, then o’ course he can have one, but he don’t need his parents, nor you. An’ strictly speaking, sir, this in’t your concern. We’re grateful for your help an’ all you’ve done, but Mr. Allard ain’t going to give no trouble, so you could stay here at St. John’s. Mebbe you’d be more use if you told the master what’s happened, an’ sent for Mr. an’ Mrs. Allard.”

“Mrs. Thyer will already have done that,” Joseph pointed out, and saw the flash of annoyance on Perth’s face as he realized. “I’ll come with Elwyn, unless he would rather I didn’t.”

Elwyn hesitated, and it was that instant of indecision which made Joseph certain that he was guilty. He was frightened and confused, but he was not outraged.

Perth gave in, and they walked together into the shadow of the front gate, and out into the street on the far side.

At the police station it was a formal matter of charging Elwyn with the murder of Harry Beecher, to which he pleaded not guilty. On Joseph’s advice, he refused to say anything further until he had a lawyer with him.

Gerald and Mary Allard arrived at St. John’s an hour after Joseph returned. Mary was beside herself, her face contorted with fury. The moment Joseph walked into the sitting room at the master’s lodgings, she swung around from Aidan Thyer, to whom she had been speaking, and glared at Joseph. Her thin body looked positively gaunt in its tight black silk, like a winter crow.

“This is monstrous!” she said, her voice strident. “Elwyn couldn’t possibly have killed that wretched man! For heaven’s sake, Beecher murdered Sebastian! When he knew you were closing in on him, he took his own life. Everybody knows that. Let Elwyn go immediately—with an apology for this idiotic mistake. Now!”

Joseph stood still. What could he tell her? One of her sons was dead and the other guilty of murder, even if he had done it in mistaken revenge.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her—and he meant it profoundly, with a pain that throbbed inside him. “But they have proof.”

“Nonsense!” she spat. “It is totally absurd. Gerald!”

Gerald came to stand almost level with her. He looked wretched; his skin was pale and blotchy and his eyes blurred. “Really, for God’s sake, what is going on?” he demanded. “Beecher killed my son and now you have arrested my other son when quite obviously Beecher took his own life.” He put out a hand tentatively as if to touch Mary, but she pulled away from him.

“No,” Joseph said as gently as he could. He could not like Gerald, but he was fiercely sorry for him. “Beecher did not kill Sebastian. He was seen elsewhere at the time.”

“You are lying!” Mary accused him furiously. Her face was ashen, with scarlet splashes on her cheeks. “Beecher was your friend, and you are lying to protect him. Who on earth would see Beecher anywhere at five o’clock in the morning? Unless he was in bed with somebody? And if he was, then she is a whore, and her word is worth nothing!”

“Mary . . . ,” Gerald began, then faltered under her withering glance.

“He was out walking,” Joseph replied. “And the gun that killed Sebastian was hidden where only a limited number of people could have placed it or retrieved it.”

“Beecher!” Mary said with scalding triumph. “Naturally! It is the only answer that makes sense.”

“No,” Joseph told her. “He might have been able to hide it there, but he could not have retrieved it. Elwyn could have.”

“It’s still ridiculous,” she asserted, her whole body so tense she was shuddering. “If he had known where it was, he would have told the police! It might have led to the arrest of whoever killed Sebastian. Or are you insane enough to believe he did that, too?”

“No. I know he didn’t. I don’t know who did,” he admitted. “And I believe that Elwyn sincerely thought it was Beecher and that the law could not touch him.”

“Then he was justified!” she said savagely. “He killed a murderer!”

“He killed someone he thought was a murderer,” Joseph corrected. “And he was mistaken.”

“You’re wrong,” she insisted, but she turned away from him. Her voice rose, shrill with desperation, as if the world no longer made sense. “Beecher must have done it! Elwyn is morally innocent of any crime, and I shall see to it that he doesn’t suffer.”

Joseph looked past her at Aidan Thyer, and again the darkness filled his mind that it could have been he who was behind the document, and perhaps Sebastian’s death. He looked pale and tired today, the lines in his face deeper. Did he know about Connie and Beecher? Had he always known? Joseph stared at him, searching, but there was nothing in Thyer’s eyes to betray him.

“Dr. Reavley?” Gerald said tentatively. “Would you . . . would you do what you can for Elwyn? I mean, I wish he would . . . you are a person of standing here . . . the police will . . .” He floundered helplessly.

“Yes, of course I will,” Joseph agreed. “Do you have legal representation in Cambridge?”

“Oh, yes . . . I meant as a . . . I don’t know . . . as a friend . . .”

“Yes. If you wish, I’ll go right away.”

“Yes . . . please do. I’ll stay here with my wife.”

“I’m going to Elwyn!” Mary shouted at him.

“No, you are not,” Gerald answered, unusually firmly for him. “You are staying here.”

“I . . .” she began.

“You are staying here,” he repeated, catching hold of her arm as she lunged forward, and bringing her to a stop. “You have done enough harm already.”

She swiveled around and gaped at him in stupefaction, fury and pain struggling in her face. But she did not argue.

Joseph bade goodbye to them and went out again.

Perth placed no barrier to Joseph seeing Elwyn alone in the police cell. It was late afternoon, and the shadows were lengthening. The room smelled stale, of old fears and miseries.

Elwyn sat on one of the two wooden chairs and Joseph on the other, a bare, scarred table between them.

“Is Mother all right?” Elwyn asked as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. He was very pale, and the shadows around his eyes looked like bruises.

“She is very angry,” Joseph replied truthfully. “She found it hard to accept that you could be guilty of Beecher’s death, but when she could no longer avoid it, she believed that you had just cause and were morally innocent.”

The rigidity eased out of Elwyn’s shoulders. His skin looked oddly dead, as if it would be cold to touch.

“Your father will engage a lawyer for you,” Joseph went on. “But is there anything I can do, as a friend?”

Elwyn looked down at his hands on the table. “Look after Mother as much as you can,” he answered. “She cares so much. You wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t seen Aunt Aline. She is Mother’s older sister. She always does everything right, and first. And she boasts about it all the time. Her sons win everything, and she makes us feel as if we’ll never be as clever or as important. I think she’s always been like that. She made it . . .” He stopped suddenly, realizing it was all pointless now. He drew in his breath. And went on more quietly. “You cared about Sebastian; you saw the best in him. Go on caring, and don’t let them say he was a coward.” He looked up quickly, searching Joseph’s face.

“I’ve never heard anyone say he was a coward,” Joseph replied. “No one has even suggested it. He was arrogant and at times manipulative. He enjoyed the power his charm gave him. But I think, in time, even that will be forgotten, and people will choose to remember only what was good.”

Elwyn nodded briefly and brushed his hand across his face. He looked desperately weary.

Joseph ached with pity for him. Too much had been asked of him, far too much. His brother had been idolized, and Mary, in her grief, had expected Elwyn to ignore his own pain and carry hers for her, defend her from the truth and bear the weight of her emotions. And as far as Joseph knew, she had given him nothing back, not even her gratitude or her approval. Only now, when it was far too late, did she consider him and prepare to defend him. In a way it was her passion that had driven Elwyn to seek such a terrible revenge—as it turned out, a mistaken one.

The truth was still to be found. Someone else had put the gun in the drainpipe after killing Sebastian, someone with access to the master’s lodgings. Connie, in order to protect her reputation and thus all her marriage gave her? Or Aidan Thyer, because it was he whom Sebastian had seen on the Hauxton Road when the Lanchester crashed? Perhaps this was the last chance for Joseph to ask, and the moment when Elwyn had nothing left to lose and would tell him if he knew.

“Elwyn . . . ?”

Elwyn moved slightly in acknowledgment, but he did not look up.

“Elwyn, how did you find the gun?”

“What? Oh . . . I saw it.”

“Out of the upstairs window?”

“Yes. Why? What does it matter now?”

“It matters to me. Dr. Beecher didn’t put it there, did he? Was it Mr. Thyer—or Mrs. Thyer? Did you see?”

Joseph waited. It seemed almost a battle of wills.

“Yes, I did,” Elwyn said at last. “It was Dr. Beecher.”

“Then he did it for someone else,” Joseph told him, knowing the blow he was dealing him, but it was a truth he could not hide forever. “Dr. Beecher did not kill Sebastian. He couldn’t have. He was somewhere else, and he has a witness to prove it.”

Elwyn’s body was rigid, his eyes hollow, almost black in the fading light of the room. “Somewhere else?” he whispered in horror—but it was not disbelief. Joseph saw it in him the moment before he tried to mask it, and for an instant they saw in each other that terrible understanding that can never be taken back.

Then Joseph looked away, the knowledge burned into him. Elwyn had known Beecher had not killed Sebastian! Then why had he shot Beecher? To protect whom? Not Connie. Aidan Thyer? Had Sebastian seen Thyer on the Hauxton Road and told Elwyn before he was killed? Was that why Elwyn would not speak, even now? Was it even conceivable that he had killed Beecher on Thyer’s orders, rather than be killed himself? The thoughts whirled in Joseph’s mind like leaves in a storm—chaotic, battering. Was this all part of the plot John Reavley had discovered in Reisenburg’s document? And was it going to cost Elwyn Allard his life as well?

He closed his eyes. “I’ll help you if I can, Elwyn,” he said softly. “But so help me God, I don’t know how!”

“You can’t,” Elwyn whispered, covering his face with his hands. “It’s too late.”

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Joseph woke up late on Sunday morning, his mind still consumed with Elwyn’s last words to him and with the picture of the young man’s utter despair. And yet Elwyn was determined to hide some secret of Sebastian’s death, even at this cost. Joseph had turned it over and over in his wakeful hours, grasping and losing, finding nothing that made sense.

It was the second of August, and he still did not know who had killed his parents, what the document was, or what had happened to it. He had tried, and every answer had evaporated the moment he framed it. But John and Alys Reavley were dead, and so were Sebastian Allard, the German Reisenburg, and now Harry Beecher. And poor Elwyn might well be, when the fullness of the law had run its course. Joseph knew of no way to help any of it.

Tomorrow was a bank holiday; he should go back to St. Giles and spend it with Judith. He had been too overwhelmed in the last few days even to write to her, or to Hannah.

He got up slowly, shaved, and dressed, but he did not go down to the dining hall for breakfast. He was not hungry, and certainly he did not want to face Moulton or any other of his colleagues. He was not going to explain about Elwyn or discuss the matter. It was a consuming tragedy, but it was a private one. The Allards had more than enough to bear without the added scourge of other people’s speculation.

He spent the morning tidying up various books and papers, then writing a long letter to Hannah, which he knew said little of any meaning—it was simply a way of keeping in touch. He went to the eleven o’clock service in the chapel, and found it washed over him without giving him any of the deep comfort he needed. But he had not honestly expected that it would. Perhaps he knew the words so well that he no longer heard them. Even the perfection of the music seemed irrelevant to the world of everyday life, the disillusion and all the loss he knew of around him.

He saw Connie Thyer briefly in the afternoon, but she had only a few minutes to talk. Again she was overtaken by the growing hysteria of Mary Allard and the futility of attempting to help, and yet she was obliged by circumstances and her own sense of pity to try.

Joseph walked out of the front gate and ambled aimlessly along the nearly deserted streets of the town. All the shops were closed in Sabbath decency. The few people he saw were soberly dressed and merely nodded to him respectfully as they passed.

Without intending to, he found himself on Jesus Lane, and instinctively turned right down Emmanuel Road. He strolled past Christ’s Pieces and eventually across St. Andrews Street, along to Downing Street toward Corpus Christi and the river again.

He was not really thinking so much as letting things run through his mind. It was still teeming with questions, and he had no idea where to find a thread to begin untangling even one answer. Perhaps it began with who had killed Sebastian, and why.

The longest day of summer was well past, and by half past six he was tired and thirsty, and the sun was lowering in the west. Maybe he had come to the pub near the millpond intentionally, even if it had not been consciously in his mind. He would be able to sit down here and have supper and a long, cool drink. In time he could make the opportunity to talk with Flora Whickham again. If Sebastian had known anything about the crash of the Lanchester, then she would be the one person he might have told, other than Elwyn, and there was no chance that Joseph could draw it out of him. He was locked inside his own misery and grief, and perhaps fear as well. If he held that lethal knowledge, it could be the catalyst for his own death if he spoke it aloud to anyone. And why should he trust Joseph? So far he had succeeded in nothing except proving that Beecher did not kill Sebastian or take his own life.

The pub was quiet—a few older men sitting over pints of ale, faces grim, voices subdued. The landlord moved among them quietly, filling tankards, wiping tables. Even for Flora there were no jokes.

Joseph had cold game pie with fresh tomatoes, pickles, and vegetables, then raspberries and clotted cream. The other tables were empty and the air was already hazed with gold when at last he was able to gain Flora’s attention undivided. It was deserted now, and the landlord granted her an early evening.

She seemed quite willing to walk along the Backs under the trees in the fading light. There was no one on the river, at least on this stretch, and the leaves flickered in the barest breeze. One minute they were green and shadowed, the next opaque gold. There was little sound but a whispering of the wind, no voices, no laughter.

“Is it true that Sebastian’s brother killed Dr. Beecher?” Flora asked him.

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“In revenge over Sebastian?”

“No. Dr. Beecher didn’t kill Sebastian, and Elwyn knew that.”

She frowned, the golden light making her hair a halo around her troubled face. “Then why?” she asked. “He loved Sebastian, you know.” She shook her head a little. “He din’t hero-worship him; he knew his faults, even though he didn’t understand him much. They was a lot different.” She stared ahead of her at the light across the smooth sweep of the grass, the tiny motes of dust swirling in the air, the sun gilding the flat surface of the water. “If there’s going to be a war, an’ it seems loike from what people say that there is, then Elwyn would have gone to fight. He would have thought it was his duty an’ honor. But Sebastian would have done anything on earth to prevent it.”

“Did Elwyn know that?”

“Oi think so.” She waited a moment or two before she continued. “He din’t understand how much Sebastian cared, though. No one else did.”

“Not even Miss Coopersmith?” he asked gently. He did not know if Flora knew of her, but even if she had not, she surely never hoped for more from Sebastian than friendship, at the very most. The least would have been something grubbier and far less worthy.

“Oi think she knew something,” she said, looking away from him. “But it made her feel bad. She come to me after his death. She wanted me to say nothing, to save his good name, an’ Oi suppose his family from bein’ hurt.” Her mouth pulled a little at the corners, her face soft with pity. “He din’t love her, an’ she knew it. She thought he moight come to in time. Oi can’t think how awful that must be. But she still wanted to protect him.”

Joseph tried to imagine the same scene, the proud, almost plain Regina in her elegant mourning black, facing the barmaid with the oval face and the shining, almost pre-Raphaelite hair and asking her to keep silent over her friendship with Sebastian, to save his reputation. And perhaps something to salvage a little of her public pride, if not privately, to know he had preferred Flora as a confidante.

“Did he care about it so much?” he asked aloud, remembering his own conversation with Sebastian, only a few yards from here. It had been intense, there would be no question of that, but was it fears and dreams or a will to do anything? Flora had spoken of doing. “Was it really more than words?”

She stared at the grass in the fading light, and her voice was very low. “It were a passion in him,” she said. “In the end it were the most important thing in his loife . . . keep the peace, look after all this beauty what’s come to us from the past. He was terrified o’ war—not just the foighting an’ bombing.” She lifted her head a little and gazed across the shining river at the towers of the intricate, immeasurably lovely buildings and the limpid sky beyond. “The power to break an’ smash an’ burn, but the killing o’ the spirit most o’ all. When we’ve broke civilization, what have we got left inside us? The strength an’ the dreams to start over again? No, we haven’t. In smashing up all we got left o’ what’s wise, an’ lovely, an’ speaks to what’s holy inside us, we break ourselves, too. We get to be savages, but without the excuses that savages have for it.”

He heard Sebastian’s words echoed in hers, exactly as if it had been he again, walking silent-footed in this exquisite evening.

She turned to face him. “Do you understand?” she said urgently. It seemed to matter to her that he did.

For that reason he needed to answer her honestly. “That depends upon what you are prepared to do to avoid war.”

“Does it?” she demanded. “Ain’t it worth anything at all?”

“Did Sebastian think so?”

“Yes! Oi . . .” She seemed troubled, looking away from him. “What d’you mean, it depends? What could be worse’n that? He told me about some of the things in the Boer War.” She shuddered almost convulsively, hugging her arms around herself. “The concentration camps, what happened to some o’ the women an’ children,” she said in a whisper. “If you do that to people, what is there left for you when you come home, even if you won?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, finding himself cold as well. “But I’ve come to the point where I can’t believe that appeasement is the answer. Few sane people want to fight, but perhaps we have to.”

“Oi think mebbe that was what scared him.” She stood still on the grass. They were opposite Trinity; St. John’s was dark against the sunset, and there was only a tiny sliver of light on the water under the bridge. “He was terrible upset over something the last few days. He couldn’t sleep; Oi think he was afraid to. It was as if he had a pain inside him that were so deep he weren’t never free of it. After that shooting in Serbia ’e were so close to despair that Oi was scared for him . . . Oi mean real scared! It was as if for ’im there were nothing out there but darkness. Oi tried to comfort him, but Oi din’t manage.” She looked back at Joseph, her eyes full of grief. “Is it a wicked thing to say . . . sometimes Oi’m almost glad he din’t live to see this . . . ’cos we’re going to war, aren’t we? All of us.”

“I think so,” he said quietly. It seemed a ridiculous conversation with the tremendous sunset dying on the horizon, the evening air full of the perfume of grass, no sound but the murmur of leaves and a whirl of starlings thrown up against the translucent blue of the sky. Surely this was the very soul of peace, generations mounting to this pinnacle of civilization. How could it ever be broken?

“He tried so hard!” There were tears of anger and pity in her voice. “He belonged to a very big sort o’ club fighting for peace, all over the world. An’ he would have done anything for ’em.”

Something tugged at his mind. “Oh? Who were they?”

She shook her head quickly. “Oi dunno. He wouldn’t tell me. But they had big ideas he was terribly excited about, that would stop the war that’s coming now.” She knotted her hands together, her head bowed. “Oi’m glad he din’t have to see this! His dreams was so big, an’ so good, he couldn’t bear seeing ’em come to nothing. He went almost mad just thinking o’ it, before they killed him. Oi’ve thought sometimes if that was why they did it.” She looked up and searched Joseph’s face. “Do you think there’s anyone so wicked they’d want war enough to kill him in case he stopped it?”

He did not answer. His voice was trapped inside him, his chest so tight it filled him with pain. Was that the plot his father had stumbled on? Had Sebastian known about it all the time? What price was it they were prepared to pay for a peace that John Reavley had believed would ruin England’s honor?

Flora was walking again, down over the slope of the grass toward the river, perhaps because the light was fading so rapidly she needed to be away from the trees to see where she was going. She belonged in the landscape, her blemishless skin like gold in the last echoes of the light, her hair an aureole around her head.

He caught up with her. “I’ll walk back with you,” he offered.

She smiled and shook her head. “It ain’t late. If Oi can’t go through the college, Oi’ll walk along the street. But thank you.”

He did not argue. He must see Elwyn. He was the only one who could answer the questions that burned in his mind, and there was no time to wait. The darkness was not only in the sky and the air, but in the heart as well.

He did not go back to St. John’s but cut across the nearest bridge back through Trinity to the street again, and walked as fast as he could toward the police station. His mind was still whirling, his thoughts chaotic, the same questions beating insistently, demanding answers.

He had to see Elwyn, whomever he had to waken, whatever reason or excuse he had to give.

The streets were deserted, the lamps like uncertain moons shedding a yellow glare on the paving stones. His footsteps sounded hollow, rapid, slipping a little now and then.

He reached the police station and saw the lights were on. Good. There were people, perhaps still working. The doors were unlocked, and he went straight in. There was a man at the desk, but Joseph ignored him, hearing the voice calling after him as he strode into the room beyond, where Perth was remonstrating with Gerald and Mary Allard and a man in a dark suit who was presumably their solicitor.

They turned as Joseph came in. Perth looked harassed and so tired that his eyes were red-rimmed. “Reverend—” he started.

“I need to speak to Elwyn,” Joseph said, hearing a thread of desperation in his voice. If the solicitor got to him first, then he might never hear the truth.

“You can’t!” Mary refused savagely. “I forbid it. You have brought nothing but ill to my family, and—”

Joseph turned to Perth. “I think he may know something about Sebastian’s death. Please! It matters very much!”

They stared at him. There was no yielding in Mary’s face, and the solicitor moved half a step closer to her, as if in support. Gerald remained motionless.

“I think Sebastian knew about the death of my parents!” Joseph said, panic coursing through him, threatening to slip out of control. “Please!”

Perth made a decision. “You stay here!” he ordered the Allards and the solicitor. “You come wi’ me,” he said to Joseph. “If he wants to see you, then you can.” And without waiting for possible argument, he went out of the room with Joseph on his heels.

It was only a short distance to the cells where Elwyn was being held, and in a few minutes they were at the door. The key was on a hook outside. Perth took it off and inserted it into the lock and turned it. He pushed it open and stopped, frozen.

Joseph was a step behind him, and taller. He saw Elwyn over Perth’s shoulder. He was hanging from the bars of the high window, the noose around his neck made from the strips of his shirt plaited together, strong enough to hold his weight and strangle the air from his lungs.

Perth lunged forward, crying out, although barely a sound escaped his lips.

Joseph thought he was going to be sick. Emotion—pity and relief—overwhelmed him with a crushing force. He barely felt the tears running down his face.

Perth was scrambling to untie Elwyn, fingers clumsy, tearing at the knots, breaking his nails, his breath rasping in his throat.

Joseph saw the letter on the cot and went to it. There was nothing he or anyone could do for Elwyn. The envelope was addressed to him. He opened it, before Perth or anyone else should tell him he couldn’t.

He read it:Dear Dr. Reavley,Sebastian was dead when I got to his room that morning; the gun was on the floor. I knew he had killed himself, but I thought it was because he was afraid of going to war. He always believed we would. It looks now as if he was right. But I didn’t read his letter until afterward, when it was too late. All I could think of was hiding his suicide. Mother could not have lived with the knowledge that he was a coward. You know that, because you know her.I took the gun and hid it in the bucket at the top of the drainpipe in the master’s house. I never meant anyone to be blamed, but it all got away from me.Dr. Beecher must have realized. You heard what he said on the landing, about Sebastian and courage. By then I’d read his letter, but it was too late. I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry. There is nothing left now. At least this is the truth,Elwyn Allard

Wrapped inside it was another letter, on different paper, and in Sebastian’s hand:Dear Dr. Reavley,I thought I knew the answer. Peace—peace at any price. War in Europe could slaughter millions; what is one life or two to save so many? I believed that, and I would have given my own life gladly. I wanted to keep all the beauty. Perhaps it isn’t possible, and we’ll have to fight after all.I was in London when I heard the document had been stolen. I came back to Cambridge that night. They gave me a gun, but I made the caltrops myself, out of fence wire. Then it would look like an accident. Much better. It wasn’t difficult, just tedious.I went out on a bicycle the next day, left it in a field. It was all very simple—and more terrible than anything I could have imagined. You think of millions and the mind is devastated. You see two who lie broken, the spirit gone, and it tears the soul apart. The reality of blood and pain is so very different from the idea. I can’t live with who I am now.I wish it hadn’t been your parents, Joseph. I’m so sorry, sorrier than anything will heal.Sebastian

Joseph stared at the paper. It explained everything. In their own way Sebastian and Elwyn were so alike: blind, heroic, self-destructive, and in the end futile. The war would happen anyway.

Perth laid Elwyn on the floor, gently, a blanket under his head, as if it mattered. He was staring up at Joseph, his face gray.

“It’s not your fault,” Joseph said. “At least this way there doesn’t have to be a trial.”

Perth gasped. He tried to say something, but it ended in a sob.

Joseph put Elwyn’s letter back on the cot and kept Sebastian’s.

“I’ll go and tell them.” He found his mouth dry. What words could he possibly find? He walked out and back the short distance. Perth could send for somebody to help him.

As soon as he was in the room Mary stepped forward and drew in her breath to demand an explanation. Then she saw his face and realized with terror that there was something more hideously wrong.

Gerald moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Joseph said quietly. “Elwyn has admitted to killing Dr. Beecher, because Beecher realized the truth of Sebastian’s death.”

“No!” Mary said stridently, trying to raise her arms and snatch herself away from Gerald’s grip.

Joseph stood still. There was no way to avoid it. He felt as if he were pronouncing a sentence of death upon her. “Sebastian took his own life. No one murdered him. Elwyn did not want you to know that, so he took the gun and made it look like murder—to protect you. I’m sorry.”

She stood paralyzed. “No,” she said quite quietly. “That isn’t true. It’s a conspiracy!”

Gerald’s face puckered slowly as understanding broke something inside him. He let go of Mary and staggered backward to collapse onto one of the wooden chairs.

The solicitor looked totally helpless.

“No!” Mary repeated. “No!” Her voice rose. “No!”

Perth appeared in the doorway. “I’ve sent for a doctor. . . .”

Mary swung round. “He’s alive! I knew it!”

“No,” he said huskily. “For you. I’m sorry.”

She stood swaying.

Joseph reached to help her, and she lashed out at him as her legs buckled. She caught his face, but it was only a glancing blow.

“You’d better go, sir,” Perth said quietly. There was no anger in his face, only pity and an immense weariness.

Joseph understood and walked out into the cool, shrouding darkness and the protection of the night. He needed solitude.

The next day, August 3, Mitchell brought him the newspaper early.

“There’s going to be war, sir,” he said somberly. “No way we can help it now. Russia invaded Germany yesterday, and the Germans have gone into France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Navy’s mobilized, and troops are guarding the rail lines and ammunition supplies and so on. Reckon it’s come, Dr. Reavley. God help us.”

“Yes, Mitchell, I suppose it has,” Joseph answered. The reality of it choked like an absence of air, heavy and tight in his lungs.

“You’ll be going home, sir?” It was a statement.

“Yes, Mitchell. There really isn’t anything to do here for the moment. I should be with my sister.”

“Yes, sir.”

Before leaving he called briefly on Connie. There was very little to say. He could not tell her about Sebastian, and anyway, when he looked at her, he thought of Beecher. He knew what it was like to lose the only person you could imagine loving, and exactly how it felt to face the endless stretch ahead. All he could do was smile at her and say something about the war.

“I suppose many of them will enlist as officers,” she said quietly, her eyes misted over, staring at the sunlight on the walls of the garden.

“Probably,” he agreed. “The best—if it comes to that.”

She turned to look at him. “Do you think there’s any hope it won’t?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

He stayed only a moment longer, wanting to say something about Beecher, but she understood it all. She had known him perhaps even better than he had, and would miss him even more. In the end he simply said goodbye and went to find the master to say goodbye to him for the time being.

Afterward he had barely reached the center of the outer quad when he met Matthew coming in through the main gate. He looked pale and tired, as if he had been up most of the night. His fair hair was a little sun-bleached across the front, and he was wearing uniform.

“Do you want a lift home?” he asked.

“Yes . . . please.” Joseph hesitated only a moment, wondering if Matthew wanted a cup of tea or anything else before he went on the last few miles. But the answer was in his face.

Ten minutes later they were on the road again. It hardly seemed different from any summer weekend. The lanes were thick with leaf, the harvest fields ripe, here and there stippled with the burning scarlet of poppies. The swallows were gathering.

With a heavy heart Joseph told Matthew what had happened the previous night. He could remember Elwyn’s letter, and he still had Sebastian’s. He read it as they drove. It needed no explanation, no added comments. When he had finished he folded it and put it back in his pocket. He looked at Matthew. His brother’s face was heavy with pain, and anger for the sorrow and the futility of it. He glanced sideways at Joseph for a moment. It was a look of compassion, wordless and deep.

“You’re right,” Matthew agreed quietly, swinging round the curve of the road into St. Giles and seeing the street ahead of them deserted. “There’s nothing either of us can do now. Poor devils. All so bloody pointless. I suppose you’ve still got no idea what happened to the document?”

“No,” Joseph said bleakly. “I’d have told you.”

“Yes, of course. And I still don’t know who’s behind it . . . unless it is Aidan Thyer, as you suggest. Damn! I liked him.”

“So did I. I’m beginning to realize how little that means,” Joseph said ruefully.

Matthew shot him a glance as he turned right off the main street toward the house. “What are you going to do now? Archie’ll stay at sea as usual. He won’t have a choice. And I’ll keep on with the SIS, naturally. But what about you?” His brow was furrowed slightly, concern in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Joseph admitted.

Matthew pulled the car up in front of the house, its tires crunching on the gravel. A moment later Judith opened the front door, relief flooding her face. She took the steps in two strides and hugged Joseph and then Matthew before turning to go back inside.

Walking out over the soft grass in the garden under the apple trees, they told her about Elwyn and Sebastian. She was stunned; rage, pity, confusion washed over her like storm waves, leaving her dizzy.

It was a late and somber lunch, eaten in an agreed silence, each willing to be alone with his or her thoughts. It was one of those strange, interminable occasions when time stands still. The sound of cutlery on the china of a plate was deafening.

Today, tomorrow, one day soon, Joseph would have to make his decision. He was thirty-five. He did not have to fight. He could claim all kinds of exemptions and no one would object. Life had to continue at home: there were sermons to be preached, people to be christened or married or buried, the sick and the troubled to be visited.

There were raspberries for dessert. He ate his slowly, savoring the sweetness of them, as if he would not have them again. He felt as if Matthew and Judith expected him to say something, but he had no idea what, and he was saved by Matthew interrupting his indecision.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what armaments we have, not in detail. I do know it’s not enough. We may be asked to give up anything we have that works. I don’t know if anyone will want them, but they might.”

“It’s not going to be that bad! Is it?” Judith looked very pale, her eyes frightened. “I mean . . .”

“No, of course it isn’t!” Joseph rushed in. He glared warningly at Matthew.

“They may ask us for guns,” Matthew said stiffly. “I shan’t be home, and I don’t know whether you will or not.” He looked at Joseph, pushing his chair back as he spoke, and standing up. “There are at least two shotguns, one new one and an old one that may not be up to much. And there’s the punt gun.”

“You could stop an elephant with that!” Judith said wryly. “But only if it was coming at you across the fens and you just happened to be out punting at the time.”

Matthew pushed the chair back in at the table. “I’ll get it out anyway. It’ll probably be of use to someone.”

Joseph went with him, not out of any interest in guns—he loathed them—but for something to do. “You don’t need to frighten her like that!” he criticized. “For God’s sake, use some sense!”

“She’s better off knowing,” was all Matthew replied.

The guns were kept in a locked cupboard in the study. Matthew took the key from his ring and opened it. Inside were the three guns he had mentioned, and a very old target pistol. He looked at them one by one, breaking the shotguns and examining them.

“Have you decided yet what you’re going to do?” he asked, squinting down one of the barrels.

Joseph did not answer. The thoughts in his head had been forming into immovable shapes for far longer than he had realized. They had already cut off every line of retreat from the inevitable. Now he was forced to acknowledge it.

Matthew looked down the other barrel, then straightened the gun again. He picked up the second gun and broke it. “You haven’t much time, Joe,” he said gently. “It won’t be more than another day or two.”

Joseph hoped he might be guessing. It was a last grasp at innocence, and it failed. He understood Sebastian’s fear. Perhaps that was what he had seen in him that had found the deepest echo within himself, the helpless pity for suffering he could not reach, even to ease. It overwhelmed him. The anger of war horrified him, the ability to hate, to make one’s life’s aim the death of another . . . for any cause at all. If he became part of it, it would drown him.

Matthew picked up the big punt gun. It was an awkward thing, long-barreled and muzzle-loaded. It did not break in the middle like a shotgun, but it was lethal over the short distances at which it could be aimed and used.

“Damn!” he said irritably, peering up the barrel. “I can’t see a thing! Whoever designed these bloody guns should be made to look after them. I don’t know whether it’s working or not. Do you remember the last time anybody used it?”

Joseph was not listening. His mind was back in the hospital where he had started his medical training—the injuries, the pain, the deaths he could not prevent.

“Joe!” Matthew said savagely. “Damn it! Pay attention! Pass that rod and let me see if this is clean or not!”

Joseph passed over the rod obediently, and Matthew rammed it up the barrel of the punt gun.

“There’s something up here,” he said impatiently. “It’s . . .” Very slowly he lowered his hands, still holding the gun. “It’s paper,” he said huskily. “It’s a roll of paper.”

Joseph felt the sweat break out on his skin and go cold. “Hold the gun!” he ordered him, taking the rod from Matthew and beginning to tease very gently. He found his hands were shaking, as was the barrel of the punt gun in Matthew’s grip.

It took him nearly ten minutes to prise the paper out without tearing it, and then unroll it and hold it open. It was in German. They read it together.

It was an agreement between the kaiser and King George V, the terms of which were shatteringly simple. Britain would stand aside and allow Germany to invade and conquer Belgium, France, and of course Luxembourg, saving the hundreds of thousands of lives that would be lost in trying to defend them.

In return, a new Anglo-German empire would be formed with unassailable power on land and sea. The riches of the world would be divided between them: Africa, India, the Far East, and best of all, America.

The surgery of war would be swift and almost painless, the reward beyond measure. The document was signed by the kaiser, and obviously had been on its way to the king for countersignature.

“God almighty!” Matthew said hoarsely. “It’s . . . it’s monstrous! It’s . . .”

“It’s what Father died to prevent,” Joseph said, tears choking his voice. It was the one thing he had believed that had stood fast and whole through all the loss. His father had been right. Nothing had misled or deceived him; he had been right. It spread a peace through Joseph, a kind of certainty at the core. “And perhaps he succeeded,” he went on aloud. “There will be war. God knows how many will die, but England gave her word to Belgium, and she will not betray it. That would be worse than death.”

Matthew rubbed his hands over his face. “Who’s behind it?” He was weary, but in him, too, there was something stronger within, a doubt, a vulnerability gone.

“I don’t know,” Joseph said. “Someone in Germany close to the kaiser, very clever, with a great deal of vision and power. And more importantly to us, someone here in England, too, who was going to get it to the king—and damn nearly did.”

“I know.” Matthew shook his head. “It could be anyone. Chetwin . . . Shearing himself, I suppose. Even Sandwell! I don’t know, either.”

“Or anyone else we haven’t even thought of,” Joseph added.

Matthew stared at him. “But whoever it is, he’s brilliant and ruthless, and he’s still out there.”

“But he’s failed. . . .”

“He won’t accept failure.” Matthew bit his lip, his voice tight, his face almost bloodless. “A man who could dream up this won’t stop here. He’ll have contingency plans, other ideas. And he’s far from alone. He has allies, other naive dreamers, wounded idealists, the disaffected, the ambitious. We never know who they are until it’s too late. But by God, I’ll put every spare minute I’ve got into hunting him down. I’ll follow every trail, wherever it goes, whoever it touches, until I’ve got him. If we don’t, he’ll destory everything we care about.”

Something in the words crystalized the knowledge in Joseph’s mind, and it became undeniable, sealed forever. Whatever he felt, regardless of mind or heart, horror or his own weakness to achieve anything of use, he must join the war. If honor, faith, any values, human or divine, were to be kept, then there was no escape. He would do everything he could. He would learn to preserve his emotions apart, not to feel the rage or the pity; then he could survive.

“I’ll join the army,” he said aloud. “As a chaplain.” It was an absolute statement, no question, no alteration possible. “I won’t fight, but I’ll be there. I’ll help.”

Matthew smiled, his face softening to an extraordinary gentleness. In his eyes was something that Joseph recognized with amazement as pride.

“Thought you would,” Matthew said quietly.

Somewhere far away in the house the telephone rang.

The light outside was softening, turning hazy.

“What are we going to do with this?” Matthew asked, looking at the document.

“Put it back in the gun,” Joseph answered without hesitation. “We may want it one day. No one would believe its existence without seeing it. They didn’t find it here before, and they looked. That’s as safe as anywhere. Disable the gun where they’ll see it, and then no one will think to use it.”

Matthew regarded the old gun ruefully. “I hate to do that,” he said, but even as he spoke, he removed the firing pin.

Joseph rolled up the document again and pushed it down the barrel, using the rod to jam it in as far as possible.

They had just finished when Judith came to the door, her face pale.

“Who was it?” Joseph asked.

“It was for Matthew,” she said a little jerkily. “It was Mr. Shearing. Sir Edward Grey said in Parliament that if Germany invades Belgium, then Great Britain will honor the treaty to safeguard Belgian neutrality and we will be at war. He wants you back as soon as we know.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It will happen, won’t it?”

“Yes,” Joseph answered. “It will.” He glanced at Matthew.

Matthew nodded.

“We found the document Father died for,” he said to Judith. “You’d better come to the sitting room and we’ll tell you about it.”

She stood motionless. “What is it?” she demanded. “Where was it? Why didn’t we find it before?”

“In the punt gun,” Joseph told her. “It was every bit as terrible as he said . . . more.”

“I want to see it!” she said without moving.

Matthew drew in his breath.

“I want to!” she repeated.

It was Joseph who went to the gun and very carefully started to lever the paper out again. Matthew held the gun to help him. Finally he had it. He unrolled it and opened it for Judith.

She took it in her hands and read it slowly.

Instead of fear in her face there was a kind of fierce, hurting pride. The tears stood out in her eyes, and she ignored them as they slid down her cheeks. She looked up at them. “So he was right!”

“Oh, yes!” Joseph found his own voice choked. “Typical of Father—he understated it. It would have changed the whole world and made England the most dishonorable nation in the annals of history. It might have saved lives, or not—but only in the short term. In the end the cost would be beyond counting or measuring. There are things we have to fight for. . . .”

She nodded and turned away, walking back to the sitting room. The sun was sinking already, casting long shadows.

Joseph and Matthew carefully replaced the treaty yet again, then went after her.

They sat quietly together, remembering, while the light lasted, all the moments they had shared, past laughter, the happier times woven into the fabric of memory to shine in the darkness ahead.

Later Shearing telephoned again. Matthew answered it and listened.

“Yes,” he said at length. “Yes, sir. Of course. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.” He hung up and turned to Joseph and Judith. “Germany has declared war on France—and is massed to invade Belgium. When it happens, we will send Germany an ultimatum, which, of course, they will refuse. By midnight tomorrow we shall be at war. Grey said, ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’ “

“Perhaps not.” Joseph took a deep breath. “We shall have to carry our own light . . . the best we can.”

Judith buried her head in his shoulder, and Matthew reached out around her to take Joseph’s hand and grip it.

By Anne Perry

Featuring William Monk

The Face of a Stranger

A Dangerous Mourning

Defend and Betray

A Sudden, Fearful Death

The Sins of the Wolf

Cain His Brother

Weighed in the Balance

The Silent Cry

A Breach of Promise

The Twisted Root

Slaves of Obsession

Funeral in Blue

Death of a Stranger

Featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt

The Cater Street Hangman

Callander Square

Paragon Walk

Resurrection Row

Bluegate Fields

Rutland Place

Death in the Devil’s Acre

Cardington Crescent

Silence in Hanover Close

Bethlehem Road

Highgate Rise

Belgrave Square

Farriers’ Lane

The Hyde Park Headsman

Traitors Gate

Pentecost Alley

Ashworth Hall

Brunswick Gardens

Bedford Square

Half Moon Street

The Whitechapel Conspiracy

Southampton Row

Seven Dials

Copyright © 2003 by Anne Perry