A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel

he continued to struggle with the problem of where to begin. She had no authority to ask questions, no physical material to examine—not even the body, at the moment, although that would no doubt be discovered eventually. It could not be far away because no one could possibly go far from the house, let alone with a body.

She would have searched Ballin’s luggage, but he had brought nothing with him except a small hand case. Why not? Presumably he’d had cases with him in the carriage that had been overturned. Presumably they were too heavy to carry in the snow. What had he brought in his hand case? At the very least a razor and a hairbrush? A clean shirt and personal linen? It meant that there were at least a few things that she could look at to get some sense of the man: quality, use, place where they were made or bought, anything that told of his personality or his past.

What would Thomas have done? Well, for one thing, being a policeman, he would have had the authority to question people.

She would probably learn nothing if she went to Ballin’s room and searched, but she would be remiss not to try. She could even ask one of the servants if they had noticed anything. But better to look herself first.

She knew where the other members of the cast had rooms, so she could deduce which Ballin’s must be. The family slept in a different wing. Of course it would be possible to misjudge and end up in Douglas Paterson’s room, but she thought his was a little separated from the main guest wing, and so his room ought to be easy enough to avoid. It was really a matter of not being caught by a housemaid.

Ballin’s room turned out to be a very pleasant one, overlooking the snow-smothered garden. It was not as large as the one she shared with Joshua, but then Joshua was the most important guest. Ballin had been no more than a stranger in trouble, given shelter because the storm had left him stranded.

Or was that all it had been?

She stood at the window and stared out at the white lawn and the trees so heavily laden as to be almost indistinguishable one from another. Not a soul had passed that way in the last twenty-four hours, at the very least, perhaps not since the first storm struck.

She looked around the surfaces of the dressing table and the tallboy, the two chests of drawers. A hairbrush, razor, and strop, as she’d expected, but no pieces of paper, no notes. She turned to the bed. It was slightly crumpled, but not slept in. The sheets were still tucked tightly at the sides. He had lain on it, but not in it.

She looked at it more closely, but there were no pieces of paper, even between the folds of the sheets, or under the pillows.

She tried the drawers, and found only clean, folded underwear, presumably mostly that lent to him by Netheridge. There were two shirts hanging in the wardrobe, and a jacket, also borrowed. Ballin had died wearing his own clothes: the black suit and high-collared white shirt in which he had arrived. There was nothing in any of the pockets of the clothes in the wardrobe.

Where else was there to look?

There was a carafe of water on the bedside table, and an empty glass. She could not tell if he had drunk anything because the glass was dry, but the carafe was little more than half-full.

She bent and looked to see if anything could have fallen onto the floor and slid under the bed. She lifted the heavy drapes, but found nothing, not even dust.

Lastly she looked at the coal bucket by the fire, and into the cold grate. If she had received a note to keep an appointment at night, secretly, she would have burned it. It was the easiest and surest destruction.

There was a faint crust of gray ash at the edge of the cinders. But whatever the paper was it had burned through and curled over, subsiding on itself. If she touched it at all, even breathed on it, it would collapse into a heap of ash. However, she was sure it must have been a small note. But there was no way to prove it.

So Ballin had received the invitation, or the summons. The other person had come prepared, carrying the weapon.

She stiffened as she heard footsteps outside in the corridor, and a maid’s laughter. Surely Mr. Netheridge would have told the servants not to come into Ballin’s room?

Or would he? Would he even think of it? He had probably never experienced anything to do with murder before. Very few people had. Caroline must do something before the maid disturbed anything, and then tell Mr. Netheridge that the room ought to remain untouched.

She opened the door and came face-to-face with one of the housemaids, a tall girl with dark hair. The girl gave a little shriek and stepped backward sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Caroline apologized. “I wanted to make sure that nothing had been disturbed here. Mr. Netheridge requests that you do not come into this room, under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

“Yes … yes, ma’am,” the girl said obediently.

Caroline wondered whether she should ask Eliza to lock the door. But if she did that, the maids would wonder where Ballin was. Perhaps it could be explained as an infectious disease? Would that be enough, or could curiosity still get the better of someone, driving them to look around the room?

Then again, how much did it matter? There was nothing in there, except the curled-over ash remnant of a note, which no one could read now anyway.

“Thank you.” She smiled at the girl and then came out into the passage, closing the door behind her. She would find Eliza immediately and apologize for giving her staff orders, and explain to her the necessity.

Eliza looked surprised when Caroline told her. “I … I never thought of it,” she admitted. “Mr. Netheridge thought it better not to tell them anything, which I find very difficult. They will not see Mr. Ballin, and they know perfectly well that he cannot have left. No one could.” She bit her lip. “If they ask me, and the butler certainly will, what should I say?”

“I think perhaps that Mr. Ballin is ill and must not on any account be disturbed. Also that we are not certain if what he has might be contagious. But I would add that only if necessary.”

“Then why do we not feed him?” Eliza said reasonably. “Even the sick need to eat and drink, and also have their bed linen changed.”

“Perhaps we may know the truth before such an issue is obvious,” Caroline said gravely. “If not, perhaps then it will be time to tell them the truth we have.”

“Where could he be?” Eliza’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Well, he has not returned to a mysterious coffin somewhere,” Caroline assured her. “But we do need to know as much of the truth as possible, for our own safety, and to prevent any further tragedies.”

“Will it prevent tragedy?” Eliza looked at her candidly. “One of us here in this house must have killed him. There’s no one else, and there is no possibility whatever that it was suicide or accident. He could not have done that to himself; even I can see that. Who carries around a broom handle carved to a spear point in the middle of the night, unless they intend to kill someone?”

“Nobody,” Caroline agreed. “And we will all be afraid and wondering until we find out who did it. Do you think there is any chance we can forget it and carry on as normal until the snow thaws and the police can arrive, and ask us all the same questions we can ask now, except days later when we don’t remember anything as sharply?”

“No. So what can we do?”

“There are three things we can agree about,” Caroline answered. “Who had the ability to kill him: that is, the means? Who had the opportunity: In other words, where were we all at the time it must have happened? And who would want to: Who believed they had not only a reason, but no better way of dealing with it?”

Eliza frowned. “Can we really find all that out?”

“We can certainly try,” Caroline said with more conviction than she felt. “We know that Mr. Ballin was killed some time after we parted to go to bed, and when I went down again to fetch the note I had left behind on the stage.”

“What times were those?” Eliza asked. They were standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, talking quietly. No one else seemed to be around. Housemaids were busy. Footmen must have been in the servants’ quarters and would come only if the doorbell rang, which at the moment was impossible. Kitchen staff would be busy preparing luncheon for the household, which—including servants—was well over twenty people.

“We went to bed at quarter to eleven,” Caroline answered. “I went down to get my note just before midnight.”

“An hour and a quarter, roughly,” Eliza said. “Everyone would be in their bedrooms, or say they were. How does one prove that?”

“Well, I know where Joshua was and he knows where I was,” Caroline reasoned. “You and Mr. Netheridge could account for each other, as could Mercy and James.” She stopped, seeing a shadow in Eliza’s face. “What is it?” she said more gently.

“Charles and I do not share a bedroom,” Eliza confessed, as if it were some kind of sin. She looked deeply uncomfortable. She seemed to be struggling for an explanation, but no words came.

“I’m sorry,” Caroline apologized. “In a house this size of course you would not need to. In the later years of my first marriage, I did not share a bedroom with my husband.” She smiled briefly; the memory no longer hurt. “He was very restless. I share with Joshua now because we’re both happy doing so, and also we do not have the means to do otherwise most of the time, especially when we are traveling.”

Eliza smiled and blinked. “You are very generous. It must be an interesting life, going to so many places, meeting people, performing different plays. You can never be bored.”

“I’m not.” Caroline wondered how much of the truth to tell. “But I am quite often lonely, because I am not part of the cast.”

Eliza looked amazed. “But you are. You are involved.”

“Not usually. This is in many senses an amateur production … or, it was. We were to make our own scenery, and I was taught how to work the lights. In an ordinary professional production there is no work for me, except sometimes to help Joshua learn his lines. I speak the other parts to cue him. Otherwise I have nothing in particular to do, and we are away from home a lot.”

“But you are happy,” Eliza said, smiling. “I can see it in your face, and in the way you look at him, and he at you.”

Caroline wanted to thank her, make some gracious acknowledgment, but the sudden rush of gratitude she felt had brought tears to her eyes and a tightness to her throat that made it momentarily impossible to speak. She had risked so much in marrying Joshua: the horror of her family, the outrage of her former mother-in-law, the loss of most of her friends and certainly any place in the society to which she had been accustomed through most of her life. She had been respectable, and financially safe. Now she was neither. But she was certainly happier, and she was very aware that Joshua loved her in a way Edward Ellison never had.

She also realized that Eliza Netheridge had never experienced those gifts of happiness and love. Even now she felt a stranger in her own house, as if her mother-in-law still watched her every choice with disapproval.

Caroline made a sudden, rash decision. “Eliza, I wonder if you can help me. We may at the very least be able to make certain that some among us could not have killed Mr. Ballin. I imagine it could not have been any of the servants, but let us save them from police questions and suspicion by making certain ourselves. I have no authority and no right to ask them, but you do. If you are careful, and precise, you may be able to find some sort of proof that clears them all. Especially if you promise them that whatever they were doing, there will be no blame in this instance. You may need to tell them that something very unpleasant occurred, and it is absolutely necessary that they tell the truth, whatever that may be.”

Eliza took a deep breath, but she seemed perfectly steady. “Yes, of course I can do that,” she said with determination. “I shall begin immediately. Will you speak to your own people?”

Caroline smiled at the thought that the players could be seen as “her” people. “Yes. I’ll begin with Mercy and James. That should be easy enough.”

But it was not. She found Mercy in the writing room busy with what looked like a pile of letters. Caroline was quite blunt about what she was asking, and her reasons. She had already decided that an attempt at deviousness would be highly unlikely to fool anyone.

“Between half past ten and midnight?” Mercy repeated, blinking rapidly. “I was in my bedroom, reading a book for a little while, then I went to sleep. You can’t imagine that I killed Mr. Ballin. I wouldn’t have the strength, apart from the … the violence of mind.”

“No, I didn’t really think you did,” Caroline agreed. “But I have to ask everyone, or else it will look as if I think only certain people are guilty.”

Mercy smiled. “I can see how that would be very awkward. Why do you want to know? The police will ask all those questions anyway. Why are you bothering?”

Caroline had already prepared an answer to that question, as it was one she had anticipated. “Don’t you think it would be much less unpleasant if we can tell them that some of us could not be guilty, before they have to ask? You never know what else they may inquire into, once they start.”

Mercy looked appalled.

“Not that it would be criminal,” Caroline went on. “Just private.”

“Of course. Yes, you are absolutely right.” Mercy smiled with considerable charm, and a degree of honesty. “I underestimated you, Mrs. Fielding. I apologize.”

“Think nothing of it,” Caroline said airily, convinced that Mercy would do that anyway. “Will James say the same thing?”

“Ah … well.” Mercy cleared her throat. “That’s it, you see. He was restless and he couldn’t sleep. He said he was going to rehearse somewhere where he wouldn’t disturb me. So, no, he won’t—not exactly the same thing, that is. But it would mean the same, of course.”

“Rehearse,” Caroline repeated. “Are you avoiding saying that he went back to the stage?”

Mercy was perfectly still. “Well …,” she breathed out. “I don’t know where he went, do I? I was here. He may have gone to the billiard room. There would’ve been nobody there at that hour.”

“Did he say where he was going?” Caroline pressed.

“I don’t think so.”

And that was all she could learn. She knew that persisting with Mercy would only make an enemy of her. And of course, if she did not know for certain where James had been, then in reverse, he did not know where Mercy had been, either. That sort of testimony covered both people, or neither. She thanked Mercy and went to look for James.

She found him in the billiard room alone, practicing sinking the balls into the pockets around the table. She bluntly asked him where he had been at the time Ballin had been killed.

“Probably asleep in my bed,” he answered, putting the billiard cue down across the table and staring at her. “Why? Do you think I killed him?”

It was a far more aggressive answer than she had expected, and it was interesting, as if he had foreseen the question and was prepared for it. Perhaps he was a better actor than she had given him credit for.

“I find it difficult to think of any of us doing it,” she replied. “But the police may not have the same trouble. They don’t know us, and to them we are a band of actors, traveling people with no roots and no respectable profession. And it is either one of us who murdered him, or one of the highly respectable Yorkshire people, citizens of Whitby whom they have known for years. What do you think they will be disposed to believe, James?”

His face blanched. For a moment he held on to the edge of the table as if he needed it for support.

“I think you take my point,” she said quietly. “Mercy said you took your script and went out of the bedroom to practice, so as not to disturb her. The natural place to do that would be the stage. Is that where you went? If you did, you had better say so now. To lie about it, and get caught later, could be seen as damning.”

“I … er …” He blinked and shook his head, as if he were plagued by flies buzzing around him. “I … went to the stage, but it was cold and rather eerie there by myself. I decided not to bother, and I brought the script back and sat in the library. I didn’t really want to rehearse so much as think of some way of making my part more heroic at the end. Ballin wasn’t in the corridor then, I swear. I could hardly have failed to see him if he had been. Not if he was lying on the floor, as you say.”

“No,” she agreed. “Thank you. I don’t suppose you asked a footman to bring you a drink, or anything?”

“In the middle of the night?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve got more sense than that. I don’t want to be on the wrong side of Netheridge.”

She believed him. “Thank you.”

“Mrs. Fielding?”

She was almost to the door. She turned. “Yes?”

“Who the devil was Ballin? Does anyone know? And where’s his body gone to?” His face was white in the pale daylight of the room.

“Someone must know who he is,” she answered him. “You don’t sharpen a broom handle into a dagger to kill a stranger in the middle of the night, especially when you are snowed in with an entire group of people.”

He put his hands over his face. “Oh, God! And the body?”

“I have no idea. Have you?”

“Me? No!”

“I thought not. Thank you, James.”

Vincent Singer was no more help. Caroline went to him next because it was the encounter she looked forward to least and she just wanted to get it over with. She had little confidence that she could persuade him to talk, still less that she could trick him into saying anything he did not wish to, certainly not to reveal anything that would betray a vulnerability on his part.

She found him in the library, reading Netheridge’s copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

“Decay always fascinates me,” he observed, putting a piece of paper into the book to mark his place before closing it. “You look troubled. Are you also afraid that Ballin is perched upside down in the rafters somewhere, waiting for nightfall to come and suck our blood?”

“I think he is far more likely to rot in the warmth, and attract rats,” she said tartly.

He gave a long sigh. “What a curious woman you are, all sweetness and respectability one moment, and violent imagery of the charnel house the next.”

“If you think that is surprising, then you know very little of women,” she retorted. “Especially respectable ones. We usually only faint to get out of a situation we find embarrassing. I am surprised so many people believe it. Well, that, and on occasion, there are those who lace their corsets too tight.”

“How extremely uncomfortable, and faintly ridiculous,” he replied. “Though I don’t believe that’s what you came to say. You have a look of purpose about your face. No doubt it is a grim purpose.”

“Extremely. The police will come and investigate Mr. Ballin’s death, when the snow thaws. I think it would be very much more pleasant for us if we could solve it before then.”

Vincent’s eyes widened. “Really? And how do you propose to do that? I do remember you saying, several times, that your son-in-law was some kind of policeman. Did you take lessons from him?” He made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

She sat down in the chair opposite him. “If you disagree, I am perfectly happy to see if we can clear everyone else, Vincent. It may be one of the servants, although I think that is very unlikely. Or one of the Netheridges, of course. Whom do you think the police will suspect? Mr. Netheridge, owner of the coal mine and the jet factory and philanthropist to half the county, or someone from a group of London actors here to perform Dracula for Christmas?”

Vincent stared at her, his face pale and tight as he realized immediately the truth of what she said.

“You have a tongue like a knife, Caroline,” he observed, but his voice was shaking, in spite of his usual inner control. “I can’t prove where I was at the time he was killed, which was obviously after we all said good night, and whenever it was you went back to the theater.”

“Midnight,” she told him.

“I was in bed, but no one can prove it for me. Thank God I won’t be the only one in that situation.”

The next person Caroline saw was Douglas Paterson. She found him on the landing, staring out at the snow. He turned as he heard her footsteps. He looked withdrawn and anxious.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fielding,” he said, almost without expression. “Not long till dark again. Do you think we’ll have more snow tonight?”

She stood beside him and looked at the sky. The light was fading quite rapidly. It was barely past the shortest day of the year, but there was considerable color in the sunset. Banners of cloud streamed across the west, and the red of the sinking sun blushed on the snow.

“No, I don’t,” she answered. “I think we might even get a thaw soon, at least enough to allow people to reach us, perhaps in time for Christmas.”

“You can’t put on that play now, you know,” he said with just a trace of satisfaction.

Caroline was caught by an intense desire to both protect Alice’s dreams, and deflate this pompous young man.

“Not here,” she agreed. “At least certainly not this Christmas. But she has made such a good job of it that I think we may wish to perform it some time in the provinces, or even in London. After all, Dracula is a most popular work all over the country. And we could always bring it back to Yorkshire at a more appropriate time.” She saw his face pale and smiled at him sweetly. “Knowing how you love Alice and want her to be happy, I hope that is of comfort to you.”

He looked back at her with a fury that he was momentarily helpless to express.

“I am hoping we may forestall the police, at least to some extent,” she continued. “They are bound to ask us all where we were when Mr. Ballin was killed. Some of us are fortunate enough to have been with someone else at the time, and therefore our whereabouts are vouched for. Would that be true for you as well?”

She saw the anger turn to satisfaction in his eyes.

“Yes. I was with Miss Rye,” he said instantly.

There was nothing funny in their situation; still, she could not help allowing her eyebrows to rise as if in horror, though in truth she was not at all surprised. “Really?” she said in a breathless whisper. “And will Miss Rye be willing to say that publicly, do you suppose? I doubt Alice will be amused, and Mr. and Mrs. Netheridge will be most displeased indeed.”

His satisfaction vanished. He blushed scarlet with embarrassment and real, deep outrage.

“Your mind is most … deplorable, Mrs. Fielding!” His voice shook. “I dare say it is the company you keep.”

“I was with my husband, Mr. Paterson,” she replied, angry in turn now. “Or do I mistake you? Perhaps you had a chaperone you omitted to mention? Alice herself, even?”

He swallowed hard, his face still burning. “No … no, we were alone, in the morning room. We … we were discussing Alice’s love of the theater, and Miss Rye was assuring me that it is not nearly as glamorous as Alice assumes. She herself is weary of it, and envies Alice’s opportunity to settle down to a happy married life in a respectable society, with a husband and family.”

And money, Caroline thought, but she did not say so. It occurred to her how much more suitable it would be for everyone if Lydia married Douglas, and Alice came to London with the players. Lydia’s roles could be filled easily enough by another aspiring actress, and Alice would be an asset to the writing and producing side of the business. More important for both of them, and for Douglas, they would all be happier.

“It seems as if Lydia and Alice each desires what the other has,” Caroline said more gently. “Perhaps they should exchange places.”

“I can’t marry an actress!” Douglas said in horror. But even as the words left his lips there was a change in his attitude, a new brightness in his eyes. The anger seeped out of him as if by magic.

“Well, she isn’t an heiress, of course,” Caroline agreed. “But that has its advantages as well. There is something very liberating in owing no one, Mr. Paterson. I made a very rash judgment in marrying Mr. Fielding, but I have never regretted it, even for an hour. I have had some difficult times. I have been cold and hungry and very far from home, but I have never been bored or lonely, or felt as if my life had no meaning. I have lost certain friends—or perhaps in truth they were really no more than acquaintances—but I have gained friends who are of worth, and I have contributed to something of value. I don’t think I have ever been so happy before, even when I had considerable money, social position, and a very beautiful house. But then one person’s happiness is not necessarily the same as another’s.”

He lowered his eyes very slowly. “I apologize, Mrs. Fielding. I was extremely rude. I am afraid of losing what I know, and have always believed I wanted. I was afraid of Mr. Ballin because he lured Alice away from me into another kind of world, but I did not kill him. I was with Lydia. If you ask her, I’m sure she will tell you.” He gave a rueful smile and met her eyes again. “If I was with her, then she was also with me. We were in the morning room until you went back up the stairs again to your room to tell Mr. Fielding about Ballin. I know that because we heard your footsteps and I looked out the door to see who it was, so we could go upstairs unobserved. We had not realized how late it was, and we felt it would be indiscreet to be seen.”

“So it would,” she agreed. “What was I wearing?”

“A … a pink dressing robe, and your hair was loose down your back. It is rather longer than it looks to be.”

She nodded slowly. “It is fortunate you chose that particular moment to look. Thank you.”

“I … er …”

“You have no need to explain yourself further,” she told him. “I shall confirm it with Lydia, and we shall be able to keep the police from bothering you—I hope.”

“Mrs. Fielding!”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

She said nothing, but smiled a little bleakly and nodded.