“How do you know?” Charles asked gently. And then, when all that came out of Alfred was a kind of dying whimper, added, “Don’t you think you owe it to Kitty to be sure?”
Alfred was shaking so hard that his teeth seemed to rattle in his head. “I… I can’t,” he wailed. “That thing… it don’t look like her!”
Charles stepped forward and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, steadying him. “You were intimate with her,” he said. “Do you recall whether she bore any marks on her body? Any moles? Birthmarks?”
Alfred had thrown his arm across his face, as a man does when he cannot bear to look on something terrible, something inhuman. He was sobbing now, the sobs coming from deep within him.
“Any moles, Alfred?” Charles persisted, more authoritatively. “Any birthmarks?”
Alfred choked. “On her… her left sh-shoulder,” he managed. “A
… a brown mark.”
Charles knelt down again and pulled the woman’s wet dress from her shoulder, far enough to see a dark brown birthmark about the size of a sixpence. He rearranged the dress, stood again, and spoke to Winston. “Kitty,” he said, although he had not doubted it.
Alfred’s sobs suddenly ceased, with a harsh, half-strangled sound. “She… she was murdered, wa’n’t she?” he whispered. His voice was thin and reedy, the voice of a lost child. “Somebody slit her throat?”
“Yes,” Charles said gravely, watching the emotions chase one another across the young man’s face: disbelief, grief, rage, disbelief again. Such was death, and encounters with death. “Do you know who did it?”
The long silence was filled only with the audible rasp of Alfred’s breathing. “No,” he said at last. “O’course not. How should I know?”
Charles studied the pale face. “Perhaps you did it yourself,” he remarked in a neutral tone.
Alfred’s eyes flew wide open in unfeigned shock. “Me!” he cried. “Me? No, never! I loved her! We was… we was going to Brighton and get married, we was!”
“That’s what you say,” Charles replied, more harshly now. “But perhaps Kitty wasn’t as anxious to marry you as you to marry her. Perhaps the two of you fell into a lover’s quarrel.” He held up his hand, stemming Alfred’s violent objection. “It’s happened before, many times. A woman rejects her suitor, he turns on her, and-”
“Oh, never!” Alfred said brokenly. “Oh, I’d never do anything like that.” He was sobbing again, his shoulders shaking. “Whatever else I’ve done, I’m no killer. And not Kitty. Never Kitty, I swear!”
“But someone did it,” Charles said. “If not you, then who?”
“P’rhaps she had another lover,” Winston put in helpfully. “One of the other servants. Or someone in Woodstock. A rival, Alfred.”
“No!” Alfred howled. He dropped to his knees, raising his clenched fists as if in torment. “Kitty didn’t have nobody else but me! We was going to be married, I tell you! We-”
“Well, then,” Charles said, more soothingly, “perhaps it wasn’t another servant. Perhaps it was someone who knew why she was here at Blenheim.”
“Why the two of you were here,” Winston added.
There was a sudden silence. “Why… why we was here?” Alfred managed at last. His glance, apprehensive, darted to Winston, then back to Charles. He looked cornered.
“Yes,” Charles said. “Someone else who was in on the robbery scheme. Bulls-eye, perhaps. Could Bulls-eye have killed her?”
Alfred got clumsily to his feet. “Bulls-eye? How d’ye know about..” He stopped, sucking in his breath. His lips had turned blue and he was shivering violently. He wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to stop shaking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anybody named Bulls-eye.”
“Of course you do, Alfred,” Charles said, unmoved. “Bulls-eye, at the Black Prince. He knew that you and Kitty were here at Blenheim, and why, and how it was all to be done.” He paused, adding thoughtfully, “Perhaps Bulls-eye was Kitty’s lover. Perhaps-”
“No!” Alfred cried. “Bulls-eye don’t care about Kitty, nor me, nor anybody. All he cares about is getting the job done.” He stopped, swallowing, seeming to realize that he had confirmed what he had tried to deny. “D’you know Bulls-eye, then?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t had that pleasure, but Mr. Churchill has,” Charles replied. “We know who he is, and where he is, and what he plans. And I think it’s possible that he killed Kitty, especially if he felt that she had become a danger to him, or a threat.” Alfred was biting his lip and Charles paused, letting that sentence sink in, before he added: “Did she say anything to you that might suggest that she knew the identity of the gang’s leader?”
Alfred was bewildered. “The… leader? She knew-?” He stopped, shaking his head back and forth, numbly. “How could she know? Nobody knows. How could-?”
“She didn’t mention a photograph to you, then?” Charles interrupted. “Or that she planned to have a go at Bulls-eye?”
Alfred was still shaking his head, but the color was beginning to come back into his face. “I don’t know anything about a picture. You.. you think Bulls-eye killed her because she knew too much?”
“I believe it’s entirely possible,” Charles said. He narrowed his eyes at Alfred. “And I should think, if you truly loved Kitty, that you would want to do something about it.”
“Do something?” Alfred cried, as if he were heart-broken. “But what can I do? What can anybody do?” He held out his hands in a gesture of despairing helplessness. “Nobody can bring her back to life!”
“But you can help us bring Bulls-eye to justice,” Charles said. “If he killed her, you can see that he goes to the gallows for what he has done.”
There was another silence. Winston broke it with a dismissive cough and an amused half-smile. “I doubt that he has the stomach for it, Sheridan. After all, there’s some danger.”
“Not the stomach?” Alfred said, between his teeth. “You’ll see what stomach I have for danger, when it’s Kitty we’re talking about. You’ll see!”
“Then you’ll do it?” Charles asked.
Alfred looked down at the corpse on the floor. “I’ll do it-for her,” he said brokenly. “If it will get him, I’ll do it.”
“Perhaps we can begin,” Charles said, “by finding out what you know of the situation here.”
It took only a few moments for Alfred to tell what he knew, which turned out to be not a very great deal. Kitty had been the one who had the contacts with the gang, it seemed. She had recruited Alfred when they were both at Carleton House in Manchester, and she had obtained both their positions at Welbeck Abbey. When they were finished there, she’d got posts for them at Blenheim, working through a London agency. The two of them had been at the palace for a week or so when she told Alfred that a man named Bulls-eye was making the arrangements for the job, which would take place during the Royal visit. Alfred himself had met Bulls-eye only twice, once with Kitty, some weeks ago, and again more recently, at the Black Prince, when he had gone to ask about Kitty.
“I haven’t heard anything more from him,” he said, “until today, when-” He stopped.
Charles and Winston exchanged glances. “Yes?” Charles prompted. “What happened today?” Alfred was about to say that Ned had appeared, he thought, sent by Bulls-eye to make contact with him.
But Alfred appeared to have second thoughts about mentioning Ned. He shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything from him at all,” he said. “Don’t know whether they’re still planning the job. Nobody’s told me anything.”
Winston took a step forward. “Miss Deacon,” he said in a low voice. “Is she a part of this?”
“Miss Deacon?” Alfred said, sounding puzzled. “I don’t think so-but then, what do I know? As I said, nobody’s told me anything.” His eyes narrowed. “For aught I know, you two could be part of the gang. You could-”
There was a noise outside, and the door opened. Charles turned and to his surprise saw Kate in the doorway, still wrapped in her dressing gown. She was holding a lamp in one hand, its gleam shadowing half her face.