"I don't know. Yes, I suppose so. Nyagatha is very remote. It was even more remote in those days.” That seemed irrelevant, somehow. All the Empire was remote.
"Your cousin Edward. Last week he was on his way to Crete. When he had to cancel his plans—when he came back to England—why did he come to Greyfriars?"
"I'm not sure."
"Did he get in touch with you?"
Alice shook her head. “He dropped me a postcard on his way through London. I am not on the telephone, you know. He just said the trip was off and he was coming here, to stay with General and Mrs. Bodgley."
"He did not wish to stay with his uncle,” Leatherdale said. “Why not with you?"
She felt herself blushing, but it would not matter. “I could not put him up!"
"Why not?"
Her cheeks felt warmer yet. “Really, Inspector! If the highly respectable ladies who employ me were to hear that a young man had been seen entering and leaving my flat, then they would never allow me across their doorsteps again! They would not let me near their pianos, let alone their children!"
Which was true, but not the real reason. What if Edward had stumbled on something of D'Arcy's lying around? His dressing gown, for example? Edward was a romantic. It would kill him.
"You are on good terms, though?"
"Oh, yes! I told you, I regard him as a brother."
"And what are his feelings toward you?"
She turned and stared at the empty fireplace. “You had best direct that question to him, Inspector."
"Murder is no respecter of privacy, Miss Prescott!"
She turned to him in horror. “Heavens! You don't mean I am going to find myself pilloried in the gutter press? The News of the World?” If the reporters ever scented a scandal as well as a murder and dragged D'Arcy in, his career would be completely ruined. His wife was a vindictive bitch.
The big man shrugged. “In normal times I expect you would. I believe the Kaiser will save you in this instance."
"Well, that is certainly a relief!"
"So will you answer my question, ma'am?"
"My cousin believes he is in love with me."
"Believes?"
She turned again to the fireplace. “Edward has led a very sheltered life, and in many ways an extremely lonely one. He last saw his parents when he was twelve. They died in very horrible circumstances four years later. I was the only person he could turn to. I am three years older, which is a lot at that age. Some of his letters were heartbreaking!"
And just when the pain was easing, Cameron's reputation had been stamped into the mud by the board of inquiry. For Edward, that had been a toboggan trip through Hell.
She forced herself to meet the policeman's steady stare. “I am literally the only girl he knows! Can't you see? Edward has a romantic Celtic streak to him. He believes he is in love with me. Now he has left school ... in a few months ... when he has had a chance to meet other girls..."
Edward would not meet many girls if he had to spend those next few months in jail.
14
ABOUT THE ONLY GOOD THING AMBRIA IMPRESARIO EVER found to say about Narsh—and Eleal agreed with her on this—was that it had a very good hostel. True, it was shabby and none too clean, like the rest of the city, but it was located conveniently close to the shearing barn where the plays were performed. It provided innumerable poky rooms, and it was never busy so early in the spring, when the troupe needed it. There was no embarrassing pretending to be asleep when the troupe played Narsh.
Snow was starting to pile up in alleys and the light was failing when Eleal at last found her way back there—thinking gloomily that they should all be down in warm Filoby by now, getting ready for the evening's performance.
She was still very shaky from her narrow escape, but no terrible gods had come after her. Dolm Actor himself might have bled to death, if his rites had failed. He would have been in too much pain to notice any noise she had made in leaving, and the snow had not been lying then, so she should have left no tracks.
Now that she had recovered from her fright, she felt angry, which was strange. Perhaps she should feel sorry for Dolm, who served so terrible a god, but she couldn't feel sorry. Murdering people was wrong, no matter what old Sister Ahn might say. Dolm had deceived her all her life, and she just felt angry.
She wondered what T'lin Dragontrader would say when she told him about that bizarre performance. He would believe her. To mention it to anyone else was unthinkable—even if Dolm Actor never returned, the troupe would not credit her story. She would be the only one who would ever know what had happened to him.
The hostel was a welcome sight in the dusk. There was no smoke rising from the chimney, though, as she had hoped there would be by now. She found the key in its usual cranny under the step. The door opened into the big communal kitchen that took up most of the ground floor, big enough and high enough to house a family of mammoths. Another door led out to toilets and washrooms; a wooden stair against one wall led up to sleeping rooms above.
She stood for a while, sniffing the familiar smells of ancient cooking and old tallow, listening to wind rattling the casements and whining in the eaves. There seemed to be no one else in the familiar old warren. She decided she would take off her coat first, comb her hair, and then kindle a fire to heat up wash water. She felt limp and sore from a long day. Only a llama should be expected to spend so long inside a heavy fleece.
She set off up the staircase that clung to the high, raw-stone wall. From long habit, she stepped on the ends of the treads. Ambria was always accusing her of sneaking, but she hated the sound of her uneven gait and had learned to move quietly in consequence. Our Lady Mouse, Golfren called her sometimes.
In some cities the troupe slept in one big room, while in Jurg they stayed in the king's house. The Narsh hostel lay somewhere between those two extremes. It was so large and so empty at this time of year that Eleal had a room all to herself, not having to share with Olimmiar. She walked down the long corridor, turned the corner, and saw her pack lying abandoned by Klip Trumpeter's door. Muscle building only went so far, obviously.
As she stooped to lift it, she detected a faint rasping coming from the room itself. The door was ajar, but whatever was making that odd noise was not visible through the crack.
One of the really nice things about the Narsh hostel was the size of its keyholes. Trumpeter was standing with his back to her, stripped to his breechclout as Dolm Actor had been. But Klip was not engaged in any arcane holy ritual. The cloth was white, anyway, although not as white as it should have been. He had a brick in each hand, and he was swinging them up and down, up and down. His bony back and shoulders gleamed with sweat, and the noise was his panting. He sounded almost ready to collapse.
He was really serious about those muscles! Perhaps he had believed her little lie after all? She sensed interesting opportunities for teasing—she might mention bricks at supper and smile at him innocently. That would make Trumpeter's face glow like one big all-over pimple.
Amused, Eleal took up her pack and tiptoed off along the corridor. Then she came to another open door, and her heart jumped into her mouth and stayed there.
This was Yama and Dolm's room. Like the others, it contained no furniture except a straw pallet, but their packs were lying there. Someone must have brought all the baggage back. Shivering with a sort of sick excitement, Eleal stared at this deadly opportunity.
When she had been little, she had found people's packs absolutely irresistible. There was always something interesting in them! Once she had found a hand-tinted print of a naked woman in K'linpor Actor's, and had produced it at lunch for everyone to admire. That had been a painful experience all round.