“I wish that were so,” Withers said sadly. “Then there would be some hope for Hilliard. But when Beasley got here, no more than two or three minutes after the girl screamed, Hilliard was stooped over the blackguard about to pull his sword out of Merriwether’s chest. And that, in any court in the kingdom, is premeditated murder.”
It was simply impossible for Marc to accept this version of events. Hilliard’s passion and romantic folly might account for the reflex action of defending his lady’s honour by any means within his reach. But then to have drawn his sabre and, looking down into the face of Tessa’s disabled assailant, raise it above his head with calm deliberation and drive it through Merriwether’s chest-well, that was something he was absolutely certain Rick Hilliard would never do. Not even in the heat of battle. The very thought of such an ignominious act was monstrous.
“I figured at first,” Cobb said, “that maybe one person banged on the noggin and another put the sword in. But there wasn’t enough time. Beasley come runnin’ from the end of the hall where the stairs are, so nobody could’ve dashed in an’ done the stabbin’ an’ run back out again without Beasley seein’ him.”
“And the girl couldn’t’ve done it,” Withers said. “Even if she was faking being unconscious, she isn’t strong enough to have driven that heavy sword into Merriwether, not even in a rage. Besides which, she would’ve been covered in blood.”
“Like the ensign was,” Cobb felt obliged to add.
“Well, I’m going to question Clarence Beasley very closely, you can be sure. We’ve only got his word for all this.”
“It seems the mute was on the scene shortly as well,” Withers said. “And Hilliard, of course.”
“Has Rick said anything about this? Surely he’s denied it.”
Withers fielded that query with reluctance. “He’s said very little. He’s fanatically worried about the girl, but I’ve given her a sleeping draught and put her into Madge Frank’s care for the night.”
“He hasn’t admitted anything?”
“All he says is that he fell asleep while he and the girl were sparking on the settee, and when he woke up he was standing over the corpse in the dark and wondering what had happened-when Beasley came in and found him.”
“But surely he couldn’t have slept through a woman screaming rape and be uncertain whether he had hit Merriwether on the head, waited till he was flat on his back and then skewered him, while the blood gushed all over him? And, don’t forget, he also had time to go back to the settee, sit down for a spell, then get up and go over to retrieve his sword. And all this while sleepwalking? I don’t believe it for a minute.”
Dr. Withers was standing beside the night-table that held Tessa’s little candle, a half-full decanter of sherry, and two empty glasses. He ran the decanter, unstoppered, slowly under his nose, then, very carefully, took a minuscule sip and let the wine roll over his tongue. “He may not have been sleepwalking.” He pushed his nostrils into each of the glasses. “Laudanum,” he said. “A lot of it. Enough, I’d say, to knock an elephant to its knees.”
“But that means that both Tessa and Rick were drugged,” Marc cried, his hopes rising. “And there’s only one reason I can think of why that would happen. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that Merriwether slipped in here sometime yesterday-everybody in the troupe knew that Tessa took a glass of sherry before she went to bed after a performance-and put laudanum into the decanter. He couldn’t have known that Rick would be up here sharing the sherry with her when he first put the opiate into it. Later on, I’m sure he knew Rick was in Tessa’s room, and maybe he was inflamed with jealousy, and came across the hall, peered in, and found both of them comatose. And I’d lay odds that he decided then and there to have his way with the girl, and when she woke later, she would assume Rick had been her assailant. How she might have reacted, we don’t know, but Merriwether certainly knew how Mrs. Thedford would have taken the outrage. So the blackguard would be able to enjoy Tessa and have Rick take any consequences. All he had to do was snuff the candles out and set about the dastardly deed.”
“Well, that’s plausible,” Withers said. “But how will we ever know what really happened if Tessa and Hilliard were indeed unconscious? And if they’d had more than a mouthful of this stuff, they would have been. Neither of them can give us rational testimony.”
“In the meantime,” Cobb said, “we got a witness who swears he saw Hilliard with the murder weapon in his clutches an’ with the whole front of his tunic covered in blood. You’ll see it for yourself.”
“And, alas,” Withers said with a sad shake of his head, “with his flies wide open.”
“You’re not implying that Rick was the girl’s attacker? That’s preposterous.”
When neither Withers nor Cobb responded to that assessment, Marc continued. “There must be blood on Merriwether’s privates!”
“There was blood everywhere-on both men.”
“Well, if there’s a court-martial, I’ll argue that Rick was drugged, dazed, provoked to his actions by the noblest of motives, and was therefore not wholly responsible for what he may have done.”
“You gonna take out yer law-yer’s licence again?” Cobb enquired.
“Even so,” Withers said, “it’s a stretch to claim that a befuddled man with altruistic intent pulled a battle-sword out of its scabbard and drove it unerringly through the centre of Merriwether’s chest so forcefully that it stuck in the floor under him.”
“Damn it all, that’s what I’m saying!” Marc shouted. “Dazed or sober, my friend Rick Hilliard could not have done that. He had already saved the girl he loved from harm. He had maimed the assailant. What could possibly have incited him to such a senseless, despicable act?”
“Maybe it was this,” Cobb said, holding his lantern high over Tessa’s bed.
There on the white, freshly starched sheet was a bloodstain, no bigger than a virgin’s fist.
NINE
Having covered the body with a sheet and snuffed the candles, the three men went out into the hall.
“I don’t want the corpse moved or anything else touched in there,” Marc said. “I’ll need to examine the room in the morning light. And we can’t have anyone who might conceivably have been involved going in overnight to tamper with the evidence.”
Dr. Withers reached into his medical bag, pulled out a wad of sealing wax, softened it in his fingers, and pushed it into the slim crack between the door and the sash near the floor. “How’s that?” he said with a wink. “You’ll know if a mouse tries to break and enter.”
Cobb was leaning over the sill of the hall window that overlooked Colborne Street. “Nobody’s come in here,” he said, dragging a finger through the thick dust. “Least not since the invasion of Muddy York.”
“Unless the interloper was part monkey, able to climb vertical brick walls,” Withers added, “you’ll have to devote your attention to those people who were in this building from eleven o’clock onward.”
“And if they’d tried a ladder under the girl’s window, it’d’ve been stickin’ out on Colborne Street like a roofer’s thumb,” Cobb said. “But I’ll check the alley an’ street fer any signs just the same.”
“Someone could have hidden around the stage area and waited for his chance,” Marc said, grasping at straws.
“Then how did the bugger get out again?” Cobb said. “Frank swore to the God of all Orangemen that the front doors an’ privy-exit were barred from the inside right after Major Jenkin left. And when he lit out fer Government House, he went out through his own quarters with his wife standing watch. Anybody leavin’ that way couldn’t’ve barred the door after them from the outside: when Sarge and I got here, those theatre doors were still barred.”
Marc sighed.