"On what pretext, for heaven's sake?"
He smiled with bitter humor. "That you are wanted in connection with a domestic theft. I can always release you afterwards-with unblemished character-a case of mistaken identity."
She was more relieved than she would show.
"I am obliged to you." She tried to say it stiffly, but her emotion showed through, and for a moment they stared at each other with that perfect understanding that occasionally flashed between them. Then she excused herself, picked up her coat again and allowed him to help her into it, and took her leave.
She entered the Queen Anne Street house discreetly and avoided all but the most essential conversation, going upstairs to check that Septimus was still recovering well. He was pleased to see her and greeted her with interest. She found it hard not to tell him anything of her discoveries or conclusions, and she made excuses to escape and go to Beatrice as soon as she could without hurting his feelings.
After she had brought up her dinner she asked permission to retire early, saying she had letters to write, and Beatrice was content to acquiesce.
She slept very restlessly, and it was no difficulty to rise at a little after two in the morning and creep downstairs with a candle. She dared not turn up the gas. It would glare like the sun and be too far away for her to reach to turn it down should she hear anyone else about. She slipped down the female servants' staircase to the landing, then down the main staircase to the hall and into Sir Basil's study. With an unsteady hand she knelt down, candle close to the floor, and searched the red-and-blue Turkey carpet to find an irregularity in the pattern that might mark a bloodstain.
It took her about ten minutes, and it seemed like half the night, before she heard the clock in the hall chime and it nearly startled her into dropping the candle. As it was she spilled hot wax and had to pick it off the wool with her fingernail.
It was then she realized the irregularity was not simply the nature of the carpet maker but an ugliness, an asymmetry nowhere else balanced, and on bending closer she saw how large it was, now nearly washed out, but still quite discernible. It was behind the large oak desk, where one might naturally stand to open any of the small side drawers, only three of which had locks.
She rose slowly to her feet. Her eye went straight to the second drawer, where she could see faint scoring marks around the keyhole, as if someone had forced it open with a crude tool and a replacement lock and repolishing of the bruised wood could not completely hide it.
There was no way in which she could open it; she had neither skill nor instrument-and more than that, she did not wish to alarm the one person who would most notice a further damage to the desk. But she could easily guess what Octavia had found-a letter, or more than one, from Lord Cardigan, and perhaps even the colonel of the regiment, which had confirmed beyond doubt what she already had learned from the War Office.
Hester stood motionless, staring at the desk with its neatly laid-out dish of sand for blotting ink on a letter, sticks of scarlet wax and tapers for seals, stand of carved sardonyx and red jasper for ink and quills, and a long, exquisite paper knife in imitation of the legendary sword of King Arthur, embedded in its magical stone. It was a beautiful thing, at least ten inches long and with an engraved hilt. The stone itself which formed its stand was a single piece of yellow agate, the largest she had ever seen.
She stood, imagining Octavia in exactly the same spot, her mind whirling with misery, loneliness and the ultimate defeat. She must have stared at that beautiful thing as well.
Slowly Hester reached out her hand and took it. If she had
been Octavia she would not have gone to the kitchen for Mrs. Boden's carving knife; she would have used this lovely thing. She took it out slowly, feeling its balance and the sharpness of its tip. It was many seconds in the silent house, the snow falling past the uncurtained window, before she noticed the feint dark line around the joint between the blade and the hilt. She moved it to within a few inches of the candle's flame. It was brown, not the gray darkness of tarnish or inlaid dirt, but the rich, reddish brown of dried blood.
No wonder Mrs. Boden had not missed her knife until just before she told Monk of it. It had probably been there in its rack all the time; she simply confused herself with what she assumed to be the facts.
But there had been blood on the knife they found. Whose blood, if this slender paper knife was what had killed Octavia?
Not whose. It was a kitchen knife-a good cook's kitchen would have plenty of blood available from time to time. One roast, one fish to be gutted, or a chicken. Who could tell the difference between one sort of blood and another?
And if it was not Octavia's blood on the knife, was it hers on the peignoir?
Then a sudden shaft of memory caught her with a shock like cold water. Had not Beatrice said something about Octavia having torn her peignoir, the lace, and not being skilled at such fine needlework, she had accepted Beatrice's offer to mend it for her? Which would mean she had not even been wearing it when she died. But no one knew that except Beatrice-and out of sensitivity to her grief, no one had shown her the blood-soaked garment. Araminta had identified it as being the one Octavia had worn to her room that night-and so it was-at least as far as the upstairs landing. Then she had gone to say good-night to her mother and left the garment there.
Rose too could be mistaken, for the same reason. She would only know it was Octavia's, not when she had worn it.
Or would she? She would at least know when it was last laundered. It was her duty to wash and iron such things-and to mend them should it be necessary. How had she overlooked mending the lace? A laundrymaid should do better.
She would have to ask her about it in the morning.
Suddenly she was returned to the present-and the realization that she was standing in her nightgown in Sir Basil's study,
in exactly the same spot where Octavia in her despair must have lolled herself-holding the same blade in her hand. If anyone found her here she would have not a shred of an excuse-and if it was whoever found Octavia, they would see immediately that she also knew.
The candle was low and the bowl filling with melted wax. She replaced the knife, setting it exactly as it had been, then picked up the candle and went as quickly as she could to the door and opened it almost soundlessly. The hallway was in darkness; she could make out only the dimmest luminescence from the window that faced onto the front of the house, and the falling snow.
Silently she tiptoed across the hall, the tiles cold on her bare feet, and up the stairs, seeing only a tiny pool of light around herself, barely enough to place her feet without tripping. At the top she crossed the landing and with difficulty found the bottom of the female servants' stairway.
At last in her own room she snuffed out the candle and climbed into her cold bed. She was chilled and shaking, the perspiration wet on her body and her stomach sick.
In the morning it took all the self-control she possessed to see first to Beatrice's comfort, and her breakfast, and then to Septimus, and to leave him without seeming hasty or neglectful in her duty. It was nearly ten o'clock before she was able to make her way to the laundry and find Rose.
"Rose," she began quietly, not to catch Lizzie's attention. She would certainly want to know what was going on, to supervise if it was any kind of work, and to prevent it until a more suitable time if it was not.
"What do you want?" Rose looked pale; her skin had lost its porcelain clarity and bloom and her eyes were very dark, almost hollow. She had taken Percival's death hard. There was some part of her still intrigued by him, and perhaps she was haunted by her own evidence and the part she had played before the arrest, the petty malice and small straw of direction that might have led Monk to him.