“Then he wasn’t sent by my father. My father knows which flat I occupy. He must be looking for someone else.”
“You saw Jonathan in Tonbridge. You saw Timothy in Owlhurst. You called on Lady Parsons, the rector, and the doctor. Someone set a watch on you.”
“No, I was circumspect. Except with the rector and Lady Parsons. I don’t see either of them running to Mrs. Graham, telling tales. I gave your brothers-and Dr. Philips-the impression that I was still concerned about Ted Booker’s unhappy death.”
And then it occurred to me that we had counted Ted Booker among the six dead. Because Lady Parsons had survived.
“Dear God. Peregrine, what if we were right about the killing continuing? And I let it be known I was concerned about the Booker suicide…”
He said nothing, but behind his dark eyes, his mind was racing. I could see it in his face.
“Then I’m still in the clear,” he said finally. “That is, if they still consider me dead as you said. But you are most definitely in danger.”
He tried to persuade me to go home, where my parents could protect me until I left for France. Here, alone in London, I was vulnerable. If, that is, the man watching the flat was indeed here because of me.
And before long, through me, someone would surely discover that Peregrine wasn’t dead in Winchelsea but alive and in London. That would never do.
“Don’t you see?” I said to Peregrine. “The first order of business is to get you safely out of London, and I don’t know where to put you. Not at home-I won’t involve my father or Simon in this business. They’ll do something rash.”
I wouldn’t put it past either of them to kidnap our watcher and make him tell who had hired him, and why. They had served on the Khyber Pass-kidnapping there was something of a local pastime. Not among the British, but the wild tribesmen who lived on either side of the pass had no compunction about treating their foes as they were accustomed to being treated in their turn.
“I can protect myself.”
“With the doctor’s pistol? And this time you will hang. Be sensible.”
He rubbed his face. “I wanted nothing so much as to leave that asylum and get at the truth about that night in London. Afterward-well, if I didn’t like what I learned, there was a way out. And then when I was free of the gates, trudging through the cold night, I was tempted to turn back. Much as I hated the asylum, I was afraid. Of the night, of myself, of what lay ahead. I told myself I might never have another chance, and so I kept walking. It took more courage than I ever knew I had. And I don’t know much more now than I did when I started this search. You’ve done all you can-all anyone can do. But there are more questions than answers still.”
I asked, “If you could prove you were not the murderer, and you were set free, what would you do?”
He dropped his hands. “I don’t think I’d ever considered the future. But then I met Diana. I’m not in love with her. But I saw in her what I’d missed.”
“You know that if you were cleared, and you could return to Owlhurst, the army would be on your doorstep tomorrow. And you’d be sent to France or somewhere to fight.”
He considered what I was saying. “I’m not afraid of dying.”
“War isn’t about dying so much as it is about horror.”
He shrugged. “Living in an asylum, I knew what horror was.”
We came back, then, to the man standing patiently in the cold, waiting.
For what? For me, for Peregrine, for answers?
“I came to believe it was Arthur who had killed Lily. I didn’t want to, but the facts pointed almost as strongly to him as to you. Now I have to ask myself if he could also have killed the others-if it’s true they were murdered. But if we count Ted Booker among the six, it couldn’t have been Arthur, could it? If it wasn’t one of your brothers, who, then? Robert Douglas? But he was with your mother the night Lily died. I’m not a policeman, Peregrine, I’m not trained to sort out the sheep from the goats.”
“Robert Douglas?” Peregrine’s voice was bitter. “He’s no murderer. He’s just made a habit of looking the other way. That’s his failing, if you like. He swallowed his pride and his self-respect when he followed my stepmother to Kent, and he knows the price he’s paid to stay near her. He’s willing to live with that. He was kind when he knew she wouldn’t care. He sat with me at my father’s funeral, and held my hand when I cried. He brought me cake on my birthday. When he took me to the asylum in her stead, he told them that if I was mistreated, she would see that they answered for it. He persuaded Inspector Gadd to insist on a warm meal, a bath, and fresh clothes straightaway. Little things. But he wouldn’t take my part to her face.”
It had been Robert who had insisted that the dying Peregrine be cared for at home.
“Then we can’t expect him to be an ally. All right, we’ll set any other suspicions aside and concentrate on Lily. Why was her family given money to leave England so quickly? So they wouldn’t make a fuss and bring you to trial? And why was Mrs. Graham so persuasive, convincing London that you should be committed to the asylum for observation as soon as possible? Because she feared that once the shock wore off, you’d remember too much? And why bring in Lady Parsons and the others, unless it was for the same reason-to see you in such a state that they were convinced beyond any doubt that you were the killer?
“What’s more, I begin to wonder why you were drugged to keep you quiet in London. You could have been shut up in your room there, just as you had been in Owlhurst. The only explanation is that your stepmother really did want you to see a specialist, with an eye to having you committed, even before the murder. And you wouldn’t have been in your right mind. Another thing-her own state just after the murder. If you’d really been guilty, she’d have jumped at the chance to be rid of you. She was beside herself because it was one of her sons, and in the midst of her horror and grief, she saw the only way out of her nightmare was to put the blame on you. And if you’re right about Robert, he stood there and let her do it.”
He had listened carefully. But at the end he said, “She told me that if I caused any trouble, then or in the asylum, that I’d be taken away and hanged. I believed her. I didn’t know any better.”
“In prison, they wouldn’t have kept you drugged. And at the asylum, if you tried to tell anyone that she’d slept with Robert Douglas or that one of your brothers was not your father’s son, they would put it down to your madness. And if you remembered too much about London, they wouldn’t listen. After all, the police had what amounted to your own confession, that you wanted your knife back after using it to kill the girl. You said yourself that little effort was made to help you get well. You were in that place for a lifetime, and even if they had restored you to sanity, the only option was a prison cell.”
Peregrine shook his head. “You make it sound logical. But how do you explain the dreams?”
“I don’t know,” I told him truthfully. “But tomorrow we’re leaving London. In the dark before dawn, if we have to. There’s one person I can think of who would keep you safe. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before. And I promise you, as soon as I have leave again in France, I’ll find a way to prove what I just told you. And the watcher will have nothing to tell whoever hired him. He’ll be called off.”
“I dragged you into this at the point of a gun.”
“That’s water over the dam. Let it go.”
“Do you still brace your door with a chair at night?”
I opened my mouth to deny I ever had done, and then said, “No. Not now.”
Peregrine smiled, and this time it reached his eyes, but he said nothing.
We ate what I’d brought from the bakery, and I cleared away the dishes. Peregrine watched me, and as I dried the cup that I’d used for my tea, he reached out and took it from my hands.