The squire and I had a brief word alone in order to agree our way forward. I began the task with a final plea: “Squire, you’re a magistrate. Are you sure—”
“No, Caleb. This is your game of chess, and you must win it.”
And so I began. “You were her partner, Squire Holby. Tell me how that came about.”
“That devil woman,” he grunted, “came up to me and told me it was my duty to dance with her. I thought she’d be less trouble there than left on her own.”
“It seems unlikely that she could have been harmed during the early stages of the dance,” I began.
He avoided my eye, naturally enough. I had been the person dancing with her. “I agree,” he said, fortunately.
“Did you notice anything strange as you turned her at the end of the whirligig?”
“The what?”
Somewhat sheepishly, I explained Bertha’s quaint term.
“Can’t say I did,” the squire replied to my question. “She wasn’t speaking, but I took that as natural in the circumstances.”
I was no further forward. The answer to who killed her must lie in the Sir Roger de Coverley, and the old dance was laughing at me. “Very well, Squire. We must dance it again.”
He gaped at me and I explained my reasoning. “Dr. Meek can play the part of Mrs. Dacres.”
The squire made no objection to this eccentricity of mine. The rest of the guests could be jurors if they chose, but the greatest Judge of all would be on my side, and I trusted in Him that together we might reach the answer.
It was with some difficulty that I managed to reassemble the set, but I had my way. There are advantages in being considered an eccentric elderly parson. Owing to the squire’s excellent stock of brandy, Mr. Primrose was beyond accompanying us on the fiddle but his son nobly wound the music box and its raucous sound sufficed to convey the speed at which we had danced, despite the toll it took on my nerves and ears.
I watched carefully as Dr. Meek (“Mrs. Dacres”) took his place. In other less desperate circumstances I would have chuckled to see our serious young doctor honouring the squire with a curtsey. I carried out with straight face the early figures of the dance, feeling somewhat foolish stepping out with the doctor. However, when, as Mrs. Dacres, Dr. Meek approached the line of gentlemen in the whirligig, I asked another gentleman to stand in for me while I took an outsider’s view.
As I watched “Mrs. Dacres” approach I realised to my dismay that I had been mistaken. A strong lunge with a stiletto as she passed her enemy could hardly have escaped notice were it delivered by William or Thomas Dacres, Mr. Collett or Mr. Farrow — or even myself. Nor could it have been achieved when she approached the squire for the turns by the right hand. I was relieved that the squire was formally ruled out. He could in no way have delivered that blow to her far side without being seen.
“Do you have the truth of it yet, Parson?” the squire called out hopefully.
“No.”
“But it couldn’t have been me. You agree?”
“I do.”
The squire looked mightily relieved. The same went for William, Thomas, Christopher Collett, and Gerald Farrow. “None of them could use a right hand to inflict a blow on the far side of her body,” I declared.
“Now, see here,” the squire began grandly, addressing the company at large, “you all heard Parson say I couldn’t have done it, even though Mrs. Dacres threatened my Evelina. There’s more, though. She threatened me tonight. Said she had others here, too.” He coughed in a meaningful way. “She held us in the palm of her hand, she said. That’s you, Mr. Collett, and you, Mr. Farrow, and I, all in the same whirligig, as Parson would say. All lies,” he said firmly, as Mrs. Collett and Mrs. Farrow showed signs of swooning, and their husbands looked as scared as smugglers caught by the Preventive. I almost clapped, so sensible was the squire’s move.
“That woman,” the squire informed the company, “threatened to tell Mrs. Holby I’d been tumbling her in the hay. Mrs. Dacres, that is. I can tumble Mrs. Holby all I like.”
“And had you — er — tumbled her?” Mr. Collett asked faintly.
“Zounds, sir, no.” The squire glared. “No more than you or Mr. Farrow had. But who’d believe us if she’d sworn to it?”
A silence while Messrs. Collett and Farrow obviously realised with relief that they were neatly absolved from their sins, past and current. Except perhaps, I reminded myself, of murder.
“What’s more,” the squire continued, “she said she’d tell Mrs. Holby this, unless I refused to sanction the marriage between these two young people. I don’t mind admitting it would have thrown the fox among the chickens, all right, if she’d poisoned Mrs. Holby’s thoughts against me. But now the parson’s showed I couldn’t have killed her.”
I sighed. “You couldn’t, Squire. Nor could a right-handed man in the line during the whirligig. But for a left-handed man it would be different, because the action would be masked from the rear by the gentleman’s body, and from those ahead or opposite by Mrs. Dacres as she continued her turn to the left around the gentleman.” I paused. “Are any of you left-handed?”
There was, not unexpectedly, an instant chorus of denials. “It can easily be ascertained,” I pointed out.
“Do so,” barked the squire. Pen and paper was instantly brought, and each wrote with his left hand. There was no doubt. They were all right-handed.
So, wearily now, we performed the dance yet again, myself included. I was too old for more than one such dance in an evening, and I grew heartily sick of Sir Roger’s music. I was beginning to think I must have done the murder myself in a fit of absentmindedness, but then at last I saw how Mrs. Dacres had died.
I took my colleagues aside, explained, and with sadness in our hearts we summoned the murderer into an adjoining room.
“Widow Paxton,” I said, much grieved, “it was you, was it not, who slid that stiletto into Constance Dacres?”
“It was.” She did not flinch. “And mighty grateful you all should be to me. Someone had to do it. She was ruining William’s life, and Thomas’s, not to mention those of others. Such as mine. She wanted to throw me out of Ten Trees. So I thought, I’m not long for this world. I have a canker that grows the size of an apple. I took the stiletto in case I saw a chance this evening to take her with me after one last great dance.”
“It was murder,” I told her gravely.
“Killing a mad cat. How did you know it was me?”
“We ruled out all the women because Mrs. Dacres wasn’t close enough to them. I forgot that after the last turn with the squire in the centre she would have to pass the last lady in line closely on the left side to get into the correct position to face her partner in the gentlemen’s line again. No one would have seen you turn towards her as she did so. No one would have seen you stab her.”
She cackled. “I’m left-handed, as it happens. Even easier.”
“But,” I continued, still puzzled, “you were already in place when you saw her coming to join the set. Suppose she had not danced?”
“I arranged that,” she answered with dignity. “I told her the squire was lusting after her and wanted to dance with her. He wouldn’t make so much ado about Thomas and Evelina then. I knew Squire always had Sir Roger to end with.”
I was thankful I was but a lawyer in this matter, and that our Lord would be judging her sooner than any assize. This dance of life brings strange whirligigs, and as I returned to the parsonage that evening, my heart leapt to see the light still burning. Dorcas awaited me.