James strode up to the table and stood over her. ‘Don’t lie. He’s been seen coming out of this house by someone who knows him well.’
‘Who?’
‘Never mind that,’ snapped her undutiful great-nephew. ‘He’s here, isn’t he? Living secretly under your roof.’
For a moment I thought she was going to continue denying it, but her temper got the better of her. ‘And what if he is? What’s that got to do with you? Or with your father, if he’s the person who’s sent you? My dear brother’s dead now, and good riddance! He can’t interfere with my life any more. And neither can you or Cyprian.’
James lowered his head towards hers. ‘But the law can,’ he hissed, ‘if your precious Miles is the man who’s been committing these dreadful murders.’
There was a sudden silence so profound that the crackling of the logs on the hearth sounded like the raging of some great forest fire. Dame Drusilla stared open-mouthed at James, every bone of her emaciated face showing clearly beneath her parchment-like skin. I found I was holding my breath, waiting for her furious denial …
Instead, she leant back in her chair and began to laugh, not defiantly nor in a forced kind of way, but with genuine merriment.
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ she gasped as soon as she could speak. ‘Whoever put that ridiculous notion into your head?’
‘Why ridiculous?’ James demanded. ‘Miles Deakin had cause enough to hate Grandfather and Alderman Trefusis, if anyone did.’
Dame Drusilla stopped laughing and her face twisted viciously. ‘Oh, I’ll grant you that,’ she spat. ‘More than enough. If I’d been a younger and fitter woman, I might have done the murders myself. But I didn’t. And neither did Miles.’
James gripped the old lady’s shoulder. ‘What makes you so sure of that? He’s here, in Bristol, isn’t he? How long have you been giving him shelter?’
She looked up at him defiantly, her mouth set in a thin, bitter line. ‘I should tell you to keep your nose out of my affairs. But since you’ve made this ridiculous allegation against the poor man, I’ll make you free of the truth.’ Here there was an interruption caused by a servant with her dinner dishes on a tray trying to enter the room. Drusilla waved him away impatiently, saying, ‘Later!’ and turned back to James. ‘Miles Deakin has been sheltering in this house for six months or so, long before George and the rest of you moved down from Clifton. He came to me in the summer in a terrible state, ill, diseased and in rags. I took him in and my people have nursed him back to health.’
‘Why didn’t he go home to Nibley, to his parents?’ James asked contemptuously. ‘Or is it that the living’s softer where there’s plenty of money?’
The old lady seized hold of the stick leaning against her chair, and for a moment I thought she was going to strike him. Then, with an obvious effort, she controlled herself.
‘He stayed at my request,’ she said. ‘I’ve always been fond of him.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve always loved him,’ she amended. ‘People like you and your grandfather think that people of my age are incapable of those sort of emotions, or that they are indecent in someone over eighty.’ Dame Drusilla’s hand shot out and she grasped her great-nephew’s wrist. I saw him wince. ‘Well, one day, if you live as long as I have, you’ll find out your mistake.’ She released him and sank back in her chair, breathing heavily. ‘Miles stayed because I asked him to, and because he was happy to oblige me.’
‘Of course he was,’ sneered James. He indicated the luxury around him. ‘Who wouldn’t prefer such riches to his parents’ poor hovel?’ He took a deep breath. ‘And while he was lying low here, Deakin plotted his revenge. He must have been overjoyed when Grandfather came to live next door. It must have made things so much easier. He could get to know the old man’s habits. Follow him around.’
Dame Drusilla made no answer to this except to jerk herself forward and ring the little silver bell which stood on the table next to her plate.
The servant who had entered before must have been lingering within earshot, waiting for the summons, for he appeared immediately, again bearing the tray in his hands.
‘No, no!’ his mistress exclaimed irritably, once more confusing the poor man. ‘Take the food back to the kitchen and tell the cook to keep it hot. Then find Master Deakin and bring him to me.’
The fellow withdrew and Dame Drusilla leant back again in her chair, pointedly closing her eyes and compressing her lips, an indication that conversation was at an end until such time as her orders were obeyed. James stared down at her in bafflement, while I pondered uneasily on her last command. ‘Find Master Deakin and bring him to me.’ ‘Bring him’ I noted, not ‘send him’.
The room was becoming insufferably hot and the sweat was beginning to stick my clothes to my back. I had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that for the past two weeks I had been wasting my time following a scent which had been cold from the very beginning. And my worst fears were confirmed from the moment I saw my quarry standing in the doorway, the servant’s guiding hand beneath his arm.
Miles Deakin was blind.
James and I stood gawping at him for several seconds, both of us, I think, trying to convince ourselves that the blindness was a sham. At least, I know I did. But a second, closer look at those filmy eyes shattered the hope completely. I had seen that vacant stare too often in blind people not to be convinced. The eyes were half rolled up in their sockets and there was an opaqueness that could not be feigned.
Drusilla got to her feet and held out her hands. ‘Come to me, Miles,’ she said gently. ‘I’m standing by the table near the fire. You can feel the heat. Try, my dear, and later we’ll have dinner together.’
He took a few stumbling steps towards her, then stopped, head cocked to one side, listening. ‘There’s somebody here,’ he said.
‘Only my great-nephew and his friend.’ She sent us a mocking glance. ‘They won’t hurt you. They’re going now.’
‘How long have you been blind, Master Deakin?’ James asked.
The man’s head turned as he tried to locate the voice. ‘About a year, sir. It came on me sudden-like. One day I could see all right and then the next morning, I woke up blind. I could see nothing but shadows. After a while, I couldn’t even see those.’
It flitted through my mind that we could question the servants and ask them to confirm Miles Deakin’s condition six months ago, when he first sought sanctuary with Drusilla. But even as the thought occurred to me, I knew it was pointless. I could recognize genuine blindness when I saw it and, furthermore, the murders had only been committed in the past two weeks. I looked across at James.
‘We might as well go,’ I said quietly. ‘We know now that the truth lies elsewhere.’
The old lady gave a snort of laughter. ‘Some common sense at last, thanks be to God!’ She gently led the blind man to a chair at the opposite end of the table and seated him in it. He lifted his sightless eyes gratefully towards her.
James, however, still hesitated. ‘How does Deakin go out alone at night, if he’s blind?’ he asked. ‘And don’t deny it, Aunt. Baker Cleghorn saw him.’
Drusilla stood with one hand protectively on the back of the man’s chair and regarded her great-nephew with a contempt as chilling as his own.
‘If Baker Cleghorn’ — her tone was as scorching as the heat from the fire — ‘had bothered to look harder, he would have noticed one of my servants just behind Miles. He never goes out unaccompanied, but he naturally prefers night to day. The darkness makes him less aware of his blindness. And now, perhaps you and Master Chapman would go and leave us in peace. I’ve always been reasonably fond of you, James. You and your father have seemed to me the best of an unpleasant bunch. But I am fast changing my mind. And from there,’ she added darkly, ‘it’s a very short step to changing my will.’
While James was absorbing this threat, I stepped forward and asked, ‘Dame Drusilla, are you sure you don’t have any idea who the man in the bird mask might have been that afternoon? The one watching your or your brother’s house on Childermass Day?’