A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(101)

Tiberius’ gaze was brighter than usual, and Malcolm cleared his throat roughly. “In any event, I surprised everyone with my announcement about the traveling bag. I suppose it was childish of me, but I was so afraid none of you would come if I told the truth about why I wanted you. And I was so desperate to put an end to all of this. Trenny was most upset. She kept wringing her hands and saying that the dead must be left in peace. ‘But, Trenny,’ I told her, ‘we do not know she is dead.’ It was only the next day that I remembered something, a thing I ought to have remembered as soon as I found the bag.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Trenny was the one who volunteered to search all the nooks and crannies in the castle when Rosamund disappeared. She is the only one who could have put the bag there,” he said simply. “Everyone had a part of the island to search and that was hers.”

“There’s something else you forgot,” Mertensia put in. “Lucian taught her a few songs on the harpsichord. She must be the one who played the ghost during the séance.”

Malcolm’s pale face whitened further. “My God,” he murmured.

“There is a passage behind the paneling of the music room,” I told him. “Did you not know of it?”

“It never occurred to me,” he said simply. “I don’t think anyone has used it since I was a boy. If I thought of it at all, it would have been to assume it was blocked.”

I shook my head. “She had only to slip into it as we approached. It would seem as if the room were empty because no one passed us as we came in. If she were quick and quiet, no one would guess a thing.”

“And that was what terrified Helen into believing Rosamund was really a ghost,” Mertensia finished. “But why? Why go to all that palaver just to upset Helen’s séance?”

“To discourage any further investigation into Rosamund’s disappearance. Malcolm was willing to give credence to Helen’s abilities,” I went on. “But Trenny knew how superstitious Helen is. She realized that if she could frighten Helen, then she and Caspian would leave and perhaps the entire investigation would founder. It was a desperate gambit, but she had little time to plan since Malcolm sprang the thing on us all and took her by surprise.”

Mertensia’s response was bitter. “I should not have thought Trenny would have it in her.”

“She would do anything for the family,” I said, working it out slowly. “Including protect him from the bride who was not worthy of marrying a Romilly. She murdered Rosamund.”

I saw Tiberius’ grip tighten on the arms of his chair. Mertensia made a sound of harsh protest, but Malcolm buried his face in his hands.

“I cannot believe it,” Mertensia said finally. “And yet . . .”

I turned to Malcolm. “When did you discover that she was the one who had murdered Rosamund?”

His expression was one of perfect wretchedness. “When she locked me in that bloody priest’s hole. She came to me with a glass of wine, as she always did when she had a favor to ask. She protested about the séance, about everyone searching and asking questions. She said it was only going to stir everything up again, churning up the misery we had only just begun to put behind us. I told her that I could never get on with my life properly until I knew what had happened to Rosamund, that the uncertainty tortured me. I told her that we had to carry on until I had discovered the truth about Rosamund’s murder, that I would not rest until I had unmasked the villain. And I saw it again, that sudden terror flicker over her face. And I knew. I knew.”

He paused to take another sip of whisky, shuddering hard as it went down. “We were here in this room. I confronted her and she admitted it. She said that Rosamund was pregnant with someone else’s child. It was not difficult for me to guess whose,” he added with a glance at Tiberius. “She said that she had tried to accept the idea that Rosamund would be the mistress here, that she would have to take orders from my wife. But as she sat in the chapel, listening to us make our vows, she realized she could not. She said that letting Rosamund come into this castle as the lady of the house, bringing her bastard child into the nursery, that it was more than she could bear.”

“Trenny’s nursery,” Mertensia put in. “She came here as a nurserymaid. She would have viewed it as the greatest betrayal.”

Malcolm went on. “So she lured her away quietly after the ceremony and killed her. She did not tell me the how or the where. Just the fact of the deed. And that was when I went for her.”

“Went for her?” Stoker asked.

“I did not know what I was doing,” Malcolm said simply. “But I put out my hands and they were around her throat. She was going to let me do it, that is the most terrible part. It was as if she were content to die at my hands. But then the room began to spin and I realized she had dosed the wine with one of Mertensia’s concoctions. I was dizzy and weak and I lost my senses for a while. I came to just as she hauled me into the priest’s hole. I tried to rise, but I could not. And I listened as she closed the panel behind her, imprisoning me in my own house.”

I tried to imagine the horror of hearing the door to one’s own tomb closing. A goose walked over my grave just then and Mertensia shuddered visibly.

“So I was there, in the darkness, knowing at last what had become of Rosamund, and much good it did me. I realized that I was going to disappear just as she had. No one would ever know what had become of me.”