The prince cast Lord Vitor a quick glance, then stepped to the edge of the landing. “My lord,” he said to the biologist, “I demand that you apologize to the general and Mademoiselle Dijon, and when the snow begins to melt that you depart my house at once.”
“But what of Mr. Anders?” Lady Penelope said. “He is not a child to do everything his father demands. The animal might have died, after all. Should not he be punished for the actual crime?”
“Why didn’t it die after all those days in the cold?” Lady Margaret asked. “It’s smaller than a capon.”
“My brother climbed that wretched mountain every day,” Cecilia said, “up to his knees in ice, to care for that dog. He lit a fire every morning to warm the shed, and fed her his own breakfast. For his care of it, and for enduring our father’s threats to cut off his allowance if he did not obey, he should not have to suffer further punishment.”
“But, he should.” Lord Case moved away from Arielle. “Mr. Anders, for the distress you have caused Mademoiselle Dijon and her father, I demand satisfaction.” He stripped off his blue and gray Montague gauntlet and tossed it onto the stone floor.
“But—but, my lord!” Mr. Anders climbed to his feet but his shoulders were slumped and his hair fell across one of his eyes entirely. “I cared for that dog like it was my very own—rather, better than that.”
“But ye might’ve told his royal highness instead, lad,” the duchess said with a nod. “Ye must pay the consequences o’ yer folly.”
He dashed his arm across his eyes once more and released a mighty groan. “God, I am undone!”
“Vitor.” Lord Case looked to his brother on the landing. “Will you act as my second?”
“No seconds will be nécessaires.” Monsieur Sepic leaped from his chair like a stiff little martinet. “For you, monsieur”—he pointed to Mr. Anders—“have an appointment with the gallows.”
Mr. Anders gaped. “For stealing a dog?”
“That is preposterous.” Lord Whitebarrow boomed. “He is no peasant to hang for snatching a loaf of bread, Sepic. He is the sole heir to a peer of the realm.”
“No’ this realm,” Iona whispered at Ravenna’s shoulder.
“I will not hear of it,” Lord Whitebarrow insisted. “The girl has her dog again, and Anders will face Case on the dueling field tomorrow. That is a gentlemanly end to it.”
“There will be an end to it, my lord,” the mayor said with a nod. “But not the end you believe. For I, Gaston Sepic, have discovered the answer to the more important mystery that I have pursued these four days in your midst. While I dined and dallied with you as if enamored of you, I, a proud citizen of the nation of La France, collected clues.” He lifted his arm and pointed a damning finger at the stage. “Monsieur Anders, you murdered Oliver Walsh.”
Chapter 14
The Stable, Despite a Promise
Martin Anders’s face went white as lambswool. “I did not!” He seemed to search the chamber for allies. “Tell him. Tell him I did not.”
“Monsieur Sepic,” Cecilia said, “I don’t believe my brother murdered that man. I don’t believe he is capable of murder.”
“You will of course say anything to protect him,” the mayor said with a disdainful sniff.
Ravenna willed Lord Vitor to look at her, but his attention was intent—not upon the mayor but on the others scattered on the landing and floor below. She swung her gaze around, seeking anything amiss in the faces of the prince’s guests. All seemed bemused, except Juliana Abraccia, whose pretty pale face crumpled beneath her halo of dark hair. Thrusting a trembling hand against her lips, she burst into tears and dashed from the room.
“Carina,” Bishop Abraccia rasped at the same moment Mr. Anders shouted, “Juliana!” He started forward but Lord Vitor put a restraining hand on his arm and spoke quietly to him. The young man fell back but stared at the empty doorway with tragic eyes.
“She did love me,” he said dully. “Not you, after all. I thought . . . But I must have been mistaken.” He turned to Lord Vitor, bowed his head, and placed his hand over his heart. “I offer you an apology, my lord, for my display of unwonted violence during our fighting scene. I am honored to have been disarmed by such a man.”
“Apology accepted.” Lord Vitor looked down the steps at the mayor. “Monsieur Sepic, what evidence leads you to conclude that Mr. Anders killed Walsh?”
The mayor snapped his fingers. “Evidence that others might have been unwise enough to toss away as mere coincidence. But in an investigation of this sort, no evidence is coincidental. N’est-ce pas?”
The bees stirred in Ravenna’s stomach again, this time frantically.
Monsieur Sepic reached into his pocket and withdrew Mr. Walsh’s ring.
Ravenna’s heart fell.
The mayor pinched the ring between forefinger and thumb and raised it so all could see. “This ring, worn by the deceased, possesses a pattern that, when it connected with the flesh of the murderer during the attack, deposited a mark on that flesh.” He gestured to Mr. Anders with the ring. “Monsieur Anders bears a wound beside his right eye that perfectly corresponds. He told me that he had received the blow to his eye three days before the murder, but I have determined that this was a lie.”
“It was a lie,” Mr. Anders admitted. “But I did not kill Walsh.” He looked darkly from the eye where the bruise was finally fading, the other eye shrouded by his lanky hair. “The afternoon before he died, I encountered him in the corridor. We fell into a scuffle.”
“A scuffle?” the duchess said.
“He’d won a pony from me at a gaming club in London in January and I hadn’t yet paid up. He demanded the money like he was some sort of king. I tossed my fives at him, but he got me first, the devil.” He glowered. “But I left him after that.”
“Where did you go?” Lord Vitor asked.
“To the highest tower to cast myself down in misery,” he replied upon a moan. Then he glimpsed Lord Vitor’s face and said, “To the chamber at the top of that tower. The one with the turret. I was . . . not myself, and I needed to wash off the blood. But the curtains were drawn and I dropped the candle I had carried up the stairs, so I returned to the hall. Then I went to the village. I was too purpled up to hang about with you all and I didn’t want my father to see the eye.” He glared at Lord Prunesly. “By dinner the swelling had eased, so I returned here. I didn’t even see Walsh again that night,” he said to the mayor, and thrust out his jaw.
Ravenna met Lord Vitor’s gaze. He believed Mr. Anders too.
“At the village,” she said to the dog thief. “Where did you go and with whom did you speak?”
His eyes shifted uneasily. “To the locals’ watering hole.”
“What did you do there?”
“I don’t recall,” he grumbled. “My eye smarted like the very devil. I may have had a jug of wine and said a word or two I shouldn’t have.”
“Such as?”
No one stirred throughout the hall. Finally he answered.
“I declared that I would pay five guineas to the man that gave Walsh what he deserved.”
A lady gasped. Gentlemen murmured.
Lord Whitebarrow muttered, “Just as I told you all: it wasn’t one of us.”