A Christmas Homecoming - Anne Perry [35]
“For heaven’s sake, we don’t know him, either,” James said heatedly. “We don’t even know anyone else in Whitby.”
“Well, why would anybody kill him, then?” Netheridge asked.
“He was an objectionable, interfering, and arrogant man.” Douglas pulled his mouth into a thin, hard line. “He was not difficult to dislike.”
Caroline lost her temper, which happened very rarely indeed, largely because she had been brought up to believe that ladies never did such a thing.
“Mr. Paterson, this man has been run through the chest with a broom handle. The fact that you did not care for him is irrelevant. Unless you are saying that your dislike was sufficiently intense for you to have murdered him? And I do not think that is what you mean. Somebody here obviously had a far deeper hatred or fear of him, beyond simple dislike. One does not take another human being’s life violently, in the middle of the night, without a passion that has slipped out of all control. Your resentment of his generosity in working with Alice, and his assistance in helping her believe in her ability, is surely not of that order, is it?”
There was a stunned silence.
Douglas was white to the lips. “Of course it isn’t!” he said savagely. “How dare you say such a thing? The man was arrogant, and probably a charlatan, but I didn’t do anything to him at all. Look at your fellow players. It has to be one of you.”
It was Vincent who answered, his eyes wide in disbelief. “One of us? Why, for God’s sake? It was this house he came to. It is entirely conceivable that he had actually heard that Mr. Netheridge was entertaining his friends with a group of professional actors in his daughter’s drama, even though he claimed he had no idea. Maybe that was why he showed up. Even if it were not, how would Ballin know specifically who we were? One has to assume it was someone here he came for, someone he expected to find.”
Netheridge’s face flushed dark. “I’ve never seen the man before, or heard of him!” he protested. “Neither has anyone in my family, and that includes Douglas.” He was clearly horrified, but also afraid. His big hands clenched at his sides and he started to take a step forward, before changing his mind.
“There is no point in trying to lay blame on one another,” Caroline said as levelly as she could. “We would all rather it be a crime committed by someone who broke in from outside, a random act that had nothing to do with any of us, but that would be childish and naïve. No one has come or left. Either it was a sudden quarrel so violent that it ended in death, or else he already knew someone here—who either lives here or is visiting—and an old quarrel was renewed. It doesn’t matter. I doubt anyone is going to admit to either.”
“Maybe he attacked someone, and they had to defend themselves?” Eliza said shakily. “That would mean it wasn’t their fault, wouldn’t it?”
Caroline slowly looked around at them all. For a moment her heart was pounding and her mouth dry with the hope that that could be true. Then the dead man, beyond all further hurt, would be to blame. Even as she thought that, she knew it was likely a false hope, but one she could not give up on easily.
“No one looks to be hurt,” she said at last. “No one is dirty or torn, as if they had been in a fight for their lives. And surely if that were the case, the party would now admit it?”
“One of the servants?” Mercy said immediately.
Caroline gave a little shrug. “Why would Mr. Ballin be in the corridor to the theater in the middle of the night, attacking one of the servants with a broken-off and sharpened broom handle?”
“How do you know it was sharpened?” Douglas challenged her.
“Because it wouldn’t have speared him if it were blunt,” she said with weary patience. “This is not a play, this is real. It has to make sense; we have to look at facts to figure out what’s true.”
“We must wait for the police,” Netheridge said, taking command again. “Until then there’s nothing we can do. Please, everyone, go back to bed, and get whatever rest you can. Douglas and I