Murder at Mansfield Park - Lynn Shepherd [120]
He took the empty glass from her hand, and sat down beside her once more.
‘When you met Mr Norris at the belvedere, your tête-à-tête was not, as you believed, à deux, but à trois. My man Stornaway was listening.’
Mary flushed, and she felt the wound above her eye begin to throb. ‘That was an outrageous intrusion, Mr Maddox—’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. It has, however, been of the most vital importance in elucidating this case. Stornaway could not hear every word, but he did discern enough. Thus when Mr Norris came to me and confessed, I knew at once that it was a complete invention from beginning to end. A few pertinent—or impertinent—questions on my part were enough to put the matter beyond question. Unlike almost everyone else in the house, Mr Norris had actually seen Mrs Crawford’s body, so he was able to describe the injuries he had supposedly inflicted with tolerable accuracy. However, he had absolutely no idea that Miss Julia Bertram had died any thing other than a perfectly natural, if lamentable, death. I knew, then, that he was lying.’
‘So why did you arrest him? Why confine him here like a criminal, and let us all believe him guilty? How could you do such a thing?’
‘Because I had no alternative. And if you recall, I did go to great lengths to ensure that he would not be removed to Northampton, nor suffer the indignities of the common jail.’
Mary turned her face away, and he saw, once more, the thinness of her face, and the hollowness under her eyes; she had clearly suffered much in those two days.
‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘I wished to keep him here in Mansfield for my own reasons. Given that Mr Norris had clearly not committed the crime, there was only one possible reason why he should have chosen to confess to it. He was protecting someone; someone for whom he felt either duty and responsibility, or great affection. Someone he perceived to be weaker than himself, and less capable of enduring the punishment that must attend such a heinous crime. In short, a woman.’
He got to his feet and began to walk about the room, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘I was convinced, for some time, that this woman was you, Miss Crawford. I had you watched at all times, I intercepted your letters, and subjected your behaviour to the most intense scrutiny. I know your habits, I know all your ways; what time you prefer to breakfast, and where you prefer to walk. I know every thing about you—I have made it my business to know. Despite all my efforts, I saw nothing to indicate that you yourself were guilty.You were distressed, but I was forced to acknowledge that this was the natural distress of a woman who knows the man she loves is about to sacrifice himself needlessly for her sake.’
Her face was, by now, flushed a deep red, but she did not turn to look at him.
‘And so I turned my attention elsewhere. I had initially dismissed Mrs Norris as a possible murderess, on account of her age, but it seems I did not fully appreciate her physical strength, nor her formidable capacity for jealousy and resentment. It was the poisoning of Julia Bertram that forced me to think again. The killing of Mrs Crawford had always seemed to me to be the work of a man—the brutality, the bodily vigour it required—but poisoning is, in my experience, very much a woman’s crime. And who was better placed than Mrs Norris to perpetrate the act? The whole household went to her with their coughs and sore throats and arthritic joints, and no-one—not even you, Miss Crawford—would have questioned her presence in the sick-room.’
Mary looked at him in consternation, unable to take in all this new information. ‘Then why in heaven’s name did you not arrest her at once?’
‘I needed proof, Miss Crawford, proof. I needed to hear her say it—admit what she had done in the presence of a witness.You were my only hope. I guessed that you would try to see Mr Norris, and having let it be known that he would be moved on Thursday, I made sure that today was your last opportunity. I knew, likewise, that if Mrs