No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [114]
Before dinner, when he was almost certain to find him alone, Joseph went to Beecher’s rooms, bracing himself for a confrontation that could break a friendship he had long valued.
Beecher was surprised to see him, and evidently pleased.
“Come in,” he invited him warmly, abandoning his book and welcoming Joseph, offering him the better chair. “Have a drink? I’ve got some fairly decent sherry.”
That was typical of Beecher’s understatement. “Fairly decent” actually meant absolutely excellent.
Joseph accepted, embarrassed that he was going to take hospitality in what might prove to be a false understanding.
“I could do with one myself.” Beecher went to the sideboard, took the bottle out of the cupboard, and set two elegant engraved crystal glasses on the table. He was fond of glass and collected it now and then, when he found something quaint or very old. “I feel as if I’ve been dogged by that wretched policeman all week, and God knows the news is bad enough. I can’t see any end to this Irish fiasco. Can you?”
“No,” Joseph admitted honestly, sitting down. The room had grown familiar over the time he had been here. He knew every book on the shelves and had borrowed many of them. He could have described the view out the window with his eyes closed. He could have named the various members of the family in each of the silver-framed photographs. He knew exactly where the different scenic paintings were drawn, which valley in the Lake District, which castle on the Northumberland coast, which stretch of the South Downs. Each held memories they had shared or recounted at one time or another.
“The police are not getting anywhere, are they?” he said aloud.
“Not so far as I know.” Beecher returned with the sherry. “Here’s to an end to the investigation, although I’m not sure if we’ll like what it uncovers.”
“And what might that be?” Joseph asked.
Beecher studied Joseph for some time before replying. “I think we’ll discover that somebody had a thoroughly good motive for killing Sebastian Allard, even though they may be hideously sorry now.”
Suddenly Joseph was cold, and the aftertaste of the sherry was bitter in his mouth. “What do you think a good motive could be?” he asked. “It was in cold blood. Whoever it was took a gun to his room at a quarter after five in the morning.” With a jolt of memory so violent it turned his stomach, Joseph recalled exactly the feel of Sebastian’s skin, already cool.
Beecher must have been watching him and seen his color bleach. He breathed out slowly. “I’d like to let you go on in your belief that he was as good as you wanted him to be, but he wasn’t. He had promise, but he was on the verge of being spoiled. Poor Mary Allard was at least in part responsible.”
Now was the moment. “I know,” Joseph conceded. “I was responsible as well.” He ignored Beecher’s look of amusement and compassion. “Elwyn protected him partly for his own sake, partly for his mother’s,” he went on. “And apparently you let him get away with being rude, late with work, and sometimes sloppy. And yet you didn’t like him. Why did you do that?”
Beecher was silent, but the color had paled from his face and his hand holding the sherry glass was trembling very slightly; the golden liquid in it shimmered. He made an effort to control it and lifted it to his lips to take a sip, perhaps to give himself time.
“It was hardly in your interest,” Joseph went on. “It was bad for your reputation and your ability to be fair to others and maintain any kind of discipline.”
“You favored him yourself!”
“I liked him,” Joseph pointed out. “I admit, my judgment was flawed. But you didn’t like him. You know the rules as well as I do. Why did you break them for him?”
“I didn’t know you had such tenacity,” Beecher said drily. “You’ve changed.”
“Rather past time, isn’t it?” Joseph said with regret. “But as you said, there is no point in dealing with anything less than the truth.”
“No. But I don’t propose to