No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [146]
Or the worst thought of all: Was Sebastian blackmailing Beecher not over Connie but over the Reavleys’ deaths?
Or was there someone else who had taken advantage of Beecher’s love affair to hide the fact that it was he whom Sebastian was blackmailing? Someone Sebastian had seen lay that string of caltrops across the road?
Or was Joseph simply trying, yet again, to avoid a truth he found too painful to believe? For all his proclaimed love of reason, the faith in God he professed aloud, was he a moral coward, without the courage to test the truth, or the real belief in anything but the facts he could see? Did he trust God at all? Was it a relationship of spirit to spirit? Or just an idea that lasted only until he tried to make it carry the weight of pain or despair?
He laid down his napkin and rose to his feet. “Excuse me. I have duties I must attend to. I’ll see you at dinner.” He did not wait for their startled response, but walked quickly across the floor and out of the door into the sun.
It was time he looked at Sebastian’s murder without any evasion or protection for his own feelings. He must have at least that much honesty. Perhaps he had not really accepted it until now. His emotions were still trying to absorb the death of his parents.
He was walking aimlessly, but swiftly enough to distract anyone from speaking to him.
Sebastian had been shot early in the morning, before most people were up. According to Perth, it had been with a Webley revolver, probably like the one that had killed Beecher. No one had admitted ever seeing such a gun in college. So where had it come from? Whose was it?
Surely the fact of having such a thing indicated intent to kill. Where did one buy or steal a gun? It was certain beyond any reasonable doubt that the same gun had been used both times, so where had it been that the police had not found it?
He walked over the Bridge of Sighs and out into the sun again. He knew St. John’s better than the police possibly could. Surely if he applied his mind to the problem, he could deduce where the gun had been.
He passed a couple of students strolling, deep in conversation. A man and a young woman in a punt drifted lazily along the river. Three young men sat on the grass, absorbed in conversation. Another sat alone, lost in a book. Peace soaked into the bones like the heat of the sun. If they had read the same news as Moulton and Gorley-Smith, they did not believe it.
Where could one hide a gun that it would be retrievable, and in a condition in which it could be used again? Not the river. And not where anyone else would find it, either casually or because they were looking for it.
He stopped on the path and stood facing the college. As always, its beauty filled him with pleasure. From the Bridge of Sighs the fine brick was met by white stone sheer down into the water. Further on there was a short stretch of grass sloping to the river. The walls were smooth except for the windows, all the way up to the crenellated edge of the roof with its dormers and high chimneys.
But Perth’s men had been up there.
All except the master’s lodgings. In deference to the Allards, they had merely looked at it from the next roof over, from where they could see everything. The drainpipes down were wide at the neck, to catch the runoff from the roof behind. An idea stabbed his mind. Was it possible? It was the one place, so far as he knew, where no one had looked.
Could Beecher have put it there after killing Sebastian? And could he have retrieved it again in time to take his own life with it? But even if Joseph was right, there would be no way to prove it now.
Perhaps he could deduce it if he tried. Where should he begin? With everyone’s movements after the discovery of Sebastian’s body. Anyone climbing on the roof of the master’s lodgings would have risked being noticed,