No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [157]
Perth gave in, and they walked together into the shadow of the front gate, and out into the street on the far side.
At the police station it was a formal matter of charging Elwyn with the murder of Harry Beecher, to which he pleaded not guilty. On Joseph’s advice, he refused to say anything further until he had a lawyer with him.
Gerald and Mary Allard arrived at St. John’s an hour after Joseph returned. Mary was beside herself, her face contorted with fury. The moment Joseph walked into the sitting room at the master’s lodgings, she swung around from Aidan Thyer, to whom she had been speaking, and glared at Joseph. Her thin body looked positively gaunt in its tight black silk, like a winter crow.
“This is monstrous!” she said, her voice strident. “Elwyn couldn’t possibly have killed that wretched man! For heaven’s sake, Beecher murdered Sebastian! When he knew you were closing in on him, he took his own life. Everybody knows that. Let Elwyn go immediately—with an apology for this idiotic mistake. Now!”
Joseph stood still. What could he tell her? One of her sons was dead and the other guilty of murder, even if he had done it in mistaken revenge.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her—and he meant it profoundly, with a pain that throbbed inside him. “But they have proof.”
“Nonsense!” she spat. “It is totally absurd. Gerald!”
Gerald came to stand almost level with her. He looked wretched; his skin was pale and blotchy and his eyes blurred. “Really, for God’s sake, what is going on?” he demanded. “Beecher killed my son and now you have arrested my other son when quite obviously Beecher took his own life.” He put out a hand tentatively as if to touch Mary, but she pulled away from him.
“No,” Joseph said as gently as he could. He could not like Gerald, but he was fiercely sorry for him. “Beecher did not kill Sebastian. He was seen elsewhere at the time.”
“You are lying!” Mary accused him furiously. Her face was ashen, with scarlet splashes on her cheeks. “Beecher was your friend, and you are lying to protect him. Who on earth would see Beecher anywhere at five o’clock in the morning? Unless he was in bed with somebody? And if he was, then she is a whore, and her word is worth nothing!”
“Mary . . . ,” Gerald began, then faltered under her withering glance.
“He was out walking,” Joseph replied. “And the gun that killed Sebastian was hidden where only a limited number of people could have placed it or retrieved it.”
“Beecher!” Mary said with scalding triumph. “Naturally! It is the only answer that makes sense.”
“No,” Joseph told her. “He might have been able to hide it there, but he could not have retrieved it. Elwyn could have.”
“It’s still ridiculous,” she asserted, her whole body so tense she was shuddering. “If he had known where it was, he would have told the police! It might have led to the arrest of whoever killed Sebastian. Or are you insane enough to believe he did that, too?”
“No. I know he didn’t. I don’t know who did,” he admitted. “And I believe that Elwyn sincerely thought it was Beecher and that the law could not touch him.”
“Then he was justified!” she said savagely. “He killed a murderer!”
“He killed someone he thought was a murderer,” Joseph corrected. “And he was mistaken.”
“You’re wrong,” she insisted, but she turned away from him. Her voice rose, shrill with desperation, as if the world no longer made sense. “Beecher must have done it! Elwyn is morally innocent of any crime, and I shall see to it that he doesn’t suffer.”
Joseph looked past her at Aidan Thyer, and again the darkness filled his mind that it could have been he who was behind the document, and perhaps Sebastian’s death. He looked pale and tired today, the lines in his face deeper. Did he know about Connie and Beecher? Had he always known? Joseph stared at him, searching, but there was nothing in Thyer’s eyes to betray him.
“Dr. Reavley?” Gerald said tentatively. “Would you . . . would you do what you can for Elwyn? I mean, I wish he would . . . you are a person of standing here . . . the police will . . .” He floundered helplessly.