No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [163]
Joseph saw the letter on the cot and went to it. There was nothing he or anyone could do for Elwyn. The envelope was addressed to him. He opened it, before Perth or anyone else should tell him he couldn’t.
He read it:
Dear Dr. Reavley,
Sebastian was dead when I got to his room that morning; the gun was on the floor. I knew he had killed himself, but I thought it was because he was afraid of going to war. He always believed we would. It looks now as if he was right. But I didn’t read his letter until afterward, when it was too late. All I could think of was hiding his suicide. Mother could not have lived with the knowledge that he was a coward. You know that, because you know her.
I took the gun and hid it in the bucket at the top of the drainpipe in the master’s house. I never meant anyone to be blamed, but it all got away from me.
Dr. Beecher must have realized. You heard what he said on the landing, about Sebastian and courage. By then I’d read his letter, but it was too late. I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry. There is nothing left now. At least this is the truth,
Elwyn Allard
Wrapped inside it was another letter, on different paper, and in Sebastian’s hand:
Dear Dr. Reavley,
I thought I knew the answer. Peace—peace at any price. War in Europe could slaughter millions; what is one life or two to save so many? I believed that, and I would have given my own life gladly. I wanted to keep all the beauty. Perhaps it isn’t possible, and we’ll have to fight after all.
I was in London when I heard the document had been stolen. I came back to Cambridge that night. They gave me a gun, but I made the caltrops myself, out of fence wire. Then it would look like an accident. Much better. It wasn’t difficult, just tedious.
I went out on a bicycle the next day, left it in a field. It was all very simple—and more terrible than anything I could have imagined. You think of millions and the mind is devastated. You see two who lie broken, the spirit gone, and it tears the soul apart. The reality of blood and pain is so very different from the idea. I can’t live with who I am now.
I wish it hadn’t been your parents, Joseph. I’m so sorry, sorrier than anything will heal.
Sebastian
Joseph stared at the paper. It explained everything. In their own way Sebastian and Elwyn were so alike: blind, heroic, self-destructive, and in the end futile. The war would happen anyway.
Perth laid Elwyn on the floor, gently, a blanket under his head, as if it mattered. He was staring up at Joseph, his face gray.
“It’s not your fault,” Joseph said. “At least this way there doesn’t have to be a trial.”
Perth gasped. He tried to say something, but it ended in a sob.
Joseph put Elwyn’s letter back on the cot and kept Sebastian’s.
“I’ll go and tell them.” He found his mouth dry. What words could he possibly find? He walked out and back the short distance. Perth could send for somebody to help him.
As soon as he was in the room Mary stepped forward and drew in her breath to demand an explanation. Then she saw his face and realized with terror that there was something more hideously wrong.
Gerald moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Joseph said quietly. “Elwyn has admitted to killing Dr. Beecher, because Beecher realized the truth of Sebastian’s death.”
“No!” Mary said stridently, trying to raise her arms and snatch herself away from Gerald’s grip.
Joseph stood still. There was no way to avoid it. He felt as if he were pronouncing a sentence of death upon her. “Sebastian took his own life. No one murdered him. Elwyn did not want you to know that, so he took the gun and made it look like murder—to protect you. I’m sorry.”
She stood paralyzed. “No,” she said quite quietly. “That isn’t true. It’s a conspiracy!”
Gerald’s face puckered slowly as understanding broke something inside him. He let go of Mary and staggered backward to collapse onto one of the wooden chairs.
The solicitor looked totally helpless.