ã€ŠSilver Glassã€‹


 Prologue

    Willows whiten, aspens shiver.

    The sunbeam showers break and quiver

    In the stream that runneth ever

    By the island in the river...

    -- Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott (1832 version)

    River Erne

    Outskirts of Enniskillen

    6 September, 19¡ª

    From her boat Katy could see everything up and down the river. On the left bank was the house she and her siblings shared with their grandmother, and beyond it was the outskirts of the town. On the right the river wound away among small islands and disappeared around a corner. Directly opposite her was the recently-built house with its garden running down to the water''s edge. Someone had bought it but hadn''t yet moved in. Every day Katy saw people bringing furniture into it, hanging up curtains, and generally getting it ready for the owner.

    Beyond it, up on a hill and almost hidden by the forest that surrounded it, was the Big House. Its grounds reached down to the river too, but there were so many trees it was impossible to get a good look at the Big House. Sometimes it was brightly lit up at night and the light from its windows seemed to dance between the branches. Sometimes it seemed to fade away and be swallowed up by the forest.

    Katy, being all of nine years old, amused herself by sitting on her boat and imagining fairy-tales about the Big House. It was under a spell, she thought. An evil witch had cursed the house and everyone in it. They were waiting for the prince to come and wake the princess with a kiss.

    It was washing day. Granny had kicked Katy out of the house so she wouldn''t get in the way. As usual on days like this, Katy came down to her boat and pretended to be a pirate. She had learnt how to swim as a very small child and she knew never to go out onto the river without one of her siblings, so Granny had given her permission for this.

    For ten minutes Katy imagined she was sailing in a terrible storm. Then she discovered buried treasure (a few pebbles stood in for this) and had to duel a rival pirate (otherwise known as the mast) with her razor-sharp sword (a stick). Captain Katy was victorious, and then was faced with the conundrum of how to make her rival walk the plank without throwing the mast overboard.

    She was considering this when she saw him.

    Katy had never got a good look at anyone from the Big House. The most she''d ever seen was a glimpse of figures moving through the forest. Sometimes she heard a shot, which she knew was just a groundsman shooting a rabbit but which it was more fun to believe was a magical battle.

    No one from the Big House ever came down to the path beside the river.

    And yet, a man had just appeared out of the forest like a ghost.

    Katy dropped down beneath her boat''s gunwale. Half-believing her own fantasies about witches and curses, she reached for the telescope and peeked warily over the side.

    Her caution was unnecessary. The man seemed completely oblivious to both her and her boat. He paced back and forth like an animal in a cage. Katy kept the telescope trained on him.

    To her eyes he seemed very old, almost as old as her grandmother. She was mildly surprised to see his hair was light brown instead of grey. His clothes were black. If she had been a little older with more knowledge of fashion, Katy would have wondered why a man was wearing full evening dress early in the morning. She would have wondered even more at him being outside without a hat. As it was, she merely marvelled that she couldn''t see a single patch on his clothes.

    Another man emerged from the forest. The first man stopped pacing and turned to confront the second one. They argued for several minutes. Voices carried across the water, but although they were speaking English their accents were strange. Katy caught a word here and there. None of it made sense.

    Then something happened. Something so startling that Katy dropped her telescope. When she picked it up again with shaking hands, the first man had vanished. The second man stood on the path for a minute. He shrugged and walked away. The forest closed around him.

    Katy sat frozen. She tried to make sense of what she''d seen.

    <hr>

    Lennox House

    Enniskillen

    21 February, 19¡ª

    It was rare that someone could point to a specific date and say, "That''s when everything went wrong." But if Mrs. Skinner was asked, she would have no hesitation: everything went wrong on the sixth of September last year.

    Things hadn''t exactly been perfect before that. A full year earlier, young master Alec had been forced to marry That Woman. Mrs. Skinner refused to think of the current Lady Kilskeery as anything but That Woman. She was an American millionaire''s daughter married solely for her money, but that could be forgiven. She knew as much about good manners as the butcher''s boy knew about the geography of Peru, but that could be forgiven. She rejoiced in the outlandish name of Gwladys, but that could be forgiven.

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    What could not be forgiven was how she had made young master Alec miserable.

    Mrs. Skinner had been the housekeeper at Lennox House since before the young master was born. She had seen him grow up and looked on him with as much pride as his own mother did. She still thought of him as young master Alec even though he was now Lord Kilskeery, and no force on heaven or earth could make her realise he was a man of twenty-four instead of a little boy. And as a direct consequence of all these facts, she hated his wife.

    The previous Lord Kilskeery had chosen That Woman for his son in spite of his son''s protests. Master Alec had to be practically dragged to the church. The honeymoon had been cut short when the young master couldn''t put up with his wife any longer and came home, leaving her in London to follow in her own time.

    Things had not improved over the year and a half since then. The couple alternated between stony silences and blazing rows. Not even the birth of their twin sons made a difference. All it did was give them something new to fight about.

    September last year was when everything got worse. It had been caused by a visit from one of Master Alec''s school friends. He and Master Alec had some sort of fight that ended in him leaving abruptly. Ever since then the young master had been behaving... bizarrely.

    Mrs. Skinner had never missed a church service in her life and took a serious view of religion. All the same, the young master''s newfound religious zeal struck her as excessive. He was constantly praying, constantly reading theological works, constantly going to church services and visiting pastors. He wasn''t content to stay in the Church of Ireland. Instead he went to Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. He had even shown an interest in whatever strange religion they had in Russia, to the consternation of his mother and Mrs. Skinner.

    It was very odd in a man who had once looked on church-going as a necessary evil.

    Even odder were his abrupt changes of mood. One minute he would laugh, the next he was in the depths of despair. He had used to love walking beside the river in the evening, now he refused to go near it at any time.

    Naturally, That Woman took a dim view of all this. Mrs. Skinner was alarmed to see bruises on Master Alec''s face after an especially nasty argument.

    Now Alec had practically retired from the world. He spent all his time in his study. According to him he was compiling a theological encyclopaedia. That Woman acted as if this was her house. She invited all her friends to her never-ending parties, and the things that went on were enough to make Mrs. Skinner consider giving notice.

    Lately Alec and That Woman ignored each other''s existence. But today Robbins the footman came with a strange tale. He burst into the kitchen looking as grave as a judge pronouncing sentence. Instead of telling his news at once he made cryptic comments that baffled everyone.

    Finally he decided to enlighten them all. "She has ordered the master to dismiss Eames!"

    A stunned silence followed. David Eames ¡ª Mrs. Skinner had considerable doubts if that was his real name ¡ª was Alec''s valet. He had joined the household during Alec''s interest in Russian Orthodoxy. Apparently he had a Russian mother, and from her had learnt enough about the religion to answer Alec''s questions. (Personally Mrs. Skinner thought that, although Eames may well have a Russian mother, his father was something even more foreign.) It was an odd reason to choose a valet, but lately Alec did nothing but odd things.

    "What has Eames done?" Lily the kitchen-maid demanded.

    Robbins shook his head. "Nothing, as far as I can tell. Seems her ladyship just doesn''t like him."

    Mrs. Skinner''s curiosity got the better of her. She left the kitchen and headed towards the young master''s study. She took a shopping list with her so she would have the pretext of wanting to ask what he wanted for Sunday dinner.

    The door was closed. She could hear muffled voices inside. Outside was the man the whole fight was about. He clearly did not share Mrs. Skinner''s opinion on listening outside doors. His ear was practically glued against the keyhole. When he saw her coming he leapt away guiltily.

    The most well-travelled observer would have had trouble telling where David Eames was from. He was lightly tanned, with very large eyes, so dark brown they were almost black, and jet black hair. Guesses from his fellow servants included Greece, Italy, and even Egypt. The one thing absolutely no one believed was that he was a half-Russian Englishman named David Eames.

    Mrs. Skinner was suspicious of him on principle. All the same, she had never proved he was guilty of anything worse than being a foreigner. She disapproved of all foreigners, especially ones of uncertain origin, but even so she was sure he had done nothing to deserve being fired on a whim. He did his job conscientiously, and his only definite flaw was that he kept the other servants at rather more than arm''s length.

    The voices were getting louder, though the words were still indistinct. Mrs. Skinner judged it was time to interrupt the argument. She rapped sharply on the door. The shouting continued without the slightest hint they had even heard her.

    Suddenly the door was flung open. Mrs. Skinner and Eames jumped back. That Woman stormed out, screaming obscenities over her shoulder. She gave Eames a look full of venom. Mrs. Skinner was certain that she would have killed him on the spot if she thought she could get away with it.

    Young master Alec emerged from the study. He was very pale and shaking with rage, but there were no new bruises on his face.

    He didn''t look surprised to find an audience. "Mrs. Skinner, please inform Mrs. Lennox¡ª" That was his wife; no one called her Lady Kilskeery in spite of her attempts to insist on it, "¡ªthat she may invite her friend to stay for as long as she likes."

    Long experience of strange orders prevented Mrs. Skinner from openly showing her confusion. "Yes, sir."

    "Am I to pack my bags?" Eames asked.

    The young master gave him an odd look. If Mrs. Skinner didn''t know better she''d say it was fear. "No. You aren''t fired."

    He went back into the study. Mrs. Skinner heard him lock the door.

 Chapter I: A Funny Thing Happened by the River

    An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. -- G. K. Chesterton

    Patton House

    Enniskillen

    1 March, 19¡ª

    It had been an eventful year. First that forgery case in Busan, then an abduction in Hong Kong, then the suicide-that-wasn''t in Sapporo, then a trip to Rome to catch a money-launderer, all in the space of a month and a half. The minute he had handed the money-launderer over to the authorities, Seo Yo-han had promised himself that he wouldn''t take on a single case until August.

    He was going on holiday, and if he heard so much as a whisper of another mystery he would run a mile in the opposite direction.

    So he got on a train to France, and then on a boat to England, and then spent a week taking photos in the Lake District. While there he remembered Miss Patton, who he''d cleared of a murder charge almost two years ago, and her invitation to visit if he was ever in Ulster. He wrote to her and quickly got a reply saying she would be glad to see him. So he got on another boat, then on a train, and finally ended up in Enniskillen.

    It amused him that he had gone from one Lake District to another.

    Miss Patton had sold her aunt''s house and bought a new one on the outskirts of the town. Her sister and brother-in-law (and their son, and two dogs) shared the house with her. When Yo-han arrived he was promptly pounced on by Mrs. Kir¨¢ly, formerly known as Octavia Patton, who had endless questions about the circumstances of her aunt''s death and how her sister had become a suspect.

    Yo-han couldn''t help thinking Mrs. Kir¨¢ly was rather like his half-brother Hyeon-su.

    Ophelia Patton was much more cheerful than he remembered, and M¨¢t¨¦ Kir¨¢ly was downright friendly. He had a sneaking suspicion that life with Rachael Patton-Langdale had made their personalities much more abrasive than they naturally were. Mr. Kir¨¢ly Jr. was a paragon of tranquillity by one-year-old standards, meaning he generally cried no more than five times a day, and the dogs showed their approval of the visitor by jumping into Yo-han''s lap and licking his face.

    Miss Patton''s house was right beside the river. On the right was a park and a collection of piers. On the left was a large house on a hill, surrounded by a wall and a forest. At the bottom of the garden was a path running beside the river. This started in the park, continued past Miss Patton''s and the house on the hill, and disappeared around a corner further downstream. It was agreed that this path was open for anyone to use, and a fence divided it from the garden.

    Across the river was a large field with cows wandering across it. An old empty house stood in the field. Off to the side was a small house, and beyond it one of the bridges connecting the main town with its outskirts.

    A less likely setting for a mystery would be hard to find.

    One evening Yo-han took his camera and went down to the path. He took photos of everything, but he couldn''t get a good view of the bridge. Since the path was open to the public he thought nothing of going further down.

    This part was technically on the grounds of the house on the hill, but there were no gates and no signs warning people away. The trees cast a shadow over it.

    The sunlight fell on the field and the empty house. It cast a golden sheen on them. Light glinted off glass in one of the windows. The house beyond it was hidden by a hedge with only its roof visible. A small boat was moored near it. The bridge still wasn''t properly visible.

    Yo-han moved further along the path and set up his camera again. Finally! He took the photo and turned to go back. Then he stopped at a strange sound. Branches snapped. Footsteps approached. At first he thought a group of people were chasing each other through the forest. Then he realised there was only one set of footsteps. Someone was running like their life depended on it.

    A narrow path wound its way through the forest. Yo-han hadn''t noticed it until a person raced down it and skidded to a halt at the edge of the riverside path.

    If this man''s sudden arrival was startling, it was nothing compared to his appearance. He was wearing full evening dress, torn in several places where he''d gotten caught by branches, but wasn''t wearing a hat. His hair was dishevelled in a way that suggested he''d been tearing at it. And he was staring at the water in an ominously intent way. He seemed completely oblivious to Yo-han''s presence less than a foot away.

    Yo-han knew instinctively what the man was planning to do. He dropped his camera without even realising it. He lunged for the man.

    The man began to step off the bank.

    Yo-han grabbed the man.

    For a minute there was a confused struggle. Yo-han tried to pull the man back to safety while the man thrashed around wildly. The two of them staggered perilously close to the water. Then Yo-han tripped and dragged the man down with him.

    They landed safely on the path. The shock briefly stopped the man''s struggles. After years of dealing with escaping criminals and dodging attempts on his life, it took more than a fall to disorientate Yo-han. He struggled to his feet and tried to pull the man up too.

    The man made no effort to get up. Yo-han tugged futilely at his sleeve before deciding a more direct method was called for. He knelt down and began to physically lift the man to his feet.

    He got a shock when he put his arm around the man''s chest. In the scrimmage a minute ago he had held the man''s arms, afraid that he would try to punch him or shove him away. He''d had no time to notice anything about his physique. Now he realised that he was abnormally, unhealthily thin.

    The man made a final effort to escape. He struggled for a minute, then gave up and let Yo-han lift him.

    His face was very pale, and the skin was stretched over his cheekbones and jaw. Yo-han guessed he was probably in his mid-twenties, but he had a haggard, exhausted air that made him look much older. He had dark circles under his eyes, and a fading bruise on the side of his face.

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    Yo-han looked at this strange figure. His first thought was that the man was ill. His second was that it wasn''t entirely a physical illness. He had the hunted look of someone being driven to breaking point. Absurdly Yo-han was reminded of Miss Patton when he had first seen her.

    The man stared at him through eerily large and bright eyes. He didn''t react when Yo-han spoke to him.

    He tried the simplest question first. "Who are you?" No answer, so he tried again. "Do you live up there?" Yo-han pointed up to the lighted windows visible between the trees.

    Still no answer.

    Yo-han was much better at apprehending criminals than dealing with attempted suicides. It was getting dark, he was cold, and he honestly had no idea what to do now there was no immediate danger. The man had come from the forest, so the logical conclusion was that he came from the house on the hill. Therefore the best solution was to bring him back there, and possibly warn his family to consult a doctor if they hadn''t already.

    "Come on," he said, and tried to put his arm around the man''s shoulders.

    The man shied away. For a second Yo-han feared he would run for the river again. But he stopped, still staring fixedly at Yo-han''s face. It was quite disconcerting.

    When he spoke his voice was quiet but much steadier than expected under the circumstances. "Who are you?"

    "My name is Seo Yo-han. I''m staying nearby. Now come, you should go home."

    The man shuddered. "I can''t!" he almost screamed. "She''s poisoning me!"

    Part of Yo-han''s mind told him now was the time to leave. He could guide the man to the house, the police, or a hospital, but he most certainly was not going to get involved. The rest of his mind sighed and said goodbye to his plans for a holiday.

    "Who is she, and why do you believe she''s poisoning you?" he asked. The man hesitated, so Yo-han added, "I''m a detective. I solved the Patton murder two years ago." And had never been able to recapture the murderer in spite of meeting him several times, but that was beside the point.

    The man was silent. When he looked up there was a mixture of hope and desperation in his eyes. "My name is Alexander Lennox, and I know my wife is poisoning me. I''ll pay you anything you want if you can only find the proof."

    Yo-han frowned. Half of him wondered if he was dealing with a delusional paranoiac. What were the chances that Miss Patton had moved next door to a would-be murderess? But Lennox''s physical state could be the result of poison instead of illness. "I believe we should discuss this indoors. Are you willing to go back to your own house or would you rather come to my host''s?"

    He hoped it was the former. What Miss Patton and the Kir¨¢lys would say if he turned up on their doorstep with a possible lunatic didn''t bear thinking about.

    Lennox seemed quite calm now. He straightened up and brushed a strand of hair back from his face. His eyes landed on something behind Yo-han. He stiffened. A strange look flashed across his face.

    Yo-han turned, expecting to see the mysterious Mrs. Lennox, and got another surprise.

    A spectator had arrived, so silently that he hadn''t even heard a branch crack. Yo-han had plenty of time to study him, because his attention was riveted on Lennox.

    He was a young man of about twenty, with dark hair and wearing a suit -- though not a fine suit like Lennox''s. His eyes were so dark that they seemed to be all pupil, which gave him a startling and almost ghostly appearance. Yo-han couldn''t see him clearly in the waning light, especially as he was standing just inside the trees, but he had an idea that some intense emotion was written all over his face. Then the man stepped out of the shadows, and his face was perfectly blank.

    "Lady Kilskeery is looking for you, sir," he said in an oddly toneless voice.

    In America Yo-han had once driven past a reservoir behind a concrete dam. He had thought about the amount of water contained behind that dam, and the devastation it would cause if the concrete broke. This man''s blankness reminded him of that dam.

    "Tell Mother I''ll be up in a minute," Lennox said, almost carelessly.

    The man stared at him. Lennox''s shoulders slumped. He headed towards the path up through the forest. Then he paused and turned back to Yo-han.

    He asked, "Could you come round after dinner tomorrow? We can discuss this then."

    Yo-han agreed. He watched as Lennox and the young man disappeared into the trees. A strange feeling that the last fifteen minutes had been a dream swept over him. Then he saw his camera lying on the grass. That convinced him that it had been real enough.

    <hr>

    "Do you know your neighbours well?" Yo-han asked casually over tea that evening.

    Miss Patton considered this. "We don''t have many neighbours. This house was only built last year. I''ve heard they''re going to build other houses nearby, but it hasn''t happened yet."

    "There are those people in the big house," Kir¨¢ly said.

    "Oh, yes." Miss Patton frowned. "Them."

    Yo-han raised an eyebrow. "Who are they?"

    "The Lennoxes. Otherwise the Viscount and Viscountess of Kilskeery," Miss Patton said, injecting an astonishing amount of disapproval into each syllable. "Vi can tell you all about them. Vi!"

    Mrs. Kir¨¢ly was in the nursery putting her son to bed. At her sister''s shout she hurried to the sitting room on tiptoe and closed the door softly. Then she glared at Miss Patton. Somehow she managed to shout in a whisper, "Quiet! You''ll wake Baby!"

    Miss Patton rolled her eyes. "Johnny was in the next room when we hung those pictures and he never woke up, not even when you dropped three." Mrs. Kir¨¢ly seemed about to protest, so Miss Patton continued, "Anyway, we were talking about the people in the big house. What do you know about them?"

    Mrs. Kir¨¢ly sat down on the settee next to her husband and accepted the teacup he handed her. "I know nothing good about them, that''s for sure. Well," she paused to consider, "the old lady''s alright. I don''t know much about the viscount. But the viscountess! She''s always throwing noisy parties! And Jenny ¡ª from the costume department in the opera house, you know ¡ª said she''d heard from her sister who works in the household that the viscountess went around with a male friend during her honeymoon! The viscount walked out on her in the middle of the honeymoon, you know. Left her in London and caught the first boat home, and I can''t say I blame him. She''s an American."

    She said the word as if it was a curse she hesitated to repeat.

    Yo-han listened with interest. Adultery had a tendency to lead to murder ¡ª almost all of his early cases had been easy to solve for that precise reason ¡ª but he also knew that a viscount was unlikely to stay faithful even if his wife was a saint. Had it been the viscount he had met by the river? It seemed too improbable, like something from a shilling shocker.

    "I take it they didn''t marry for love," he observed.

    Mrs. Kir¨¢ly laughed. "No, she wanted a title and he wanted her father''s millions. I pity their children."

    So there were children. But was Lennox their father? A woman desperate to cover up her children''s illegitimacy might well resort to murder. Yo-han considered this new information and what he''d heard from Lennox.

    There wasn''t enough to make any deductions yet. He would wait until tomorrow to draw his own conclusions.

    "They''re having some sort of house party now," Miss Patton said glumly. "Or preparing for one anyway. Did you see the carriages arrive yesterday? I know what that means. Loud music, shouting, people up at all hours... If I''d known about the neighbours I''d never have bought this house."

    Kir¨¢ly said, "They''re hosting half the Ottoman embassy." Everyone turned to him in surprise. He shrugged. "I saw those carriages, and I heard the people in them. I recognise Turkish when I heard it."

    A British viscount attempted suicide while he and his American wife were entertaining Turkish guests, and a Korean detective was asked to investigate. It sounded improbable. Yo-han had a feeling there was more to this than met the eye.

    That night he sat in the living room and thought for a long time. It seemed mysteries would follow him everywhere whether he liked it or not. His job now was to solve this one before it ended in murder.

    Miss Patton stopped in the doorway before she went up to her room. "Are you working on another mystery?"

    "I wasn''t," Yo-han said, "until two hours ago." He summarised the meeting by the river, leaving out the attempted suicide. "Tomorrow I''m invited to meet Lord Kilskeery after dinner. I''ll know more afterwards."

    <hr>

    The next evening Yo-han set out for Lennox House in his best suit, with a sinking feeling in his chest.

 Chapter II: Alec Lennox

    There''s a lot of difference between listening and hearing. -- G. K. Chesterton

    A winding drive led up the hill. Towards the top the trees gave way to a lawn, which in turn gave way to carefully-planned flowerbeds. The house itself was a large rectangular building with two smaller squares on either side.

    Yo-han walked up to the main door. A footman in livery waited just inside. He stared at Yo-han with a blank expression that somehow radiated disapproval.

    "Ah yes, another of Madam''s friends," he said blandly. "This way, sir."

    Yo-han quickly corrected him. "No, I was invited by Mr. Lennox." Belatedly he realised his mistake and said, "Lord Kilskeery."

    The footman stopped and stared at him in open astonishment. Yo-han took a quick mental survey of his clothes and decided this wasn''t because he''d committed a crime against fashion, so it could only be because Lord Kilskeery was not in the habit of inviting guests. He filed that away.

    "It''s all right, Tompkins," a voice said behind the footman. The speaker was hidden from Yo-han''s sight by the open door. "I''ll bring him to the study."

    Tompkins stepped aside, looking utterly baffled, and the speaker appeared around the door. It was the strange young man from last night. For the first time Yo-han got a good look at him. His first thought was that Kir¨¢ly had been mistaken, and the guests from the Ottoman embassy were in fact a half-remembered glimpse of this man.

    "This way," said the strange man, and set off across the entrance hall.

    Yo-han followed. He took note of everything along the way, including that they were moving in the exact opposite direction to the voices of the other guests. From the furniture and decorating he concluded that Alexander Lennox had plenty of money. But that money had originally been his wife''s. It might be an unimportant detail but he noticed it all the same.

    His guide stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall. He turned and stared very hard at Yo-han. There was something that wasn''t quite hostility and wasn''t quite fear in his eyes. Defiance, perhaps.

    "You''re a detective?" he asked. He had just the faintest trace of an accent. Yo-han noticed it but couldn''t identify it, though he thought it had a faint similarity to Russian.

    "Yes," Yo-han said. "And who are you?"

    The man hesitated. "David Eames," he said, not looking Yo-han in the eye. "I''m Al¡ª a valet."

    Now was as good a time as any to start asking questions. "Then perhaps you can tell me, has your employer ever behaved oddly before?"

    Eames ¡ª though if that was his real name, then Yo-han was Sejong the Great ¡ª drew himself up like a snake about to strike. Rage shone in his eyes. "You think he''s crazy, you bastard," he snarled. "He''s not! I know that bitch is enough to drive anyone crazy, but he''s as sane as I am!"

    His expression suddenly went blank. He turned and strode away. Yo-han had to almost run to keep up with him. Along the way he reflected that he had learnt two very important facts: Eames was loyal to his employer, and hated his employer''s wife.

    He also couldn''t help thinking, based on the man''s extraordinary ability to change from indifference to rage and back again, that claiming Lennox was as sane as him wasn''t a great testament to Lennox''s sanity.

    Eames led him to a door. He knocked sharply, then opened it and gestured for Yo-han to go in.

    Yo-han found himself in a cluttered study that was more like a small library. He glanced quickly at the shelves, just long enough to see that most of the books were heavy and in what looked like Greek, before turning his attention to Lennox.

    Alexander Lennox looked much better now than he had last night. He was still far too thin, but he no longer looked quite so ill. His hair was neatly combed. He was in an ordinary suit instead of evening wear, Yo-han noticed. A notebook was open on the table behind him. It was covered with untidy scribbles.

    "Hello again," Lennox said, sitting down and gesturing for Yo-han to do the same. "I didn''t think you''d come."

    There was an undercurrent in his words. Yo-han got the distinct impression that Lennox had been let down before.

    "I must say I was worried about you, Lord Kilskeery," Yo-han said.

    Lennox winced at the sound of his title. "Could you-- Never mind." He fell silent and seemed to be struggling to decide what to say.

    Yo-han prompted him. "Perhaps you should explain from the beginning."

    Lennox shrugged helplessly. "The beginning... I don''t know when it started. I only know that I feel terribly ill after dinner. It''s lasted for at least a month. Yesterday was the worst. I was so sick I fainted. When I woke up I couldn''t bear it any more. So I ran down to the river..."

    After a pause Yo-han said, "Have you considered a more common solution? A stomach problem or even a lingering fever?"

    Lennox shook his head. "I summoned the doctor. My wife¡ª" there was an ocean''s worth of hatred in those two words "¡ªmet him before he saw me. She said I was malingering and sent him away."

    "Then call on him," Yo-han suggested.

    "I can''t. She''s dismissed most of my servants and replaced them with ones of her choosing. Eames is the only person I can trust. He realised what she''s doing before I did. He noticed the pattern in my illness. Last week he ate half of my food ¡ª prepared by a cook hired by my wife, of course ¡ª and he became sick exactly as I have.

    "I''ve tried avoiding everything that could have come from her. Dav¡ª Eames buys food for me. My wife refuses to let me go into town. She won''t let me see my children. I know she''s waiting for me to die. Yesterday I couldn''t bear it any more. I wanted it to be over."

    Yo-han no longer thought Lennox was insane. But he did think there was something more here, something very important that Lennox refused to mention.

    "Why don''t you divorce her?" he asked.

    Lennox''s face changed ever so slightly. The emotion, whatever it was, disappeared in an instant. "I can''t."

    Stolen novel; please report.

    "Correct me if I''m wrong, but surely a viscount would have little difficulty getting a divorce. There would be scandal, but scandal is better than murder."

    Lennox shook his head. "I can''t. I could tell the world everything about her, but she... She knows about my past sins. I have not committed them for years, but she still knows about them. If I try to divorce her she will tell every newspaper in Britain and America."

    Yo-han studied him thoughtfully. What sin could be so serious? Keeping a mistress? That was so common that it would ruin no one but the other woman, and even that wasn''t certain. Cheating at the races? Espionage? Murder? All sorts of unlikely possibilities presented themselves.

    He changed the subject. "Is anything left of your meal yesterday?"

    "I threw it in the bin. Why?"

    "It would be wise to ask a chemist to examine it. He could find traces of poison." Or lack thereof, because Yo-han was becoming suspicious again. Why would a man continue to eat food that he knew or suspected was poisoned?

    "Eames prepared my food today," Lennox said. "Tomorrow I''ll send my dinner to you. Where are you staying?"

    "In the house next door," Yo-han said, and almost smiled at Lennox''s surprise.

    <hr>

    The mysterious Mr. Eames was waiting outside the study. He led Yo-han back through the hallways, then stopped again at the foot of a flight of stairs. Yo-han prepared himself for another question.

    It wasn''t one he expected.

    "Do you want to see how Mrs. Lennox behaves?" There was a cruel twist to Eames'' mouth as he spoke the name.

    Yo-han didn''t bother to hide his surprise.

    "This time of night she''s always in the drawing room with one of her friends. Tonight it''s¡ª" He stopped abruptly, then continued in the toneless voice he''d used the night before, "a foreign politician''s son. She met him in London and invited him here specially, you know."

    Eames turned and began to climb the stairs. Yo-han considered the chances of his finding his way to the door, thought of what useful information he might learn, and finally followed. Their path led through some narrow halls that were probably the servants'' quarters. Eames glided as noiselessly as a ghost. He stopped at a curtain pulled across a narrow balcony. Muffled voices drifted up from below.

    Eames pressed a finger to his lips. The warning was unnecessary; Yo-han had no intention of revealing his presence in a strange house, in a place he had no business being. Eames pulled the curtain back ever so slightly. A thin line of light shone up. He peered through it, nodded grimly, and gestured Yo-han to look too.

    Yo-han looked down. The balcony ¡ª which he suspected had been meant as the opening for a dumb waiter, but for some reason the shaft had been removed or never completed ¡ª overlooked a small room. Directly opposite was a woman sitting on a man''s lap. There were at least two other people in the room. They were playing some sort of board game. The man was shamelessly kissing the woman''s neck.

    Yo-han recoiled, disgusted with them and with himself for seeing them. Eames pulled the curtain back into place. He glided off again and waved for Yo-han to follow him.

    By now Yo-han was just about sick of this business. As soon as they were safely away he snapped, "You had better be leading me to the front door this time."

    Eames stopped and looked at him. "That thing is what Alec is married to."

    It took Yo-han a minute to connect Alec with Alexander Lennox, and then he was dumbstruck at a valet using his employer''s personal name. And a diminutive at that!

    "So I deduced," he said when he regained his voice. "But I must say I''m curious about you. You seem to do an awful lot more than your job. Why?"

    All Eames said was, "I owe everything to Al¡ª Lord Kilskeery.

    "You saw her there," he continued. "That man wasn''t even her current lover. I forgot; the politician''s son arrives tomorrow. This is how she has behaved ever since her marriage."

    <hr>

    When Yo-han left the house he had a distinct feeling of having escaped from a snake pit.

    As he walked back to Miss Patton''s house he saw a flash of light across the river. He stopped and looked. There was nothing there but an empty house on a hill. It was in darkness.

    <hr>

    The next day Eames paid a brief visit. He brought a serving dish with him. Inside was a chicken pie.

    "This is what the cooks prepared for Lord Kilskeery today," he said.

    Miss Patton was the only other person in the house. She came downstairs to see what was happening. She looked incredulously from the dish to Eames to Yo-han, then shrugged and didn''t ask for an explanation.

    "I''ve seen you before," she exclaimed when she got a better look at Eames.

    "Probably," he said, not very politely. "I work in Lennox House."

    Miss Patton stared at him with a frown. "Weren''t you the one who punched that man?"

    Eames muttered a denial and a goodbye. He left in a great hurry.

    Yo-han turned to Miss Patton. "What man? Who was punched?"

    "It was about a month ago," Miss Patton said. "Down at one of the textile mills. If I remember correctly, a foreign girl with a badly-scarred face works there. An inspector visited and made some very rude comments about her scars. Her sweetheart overheard and punched him for it. It was in the papers. I''m sure that''s the man who punched the inspector. There can''t be two men looking like that in Enniskillen. But what''s this about? Why is he bringing you food?"

    Yo-han explained about the possible poisoning. "I''m going to send this to a chemist. He''ll settle the matter."

    As they stood in the doorway they heard a motorcar approaching. It roared past. There was a design on the door. It was gone too quickly for them to see what it was.

    The car stopped at the gates to Lennox House. A servant opened them. It continued up the driveway and was soon out of sight.

    Yo-han remembered what Eames had said about the politician''s son. He frowned.

    <hr>

    As the sun set that evening, some instinct made Yo-han look out his bedroom window. He couldn''t see Lennox House, but he could see the empty house on the other side of the river. It was still all in darkness.

    <hr>

    Had it only been two years? It seemed so much longer. David thought about it as he set out Alec''s clothes for tomorrow.

    First there had been Cambridge, exactly two years ago in May. Several months had passed after that. Alec''s father discovered he was terminally ill and forced his son to marry that bitch. David came back into the picture after the wedding, after the disastrous honeymoon. He''d sat Alec down in a train carriage and forced him to listen to everything David knew about his new wife.

    Alec had changed since leaving Cambridge. Part was his father''s illness, part was the misery of his marriage, most was his newfound religion. There was something else too. Something he refused to tell David. Something connected with an old school friend who had abruptly left the country and vanished off the face of the earth.

    David could guess what it was.

    He hung up Alec''s clothes from this evening and began to brush them. The repetitiveness of the task was relaxing. David had always liked repetitive tasks. He could let his mind wander.

    The situation had truly deteriorated when ?elik Bey came back into Mrs. Lennox''s life.

    David had hoped for at least three years of peace. To recover, to forget, to have something approaching a normal life. He had hoped he would never have to see that man again.

    By now he should be used to never getting what he hoped for.

    ?elik Bey and Mrs. Lennox had been on-and-off lovers ever since their respective fathers had become business partners. In one of those ironic twists of fate it was entirely through trailing ?elik Bey and his girlfriend that David had met Alec in the first place.

    Fate had a sense of humour, and David was sure it was laughing at them all.

    He finished brushing the jacket and stepped out of the walk-in wardrobe. Alec was already in bed. He''d wrapped the covers around himself like a cocoon. Perhaps he was asleep. He didn''t respond when David said goodnight and turned off the lights.

    The hallway lights were off. David could faintly hear voices from downstairs. He thought of the detective. Was he Chinese or Japanese? Either way it was very strange for him to be here. He''d travelled much further than David himself.

    Could he help Alec?

    No. It was far too late.

    As David locked his bedroom door, long-dead voices screamed in his ear. He could have sworn he smelt the bodies on the pyres. Not all of them had been dead.

    He unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out the photos. By the light of a candle he went through them again. Once he had screamed and sobbed over them. Not now. Not for years. He had seen and done and endured too much to cry anymore.

    Five letters and four numbers were scribbled on the back of each photo. David traced them with his fingers.

    He put the photos away and locked the drawer.

    It couldn''t be avoided any more. He would go to see her again tomorrow.

    In his dreams that night his past got mixed up. He saw Alec in that town, the five-letter name written on the photos, as it had been before that April. And he saw blood and fire in Cambridge.

 Chapter III: Something Wrong Somewhere

    You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Satan. -- John Buchan, The Power House

    Yo-han awoke with a presentiment of disaster. He went down to breakfast feeling like he was on the way to his own funeral. Miss Patton was already in the dining room, reading over a contract and absently stirring her porridge. She said good morning without looking up.

    Normally Yo-han needed at least five spoonfuls of sugar to be able to eat porridge. Today he finished the bowl without even noticing the taste. He went over the events of the last two nights from every possible angle. It was like trying to complete a jigsaw when half the pieces were from a different puzzle.

    Abruptly he asked, "Miss Patton, is it normal for a valet to use his employer''s personal name?"

    Miss Patton stared at him as if he''d sprouted wings. "No, of course not."

    "What if it happened?"

    "The valet would be dismissed on the spot." Miss Patton looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and resignation. "What is this all about, Mr. Seo?"

    He was about to answer when the doorbell rang. The butler passed the breakfast room door on his way to greet the visitor. They heard muffled voices. The front door closed. The butler reappeared in the doorway with a letter in hand.

    "For Mr. Su," he said solemnly. Unlike Miss Patton he still hadn''t grasped how to pronounce Yo-han''s surname.

    Neither had the letter-writer, obviously. Yo-han couldn''t help smiling wryly when he saw it was addressed to "Mr. See". Every time he thought foreigners had run out of ways to mispronounce and misspell his name, he was proved wrong.

    He opened the envelope and scanned the letter. His eyebrows shot up.

    "Have you any plans for this evening, Miss Patton?"

    She raised her eyebrows too. "Not particularly. Why?"

    "We''ve both been invited to dine with the Viscount." He handed her the letter and waited to hear what she thought of it.

    Miss Patton read parts of it aloud. "Lord Kilskeery invites you to dinner tonight... may bring a guest if you wish... Pay special attention to Lady Kilskeery... Good grief! What does it mean?"

    Yo-han poured himself another cup of tea. "I suspect it means Mr. Lennox wants me to judge for myself if his wife is trying to murder him."

    What a pity it was too early to have heard anything from the chemist. He would have given a great deal to have solid proof to present to Mr. Lennox.

    Miss Patton frowned at the letter. "It doesn''t mention me."

    "No, but it says I can bring a guest. You are the obvious choice. You have faced a murder before, and you''re a woman. Mrs. Lennox would be more likely to behave naturally in front of you. Anyway, the alternative would be to bring either your sister or Kir¨¢ly. Neither would be much help in an investigation."

    "You forget that I was fooled by a murderer," Miss Patton said quietly. Not bitterly, not even with much emotion. She almost seemed wistful.

    For a minute they were both silent. Leopold Colman''s presence was felt so strongly that he might as well have been sitting at the table.

    "I''m sure Mrs. Lennox won''t be so convincing," Yo-han said. "For one thing she''s not an actress."

    <hr>

    Phil didn''t know what she''d been expecting. She''d never visited a viscount''s house before; her late and unlamented Aunt Rachael had been an inveterate social climber, but she had never taken her niece with her when she called on rich and important people. Phil had a vague idea, mainly taken from novels, that viscounts lived in palaces and wore fancy clothes all day and kept dozens of horses. Lennox House was quite a shock.

    It was certainly big enough to be a palace ¡ª though it had actually been a school once ¡ª but there was a strangely bedraggled air about the whole place. The walls badly needed a good scrub. Phil''s gardener would faint in horror if he saw the state of the lawn. The flowerbeds varied between well-tended and overgrown with weeds. Curtains were drawn in half of the windows.

    A large and gaudy car was parked outside the front door. Phil eyed it disapprovingly. The owner had better be colour-blind, because there was no other excuse for painting a car in a shade of red normally reserved for overripe tomatoes. And was that velvet upholstery? There was some sort of decoration on the door. It was too dark to see what.

    She gritted her teeth and prepared for an ordeal.

    Mr. Seo eyed the car with as much dubiousness as she felt. "That must belong to the politician''s son."

    "He must be embezzling his father''s funds to afford it," Phil grumbled.

    They continued up to the door. A harried-looking footman awaited them. He stared at them as if he''d never seen them before and wouldn''t be surprised if they ran off with the silverware.

    "Are you Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple?" he asked. He had an American accent and his tie was lopsided. He was also apparently blind, if he thought Seo Yo-han was likely to have a surname like Dalrymple.

    Phil resisted the temptation to make a cutting reply. Mr. Seo helped by speaking before she had a chance.

    "No, we''re Mr. Seo and Miss Patton, here at Lord Kilskeery''s invitation."

    The footman ¡ª who looked no older than fifteen; Phil was beginning to think he wasn''t really a footman but had been drafted at short notice ¡ª gawked at them. "Did you say Lord Kilskeery? You sure you don''t mean Lady Kilskeery?"

    "I mean Lord Kilskeery," Mr. Seo said, beginning to look annoyed.

    Phil was in her best dress, the silk was not very warm, and the evening was chilly. She couldn''t help shivering at an especially icy breeze. That finally reminded the footman of his duty. He showed them into the entrance hall. Phil was disappointed to discover it wasn''t much warmer than standing on the doorstep.

    It also wasn''t very grand. There was a staircase, but it was made of wood instead of marble. Most of the hall was taken up with photographs. The few pictures on display were ugly splashes of incoherent colour. They looked as if someone had spilled paint on the canvas and called it a day.

    "Wait here," the footman said, and disappeared through a doorway to the right.

    Phil distinctly heard a woman say, "Who invited them?"

    A minute later the footman reappeared. He ushered them through the doorway with a helpless expression.

    Phil''s first impression was that he''d made a mistake and sent them into a room that was about to be redecorated. The walls were white. The floorboards were whitewashed. The lampshade around the ceiling light was an ugly lump of metal. The rug looked motheaten. The furniture was grey. A duller room would be hard to imagine.

    The only splashes of colour were the people. There were five of them. Phil loathed them from the minute she saw them. First there was a young woman with her hair cut in the latest fashion, wearing a shapeless mass of dark fabric and smoking a pipe. Beside her was a woman of about sixty, wearing the height of 1880s fashion. She reminded Phil of Rachael, which was an instant mark against her. There was a young man sprawled out across a settee and snoring loudly. His suit was splashed with alcohol; Phil could smell the stuff from here. There was a well-dressed man of about thirty who looked foreign and was also smoking, though he was smoking a pipe.

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Then there was the other woman. Presumably Lady Kilskeery herself, though Phil had never seen anyone less ladylike. She wore another of the shapeless dresses that had become fashionable lately[1]. Her hair was bobbed, and if it wasn''t dyed then she was the only blonde Phil had ever seen with naturally dark roots.

    Lady Kilskeery got up when Phil and Mr. Seo entered. She looked at them as if they were something the cat had dragged in.

    "Good heavens," she said with a fake girlish giggle. Maybe she thought it made her charming. Phil could have told her it made her sound half-witted. She had an American accent with just a slight hint of England, and it grated on Phil''s ears. "Whatever have we here? Since when does my daaaarling husband invite Chinamen and¡ª" She looked at Phil as if she was some scientific curiosity "¡ªcountry parson''s wives?"

    Phil had never come so close to boxing someone''s ears.

    The woman ¡ª Phil had stopped even trying to think of her as Lady anything ¡ª gave Mr. Seo an especially nasty, sneering look. "Do you think he speaks English?" she asked her friends with another fake giggle.

    "I assure you I do," Mr. Seo said coldly. He managed some sort of smile, but his eyes were icy. "I have the advantage of you, Mrs. Lennox, for I saw you yesterday evening."

    Her fake smile remained fixed in place, but her brows furrowed. "Yesterday evening?"

    Mr. Seo nodded. With a smile even faker than hers he said, "That balcony upstairs is quite useless. I''m surprised you haven''t boarded it up."

    His words were meaningless to Phil. Mrs. Lennox, on the other hand, lost all her colour and practically collapsed into her chair. Her friends looked bemused. The two of them who were awake enough to pay attention to what was happening, that was, because the young woman stared vacantly into space and the young man was still snoring.

    Phil did some quick deductions. She came up with a series of possibilities. Adultery was the most likely. The probability of Mrs. Lennox trying to murder her husband immediately increased.

    The door opened. Phil looked over her shoulder.

    From Mr. Seo''s description she had known Lord Kilskeery was thin. She wasn''t prepared for just how gaunt he looked. His face was so thin that it resembled a skull. His clothes were obviously expensive but too large for him.

    This was more than losing weight during an illness. He looked like he was starving.

    Mr. Seo''s presence brought something to mind that she would otherwise not have remembered. Aunt Rachael died ¡ª was killed ¡ª on a ship named after Empress Elisabeth. Elisabeth had been obsessed with staying beautiful. She''d been so terrified of becoming fat that she''d starved herself until her waist was only nineteen inches[2].

    Phil looked at Lord Kilskeery and was very worried.

    For a minute he and Mr. Seo exchanged greetings, and Mr. Seo introduced Phil. Then Lord Kilskeery looked at his wife. He smiled very coldly.

    "Mr. Seo is a detective," he said, and left it up to her to decide why he had invited a detective.

    Judging by her shaken expression, she didn''t like any of the possibilities.

    <hr>

    Dinnertime at Lennox House was the most depressing meal Phil had endured since Rachael was alive. Lord Kilskeery was seated at the head of the table with Phil on his right and Mr. Seo on his left. Phil was absolutely sure this was an insult somehow to Mrs. Lennox, who was seated at the other end of the table and hidden from her husband''s line of sight by an enormous vase. Three of the other guests were seated firmly in the middle of the table, several seats away from both their hosts. The fourth, the foreign man who was apparently the owner of the gaudy car, sat on Mrs. Lennox''s left. Those two spent the whole meal whispering to each other.

    Lord Kilskeery made a rather stilted effort to talk to both Phil and Mr. Seo. Phil found herself explaining her occupation and how a woman of twenty-four had become the owner of a security company. That involved a brief mention of her aunt''s death. She carefully avoided describing the circumstances.

    "You were arrested for a crime you didn''t commit?" Lord Kilskeery asked, sounding genuinely horrified.

    Phil nodded. "It wasn''t pleasant, but Mr. Seo caught the real murderer easily."

    "I wouldn''t say easily," Mr. Seo muttered. He frowned at his plate. Phil suddenly knew that he wasn''t being modest. He really had wished it wasn''t Leopold as much as she did.

    The thought of Leo put a damper on an already uncomfortable situation. Phil''s mind was filled with questions. Where was he now? What play was he acting in? Was he planning another murder?

    At the back of her mind was the knowledge that he could be caught again at any time. He had been lucky in Australia. The next time he might find it harder to escape. What if he had already been arrested? What if he was sentenced to death?

    The world with Leopold Colman in it but out of reach was bearable. The world without Leopold, with no chance of ever seeing him again, ever yelling at him for what he''d done, ever telling him everything she''d thought and dreamt over the last two years... That was unendurable.

    Someone somewhere had a grudge against Ophelia Patton. There was no other explanation for the fact she''d fallen in love with the assassin who murdered her aunt.

    Phil drank the rest of her glass. Lord Kilskeery drank apple juice, but he had provided alcohol for his guests. She was grateful to him for that.

    While she was distracted he and Mr. Seo had started discussing photography. Phil listened without understanding a word. She knew how to work an ordinary box or folding camera, but photography had never interested her much. What in the world were pinhole cameras and banquet cameras?

    She lost interest and began to look idly around the room. That was how she noticed two interesting things.

    First: Mrs. Lennox was listening intently to the photography conversation. She clearly wasn''t another enthusiast, because her face was a mask of horror. Phil wondered why.

    Second: a stranger stood in the doorway. He was concealed from the people at the bottom of the table by the shadow cast by a bust of Julius Caesar, but was clearly visible to the people at the top. Lord Kilskeery wasn''t looking in his direction and Mr. Seo would have had to look over his shoulder, but Phil was looking almost directly at him.

    He appeared to be foreign, possibly from the same place as the politician''s son. (Wherever that was; no one had introduced him to Phil, and she didn''t care enough to ask.) From his clothes he might have been either a servant or another guest. He didn''t behave like either. He stared intently at Lord Kilskeery with a strange look on his face. Phil couldn''t identify it. But she felt as if she was face to face with grief and suffering too intense to comprehend. As she stared at the stranger she felt tears well up in her eyes.

    Bewildered, she dashed them away. Her movement caught the stranger''s attention. He looked at her. His eyes were dark brown, so dark they seemed almost black. For a minute they studied each other. Then he looked once more at Lord Kilskeery, turned, and disappeared into the hall. Neither of the men beside Phil had noticed his presence.

    <hr>

    When the ladies retired to the drawing room Phil was prepared for an ordeal. It wasn''t the ordeal she expected. The middle-aged woman and the constantly-smoking young woman found a newspaper and began to argue over racehorses. Mrs. Lennox took advantage of their distraction to turn to Phil.

    "Miss Patton, isn''t it?" she said with a wide smile. It didn''t hide the fear in her eyes. A more complete reversal from her attitude earlier could hardly be imagined. "What a charming dress! You must tell me where you bought it."

    She sat down on the settee and practically pulled Phil down beside her. Phil looked at her coolly and waited for her to say what this was really about. She didn''t have to wait long.

    "Is that Mr. Soo your fianc¨¦?" Mrs. Lennox asked. "Such matches would never happen in America, of course ¡ª we American women have more pride ¡ª but I suppose everything is allowed over here."

    Her first words bowled Phil over. Her next ones brought back Phil''s desire to box her ears. It was a minute before she collected herself enough to speak.

    "No, Mr. Seo is just a friend," Phil said, and mentally kicked herself when this made Mrs. Lennox give her a knowing smile. Out of desperation she said, "I''m engaged to someone else."

    This wasn''t strictly true ¡ª she had approximately as much chance of marrying Leopold as of flying to the moon ¡ª but it wasn''t quite a lie. Last year, when she had realised the real nature of her tangled feelings towards him, she had decided she would never marry anyone but Leo.

    Mrs. Lennox simply smiled even more knowingly. Phil was disgusted to realise that to this woman, little things like engagements and even wedding vows didn''t matter.

    "Has he always been interested in photography?" Mrs. Lennox asked next.

    Phil wondered if she was dealing with a lunatic. "For as long as I''ve known him, yes. Why?"

    With one of her fake giggles Mrs. Lennox said, "We both know what I mean. How much will he ask to keep those photos hidden?"

    Phil did some very quick deductions of her own. Fact: Mr. Seo had seen something incriminating last night. Fact: Mrs. Lennox believed he had taken pictures. Fact: she believed he was going to blackmail her.

    The situation was so absurd that she couldn''t help laughing.

    Mrs. Lennox misinterpreted her reaction. "He''s already given them to Lennox?" She ground her teeth and said a few words that were better-suited to a barroom than a drawing room. "Let me be perfectly honest, dear: my husband is a disgusting... Well. I''m too delicate to say the word. But he is still a viscount, and I''m not going to let him divorce me. If he tries to ruin me I can ruin him. But if he has photos? That''s a different story."

    Phil made a note to ask Mr. Seo if there was any truth in the vague accusation. Lord Kilskeery had struck her as nothing but a very ill man. After five minutes with his wife she thought she knew the cause of his illness.

    "You''re completely wrong," she said. "Mr. Seo has no photographs of you and he isn''t a blackmailer. Your husband hired him..." because he thinks you''re poisoning him "...to solve a mystery."

    Mrs. Lennox finally wiped the smile off her face. "Really?" She seemed to have suddenly had a realisation. "I never thought Lennox was such a fool. Paying for it when Eames is begging to do it for free?"

    Phil didn''t have to understand this to know it was extremely offensive.

 Chapter IV: Truth and Lies

    He would not lie, but he cannot bring himself to speak the truth. Ah, how he withholds! It is a form of lying¡ªa very effective one, for there is no spoken lie to be contested. -- Sophie Hannah, The Monogram Murders

    Yo-han spent the entire meal expecting someone to drop dead. Lennox was the only person who seemed truly at ease, and his attitude struck Yo-han more as someone who simply didn''t care any more than someone who was actually enjoying himself.

    He noticed that Lennox ate very little. That was worrying when he was already so thin.

    Miss Patton pushed her food around her plate without eating much of it. At the other end of the table, Mrs. Lennox looked about as happy as a dental patient undergoing a root canal. Her friends sensed the uncomfortable atmosphere and quickly gave up their stilted attempts at conversation.

    Yo-han couldn''t have said what was served for dinner. Between discussing photography with Lennox and wondering if Mrs. Lennox was really a poisoner, the meal passed quicker for him than for the others. That didn''t make it any less uncomfortable. Especially when the ladies retired and the four men suddenly found themselves with no one to talk to but each other.

    The second guest, whose name Yo-han still didn''t know, simply settled down on his chair and went to sleep. That left Lennox, Yo-han, and the politician''s son.

    A very uncomfortable silence fell. Yo-han felt as if he''d wandered into a room filled with gunpowder while carrying a burning candle.

    The politician''s son stayed in his original seat for about five minutes. Then he got up and moved closer to the head of the table. Lennox watched him with an eerily blank face.

    A chill ran down Yo-han''s spine. The last time he''d seen that sort of expression had been in 1915, on a ship, from Leopold Colman.

    The other man acted as if Lennox wasn''t there. To Yo-han he said, "I don''t believe we''ve been introduced. I am ?elik Bey."

    His accent was mainly American with a slight hint of something else. Yo-han''s mind contained a veritable encyclopaedia of names, surnames and titles in at least fifty languages. He ran through Romanian, Persian and Egyptian Arabic before finally settling on Turkish as the most likely. "I am Seo Yo-han," he said politely but warily. There was a chance this man was conspiring with Mrs. Lennox to kill her husband. No need to be too friendly.

    "Chinese?" ?elik Bey asked.

    "Korean."

    Judging by his blank reaction, ?elik Bey had never heard of Korea.

    "Mr. Seo is a detective," Lennox said quietly.

    Yo-han noticed two things: Lennox pronounced his surname almost right, a rarity among foreigners. (Not exactly right ¡ª Miss Patton was the only foreigner who got Yo-han''s surname exactly right and that was only through repeated practice ¡ª but closer than anyone else today.)

    And ?elik Bey paled.

    He reached for the decanter in front of Lennox, then realised it contained only orange juice.

    "You''re crazy," he hissed at Lennox. "You can''t even drink alcohol like a normal person!"

    Lennox still spoke quietly. His voice seemed to come from a great distance away. "I thought your religion forbade alcohol. Of course, it also forbids a few other things, but that doesn''t seem to bother you much."

    ?elik Bey stared at him, then at Yo-han. Yo-han had no idea what his own expression was ¡ª mainly because he had no idea what to make of the unfolding drama ¡ª but ?elik Bey didn''t like it. He forced a laugh. "This guy''s crazy. He should be locked up in a padded cell. You aren''t here because you believe that story he told you?"

    Yo-han looked at him levelly. "What story?" He let ?elik Bey squirm for a moment before he added, "We share an interest in photography."

    There was no doubt about it: ?elik Bey looked relieved. "Then you''re not here as a detective?"

    "Is there some reason I should be?" Yo-han asked.

    The silence that followed was the most awkward one yet. ?elik Bey poured himself a glass of orange juice in spite of his earlier objections. He drank it in one go. As he set the glass down his eyes fell on something behind Yo-han. A startled look crossed his face.

    "What the¡ª"

    Yo-han turned. It was only Eames, blank-faced as ever, and not even looking at ?elik Bey.

    "Do you want the fire banked in your study?" he asked Lennox.

    Yo-han didn''t listen to Lennox''s reply. He watched ?elik Bey, who in turn watched Eames. His surprise gave way to suspicion, then to disgust.

    When Eames was gone he said, "So that''s the¡ª" He said something in Turkish. Yo-han didn''t understand him, but from his tone he knew it was extremely rude.

    Lennox stared at him. "The what?"

    "Nothing," ?elik Bey said, but he gave a very nasty smile. "If he was a girl I could see the appeal."

    Yo-han put several things together. Some details now became clear. The situation in general began to make sense. There were still unanswered questions, but the chemist''s report would solve most of them.

    <hr>

    "That was a horrible experience," Phil said.

    Behind them the house loomed like some fairy-tale monster. The curtains were drawn so the only light was from the streetlamps below.

    "Indeed," Mr. Seo said.

    "Have you solved the mystery?"

    "Not entirely. I''m still unsure if Mrs. Lennox is poisoning her husband. But whatever the answer, my advice will be the same: they should get a divorce."

    That was the most sensible thing Phil had heard all night. "I think she is poisoning him. You didn''t hear how she talked. She was very insulting about you, and she implied something nasty about her husband. I don''t know what she meant."

    "I believe I do."

    Phil looked at him curiously. He didn''t seem inclined to enlighten her.

    As they reached the gates they came across a most unexpected scene. A man was pacing in circles under a streetlamp, muttering to himself. He was clearly drunk. Phil could smell the stuff from here. He had to keep one hand on the lamppost to stay upright, which was why he was walking in circles.

    Mr. Seo''s hand went to his pocket. Phil looked back towards the house, then along the street to her own. It wasn''t far, but they would have to pass the drunkard.

    He spotted them. He straightened up with a belligerent air.

    "Now you listen here," he began, slurring his words together.

    "Go home," Mr. Seo interrupted. "You''re drunk and making a spectacle of yourself."

    The man said a few extremely rude things. "Your fine lady thinks she can fire my daughter and get away with it, well, she can''t!"

    It struck Phil that there might be some useful information here. "Do you mean Lady Kilskeery fired your daughter?"

    The man''s language got even worse. Mr. Seo took his hand out of his pocket. Something was concealed in his hand.

    When the swear words were removed from the man''s speech, his story was, "Gave her the worst reference so she can''t get another job, and what did my poor girl ever do to her? Told her what she thought, that''s what! Well, I won''t stand for it! If my Jenny doesn''t get her job back I''ll wring that woman''s neck!"

    He raised his hands to demonstrate, but overbalanced and fell flat on the ground.

    "That''s quite enough from you, my good man," Mr. Seo said coldly. "I have a gun aimed at you right now. I advise you to leave."

    At the mention of a gun the man sobered up. He leapt to his feet and scurried away at an astonishing rate for someone so drunk, still swearing under his breath.

    "Do you really have a gun?" Phil asked incredulously.

    Mr. Seo opened his hand, revealing the key to her front door. "No, but he doesn''t know that. I doubt he''ll be back in a hurry."

    <hr>

    In the middle of the night a boat crossed the river. It was rowed by someone who had clearly done this before. It reached the pier safely even though the only light came from the distant streetlamps.

    Another person was waiting on the pier. The two of them had a whispered conversation. At once point it turned into an argument. Some words were said too loudly for discretion. Then they both froze. Two pairs of eyes turned to a house on the other side of the river. It wasn''t Lennox House, as might be expected, but instead the house owned by Miss Patton.

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    When no lights appeared in the windows they relaxed and continued whispering. Finally they reached an agreement. The person in the boat rowed back across the river. The second person turned and walked back to the shore.

    <hr>

    The next day nothing important happened. No visitors came from the big house. No news came from the chemist. After a morning of indecision Yo-han finally decided to spend the day sight-seeing. Along the way he stopped at the local newspaper''s office and searched the back-issues for references to the Lennox family.

    After going all the way back to 1850 he had made some discoveries. The problem was that none of them had anything to do with the case.

    The family name had originally been Burke. One Joseph Burke started out as a carpenter and ended up as a railway contractor. He made a fortune and bought a baronetcy. His wife was from the small village of Kilskeery, roughly nine miles from Enniskillen.

    Their son Bernard became a director of the railway company. When he was elected to Parliament he became the target of jokes; apparently it was rumoured he was related to the serial killer of Burke and Hare infamy. He had married a Scottish woman, so he changed his surname to his wife''s. A few years later he was promoted from baronet to viscount ¡ª something previously unheard of, and said to have cost him a staggering amount in bribery. So Bernard Lennox became the first Lord Kilskeery.

    He died in 1902 and was succeeded by his son Alfred, who had four children: three daughters, all married, and a son. Alfred died in February 1916 and was succeeded by his son Alexander. The newspaper had a great deal about Alexander''s wedding in January 1916, especially about his rich American bride, but very little about Alexander himself.

    The last mention of the Lennoxes was a very short notice in the "Births" columns from October 1916: Viscountess Kilskeery safely delivered of twin sons.

    Yo-han returned the papers and left with a feeling of having wasted his time. Was it important that Bernard Lennox had bribed his way to a title? Possibly, if he had been investigating corruption, but what had it to do with a possible murder?

    He returned to Miss Patton''s house. Mr. Kir¨¢ly was waiting for him.

    "Telegram from the chemist," he said, holding it out.

    Yo-han read it eagerly. His heart sank.

    No trace of poison.

    Good news from one perspective, extremely baffling news from another. If he wasn''t being poisoning, why was Lennox ill?

    Yo-han looked at the clock. After five. He didn''t feel like another trek up to the Lennox house this evening. It wasn''t an emergency. It could wait until tomorrow.

    <hr>

    At dinner Yo-han discovered he had been lucky enough to miss a very annoying group of tourists.

    "They parked their boat right beside our garden!" Mrs. Kir¨¢ly complained.

    "Moored," Miss Patton corrected her.

    She continued as if her sister hadn''t spoken. "And then they came right into our garden and had a picnic! M¨¢t¨¦ told them to get out and they complained he was being rude! I told you we need a no-trespassing sign. Then would you believe it, they moved further along and parked ¡ª oh, all right, moored ¡ª at the Lennoxes'' landing stage! Someone came down from the house and yelled at them to move along. What a lot of shouting!"

    <hr>

    Rude trippers and picnickers were unfortunately a common sight along Lough Erne. Mr. McCullagh, head groundskeeper at Lennox House for almost thirty years now, had grown used to them by now. No amount of "No Trespassing" or "Stay On the Path ¡ª Forest is Private Property" signs would make them mind their own business. Neither did the perfectly good public jetty a little further upstream stop them mooring on other people''s property. It was annoying but there was no way to stop them.

    Unfortunately Mrs. Lennox hadn''t grasped that yet.

    She barged into McCullagh''s office as he was getting ready to go home for the day.

    "Why aren''t you doing your job?" she yelled. "A whole boatload of tourists landed at my pier! They traipsed through my forest and smashed a window in my greenhouse!"

    It didn''t escape McCullagh''s notice that she spoke as if she personally owned everything. That did not endear her to him. Especially when she acted as if the trippers were somehow his fault.

    "If they ignore the signs there''s nothing we can do," he said.

    She sniffed. "Well, put up a fence! Call the police! Do something to stop them coming back!"

    Putting a fence beside the river was impractical and expensive. Calling the police to deal with parties of sightseers was also impractical when they weren''t actually stealing something. But what was the use of telling her that? She never listened when anyone tried to tell her something she didn''t want to hear.

    "I''ll put another sign on the pier," McCullagh said wearily.

    After Mrs. Lennox left he reluctantly got out a piece of wood and a paint pot. He painted "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted", then went down to the pier and put the sign beside the already-existing ones. It would make no difference, especially when the trespassers wouldn''t be prosecuted, but it might prevent some unpleasantness.

    The pier was a little distance away from the boathouse. McCullagh had to walk past it to get back to the house. He glanced at it in passing, then stopped and looked again.

    The boathouse was always kept locked. It contained two small boats, lifejackets, ropes, oars, sails, and other equipment that could be stolen. Only two people had a key: McCullagh himself and Lord Kilskeery. McCullagh hadn''t opened it this year and Lord Kilskeery hadn''t gone near it since his health deteriorated. There was a spare key somewhere in the house, but McCullagh couldn''t remember where. Certainly no one had asked for it recently.

    Yet the door was ajar.

    McCullagh shoved it open and stepped in. The boats were safely moored. Everything was in its designated place. He took a quick inventory of the fishing rods, boots, and anything else that could be easily carried off. Nothing was missing. Next he checked the things that could be less easily carried off. A coil of rope was missing. So was one oar. Only one, which made no sense.

    "Strange," he muttered to himself.

    A examination of the lock revealed it was still working. How had the thief opened it?

    Those wretched trippers! Mrs. Lennox must have disturbed them so they only took whatever they could get their hands on, he thought.

    It wasn''t a satisfactory explanation, but it was all he could think of. Tomorrow he''d call the police.

    He locked the door again.

    <hr>

    We must speak in private. Meet me outside the greenhouse tomorrow morning at six.

    ?elik Bey memorised the time and place then put the letter in the fire. It was odd Gwladys would want to meet so early in the morning. Whatever she had to say must be very important.

    She''s finally going to leave her husband! he thought.

    With that idea in mind he began to pack, just in case Gwladys wanted to elope early tomorrow morning.

    <hr>

    We must speak in private. Meet me outside the greenhouse tomorrow morning at six.

    Six? Gwladys thought in disgust. Of all the times ?elik Bey could have chosen, why so early? Ten would have done just as well.

    It must be important, she thought.

    That led her to wonder about what could be so important. Within a few minutes she''d conjured up images of ?elik Bey begging her to leave Lennox and elope with him at once. She lost herself in daydreams for a while. She wouldn''t go of course ¡ª Lennox couldn''t live much longer when he was starving himself like that, and as soon as he was dead she would get his money and could do what she wanted ¡ª but it was nice to dream.

    <hr>

    If someone had been looking towards the greenhouse that evening just after sunset, they might have seen a figure dragging a strange, bulky object inside. It looked like a coil of rope. A few minutes later the figure emerged, ran into the forest, and returned carrying something that looked like a branch. They put it in the greenhouse too.

    <hr>

    "McCullagh said the tourists have broken into the boathouse and stolen something." Alec pushed his food around his plate without eating any of it. "We''ll have to tell the police."

    David barely heard him. He was too busy watching Alec''s plate. He pointedly took a spoonful of his own dinner. "I made this myself."

    It was only scrambled eggs. Experience had taught him that Alec could only manage bland, soft foods now. It was a struggle to get him to eat even those.

    Thank god, Alec finally began to eat.

    "Any news from the detective yet?" David asked.

    Truth be told he didn''t think Gwladys was poisoning Alec. Not physically, at least. She''d done enough damage to his mind to put the Borgias to shame. But perhaps Alec would recover if an expert assured him he wasn''t being poisoned.

    "No," Alec said quietly.

    David tried to change the subject. "Gibson complained rabbits are eating his cabbages again. He wants me and McCullagh to help him shoot them. Can I borrow your gun tomorrow?"

    "Of course," Alec said. "You know where it is."

    <hr>

    Alec went to bed at nine. Strangely, judging by the silence throughout the house, so did Mrs. Lennox and her guest. David sat up until half nine planning Alec''s meals for the rest of the week.

    If he caught enough rabbits tomorrow he could make stew. Maybe add some roast potatoes, if he could get Cook to agree. She didn''t like letting him work in her kitchen. She thought it reflected badly on her skills.

    He would have to check on the twins. Gwladys had no time for them, though she refused to let Alec near them. She left them in the care of a nanny. David knew the nanny drank. If he could catch her at it he could force Gwladys to fire her.

    He closed the notebook. For a minute his fingers hovered over the drawer where the photos were stored.

    Instead he opened another drawer, one concealed behind a carved decoration. Inside was a stack of letters tied up with a ribbon.

    He already knew them all by heart. He read them again anyway.

    <hr>

    Yo-han stopped on the landing. He pushed the curtain back and stared very hard out the window. The river was faintly visible in the moonlight. The garden below was in darkness. The opposite shore might as well not be there for all he could see of it.

    If there had been a light in the empty house he couldn''t have missed it. But there was nothing.

    <hr>

    Under Mrs. Skinner the household had been run like a battleship. She had made sure everyone did their jobs thoroughly. Anyone caught sleeping in had better be sick. If dinner was served ten minutes after five, or if the windows weren''t washed properly, or if there was the faintest footprint left on the carpet? May God have mercy on the person responsible, because Mrs. Skinner wouldn''t.

    Under Mrs. Lennox things were very different. Most of the original staff had been dismissed. Their replacements were lackadaisical, throughother, and generally incompetent. No one got up earlier than seven. The cook''s repertoire was extremely limited: porridge for breakfast, soup or stew for lunch, mutton for dinner, and if you wanted supper you had to get it yourself. When Mrs. Lennox held her parties she had to hire another cook to prepare fancy meals.

    It wasn''t unusual for Mrs. Jenkins, the cook, to arrive in the kitchen and find Eames already there. This always raised her hackles, because in the morning he always made porridge too.

    For some incomprehensible reason Lord Kilskeery could eat his porridge but couldn''t stand hers. Eames had the audacity to say she cooked it too long. What did a foreigner like him know about it? He didn''t even have the decency to drink tea like a normal person. He insisted on coffee, which in Mrs. Jenkins'' opinion was a foul-smelling and worse-tasting poison. He had already brewed a pot; the kitchen stank of the stuff.

    She scowled at him as she put on her apron. He ignored her, as usual. He poured out a cup of tea, put it beside the bowl of porridge, and headed for the door without a word.

    Mrs. Jenkins craned her neck to get a look at the porridge. "You''ve drowned it in milk! No one can eat that!"

    Eames still didn''t bother to answer. Mrs. Jenkins muttered to herself as she checked the teapot. He hadn''t put enough water in it. She added more and waited for it to boil.

    Eames used a small pot to make his porridge. Mrs. Jenkins removed it and got out her much bigger pot. She poured a good deal of oats into it, added milk, and turned on the gas. While it was simmering she turned her attention to the dishes left over from supper.

    A used cup in the sink showed that Eames had already had his coffee. She picked up the coffee pot and poured the rest of the stuff down the drain.

    Footsteps and voices in the hallway showed the rest of the domestic staff were awake. Mrs. Jenkins heard someone pulling the curtains in the hall. One of the footmen slouched in, yawning.

    "Porridge isn''t ready," Mrs. Jenkins said. "Here, dry these plates."

    A piercing shriek rang out just as the footman picked up the first plate. He dropped it in shock. It shattered.

    The shrieks continued. Mrs. Jenkins ran out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron as she went, and followed the noise to the drawing room.

    One of the housemaids was clutching the half-open curtain. She stared out at the garden. She continued to scream like she was being murdered.

    "Stop that racket!" Mrs. Jenkins yelled.

    She expected to see a spider on the window-pane. It took her eyes a minute to comprehend what she was really seeing.

    Two bodies hung from the old oak tree.

 Chapter V: The Hanging Tree

    Lying wastes more time than anything else in the modern world. -- Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke

    Yo-han had witnessed some grisly spectacles in his career. The man whose chest had been sawn open and all his internal organs removed held the title for the most grisly. He had fierce competition, though, including the woman who had lost half of her face in a bear attack, the man who had spilled acid on his arms, and Rachael Patton-Langdale with a chunk blown out of her skull.

    His history gave him an advantage. He could examine the murder victims relatively impassively while the police constable was trying not to be sick.

    Both victims were hung by the neck from different branches of the tree. Both ropes had been cut from the same length of rope, which was unusually thick and had probably been taken from a boat. The bodies had been dragged over to the tree from somewhere across the lawn.

    Victim one: Mrs. Lennox. She was fully dressed in a plain white frock, not an evening dress. Her hair had been pinned up. Now most of it hung loose and was matted with blood. Her expression was mildly surprised but not frightened. She hadn''t seen her death coming.

    She had been struck in the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object. The murderer had hit her with such force that part of her skull had caved in.

    Victim two: ?elik Bey. He was shirtless. His face was contorted into a ghastly silent scream. He had certainly seen his death coming.

    It was a clich¨¦ of crime novels to say someone''s throat had been cut from ear to ear. Yet that was the only way to describe it. The murderer had slashed so deeply into his neck that they had almost decapitated him. The rope holding him up was looped around his chest under his arms, because his head would have been pulled off if the murderer tried to hang him by what remained of his neck. His chest and arms were sliced all over with shallow cuts.

    Yo-han leaned in to get a closer look. All of them had been inflicted with a long, sharp blade. The cut throat had probably been inflicted with the same weapon.

    He was used to gory sights. All the same, he was glad the news had arrived before he had time to have breakfast.

    Constable Martin wasn''t so lucky. In the background Yo-han could hear him losing the fight to keep his food down.

    After a careful examination Yo-han had reached several conclusions.

    "They were both attacked from behind," he said. "They were facing each other. I think Mrs. Lennox died first, and ?elik Bey saw her death right before he was killed. Then they were dragged here from the scene of the crime. See the trail in the grass? ?elik Bey was stripped after death. Notice how there''s very little blood from his throat; most of it went onto his shirt. These cuts were also inflicted posthumously. We''re looking for at least two murderers of above average strength, with a personal grudge against ?elik Bey."

    Constable Martin staggered over, still looking green. "It was her husband."

    Yo-han raised an eyebrow. The thought had occurred to him when he first heard of the murder, but had been dismissed as soon as he saw the bodies. "How do you know?"

    Martin shrugged. "Well, it''s obvious, isn''t it? Wife is unfaithful, jealous husband kills her and her lover."

    "So why mutilate the lover when the worst betrayer was the wife?"

    "Because he still loved her." Martin seemed to think this was final.

    Yo-han thought it was proof he''d read too many penny-dreadfuls.

    "I happen to know that Lord Kilskeery is suffering from a long illness. Do you think a sick man could commit two murders, almost simultaneously but with different weapons, and then drag both bodies a considerable distance before hauling them up into a tree?"

    "With an accomplice, yes."

    That would still require Lennox to have either clubbed his wife on the head or savagely cut a man''s throat. Yo-han pictured how gaunt Lennox was. He remembered the feeling of picking him up and discovering he was practically skin and bones. He could not imagine Lennox taking any physical part in the murders.

    He could have planned them, but that required more investigation.

    "Where were the murders committed?" Yo-han asked.

    "Over by the greenhouse. We haven''t found the murder weapon ¡ª er, the weapon used on Lady Kilskeery ¡ª but we know what it was: an oar."

    That was a surprise. Yo-han had pictured something like a baseball bat. "An oar?" he repeated incredulously. "Is the greenhouse beside the river?"

    Martin shook his head. "There it is, beside the house. You can just see part of it from here."

    "How do you know it was an oar?"

    "One was stolen yesterday. Along with a coil of rope. The rope used to hang them, most likely." Martin shuddered.

    That meant the murder had been planned for at least a day, by someone who had access to the house''s boats. The murderers must be part of the household.

    "Let''s have a look," Yo-han said grimly.

    <hr>

    The greenhouse revealed nothing he didn''t already know. There was blood on the grass outside. A trail of flattened grass and bloodstains led in the direction of the tree. A pile of crumpled, blood-soaked fabric partially concealed behind a tuft of grass turned out to be ?elik Bey''s shirt. It looked as if the murderer had tossed it aside and forgotten about it.

    The ground was dry. There were no convenient footprints.

    Constable Martin put on a pair of gloves and gingerly picked up the shirt. "We''ll check this for fingerprints."

    "Mr. Seo!"

    Both of them jumped at the shout. Yo-han turned. To his surprise he saw Eames running from the back of the house. He was pale and shaking.

    He exclaimed, "Mr. Seo, they''re gone!"

    Yo-han''s first thought was that some of the servants had run away. If so, it should be easy to find the killers. Eames'' next words clarified the situation.

    "The first Lady Kilskeery''s pearls! The safe in Mrs. Lennox''s room has been opened and the pearls are gone!"

    For a moment Yo-han stared at him in absolute bafflement. Nothing about the case so far had suggested robbery was involved. When someone hated another person enough to bash them on the head and cut them up, they generally had a more serious motive than greed.

    "Who found the safe?" he asked to give himself time to collect his thoughts.

    Eames was still shaking. "Mrs. Lennox''s maid. She thought there might be clues... And she found it open!"

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    "She shouldn''t have intruded on a crime scene," Martin began indignantly.

    Yo-han felt a headache beginning. "Lead us to the room."

    Eames turned and headed back the way he''d come. Yo-han and Martin followed him. He led them through the kitchen, up a flight of stairs, and through the back hallways. They ended up at a door just to the left of the main stairs. Their route puzzled Yo-han. It would have been much faster to go round the house, enter through the front door, and walk up the stairs.

    Mrs. Lennox''s room was a monument to bad taste. The walls were painted dark blue and the carpet was grey. She probably hadn''t taken two unusually large American flags and turned them into curtains, but observers could be forgiven for assuming that based on the pattern. The chairs were upholstered with bright lemon-coloured material. The quilt-cover and pillowcases were white and made of some floaty, lacy material. It clashed horribly with the dullness of the room.

    A massive painting was displayed on the wall beside the wardrobe. Yo-han squinted at it. He turned his head to the side. He took a step closer, then a step back. He still couldn''t tell what it was meant to be. It looked as if the artist had begun to paint a woman, then had accidentally spilled several different colours of paint on the canvas, and had attempted to salvage the mess by turning it into a garden scene.

    The safe was concealed behind the painting, which swung out to allow access. Yo-han went over to get a better look. He stumbled over a pair of slippers discarded carelessly between the wardrobe and the bed.

    "Where is Mrs. Lennox''s maid?" he asked, examining the safe''s lock. It had been opened with a key. There were no scratches to suggest it had been picked.

    "In the kitchen, having tea," Eames said. He''d stopped shaking but he looked quite ill.

    "Who has a key to the safe?"

    Eames thought for a minute. "Mrs. Skinner had one. She was the former housekeeper, but she''s moved to Belfast with Lady Kilskeery." Seeing Yo-han''s puzzled frown, he explained, "Lord Kilskeery''s mother. I think Mrs. Skinner left her key behind. She hasn''t been replaced. Mrs. Lennox kept a keychain with her all the time. I don''t know what the safe key looks like, but I suppose it was one of hers. There might be a spare in the kitchen."

    Yo-han studied the safe. An empty jewellery box lay open ¡ª presumably the one which had contained the pearls. Yet, oddly, an assortment of rings, brooches, necklaces, and earrings had been left untouched. They glittered in the light. What thief would resist the temptation to take some of them? They were much smaller and therefore easier to dispose of than the pearl necklace.

    A suspicion was beginning to form.

    He turned to Eames. "Does the maid have a key?"

    Eames shook his head. "Mrs. Lennox never trusted any of us with keys to the safe. Her maid was only hired last week, to replace another maid who was fired for criticising Mrs. Lennox''s behaviour."

    Yo-han remembered the drunk man two nights ago. "Was the maid''s name Jenny by any chance?"

    Eames looked astonished. "Yes, Jenny Conley. How did you know?"

    The man''s words came back to him: "If my Jenny doesn''t get her job back I''ll wring that woman''s neck!"

    Yo-han thought of Mrs. Lennox hanging from the tree. From a certain point of view her neck had been wrung.

    But what about ?elik Bey? Assuming Jenny''s father had murdered Mrs. Lennox, which was currently an assumption based on mere coincidence, why had he also murdered a guest? And why mutilate that guest''s body? As a blind, perhaps, to make the police look for someone with a grudge against ?elik Bey.

    He turned away from the safe, and almost tripped over those damn slippers again. He kicked them out of the way in annoyance. Then he stopped.

    "Mrs. Lennox was wearing outdoor shoes when she died," he said slowly. "So she took off her slippers herself. But the more natural place to leave them would be near the top of the bed."

    He looked at the bedside cabinet. It had a cupboard at the bottom. He placed the slippers in front of the cupboard door and tried to open it. They were in the way.

    "The thief also went through Mrs. Lennox''s cupboard," he said. "Why? No one keeps valuables where they can be discovered so easily."

    Until now Constable Martin had been hovering awkwardly by the window, looking like he felt there was nothing for him to do but couldn''t think of how to leave. Now he came over to investigate too. Eames moved to the side of the cupboard to get a better view.

    Yo-han moved the slippers out of the way and opened the cupboard. It had one shelf, which had small dividers splitting it into three squares. One of the squares contained a notebook. The other two were empty.

    He lifted out the notebook and flipped through it. Some pages were torn out. The rest were blank.

    "Do you have a pencil?" he asked the constable.

    Martin hunted through his pockets, then produced a pencil. Yo-han scribbled over the first page. Faint outlines showed through.

    "I thought so! She leant heavily on the previous page and the impression came through."

    "But what does it mean?" Eames asked. "Half grim? Baron nine thirds? That''s not a proper fraction!"

    "That should be half gramme. She''s spelt it with only one M. For the rest, your guess is as good as mine," Martin said.

    Yo-han closed the notebook and put it in his pocket. "I think I know what this means. Mr. Eames, does Lord Kilskeery own racehorses?"

    Eames looked at him thoughtfully. Yo-han could see that his mind had begun to run along the same lines. "His father did. A¡ª The current Lord Kilskeery still owns them, but he stables them with a friend in England who runs them in his name. He said they''re too expensive to keep here. He keeps two horses here, but they''re only for riding."

    "Does he bet on the races?"

    "No, he doesn''t like gambling. He also doesn''t drink, or hunt, or speculate, or do anything that might diminish his income. Mrs. Lennox was fond of spending money, and she quarrelled with her parents so they wouldn''t send her any."

    "So, if Mrs. Lennox wanted to get extra money, she could bet on her husband''s horses?"

    Eames shrugged. "She could. She could also lose money. I never heard of money mysteriously going missing. Though, come to think of it, she did have a lot more than usual lately. She insisted on buying a mink coat that cost ¡ê600. Can you imagine? ¡ê600!"

    Yo-han thought of those words "half gram". He thought of the missing necklace. One explanation fit the facts. But it was highly improbable.

    "Well, I think we''ve learnt everything we can here," he said, getting up. "Now it''s time to question the maid."

    <hr>

    Eames led Yo-han and the constable back to the kitchen. They found Miss Gilchrist, the maid, munching her way through a digestive biscuit. She didn''t look particularly shaken.

    Yo-han and Martin seated themselves at the table opposite her. She eyed both of them askance, especially Yo-han.

    "Could you explain what happened this morning, ma''am?" Constable Martin asked.

    Miss Gilchrist chewed away stolidly before answering. "I sleep up on the third storey. Above the missus''s room. She has a bell hung in my room that she can ring when she wants me."

    Yo-han listened intently. Martin began to look impatient.

    "I can always hear when she closes her door. The sound comes right up through the floor. Well, early this morning ¡ª I didn''t check my clock but it was still dark ¡ª I hear the door close. ''That''s her gentleman friend leaving,'' thinks I, if you know what I mean. And I wait for her to ring, because she always wants a bath after her friends'' visits. Well, she don''t ring. I listen, but I fall asleep because next I know it''s daylight and Mabel is screaming her head off."

    Miss Gilchrist paused to take another sip of tea.

    "Well, I get dressed and go down. And I''m blessed if Mrs. Jenkins don''t come racing up the stairs screaming the missus is murdered."

    "What did you think when you heard that?" Yo-han asked.

    Miss Gilchrist peered at him in a none-too-friendly way. "What are you?"

    "A detective," Yo-han said, allowing a little more coldness to creep into his voice.

    She shook her head and muttered something that sounded very rude. "Thinks I, the master has done for her at last."

    Martin gave Yo-han a triumphant glance.

    Yo-han ignored him. "And why did you assume Lord Kilskeery was the killer?"

    The question seemed to baffle her. "Well, it''s obvious, an''t it? Everyone knows she was no better than she should be. From what I hear he never wanted to marry her."

    Yo-han let the subject drop for now. "And then?"

    "Thinks I, that time when her door woke me? That was her leaving. She must have gone to his room, they fought, and he killed her. So I goes to her room looking for evvy-dince. And what do I see but the safe wide open and the pearls gone! Down I run and tell Mrs. Jenkins. She give me a cuppa, and here I''ve sat ever since."

    "When did you last see Mrs. Lennox''s pearls?" Yo-han asked.

    Miss Gilchrist looked blank.

    Yo-han tried again. "Did she wear them last night? The night before?" He knew for a fact she hadn''t, because he would have noticed.

    "No," Miss Gilchrist said slowly. "I don''t believe I ever seed the pearls. She an''t worn them since she hired me."

    "Then how did you know they were there?"

    "She told me. Pearls worth thousands, she says, kept in the safe because she don''t trust the bank."

    Yo-han put together all the information he currently had, then made a gamble. "Did Mrs. Lennox spend much time with the head groom?"

    Both Martin and Miss Gilchrist looked startled.

    "Why, yes, she did. I never seed anything but I think..." Miss Gilchrist trailed off and nodded solemnly.

    "Thank you," Yo-han said, getting up. "You''ve been very helpful."

    <hr>

    "Now what?" Martin asked. "I don''t mind admitting this whole thing is too deep for me. Head grooms? Racehorses? What have they to do with the murder?"

    Yo-han shrugged. "So far I don''t think they have anything to do with it."

    Martin tried to wrap his mind around this. He failed. "Well, for Pete''s sake, what do I do?"

    "Currently I think the best thing you can do is go back to the police station and make arrangements for the bodies to be removed. Arrange a post-mortem, though I doubt it will reveal anything. I expect to solve the case within two days."

 Chapter VI: What Katy Saw

    Wherever trouble turns up, there am I at the bottom of it. -- Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise

    The next person to question was obviously Lord Kilskeery himself. Yo-han, standing at the main door after the constable''s departure, looked around for Eames. Neither he nor any of the other servants were anywhere to be seen.

    Yo-han went back towards the kitchen. Seven servants were there, gossiping among themselves. He listened outside the door for a minute. All he learnt was that none of them were surprised Mrs. Lennox had been murdered, and the general belief was that her husband had killed her.

    If they had been able to explain how one half-starved man could have committed two violent murders almost simultaneously and then dragged the bodies away from the scene of the crime, he might have agreed with them. In the meantime, he was keeping an open mind.

    He knocked the door before opening it. "Excuse me, could someone tell me where Lord Kilskeery is?"

    "In the nursery," a middle-aged woman grumbled. "Barged in and shoved me out, he did!"

    Yo-han remembered one of Lennox''s complaints: ''She won''t let me see my children.'' Now Lennox was in the nursery. Significant? Possibly. "And where is the nursery?"

    He followed the extremely confusing directions as best he could. When he inevitably got lost he resorted to opening every door he passed. He discovered that the vast majority of rooms were uninhabited and mostly unfurnished.

    Finally he opened a door and found himself in the nursery. He paused on the threshold. It was a large, bright room, much more cheerful than any other he''d seen so far. Its large windows looked out over the treetops. The house on the other side of the river was visible. It still looked deserted.

    Two cribs were placed side-by-side against the wall. A low armchair stood beside them. Alexander Lennox sat in it, reading aloud to two small babies.

    In the minute before he noticed Yo-han''s presence, Yo-han observed the three of them closely. The babies, probably twins, were very young. He thought of his half-siblings as babies and decided these ones were less than a year old. They wore identical blue baby-grows. Both had brown hair. One was asleep. The other peered owlishly up at their father.

    Lennox was still abnormally thin, but he looked as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. He did not look like a man whose wife had just been violently murdered. Yo-han looked at him and tried to imagine him swinging an oar at his wife''s head.

    "''Then the magician brewed a powerful potion out of nine sorts of herbs which he had gathered himself all alone by moonlight, and he gave the youth nine spoonfuls of it daily for three days, which made him able to understand the language of birds.

    "''At parting the magician said...''[1]"

    Lennox stopped. He looked up at Yo-han. There was no fear or hostility in his eyes. He smiled, the first smile Yo-han had seen from him that didn''t have a bitter edge.

    "Hello, Mr. Seo. I hoped you''d investigate this."

    Yo-han found himself in the unfamiliar and disagreeable position of not knowing what to say. He settled for the blatantly obvious. "You''ve heard about the murders?"

    Lennox nodded. He looked briefly grim, but not remotely grief-stricken. "When I said I wanted to be free of my wife, this wasn''t what I hoped for. I know everyone will suspect me. What I have done already and what I intend to do next will only make them suspect me more. Yet in spite of appearances I swear I''m innocent."

    That was less discouraging than he probably expected. Yo-han had dealt with many cases where the evidence seemed to condemn an innocent person. Only two months ago he''d solved a case of theft: deeds had been stolen from a bank vault while a guard sat in front of it. The police assumed the guard must have either stolen them himself or been an accomplice to the thief. Yo-han had proved that the thief had actually been one of a group of electricians working on the alarm wires. While supposedly setting the alarm, he had actually cut through the vault''s ceiling and stolen the deeds. The guard and all the other witnesses had known about the electricians and dismissed the noise as part of the normal work.

    Some of Lennox''s words caught his attention. "What exactly have you done? And what do you intend to do?"

    Lennox closed the book and held his sons closer. "I''ve dismissed the boys'' nurse. She drank. I don''t believe there was a single evening when she wasn''t tipsy. And I intend to ask my old housekeeper to come back and take over running the household again. Most of the current servants are utterly incompetent and I intend to dismiss all but McCullagh and one or two of the housemaids."

    "That would be very unwise just now," Yo-han said. He noticed that Lennox didn''t mention Eames as one of the servants he intended to keep. "Everyone would say you''re afraid of the servants finding something incriminating, and the servants would want revenge. Wait until your housekeeper returns."

    "David said the same," Lennox said with a faint smile. He pronounced the name oddly, as if it ended with a T instead of a D.

    There was no other chair in the room. Yo-han walked over to the window and peered out for a minute. He discovered that the nursery window almost directly overlooked the scene of the murder, but only the top of the greenhouse roof could be seen from here.

    "Do you know where your wife and her... guest... were killed?"

    He watched Lennox''s reflection in the glass while still appearing to admire the view. Lennox looked puzzled, nothing more.

    "In front of the house," he said. "Dav¡ª Eames says... It sounded horrible. Made him sick to see it."

    Yo-han took note of that. Eames'' attitude earlier confirmed what he said. "No. They were murdered at the greenhouse and dragged to the front of the house. There were two murderers. Each used a different weapon. Why do you think they moved the bodies?"

    Lennox continued to look puzzled. "To hide them?" He realised how stupid that was as soon as he spoke. "No, they wouldn''t leave them in front of the house if they wanted to hide them. I don''t know. Because they wanted them discovered?"

    That was probably part of the reason. But there was another, even more important one. "The bodies were publicly hanged from a tree. Like criminals. I think the murderers believed they were administering justice. So I ask you," he turned to face Lennox, "who hated your wife enough to kill her? And who hated her lover enough to not only kill him, but also to cut him all over as if they were trying to flay him?"

    Lennox flinched. Before he answered he got up and carried the twins to their cribs. One of them slept through the whole thing. The other stared at Yo-han with a mildly judgemental expression, as if he wondered why this stranger was in their room.

    "Are you aware of how I came to be married to that woman?" Lennox asked, staring down at the twins. His uncombed hair fell over his face so Yo-han couldn''t guess his thoughts.

    Was this the time to admit he had already deduced certain facts? Yo-han decided it would be better to stay silent on that point for now.

    "From what I''ve seen I expect it was an arranged marriage," he said diplomatically.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    Lennox laughed bitterly. "You could say that. She arranged it. She saw... It was my fault entirely. I behaved in a... I did something I shouldn''t have done. She saw me and blackmailed me into marriage. She wanted a title, you see. And my parents wanted me to marry her for her father''s money.

    He fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. "What do you call it, when a woman forces herself on a man?"

    Yo-han didn''t know how to answer. Lennox didn''t seem to want one.

    "I asked my lawyer if her behaviour was grounds for divorce. He didn''t even believe what I experienced was possible. The law has no punishment for what she did.

    "She wanted a child, you see. And she wanted to punish me for... what she saw. So..."

    Lennox was silent. He continued to fidget with his sleeve. Yo-han could deduce the rest of the story.

    "Since she arrived in Enniskillen she fought with everyone: my mother, the servants, the neighbours, the rest of my family... She even fought with her parents so much they won''t talk to her any more. She fought with ?elik Bey every time they met, but somehow that was the only relationship she mended afterwards. Recently she fired a maid for no reason. I might be the most obvious suspect, but I can think of twenty other people who hated her."

    Yo-han thought of the only time he''d met Mrs. Lennox. He could easily believe all of that.

    "As for ?elik Bey, I know virtually nothing about him. Gwladys''s father makes cars and ?elik Bey''s father imports them. I don''t know anyone who had a grudge against him specifically."

    <hr>

    Most women would have been alarmed to hear their neighbour had been murdered and their guest had been called in to investigate. Phil, who had accidentally caused one death and discovered a murder, was only mildly upset.

    "I suppose her husband did it," she said when Mr. Seo returned for lunch.

    "No, I think I can say with certainty that he''s the only person I can rule out," he said, to her surprise.

    The dining room windows faced over the lough. Mr. Seo looked out at the other bank as if he expected to find the answer there. "Miss Patton, do you have a boat?"

    Phil sensed where this was going. "Yes, over at the jetty. You think the empty house has something to do with the case?"

    Mr. Seo nodded grimly. "From there the murderer could see everything happening at the house. If I search it I''m sure I''ll find proof someone was hiding there."

    Phil finished her sandwich. She got up. Her brown-and-white day dress was too good for a boating expedition, but she had an old grey dress which she normally used for gardening. "Give me five minutes to change, then I''ll row you across."

    <hr>

    Phil didn''t have a boathouse at the bottom of her garden. Instead she kept her boat at the jetty a short distance away, where most of the tourists moored their boats. She and Mr. Seo passed several groups of picnickers as they walked down to the jetty.

    The Little Swan ¡ª named by Vi, and Phil still didn''t know what she''d been thinking ¡ª was a small boat with both oars and a sail. Vi was the one who mainly used it. Phil could row, but had never gotten the hang of sailing and couldn''t be bothered to learn.

    She climbed down into the boat and put the oars in place. Mr. Seo followed more slowly. He stumbled on the last step from the pier and sat down abruptly. Phil untied the boat. They started across the river.

    Another pier ran along the bank at the other side. A small boat was tied to it. They landed beside it.

    The empty house was about two minutes'' walk from the pier. Mr. Seo stopped every few steps to examine something along the way. Phil watched, bemused, as he removed what looked like a few threads from a briar.

    An overgrown hedge surrounded the house. The gate was rusty. Oddly, it opened easily and noiselessly when Phil pushed it.

    Most of the windows were cracked. The front door stubbornly refused to open. The path was a mass of nettles. They walked round to the back. A cobblestone yard, now practically buried beneath weeds, led to an equally overgrown lane.

    The back door had fallen off one of its hinges. It lay half-open, hanging into the hallway beyond. Mr. Seo tried to open it fully. He had to jump back because the doorframe sagged and creaked ominously. Phil caught a glimpse of a pile of debris behind the door.

    "Part of the ceiling has fallen. No one could get in there," Mr. Seo said.

    He examined the windows closely. Phil followed him round to the other side of the house. From here Lennox House was visible above the tops of the trees. The river glimmered in the sunlight. A few sails dotted here and there showed where someone was out in a boat.

    Mr. Seo gave an indistinct exclamation.

    Phil stared at the window. Almost all of the glass had fallen out. The frame was rusty and buckling under its own weight. But she didn''t see anything remarkable about it.

    "Here''s where they got in," Mr. Seo said.

    Phil tried and failed to guess what he''d seen that she didn''t. "How do you know?"

    He pointed to the windowsill. "The lichen has been scraped away here and here. Someone climbed up here. And the frame has bent. They used it to pull themselves up." He clambered onto the windowsill, heedless of the dirt he''d get on his trousers. "The floorboards are broken under here. They jumped down too hard, and the wood was too rotten to bear their weight."

    He took the precaution of stepping down from the windowsill instead of jumping. "Footprints! Several sets, going back and forth. Some quite muddy. All the same person, I think."

    Phil weighed up the indignity of climbing through a window in broad daylight versus the disappointment of not witnessing this investigation. She looked around to make sure no one was watching. Then she followed him through the window.

    The house was completely empty. No furniture, no wallpaper, not even any interior doors. Trails of muddy, indistinct footprints crossed the room. They faded as they reached the doorway.

    Phil followed Mr. Seo into the hall. The stairs were on their left. The last stair was almost directly outside the door. A few traces of mud showed the intruder had gone upstairs.

    Compared to the rest of the house, the stairs were in excellent condition. They were made of stone and only mildly weathered. The second storey was also mostly intact. The floor sagged in places, and one wall had partially fallen down, but the building didn''t collapse around them.

    Mr. Seo went into the room on the left-hand side at the top of the stairs. He looked out the window, then turned and went into the smaller room that adjoined that one. Phil followed nervously. She didn''t like the look of those cracks on the ceiling.

    The small room had probably been a nursery once. It still had bars on the windows. And Lennox House was clearly visible from it.

    "Here''s where the murderer put her blanket." Mr. Seo pointed to a clean patch on the floor. "She stayed overnight at least once. A discarded match? Very careless. No fallen crumbs or empty tins, so I don''t believe she ate anything here. That means she has a house of her own somewhere in the area."

    "She?" Phil repeated, surprised.

    "Didn''t you notice those footprints? They were made by boots. A woman''s walking boots. And I found strands of wool on the hedge. From a woman''s dress, I believe. Men usually don''t wear blue wool when they''re breaking into a house."

    Phil considered this. "Did Mr. Lennox jilt someone to marry..."

    For some reason Mr. Seo found this highly amusing. He burst out laughing before Phil could finish her sentence. She stared, unsure whether to be offended at this reaction.

    "No," he said, shaking his head ruefully, "I don''t believe there''s a jealous woman from Lennox''s past in this case. And this woman had an accomplice in the household. One of them killed Mrs. Lennox, one killed¡ª"

    Abruptly he stopped. He turned and stared at the house. Then he looked almost wildly around the room.

    "A sword!" he exclaimed, which made no sense whatsoever. "Where would you leave a sword?"

    Phil was the wrong person to ask. She''d never owned a sword in her life. She stared at him and wondered if he''d gone mad.

    He paced around the room, staring at the floor and the walls. Suddenly he exclaimed again. "There!"

    Phil looked at the scrapes on the windowsill. They could have been made by a sword. That seemed a highly unlikely explanation, though.

    "I don''t understand," she said.

    Mr. Seo ran his finger over the scrapes. "She struck the windowsill, maybe in anger when she saw ?elik Bey, maybe when she was practicing swinging the sword."

    Phil repeated, "?elik Bey?"

    "Yes," Mr. Seo said. He looked up, and from his expression she could tell he''d solved most of the mystery. "The woman killed ?elik Bey with a sword. The man killed Mrs. Lennox with an oar. They hung the bodies to show justice had been done. So the question is, why did this woman hate ?elik Bey so much?"

    "A hired assassin?" Phil suggested, thinking of Leopold.

    "No. Not with the injuries she inflicted. This was a personal vendetta."

    <hr>

    When they returned to the Little Swan they found a young girl in the boat beside theirs. She was playing some sort of game. Pretending to have a sword-fight with the mast, apparently. She stopped when she saw them.

    "Are you the detective?" she asked, staring at Yo-han as if he was a visitor from outer space.

    "Yes," he said.

    She sprang out of the boat. "I''m Katy Bennett. Something funny''s happened at that house! Granny won''t tell me what, but I know something! It''s important but she tells me to stop making things up!"

    Phil looked at Yo-han. Yo-han looked at Phil. Both of their thoughts ran along the same lines: had this girl witnessed the murders?

    "Why don''t you tell us about it?" Yo-han asked.

    Katy scrunched up her face. "It was... last year. Before my brother left home."

    Disappointment swept over Phil. If Yo-han felt the same, he kept it off his face.

    "I was in my boat. And I saw him! He didn''t see me but I watched him through my telescope." Katy pointed to the telescope in the boat for emphasis.

    "Who did you see?" Yo-han asked.

    "The one whose pictures are in the papers. Lord Something."

    "Kilskeery," Phil said.

    "Yes, that. He was down by the river. And another man came along. I think they were arguing. I couldn''t understand them. And then..." She stopped and looked around furtively. "Granny slapped me and told me not to tell lies, but I''m not lying! I really saw it!"

    Phil''s patience began to run out. "What did you see?"

    "The second man kissed Lord Kilskeery!"

 Chapter VII: Five Letters

    "Talking to you is like-- like talking to an eel!"

    "No, is it? I''ve never tried to talk to an eel. Isn''t it as waste of time?"

    "Not such a waste of time as talking to you!"

    -- Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

    Phil rowed back to the jetty in stunned silence. Yo-han stayed silent too. All things considered, the return journey was very uncomfortable.

    When they reached the path that ran past Phil''s house, she couldn''t stand it any more. "I won''t repeat what Miss Bennett said. Not even to Vi. Especially not to Vi."

    "I didn''t think you would, Miss Patton," Yo-han said in surprise.

    "You may as well call me Phil. My sister does, and after Aunt Rachael¡ª" Phil summarised that horrible situation with a wave of her hand "¡ªyou know as much about me as she does."

    "Thank you, Miss¡ª Phil. And you may call me Yo-han. But to return to Lord Kilskeery, I already knew. I realised after ?elik Bey made a certain comment." He stopped and looked up at Lennox House. "I intend to begin searching the male servants'' rooms this afternoon. Would you help by searching the women''s?"

    Phil blinked. "But... I don''t know what I''m supposed to look for."

    "Honestly? Nothing. I know none of the women in the household were involved. But I don''t want the second murderer to know that yet."

    <hr>

    Yo-han had pieced together almost everything that had happened from the moment he left the empty house. His current search was mainly to find evidence to support what he already knew.

    First he questioned McCullagh the groundskeeper. That confirmed where the oar and rope had come from. Then he began his search of the servants'' rooms. The footmen lived on the third storey. Each had a room to himself. The housemaids lived on the third storey too, but their rooms were accessed from a different staircase to prevent getting too friendly with the footmen.

    There was no butler. Most of the footmen were teenagers, hired solely because they were cheaper than more experienced staff. None of them had anything incriminating in their rooms.

    Well, nothing more incriminating than a box of stolen cigars. Yo-han examined them, decided they had nothing to do with the case, and said nothing about them.

    He went down to the second storey. Most of the rooms here were guest rooms or completely unused. The master bedroom, which should have been Lord Kilskeery''s, was at the top of the main stairs. Lady Kilskeery''s room was beside it. On the other side were guest rooms, including the one occupied by ?elik Bey.

    Yo-han went through it. He found some American newspapers, some letters in English and Turkish, and a note from Gwladys Lennox.

    Well. It was supposedly from Gwladys Lennox. Yo-han compared the handwriting to a letter from her. It was too similar. No one wrote every letter exactly the same size and shaped exactly the same way. And it made an appointment for six o''clock outside the greenhouse.

    Gwladys had probably received a duplicate. They''d been lured to their deaths by someone who had access to samples of their handwriting.

    The guests who had been there on the night of the dinner had left the next morning, before the murders. Their rooms had been cleaned. Further along, separated from this part of the storey by a door that could be locked, was David Eames'' room. He had his own staircase which led down to the servants'' hall.

    Yo-han tried the door. It opened at once.

    At first he thought the room was empty. He took the main details in at a glance. It was an unusually large room for a valet. The window overlooked the stables at the back of the house. That meant neither the scene of the murder or the bodies were visible from here.

    A clock chimed the hour softly from the top of a large, ornate mantelpiece. Bookshelves were built into the walls on either side, but there were very few books on them. A wardrobe was set against the wall beside the door. A four-poster double bed, a writing desk, a chest of drawers, an armchair, and a window seat made up the rest of the furniture.

    There was only one photograph in the room. It was set on top of the mantelpiece. Yo-han was about to go over and examine it when he made a startling discovery.

    Another room adjoined this one. The door was closed, but the faint sound of a tap being turned on came from behind it.

    Yo-han hesitated, unsure whether to knock the door and announce his presence or try to examine the room without Eames'' knowledge. Eames solved the question for him.

    The tap was turned off. A bolt slid back on the inside of the door. It opened and Eames stepped into his bedroom. His hair was slightly damp, but not wet enough for him to have had a shower. His face was pale and drawn. He started violently when he saw Yo-han.

    "I''m searching all the male servants'' rooms," Yo-han said. He studied Eames'' face. "Are you quite well?"

    Eames drew in a shaky breath. "McCullagh brought in some rabbits to make stew. Seeing him skin them... It reminded me of... I can''t stand blood. It makes me feel sick."

    He certainly looked sick. He crossed the room and practically collapsed into the armchair. "Look anywhere you want," he said. His voice was muffled because he buried his head in his hands. He was trembling.

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Yo-han looked at him thoughtfully. He looked especially at his arms and hands. Eames was slightly-built, yes. But unlike Lennox he showed no signs of under-eating, so this was probably his natural physique. He was two or three inches taller than Yo-han. Could he have hit Mrs. Lennox with an oar hard enough to break her skull with a single blow?

    Eames had certainly hated her. It would be hard to find anyone in the household who didn''t hate her. But Yo-han found it hard to picture him being strong enough for such a violent murder.

    A man who felt sick at the sight of blood was an unlikely murderer anyway.

    Yo-han went over to the mantlepiece. He examined the photo. It showed three people: a middle-aged man whose white collar marked him as a Church of England clergyman, a middle-aged woman holding a small dog in her lap, and a teenage boy who was recognisable as David Eames. Judging by his age then compared to now, the photo was at least five years old.

    The adults looked too old to be his parents and too young to be his grandparents. There were too many differences between their features for them to be related at all. In fact, Eames looked as if he came from a completely different country.

    ?elik Bey had been Turkish. If Eames was also Turkish by birth, it would be either an astonishing coincidence or an important clue.

    "Your parents?" he asked casually, pointing to the photo.

    Eames nodded without looking up. "Before you ask, yes. I''m adopted."

    "What happened to your real parents?"

    "They died." Eames'' voice was oddly flat.

    Yo-han knew when a subject was closed. He moved on to the wardrobe. A quick look showed there were no conveniently blood-stained clothes hidden in it. The clothes were expensive, though. More expensive than a valet would normally wear.

    As he opened the writing desk he was aware of Eames watching him. The atmosphere abruptly became tense. That was all Yo-han needed to know there was something important here.

    The first thing he saw was a writing pad. It contained nothing but notes on chores (curtains need washed) and meals (fish soup?). Yo-han opened the drawers one at a time. The first one was full of bills, all of them carefully stacked and marked "PAID". The second contained lists of dates and, oddly, a complete list of kings from the House of Vasa[1]. The third was empty.

    All of the paper, from the writing pad to the historical notes, had a curious symbol doodled somewhere on each sheet. It looked like a cross surrounded by flowers. Some of the symbols were detailed, others were mere scribbles. The detailed ones were found mainly beside the historical notes. Yo-han suspected Eames drew them when he was thinking about something else, and researching Swedish kings would certainly take more thought than making a to-do list.

    Beside the main writing space were two concealed drawers. At first glance their handles looked like ordinary carved decorations, but Yo-han spotted the scrapes on the wood that showed where they were pulled out. He opened one of them.

    Two objects were inside. A stack of letters, and a ring. The letters were in Eames'' handwriting. Yo-han caught a glimpse of the opening words: "Dearest Alec...". The ring had a letter L engraved on it.

    Yo-han turned to face Eames. As he''d expected, Eames was watching his every move. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was a thin line.

    "It''s not what you think," Eames insisted before Yo-han had a chance to say anything.

    When people thought someone didn''t believe them, they had an amazing tendency to give away information they otherwise wouldn''t have admitted under torture. Yo-han already had a fairly clear idea of exactly what was happening, and if it wasn''t what he thought then he should retire, so it was easy to look disbelieving.

    Eames started up. He clutched the back of the chair so tightly that his knuckles were white.

    "I know," he said, stumbling over his words. "It looks like Alec keeps me as his... lover. But I swear it''s not¡ª not like that. He''s never touched me."

    Yo-han continued to look disbelieving. "Mr. Eames, I am investigating a murder." And a theft, but he knew Eames had nothing to do with that. "I need to know everything that might have a bearing on the case. Now, when a woman is murdered and I discover her husband has a romantic entanglement with someone else? That has a bearing on the case. I advise you not to hide anything. It will only make things worse when the truth is revealed."

    Eames tensed like someone who expected a punch. "Some... things are illegal."

    "When I go to the police I will tell them the identity of the murderer and not about any lesser crimes I discovered during my investigation. I won''t tell them, for example, that one of the footmen steals cigars."

    A brief silence fell. Eames stared at the floor. Yo-han waited.

    Eames raised his head. He looked suspiciously at Yo-han. "Are you... like me?"

    "Not exactly," Yo-han said. He''d realised years ago he had no interest in either men or women. "But I will not tell the police about you."

    Unless, of course, Eames and Lennox had conspired to murder Mrs. Lennox. He decided not to say that.

    Eames'' words came slowly at first, then in a rush. "Alec and I met before he knew Gwladys existed. We fell in love. We... We''re married, no matter what anyone says. He never wanted to marry Gwladys. It was his mother''s idea. I became his valet because I couldn''t bear to be separated from him, and I help him with his research, but he''s never broken his vows to Gwladys. He was going to divorce her. He had proof! You saw how she behaved! He had no reason to kill her, and why would I kill her when I knew he''d be free of her soon?"

    Yo-han could think of many reasons. Mrs. Lennox had obviously known about her husband''s preferences. Lennox had said she would blackmail him if he tried to divorce her. And of course there was the simple fact that murder was cheaper than divorce.

    He turned back to the desk. He opened the other drawer.

    He stared.

    Of all the things he expected to find in it, a photograph of people standing among ruined buildings wasn''t one of them.

    Behind him he heard Eames draw in a breath sharply. Something was scrawled on the corner of the photo. Yo-han squinted. Five letters, but what odd letters! Qnwuw, and they were written very carelessly too.

    "What is this?" he asked.

    "Some of my research," Eames said, which didn''t clear things up at all.

    Yo-han looked through the photos beneath that one. Most of them were of demolished buildings, some with people among the ruins. Two were panoramas of a city''s skyline. One was labelled 1909. All had the same five letters written somewhere on them. The more Yo-han saw of them, the more he began to wonder if they were the Latin alphabet at all. They looked almost like a code.

    Mystified, he asked, "What are you researching?"

    "Alec is compiling an encyclopaedia of historical events related to Christianity." Eames hesitated. "I''m researching how people have been persecuted."

    Yo-han closed the door. "Hmm," was all he said. "Where is the head groom''s room?"

    "On the ground floor, beside the back door."

    <hr>

    On the way downstairs Yo-han paused and took out his notebook. He copied down the five letters from memory. Then he altered them until they resembled the odd way they were written. When he was finished the Q looked like a U with a dash, the N and U were lopsided, and the Ws looked like upside-down Ms.

    It was familiar. He should recognise it. But the explanation stayed stubbornly out of reach.

    For some reason it made him think of Leopold Colman.

 Chapter VIII: The Theft

    You will get news by to-morrow, Miss Dunbar, and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes

    The head groom wasn''t in his room. Yo-han stopped in the doorway. He looked around suspiciously. The wardrobe door was ajar and the room had a generally disordered appearance. A chair sat at an odd angle, as if someone had bumped into it and hadn''t bothered to right it. A pillow had fallen off the bed and was still on the floor.

    Yo-han opened the wardrobe fully. As he expected, it was empty.

    He searched the room anyway. In the fireplace he found what he was looking for: the ashes of recently-burnt paper. Only one was still partly legible. It was a list of racehorses.

    <hr>

    Phil had searched everywhere that she thought Yo-han might have wanted her to: the housemaids'' rooms, Mrs. Lennox''s room, the rooms that had been set aside for female guests, the kitchen, even the empty room formerly occupied by the housekeeper. The only surprising thing she''d discovered was that one of the housemaids was an aspiring author. She had a manuscript in progress hidden in her cupboard.

    Phil glanced at the first page. The first words her eyes landed on were "His blueblack hair like a raven''s wing and his violet eyes...".

    It looked as if Miss Meadows had a promising career ahead of her as a writer of ridiculous romance novels.

    While she was in the kitchen, going through the cupboards and pretending she knew what she was looking for, Mr. Eames walked in. He looked haggard, like a man who had just been through a nerve-wracking ordeal. Phil deduced that Yo-han had just questioned him.

    He muttered something that was probably a greeting. Then he resolutely ignored her presence as he filled the kettle. Phil returned the favour and pretended he wasn''t there. By the time he made the tea she''d gone through every cupboard in the kitchen, and all she had learnt was that the cook needed to wash her pots more thoroughly.

    Eames loaded the teapot and two cups onto a tray. He paused and looked at Phil. "Do you want tea?"

    I might as well, she thought. I''ve nowhere left to search. "Yes."

    "And the detective will probably want some too," Eames said, more to himself than her. He added two more cups to the tray. "This way, then."

    <hr>

    After searching the rest of the downstairs rooms, Yo-han found himself outside Lennox''s study. The door was closed but he could hear muffled voices inside. He knocked. No one answered, so he opened the door anyway.

    The room was empty. A conservatory adjoined it, and the voices were coming from there. Well, it was actually just one voice. Miss Patton''s¡ª Phil''s voice, unless he was mistaken.

    He had a quick look around the study. It was crowded with books, mainly on Christian theological points and church leaders he''d never heard of. An open notebook on the desk listed the main dates of the English Civil War.

    A strange scene met his eyes when he opened the conservatory door. Lennox, Eames, Phil, and the twins were there. The adults were having tea and biscuits. The twins were asleep. Lennox held one and Eames held the other. Phil was in the middle of a lecture on, apparently, when babies started teething.

    "...And if they don''t start teething in the next month it doesn''t mean there''s something wrong. My nephew didn''t get his first teeth until he was nine months." She noticed Yo-han''s presence. "Oh, hello, Yo-han. Come and have a cup of tea."

    Yo-han sat down and took the teacup Eames handed him. "I have some news you might find interesting. The head groom has run away."

    "So he''s the murderer?" Phil asked, at the same time as Lennox said, "He killed them?"

    "No," Yo-han said. "I don''t believe your wife''s necklace was stolen at all. I found a list of racehorses in the groom''s room, and a reference to another horse in Mrs. Lennox''s notebook. What did that page say, Mr. Eames?"

    Eames blinked. "Something grim, or was it gramme? And a fraction that didn''t make sense."

    "The fraction ¡ª nine thirds ¡ª was actually either a stable number or, more likely, the odds on a horse. Baron was the horse''s name, and it is listed on the paper the groom tried to destroy. Half gramme is, I believe, the amount of a mixture that the horse was given. The groom knew someone who was involved in drugging racehorses, and he shared his knowledge with Mrs. Lennox. But it didn''t always work."

    Yo-han took a bag out of his pocket. Very carefully he extracted the unburnt sheet of paper. "This was written by the groom. You see there, Baron nine/three. And other names with numbers beside them. But see what he wrote beside Harmony thirteen/two? Dose didn''t work. Race lost. If Mrs. Lennox put a considerable sum of money on that horse or any other that lost a race, she would have been in an awkward position. Miss Gilchrist never saw the pearls. She had only Mrs. Lennox''s word that they were ever in the safe at all. I believe Mrs. Lennox pawned them to cover her debts."

    Lennox looked utterly furious. "Those were my grandmother''s!"

    "I''m sure you''ll be able to retrieve them once the groom is caught. I believe events happened like this: the groom heard about the murders. He knew incriminating evidence was in Mrs. Lennox''s room. He tore sheets out of the notebook and opened the safe with a spare key to make it look like a robbery. Then he tried to destroy his own incriminating evidence before he ran away."

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    "But what about the murders?" Phil asked.

    "They were unrelated. Mr. Lennox, I must have a word with you in private. Would you step out to the garden for a moment?"

    Lennox gingerly handed the baby to Eames and got up. He followed Yo-han through the door that opened into the garden. Yo-han closed it behind them and led him out onto the lawn so they couldn''t be overheard.

    <hr>

    Phil and Eames watched through the windows in silence. Yo-han appeared to be giving a lecture. He couldn''t be revealing the murderer''s identity, because Lennox looked confused but not alarmed. The conference ended with Lennox nodding. He said something that must have been an agreement. Yo-han looked relieved. Then they returned to the conservatory.

    Neither explained what that had all been about.

    "Miss Patton, do you mind if I invite Mr. Lennox and Mr. Eames to your house tomorrow afternoon?" Yo-han asked.

    "Go ahead," Phil said, and tried to figure out why it was important for them to come to her house instead of Yo-han going to theirs.

    Yo-han was saying, "If you come at two, I believe I can explain everything then."

    Was it Phil''s imagination or did Lennox look alarmed at that?

    <hr>

    Yo-han said very little on the walk back to Phil''s house. He went over everything he knew. It was like a jigsaw with a few pieces missing: the picture was still recognisable, but the gaps were obvious. Worst of all was how he knew he had the missing pieces. Someone had said something or he had seen something and his brain had registered its significance, but he simply couldn''t remember it.

    Phil''s front door was a short distance from the road. It was reached by a cobblestone path. Yo-han opened the gate and stepped onto the path. A memory suddenly came back to him. He froze.

    Phil almost walked into him. She yelped in surprise. "What''s wrong?"

    Yo-han was staring at the front door. Of course! It solved everything! The accomplice''s identity, how they had known each other, why they had worked together... How could he have forgotten?

    He turned and grinned at an astonished Phil. "Thank you, Miss Patton. You''ve helped me solve an important part of the mystery."

    She blinked. "I have? How?"

    "Something you said a few days ago," he said, and refused to elaborate.

    <hr>

    That evening Yo-han also had a few words with Kir¨¢ly in the living room. He was much less cooperative than Lennox had been.

    "You must be joking!" was his first reaction when he heard what Yo-han was planning.

    "Do you think this is a time for play-acting and putting on such a... a ridiculous pantomime?" was what he said next.

    "It''s to expose a murderer," Yo-han said.

    Kir¨¢ly began to speak, stopped, and took a deep breath. "Just confront the murderer and hand him over to the police!"

    "I can''t."

    Kir¨¢ly facepalmed. "Why not?"

    Because in this case Yo-han really didn''t believe that justice was best served by publicly revealing the murderer''s identity. Because sometimes murder victims weren''t really victims at all. Because there were some criminals who the law couldn''t or wouldn''t touch, and the only way their victims could get justice was to take matters into their own hands.

    "I''ll explain tomorrow," he said.

    Kir¨¢ly threw his hands up in despair. "Oh, all right. But I still think this is the dumbest thing I''ve ever heard. Vi will never let me live it down."

    <hr>

    Evenings in Lennox House had followed a predictable pattern for over a year. If Gwladys was at home and had no friends to distract her, she would start an argument with Alec. If Gwladys wasn''t at home or was distracted, Alec would work until nine or ten. David would bring him his supper and set his pyjamas out for him. They would eat together, with the door open so Gwladys couldn''t accuse them of anything improper, and then Alec would change in the bathroom with the door closed. David would hang up his clothes and choose his outfit for tomorrow.

    Then they would say goodnight, and pretend it didn''t feel like a wound being reopened every time they had to pretend they were nothing important to each other.

    David had lain awake more nights that he could count, wishing Alec was beside him. He hadn''t been entirely honest to the detective. When he said Alec had never touched him, he had meant since his marriage. The memory of their one night together was all he had to keep warm when his bed felt so empty and cold.

    Alec had slept in a small bedroom since his marriage, partly because it was near his study and mainly because it was far away from his wife''s room. It had a single bed. The adjoining bathroom was very small.

    It didn''t escape David''s notice that he had a larger, more luxurious room than Alec.

    Tonight they went through their routine as if nothing had happened. David was doing his best to forget Gwladys had ever existed. It didn''t work very well when he saw her corpse every time he closed his eyes.

    Dying was the best thing she ever did, he repeated over and over. It didn''t convince him.

    He refused to think about the detective or tomorrow.

    Alec, thank god, actually finished his supper for the first time in weeks. His fears of being poisoned had obviously been put to rest. Instead it was David who couldn''t eat.

    Supper was rabbit stew left over from dinner. David stared at the lumps of meat and felt sick.

    "What''s wrong?" Alec asked.

    David jumped, startled out of his thoughts. "Nothing. I''m just not hungry."

    Alec looked at him thoughtfully. Did he know what David was thinking? Could he guess?

    "Do you want to stay tonight?" Alec asked softly.

    David looked at the bed. Maybe they could both fit, but he didn''t feel like trying right now. Especially when this wasn''t the time to do anything more than sleep. "It''d be more comfortable if you stay with me."

    Alec smiled. For a minute David could almost forget the last year had ever happened. He could imagine he and Alec were both exactly the same as when they had met back in Cambridge. "All right."

    Yesterday, this morning and tomorrow all weighed on his mind. He couldn''t stop thinking about the murders. He dreaded what the detective might have to say tomorrow. But with Alec beside him he could almost forget all those things.

    <hr>

    Yo-han stared up at the ceiling. He turned onto his side and stared at the curtains. When he still couldn''t fall asleep, he turned to the other side and stared at the indistinct shape that was his alarm clock.

    His brain refused to let him sleep. Those five letters explained everything. If he could only recognise them...

    Disjointed thoughts and images filled his mind. Leopold Colman aiming a gun through a window. Yo-han''s arrival in Tbilisi weeks later. Colman long gone...

    Why was he thinking of Tbilisi? Colman had slipped through his fingers that time.

    Sentences from a guidebook: The Georgian alphabet''s origin is unknown. It may have been inspired by ancient Greek. But those letters weren''t Georgian. It is similar to but unrelated to¡ª

    Yo-han sat bolt upright. 1909. Of course it had looked like Qnwuw; he''d tried to read it as if it was the Latin alphabet. It should be ?????. How could he have forgotten? It had been spoken of constantly when it happened...

    ...And the world had forgotten within months.

    He wasn''t tired at all now. He turned on the lamp, opened his notebook, and began to write.

    When he was finished he knew everything.

 Chapter IX: The Two Murderers

    Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before we act. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange

    Phil''s household spent the morning in a state of chaos. All she had said was that Yo-han had invited Lord Kilskeery and his valet over to discuss the murder. Everyone took that as an invitation to act as if the judge, jury and lawyers from the Old Bailey had decided to hold a capital trial in her house.

    The maids cleaned the living room so thoroughly that they might have been preparing it for display in a housekeeping magazine. The cook set about preparing enough sandwiches to feed them all for the rest of the week. Vi ran around straightening pictures that didn''t need straightened, placing vases in various locations then deciding they looked better on the other side of the room, taking away some ornaments and replacing them with ones she thought looked more stylish, and generally behaving like an idiot.

    "You''re behaving like an idiot," Phil told her.

    Vi glared at her. Her hair was falling out of its bun. Leaves and petals from the vases had gotten caught in her hair and collar. She looked as if she''d just lost a fight with a tree. "Go and do something useful! Bring out the best china!"

    "They''re coming to discuss a murder," Phil said. "It''s not a social call. No one will care what china we use."

    M¨¢t¨¦ wisely stayed out of the way. He took his books into the nursery where he could work and keep an eye on Johnny at the same time.

    Yo-han, even more wisely, left the house entirely. He disappeared after breakfast, saying something about an important clue to investigate.

    Phil went out to the garden and helped the gardener with the weeding.

    By noon Vi had run out of things to rearrange. The chaos died down. M¨¢t¨¦ ventured out of the nursery and Phil returned from the garden. Yo-han reappeared from wherever he''d been. He didn''t say a word about the clue.

    He checked his watch. "They''ll be here in two hours. Miss Patton, could you give the servants the rest of the day off?"

    Phil''s eyebrows shot up. What an odd request. The murderer''s identity would be all over town as soon as the police arrested him ¡ª and her, though Phil couldn''t figure out how the woman was involved. What good would it do to get the servants out of the house?

    "Should we call the police?" Vi asked.

    "No," Yo-han said, smiling as if he knew something she didn''t. "I don''t believe that will be necessary. We aren''t dealing with a cold-blooded killer."

    Vi frowned. "I don''t know, I''d say two murders makes someone pretty cold-blooded."

    Yo-han looked very thoughtful. "Not necessarily."

    Phil couldn''t make heads nor tails of this, but she gave the servants the afternoon off anyway.

    <hr>

    "This is the most ridiculous thing I''ve ever done," M¨¢t¨¦ grumbled in the background.

    Vi giggled. "Don''t be silly. I think it''s a good idea."

    "It''s certainly the easiest way I can think of," Yo-han said.

    Phil was watching the front gate. A car pulled up and stopped. She turned to the other three. "They''re here!"

    Yo-han got up and went to the door. M¨¢t¨¦ went into the next room. Vi went to the kitchen and got the plate of sandwiches. Phil got up from the window-seat and sat down in an armchair. She didn''t feel comfortable there, so she moved to a different armchair. She still didn''t feel comfortable.

    Good gracious, I''m getting as fidgety as Vi, she thought.

    The door opened. Indistinct voices sounded in the hall. Footsteps approached. Phil and Vi exchanged glances ¡ª apprehensive on Phil''s side, excited on Vi''s. Phil stood up. Then the living room''s door opened. Lord Kilskeery stepped in. He bowed to Phil and Vi. Eames followed close behind. He nodded to them. Yo-han came in last.

    He closed the door behind him.

    There was a brief exchange of stilted pleasantries, then everyone sat down. Everyone except Yo-han, that was. He walked over to the fireplace, turned, and faced the other four like an actor about to begin a soliloquy. He and Mr. Lennox exchanged a look.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Phil couldn''t help thinking of that day on the ship, almost two years ago, when Yo-han had proved her innocence and Leo''s guilt.

    Yo-han addressed them all at first. "This has been an odd case. Easy to solve, but very odd. For one thing there were three separate crimes in it: a robbery and two murders. We have already solved the robbery, and I believe the police have tracked down the head groom. Your grandmother''s necklace is in a pawnbroker''s shop in Belfast, Mr. Lennox."

    Vi looked at Phil in confusion. What? she mouthed.

    Later, Phil mouthed back. She should have remembered to tell Vi about the missing necklace.

    "Now, the murders. From the start I knew there must be two murderers. Nothing else fit the facts. It was tempting to believe Mrs. Lennox had been the target. They had both hated her, so they had planned to attack her together. ?elik Bey died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

    Yo-han paused. He glanced at Eames, then looked very hard at Lennox. "So why was ?elik Bey''s body mutilated?"

    No one answered. Vi looked at Phil again. Phil held a finger to her lips. She had a feeling that Yo-han wasn''t really asking questions at all. Or at least, he wasn''t asking the ones he wanted them to think he was asking.

    "It was obviously an attempt to mislead the investigation. Everyone would assume ?elik Bey was the main victim and the murderers never meant to kill Mrs. Lennox. But review the facts:

    "The murder weapon in the first place was an oar. It was removed from the boat-house by someone who had a key. A rope was taken at the same time. Only someone in the household could do that.

    "Mrs. Lennox recently dismissed a maid. That maid would want revenge. Her father certainly did; Miss Patton and I had a most unpleasant meeting with him."

    As Yo-han spoke, the door to the hall opened. M¨¢t¨¦ stood in the doorway, just out of Lennox''s sight. Eames would have had to turn his head completely to see him.

    "Mr. Lennox had suffered an unhappy marriage for months. He believed his wife was poisoning him. And he may have either known or suspected she was pawning jewellery to pay her gambling debts."

    Phil looked at Lennox. His body was tense and he was frowning, but he didn''t look nearly as worried as someone should when they were about to be accused of murder.

    Yo-han continued, "The solution is obvious."

    His voice was oddly light. Nothing at all like how he had sounded when he laid out the evidence against Leo. There was something going on here that Phil wasn''t in on.

    "Mr. Lennox conspired with either the maid herself or with her father. They knew Mrs. Lennox would meet ?elik Bey in that place at that time. They killed both of them, then cut ?elik Bey''s body to make it look like he was the target."

    Stunned silence followed this announcement. Vi stared open-mouthed at Yo-han. Phil kept her eyes on Lennox. He was still tense. He looked...

    He looked like someone who was expecting an unpleasant surprise. Not like a murderer who had just been revealed.

    Beside him Eames had his hands balled into fists.

    Light dawned on Phil, right as Yo-han said, "Officer, arrest this man."

    M¨¢t¨¦ obediently stepped forward. He''d rehearsed his line several times earlier. The only difference was that now he used the accused''s name. "Alexander Lennox, I am arresting you for¡ª"

    Eames leapt up with a shriek. "Stop! You bloody idiot!" He was practically snarling as he looked at Yo-han. "Alec had nothing to do with it! I killed them!"

    Phil, Vi and M¨¢t¨¦ looked at Yo-han in unison. Yo-han met Eames'' gaze steadily. He was half-smiling. Phil looked back at Eames. She saw the exact moment he realised he''d been led into a trap. His shoulders slumped. He sank down onto the arm of Lennox''s chair. He buried his face in his hands.

    Lennox stared at him. His eyes were very wide and he was trembling faintly, but he didn''t look as shocked as Phil would have expected.

    "David," he said softly. He reached out and put his hand on Eames'' shoulder. "David, why?"

    Eames made a noise somewhere between laughter and choking. "You ask me that?"

    He lowered his hands and straightened up. He and Lennox stared each other in the eye. Eames took Lennox''s hand in both of his.

    He looked over at Yo-han. "How did you know?"

    "From your behaviour before and after the murder. From your relationship with Mr. Lennox. From the murder weapon and how you were one of the few people who could have taken it. From the photos in your room. From the cross you draw in your notebooks. But most importantly," Yo-han added, "from something Miss Patton said."

    Phil''s mouth dropped open. "Me? But I don''t know anything about this!"

    "You mentioned an incident a month ago. Mr. Eames punched someone for insulting a woman''s appearance. You assumed he was her sweetheart. When I discovered Mr. Eames'' preferences, that assumption no longer made sense. So who was the woman? You said she was foreign, and so is Mr. Eames. Who else could she be but a relative?

    "You also said she was scarred." Yo-han turned and looked at Eames. "And when I say that Mr. Eames is Armenian and survived the Adana massacre, it becomes obvious how the woman got her scars and why ?elik Bey was targeted."

    Eames drew his breath in sharply. "You know almost everything," he said, apparently to himself. He still hadn''t let go of Lennox. He rubbed his thumb almost absently over the back of Lennox''s hand. "How did you find that out?"

    "The photos in your room. They had 1909 written on them, along with a name that at first I couldn''t read." He smiled wryly. "Ironically it was by remembering Leopold Colman that I learnt the truth. I saw Armenian writing in the Armenian quarter of Tbilisi. When I realised the name was written in Armenian, it was easy to realise 1909 referred to the Adana massacre. And those crosses surrounded by flowers? Armenian crosses, of course."

    "I don''t know who, what or where Adana is," Vi complained.

    Eames looked at her coldly. "Then you should thank God every day." He turned to Yo-han. "You may as well know everything now.

    "I was adopted by an English couple named Eames. They changed how my first name is spelt. My real name is Davit Altounian. And yes, that woman is my sister Dzovig. I killed Gwladys and Dzovig killed ?elik Bey."

    He hesitated. He looked at Lennox. Whatever he saw in his eyes gave him courage to continue.

    "You call it murder, I call it execution. Both of them deserved to die. But I have to start from the beginning to make you understand.

    "I was born in Adana in 1897..."

 Davits Story, a Tragedy in Three Acts: Act 1

    One eye open when you''re sleeping,

    the night has many arms that touch you.

    One eye open when you''re waking,

    sometimes day itself can snatch you.

    -- Gregory Djanikian, So I Will Tell The Ground

    ??? (Mek)

    One

    If you want a proper history of Adana, you''ll have to ask the historians. Davit only has his memories, and those are both too many and too few. They are sorted into two categories: things he knows, and things he has forgotten. The things he has forgotten are the most painful.

    Two things he knows: his name is Davit Altounian. He is the youngest of five.

    Two things he has forgotten: his father''s voice. His brothers'' faces.

    He remembers the river running through the city, but not his neighbours'' houses. He remembers his father owned a business, but not what it was.

    He remembers his mother''s parents lived with them. His grandfather died when Davit was a toddler. His grandmother Lusin sat in a corner most days and clutched an old tattered blanket. Davit is named after her oldest son, his uncle who died before he was born.

    As a child he was afraid of his grandmother. Now he knows better. She lost all five of her sons in the Hamidian massacres[1].

    Davit turns eleven in December 1908. By April the next year his voice still hasn''t broken.

    This saves his life.

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    He has no memory of when or how the massacre started. He remembers his mother Hamest running, clutching his hand, dragging him out of the house. He stumbles and she pulls him up again. It hurts his arm. His sister Dzovig grabs his other hand.

    The street behind them is littered with bodies.

    He never sees his father, his oldest brother or his oldest sister again.

    Like hundreds of others the three of them take shelter anywhere they can find. In a church Davit stumbles across his second-oldest brother. Sahak has found a gun somewhere. His left arm is sliced open. The wound is covered by a few dirty bandages. He won''t let Hamest clean it.

    "Go to the American embassy at Alexandretta," Sahak says. "A British warship is coming to save us. But dress him," he jerks his head in Davit''s direction, "as a girl. They''re killing all the men and boys."

    Sahak disappears during the night. Davit never sees him again either.

    Hamest leaves and reappears with her arms full of a girl''s clothes. They''re splashed with blood and torn in places. She doesn''t say where she got them. Davit doesn''t ask.

    They try to flee Adana. They don''t succeed.

    Davit doesn''t remember what happened to his mother. He remembers Dzovig shoving him to the ground beside a dead man and lying on top of him. The man''s abdomen is sliced open. Davit tries to move away so he isn''t so close to the man''s intestines spilling out of the wound. Dzovig tightens her grip and refuses to let him move. Flies crawl over both of them.

    The mob thinks they''re dead. It passes them by.

    The massacre continues for a month. Half the town is burnt. Twenty thousand people are dead.

    <hr>

    Davit can''t remember much of the next few months. He and Dzovig are sent to an orphanage run by foreign missionaries. Dzovig is adopted quickly. Davit isn''t. Her adoptive parents don''t want a boy.

    Neither do many other people. He is twelve by the time he''s adopted.

    Davit chooses not to remember his first year in England. The Eames mean well. They read about the Adana massacre and decide to adopt one of the poor Armenian orphans. Reading is not the same as living. No words or pictures in a newspaper can make them understand what Davit has seen. He can''t make them understand, not when he first arrived speaking only Armenian and not when he learns English.

 Davits Story, a Tragedy in Three Acts: Act 2

    I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

    So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

    Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

    With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

    -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music

    ????? (Yerku)

    Two

    Mr. Eames is a vicar at a church in London. He and his wife have two sons of their own, both married and away from home. He is determined that his adopted son will have as good as education as both of his biological sons. So he sends Davit to live with a fellow vicar''s family in Cambridge, where he''ll be tutored to prepare for university.

    Davit is sixteen. His name is now spelled David. His surname is listed everywhere as Eames. He can''t quite remember how to write "Davit Altounian" in Armenian. He has still never been able to tell his adoptive parents about his past. He pretends he can''t remember anything before the orphanage.

    In the last two years he has discovered there''s something else he''ll never be able to tell them.

    When they send him to Cambridge they tell him to find a nice girl to marry. David smiles and pretends to take it as a joke.

    He has no interest in girls. He would much rather find a nice boy.

    <hr>

    Two important things happen at Cambridge. David finds Dzovig, and he meets Alec.

    The first important thing:

    It''s April 1914. Five years since the Adana massacre. In the newspaper one morning David sees a letter from another Armenian orphan. Like David he was adopted by an English family. Now he''s trying to find out if any of his relatives survived.

    He lists his parents'' and siblings'' names. David doesn''t recognise any of them.

    But that letter starts a flood of correspondence. Other Armenians write to the paper. They list their relatives, and if they can they give information about other people''s relatives. The information is usually horrible.

    David writes too.

    My name is Davit Altounian. I was eleven during the massacre. I know my sister Dzovig survived because we were at the orphanage together until she was adopted.

    Weeks later he gets a letter. It''s covered with tearstains and scratched-out lines where the writer changed their mind.

    It starts, I am Dzovig.

    Her adoptive parents had decided to move to Yerevan. She has joined an organisation to hunt down the Turkish officials who organised the Hamidian massacres and allowed the Adana massacre[1]. She is back in England on the trail of two officials, a father and son. They are going to America, and she will follow.

    Davit meets Dzovig in a park one morning. They stare at each other. He doesn''t recognise her. She has a scar at her mouth, twisting up her lip to reveal some of her teeth.

    She had no such scar in the orphanage.

    He can see she doesn''t recognise him ¡ª at first. Then she makes a noise like a wounded animal.

    "What''s wrong?" he asks in Armenian, slow and stilted from disuse. He hasn''t spoken Armenian since 1911.

    Dzovig stares at him. "Don''t you know how much you look like Mother?"

    <hr>

    The second important thing:

    It starts about the same time as David writes to the paper. He is studying the classics with Reverend Grantley. So are four other young men. The only one David meets regularly is the Honourable Louis Gresham.

    The Honourable Louis ¡ª who insists his name is pronounced Lewis, tradition be damned ¡ª is two years older than David. His father is an earl. He''s the laziest man David has ever met.

    He also knows David''s secret.

    David had been careless. He had developed a crush on the neighbour''s son, and he had been far too obvious about staring at him dreamily.

    Louis saw him one day. "Be careful, Davey, or someone will think you''re in love with that boy," he said. He laughed but there was a knowing look in his eyes.

    David gave himself away. He blushed and stammered and couldn''t have been a more obvious example of a love-struck teenager if he''d tried.

    "It''s alright," Louis said when David stopped talking incoherent nonsense. "I won''t tell anyone. You see, I''m the same."

    <hr>

    Louis is in love. He makes David his confidant when he wants to sing his lover''s praises. Well, he calls the man his lover. He reveals that he has only spoken to him once, and then only at a party held by Louis''s father.

    His name is Alexander Lennox. Son of the Viscount of Kilskeery.

    Louis has a photo of him cut from the society pages. David doesn''t think much of him. He certainly isn''t the most handsome man in the world, as Louis believes. But that''s all right and Louis doesn''t even mind him showing his disinterest, because David isn''t the one in love with Alexander.

    He has his doubts about whether Louis is in love with Alexander either. So far Louis''s behaviour shows more infatuation than love.

    It doesn''t matter. It''s none of his business. And it''s not as if he''ll ever meet Alexander Lennox.

    <hr>

    Fate has a sense of humour.

    Time proves David right: Louis isn''t really in love with Lennox. About a week later his infatuation wears off and he changes his affections to one of his classmates. David forgets all about Alexander Lennox.

    Then Reverend Grantley tells him he can have three days'' holiday from his studies, because an author is coming to consult him on church history. David thinks nothing of it at first.

    It''s May 1915. Early evening, Monday the third of May. David opens the Grantleys'' front door and finds the reverend in the hall, chatting to a young man. Before David can decide what to do, the reverend has spotted him.

    "Come in, Eames! This is one of my students," he says by way of explanation. "Eames, this is Mr. Lennox. He''ll be a famous author some day."

    Lennox smiles awkwardly. He ducks his head and a faint colour shows on his face at the reverend''s words. Then he looks at David.

    David is frozen in place. He recognises him, of course. But Louis'' photos didn''t do him justice. Alexander Lennox looks plain, forgettable even, in black and white. In real life? The sun casts golden highlights through his light brown hair. His eyes are deep blue. His face is... David can''t find the words to describe him but he''s the most handsome man he''s ever seen.

    He can''t stop staring and he must look like an absolute imbecile at best but Lennox is staring back and he looks as stunned as David feels and oh no the reverend is still there¡ª

    Thank God, he isn''t paying any attention to them. He''s turned and is shouting orders into the kitchen, and Cook is shouting back, and that jolts both David and Lennox out of their daze.

    "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Eames," Lennox says faintly, clearly hardly aware of what he''s saying.

    He offers his hand. David practically grabs it. Lennox''s grip is strong but his skin is soft. He''s never had to do a day''s hard work in his life. David catches himself just before he does something utterly ridiculous, like kissing Lennox to see if his lips are as soft as his hands.

    "Likewise," he manages to say, then bolts up to his room and locks the door.

    Fate has a sense of humour, and it''s laughing at David.

    <hr>

    They meet again in the garden the next morning. No, that''s too vague. David offers to show Lennox around the garden the next morning. First they wander around Mrs. Grantley''s carefully-planned flowers. Towards noon they sit in the gazebo under the shadow of the oak trees and talk.

    David talks most, at first. About Cambridge, the Grantleys, everything except his past. Lennox listens with genuine interest. Sometimes he manages to ask a question, and always seems surprised that David answers.

    He''s skittish around people his own age, David notices. At breakfast he barely managed to say a word to the reverend''s other students. (Louis, thank God, is visiting his father and has no idea of the drama unfolding in Cambridge.) The Grantleys are the only people he''s said more than five words to. When David suggested this garden walk, Lennox had visibly wavered between wanting to accept and wanting to run away.

    David wants to ask him about himself, to get to know everything about him, to reach across the five inches separating them and take his hand, to kiss him. But he forces himself to behave like a normal person instead of a seventeen-year-old with a crush roughly the size of the Atlantic. No point in scaring Lennox away.

    He tries to look at the situation logically. Tells himself he doesn''t know for sure if Lennox even likes men, though there''s no mistaking the way Lennox looks at him. Tells himself that out of all the men in England there''s no reason Lennox should choose him.

    It doesn''t work. Lennox is here, with David, alone, and apart from some lingering shyness he seems much more at ease than he did in the house. David can''t stop himself hoping.

    His hopes grow even more when Lennox finally manages to talk too. Slowly at first, stumbling over his words and constantly darting glances at David to make sure he isn''t bored.

    If only he knew he has no reason to worry. He could read out the telephone directory and David would hang on his every word. His voice is lovely; deep and steady and with just the slightest hint of a different accent underlying his Eton-educated one. It''s something David hasn''t heard before, not quite Scottish and harsher than Irish, but he likes the way Lennox is the only person he''s met in England who pronounces his Rs[2].

    Lennox gains more confidence as he talks about his research. "I''m compiling an encyclopaedia of all the major events in church history and all major doctrines," he says.

    David hasn''t had much time for religion since 1909. He goes to church with his foster parents and the Grantleys and he went to an Armenian Apostolic church in London[3], but he goes mainly to avoid gossip.

    It''s hard to believe in God when your nightmares are full of blood.

    It must be hard for Lennox too. How do you hold onto religion when your romantic inclinations are condemned by your scriptures?

    David is thinking of that when he says, "Your religion must be very important to you." Too late he realises this sounds more derogatory than he meant. He blushes. "I didn''t mean¡ª"

    Lennox doesn''t look at David, but he smiles. "I know what you meant. I... I wish it was. I can understand it all in my head, but..." He raises his head but keeps looking straight ahead. He''s frowning faintly. "At church I hear people talking about how God has changed them, how they feel His presence and know He''s listening. And I... I''ve never had that. I''ve memorised half the Bible. I could deliver a lecture on Calvinism versus Arminianism and the support for both at a minute''s notice. But it''s only intellectual knowledge. Those people know much less but they understand far more." He darts a glance at David. Whatever he sees in David''s eyes makes him look back, and hold his gaze as he continues. "And there''s. There''s another reason why I can''t truly believe."

    David reaches out and takes his hand. Lennox doesn''t pull away.

    "I know," David says.

    Lennox tightens his grip on David''s hand.

    Before the silence can become awkward David says, "Tell me about your home."

    During the religious discussion a gloomy air has come over Lennox. It disappears now. He starts to talk about the river, and the forests, and the fields ¡ª everything, David notices, except his house and his family.

    <hr>

    If Reverend and Mrs. Grantley knew what was happening under their noses they would probably die of shock.

    Lennox ¡ª Alexander ¡ª is only in Cambridge for three days. (Five, if you count the night he arrived and the morning he leaves.) Then he''s going to visit some relatives in Scotland. David tells himself it''s for the best, that he is just as infatuated as Louis and in a few weeks he''ll have forgotten about Alexander. He can''t quite make himself believe it.

    Alexander spends two days mostly with Reverend Grantley and other ministers, discussing dates and places that go over David''s head. He can''t find an excuse to hang around the house for long after breakfast, so he reluctantly leaves. He goes to the library and the cinema, but spends most of the time daydreaming about following Alexander to Scotland.

    On the second day he also learns Alexander''s age. He spends that night using all the maths he knows to try to reduce the difference between being born in September 1894 and being born in December 1897.

    On the third day he volunteers to show Alexander around Cambridge.

    "Of course, of course," Reverend Grantley says. He beams at David. "It''s good to see you''re making friends, Eames."

    David''s face heats up as his mind conjures up images of exactly how friendly he''d like to become with Alexander.

    <hr>

    Alexander is the only person David knows who owns a car. He navigates through the streets while clinging to the steering wheel for dear life. It''s only when they get out of the city that he starts to relax.

    "I hate driving in cities," he says by way of explanation. He gives David a questioning look. "Have you ever driven?"

    David shakes his head.

    They''re on a narrow road stretching straight ahead as far as the eye can see. There are no other vehicles near them. Alexander pulls over. He leaves the car running.

    "You can try if you want," he says.

    He gets out and goes round to the passenger door while David climbs over to the driver''s seat. He stares blankly at the levers beside him.

    "This is the gear," Alexander says, "and this is the handbrake." He guides David through the nerve-wracking process of putting the car in gear and taking the handbrake off. "Now raise the clutch."

    David does, and brakes sharply when the car lurches forward.

    Alexander covers his mouth. "Do it more slowly."

    Two more false starts later, and they''re finally moving. The car creeps along at the death-defying speed of five miles per hour. Alexander isn''t even trying to hide his grin any more. David doesn''t mind, because Alexander''s smile does something to his heart.

    He makes the mistake of looking too long, and drives into the hedge.

    <hr>

    "Will you ever come back to Cambridge?" David asks as they stop outside the Grantleys'' house.

    "Not for a few years, probably," Alexander says.

    They sit in the car in silence for a minute. David feels an absurd longing to offer to go with Alexander to Scotland.

    "May I write to you?" Alexander asks.

    David''s instinctive reaction is to shout "Yes!" and possibly kiss him. He restrains himself.  Much more calmly he says, "Yes, I''d like that."

    <hr>

    Four months pass. They exchange letters. At some point Alexander becomes Alec, and he starts addressing his letters to "David" instead of "Mr. Eames".

    Louis has returned by now. David had been afraid of an explosion when he found out that his fellow student is in love with his former crush. Quite the opposite: Louis is now in love with an actor and finds the whole thing hilarious.

    He bears both the credit and blame for starting the sequence of events that end in murder.

    No one suspects it at the time. Louis simply wants to do David a good turn. His older brother has just done something remarkable in Parliament (David, who isn''t remotely interested in politics, neither knows nor cares what) and their parents are hosting a house party to celebrate. They''ve invited Alec. When Louis finds out he immediately asks David to accompany him when he goes home.

    Alec hadn''t answered the invitation at first. But when he hears David will be there, he accepts immediately.

    Later David learns that Alec''s mother had a word with the countess, which resulted in another name being added to the guest list. It''s a name he and Alec will become horribly familiar with: Miss Gwladys Whare.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    (When David first sees her name he thinks someone has misspelt both Christian name and surname. Later he discovers he was wrong: her parents actually christened her Gwladys, and they thought the spelling Ware was too plebeian for them.)

    It''s a mercy humans can''t see the future. As he and Louis drive to Framley Manor he has no feeling of impending disaster. His thoughts are taken up with Alec: wondering how to act when they meet again, worrying if his feelings are an infatuation after all, afraid he might not come after all.

    His worries are groundless. Alec arrives five minutes after they do. David''s heart skips a beat when he sees him. Then Alec smiles at him, and he smiles back, and he knows it''s more than a crush.

    Louis is looking from one to the other and grinning knowingly. David elbows him in the ribs.

    <hr>

    The first shock comes after he has paid his respects to the earl and countess and been shown up to his room. Louis appears in the doorway with an uncharacteristically serious face.

    "Can we talk?" he says, and shuts the door without waiting for an answer.

    Now David feels foreboding. "What''s wrong?"

    "My mother has taken it into her head to do some matchmaking. She''s invited an American heiress."

    Is that all? David feels sorry for the heiress. "Poor girl. Poor you, too."

    Louis shakes his head. "No, not for me! She wants Lennox to marry her! And his mother wants it too!"

    If he had punched David in the face he could hardly have shocked him more effectively. David sinks down onto the window-seat and stares at him in a daze.

    Louis does his best to make things better. "I''m sure he doesn''t like the girl. She isn''t here yet. I bet you twenty shillings she''s one of those unbearable shrill brats. She wouldn''t be Lennox''s type even if he was interested in women. And I saw how he looks at you."

    The confirmation that Alec is interested in him makes the possibility of his marriage even worse. David makes up his mind on the spot that he hates this unknown American heiress.

    He finds Alec out in the gardens, sitting under a tree. He''s reading a letter with a grim expression.

    "Have you heard about the American woman?" he asks, and can''t quite keep the distaste out of his voice.

    "Unfortunately yes," David says. He sits down beside him.

    Alec folds up the letter. "My mother tells me all about her here. How much money her father makes every year, how eager he is for his daughter to have a title. I don''t think my mother suspects about... about me. But she wants to see me married, and my father wants me to marry money."

    David listens with a sinking heart. He always knew there was never any future for him and Alec. The best they could hope for was if Alec stayed a bachelor and let his "best friend" live with him. But marriage... David can''t imagine Alec being happy with a woman. And he has his pride. Some men might be happy with being the secret lovers of married men. But not him. He won''t share his lover with anyone.

    After a pause Alec seems to come to a decision. "It would be cruel to her and unfair to me. I won''t marry her."

    "Thank God," David says without thinking.

    Too late he realises he''s given too much away. If Alec didn''t already know, then he certainly does now, and there''s no way to take it back. They stare at each other. Alec''s face is impassive but a storm of emotion is raging in his eyes.

    He reaches out. Slowly, as if he thinks David might run away, he reaches out and cups David''s face in his hand. David clasps his hand over Alec''s to stop him pulling away.

    "David," Alec whispers, and it sounds like a prayer.

    He leans in, and David meets him half-way, and his lips really are as soft as David had wondered.

    <hr>

    "We have to find some excuse to keep meeting," David says.

    They''ve moved further away from the house just in case any other couples decide to go for a romantic walk in the gardens. Now they''re sitting on the grass outside the old overgrown summer-house.

    Well, Alec is sitting. David is lying with his head in Alec''s lap. Alec is running his fingers through David''s hair.

    Alec says, "I''ll find a reason to visit Cambridge again."

    David thinks for a while. "Have you anything about Oriental Orthodoxy in your encyclopaedia?"

    Alec blinks, but accepts the apparent change of subject. "Never heard of it. Is that another name for Eastern Orthodoxy?"

    "A division of it. I suppose you could call it a denomination."

    "Oh. No, I don''t know enough about Orthodoxy."

    An idea is beginning to form. David doesn''t believe in God and hasn''t been to an Armenian church in three years, but if it means he can stay with Alec then he''ll become the most regular church-attender in the British Isles. "I''m Armenian."

    "Really?" Alec looks startled. "I assumed you were Greek."

    David briefly loses his train of thought. He stares incredulously at him. "You thought¡ª Why?"

    "I''ve never met any other Armenians," Alec says, "but I went to school with a Greek boy who looked a little bit like you..."

    "...You could''ve asked."

    "It seemed rude! If you wanted to talk about it you would''ve."

    David rolls his eyes. "Anyway, I''m in the Armenian Apostolic Church. You can tell everyone I''m your research assistant. It would be true; I can tell you about how we worship." Though he''ll have to do some research of his own if Alec ever asks about church history, or the differences between Armenian Orthodoxy and other Oriental Orthodox churches, or the distinction between Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy.

    Alec says nothing for a while. He resumes stroking David''s hair.

    "It would be wrong to... If you were my employee..." Alec stops and tries to gather his thoughts. "If I was paying your wages, you would be dependent on me. It would be wrong for me to have a... a physical relationship with you."

    David hopes Alec doesn''t notice the reaction David''s body has to the thought of a physical relationship with him. His mind conjures up images of exactly what that means.

    His mouth is dry and it takes him several tries to answer. "I won''t be an employee then. You can call me your business partner or co-writer."

    "Do you have any money of your own?"

    Only ¡ê100 a year from his adoptive parents, but he has saved most of it. David estimates he currently has more than ¡ê1000 in the bank. "Yes. You don''t have to pay me anything."

    Alec thinks for a while. "All right. But only if you''re credited as the co-author."

    <hr>

    Miss Gwladys Whare arrives two days later. David hated her on principle before he met her. Now he hates her for good reason. She''s rude and demanding. She fawns over him when she thinks he''s someone important, then ignores his existence when she finds out he isn''t a millionaire, a prince, or even a duke. She yells at the servants.

    But by far the worst is how she behaves towards Alec.

    She''s clearly aware of the matchmaking scheme. And she''s clearly taken with the idea of being a viscountess. She sits next to him at every chance she gets. She bats her eyelids at him in a truly ridiculous way. She hangs on his every word.

    Maybe she thinks Alec is flattered. David knows better. He sees how Alec tenses when she comes near him, how he suddenly becomes very interested in talking about horse-races with the Earl of Framley when he sees her approach, how fond he is of taking long walks in distant parts of the garden.

    Well. That last one isn''t entirely because of Miss Whare.

    Certain things happen in fine houses that are politely not spoken of. David knows perfectly well that most of the guests spend their nights in someone else''s bedroom. But those relationships are between men and women. If a man was to spend the night with another man, the servants wouldn''t be so discreet.

    Framley Manor is surrounded by a large park. If you pretend to be very enthusiastic about fresh air and exercise, and if your lover is already known for being reserved and preferring to spend time alone, you can manage to get some privacy anyway.

    Not nearly enough ¡ª so far they''ve only kissed and cuddled ¡ª but better than nothing.

    David has sent letters to both the Grantleys and his adoptive parents, informing them of his "new job" and that he and Alec plan to travel to Stranraer and over to Belfast from there. He damn well hopes they''re going to take a sleeper car on the train.

    In hindsight they were far too careless. They assumed that because no one had discovered them yet, that meant no one would discover them ever.

    David can''t remember what they were talking about. He remembers sitting on Alec''s coat spread as an improvised blanket, next to Alec with his head on Alec''s shoulder. He remembers really wanting to kiss him. And he remembers Alec kissing him back.

    They end up lying on the ground. David is half on top of Alec. They''re still kissing. Alec wraps his arms around David''s waist and pulls him completely on top of himself. David can''t wait any longer. He starts to unbutton Alec''s shirt. Alec reaches for David''s belt.

    "Jesus H. Christ!"

    They disentangle themselves and leap to their feet at the first word. David''s vain hope that the newcomer hadn''t got a good look at what they were doing dies when he sees who it is.

    Gwladys Whare has just appeared at the side of the summer-house. From where she''s standing she had a perfect view of them. And there was really no way to mistake what they''d been doing.

    She stares at them both as if they''re something she''s scraped off her shoe. Alec rebuttons his shirt. David tries to smooth his hair down into something approaching respectability. A profoundly awkward silence descends.

    Alec breaks it. "Miss Whare, I apologise for¡ª We had no idea you were nearby. I beg you not to speak of this to anyone."

    Miss Whare begins to smile. Her smile widens into something truly sadistic. "Oh, I bet you do. But what if I go right back to the house and tell them all? Maybe you can buy your way outta trouble, but your little tart will go right to jail."

    David has never seen Alec so furious. He advances on her with a downright murderous expression. Her eyes widen and she clearly begins to regret the chance that brought her here. David wraps his arms around Alec''s chest and holds him back.

    "We''ll both be in trouble if you kill her here," he says, while already starting to plan where and how to kill her.

    Alec stops, but he doesn''t relax. "What do you want?" he practically spits at her. "Money?"

    Miss Whare recovers. Her cruel grin returns. "''Course. But more than that. My pa wants me to marry one of you lords with your fancy titles. Problem is, you lot don''t seem so eager to marry me."

    "I can''t imagine why," David says under his breath.

    "Now here you are. A lord with a title, and a secret that could send you to prison. Even if you bribe the police, I can go to the papers and ruin you in a day. So how about it? I get a title, you get money, I keep your secret, and you can keep him around to warm your bed. Lord knows I won''t do it any more than I have to."

    There''s a stunned silence. David can''t believe what he''s hearing. Alec is shaking.

    "Are you blackmailing me into marrying you?"

    Miss Whare nods as if there''s nothing unusual about the situation. David would like to punch her in her smug face.

    "Think about it," she says. "Answer me tomorrow. If it''s no, I''ll phone the police."

    <hr>

    This is not how David wanted to bring Alec into his bedroom. Alec is still shaking. He collapses onto the settee and stares into the fire. David pours him a glass of water and sits beside him. He wraps his arms around Alec''s waist and rests his head on his shoulder.

    "You''ll have to marry her," he says. Alec makes a noise like a wounded animal. "Listen to me. She can destroy us both. You''ll have to marry her, collect evidence against her ¡ª do you think a slut like that will be faithful? ¡ª and divorce her the first chance you get. Ruin her reputation so well that no one will believe anything she says against you."

    Alec cranes his neck to look at him. "But David..." He closes his eyes and visibly steels himself to continue. "No church will marry us, no law recognise us, but in my heart I''m married to you. I can''t stand in front of God and man and swear to take that woman for better or worse, forsaking all other. It would be a monstrous lie."

    David kisses him. He tries to pour all his unhappiness, all his rage at the situation, all his love for Alec into the kiss. Alec responds in kind.

    When they break the kiss David presses his forehead against Alec''s. Alec wraps his arms around David and pulls him closer. They watch the fire together.

    "I couldn''t continue this relationship with you," Alec says sadly. David knows him, knows his efforts to reconcile his sexuality with his religion, and was expecting this. "I''d be legally married to her, so I would be breaking a commandment."

    "Aren''t we already breaking commandments?" David asks. He doesn''t want to be a married man''s secret lover, but when the marriage is a sham built on blackmail it can hardly be considered binding.

    Alec smiles ruefully. "Not one of the ten commandments, unless you count this as covetousness. I can list every reference condemning us, but only adultery is forbidden in the ten commandments."

    They fall silent for a while. Alec has stopped shaking. David can guess what''s going through his head, and knows his decision before he declares it.

    "In the morning I''ll tell her I agree to marry her," Alec says, and he says it as if he''s reading his own death warrant.

    David tightens his grip on him. The morning. It''s afternoon and morning is getting rapidly closer. He calculates how long it will be before their absence is commented on. Not long enough. Especially if they miss dinner. But after dinner...

    To hell with restraint. He can sneak out of Alec''s room and back to his own before the servants start their rounds.

    "You know, we haven''t had our wedding night yet," he says.

    <hr>

    Their wedding is a very quiet business. They''re the only people present, and it''s held in front of David''s fireplace instead of in a church.

    "Which vows do you want to use?" Alec asks. "Church of England or Armenian Orthodox?"

    It dawns on David suddenly that he doesn''t know the Armenian wedding vows. He has only the vaguest memories of witnessing an Armenian wedding. It feels like a knife plunged between his ribs.

    "David? David, what''s wrong?"

    The pain ebbs. He can speak again. "Davit." He straightens up. "My real name is Davit Altounian."

    "Dah-veet Ahl-too-nee-ahn," Alec repeats slowly, watching Davit''s expression to make sure he gets it right.

    It''s strange to hear his real name spoken. Dzovig was the last person to use it. A thrill runs down Davit''s spine at hearing it from Alec.

    "Church of England," he says. "We both know those." He leaves his lack of knowledge unsaid.

    They don''t have a minister to ask them to repeat their vows, or parents present to give them away. When they get to "With this ring", Alec takes off his ring marked with his family arms.

    "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

    Davit puts his index finger, middle finger and thumb together, and touches them to his forehead, stomach, right shoulder, then left shoulder. "Amen," he repeats.

    <hr>

    Going down to dinner afterwards and pretending nothing has happened is much harder than Davit expects. He hides Alec''s ring in his pocket. They aren''t seated together. He has to listen to foolish old politicians debating the merits of a bill that was passed in 1870 when all he really wants is to gaze at Alec like a love-struck fool. Alec steals glances at him from time to time. Their eyes meet, and Davit feels his face heat up at the thought of this afternoon, and oh god, tonight.

    He almost manages to forget about Miss Whare. Then he spots her half-way down the table, large as life and twice as ugly, and all the misery she''s caused returns at once.

    <hr>

    Davit counts down the hours before he can say he''s going to bed without prompting comment. At ten he can''t wait any longer. Morning is getting closer and closer. Alec has already retired and is waiting for him.

    First he goes to his own bedroom. He doesn''t bother to change into nightwear. He arranges the quilt to make it look like he''s slept there, just in case, then he locks the door behind him.

    The other guests are still downstairs. Someone is playing piano badly and someone else is singing worse.

    Alec opens the door at his first knock. Davit steps in. His stomach is suddenly full of butterflies. Alec locks the door and turns to face him, and he sees the same nervousness in his eyes.

    "What do you want to do first?" Davit asks.

    A flicker of panic crosses Alec''s face. "I... I don''t know."

    Back in Cambridge Louis had taken it upon himself to find literature ¡ª god knew how or where ¡ª to instruct on how this worked between two men. Davit had never admitted he''d read it. He''d turned scarlet every time he saw Louis for weeks afterwards. But now he feels quite grateful to him. At least one person in this room knows what they''re doing.

    He starts with learning how much Alec does know. "Are you a virgin?"

    Alec blushes. "More or less." Davit starts to wonder how that''s possible before he explains, "There was a boy at Eton. We... well, we... Only once. And we didn''t... not properly..." He''s bright red now, and carefully not looking at Davit, and it''s adorable.

    Davit wraps his arms around Alec''s chest and kisses him. "I''m a virgin without any more or less," he says. "We''ll figure it out together."

    <hr>

    They do. Several times.

    "Exactly how much stamina do you think I have?" Alec asks with fake indignation after their second round, when Davit tries to coax him into a third.

    Davit grins at him. "This is what you get for marrying an eighteen-year-old, old man."

    "I''m only twenty-one!"

    To be strictly accurate Davit''s two months away from his eighteenth birthday. Less than two months, because it''s the 12th of October and his birthday is the 3th of December. And Alec isn''t quite one month past his twenty-first birthday, on the 19th of September. Davit wastes a ridiculous amount of time thinking about this before Alec gives him something better to think about, and then he loses the ability to think at all for several minutes.

    They don''t get much sleep that night.

    <hr>

    The clock chimes six. It''s still dark outside. The room is cold and Alec is warm, but Davit forces himself to get up anyway. The servants will be along soon to light the fires. It won''t matter if they find his own bed empty, but it most certainly will matter if they find him in Alec''s.

    Alec gets up too. He buttons Davit''s shirt for him. They hold each other''s gaze. It feels like they have an entire conversation in silence. Alec smooths the wrinkles out of Davit''s shirt. He''s wearing only his dressing gown, and it leaves a v-shaped portion of his chest exposed. Davit pulls it closed, then brushes a strand of hair away from Alec''s eyes.

    He takes the ring out of his pocket and puts it on.

    "When are you going to tell her?" he asks.

    Alec flinches. "It''ll have to be early. Before she has time to tell anyone." He turns abruptly and goes over to his desk. He rummages through it until he finds his cheque book. "There''s a house in London. Belonging to my father, but I use it when I''m in town and my father never leaves home any more. I''m giving it to you. Here''s two thousand pounds¡ª No, I won''t take any argument. You should have much more; everything I own is yours now." He finds a writing pad and begins to scribble a letter. "This is to the housekeeper telling her that you have my full permission to live there."

    "You''d better give a reason," Davit says, moving over to lean against the back of Alec''s chair. "Tell her I''m your research assistant and gathering information on Orthodox Christianity."

    Alec addresses the envelope and seals it. "I''ll post this today. We... We can''t spend too much time together. Nothing to give her more against us."

    Davit sits down beside Alec ¡ª difficult when the chair was only meant for one. He ends up in Alec''s lap. Neither of them is complaining.

    He buries his face in the crook of Alec''s neck. Alec pulls him close and holds onto him like a drowning man clinging to a rope.

    "When do you think the wedding will be?" Davit whispers.

    Alec shudders. "Early next year, I expect. My father is very ill. The doctors say he won''t last more than five months. He''ll want to see me married before he dies."

    Early next year. Probably no longer than three months. Davit contemplates the possibility of Gwladys meeting with a tragic accident before the wedding.

    From downstairs comes the rattle of a coal shovel. The servants are awake.

    With great reluctance Davit disentangles himself from Alec. "I''ve got to go now."

    They kiss one last time. Then Davit steals out into the coldness of the corridor.

    His room is on the third storey. He tiptoes up the stairs, and almost collides with Louis coming down. They stare at each other in the dim light. Louis''s hair is a mess and his lips are swollen. Davit has no idea what he looks like, but after last night he''s bound to be an equally disreputable sight.

    Louis grins at him once the initial surprise wears off. "Congratulations, David. Hope you had a good time!"

    Davit blushes and pushes past him without answering.

    <hr>

    At dinner the countess tells everyone how pleased she is that her old friend''s son has gotten engaged in her house. Miss Whare gives a very fake laugh and complains that the countess has spoiled the planned announcement. Everyone congratulates the "happy" couple.

    Davit has never seen anyone look less happy than Alec does today.

    <hr>

    They get very little time together after that. Alec has to go back to his home to make wedding arrangements. Miss Whare goes to join her mother in London. Davit stays out of the way until she leaves. Every time he sees Miss Whare he feels the temptation to do something violent.

    He and Alec have only one short meeting in private before Alec leaves too. They meet in the garden again and make their own arrangements: Davit will live in London until Alec divorces Gwladys. Alec is optimistic it shouldn''t take too long. This shows every indication of being the shortest marriage in history.

    "I know she''s already writing to another man," Alec says. "As long as we stay apart she''ll have no evidence against me."

    Davit is slightly less optimistic. Once Gwladys has her claws in Alec, he can''t imagine her letting go easily. "What if you have a child?"

    Alec makes a disgusted face. "There''s no chance of that. I have no intention of ever consummating this marriage."

    "If you don''t she''ll use that against you." Davit pulls leaves off a stem of ivy clinging to the old summer house. "Consummate the marriage, play the loving husband when others are around, make sure she has nothing she can use against you."

    Alec looks at him in surprise. Davit can guess what he''s thinking. That this is odd advice for him to give. But Davit knows Gwladys is a genuine threat to both of them. The best way to deal with threats is with deceit.

    "What do you want to do as soon as I get the divorce?" Alec asks.

    Davit knows it won''t be nearly as easy as that. But for once he allows himself to dream. "I''d like to travel. Visit Armenia[4]. I''ve never been there."

    "You''re not from Armenia?"

    He shakes his head. As he answers he can almost smell the blood and death and fire. "I was born in Adana."

    From Alec''s lack of reaction he can tell he doesn''t recognise the name.

    "We could go there too," Alec suggests.

    Davit forces a laugh. "No. I wouldn''t like that at all."

    He doesn''t look at Alec, but he knows Alec is staring at him.

    "Davit? Davit, what''s wrong?"

    Ever since that night Alec has called him Davit. Sometimes he forgets how to pronounce it and says it like David with a T.

    Davit rubs his eyes. He isn''t crying, but his eyes sting. Alec puts his arm around him and pulls him close. He doesn''t say anything. Davit takes a deep breath. He rests his chin on Alec''s shoulder so he can''t see his face.

    "Have you heard of the Adana massacre?" he asks. His voice is flat. His chest feels like it''s going to cave in.

    Alec inhales sharply. "I remember now." He tightens his arms around Davit. "You were there?"

    Davit nods. "I can''t talk about it."

    They say nothing for a while. Alec simply holds Davit, and Davit tries to piece himself back together.

    <hr>

    Alec leaves on Monday the 18th. Davit stays until Thursday. Louis borrows his father''s car and drives him to the train station.

    "Will you be alright?" Louis asks. "You don''t know anyone in London."

    Davit has his husband''s ring on his finger, a cheque for ¡ê2000 and the address of his new house in his pocket, and his luggage. He had much less when he first arrived in England.

    "I''ll be fine," he says.

 Davits Story, a Tragedy in Three Acts: Act 3

    ...Close pent-up guilts,

    Rive your concealing continents, and cry

    These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man

    More sinn''d against than sinning.

    -- William Shakespeare, King Lear (Act III, Scene 2)

    ???? (Yerek'')

    Three

    1916 brings two things: Alec''s "legal" marriage and Dzovig''s reappearance.

    Davit knows only too well that the first one is coming. He and Alec have exchanged letters at least once a week since he arrived in London. Alec tells him everything: how horrible Gwladys is, how insufferable her parents are, and how certain he is that the marriage won''t last the year.

    The second one is a surprise. Not a very welcome one, either. Mrs. Gilpin, who keeps an eye on the house when it''s unoccupied and is currently both cook and housekeeper for Davit, appears in the library with a portentous expression.

    "Excuse me, sir," she says, "there''s a young woman to see you."

    Davit stares at her blankly. Very few people know him. His adoptive parents know he''s in London (compiling research, he tells them in his letters) and so does Louis. Alec knows, of course. But otherwise he has no friends or close acquaintances. Certainly he doesn''t know any young women.

    "She must have the wrong house," he says.

    Mrs. Gilpin folds her arms. "David Eames, she asked for, and a funny-sounding name she gave. Funny-looking woman too. I''d give a lot to know how she got that scar. Respectable young ladies don''t have scars like that."

    The pieces fall into place. "Show her in," Davit says.

    Dzovig must have been listening outside the door. She storms in without waiting to be invited.

    After Mrs. Gilpin leaves, Davit turns to Dzovig in astonishment. "How did you find me here?"

    "It wasn''t hard," she says in Armenian. "You weren''t in Cambridge, so I started asking questions. Finally I tracked you down. Imagine my surprise when I found you living in a viscount''s house."

    She glares at him with open hostility. Davit goes back over everything he''s said and done that might have offended her.

    "Alec¡ª Alexander and I are friends. I''m doing some research for him."

    "Is that what you call it? I''ve seen those letters you write him. I never would have thought my brother would lower himself to... to whoring himself out!"

    Davit jumps up. He very nearly slaps her. He stops himself in time. Dzovig glares up at him.

    "How did you see my letters?" he demands.

    "I''ve watched this house for a week, ever since I found where you are. When you were out I picked the lock and went through the house. You shouldn''t leave your letters in your desk if you don''t want your filthy secrets discovered. I could forgive you if you did it out of necessity," Dzovig continues sadly, "but those letters! You enjoyed letting him... And you want to do it again!"

    Davit feels as if she''s stripped him naked. In a way she''s done worse than that. She''s discovered the most private, intimate parts of his life, meant to be shared only by him and Alec, and is using them to attack him.

    "You spied on me," he says, "you read letters that had nothing to do with you, and now you come and insult me in my husband''s home? Yes," he adds in reply to her reaction, "he is my husband in every way that counts, whether the law recognises us or not."

    Dzovig scoffs. "An unfaithful husband, from what I hear. Don''t you know he''s about to marry a woman?"

    That stings. "I know all about it. But why are you here? Surely you didn''t go to all this trouble just to insult me."

    Dzovig sits back in her chair. "Oddly enough, I''m here because of your... husband''s fianc¨¦e."

    Davit stares at her, then goes over to the bottle of sherry left on the table and pours himself a cup. "Do you drink?" he asks over his shoulder. "Alec doesn''t. I bought this for myself."

    "I don''t drink." Dzovik looks annoyed, maybe at having something in common with Alec.

    Davit returns to his chair. "What about that woman?"

    "Her father is an American millionaire who works with a Turkish car-importing company." The second bit of information is new. Davit feels a sudden sense of foreboding. "Do you remember when we last met? I told you I was hunting a Turkish businessman. I followed him to America, where I learnt some very interesting facts. He is the millionaire''s business-partner. He recently started a career in politics. And he doesn''t just sell cars. He makes a fortune selling guns and ammunition on the black market. He supplied the murderers with weapons in March 1909."

    Davit can see where this is going.

    "His son has been having an affair with Miss Whare for five years."

    He''s right.

    Fate has a very dark sense of humour, and has apparently been reading too much Dickens.

    "Alec has nothing to do with this," he says.

    "I know he doesn''t. But when he marries Miss Whare, it won''t be long before she goes back to her old lover. Through her I can find out who his father is connected to. Because the Turkish government is planning something. They''re gathering weapons and anti-Armenian propaganda is in all the newspapers again. It looks like another massacre, much worse than Adana. My commanding officer has ordered me to find out as much as I can about Ertem Bey and his son ?elik Bey.

    "The son is the easiest to deal with. He''s more interested in spending money than making it. Right now he''s causing headaches for his father, because when he heard Miss Whare was going to marry he ran off with an opera singer. But I''ve no doubt he''ll be back. He''s always gone back to her no matter how many girlfriends he has.

    "You''re an answer to prayer, Davit. I''ve spent weeks trying to find a way to get into Miss Whare''s household. Now I see I don''t have to. You are going to move back in with your lover. You can do whatever you like with him as long as you keep me informed of everything Miss Whare does. And when she meets ?elik Bey again, I want to know every word he says."

    <hr>

    Alec marries Gwladys on the 12th of January. They go to London first before going on to Edinburgh for their honeymoon. They stay in a hotel, because Gwladys doesn''t know about the house in London. She also doesn''t know where Davit is. In his letters Alec says he told her Davit was just a casual acquaintance he had a fling with.

    The honeymoon lasts two weeks out of a planned month. Alec sends a telegram: Can''t stand more. Going home.

    On Sunday he arrives on the doorstep, and nearly gives Mrs. Gilpin a heart attack.

    "Why, young master Alec!" she cries. "I thought you were on your honeymoon!"

    He manages a smile, but Davit can see the exhaustion and fear in his eyes. "I was, but I have some urgent business to take care of. I can only spare an hour or two."

    Davit has begun collecting information on the various Orthodox churches. As Mrs. Gilpin serves tea he tells Alec about it. As soon as she leaves he sits beside Alec and studies him.

    "You look ill," he says.

    Alec has dark circles around his eyes. He''s paler and possibly thinner. His smile is pained. He can''t stop moving even when sitting down; he constantly fidgets with his watch, or his teacup, or even his hair.

    When he finally speaks it''s like a dam has burst. "I can''t bear it another minute," he says. "She never leaves me alone. I can''t talk to a man ¡ª any man, not even the waiter in a restaurant ¡ª without her making awful insinuations. She knows I''ll divorce her, so she''s determined to have a child. She doesn''t know much about law; she thinks couples with young children can''t divorce. And she¡ª"

    He stops. He looks like he''s about to be sick.

    Somehow Davit knows what''s coming next.

    "She forces me to sleep with her every night. To make sure we have a baby. She insisted on a room with a double bed instead of two connected rooms so I can''t lock her out. I tell her I''m not interested and she laughs. Says horrible things about what I''m interested in. Makes... appalling suggestions. And she touches me. I tell her to stop but she never does. I¡ª I struck her, two days ago, to make her stop. I''m not proud of it. She went around like a martyr yesterday and showed all her friends the bruise. That''s why I left."

    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Davit is silent. He thought he hated Gwladys before. It''s nothing to how he hates her now.

    "So," Alec finishes, "I''m going home. And I... I couldn''t bear to leave without seeing you."

    On the one hand, what Dzovig told him. On the other, what Alec tells him. Weighed up, there''s only one option.

    "I''m coming with you," Davit says. He sees the brief hope followed by the crushing misery on Alec''s face. "As a friend, nothing more. Not while you''re still married. But I won''t leave you alone with her."

    <hr>

    On the train to Birkenhead Davit tells Alec everything he learnt about Gwladys and her possible future lover.

    "I''m not surprised," Alec says. "She told me that she''ll only be faithful to me until she has a baby. To avoid any suggestion the child isn''t mine."

    The ship to Belfast is the first time Davit has been on a ship since January 1910. It''s more a cargo ship than a passenger ship. No White Star Line comfort here; the connection between Birkenhead and Belfast is for people in a hurry, who can''t wait for one of the more luxurious but less frequent ships. Alec gets them a shared cabin but with two separate beds. As Davit lies in his bunk he feels the ship go down, then up, then down. He isn''t sick but he also doesn''t like it.

    He doesn''t get much sleep, for much less pleasant reasons than the last time he shared a room with Alec.

    They arrive in Belfast at six in the morning. It''s still dark. All Davit can see of the city is a blanket of lights.

    He falls asleep at some point on the bus ride to the train station. Alec didn''t bring his car with him on the honeymoon, so they have no choice but to rely on trains.

    When they get to the station they have to wait for an hour before the next train. Davit dozes in the waiting room. Alec sits down for at most five minutes at a time. Then he gets up and wanders around the station, as if he''s physically incapable of sitting still.

    If they were on their own Davit would hold him, kiss him, do anything to show him he''s not alone. But there are other passengers waiting in spite of the early hour. He can do nothing.

    They travel from Belfast to Portadown, then from Portadown to Omagh, and finally from Omagh to Enniskillen. Alec finally sleeps during the journey. It''s half five in the evening when they arrive in Enniskillen. The sun has already set. Davit''s first impression of the town isn''t very favourable. It''s cold and windy and the streets are muddy.

    "Do you want to get dinner in the hotel or wait until we get home?" Alec asks. He''s sent a telegram to his mother to tell her to expect him.

    Davit is hungry ¡ª he''s only had breakfast and dinner on the train, and dinner was hours ago ¡ª but he''s also tired and wants this constant travelling to stop. "How far is it to your house?"

    "About a mile."

    "Then let''s go there."

    <hr>

    Lennox House is a former school converted into a house. It''s draughty and echoey and has strange architectural features that make no sense, like balconies overlooking rooms and two doors side-by-side which lead into the same room. Davit doesn''t know what to make of it when he first arrives.

    He also doesn''t know what to make of Alec''s parents. Lord Kilskeery is an invalid who copes with the misery of his life by ensuring everyone else is miserable too. Lady Kilskeery spends most of her time holding ladies'' meetings for women from her church. Neither of them is happy about Alec leaving his wife in Edinburgh.

    "You''ve behaved like a cad, Alex," Lord Kilskeery roars at him the day after Alec and Davit arrive. He''s the only person who calls Alec "Alex". Davit wonders if that''s why Alec prefers the other diminutive.

    "It''s a disgrace. All my friends are talking about it," Lady Kilskeery says. "Go back to Edinburgh at once and apologise to that poor girl! I know marriage is hard to get used to, but you must at least try."

    "I can''t," Alec says. "I can''t explain it to you, but it''s impossible."

    Neither of his parents know what to make of Davit either.

    Lady Kilskeery looks at him doubtfully, then turns to Alec and says, "Who is this again?"

    "This is David Eames," Alec says, because Davit asked him to keep using that name. He doesn''t want Gwladys to find out he''s Armenian. She might pass it onto her boyfriend. "He''s my research assistant."

    Lord Kilskeery glares at him as if he''d been caught stealing a horse. "What is this?"

    "He," Alec says coldly, "is my best friend."

    They manage to be alone together in Alec''s study for most of the day. But things have changed. The spectre of Gwladys is constantly between them. Alec won''t break his legal marriage vows, and Davit won''t ask him to. They''re just friends working together on a shared project, and as long as they don''t look too long at each other they can pretend that''s all they are.

    Alec consults his solicitor on how quickly he can get a divorce. The information isn''t encouraging. He and Gwladys have to live apart for at least five years to claim the marriage has irrevocably broken down, or he has to prove she committed adultery.

    Three weeks later, news arrives from Edinburgh which throws yet another spanner in the works.

    Lady Kilskeery walks into Alec''s study one day with a grim expression. She''s holding a letter.

    "Alexander," she says, and Davit has never heard her so angry, "your wife is with child." Stunned silence follows. She apparently thinks he didn''t hear her the first time, because she repeats, "Your wife writes to inform me that she believes she is with child, and you abandoned her."

    "She can''t know yet," Alec says, and his voice shakes. "It''s only been a month."

    Davit hears what he doesn''t say: that if she is with child, it was conceived against his will.

    <hr>

    Whether Gwladys knew for certain or merely hoped, it turns out she''s right. She is with child. Alec has no choice but to arrange for her to come home.

    "She''ll kick me out if I''m just a research assistant," Davit says. "She''ll say I can research just as well in London as here."

    "What do you suggest?" Alec asks.

    Davit has thought about it and come up with a plan. "Hire me as your valet. If I have a definite job here, and if I work directly for you and no one else, she can''t dismiss me."

    He knows there''ll be an explosion when Gwladys finds him there. It''s less violent than he expects; she has the good sense not to air dirty laundry in public in front of Alec''s parents. Mainly it manifests in spiteful comments directed towards Alec, and occasional cruelty towards Davit.

    He can''t prove it, but he''s sure she poured wax on his bedroom floor. He gets a nasty bruise and a sprained wrist in the fall. There was no reason for that tin of furniture wax to be in his bedroom at all.

    For about a month they live in the calm before the storm. Then Lord Kilskeery dies.

    <hr>

    Within hours of the funeral Gwladys tries to take over running the house. This starts a war between her, the former Lady Kilskeery, and Mrs. Skinner the housekeeper. It wages for the rest of the year and finally ends with Mrs. Skinner being dismissed against Alec''s wishes and the former Lady Kilskeery moving to the house in London.

    While it''s still going on, shortly after Gwladys gives birth to twins, one of Alec''s schoolfriends visits. Davit can tell at once that he''s in love with Alec.

    He leaves abruptly after a week. Alec refuses to speak about him. His departure coincides with a sharp deterioration in Alec''s mental state.

    Davit can piece together what happened even though Alec won''t talk about it. The friend confessed his love, maybe tried to kiss Alec. That combined with Gwladys constantly tormenting him has brought Alec to the brink of a nervous breakdown.

    After the twins are born Gwladys contacts her old friend ?elik Bey. Davit finally has some information to pass on to Dzovig.

    Dzovig moves to Enniskillen. She gets a job in a factory.

    "I''ve been ordered to kill ?elik Bey," she tells him when they meet, and clearly expects him to object.

    Davit has long since lost any morals he might have had. "I''ll help, on one condition. We kill Gwladys too."

    <hr>

    It''s his plan from the start. He wants to do it earlier, with a gun or a boating accident, when ?elik Bey first visits in January 1917. He fails when he can''t find a plausible way to stage the murders. They have to wait until the next time ?elik Bey deigns to visit Enniskillen.

    1917 gets off to a grim start. Gwladys has little time for the twins herself. But when she finds Alec is reading to them, she explodes. She forbids him from seeing them again.

    "It''s not safe for you to be around children!" she shouts at him in that argument.

    Davit is listening outside the door. He does that constantly now. Each insult he hears is another crime bringing Gwladys closer to the gallows.

    In another argument she says something that has devastating consequences. "One of these days I''ll poison you!"

    <hr>

    Maybe she does put poison in Alec''s food once, then loses her nerve. Maybe it''s all in Alec''s mind, exacerbated by his nerves. Davit doesn''t know the truth.

    He does know that Alec takes sick after dinner one night.

    Davit sits up with him all night. He knows Gwladys''s servants are spying on him. The slightest hint of anything non-platonic in their relationship and he''ll be kicked out. Probably frog-marched to the police station too. So he keeps the bedroom door ajar and sits at a distance from the bed.

    Neither he nor Alec sleeps much. Alec because he''s shivering and occasionally retching, Davit because he''s planning how to commit a murder and get away with it.

    <hr>

    From then on Davit either shares Alec''s food or prepares it himself. Alec starts to eat less. Some days he only eats once in spite of all Davit can say. When he does eat a proper meal he feels ill. He thinks he''s still being poisoned. Davit thinks it''s the effects of his disordered eating.

    Alec rarely talks to him now. His resurgence of religious faith has increased his guilt about his sexuality. Sometimes he almost seems afraid to even look at Davit.

    The situation can''t continue. Forget Dzovig and her mission. Davit is going to kill Gwladys whether ?elik Bey comes or not.

    <hr>

    He rows every day in summer. It starts out as a way of releasing stress. It becomes something more when Dzovig arrives and picks the empty house as her base.

    Davit has a copy made of the boat-house key. When McCullagh locks the boat-house in the autumn, Davit continues to take the boat out without anyone else knowing. He starts rowing in the evening, memorising every feature of the bank until he could navigate it in his sleep.

    In the autumn and spring he crosses and recrosses the river at night. At first he needs help: he leaves a lantern on the boat-house door and gets Dzovig to hold a lantern on the other pier. He wears a life-jacket the first few times. He knows how to swim.

    He gets to know the river.

    <hr>

    Not even he knows just how bad things are. It''s a terrible shock to discover Gwladys has driven Alec to such complete despair that he considered suicide.

    The detective''s arrival is both a blessing and a curse. He can prove Gwladys is abusive and committing adultery. He might also prove Davit killed her.

    ?elik Bey arrives. Dzovig takes up her position in the house across the river. Davit forges two letters: one in Gwladys''s handwriting, one in ?elik Bey''s, each asking the other for a meeting outside the greenhouse the next morning. Safe from prying eyes.

    Alec has a key to the boathouse. Davit borrows it. He takes a coil of rope and an oar. That night he goes to sleep at nine. He wakes up at four.

    He rows Dzovig across. They wait in the greenhouse

    Gwladys and ?elik Bey have their rendezvous outside the greenhouse. While they are talking with their backs to the door, Davit and Dzovig walk up behind them.

    He hits Gwladys so hard that her skull splits. She probably dies instantly.

    Dzovig cuts ?elik Bey''s throat. Then she strips off his shirt and slices his chest. Cuts off his nipples. Mutilates him exactly as hundreds of Armenian women were mutilated by Turkish knives.

    They drag the bodies closer to the house and hang them from a tree where they''ll be discovered.

    Dzovig insists on praying. She kneels down and crosses herself, takes her necklace and kisses the cross. Davit goes along with the motions. He doesn''t beg forgiveness or ask for help concealing his crime. He prays only for Alec.

 Chapter X: Judge and Jury

    I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

    "So you see," Mr. Altounian finished, "I killed Gwladys to save Alec. Dzovig killed ?elik Bey for revenge. What we did was wrong, but justified. We would never have done it if they hadn''t driven us to it."

    Silence fell. Phil looked around the room. Yo-han''s face was blank. Vi and M¨¢t¨¦ looked as if they couldn''t believe what they''d just heard. Lennox was staring at Altounian with a mixture of grief and something she couldn''t place. Altounian refused to look at anyone. He stared at the carpet and kept his grip on Lennox''s hand.

    Yo-han had been leaning against the mantelpiece during the story. Now he straightened up. He looked at M¨¢t¨¦, Vi and Phil in turn.

    "And there we have it," he said. "There are only two options now. One, I tell the police everything. Mr. Eames ¡ª I beg your pardon, Mr. Altounian ¡ª will be hanged for murder. Perhaps certain other facts will remain hidden, or perhaps Mr. Lennox will be arrested for sodomy. Either way his reputation will be destroyed."

    Phil looked thoughtfully at Altounian and Lennox. Now she recognised that something she hadn''t been able to place. It was in the way Altounian clutched Lennox''s hand like a lifeline, the way Lennox leant towards him, the way he never took his eyes off Altounian''s face.

    She had never realised how similar she and Lennox were until now.

    What did you do when you learnt someone you loved had murdered someone you hated? How could you make yourself hate them? Could you ever forgive them? Could you ever stop loving them?

    Leopold was worse than Davit. He had known from very early in their acquaintance that he was going to kill her aunt. He had befriended her anyway. In a way she was worse than Alexander, because she had fallen in love with Leo after the murder.

    If Leo appeared on her doorstep one day, what would she do? How could she tell him to go to hell when she never wanted him to leave her again?

    Phil looked at Lennox, and she understood exactly the turmoil going on in his mind. They were both people who loved not wisely but too well.

    Yo-han had stayed silent for a while, allowing his last sentence to sink in. Now he continued. "Then there is the other option. I lie to the police. I tell them ?elik Bey''s father is a politician and his enemies murdered his son. Mrs. Lennox was killed to stop her identifying them. And a murderer goes unpunished."

    Altounian laughed, shrill and piercing. "Unpunished? My god! I see her blood everywhere. I can still hear her skull breaking. When I close my eyes I see her face all covered with blood. I can smell it, I can practically taste it, sometimes I think I still see it on my hands, my clothes. Hanging can''t be worse than this."

    He really didn''t look well. He was pale and trembling. After observing Altounian for a minute Phil agreed; he certainly was being punished. Considering what Mrs. Lennox had been like, she thought he was being punished enough.

    Lennox pulled his hand free, but only to put one arm around Altounian''s waist and the other around his shoulders. He pulled him close.

    "So," Yo-han said. "We will vote on it."

    "Not me," Lennox said. It was the first time he''d spoken since... had he spoken at all? Phil couldn''t remember. His voice was quiet and it sounded like he was trying not to cry. "I can''t vote. I suspected, but I hoped¡ª I can only say that if you give Davit up, I will go to the police and tell them I planned the murders."

    Altounian''s head snapped round. He stared at Lennox as if he was out of his mind. "They''d hang you too!"

    "That would be better than living without you."

    Yo-han raised his eyebrows. He shrugged, then looked around at Phil, Vi and M¨¢t¨¦. "You three be the jury. Consider everything we''ve heard. If two of you find him guilty, I''ll tell the police the truth."

    Surprisingly it was M¨¢t¨¦ who spoke first. "I find him guilty of manslaughter. Not murder."

    Vi hesitated before giving her verdict. "Well... I suppose he is guilty of murder... But remember that case last year? Where a woman shot her husband and his mistress? The jury said she wasn''t guilty. I think it''s similar here. I say not guilty."

    Yo-han nodded. He looked at Phil. "You have the deciding vote, Miss Patton."

    Lennox looked Phil in the eye. She knew at once he was deadly serious about giving himself up. If she condemned Altounian, she would kill Lennox too. And maybe she wasn''t as obsessively devoted to Leo, not to the point of suicide, but she could understand.

    "Not guilty," she said.

    Altounian slumped against Lennox. He buried his head in the crook of Lennox''s neck. Lennox clung to him as if he was afraid they''d try to pull him away.

    <hr>

    Phil and M¨¢t¨¦ sat in silence after Lennox and Altounian left. Vi checked on Johnny, then returned to the living room. Yo-han set off for the police station.

    After a while Vi helped herself to one of the sandwiches. Phil had completely forgotten about them. She didn''t think she could bear to eat.

    "Do you think we did the right thing?" M¨¢t¨¦ asked.

    "I don''t think there was a right thing to do here," Vi said.

    Phil thought of Leo again and said nothing.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    <hr>

    Lennox House had always been dark. Alec''s earliest memories of it were of echoey, gloomy rooms that seemed to resent his presence. Gwladys had just made it worse. She had redecorated it according to her tastes, and turned whole rooms into modern-art monstrosities that made Alec''s head ache.

    As he closed and locked the door to his study, it dawned on him that he had no good memories at all of living in Lennox House.

    His childhood had been normal, which meant that his parents had left him with his nanny for the first years of his life and barely remembered his existence. His mother preferred his sisters. His father wanted a son who enjoyed hunting and drinking and ogling women. He was disgusted to find that instead he had a son who hated hurting any living creature, couldn''t stand the taste of alcohol, and had no interest in women.

    Alec honestly couldn''t say that his time at Eton had been any better. He had come to certain realisations about himself there, and had begun a relationship with his roommate, but that had ended when they realised they had nothing in common.

    That, and the scandal around the near-breakdown of his parents'' marriage, had sent him to religion in search of something stable when his life seemed to be built on sand. Even there he was disappointed. He prayed and attended church and read the Bible so often he''d memorised most of it, and he still couldn''t reconcile himself with its teachings. He couldn''t ask any pastor for advice; if he gave away too much the pastor would at best tell him to get out and at worst report him to the police.

    All these books... Alec traced his finger over the titles of the ones on the nearest shelf. Everyone thought he was working on the encyclopaedia out of religious zeal. The truth was quite different.

    Maybe somewhere in other people''s writings and other people''s lives, he would find something to help him. He couldn''t be the only person ever in this situation.

    So far he''d found nothing.

    Then there was Davit. Beautiful, wonderful Davit. The best part of Alec''s life. He hadn''t believed in love at first sight until that evening in Cambridge. He still could hardly believe that out of all the men in the world, Davit chose him.

    Davit, who had sought out his company and wanted to hear what he had to say. Davit, who had stayed with him through everything.

    Davit, who had murdered Gwladys.

    From the minute he''d heard of the murders, Alec had a terrible feeling he knew who was responsible. Was it better or worse that Davit had acted out of love? That he''d wanted to protect Alec?

    He had succeeded. If Gwladys had lived, Alec knew he would have died soon. Either he would have been driven to another suicide attempt or she would have killed him. Did that count as self-defence?

    He already had a list of Bible verses that he had to ignore. He hadn''t expected to add "Thou shalt not kill" to that list.

    Alec sat down at his desk. His most recent work confronted him: a half-finished page on Jeremiah 18.

    ...Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.[1]

    Alec stared at those words. He had always refused the temptation to be superstitious. Taking Bible verses out of context and attempting to apply them to his life would require distorting the text beyond recognition. But right now, with the events of yesterday and today weighing down on him, taking it as a message was almost a comfort.

    But a message for who? Gwladys, who had walked after her own devices and had evil framed against her? Or a warning to Alec?

    He felt like he was standing on a precipice, and the ground was crumbling under his feet. Morality, religion and law all demanded he cut ties with Davit. It would be easier to cut out his own heart.

    <hr>

    Davit went straight to his room after they returned home. Alec hadn''t said a word to him on the journey. He didn''t try to stop him.

    When he had planned to murder Gwladys he had never considered two things: actually committing the murder, and what happened after. He hadn''t thought about how it felt to kill someone. He hadn''t thought how Alec would react if he found out.

    Davit threw himself down on the bed and cried himself to sleep.

    He woke slowly. His head rested on something warm. Someone was stroking his hair. For a confusing moment he thought he was a child again and his mother was comforting him after a nightmare.

    Two realisations struck him in quick succession.

    One, his head was resting on someone''s chest.

    Two, his head was resting on Alec''s chest.

    Davit started up, then stopped. He met Alec''s eyes. It was evening and the sun had set, so the remaining light gave everything a blue hue. Even so, he could tell that Alec wasn''t looking at him with anger or disgust. Quite the opposite.

    "I''ve been thinking," Alec said calmly.

    Davit lay down again. He didn''t think he could bear to look Alec in the face for this conversation. He laid his head on Alec''s chest and listened to his heartbeat. Alec resumed stroking his hair. It was... nice. Gentle. Not at all what he should do to someone he knew was a murderer.

    What was going on here? Maybe Alec could forgive him, but Davit couldn''t imagine him being willing to resume their relationship.

    Alec continued, "You of all people know how much I hated Gwladys."

    That was an odd beginning. Davit waited to hear where this was going.

    "She blackmailed me, she tormented me, she... Well, you know all about it. It sounds horrible but I''m glad she''s dead. I can''t even say I''m sorry she was murdered. All I regret is that you killed her."

    Davit tensed. Now for it: some variation on I want you to leave.

    Alec''s breath hitched. Davit felt his heartbeat speed up. "Davit, do you understand? I''m sorry you killed her because... I don''t know how to say it. I''m sorry for the effect it''s had on you. If I could change the past I would stop you killing her to save you, not her."

    Were his ears playing tricks on him? Was Alec, Alec of all people, really saying what it sounded like he was saying?

    "But how can you..." Davit trailed off. He tried again. "Murder is illegal. And forbidden in the Bible."

    "I know." Alec''s hand stilled. His fingers were still twined in Davit''s hair. He was silent for a while. Davit waited with bated breath. He told himself not to hope, but hoped anyway. "I don''t think this counts as murder. She would have killed me. That makes it... different."

    "Can you forgive me?" Davit whispered.

    "I have nothing to forgive, and Gwladys isn''t here. We can travel. Go to Armenia, like you wanted to. Forget her. Forget all of this. And... recover. From what she did to both of us."

    Davit raised his head. He stared Alec in the eye. Even in the fading light he could see that Alec, impossible though it seemed, meant what he said.

    "All right," he said.

    Alec smiled at him. Davit smiled back. For the first time in months he began to think everything really would be all right.

    <hr>

    Vi was brushing her hair when she heard the knock. "Come in!" she called.

    She expected the cook or housekeeper. It was a surprise to see Phil in the doorway instead. Phil had never bothered to knock before. Nor had she ever hovered at the door, looking so unsure.

    "What''s wrong?" Vi asked, her thoughts immediately flying to the murder case.

    "Nothing!" Phil said, much too defensively. "It''s just... I was wondering..." She paused and became very interested in the wallpaper. "You know so many actors. I was wondering if you could... find out where Leopold Colman is? And how I could contact him?"

    Vi opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. She stared very hard at Phil. Phil firmly refused to look at her.

    "This is a terrible idea," Vi warned.

    Of course she knew about Phil''s ridiculous crush. How could she not, when her sister kept every newspaper clipping she could find that mentioned Colman? It was one thing to fall in love with the worst possible candidate. It was quite another to invite him back into their lives.

    Phil nodded. "Probably. But I want to write to him anyway."

 Epilogue

    Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove. -- P. G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

    A hotel in London

    20 April, 19¡ª

    The Honourable Louis Gresham was many things. According to his parents he was a hopeless spendthrift, according to his brother he was next door to an imbecile, and according to his boss he was the worst worker the foreign office had ever employed.

    He was, however, loyal to his friends. And when his old friend David Eames wrote to him to say he and Alexander Lennox were going to Armenia, Louis obligingly pulled a few strings to get their passports approved in record time.

    Why exactly two otherwise sane people wanted to travel to the middle of nowhere was beyond Louis'' comprehension, but he was damned if he didn''t help out.

    Dear Eames, he wrote. Here are your passports. He paused, trying to decide if it was tactless to mention the death of Lennox''s wife when he knew neither of them would be grief-stricken. Finally he settled for, If you want my condolences for recent events, consider them given. If not, ignore this.

    The sound of a key turning in the lock alerted him to his current boyfriend''s return. Louis had to share a house with two other clerks, and he had no idea where Leopold lived. For the sake of discretion they stayed in hotels together under false names, pretending to be brothers.

    "How was rehearsal?" Louis asked.

    Leopold Colman hung his hat beside the door and took off his coat as he answered. "Better than the last one. Miss O''Hara managed to get one out of twenty lines right, and that idiot Jefferson has finally figured out which side of the stage to enter from. With any luck we''ll be able to get through the first act without being booed off."

    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    Experience of Leo''s complaints about his fellow actors had taught Louis that he exaggerated their mistakes. He had no doubt that when opening night came, they would perform a perfectly good production of Nicholas Nickleby.

    Leo took a letter out of his coat pocket. "This was left at the theatre for me today."

    "I''m writing to an old friend. He and his lover are going to Armenia," Louis said. He and Leo had no intention of having a permanent relationship, but while it lasted each made sure the other knew they weren''t seeing anyone else.

    Leo had kicked his shoes off and lain down on the bed to read his letter. He was silent for so long that Louis looked round to see what was wrong. Leo stared at the sheet of paper as if it was a cheque for a million pounds and he didn''t know what to do with it.

    "Bad news?" Louis asked.

    Leo came out of his daze with a start. "No, the best news I''ve ever had. She wants me to write to her!"

    A slight flicker of jealousy stirred in Louis'' chest. He quashed it at once. Leo had made it clear from the start that he liked both men and women, and that he was in love with a woman he had no hope of ever seeing again.

    Louis'' earlier words finally seemed to register with Leo. "Armenia? I was near there once. In Georgia. Why are they going there?"

    To tell the truth Louis had no idea. He had a vague impression that David''s parents were from Armenia, but he couldn''t have said where he got that impression. "Lennox''s wife was murdered and the detective couldn''t catch the culprit. I suppose they''re travelling because they want to forget."

    "Not much of a detective," Leo said scornfully. "I met a detective once who could solve any crime you gave him."

    Louis reread David''s letter. "This was some foreign detective. I suppose he wasn''t as good as a local one."

    Leo sat bolt upright. "Was his name¡ª" he said something that sounded like Suh Johann "¡ªby any chance?"

    "Er... David just says he was a Korean detective called See-oh."

    "That''s him," Leo said. "And he couldn''t catch the culprit?"

    He sounded like this was a personal insult. Louis wondered what on earth his history was with this detective.

    A funny look crossed Leo''s face. "What exactly was the case about?"

    Louis tried to summarise what he knew about the Miss Whare¨CAlexander Lennox¨CDavid Eames fiasco. "...And then she and her lover got murdered, so David and Lennox are going to Armenia."

    "And the detective didn''t catch the culprit," Leo said thoughtfully. He really had a bee in his bonnet about that. He smiled suddenly. "Well, well, who''d have thought it of Seo Yo-han?"

    THE END