“You have no notion as to the cause of the dispute between my nephew and Mr. Portal?” he enquired at last.

“None. Although I assumed it was the result of some insult, in word or action. Lord Kinsfell referred to Portal as a blackguard, I believe.”

“That might cover all manner of offence — from cheating at cards to coarseness towards a lady. I shall have to force the admission from Simon myself — though it will prove a piece of work.”

“Cannot Lady Desdemona enlighten you?”

“Alas, it is impossible. She merely attempted to part the two, when their behaviour grew too reckless, and was served with some very rough treatment herself, I understand.”

“Mr. Portal’s behaviour did seem to offend her. She quitted the room in tears. But I cannot believe her distress the cause of a murderous attack on the part of Lord Kinsfell, as Mr. Elliot fain would do.”

“But consider the oddity of the attack!” Lord Harold countered. “If any desired the end of Richard Portal, why not draw the knife in the darkness of a random alley? There are an hundred places where such a deed might be done — the foetid rooms of a public house, or the shadow of Westgate Buildings, or the banks of the Avon itself.[34] Why choose a duchess’s drawingroom? — Unless the knife was drawn in a moment, on the spur of anger and drink. I begin to see it as Mr. Wilberforce Elliot might; and should have taken up my nephew without a second thought.”

“But if Portal was murdered with deliberation — and with deliberation in the Duchess’s household — then the killer must find a purpose in publicity,” I observed. “He may mean your nephew to take the blame. Or he may hope, Lord Harold, that your niece will suffer in the knowledge of her favourite’s end.”

There was a silence. “Lord Swithin,” Trowbridge said.

“The thought has occurred to me.”

“You think him so consumed by jealousy and pique, Miss Austen, as to plan his rival’s murder? And under Mona’s very nose?”

“Is the notion so incredible?”

“He was far from Bath.”

“And he is the sort of man who might summon a legion to do his bidding — from any distance this side of the sea!”

“But would he resort to murder?” Lord Harold rejoined. “I cannot believe it. It is far more in Swithin’s style to call a rival out — and cripple him for life. A masked stabbing would not be at all the thing.”

“And yet,” I persisted, “I observed him today at the Pump Room, barely a quarter-hour after his arrival, already in conference with Hugh Conyngham.”

“The actor? I comprehend, now, Swithin’s early intelligence of the murder. I did not know his lordship claimed acquaintance among the company of the Theatre Royal.”

“The Earl was most intent upon his conversation with Conyngham — and I overheard a little of it. It seems that the actor was charged with a duty towards Lord Swithin, concerning the retrieval of some letters. The Earl was quite put out at Conyngham’s failure to fulfil his commission — and declared he was within a handsbreadth to the gallows! Singular words, are they not?”

Lord Harold sat very still. Firelight flickered off his sharp features. “And what would you say, Miss Austen — was Lady Desdemona in love with Mr. Portal? Enough to occasion Swithin’s alarm?”

“In love? I confess I cannot tell! She consented to dance with him gladly enough — but I did not remark any particular sign of affection. Had you enquired of Maria Conyngham …” I hesitated.

“Yes?”

“She appeared as destroyed by Portal’s death as any woman might possibly be.”

“I see. That is, perhaps, no more than I should have expected. I had understood her to be attached to the man. A motive for murder, perhaps, did he turn his affections elsewhere.”

To Lady Desdemona, for example. “Does Her Grace know nothing of your niece’s regard for Mr. Portal?”

Lord Harold shook his head. “My mother considered the manager an acquaintance of long standing. She had no idea of a presumption to Desdemona’s hand. Of far greater import, in Her Grace’s estimation, was the friendship Portal so recently formed with my nephew”

“But I thought Lord Kinsfell held Portal in contempt!”

“Thus ends many an unequal friendship.”

“So this public display of poor feeling was quite out of the ordinary way.”

Lord Harold rose and began to pace before the fire. “As was the manager’s violent end. I propose we consider of events in a rational manner. It is possible to divine a jealous motive for both Swithin and Miss Conyngham to commit this murder — a motive that depends upon my niece’s affections. Others may exist, for parties unknown. But how was the deed effected?”

“At least two possibilities are open to us, my lord. Firstly, that Richard Portal was stabbed by a person who fled through the anteroom window.”

Lord Harold shook his head. “It is a precipitous fall.”

“Agreed. But I have been turning over the matter in my mind. Were there a conveyance beneath the window — a common waggon, and filled with hay — might not an intruder leap from house to street, and suffer nothing in the fall?”

“If the waggon were allowed to stand but a little, and to look unremarkable in its delay.”

“An altercation with the chairmen, perhaps, who rendered Laura Place all but impassable that night, in attendance upon the Duchess’s guests. The constable did not enquire whether a carter had come to the point of fisticuffs. He merely asked if any had observed a cloaked figure leap from the window.”

“That is true. I will enquire among the various stands of chairmen in the city. But you mentioned two possibilities, Miss Austen — pray continue.”

“Portal’s murderer may have vanished through the anteroom passage, and left the window ajar as a ruse. He had only to return, then, to the drawing-room, and discover the body in company with the rest of us.”

“Then the murderer might be anyone. There were an hundred guests last night, I believe.”

“But some dozens fled before the constables’ arrival, and of those who remained, but a few are worthy of consideration. I would posit, my lord, that the murderer might be found among the company of the Theatre Royal — or among the intimates of the Conynghams.”

“How is such an assertion possible?”

“Have you considered the nature of the killing? A stabbing, and in the midst of Hugh Conyngham’s declamation from Macbeth, describing the same? It bears a sinister aspect. ’If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well / It were done quickly …’”

“So my mother is willing to believe,” Lord Harold admitted, with the ghost of amusement. “She found in the scene a grisly example of life in the imitation of art; and such things must always impress her, who has confused them these seventy years.”

“The speech may have served as signal, to a henchman among the guests; and thus we have only to study the players for the penetration of the affair.”

“But is Mr. Elliot, the magistrate, likely to agree?” Lord Harold mused. “What think you of Mr. Elliot, by the by?”

“I found Mr. Elliot a disturbing blend of parts. He is burdened with an unfortunate want of tact, and a superfluity of wit; he is disgusting in his manners and person — but his mind is shrewd enough. I would judge him to be lazy, and amoral, and devoid of even the faintest degree of respect for the peerage; and I would watch him within an inch of his life. Your nephew’s may depend upon it.”

Lord Harold’s brows lifted satirically. “Harsh counsel, my dear Miss Austen — but not, I think, formed of the thin air of conjecture, nor motivated by untoward malice. I know your penetration of old. No charlatan may deceive, nor sycophant charm, your wits from out your head. Little of a human nature eludes your admirable penetration. Indeed, to solicit your opinion of the man has been almost my first object in calling at Green Park Buildings. I shall approach Mr. Elliot with the utmost circumspection, and thank you for your pains to set me on my guard.”