“Swithin! But I thought you despised the fellow!”

“Oh, as to that—” She paused awkwardly. “He is the most odious of men, and throws poor Easton into quite a favourable light. Do you know that Uncle suspects Swithin of the murder? And of leaving you to bear the blame?”

“But he was not even invited to Grandmère’s rout!”

“No more he was. But Uncle has found a pin we believe to be his — a snarling tiger, with rubies for eyes — dropped and forgotten in the anteroom passageway. You know it cannot have come there honestly, Kinny. Swithin must have crept in unannounced, under cover of a mask.”

“The Devil!” Lord Kinsfell exclaimed, and then looked to myself with comic anxiety. “I beg your pardon, Miss Austen. I hope I did not offend—”

“So you see, Kinny, there is no need to protect the Earl. You must tell us what you know,” his sister persisted. Her face shone palely through the gloom, and I knew that the abandonment of her favourite was not accomplished without a struggle. “Whatever your loyalty to Swithin, you must certainly never hang for it. He does not warrant such regard.”

“I do not pretend to understand you, Mona. I have no intention of shielding Swithin.”

“Kinny — you must try to be sensible, my dear.” Lady Desdemona reached a gloved hand for his manacled one. “Did you observe him, when first you entered the room and found Portal insensible?”

Lord Kinsfell shook his head. “I saw nothing of Swithin that night.”

“But perhaps you saw a Pierrot?” I suggested. “A broad-shouldered fellow, not unlike the Earl. Throughout Her Grace’s rout, I observed a similar figure in conversation with Maria Conyngham.”

He started at this, and surveyed me narrowly. “And what should Maria Conyngham have to do with Mr. Portal’s death? You saw yourself how destroyed she was by his end.”

I shrugged. “We know her to be allied in the closest terms with Lord Swithin.”

“I fear you are mistaken, madam,” Kinsfell cried, with a conscious look for Lady Desdemona. “Lord Swithin is excessively attached to my sister!”

“Oh, Kinny,” Lady Desdemona retorted in exasperation, “how can you serve Miss Austen so! She speaks no more than the truth. We have all been treated to a display of Swithin’s attachment for myself — and it is nothing compared to his attentions to Miss Conyngham! He waits upon her at the Theatre Royal, and the Lower Rooms; and she meets his attentions with the most lively sensibility.”

The Marquis threw himself down on the dirty hay and put his head in his hands. “I cannot believe it of Maria.”

“But you must, my dear,” Lady Desdemona said gently. “For it is no more than the truth. Whatever we each might have chosen to hope regarding the respective parties, I for one refuse to continue in ignorance.”

He was silent a moment, and his sister glanced at me uneasily.

“Kinny,” she said, “was it this that caused your words with Mr. Portal? Did he expose Miss Conyngham’s character to you that wretched night?”

“It matters nothing, now.”

“It matters a very great deal, indeed. I have only one brother, and I will not part with him for the sake of such a jade, for any inducement in the world!” Lady Desdemona cried stoutly. “You know something, I am sure of it.”

“Did you chance to observe the lady on your passage to the anteroom — while her brother was declaiming Macbeth?” I enquired.

The Marquis’s answer was drowned in the clamour of knocking at his door. “Time, my lady!” called Constable Shaw.

Lady Desdemona looked about her wildly. “Tell us, Kinny, I beg! Your life may depend upon it!”

“Very well,” he said, with infinite weariness; “I now no longer care what happens to myself. I did not observe Maria Conyngham, nor Swithin either. If he killed Portal and availed himself of the passage, however, it must have been at Miss Conyngham’s urging — for she knew of the passage’s existence, where Swithin could not. You will remember, Mona, how often the Conynghams dined in Laura Place, in the weeks before Her Grace’s rout; and any might observe the servants to pass from drawing-room to kitchen, by way of the anteroom passage.”

“That is no more than the truth,” his sister thoughtfully replied.

“But there is something, Lord Kinsfell, that you know regarding the lady,” I said.

He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes devoid of hope. And then he nodded once. “It is a word only.”

“A word?”

“Maria,” he said. “I heard it on Portal’s lips, in his final agony.”

WE LEFT LORD KINSFELL TO THE MOST MELANCHOLY thoughts, and found Colonel Easton pacing in the central courtyard. He very kindly escorted us both to his phaeton, and enquired of our direction; and at Lady Desdemona’s declaring herself faint from hunger, agreed to set us down in Milsom Street, for the procuring of a nuncheon at Molland’s, the confectioners.[60] There he was forced to part from us, being elsewhere engaged; but we assured him of our ability to walk the remaining distance home in the strongest accents possible.

A little while later we were established on a pair of stools in the bow-front window, well-fortified with chocolate and macaroons.

“It would seem that Portal named his killer in his last moments,” I began. “We must inform Lord Harold without delay.”

“May I beg you to accompany me to Laura Place, Miss Austen, and dine there with us? For the morning is much advanced, and you cannot return home without first advising my uncle. I should feel the deprivation of your understanding most acutely, I vow, in attempting to make sense of our interview with Kinny. You will not desert me?”

Having reasons of my own for wishing to consult Lord Harold — a consultation already too-long deferred — I readily agreed.

“Then do you jot a little note for the instruction of your family, and I shall send one of Mrs. Molland’s messengers to Green Park Buildings,” Lady Desdemona suggested, with admirable efficiency.

The paper was brought, the note written, and the messenger despatched in a matter of moments. Mrs. Molland refreshed our cups, and we settled down to indulge in a thorough canvassing of Lord Kinsfell’s affairs.

“Poor Kinny,” Lady Desdemona observed. “I fear he is sadly overset by the revelation of his beloved’s true character.”

“Had you any notion of your brother’s regard for Miss Conyngham?” I enquired.

“No, indeed,” Lady Desdemona exclaimed. “You must comprehend, Miss Austen, that Kinny is beset by the attention of ladies wherever he goes — and thus I suppose I have grown used to his general air of indifference. He is considered a most eligible parti, because of his title and Papa’s estates; and his personal address is not unpleasing. And though he has always been mad for the theatre, I had not understood that one among the multitude had particularly caught his eye.”

“Perhaps he found a value in discretion.”

“Rather than risk Papa’s disapproval, you would mean? I should not be greatly surprised. But I must reproach myself for failing to detect the change in his behaviour. For Kinny would never have been so ready to come to Bath upon Papa’s errand, or so little desirous of dragging me back again to London, had Miss Conyngham not been in residence here. He abhors the stupidity of Bath above all things.”

“A man of taste and elegance, I see. Does his acquaintance with the lady, then, predate this visit to Bath?”

“He came down last Easter to stay with Grandmère, and may have met Miss Conyngham then. I must suppose Mr. Portal to have thrown her in his way — for Portal was an intimate of long standing in Laura Place. But what I cannot comprehend, is why Miss Conyngham should wish to murder Mr. Portal. I always believed them united by the strongest ties of affection.”