“Well, I know for a fact that the third is an awl,” Henry said with satisfaction. “It cannot be otherwise.”

“And the first is a bee,” Hugh Conyngham said.

“So the whole must be betrayal” I concluded briskly. “You are no match for us, Colonel. We have routed you entirely.”

“Well played,” Lord Harold observed with a nod. “Now let us have our revenge. I am quite a man for revenge, you know — though I cannot quite decide against whom I must direct it. All of you present such tempting objects.” He moved towards the drawing-room fireplace as he spoke, fingering the eye portrait absently; and I instantly felt the tension in Hugh Conyngham.

His sister rose unsteadily to her feet. “I do not think I like your manner of playing, my lord. It resembles too closely a cat with a cornered mouse.”

“Maria!” her brother said abruptly. “Sit down!”

“—What? Hey?” enquired my Uncle Perrot in confusion. “It is only a game, after all.”

And at that moment, Lord Harold reached for one of the massive porcelain vases that stood regally at either end of the mantel, hefted it in his arms, and tossed it at Colonel Easton.

Miss Wren screamed; Lady Desdemona shied; and without an instant’s hesitation, the Colonel caught the priceless object — employing for the purpose his injured right hand.

There was an instant of shocked silence; and then, with a rustle of muslin, Maria Conyngham slid to the floor in a faint.

“Appearances, you will remember, are everything, Miss Austen,” Lord Harold observed drily. “We had taken for granted that Colonel Easton could never have stabbed a man; for his arm was assuredly useless. That was excellently caught, Colonel — or should I say, Pierrot?’

Easton seized a fire tong and leapt at Lord Harold with frightening savagery, amidst the horrified screams of the ladies. But in a moment, the Earl of Swithin had thrown himself into the fray, thrusting Lord Harold aside and battering Easton with his fists. The two toppled a delicate little table, pitched headlong into the anteroom, and came to rest in a heap before the opening panel door.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! I beg of you — have a care for Her Grace’s furnishings!”

Mr. Wilberforce Elliot, looming in the cunning little passage.

Chapter 17

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

19 December 1804, cont.

“I SEE HOW IT IS, YOU BLACKGUARD,” HUGH CONYNGHAM told the Colonel bitterly. He was bent over his insensible sister, the Dowager’s vinaigrette in his hand. “These riddles are easy enough to comprehend. You have betrayed us to the agent of our ruin, and all attempt at prevarication must be as so much hemlock — a release, perhaps, but hardly happy!”

Easton struggled to his feet, but was quickly overpowered by the Earl and Mr. Elliot. “I, betray you?” the Colonel cried. “That is a fanciful tale, when your jade of a sister has already divulged the whole to Trowbridge! She has been parading about on his arm this week or more. Enquire how much he pays for her charms, I beg — for I am beyond all caring!”

“Perhaps you will explain how the same man came by that curst portrait,” Conyngham retorted hotly, “if not at your hand! For it was you who had the keeping of the eye, not Maria. I gave it to you the night of the Dowager’s rout!”

“That is a lie!”

“A lie? You would deny the whole? Reprehensible coward!”

Mr. Conyngham might have continued in recrimination, had his sister not come to her senses at that moment; and so it was Lord Harold who satisfied the curious.

“The pendant was found by my nephew, Lord Kinsfell, and hidden within his clothes at the moment he was seized for Portal’s murder,” he coolly said. “I must congratulate Simon on his perspicacity; for this single act has proved the undoing of those who would have seen him hang.”

“But, Uncle,” Lady Desdemona said faintly, “how could you possibly have known the murderer was Easton?”

“I did not know, my dear Mona,” he replied, “but the suspicion has been growing upon me. I told Miss Austen only this morning that appearances are everything; and she replied, even, perhaps, when they are meant to deceive. I must credit my excellent friend with starting the notion of Easton’s guilt, for he was the sole person among us whose appearance had greatly altered in recent weeks, and I found that fact intriguing. Once started upon the trail, I proceeded rapidly to its end — for one aspect of this murder has puzzled me from the start, and Easton answered the purpose admirably.” He wheeled about and faced us as implacably as a judge. “Why was the murder committed in Her Graces household?”

“Why, indeed?” the Duchess echoed.

“To throw blame and ruin upon Easton’s enemies. Mr. Portal — or Mr. Thomas Lawrence, the intended victim — might have been killed as readily elsewhere. But the murder was designed to despatch several birds at a single stone. To implicate Swithin — whose attentions to my niece had threatened the murderer’s suit — and possibly Lord Kinsfell, whose interest in the murderer’s mistress had outraged his reason.”

“Miss Conyngham? Easton’s mistress?” I cried; and remembered, of a sudden, the figure I had glimpsed on Pulteney Bridge, in conversation with the colonel’s phaeton. Mrs. Grimsby, he had called her — but the familiar grace of her carriage and form had been entirely Maria Conyngham’s.

Lord Harold looked to the lady. “Well, my dear?”

Maria’s wonderful head came up, as regal as Cleopatra’s. “I will not deny it.”

He bowed. “You retain one claim to honour, at least. I suspected Easton only lately, Mona. I fear that for the better part of this sad affair, my suspicions were turned against Lord Swithin — as they were intended to do. For it was Swithin’s device that was found in the anteroom passage — found, most curiously, after the night of the murder, when Mr. Elliot had summarily searched it. I reflected on that point at length, and thought it too curious for plausibility. Colonel Easton had visited Mona on Friday, just before I searched the passage myself; and it was Colonel Easton who dropped the tiger behind the door.”

I started up at this. “But the tiger belongs in the Fortescue family!”

“So it does — and was lost by the present Earl, I think, in a game of cards or some other wager. Am I correct, Swithin?”

“You are, my lord. At Carlton House, a twelvemonth ago at least.”

“And did you lose it to Easton?”

“No — but I would imagine the man who won it, did not possess it long. He is notoriously unlucky at games of chance, and must soon have given up the brooch to another.”

“The Colonel was certainly in possession of it a few months back, when a man calling himself Mr. Smith — a bearded fellow of some bearing — pawned the object in Cheapside. Easton redeemed it only a few weeks ago — just after the affair of honour, in which you injured his right arm. We may conclude that his desire for revenge, and his incipient plan, dates from that unhappy event. It was fought in respect of Miss Conyngham, was it not?”

Swithin inclined his head. “Easton believed me to have designs upon the lady — but I assured him that whatever my past attentions might have been, my heart was now engaged by another. He called me a blackguard and a liar. I could not allow such accusations to rest.”

“Your sisters thought they had seen the Colonel in Bath Street on Thursday, but were later confused by his clean-shaven appearance.” Lord Harold looked to me. “Did Pierrot sport whiskers, Miss Austen?”

The image of a burly, bearded figure of motley in converse with a scarlet Medusa rose before my eyes.

“Easton!” Lady Desdemona cried. “It was you!”