‘Excuse me, sir, but how would you know?’ Daniel asked.
Arthur’s faced flushed, but it was with shame rather than anger.
Daniel felt appalling for having asked, but the idea was not out of character with the man Daniel had seen in court, and in prison: quick-tempered, arrogant, defensive.
Arthur struggled for an answer and was left speechless.
‘Will you please leave?’ Sarah meant it as an order, but all she could do was plead. ‘Arthur is quite right. He would know if Falthorne had been in a fight with Father. Father is heavier and stronger. Falthorne is sixty, and not used to violence. He looks after Arthur, doing the things . . . a . . . man needs to do to help him. Looks after him with . . .’ she swallowed, ‘a little dignity. Father would have half killed him if he had raised a hand against him. Please go!’
Daniel felt shaken, ashamed of having ripped the bandage off such wounds. And yet he was not surprised. Perhaps he should even have been prepared for an error like that. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Graves. I’ve met your father. I do not think he is innocent, but it is still my duty to fight for him, in the chance that I am wrong.’ He stood up and walked towards the door. He turned back and looked at them. ‘I love the birds. Who is the artist?’
‘I am,’ Arthur replied. ‘In my imagination, I can fly.’
Chapter Eight
Towards the end of the afternoon, after a late lunch of sandwiches, Daniel at last looked at the room where Ebony Graves had died. It was a large and gracious room, furnished as a place where she could receive family members and other women she knew well. He knew it as a boudoir. His mother had never had one, but his aunt Emily had, both in her London house and in Ashworth Hall, her country residence.
Ebony Graves’ boudoir was charming. He stared at the curtained windows looking out onto the side garden with its carefully tended flowering trees and shrubs. There were flowerbeds not far from the window, and early yellow climbing roses in bloom immediately outside.
There was much yellow inside the room also: pale yellow walls like sunshine, and yellow cushions on the floral chairs, and one on the dark green sofa. It was easy and restful. How could such a violent and terrible thing happen amid such peace?
He looked at the pictures on the walls, interesting studies of trees and flowers, caught for beauty rather than botanical realism. In some, they were named.
There was a large bookcase, five series of shelves, fully packed. Some books were lying sideways, on top of the upright ones, where there was room. Mostly he could see novels, memoirs, and histories.
Lastly, he forced himself to look at the fireplace and the hearth, and the small section of the carpet next to it. It jolted him with the stains, and a mental image of the violence that had left its marks here. Maybe no one had been detailed to remove them? Or maybe the police had insisted that they be left in evidence, and never thought to lift the restriction so that they could be cleansed, now that the case was over. Perhaps no one could bear to. Daniel could easily imagine neither Falthorne nor Mrs Warlaby sending in any of the young maids to perform such a task.
There was a brown stain of blood on the hearth stone, which otherwise was a warm yellow sandstone, porous, unpolished, very natural-looking. The carpet beside it, to the right as one faced it, was also stained with blood. There was just the one stain, but deep, as if there had been a single wound that had bled profusely.
Next to the stain was the charring. The soft colours of the carpet were scarred with burns deeply enough to show the canvas in places. In other places, the entire carpet had been destroyed, and the wooden floor beneath was also scarred. The fire had been small, localised, and extremely hot. Created to destroy evidence? Of what? What could she have in her hair or on her face that might ever be evidence?
Or had it been done simply out of hatred? The wish to destroy the beauty, the character, the very identity of the dead woman?
That took a very particular kind of hatred.
Daniel shivered, as if the room had suddenly dropped in temperature. Was there anything here he could learn that would oblige him to stay?
He forced himself to go into the bedroom next door and look at that. The bed was made up, as if they still thought she might return. It was furnished in the same design as the boudoir, and largely with the same colours, but fewer pictures on the wall. There were photographs here, several of Sarah and Arthur at different ages. Arthur seemed to have been well until about eleven or twelve years old. After that, he was always seated, and he looked like a memory of the child he had been.
It hurt Daniel to see the damage in him. It must have wounded his mother appallingly, and yet she had kept the earlier photographs there, where she could see them every day.
There were none of Russell Graves, not even a wedding photograph. Had there ever been any, in the earlier years? And had she destroyed them? Nor were there any of those who might have been her parents, or other members of her family.
He opened the wardrobe doors and saw clothes fairly tightly packed together, and several drawers of stockings, leather gloves, carefully folded undergarments of silk, or something that looked like it. He felt intrusive looking through them, and yet they told him something about her. She clearly loved clothes, and had had plenty of money to indulge herself. He put out his hand and tentatively stroked a dress. The silk was so soft he saw rather than felt his fingers touch it. The dresses were of several different colours, muted shades, subtle ones, with here and there something bright.
Reluctantly, he closed the door. Seeing her personal belongings, the clothes she had chosen and worn, somehow had made death seem more immediate. He was aware of her life rather than other people’s descriptions of her. These had been hers.
He went out of the room and onto the landing, and found Falthorne waiting for him.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?’ he asked.
Daniel wondered if the man had been waiting there for him all the time he had been in Ebony’s room. Was he watching discreetly, to see that nothing was removed? Or merely guarding the things that had been hers? Daniel wished he had not felt it necessary to search them. Yet the more he knew about how Ebony had lived, the closer he would come to discovering how she had died.
‘Yes,’ he a
nswered. ‘If you please, I would like to see Mr Graves’ study.’
Falthorne hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if he would like that, sir. He is a very private man, especially about his work.’