Jacob gave a bitter laugh. ‘Barely. Lean out over the side to compensate for the tilt. Let’s make as much speed as this boat will allow.’
ChapterThirty
Middle of Windermere
‘Congratulations: you’ve worked it out,’ said Langhorne, adjusting course away from the nearest pleasure trippers to strike out for the lonely middle of the lake.
‘Fair play to you,’ said Dora adopting a nonchalant tone. ‘You fell out with your pals and you’ve been sorting out your disagreements. Nothing to do with me.’
He gave her a questioning look.
‘I’m an actress, guv,’ she said, dropping into her cockney accent. ‘The doings of you toffs ain’t my affair. I was just wondering how you did it– I’m curious like. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. You can just drop me off at the nearest coaching inn and I’ll make myself scarce.’
He smoothed his top lip thoughtfully.
‘Really, I don’t give a damn– I just want to get clear of this. You spin what story you like. All the same to me.’ She shrugged.
He smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant expression. It told her that he’d not changed his mind about killing her but had decided to talk, to impress her with his cleverness. He liked dominating people, especially women, she guessed.
‘I don’t know if you have ever experienced the excitement of finding a group of people for the first time who think like you, and see the world the way you see it?’
She nodded. ‘I do– me pals in the theatre.’
‘That’s what we were like at the beginning. We talked about changing the world. We planned to usher in an era of justice and equality. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive…”’
‘“But to be young was very heaven”,’ she completed the line.
He looked at her with approval. ‘You know it too?’
‘It’s from that poem, ain’t it?’
‘Yes. One of Wordsworth’s better efforts. He shared some of it with Knotte and me– but he lent the whole manuscript to Barton.’ Langhorne gave a nasty chuckle. ‘Knotte was insanely jealous, of course, especially when I pointed out Barton hadn’t even bothered to read it, stuffed it in his valise and thought it well hidden. So we read it, when Barton wasn’t looking. Full of ideas that poem, but sadly lacking in action. Wordsworth is as bad as the rest of them.’
That was how it had become so well known to a select audience– and Barton had thought he was being so secretive! He’d over-estimated their adherence to a gentlemanly code.
‘But you put the manuscript back?’
‘Once Barton disappeared, naturally I did. Couldn’t be caught with that and I thought either Wordsworth or his shrew of a sister might come looking for it.’
‘Where did you hide it?’
‘At Wright’s cottage. He didn’t know what was on his bookshelf, the fool.’ He frowned at the rudder and picked off a strand of weed.
That must have been when he attacked Wright. Had he been caught taking the notebooks back and Wright had come out of his alcoholic daze enough to understand the significance? He was an admirer of Wordsworth too…
‘You’ve been doing all this to… what? To punish your friends? What had they done to deserve it?’
‘It’s what they hadn’t done. Lily-livered fucking imbeciles! What clearer call could there have been than when Perceval was assassinated. It was time to stop talking and act.’
‘So you did– with Sir Richard Leyburn. Very clever. One less beak in the world– you did us all a favour.’ Perhaps she could flatter him to think better of her?
‘That’s what I think, but they thought it was just talk– a way of shaking their fists at those in power. Posturing. They never expected me to throw a punch.’
‘It was more than a punch.’
‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ He smiled, taking pleasure from the thought. ‘It was child’s play. Knotte and I were both in London trying our luck with the book trade. That night, I pretended to be Knotte. He’d taken his father’s crook to show the publishers his rural origins– so bloody proud of it. I used it to kill his patron.’
That explained quite neatly the strange choice of weapon and the fact that it had been left at the scene of the crime.
