Page 68 of Corpse in the Canal

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Solomon half expected Etta to take dinner in her room. But she duly appeared at the table, apparently her usual self, with no sign of her distress apart from slightly puffy and reddened eyes. It was another difficult meal, and in spite of the hard conversation to come with his host, Solomon was glad when the ladies left them.

“We shan’t linger for long,” Harvey said, pouring them each a glass of port. “I’m a little worried about Etta. She was supposed to be resting this afternoon, but when the maid went to wake her for tea, she had gone. She didn’t come back until almost dinnertime and would not say where she had been.”

“We know some of where she was,” Solomon said. “We saw her in a somewhat insalubrious area of Channing, where she deliberately dropped those in the gutter.” He placed the two small keys on the table between them.

Harvey frowned. “That is why you asked about them?”

“We discovered that one fitted an old trunk recently put in the attic, and the other fits the valise within it. They were hiding this pistol.” Solomon took the weapon from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the keys.

“That’s Etta’s,” Harvey said.

“That’s what she said. Why does she have a pistol?”

“I gave it to her years ago, when we first moved to this house. She was unused to the country then and didn’t feel safe when I was away from home. She kept it locked in her bedside table, which seemed to make her feel better. I haven’t thought of it in years.”

“I’m afraid you have to think of it now. She was hiding it from herself.”

Harvey’s face flushed. “Dear God. She is subject to melancholia, of course, but she has been so much better… Losing Percy must have…”

“The straw that broke the camel’s back, perhaps,” Solomon said. “I suspect it has been building for some time and she has learned to hide it. My own feeling is, she is terrified by the urges toward self-destruction, and that is why she hid the gun. But it needs to be looked at.”

“Why?” Harvey asked blankly.

“We need to know if it has been fired.”

Harvey’s jaw dropped. “Are you mad? Her son?”

“It is unlikely, I agree. But if she came across evidence of Percy disappointing her in some way… Look at it and set both our minds at rest. Is it clean? Or has it been fired?”

“She wouldn’t clean it. She doesn’t know how, or even that it’s necessary. She only ever fired it once when I showed her how, twenty years ago, when I first gave it to her. I cleaned it that time and it has never been fired since.”

As he spoke, he was taking the weapon apart, examining the chamber and the mechanism. “There is still a bullet in the chamber, and the gun is still clean, but not recently so. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” Solomon said. He had already looked for himself, but he had wanted to see Harvey’s reactions. “Later, perhaps, you would show me your own pistol. And no, of course I don’t suspect you—you were with us, apart from anything else. As with you wife’s, it is a matter of eliminating the weapon.”

Harvey looked slightly mollified. “I will keep a closer eye on Etta, perhaps speak to Owens… She missed Percy terribly, you know, when he wasn’t here. She worried for him, constantly.”

“Why?” asked Solomon, who suspected Etta had more idea of her son’s imperfect behavior that his father did.

Harvey shrugged tolerantly. “You know what mothers are like when their children leave the nest.”

“I would like to ask your permission for something else,” Solomon said, when nothing further appeared to be forthcoming. “To send our assistants to Percy’s rooms in London, to see if his pistol is there, or if there is any other clue as to who might have killed him. It would save time if they examined the London evidence while we continue our investigations here.”

“You think someone followed him here from London?”

“We understand he came into contact with some nefarious characters,” Solomon said vaguely. He kept Percy’s other offensive behavior to himself for now.

“I can give you a letter for Percy’s manservant,” Harvey said. “He might have packed up Percy’s things by now, but he won’t have got rid of anything.” An involuntary shudder shook him, and Solomon tactfully looked at his port. “You join the ladies. I’ll write you a note to send to your people now. And one to Darren, too.”

“Thank you,” Solomon said, rising to his feet.

*

As the mystery of Percy’s murder deepened and darkened, Constance’s personal problems began to resolve and clarify. With that terrifying glimpse into Solomon’s unhappy past came greater understanding and appreciation of him, his strength, and his goodness. And her sheer good fortune in being his wife.

And in that, she seemed to find her own better self, so as she and Etta sat alone in the drawing room after dinner, she remarked on the excellent meal and asked what Percy’s favorite dishes had been.