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Slowly Hester reached out her hand and took it. If she had been Octavia she would not have gone to the kitchen for Mrs. Boden’s carving knife; she would have used this lovely thing. She took it out slowly, feeling its balance and the sharpness of its tip. It was many seconds in the silent house, the snow falling past the uncurtained window, before she noticed the faint dark line around the joint between the blade and the hilt. She moved it to within a few inches of the candle’s flame. It was brown, not the gray darkness of tarnish or inlaid dirt, but the rich, reddish brown of dried blood.
No wonder Mrs. Boden had not missed her knife until just before she told Monk of it. It had probably been there in its rack all the time; she simply confused herself with what she assumed to be the facts.
But there had been blood on the knife they found. Whose blood, if this slender paper knife was what had killed Octavia?
Not whose. It was a kitchen knife—a good cook’s kitchen would have plenty of blood available from time to time. One roast, one fish to be gutted, or a chicken. Who could tell the difference between one sort of blood and another?
And if it was not Octavia’s blood on the knife, was it hers on the peignoir?
Then a sudden shaft of memory caught her with a shock like cold water. Had not Beatrice said something about Octavia having torn her peignoir, the lace, and not being skilled at such fine needlework, she had accepted Beatrice’s offer to mend it for her? Which would mean she had not even been wearing it when she died. But no one knew that except Beatrice—and out of sensitivity to her grief, no one had shown her the blood-soaked garment. Araminta had identified it as being the one Octavia had worn to her room that night—and so it was—at least as far as the upstairs landing. Then she had gone to say good-night to her mother and left the garment there.
Rose too could be mistaken, for the same reason. She would only know it was Octavia’s, not when she had worn it.
Or would she? She would at least know when it was last laundered. It was her duty to wash and iron such things—and to mend them should it be necessary. How had she overlooked mending the lace? A laundrymaid should do better.
She would have to ask her about it in the morning.
Suddenly she was returned to the present—and the realization that she was standing in her nightgown in Sir Basil’s study, in exactly the same spot where Octavia in her despair must have killed herself—holding the same blade in her hand. If anyone found her here she would have not a shred of an excuse—and if it was whoever found Octavia, they would see immediately that she also knew.
The candle was low and the bowl filling with melted wax. She replaced the knife, setting it exactly as it had been, then picked up the candle and went as quickly as she could to the door and opened it almost soundlessly. The hallway was in darkness; she could make out only the dimmest luminescence from the window that faced onto the front of the house, and the falling snow.
Silently she tiptoed across the hall, the tiles cold on her bare feet, and up the stairs, seeing only a tiny pool of light around herself, barely enough to place her feet without tripping. At the top she crossed the landing and with difficulty found the bottom of the female servants’ stairway.
At last in her own room she snuffed out the candle and climbed into her cold bed. She was chilled and shaking, the perspiration wet on her body and her stomach sick.
In the morning it took all the self-control she possessed to see first to Beatrice’s comfort, and her breakfast, and then to Septimus, and to leave him without seeming hasty or neglectful in her duty. It was nearly ten o’clock before she was able to make her way to the laundry and find Rose.
“Rose,” she began quietly, not to catch Lizzie’s attention. She would certainly want to know what was going on, to supervise if it was any kind of work, and to prevent it until a more suitable time if it was not.
“What do you want?” Rose looked pale; her skin had lost its porcelain clarity and bloom and her eyes were very dark, almost hollow. She had taken Percival’s death hard. There was some part of her still intrigued by him, and perhaps she was haunted by her own evidence and the part she had played before the arrest, the petty malice and small straw of direction that might have led Monk to him.
“Rose,” Hester spoke again, urgently, to draw Rose’s attention away from the apron of Dinah’s she was smoothing with the flatiron. “It is about Miss Octavia—”
“What about her?” Rose was uninterested, and her hand moved back and forth with the iron, her eyes bent on her work.
“You cared for her clothes, didn’t you? Or was it Lizzie?”
“No.” Still Rose did not look at her. “Lizzie usually cared for Lady Moidore’s and Miss Araminta’s, and sometimes Mrs. Cyprian’s. I did Miss Octavia’s, and the gentlemen’s linens, and we split the maids’ aprons and caps as the need came. Why? What does it matter now?”
“When was the last time you laundered Miss Octavia’s peignoir with the lace lilies on it—before she was killed?”
Rose put down the iron at last and turned to Hester with a frown. She considered for several minutes before she answered.
“I ironed it the morning before, and took it up about noon. She wore it that night, I expect—” She took a deep breath. “And I heard she did the night after, and was killed in it.”
“Was it torn?”
Rose’s face tightened. “Of course not. Do you think I don’t know my job?”
“If she had torn it the first night, would she have given it to you to mend?”
“More probably Mary, but then Mary might have brought it to me—she’s competent, and pretty good at altering tailored things and dinner gowns, but those lilies are very fine work. Why? What does it matter now?” Her face screwed up. “Anyway, Mary must have mended it, because I didn’t—and it wasn’t torn when the police gave it to me to identify; the lilies and all the lace were perfect.”
Hester felt a sick excitement.
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure—to swear someone’s life on?”
Rose looked as if she had been struck; the last vestige of blood left her face.
