A Ring of Truth Read online

  “She said call her Henrietta,” Virgil said, staring at her.

  “Look, might we come in?” Clive said, his polite tone vanishing by the minute.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to ask you some questions,” Clive said firmly.

  Virgil hesitated for a moment and then stepped aside, halfheartedly waving them into his room. Henrietta gingerly followed Clive inside and almost gagged at the smell of unwashed flesh and urine in the musty, dark room. She was tempted to put her hand over her nose, but she managed to refrain. She looked around and saw a small cook plate in the corner, near which sat a kettle and a few dirty mugs. Clothes were scattered about on the floor alongside two dirty mattresses. Henrietta tried to modestly avert her eyes from the unmade beds, one of which had clearly just been inhabited by Virgil, and looked instead at the peeling paint on the ceiling.

  “Good God, man,” Clive exclaimed. “This is a bit below the belt.”

  “Not my fault, sir,” he said sullenly. “They’re all like this. I reckon they haven’t seen a lick of paint in twenty years.”

  “This is a disgrace. I’ll have to speak to McCreanney about this. This is unsanitary.”

  “Won’t do no good. He says for us to keep our heads down and get on with our jobs. Says the big house don’t want to know about it.”

  “Well, he’s wrong, there. I’ll speak to Father directly,” he said, looking around one more time. “Who sleeps there?” he asked, nodding at the other mattress.

  “Jack. Why?”

  “Of course it would be Fletcher,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, annoyed. “Where is he?”

  Virgil shrugged. “Don’t know. Always about, here and there, that one is. Always using the telephone in the garage,” he mumbled.

  “Listen,” Clive said, looking at him steadily, “I believe you gave one of the maids a ring for her birthday.”

  “What if I did?”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “None of your business!”

  “Now listen, Higgins,” Clive said, taking a step closer to him. “We can do this the hard way or we can do it the easy way.”

  Virgil swallowed visibly and tied his bathrobe more tightly around himself. He glanced over at Henrietta. “I don’t need to tell you nothin’,” he said with his characteristic sneer, though Henrietta thought she caught an element of wariness in his speech.

  “Just tell me where you got the ring,” Clive said, his voice rising along with his exasperation.

  “No.”

  Clive sighed and waited a moment. “Right,” he said resignedly and with a sudden burst of energy, grabbed him and threw him up against the wall. Virgil’s face was one of terrified shock as Clive pinned him with his forearm. “Tell me.”

  Virgil’s eyes darted back to Henrietta. “There’s a lady present,” he bleated. “You wouldn’t thrash me in front of a lady, would you?”

  “She’s seen worse,” Clive muttered, but he relaxed his grip a fraction as he said it.

  “You’re probably right, and she’s no lady, anyways,” Virgil said with a grin, erroneously assuming he was out of imminent danger.

  Within seconds Clive struck him heavily across the upper right cheek with his fist, Henrietta stifling a scream as he did so.

  “You watch your mouth, you little shit. Now, one more time. Where’d you get the ring?”

  Virgil was crouched over now, holding the side of his face with his hand. The look he gave Clive was a mix of hatred and fear. “In town,” he snarled. “At a pawnshop, if you must know.”

  “Not from Helen Schuyler’s cottage?”

  “Who?”

  Clive grabbed him again and pinned him up against the wall once more.

  “I don’t know any Helen!” he squealed. “Honest. Unless you mean that ole bat down by the lake?”

  “You’re sure? You didn’t just slip in there one day and take the ring? Give her a bit of a scare while you’re at it?” Clive said, his face close to Virgil’s.

  “No. I bought it! I never go near her place . . .”

  “Liar!” Clive shouted, shaking him.

  “Clive!” Henrietta called out. She had not expected things to get this out of hand.

  “I’m not lying! I . . . I have a slip,” Virgil said desperately. “Let me show you . . .”

  Clive released him with a shove, and Virgil, stumbling at first, scrambled to his mattress, where a tattered copy of the Bible, its cover torn off, but a cross visible on the front page, lay beside it. Trembling a bit, he flipped through it until he found several pieces of paper and drew one of them out, shakily handing it to Clive. Henrietta saw that the side of his face was beginning to bruise now.

  Clive examined it carefully and showed it to Henrietta. It was indeed a receipt from a pawnshop in Winnetka dated last week with a full description of Helen’s ring and the price paid: Nine dollars and forty-five cents. Clive whistled. “Expensive.” He handed it back to Virgil, then, who stuffed it into the pocket of his robe.

  “Happy now?” Virgil asked, his contemptuousness returning.

  “Why didn’t you just say so from the beginning?” Clive asked, irritated.

  “I was ashamed,” he snarled, looking at the floor, his anger still hovering near. “Not respectable to buy a gift for someone from a pawnshop, is it? Now she’ll go and tell it to Edna,” he said, looking up at Henrietta with disgust in his eyes.

  “Show some respect, Higgins,” Clive said evenly, “or I’ll thrash you again. Or dismiss you. She’s to be my wife and your future mistress someday.”

  Henrietta was stunned by this announcement, the revelation of Clive’s true feelings on the subject surprising her. So he did see her as Highbury’s mistress . . . She quickly looked from one to the other.

  Virgil gave Clive an antagonistic, unbelieving look and said with a little cough, “If you say so.”

  Clive reacted by shoving him against the wall again. “Bastard!”

  “Clive!” Henrietta shouted. “Stop! Come, let’s go. We found out what we needed to,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  Slowly Clive released him with another little shove and walked to the door. “Get back to work,” he grunted. “You’re little sojourn in bed is over,” he added and angrily slipped out the still-open door.

  As Henrietta followed Clive across the balcony and down the stairs, her heart racing from the altercation she had just witnessed, she wasn’t sure what to think. Her mind was divided between the new information they had gotten from Virgil regarding the ring and Clive’s violent outburst. She had seen this side of him before, one that only seemed to surface while in the role of the inspector. Or was there something more to it this time? Did it have something to do with her honor? But if he himself was convinced of her virtue, as he had stated not an hour ago in the breakfast room, would he really feel the need to defend it so rashly? Perhaps he wasn’t so convinced after all. If that was the case, she thought, nettled, it was all her own fault, the result of her ill-conceived amusements, in particular her dance with Jack.

  Henrietta hurried to match Clive’s determined pace. He was a strange combination of gentleness and consideration on one hand and powerful, even violent, authority on the other, which, she had to admit, she felt uncontrollably attracted to.

  “Damn it,” Clive uttered under his breath as they walked back to the house along the pea-gravel drive. “I lost my temper with the servants. Rule number one,” he said, piqued.

  “Well, it was a different sort of matter,” Henrietta said soothingly. “And besides, he was rather impertinent.”

  “But now I look a brute, Henrietta! Don’t you see that? The man had a perfectly good excuse for the ring! He certainly has McCreanney fooled, though, I’ll say that.”

  “But . . . but it still doesn’t explain how the ring got there, does it?” Henrietta asked hesitantly. “Perhaps we should go into town and find this shop. Ask the shopkeeper if he remembers who brought it in. That seems the next logic
al step. Maybe Virgil is innocent in all this after all, but someone had to bring it in.”

  “It was probably Helen herself and she’s simply forgotten,” Clive said disgustedly.

  “That can’t be true! It’s her most prized possession! Granted, her memory is a bit off at times, but she wouldn’t have done something like that, surely!”

  “Well, whatever it is, I can’t worry about it any longer,” Clive said tiredly.

  “What do you mean?” Henrietta asked, confused. “We can’t just give up now!”

  They had reached the East Doors, and Clive paused to look at his pocket watch. “Henrietta,” he said sternly, “we’d best let the servants get on with their work.”

  “But what should we tell Helen, who’s sitting in the kitchen, waiting? Or Edna, for that matter!”

  Clive ran his hand through his wavy hair. “Hmmm. Yes, there’s the question of who actually owns the ring. Tell them I need to hold on to it until I have time to investigate it further,” he said as he held the door open for her.

  Henrietta paused, however, not wanting to go in just yet, as a new idea had suddenly come to her. “I know!” she said excitedly. “We could ask her daughter, Daphne! She lives somewhere near here, Helen said. Maybe Daphne took it, or found it, and brought it to the pawnshop, not realizing its sentimental value. Or maybe she did, but didn’t care! Maybe she needed the money . . .”

  “Henrietta,” Clive said wearily.

  “Yes?”

  “Daphne’s been dead for twenty years.”

  Henrietta felt the blood drain from her face. Goose bumps formed on her arms and on the back of her neck. No! Helen couldn’t be that unhinged, could she? “That can’t be . . .” she murmured.

  “I’m afraid it is,” he sighed. “Now do you understand?” As he stood, still holding the door open and gesturing for her to go in, big drops of rain from the storm that had been threatening all morning finally hit the dusty ground.

  Henrietta stepped inside as if in a trance. “But . . .” Her mind was reeling as she walked with Clive down the thickly carpeted hallway. She thought about how Helen had called her Daphne so many times . . . “I don’t understand,” she murmured. Could Helen simply have misplaced the ring after all? But how had it turned up in a pawnshop? Surely she hadn’t taken it there herself, had she? How could Daphne be dead?

  “The mind can do strange things, as you and I have both seen,” Clive said matter-of-factly, referring to the sordid affair with Neptune. He paused at the padded leather door of the library. “I think I need a drink before lunch,” he said, pushing the door open. “Care for one?” he asked her.

  Henrietta nodded. She rather thought she did, actually.

  As Clive poured two brandies from the sideboard, Henrietta looked around in awe. She had yet to be in this room. It had a vaulted ceiling upon which a beautiful fresco was painted and trimmed in gold. The whole room was surrounded in thick dark bookcases, the only break being a space that had been carved out for the massive fireplace in the center of one wall. High above them was another set of bookcases that circled the room, a tiny balcony of sorts running along in front of them with a movable sort of stairwell to reach them. Henrietta glanced up at the one large window, the rain pelting against it now, making the atmosphere seem abnormally dark and dreary. Scattered throughout the room were leather armchairs and sofas and even a few tables and chairs, presumably for more serious endeavors of study. Henrietta thought it would be a lovely place to play rummy. Clive handed her a brandy and then walked absently toward the fireplace and leaned one arm against it, though no fire was burning.

  Had he been merely placating her this whole time, then? Henrietta wondered. Had he known from the beginning how this must be some silly mix-up on Helen’s part? Henrietta suddenly felt very foolish and not a little annoyed with Clive. Still, Henrietta countered, if he had really not suspected something, why would he have become violent with Virgil? But did that really have more to do with his feelings regarding her? Or was he taking out his anger with Jack on the poor, unsuspecting Virgil? But was Virgil really so innocent? Something told her that he knew more than he was saying . . .

  “Well, it still doesn’t explain everything, though, does it?” she said tentatively, walking closer to the fireplace.

  “Henrietta! Enough, please,” he said, annoyed. “I simply can’t afford to spend any more precious time on this,” he said, looking at his pocket watch again. “At least not today. I have more pressing matters to attend to that are infinitely more important.”

  “More important than an old woman who’s . . . who’s lost something precious . . . and is, well, terrified?” Henrietta sputtered, conscious of the fact that her retort had come out sounding whiny and childish.

  “Yes, actually. I’ll speak to Billings and have him sort it out.”

  Billings? she thought, cut to the quick that he so readily dismissed not only himself from the case but her as well. “I could try . . .” she suggested.

  “No, Henrietta. I’d rather you not. Remember that we agreed you needed some distance from the servants, at least for a while? I think it best if you left the investigating to me.”

  Henrietta fumed. She knew he was right, about the servants, anyway, of course, but this was different! This was not a matter of socializing; it was trying to solve the case, something they could do together if he would only take it . . . take her . . . seriously. She wanted to be more to him than the dull mistress of Highbury! She was so angry, so hurt, she could not even think of what to say to him.

  “Look, Henrietta, this afternoon I have a very important board meeting at Father’s firm.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  “Yes, it’s quite irregular,” he paused. “The truth is that Father is considering stepping down as chairman, and the board wants to vote on who his successor will be.”

  “And they want you, don’t they?” Henrietta said slowly after a moment’s pause.

  “Yes, I’m afraid they do.”

  “And that will mean a life here at Highbury,” she said, piecing it together. “No more Inspector Howard?”

  Clive nodded, his eyes locked apprehensively on hers, impressed by her deduction. “It would appear that way, yes.”

  “When were you planning on telling me?”

  “I tried to this morning! I said we had a lot to talk about, but instead I ended up on a wild-goose chase and hitting one of the servants,” he said irritably.

  “I’m sorry you thought it was a waste of time,” Henrietta said coldly.

  Clive sighed. “No, not a waste of time. Just that . . . we have a lot to talk about, Henrietta,” he said seriously.

  “So it would seem.”

  The silence between them stretched out uncomfortably as they looked at each other, trying to read the other’s thoughts. Finally, Henrietta spoke. “Do you despise it here so very much?”

  “Do you?”

  “Does it matter what I think?” she asked quietly.

  “Of course it does! How can you say that?” he searched her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Henrietta. I . . . I’m not sure what to think anymore,” he said, rubbing his shoulder now, the incident with Virgil and now the rain causing his old war wound to ache. “Of course I love Highbury, it’s just that I’m not sure this is the life I want.”

  “You might want to tell your parents that; they seem to have an altogether different vision of the future.”

  “Yes, yes, I know! But why should one family have all this while there’s so much suffering going on in the world? Frankly I find it all a bit obscene. Oh, I don’t know. It’s not just that . . . it’s this place! Set aside like some relic from the past under a glass dome for people to gaze at and comment about its quaintness before setting it back on its shelf to collect dust while they dash out, living a real life. It belongs to a different era, a simpler one.” He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “It holds so many memories for me,” he said tacitly. “A different lifetime—a way of life that’s
gone, and every minute spent here agonizingly reminds me of it.”

  “You mean of Catherine?”

  He closed his eyes briefly, and he sighed. “It’s more than Catherine. It’s my childhood—everything, really. I still remember the carriages we had—grooms and livery boys. Our property was huge back then. All the servants; the vast parties and . . . oh, I don’t know . . . it just seemed a more innocent time. Then there was the war . . . ,” he said, gripping his glass so tightly that his knuckles appeared white. “Henrietta, there was so much death,” he faltered, his voice oddly strained now. “So much blood. No meaning to it.” His eyes looked haunted. “I . . .” He broke off here, his brow furrowed.

  She stepped closer to him and put her hand softly along the side of his face. “Then let’s not live here. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  He placed his own hand on top of hers. “But it does, unfortunately. It’s not that easy. You’ve obviously perceived what’s expected of me . . . of us. Could you do it?” Clive asked, looking anxiously into her eyes, “if it comes to that?”

  Henrietta felt her heart melt despite her misgivings. “If you wanted me to . . . I suppose I could try. But Clive, I’m not sure I’m the right woman, the right wife . . .” She struggled to put her thoughts into words. “Take the servants, for example. It would be hard for me to . . . to distance myself . . . ,” she faltered, thinking of Jack and Edna in particular.

  “You’d learn. It’s not as hard as you think. Distance doesn’t have to mean unkindness.”

  Henrietta wasn’t convinced of this, and, though a part of her knew better than to continue, she haphazardly decided to plunge ahead with what had been plaguing her all morning. She didn’t think she could go forward in this conversation if she did not. “I danced with Jack last night,” she blurted out, wanting to rid herself of her guilt. “Not . . . not because I have any feelings for him, but because I wanted to fit in at the party!” The moment the words burst out, however, she regretted it and wished desperately that she could retrieve them, but it was too late now.

  Clive’s eyes searched hers, and he did not say anything, which was worse, actually, than if he had shouted. Henrietta held her breath and was cut to the quick when he pulled his eyes away and she saw in them not disgust, but hurt.