The Prince in the Tower by Lydia M Sheridan Page B

his lips and leapt for the jugular.
    “Your lordship,” he sneered to the boy, “I must ask you your whereabouts this evening between the hours of,” he snapped his fingers a soldier.  The young man hastily consulted the notebook.
    "Seven --”
    "Seven of the clock and midnight?”
    Bertie flushed to the roots of his hair.  “I--I was here.”
    Kate’s confidence dropped with her heart.  She exchanged a glance of despair with Lady Alice.  Bertie was lying.  It was obvious to everyone.  Not that she believed for a moment that he had committed murder, or even highway robbery--but then again, what else could make him look so guilty?
    Major Goodwillie shook his head.  His chins followed. 
    Bertie looked at the floor.  At Kate, but for once she was at a loss.  Along with everyone, she waited for him to speak.
    “I was wi th Ethan.  We were playing by the river--”
    “Bertie--” Kate started with alarm.
    Major Goodwillie motioned her to silence, but as Kate herself had reckoned earlier, he had no idea with whom he was dealing.
    “Bertie, don’t say another word.”
    Her brother turned to her, expression pleading.  “It wasn’t us, Katie.  He was dead when we found him.”
    The major conveniently overlooked this tidbit.  “And were you, or where you not, my lord, dressed as the Cavalier?”
    Bertie nodded miserably.  “We were playing with some of the costumes from the pageant.”
    “And was this the costume?”  He stepped aside to reveal the soggy mass on the table.
    Bertie glanced at it.  “No.  We put them back in the Rectory basement.  Then someone came in and we ran out, then came back home through the woods.”
    “Why didn’t you tell anyone what you say?”
    “We were scared.  We didn’t know what to do.”
    He turned to his sister.  “I’m sorry, Lucy.  He was already dead.  We didn’t kill him,” he said, anguished.
    Lucy nodded, trying to give him a comforting smile.
    “Of course you didn’t, love,” Lady Alice agreed instantly.
    Kate turned on the m ajor.  “You have no proof of this,” she stated coldly, she alone having excellent reason to know this.  “How dare you barge in here without reason, without proof, flinging accusations about, utterly unfounded and untrue?”
    Major Goodwillie continued to stare at Bertie.  Without taking his eyes off the boy, he motioned to a spotty-faced subordinate.  The soldier, who looked barely older than Bertie, stepped forward, placing in the major’s hand a handkerchief, and most damning of all, a pearl-handled silver-chased dueling pistol.
    It was the one Kate had lost in the cavern, so long ago it seemed now.
    "This handkerchief was found stuffed in the victim’s pocket.”  He held it out, but Bertie refused to take it.  But the young man’s flinch was all they needed to see, even if the Thoreau crest (two lions and a badger), so lovingly embroidered by Lady Alice, wasn’t enough.
    “A nd this gun.”  Kate’s stomach turned to see the pistol, gleaming in the candlelight, held in the major’s chubby hand.  The silver was studded with what appeared to be dirt and blood.  Lucy gave a cry of anguish and buried her face in her hands.
    “Don’t say one more word, Bertie,” she ordered in the voice which caused her nearest and dearest to liken her to the late earl, their dear, wild papa.  “Not one more word.”
    She swung about to face the m ajor.  “You have no proof Bertie left the gun there.  In fact, it was one I lost last week.”
    The m ajor smiled at this patent falsehood.  “And why might you have been using a gun, my lady?”
    “I was going after the counterfeiters in the underground caverns of Wallingford Castle,” she said truthfully.  "Someone yelled at me, and I cracked my head on the wall and passed out.  When I came to, Mr. Dalrymple was there.  He picked the dead body off me and we jumped off the cliff and the river swept us out on the current.”  Her confession raced faster and