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I could not be sure if any of them, including Barr, had noticed the page from People magazine lying on the corner of Peter’s desk. I had placed it in such a way that it was hard to miss. I still didn’t understand how it could be important, but if it drew a reaction from one of my guests, then I might have a clue.
At nine thirty, they all got up to go. By then, the stress of the evening had begun to exhaust me. If any of these men was the one I heard being threatened by Susan Althorp all those years ago in the chapel, I was not going to find out about it tonight.
We stood by the front door for a few minutes as Vincent and I wished Richard all good luck in London. He told me that if possible, he would be back for Peter’s trial, to lend moral support. “I love that guy, Kay,” Richard said. “I always have. And I know he loves you.”
Long ago, Maggie had told me that you can love a person without loving everything about that person. “Monsignor Fulton Sheen was a great speaker who had a television program about fifty years ago,” she had reminisced. “One day he said something that really impressed me. He said, ‘I hate communism, but I love the communist.”
I think that was a good comparison to the way Peter felt about Richard. He loved the person and despised his weakness.
After I closed the door behind Elaine and Richard and Vincent, I walked back to the kitchen. The Barrs were about to leave. “The cups are all washed and put away, Mrs. Carrington,” Jane said anxiously.
“Mrs. Carrington, if you need anything during the night, you know we’ll be there in a minute for you,” Gary Barr said.
I ignored his remark, but did say that I thought everyone had enjoyed the di
It had become my habit at the end of the day to sit for a while in Peter’s library. It made me feel close to him. I could relive the moment I walked into this room for the first time and saw him sitting in his chair. I could smile as I remembered the way his reading glasses slipped from his face when he stood up to greet me.
But tonight I didn’t stay there long. I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. I was begi
I got up from the chair and walked over to the desk. I wanted to be sure to take the page from People magazine upstairs with me. I didn’t want to forget it. Greco had been so insistent that I show it to Peter on the next visiting day.
I had anchored the page with Peter’s handsome antique magnifying glass, and it was covering a section of the background in the picture of Marian Howley.
Part of the section magnified included a painting on the wall behind Howley. I lifted the magnifying glass and studied the painting intently. It was a pastoral scene, identical to the one I had replaced in the dining room. Taking the page and magnifying glass with me, I ran upstairs to the third floor. I had changed a number of the paintings, and had to dig it out from within a stack I had placed on the floor, each painting covered and carefully wrapped.
The frame was heavy, and I was cautious not to overdo the pulling and lifting, but finally I got it out. I propped it against the wall and then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it. Using the magnifying glass, I slowly began to examine it.
I’m not an art expert, so the fact that this painting did not in any way stir me was not a test of its value. It was signed in the corner-Morley-with the same flourish as the one now hanging in the dining room. The two paintings were essentially identical in content. But the other one compelled attention; this one did not. The date on this one was 1920.
In 1920, had Morley painted this scene and then gone on to create other similar scenes, only with greater skill? It was possible. But then I saw what could only be visible by careful examination: There was another name under Morley’s signature.
“What do you think you’re doing, Kay?”
I whirled around. Vincent Slater was standing in the doorway, staring at me, his face white, his lips a thin hard line. He began walking across the room to me, and I shrank away from him.
“What do you think you are doing?” he asked again.
78
In Barbara Krause’s office, a court stenographer had been summoned to take down the statement given by Ambassador Charles Althorp. More composed now than he had been when he entered the office, Althorp’s voice was steady when he began to speak again.
“At the time of her disappearance, I did not reveal that I had learned my daughter, Susan, had developed an addiction to cocaine. As investigator Nicholas Greco pointed out to me the other day, had I told that to the police when Susan disappeared, the investigation might have moved in another direction.”
He looked down at his folded hands as if contemplating them. “I thought that by keeping a tight rein on Susan, and cutting off her allowance, I would force her to stop using drugs. Of course, I was wrong. Greco told me that the afternoon of the party in the Carrington mansion, the present Mrs. Carrington, who was then six years old, overheard a woman blackmailing a man because she needed money. Greco believes-and now I do as well-that it was Susan she heard. Hours later, Susan disappeared.
“For years I have kept the secret of Susan’s addiction. I told my sons about it as we stood next to their mother’s grave. Had I revealed it earlier, a great injustice might have been avoided.” Althorp closed his eyes and shook his head. “I should have…” His voice trailed off.
“What exactly did you tell your sons, Ambassador?” Tom Moran asked.
“I told them that I believed Susan started taking drugs when she returned from college the begi
“My son David had come home for a visit the Christmas before Susan disappeared. Susan had been spending a lot of time at the Carrington mansion. David told me that she confided to him she had noticed that several of the paintings downstairs in the Carrington mansion had been replaced with copies. She was studying art, you know, and knew a lot about the subject. She was sure she knew who was doing the copying, because on one occasion that person invited a young artist to a party in the house, and Susan saw her taking photographs of several paintings.
“David advised Susan to forget what she had discovered and not breathe a word of it to anyone. He said he knew what would happen if Mr. Carrington Sr. found out about it. It would end up as a very messy court case, and Susan might have to testify. David told her that our family had had enough grief with that family because of my earlier affair with Elaine Carrington.”
“So Susan did as David suggested, but that summer, when she needed money, she may have used her knowledge of the theft of the art to try to get it,” Krause suggested.
“I believe that’s exactly what she did,” Althorp confirmed.
“Was it Peter Carrington, Ambassador?” Moran asked. “Was he stealing from his own father?”
“No, of course not. Don’t you see why this is tormenting me? Peter is in jail right now, accused of killing Susan. He had no reason to kill her. David told me that he believes if Susan had asked Peter for the money, he would have given it to her without question, and then would have tried to get her help. But Susan would never have asked Peter because she was in love with him. David said that my silence has been a curse on Peter. When I spoke to David this afternoon, he said that if I didn’t come here tonight, he would never speak to me again.”