Murder at Mansfield Park

feelings, you returned to the house at once,
without daring to look back. Having regained your room, you remained there in a state of the utmost fear and expectation, dreading every moment to hear a commotion in the hall, as Miss Price
arrived to accuse you, but time dragged on, and nothing of the kind occurred. By nightfall you were forced to conclude that she must have returned from wherever it was she had come. But the
following day her body was discovered, and you were compelled to face the unspeakable possibility that the blow you had struck was far worse than you had perceived, or meant. You had, in fact,
committed murder.’
    He had never yet used that word, and it had the predictable effect on the already high-wrought nerves of his companion. He sat back in his seat and took out his snuff-box. ‘Now, Miss
Bertram. Perhaps you can tell me whether my theory requires some emendation?’
    She took a deep breath. ‘Very little, Mr Maddox,’ she whispered. ‘You are correct in almost every particular. Except one.’
    ‘And that is?’
    ‘I did look back. I could hardly bring myself to do it, but some thing—some impulse—made me turn around. She was still there—lying on the ground where I had left her,
screaming at me. I cannot get the sound out of my head. It haunts me, both sleeping and waking.’
    Maddox could well believe it; her spirits were clearly quite exhausted. ‘So when they found the body, you presumed that she must have fallen into the trench, and been unable to save
herself, dying a lingering and terrible death, from the effects of hunger, no more than a few short hours thereafter.’
    Maria put her head in her hands, and her slender frame was racked with sobs.
    Maddox took a pinch of snuff. ‘This is not the first time I have had cause to remark on the deficiencies of young ladies’ education, particularly in relation to what we might term
the human sciences. A well-nourished young woman like Miss Price could not possibly have succumbed to starvation in so short a period, and certainly not if she retained the use of her lungs, and
the ability to call for help. Now tell me, Miss Bertram, did you see the body when they brought it home?’
    She shook her head, and murmured some thing in which the words ‘my cousin Edmund’ were distinguishable.
    Maddox nodded; it was of a piece with every thing he knew of the public character of Edmund Norris to have stipulated that the young ladies should be protected from such a shocking and
distressing spectacle, but on this occasion his interference had had terrible and unintended consequences.
    ‘Your cousin’s consideration for you has, for once, done you a grave disservice. Had you been permitted to see it with your own eyes, rather than relying for your information on
rumour and servants’ gossip, you would have saved yourself many hours of needless grief and self-reproach. The wounds inflicted on Miss Price were far more grievous than any thing you
describe. The blows that killed her were made by an iron mattock, not a human hand.’
    Maria raised her head and stared at him, daring, for the first time in days, to allow herself the possibility of hope. ‘But how do you know that I am telling the truth—that I did not
pick that mattock up and wield it, just as you say?’
    Maddox shook his head, and smiled. ‘You have the proof, there, in your own hand.’
    Her expression of uncomprehending amazement was, he had to admit, exceedingly gratifying, and one of the subtler pleasures of his chosen profession.
    ‘I do not take your meaning. I have nothing in my hands—nothing of relevance.’
    ‘On the contrary. Before I intruded upon you, you were engaged in needlework, were you not?’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    ‘—and, if I am not mistaken, you hold your needle in your left hand? And your pen, when you write?’
    She nodded. ‘It is not the common way, I know—indeed, when I was a girl, my aunt Norris insisted that our governess school me to use my right hand instead, “as all but idiots
do”. Every thing was attempted, including tying my left hand behind my back in the school-room, but it was to no effect. Not for nothing does my aunt call me gauche .’
    ‘I fear the effort was always doomed to failure, Miss Bertram. Such preferences are in-born, and cannot easily be changed—if at all. But you are correct in noting that it is not a
common trait. It is so un common, in fact, that according to my observations, you are the