The Perfect Crime

“Hurry up and get it off her, Gloria.”

Under a keen, cold moon, Cedric and Gloria’s monstrous work was in full swing. The moment he set foot in the bedchamber where Marienne lay, Cedric was already demanding her clothes be stripped away.

“Don’t you dare sneak a look at Mari’s naked body, I mean it,” Gloria snapped, her voice fretful and on edge. Cedric stood with his face turned to the wall.

“I know, all right. Just remember you have to swap everything, right down to the underthings.”
“Keep your eyes properly shut. No — actually, just go stand over there in the corner.”

But stripping the clothes off the limp body of a grown woman was no easy task. For all her bold talk, even Gloria was soon groaning, worn out by the effort.

“Want some help, Ria?”

“I said no!” Gloria refused, shrill.

Cedric’s help would have made it easier, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him seeing Marienne’s bare body, let alone laying a hand on it.

“Ugh, look how much she’s sweated,” Gloria grumbled, peeling off the last of Marienne’s clothes.

She had no wish to put on garments soaked through with another woman’s sweat.

“The smell, honestly. How long am I supposed to walk around in this junk?”
“Just bear it until morning. When it’s light, wake up as if nothing’s amiss and call for me. I’ll handle the rest after that.”
“How in the world am I meant to sleep in this thing?”

Grumbling all the while, Gloria finished changing.

“There, all done. You can look now.”

After a long wait, Cedric came to the bedside. Marienne now wore Gloria’s clothes, and Gloria wore Marienne’s.

“We have to fool them flawlessly. The servants, of course — and even your parents. Can you manage it?” Cedric asked.

“Don’t you worry. That’s easier than breathing. Whenever I pretended to be Mari, even our own mother was fooled completely.”

For Gloria it was no trouble at all. More than once, after all, she had passed herself off as Marienne to their father, who doted on Marienne above all else, and coaxed extra pocket money out of him.

“Playing Mari isn’t enough. You have to be able to prove to people that you’re the real Marienne.”
“Prove it how, exactly?”
“How much do you actually know about Mari?”
“What is there about her that I don’t know? Until she married, we were joined at the hip our whole lives.”
“And after she married?”
“Everything but the time we spent apart. Not as well as before, but we’ve been together constantly of late.”

When her husband marched off to war and left her behind, Gloria had spent the better part of a year at a villa in the south, on the pretext of convalescence, before drifting from place to place in search of amusement. Until Marienne brought her to the capital, even Cedric, the lover she had once been unable to live without, had scarcely managed to see her. In truth, almost no one knew exactly how Gloria had spent all that long stretch of time.

“Damn it, Ria. Think of something. You have to be more Mari than Mari herself.”

Cedric shook his head, irritated.

“Is there really nothing? Something you know better than Mari does.”
“Why wouldn’t there be? There’s one thing.”

At her easy answer, Cedric pricked up his ears, his face keen with interest.

“And what’s that?”
“You, Cedric.”

She meant it literally. Whatever there was to know about Cedric, she was certain she knew it better than Marienne ever could.

How many moles ran down his flank, for instance. Which of his thumbs was the longer, the left or the right. Right down to which of her poses, arched beneath him, could drive Cedric out of his mind.

They were things Marienne would never know, not if she died and woke again a hundred times over.

“I’ll tell you this, Cedric. I know you better than your own wife does. So please, drop that useless worrying.”
“Haa — all right. I’ll trust you. Now I have to move Mari, so go out and keep watch.”
“Wait.”

Cedric was just bending to lift Marienne when Gloria abruptly stepped into his path.

— Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!

Before anyone could stop her, Gloria struck Marienne’s cheek six times over. Cedric started out of his wits, afraid the blows might rouse her, and bent to check on his unconscious wife.

“Wh-what on earth do you think you’re doing?!”

Slapping an unconscious woman across the face like a madwoman was nowhere near normal.

“Have you lost your mind? What if you wake her doing that?!”
“You think I’d do it for no reason? Look. That little wench is the one who made my lip like this.”

Gloria thrust out her lip, split open where Marienne had struck her.

Cedric looked from Marienne, still in her dead faint, to Gloria and her furrowed brow. By now both faces were equally wrecked, impossible to tell apart. It likely wasn’t what Gloria had intended, but it served its purpose well enough to fool even the maid who would tend her.

“All right, I’ve got it — if your business here is done, come out now. We have to finish everything before daybreak.”

As Cedric bent once more to lift Marienne, his eye caught for an instant on the ring finger of her left hand.

Ah — the wedding ring.

Told to swap clothes, Gloria had swapped only the clothes. With a heavy sigh, Cedric slid the wedding ring from his wife’s finger.

“What’s this, Cedric?”

“What do you think? It’s yours now,” Cedric said, slipping the ring onto Gloria’s finger.

Whether or not she sensed the turmoil in him, the bright smile never once left her face.

“It’s truly beautiful.”

When day broke, she would be born anew under the brilliant sun. A new life had begun, no longer as ‘Gloria Ernst’ but as ‘Marienne Drake.’

And so they believed everything was perfect.

“Ah…”

Every bone in my body ached. My head was clamped tight, as though it might split, and my vision swam. Only after opening and closing my eyes several times did I manage, barely, to gather my wits.

“Oh, good heavens. My dear — are you coming round?”

The voice was deeply familiar. The woman gazing down at me, her eyes brimming with worry, was my mother, the Marchioness Louisa Seymour.

“…Mama?”
“What are you all standing about for? Go and fetch the physician, quickly!”

Another voice came in alongside hers, stern. My father, the Marquis Arthur Seymour, wore a face grave to the point of severity.

Why on earth are my parents here…

Before I could even ask, a stabbing pain lanced through my skull again. It shot up from the nape of my neck until I could scarcely bear it, and with my mother’s help I propped myself against the headboard.

“Good heavens, Gloria. What in the world has happened to you,” my mother said.

Why is she calling me Gloria?

I looked at her, mystified. My mother hovered on the edge of tears, seemingly unable to grasp what was wrong.

“Why ever did you do it, my dear? What did you lack, that you had to covet Mari’s husband? And when I urged you again and again to remarry, you wouldn’t even give it a glance.”
“Dear, that’s enough. There are too many eyes here. Let’s have no more of a scene — for now, gather Gloria up and let’s leave the Count’s manor.”
“But Arthur — I simply cannot believe it. How could such a thing ever…”

My mother couldn’t finish; in the end her tears spilled over. My father drew her into his arms and patted her gently on the back.

Trapped in a situation I could make no sense of, I went rigid. I couldn’t understand why my parents were treating me as Gloria, nor what on earth they were talking about.

Why does everyone keep confusing me with Gloria?

There had been more than a few such moments of late, and, swallowing down the surge of irritation, I forced the words out.

“Wait a moment — there’s been some sort of mistake…”
“I’m told madam has woken.”

I wanted an explanation, anything at all, but the physician chose that very moment to enter, and the words died in my throat.

Even as he examined my head and my eyes and tapped at both my knees, everyone in the room still took me for Gloria.

“Fortunately, there seems to be nothing seriously wrong. Aside from the scalp at the back of the Duchess’s head being split about a knuckle’s length…”
“No — stop. Wait a moment.”
“Is something the matter, madam?”
“It’s not that, I—”

With no other choice, I cut off the physician’s account.

“I am not Gloria Ernst.”

In that instant I felt, clear as day, the eyes fixed on me turn cold.

“You’re all under some misunderstanding. I’m not Gloria — I’m Marienne.”
“…”
“Has Gloria woken? And where is Cedric? There’s something urgent I need to discuss with my husband, right now.”

No one was quick to answer. My parents’ eyes, which had been fixed on me, shifted to the physician, as though urging him to say something, anything.

After a short silence, the physician spoke.

“It appears to be a kind of cognitive disorder. A mental affliction sometimes seen after a severe blow to the head…”

Good heavens. A cognitive disorder.

“A mental affliction…?! That’s not it — I’m telling you, I really am Marienne!”

I clutched at my chest, pleading my case, but the physician only looked away, awkward. For a moment something like guilt seemed to flicker across his face.

“Oh, God above.”

My mother pressed a hand to her brow and let out a long moan. My father hurried to steady her, for she looked ready to swoon on the spot.

“Enough, Gloria. Mari and Count Drake have already suffered a great deal because of you.”

No matter how I pleaded with my parents, nothing was going to change. Desperate, I turned to the maid by the door.

“So — where is Gloria right now?”
“…I beg your pardon?”

Naturally it made no sense to her; the very person she took for Gloria was asking after Gloria’s whereabouts. Fighting down the throbbing in my head, I heaved a heavy sigh.

“My twin, I mean. What state is she in right now?”
“Ah — my lady finished recovering a few days ago, and is going about her daily life with no trouble now.”

“What?”

I had assumed this whole disaster had come about because Gloria was the one laid up in the sickbed. That wasn’t it at all.

While I lay unconscious, Gloria Ernst has been going around playing me?

If that was truly the case, then this could only be called a perfect crime.