Ashworth Hall

12

CHARLOTTE WAS ASLEEP when Pitt reached the bedroom, but just as she had been on her return from London, he was unable to wait until morning to share with her what he had learned. He was less gentle about waking her. He made no pretense at diplomacy. He walked straight in and lit the main gaslamp and turned it up.

“Charlotte,” he said in a normal voice.

She grunted at the brightness of the light and turned over slowly, hiding her face under the coverlet.

“Charlotte,” he repeated, going over and sitting on the bed. He felt abrupt, but it was not a time for approaching softly. “Wake up. I need to speak to you.”

She caught the urgency in his voice even through the remnants of sleep. She sat up, blinking and shielding her eyes, her hair too loosely braided to stay in place, and now falling over her shoulders.

“What is it? What’s happened?” She stared at him, not yet alarmed because there was no fear in him. “Do you know who did it?”

“No … but it wasn’t Justine.”

“Yes, it was.” She was awake now, still blinking in the light, but feeling curious. “It had to be. Why else would she be on the landing in a maid’s dress? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“She went in and hit him on the head, then pulled him under the water,” he agreed. “But she didn’t kill him … he was already dead!”

She glanced at him as if she were not sure if she had grasped what he had said.

“Already dead? Are you sure? How do you know?”

“Yes, I am sure, because Piers said so—”

“Piers?” She was sitting up now. “If he knew, why didn’t he say before?” Her face darkened. “Thomas … maybe he knew it was Justine and he is—”

“No.” He was quite certain. “No, he does not know what it means. He merely told me the evidence ….”

“What evidence?” she demanded. “What evidence does he know now that he didn’t know before?” She was shivering as the bedclothes fell from around her.

“We took the body to the laundry and did something of an autopsy …. Charlotte, Justine had every intention of killing Ainsley Greville, but someone else got there before her and broke his neck … with a single, very expert blow … someone who knows how to kill and has probably done it before.”

She shuddered, but seemed to have forgotten the bedclothes within a hand’s reach of her.

“You mean an assassin,” she said in a whisper. “One of the Irishmen here.”

“Yes, I can think of no other answer,” he agreed.

“Padraig Doyle?”

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

“Eudora will never get over it.” She stared at him. “Thomas …”

“What?” He thought he knew what she was going to say, something about pity and that it was not his fault; not to be too hurt for her, grieved, and above all guilty. He was wrong.

“You must prepare yourself for the possibility that she already knows,” she answered.

Everything in him was repelled by the idea—it was appalling. It was unimaginable that behind those soft features and wounded eyes was an accomplice, even a silent one, in cold, indiscriminate political murder.

Charlotte was looking at him with hurt and sorrow in her face, but for him, not for Eudora. “She is very close to her brother,” she went on quietly. “And she is as Irish as any of them, even if she doesn’t seem like it or hasn’t lived there for twenty years. She might still carry the old hatreds and the unreason which seems to infect everybody in this issue.”

She put out her hand and laid it softly over his. “Thomas … you’ve seen them, you’ve heard them argue. You can see what happens to people once they start talking about Ireland. One man’s freedom is seen as another man’s exploitation and loss, or theft of all he has built up over the generations, and far worse than that, and far more justifiable to defend, as loss of his freedom of faith. A Nationalist independent Ireland would be Roman Catholic. Its laws would be Catholic, whatever the beliefs of the individual. There would be censorship of books according to the Papal Index. All sorts of things would be banned.”

She grasped the coverlets and pulled them half around her.

“I resented it when my own father told me what to read and what not to. I should rebel if the Pope did. He’s not anything to do with me. But in a Catholic Ireland some books would be illegal. I wouldn’t even know they existed ….I’d learn only what the Church decided I should hear. Maybe I don’t want to read them ….I might even agree ….I just want the choice to be mine.”

He did not interrupt.

“On all things, I want laws my own people can vote on ….” She smiled lopsidedly. “Actually, I’d even like to vote on them myself. But either way, I won’t be told by a lot of cardinals in Rome what to do.”

“You’re exaggerating …” he protested.

“No, I’m not. In a Catholic state the Church has the last word.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been talking to Kezia Moynihan. And before you say she is exaggerating too, she told me proof of it. There’s a lot they say which I think is nonsense. They blame the Catholics for all kinds of things, but that much is true. Where the Church of Rome has power, it is absolute. You can’t force religion on other people, Thomas. Mostly I think the Americans have it right. You should keep church and state separate ….”

“What do you know about the Americans?” He was startled. He had never thought of her as having the slightest interest in, let alone knowledge of, such things.

“Emily was telling me. Do you know how many millions of Irish people have emigrated to America since the potato famine?”

“No. Do you?”

“Yes … about three million,” she replied unhesitatingly. “That’s about one in three of the whole population, and it’s largely the young and able-bodied. Nearly all of them went to America, where they could find work—and food.”

“What is that to do with Eudora?” He was shaken by the information, and by the fact that Charlotte apparently knew it, but nothing could take the image of Eudora entirely from his mind.

“Only that the situation is desperate,” she answered, still looking at him with the same gentleness. “There are many people who think when issues are so large that the end justifies any means, even murder of those who stand in the way of what they see as a larger justice.”

He said nothing.

She hesitated, seeming on the brink of leaning forward and putting her arms around him, then changed her mind. Instead she climbed out of bed and went for her dressing robe.

“Where are you going?” he said in surprise. “You’re not going to Eudora?”

“No … I’m going to Justine.”

“Why?”

She put her robe on and tied the long sash. She was completely awake now, but she did not bother to wash her face from the ewer of cold water or run the brush over her tangled hair.

“Because I want to tell her she didn’t kill Ainsley Greville. She thinks she did.”

He stood up. “Charlotte, I don’t know that I want Justine to know ….”

“Yes you do,” she said firmly. “If you have to arrest Padraig Doyle tomorrow, you need this dealt with tonight. Don’t come with me. I can speak to her better on my own. We need to know the truth.”

He sat frozen on the bed. She was right in that they needed the truth, but he also dreaded it.

She went quietly along the corridor, across the landing and into the other wing. The whole house was silent. Everyone had long since gone to bed, apart from Pitt and Tellman, and presumably Piers. But he would not go to Justine’s room at this hour, and certainly not after what he had just been involved in. He would not take the smell and the emotional chaos of such a thing to her.

It was dim in the corridor, the gaslamps on very low, only sufficient to guide anyone who might wish to get up for any personal reason. She knocked on Justine’s door once, sharply, then without waiting for a reply, went in.

It was in darkness and complete silence.

“Justine,” she said in a soft voice, but well above a whisper.

There was a faint sound of movement, then a crinkle of bedclothes.

“Who is it?” Justine’s voice was tight, afraid.

“It’s Charlotte. Please turn up the light. I can’t see where it is.”

“Charlotte?” There was a moment’s silence, then more movement and the light came on.

Charlotte could see Justine sitting up in bed, but wide awake, her ink-black hair over her shoulders and a look of anxiety and puzzlement in her face.

“Has something happened?” she said quietly. “Something more?”

Charlotte came over and sat on the end of the bed. She must learn the truth from Justine, but she could think of no subterfuge with which to trick her in any way, nor did she want to trick her.

“Not really,” she said, making herself comfortable. “But we know more than we did at dinnertime, although we knew quite a lot then.”

Justine’s face reflected no emotion except relief that no further disaster had happened.

“Do you? Do you know who killed Mr. McGinley yet?”

“No.” Charlotte smiled in sad irony. “But we know who did not kill Mr. Greville ….”

“We already know who did not,” Justine said, still keeping a suitably good temper in the circumstances. “Mr. O’Day and Mr. McGinley, and the valet Hennessey, if you had considered him. I hope you would know it was not Mrs. Greville, or Piers, but I suppose you cannot take that for granted. Is that what you have come to say … that it was not Mrs. Greville?” She put her hand on the covers as if to get out.

Charlotte leaned forward and stopped her.

“I don’t know whether it was Mrs. Greville or not.” She met Justine’s dark eyes levelly. “But I should think it unlikely, although she might very well know who did. It was someone very skilled, very professional at killing.” She watched Justine closely, her eyes, her movement. “It was done with one very accurate blow.”

Justine sat absolutely motionless, but she could not keep the start of shock from her eyes. The instant after came a shadow of fear as she wondered how much Charlotte knew, what she had seen in her face. Then it was gone again.

“Was it?” she asked, her voice very nearly steady. Any huskiness in it could easily be attributed to the unpleasantness of the subject and the fact that she had been awoken from the first deep sleep of the night.

“Yes. His neck was broken.”

This time the surprise was accompanied by bewilderment, and for all her iron will and practiced composure she could not hide it. She masked it the instant she saw the recognition in Charlotte’s eyes. She shuddered in revulsion.

“How horrible!”

“It is cold-blooded,” Charlotte agreed. She clenched her hands in her lap where Justine could not see them. “Less understandable than the person who came in after that, with a maid’s cap on and a maid’s dress over her own, and walked behind him with ajar of bath salts in her hand and hit him over the back of the head, then, believing him senseless from the blow, pushed him under the water and held him there.”

Justine was white. She grasped the sheets as if they kept her afloat from drowning.

“Did … somebody … do that?”

“Yes.” Charlotte kept all doubt out of her voice.

“How …” Justine swallowed in spite of her effort at control. “How do you … know that?”

“She was seen. At least her shoes were seen.” Charlotte smiled very slightly, not a smile of triumph or blame. “Blue fabric slippers, stitched on the sides, with blue heels. Not a maid’s shoes. You wore them today at luncheon, with your muslin dress.”

This time Justine made no pretense. She would not lose her dignity so far as to continue to fight when the battle was over.

“Why?” Charlotte asked. “You must have had a very powerful reason.”

Justine looked drained, as if the life had ceased inside her. In a few words Charlotte had ended everything she had longed for and worked for, and almost had within her grasp. There seemed nothing she could say which would alter or redeem even a portion of the loss. There was no anger in her, only resignation in the face of absolute disaster.

Charlotte waited.

Justine began in a low, quiet voice, not looking at Charlotte, but down at the embroidered edge of the linen sheet under her fingers.

“My mother was a maidservant who married a Spanish sailor. He died when I was very young. He was lost at sea. She was left with no money and a small child to bring up. Because she had married a foreigner, against her family’s wishes, they would have nothing to do with her. She took in laundry and mending, but it barely kept us alive. She didn’t marry again.”

She smiled a curious, half-amused smile. “I was never beautiful. I was too dark. They used to call me names when I was a child: gypsy, dago, and worse. And make fun of my nose. But as I got older I had a kind of grace, I was different, and it interested some people … especially men. I learned how to be charming, how to awaken interest and to sustain it. I …” She kept her eyes studiously away from Charlotte’s. “I learned how to flatter a man and make him happy.” She did not specify in what way she meant.

Charlotte believed she understood.

“And Ainsley Greville was among them?”

Justine jerked her head up, her eyes bright and angry.

“He was the only one! But when you are desperate, and it is your way of surviving, you can’t pick and choose. You take who has the money, and doesn’t knock you around or carry disease, at least that you can see. Do you think I liked it?” She was defiant, as if Charlotte were judging her.

“You poor soul,” Charlotte said, slightly sarcastically.

Rage blazed in Justine’s eyes for an instant as they sat staring at each other. It never crossed Charlotte’s mind that she was in any danger. She had in all practical senses forgotten that Justine had only a few days ago attempted to murder a man. She had failed only because he was already dead. She had thought until ten minutes before that she had succeeded.

Charlotte looked at the gorgeous embroidered lace on Justine’s nightgown. It was immeasurably prettier than her own, and more expensive.

“I like your nightgown,” she remarked dryly.

Justine blushed.

Again they sat in silence for several moments.

Justine looked up. “All right … I did it to survive, to begin with. Then I learned to like the luxuries I could afford. Once you’ve been poor, really hungry and cold, you never feel safe enough. You always know it can happen again tomorrow. I was always thinking I’d give it up, do something respectable. It just … never seemed the right time.”

“So why murder Ainsley Greville? Did you hate him so much? Why?”

“No, I didn’t hate that much!” Justine said angrily, contempt hot in her black eyes. “Yes, I hated him, because he despised me just as he despised all women,” she said viciously. “Except when he couldn’t be bothered with us at all. Yes, there was a way in which he was typical of all the men who use women and loathe them at the same time. But I killed him because he would have told Piers what I am—what I was ….”

“Does that matter?” Charlotte did not ask as a challenge this time, simply a question.

Justine closed her eyes. “Yes … it mattered more than anything else in the world. I love him … not just to get out of being a—a whore!” She made herself say the word, and her face showed that it was like stabbing herself. “I love him because he is kind and funny and generous. He has hopes and fears I can understand, dreams I can share, and the courage to seek them. And he loves me … most of all, he loves me.” Her voice was strained so tight it cracked with her effort to keep control. “Can you imagine what it will do to him if he hears? Can you see the scene … Ainsley laughing at him, telling him his precious betrothed was his father’s whore? And he would have enjoyed that. He could be very cruel.”

Her hands were knotted on the edge of the sheet. “He resented anyone’s happiness, especially if he knew them well, because they had something he didn’t. He couldn’t find happiness in any woman because he didn’t know how to love. He didn’t permit the gentleness in himself, so he couldn’t see it in others. He only saw his own reflection, unsatisfied, seeking the weakness to exploit, using his power to hurt, before anyone hurt him.”

“You did hate him, didn’t you?” Charlotte said, feeling not only the emotion behind Justine’s words but the knowledge and the reason.

Justine met her eyes. “Yes, I did, not only for what he did to me, but to everyone. And I suppose for a moment to me he was all men like him. What are you going to do now?”

Charlotte made her decision as she was speaking the words.

“You didn’t kill him, but that was only chance, your good fortune, if you like. You meant to.”

“I know that. What are you going to do?” Justine repeated.

“I don’t know what kind of a crime it is to attack a man who’s already dead. It’s bound to be some sort.”

“If … if Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me …” Justine took a shuddering breath. She did not weep. Perhaps that would come later, when she was alone and it was all over, and there was nothing left ahead but the regret. She regained her control and started again. “If Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me, may I please go and tell Piers myself why? I think I would rather … at least …”

Again there was silence. The gas hissed gently in the bracket. There was no other sound in the house.

“I’m not sure if I can!” It was a cry of despair. Her body was rigid. She really was very slight, almost thin. She looked tight and tense, every muscle in her was knotted. One would have thought physical pain racked through her.

“Yes, you can,” Charlotte assured her. “It may be dreadful, but whatever it is, if you don’t, you will ever afterwards wish you had. Even if you have nothing else left, have courage.”

Justine laughed abruptly, a bitter sound close to hysteria.

“You say that so easily. But it isn’t you facing the only man you’ve ever loved, perhaps the only person, apart from my mother, and she’s dead now, and telling him you are a whore, and a murderess at heart—but not in fact only because some mad Irishman got there first.”

“Do you prefer the alternative?” Charlotte said gently. “That is that someone else tells him. I will, if you want, but only if you make me believe you can’t.”

Justine sat still, staring back at her.

“What do you want?” Charlotte repeated. “Time? It isn’t going to alter what must be done, but I’ll wait here if you like.”

“It isn’t going to change, is it?” Justine said after a moment or two. “I am not going to wake up and find you were only a nightmare?”

Charlotte smiled. “Perhaps I’ll wake up, and it will be Kezia or one of the maids who hit him.” She shrugged. “Or perhaps the Red King will wake up and we’ll all disappear.”

“What?”

“Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Charlotte explained. “Everybody in it was supposed to be part of the Red King’s dream.”

“Then can’t you waken him?”

“No.”

“Then I had better go and tell Piers,” Justine replied.

Charlotte smiled very slightly without saying anything.

Justine climbed out of the bed, hesitated, as if debating whether to dress or not, then put on her robe. She went to the dressing table and picked up the brush. She stood with it in her hand, looking at her reflection in the glass. She was tired, pale with shock and strain; her hair was twisted and had come out of the braid she had placed it in on going to bed.

“I wouldn’t,” Charlotte said, before she realized it was not her place, now of all times, to try to influence such a decision.

Justine put the brush down and looked back at her. “You’re right. It is hardly the time for vanity, or anything that looks like forethought.” She bit her lip. Her hands were not quite steady. “Will you come with me?”

Charlotte was surprised. “Are you sure that’s what you want? This is about the most private thing you will ever do.”

“No, I’m not sure. If I could think of any other way, I’d take it. But someone else there will help to keep it rational and … and honest. It is not a time for trying to use the emotions. It will stop either of us from saying things we might later wish we had said differently, or not at all.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Please, let us go before I lose my courage.”

Charlotte did not argue any further but stood up and followed Justine out into the passage and the short distance to Piers’s room. Justine stopped, drew in her breath and knocked.

The door opened and Piers looked out. He had obviously only just got into bed and had not yet fallen asleep, which, considering what the evening had already held for him, was not surprising. He saw Justine first.

“Is something wrong?” he said in immediate alarm. “Are you ill?” His face in the dim light from the landing was full of concern.

“Yes,” Justine answered with irony. “I must speak with you. I’m sorry it is so late. But tomorrow there will be other things … perhaps.”

“I’ll get dressed.” He was about to retreat when he saw Charlotte. “Mrs. Pitt!”

“I think it would be as well if we came in,” Charlotte said decisively. “We can sit in the dressing room—”

“It’s quite small … there are not three chairs ….”

“In the circumstances it hardly matters,” she murmured, leading the way through the door and inside. “We do not wish to awaken anyone else by speaking outside in the corridor,” she went on. “Or by walking around more than we have to.”

“Why?” He was trying not to look alarmed now. He was very pale and tired. There were heavy shadows like bruises around his eyes, his hair falling forward over his brow at the front and standing up in spikes at the crown. “What has happened, Mrs. Pitt? No one else is … dead … are they?”

“No,” she assured him quickly. Although, considering what Justine was about to tell him, he might prefer someone were. “Please sit down. I can stand.”

Now thoroughly fearful, he obeyed, turning from Charlotte to Justine.

Justine sat on the other chair and Charlotte stood in the shadows by the wall. There was a single lamp burning. Piers must have lit it before he answered the door.

Justine glanced at Charlotte once, then she began.

“Piers, we don’t know who killed your father by breaking his neck. I imagine it was one of the Irishmen, but I don’t know which.” Her voice was very nearly steady. Her effort of will must have been immense. “But it was I who hit him over the head with the jar of bath salts and pushed him under the water—” She stopped abruptly, waiting.

There was utter silence but for the faint hiss of the gas.

Twice Piers opened his mouth as if to speak, then realized he did not know what to say. It was left to Justine to continue. Her voice was harsh with pain. Charlotte knew from the tightness of her back, the rigidity of her shoulders, that she had kept some kind of hope until this moment, and now she had at last let it go. She was speaking from despair.

“I meant to kill him,” she went on flatly. “I didn’t actually, only because he was already dead. I had been his mistress … for money … and he was going to tell you.” She smiled with a bitter mockery at herself. “I thought I couldn’t bear that. I still love you, and I wanted you to love me more than I wanted anything else in the world. It would have been much easier to bear than this … having to tell you myself, and not only tell you what I was but what I have done as well. I’m sorry … I’m sorry I did this to you. You will never be able to understand how sorry ….”

He stared at her as if he had not seen her before.

She looked back in silence, without evasion, almost without blinking.

Charlotte was locked immobile. She would have felt intrusive if she had thought either of them had the slightest awareness of her.

“Why?” he said at last, his face almost bruised with shock and incomprehension at what he had heard. “Why did you live that … that kind of … life?”

This time Justine did not use the word whore. If she were tempted to make excuses, she resisted it. Charlotte would never know if it was her presence there which accomplished that.

“At first it was to survive,” Justine answered, her voice low, expressionless, as though the feeling in it were too great to be allowed through. “My father was killed at sea, and my mother and I had nothing. She was ostracized because she had married a foreigner. Her family would do nothing for us. Later I got used to the things it could buy me, the safety, the warmth, and in time the beauty, the freedom from worrying every day where the next week’s food and rent would come from.”

She took a deep breath and went on. “I knew it wouldn’t last. Women get old, then no one wants them. You can’t earn much past thirty, even less past thirty-five. I wanted to save so I could buy a business of some sort. I kept meaning to get out, but it was too easy to stay in. Until I met you at the theater. I came to love you, and I realized what I had paid for my safety. I stopped from that day on.” She did not make any protestations that it was the truth.

Again he sat silent, only shivering a little, as from physical shock.

Minutes passed by—five, ten, a quarter of an hour. Neither of them moved or made a sound.

Charlotte was getting stiff and, in spite of her gown, thoroughly chilled. But she must not interrupt. Justine had not looked at her. She would, if she wanted her to take any part.

At last Piers drew in a breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I …” He shook his head a little. “I can’t …” He looked wretched, shattered, confused, hurting too much to know how to express it. “I can’t think what to say …” he confessed. “I … I’m sorry. I need a little time … to think ….”

“Of course,” Justine said quickly in a curiously flat tone. It was an acknowledgment of defeat, of a kind of little death inside. She rose to her feet and at last looked at Charlotte. “Good night,” she said to Piers with a formality which was at once absurd and yet understandable. What else was there to say? She turned and went to the door, leaving him also standing helpless, watching her go.

Charlotte followed her and closed the door behind them both. They went back along the passage to Justine’s room. Charlotte was not sure if Justine might want to be alone, but she was afraid to leave her, knowing the despair she must now feel. Without asking, she went into the room after her.

Justine was walking in a nightmare, as if unaware even where she was anymore. She walked into the corner of the bed, bruising herself against the wood and barely registering the pain. She sat down suddenly, but she was too numb to weep.

Charlotte closed the door and went over to her. There was nothing to say which would mean anything. It would be ridiculous and painful to talk about hope or even to imagine plans. There was nothing which could have been done differently or better as far as Piers was concerned, and anyway it was all past. She did not know whether Justine would find touch comforting or intrusive, but it was her instinct to reach out. She sat beside her on the bed and very gently put her arms around her.

For minutes they sat unmoving, Justine rigid, locked inside her own pain. Then at last she relaxed and leaned against Charlotte’s shoulder. The wound was no less, but she consented to share it for a space.

Charlotte had no idea how long they sat. She grew stiff and even colder except where Justine’s body kept her warm. Her arm started prickling with pins and needles. When she could bear it no longer and her muscles were beginning to jump, she spoke.

“You might try to sleep a little. I’ll stay with you if you like—or go, if you’d prefer?”

Justine turned around slowly. “How selfish of me,” she answered. “I’ve sat here as if there were no one else in the world. You must be exhausted. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m not,” Charlotte lied. “Do you want me to stay? I can sleep here anyway.”

“Please …” Justine hesitated. “No, that’s stupid. I can’t expect you to stay with me forever. I brought this on myself.”

“We bring a lot of our griefs upon ourselves,” Charlotte said honestly. “It doesn’t make it hurt any less. Lie down and get warm. Perhaps then you’ll sleep a while.”

“Will you lie down too? Under the covers, or you’ll be frozen.”

“Yes, certainly I will.” Charlotte suited the act to the words, and Justine turned out the gas. They lay in silence. Charlotte had no idea how long it was before sleep overtook her at last.

She woke with a start to hear knocking on the door. It took her a moment to remember that the person beside her was not Pitt, but Justine, and then to remember why.

She slid out of bed. She was still wearing her robe. She had climbed into bed without bothering to remove it. She made her way over to the door gingerly, feeling where she went in the dark. She opened it and saw Piers standing in the passage, the gaslight yellow behind him. There was no hint of daylight yet from the windows of the landing beyond. He looked haggard, as though he had been pacing all night, but his gaze met hers directly, without flinching.

“Come in,” she whispered, standing aside for him.

Justine sat up slowly, reaching for the candle. She lit it, and Charlotte closed the door.

Piers walked over to the bed and sat on it facing Justine, Charlotte temporarily forgotten.

“You know at first I thought it might have been Mama,” he said with a crooked, painful smile. “She would have had as good a reason. Or Doll Evans; I think she had an even better one. Poor Doll.”

Justine stared at him, searching his eyes, last night’s despair suddenly, agonizingly quickened with hope again.

“Haven’t you noticed?” she asked softly. “Wheeler is in love with her, perhaps he has been for ages, but she thought after what happened with Greville that he wouldn’t have anything to do with her ….”

“Why not?” he said with a jerky laugh. “It wasn’t her fault. You can be fascinated by someone, and then revolted if they don’t live up to your ideal.” His eyes were very steady on her face. “But if you love them, you expect them to be real, as you are yourself, to have the power and the possibility to be stupid and angry and greedy, and make terrible mistakes … and to have the courage to keep on trying, and the understanding to forgive. Not that Wheeler has anything to forgive Doll for.”

She looked at him with a blaze of hope like a scald of light across the darkness.

“Those are brave words,” she whispered. “Do you think we can live up to them?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted frankly. “Have you the courage to try? Do you think it’s worth it? Or would you rather not take the risk, and leave now?”

For the first time she looked down.

“I don’t think I shall have the chance … although I would like it if I had. I’m all kinds of things, but I’m not a coward. There isn’t anything else I want, except to be with you. There’s nothing else to take as second best.”

“Then …” he started, leaning forward and holding her hands.

She pulled them away.

“Mr. Pitt won’t allow that, Piers. I’m guilty of a crime … not the crime I intended, but a crime all the same. He’ll arrest me in the morning, I expect. If not then, later, after he solves the real murder and the death of Mr. McGinley.”

“Maybe he won’t,” Charlotte intervened. “It’s legally a crime, of course, but it isn’t one which matters a lot.” She looked at Piers. “Unless, as the nearest relative of the deceased, you want to press a charge of defiling the dead? I don’t know what he’ll do. And I don’t know about Tellman either. I don’t know what they have to do.”

Piers turned to Charlotte, his eyes wide. “What will they do to her? A few months in prison at the worst, surely?” He looked back at Justine. “We can wait ….”

She lowered her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. What medical practice would you have, married to a wife who had spent time in prison, let alone for defiling the bodies of the dead?”

He said nothing, trying to muster an argument.

“You wouldn’t get a single patient,” Charlotte agreed, hating to have to be realistic. “You would have to go abroad, perhaps to America …” The thought began to look better. “That way you would also run no risk of meeting anyone you had known previously.”

Justine turned her head and looked at Charlotte with a wry smile. “How very tactfully put.” She looked at Piers again. “You can’t marry a defiler of bodies, my dear, and you can’t marry a whore either.” She winced at the word, using it to wound herself before he could. “No matter how exclusive or expensive.” She laughed. “I know a lot of respected ladies of rank and wealth have extremely loose morals, but they do it for gifts, not for money, and there is all the difference in the world in that. I don’t really understand why. They don’t do it to earn their living. They have plenty of money; they do it because they are bored. I suppose it is the old difference between amateurs and players.” Her voice was rich with mockery. “Trade is so vulgar, after all.”

They all laughed, jerkily, a little too close to hysteria.

“America,” Piers said, looking at Justine, then at Charlotte.

“America,” Justine agreed.

“What about your mother?” Charlotte asked. “What if she needs you?”

“Me?” Piers looked surprised. “She’s never needed me.”

“And if your uncle Padraig is the one who really killed your father and Lorcan McGinley?”

His face darkened and he looked down again. “It’s pretty possible, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It looks as if it could be either him or Fergal Moynihan, and frankly, I don’t think Fergal has the stomach.”

Piers seemed very slightly amused by her bluntness, but it was the humor of despair.

“No, neither do I. But I think Padraig has. And he had plenty of cause, at least where my father is concerned. But I’m not staying here, so if Mama doesn’t want to go back to Ireland, to the Doyle family, who’ll probably make her welcome, then she’d better come to America with us. I can’t see the far west suiting her, but we’d all have to make the best of it. At least there they will have plenty of need for doctors, and they won’t care very much if we are Irish, English, or half-and-half, and they certainly won’t care what our religion is. And as you said, there won’t be much chance of one running into old acquaintances, not if we go to the frontier.”

His voice dropped a little. “But we’ll be poor. All I have won’t last us very long. People may not pay doctors much out there, and they may take a long time to get used to me and accept me. It will be hard work. There’ll be none of the luxuries we take for granted here. Certainly no servants, no pretty gowns, no hansom cabs to call, no sophisticated theater, music, or books. The climate will be harder. There may even be hostile Indians ….I don’t know. Are you still willing?”

Justine was torn between hope and terror of the unknown, the grim and dangerous, perhaps beautiful, but hideously unfamiliar. But it was all she had. She nodded slowly, but with absolute certainty.

“We still have to tell your mother something.”

He nodded also. “Of course. But not yet. Let us see what Mr. Pitt does about Uncle Padraig first, and what he has … decided.”

Charlotte moved away from the shadows at last. “It will be dawn soon. The maids will be up already.” She looked at Piers. “I think we should go back to our rooms and try to get ready for the day. We will need all our strength and whatever courage and intelligence we can bring to it.”

“Of course.” Piers went to the door and opened it for her. He turned and looked at Justine. Their eyes met in something almost like a smile.

“Thank you,” Justine said to both of them, then she spoke to Piers. “I know there is a very great way to go yet, even if I am not prosecuted. I shall have to prove to you that I am what I am trying to be. There is no point in saying I am sorry over and over again. I will show it by being there, every hour, every day, every week, until you know it.”

Charlotte and Piers went out, glanced at each other, then turned their separate ways.

When Charlotte reached her own room the small light was still on in the dressing room, but the bedroom door was ajar and it was dark inside. She was about to take off her robe and creep in when she was startled by a noise and whisked around to find Pitt standing just inside the room, his face drawn with exhaustion. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, his voice rough-edged with anxiety.

Guilt washed over her in a wave. She had not even thought of telling him where she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said, aghast at herself. “I stayed with Justine. She was so … so devastated. She told Piers. It took him all night, which in the circumstances is no time at all, but I think it will be all right.” She took a step towards him. “I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t think.”

“No,” he agreed. “She tried to kill Greville. You can’t protect her from that.”

“So what are you going to do?” she asked. “Arrest her for killing a corpse? I’m sure it is a crime, but does it matter? I mean …” She shook her head. “I know it matters, but will it really help anyone to prosecute her?”

He said nothing.

“Thomas … she won’t go unpunished. She can’t stay here, and she knows that. She wants to leave her old life, and she and Piers can go to America, to the west, where nobody will know her.”

“Charlotte …” He looked crumpled and worn out with sadness.

“You can’t stop him marrying her … if he wants to,” she said quickly. “And she did tell him ….”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I went with her. I don’t know whether it will be all right or not, maybe no one will for years. But he’ll try. Can’t you just … turn a blind eye? Please?” It crossed her mind to say something about Eudora, and what it would mean to her, but she dismissed it as unworthy. This was between herself and Pitt, and Eudora Greville had nothing to do with it. “It will be hard enough for them,” she added. “They will leave everything they know behind them and take only their love, their courage, and their guilt.”

He leaned forward and kissed her long and very close, and then again, and then a third time. “Sometimes I haven’t the slightest idea what you are thinking,” he said at last, looking puzzled.

She smiled. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

Gracie woke up, and it was a moment before she remembered what had happened the day before, the strange, sweaty candle in Finn’s room, the look in his eyes when she had touched it … the guilt which had betrayed to her what it was, and then his anger when she had run away, then his arrest. It was hard to feel different about him quickly. There was too much memory of sweetness. One could not turn off emotion in a few hours, not when it had run so deep through you.

She got up and washed and dressed. She did not care how she looked. Clean and tidy was all that mattered, good enough for the job. Pretty wasn’t important anymore. Only the day before it had mattered so much.

She went downstairs and passed Doll looking busy but with a faraway smile on her face, and Gracie found it in herself for a moment to be glad for her.

In the servants’ hall she met Gwen, taking a quick cup of tea before going up with hot water for Emily to wash.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said with a little shake of her head. “He seemed like a nice fellow. But far best you’re out of it now, and not later. One day you’ll maybe find someone decent, and you’ll forget all about this. At least you’ve still got your character, and no one thinks the worse of you.”

Gracie knew she meant well by it, but it was no comfort. The broken ache of loneliness inside her was just as deep—in fact, in ways deeper, because other people knew about it. Better they were sympathetic than not, probably. But it was surprising how kindness could hurt, make you want to sit down and cry.

“Yeah, I s’pose,” she said, not because she agreed, but she did not want to prolong the conversation. She poured herself a cup of tea. The hot liquid might warm her up inside, and it would give her something to do other than stand and talk. Maybe Gwen would go and carry the water up soon. Then she could draw her own and take it up to Charlotte.

“You’ll be all right,” Gwen went on. “You’re a sensible girl and you’ve got a good place.”

Sensible girls could hurt just as much as silly ones, Gracie thought, but she did not say so.

“Yeah,” she agreed absently, sipping at the tea. It was too hot. “Thank you,” she added, in case Gwen thought she was sulking.

Gwen put down her cup and went out, patting Gracie quickly on the arm as she passed.

Gracie sipped her tea again, without really tasting it. It was time she ran the water for Charlotte. She would probably have to take up enough for Pitt too. Don’t suppose Tellman would think of that.

Her tea was too hot to hurry. She was still only halfway through when the door opened and Tellman came in. He looked terrible, as if he had been up half the night, and had nightmares the little he had been in his bed. At another time she might have been sorry for him, now she was too consumed with her own hurt.

“D’yer want some tea?” she offered, indicating the pot. “It’s fresh. And yer look like summink the cat brought in.”

“I feel like it,” Tellman replied, going to the teapot. “I was up until heaven knows when.” He looked as if he had been about to add something more, than changed his mind abruptly.

“Wot for?” she asked, passing him the milk. “Yer ill?”

“No,” he replied, looking away from her.

In spite of her own absorption in misery, she was aware that something must have happened. Perhaps it was to do with Finn. She had to ask.

“Why were yer up, then? Did summink ’appen?”

He looked at her closely, searching her face, then made his decision. “Mr. Pitt was up too. We were just trying to solve the case, that’s all.”

“And did yer?”

“No, not yet.”

“Oh.” She did not want to know any more about Finn. She was afraid of what it would be, so afraid her stomach knotted up in misery, but she also desperately wanted Pitt to win, he must! That was her first loyalty. That was the deciding thing which had driven her to tell him about the dynamite. She would rather not talk about it at all. She would rather not even have been there. But she had no choice; really, no one ever did have, unless they were going to run away altogether.

“I gotter get the water,” she said, finishing the last of her tea. It was cool enough now. “Mrs. Pitt’ll be gettin’ up.”

“I doubt it,” he replied. “She was probably woken when Mr. Pitt went to bed. I expect she’ll want to sleep in.”

“P’r’aps, but I’d better see.” She did not want to stay there with Tellman, of all people. She started towards the door.

“Gracie …”

She could not just ignore him. “Yeah?” she said without turning.

“Whoever killed Mr. Greville was the kind of person who’s used to killing people. It wasn’t done out of passion, or self-defense, or revenge or anything like that. I mean … I mean, if it had been Doll Evans, or Mrs. Greville, or someone like that, you could understand it. It’d still be wrong, of course, but you could understand it.”

She turned around slowly. “It weren’t Doll, I know that, ’cos I saw ’oo done it. She weren’t as tall as Doll. It were Mrs. Greville or Mrs. McGinley, I reckon.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said, his face tight with emotion, his eyes steady on her. “The woman you saw tried to kill him, but he was already dead. She didn’t know that, but his neck was broken. That’s what we found out last night.”

“Broken? How d’yer know that?”

“You don’t want to hear that And don’t you go saying anything to anyone, do you understand? That’s confidential police business. It’s a secret. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Why did yer?”

“I …” he hesitated, looking unhappy. “Gracie … I … I hate to see you hurt like this.” He was acutely uncomfortable, there was a flush on his hollow cheeks, but he would not stop now he had begun. “But I thought it might help to know that whoever killed Mr. Greville was professional at it. You don’t just kill someone that easily, with one blow, if you’ve had no practice.” He was more wretched by the moment. “I daresay they think what they’re doing is right, but it isn’t right by any of the sort of things we believe in. You can’t get freedom for people by murdering other people just because you think they stand in your way. What kind of a person does that make you?”

What he said was true. In her heart she already knew it. It had been a glimmer, like a door opening, the minute she saw the dynamite. It had been growing wider, more certain since then. She had not lost something real, she had only lost a dream. But dreams can matter very much, and it was too soon to feel anything but pain.

“Yeah, I know,” she conceded, not looking at him. “I gotter take the water up all the same.”

“Gracie!”

“What?”

“I wish … I wish I could make you feel better ….”

She looked at him standing by the table, awkward, so tired he looked hollow-eyed. He was lantern-jawed. No one could have called him handsome, or even charming, but there weis a tenderness in him which startled her. Had it not been so obvious, she would not have believed it, but he cared for her, it was there, naked in his face.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah, I reckon you would. It’s nice of you. I … I gotter take the water. She might be awake any’ow.”

“I’ll carry it,” he offered. “It’s heavy.”

“Thank you.” It was his job anyway, at least to carry the water for Pitt, but she did not feel like saying so, not this time.

He walked to the door and held it open for her while she went through, then filled the jugs and carried them upstairs for her, not speaking again. He did not know what else to say, and she knew that. It did not matter.

When she got upstairs, far from waiting for her, Charlotte was still sound asleep, as Tellman had said she might be, and looked so tired Gracie did not have the heart even to make a noise, let alone draw the curtains. She left the water and crept away again. If Pitt had to be up, that was another thing. Tellman put his water in the dressing room, and he could do everything he needed without disturbing Charlotte. She could always ring when she woke.

Gracie was downstairs again, passing the conservatory door, when she glanced sideways and saw Mr. Moynihan and Mrs. McGinley standing very close together, talking earnestly. She had no business to, but she stopped and listened.

“… but, Iona, we can’t just walk away from each other like this!” Fergal said wretchedly.

“Then how?” she asked, her face calm and sad, a stark contrast to his, which Gracie could see if she moved forward six inches. He was miserable and confused. There was almost a sulkiness about him, as though he felt not only profoundly unhappy but also aggrieved.

“Don’t you care?” he demanded, the anger coming through in a sharp note. “Is this all it means to you? You can just say good-bye without fighting for what you want or weeping when you lose it? Perhaps I want it far more than you do?” That was said with challenge. He did not want her to agree, but if she did, then he was branding her cold, without fire or dreams, without the reality of love.

“What do you want, Fergal?” she asked. “Do you really know? Is it me you want, or is it a great romance, some desperate cause to suffer for, and perhaps to excuse you from having to fight for a Protestant Ireland you no longer totally believe in?”

“Oh, don’t make that mistake,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes dark and narrow. “Don’t ever deceive yourself I don’t know what I fight for in Ireland. I’ll never change in that cause. I’ll not bend the knee to Rome, whoever I love, or lose. I’ll not sell my soul for a superstition, a set of beads and incantations, instead of the disciplines and virtues of God.”

“That’s what I thought,” she answered wearily. “And I imagine you would know I would never give up the laughter and the love, the heart’s faith of my people, in trade for the dark miseries of the north with all its anger and blame, its hellfire punishments and its vinegar-faced ministers. It is because I love you that I know it’s best we part now, while we can still keep good memories and be sorry we hurt each other, not glad. I want to remember you with a smile.”

He stood there motionless, still confounded. She had made the decision and taken it out of his hands, and that too annoyed him.

Iona looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and walked back towards the doorway to the hall.

Gracie was obliged to scuttle backwards in order to walk away with any kind of dignity, as if she had not seen them, and she heard no more. But she thought of it for the rest of the morning as she went about her duties. It was so easy to fall in love, sometimes, and so hard to give up the magic, the excitement, the color it lent to everything. But that kind of feeling did not always stand the test of honesty, of any kind of affliction except the momentary. Sometimes you stayed loyal for loyalty’s sake, not because it was what you believed. Love of love was so easy to understand. It was what Mr. Moynihan had felt, and now he was angry and hurt because it had not transformed itself into something which would last.

Mrs. McGinley could see that. She was wise enough to leave it before it was broken too far even to remember.

Maybe it was best for Gracie herself to leave Finn Hennessey when she could still think of the cold glasshouse with its chrysanthemums and the smell of his skin and the touch of his lips. Better not to know too much about the rest, and the gulf between them. Some things could not be explained. The more you know, the worse it becomes. Their imaginations had met, and perhaps that was all.

Charlotte woke up with a start. The curtains were still drawn closed, but it was obviously mid-morning. Pitt was gone, and she could hear no servants on the landing. She sat up quickly. Her head was throbbing, her mouth dry. She had slept too heavily and too long. Where on earth was Gracie, and why had nobody called her?

Then she remembered the night, Pitt coming to tell her what they had discussed, and then Justine, and Piers, her own involvement, Pitt’s anger and worry, and then his touch afterwards, the warmth of it.

But it was not only Piers’s world which had crumbled around him; in a smaller way, Gracie’s had also. Charlotte wished there was something she could do to help, but she knew there wasn’t. There was no help for that kind of pain, except not to keep referring to it, or talking around it, trying to convince the person that it did not really hurt and was all for the best. Above all, never tell people you know how they feel. Even if you have had the same experience, you are not the same. Each person’s pain is unique.

She climbed out of bed slowly, feeling as if her head would drop off if she were not careful. She must get dressed. They still did not know who had murdered Ainsley Greville or Lorcan McGinley, at least not officially. She had a sickening feeling there was little doubt left that it was Padraig Doyle, with all the grief that that would bring.

She would have to summon all the strength she had to deal with that. Eudora would be shattered. Pitt would be torn with compassion for her, aching to be able to help, and guilty because he was the one who would have to uncover the truth and prove it.

Charlotte would dearly like to tell Eudora it was her own distress and she would have to live with it. It was not Pitt’s fault she had failed to grow close to her son, or that her husband was a callous user of people, or that her brother was an assassin.

But if she were honest, what she really meant was that Eudora had a grace about the way she suffered, and her need was consuming a part of Pitt that Charlotte thought should be hers. Not a very becoming sentiment.

The water in the jugs had gone almost cold. She could ring for more or use what was there. Cold water might wake her up anyway.

The door opened and Pitt came in. He stopped in surprise.

“You’re awake.” He frowned. “Are you all right?” He closed the door and came over towards her. “You look dreadful.”

“Thank you,” she replied waspishly, pushing her hair out of her eyes and reaching blindly for a towel.

He passed it to her. “Don’t be sarcastic,” he criticized. “You really do look poorly. I suppose I haven’t realized how hard you’ve had to work to stop this from being a disaster, especially for Emily.”

“She’s terrified for Jack …” she responded.

“I know.” He brushed her hair back off her face. “She has every cause to be.”

There was a knock at the door, and reluctantly Pitt went to answer it, expecting Gracie, but it was Jack.

“Cornwallis is on the telephone to speak to you,” he said.

Pitt let out his breath in a sigh.

“In the library,” Jack added. He looked concerned. He glanced at Charlotte, smiled bleakly, then followed Pitt out.

Pitt went down the stairs feeling weary and apprehensive. He had nothing to tell Cornwallis that he would want to hear. And yet there was also something even more important, deeper into the core of himself, which had eased out. A knot which had been hurting him was unraveled and smooth. He would not ever completely understand Charlotte. He did not want to. In time that would become boring. There would always be occasions when he wished she were more obviously vulnerable, more dependent upon his strength or his judgment, or more predictable. But then she would also be less generous, less brave, and less honest to him, and that was too high a price to pay for a little emotional comfort. She could not give him every answer he wanted, any more than he could for her. But what they could give was far, far more than enough; it was full, heaped, and running over. The few other things did not matter; they could be forgotten or done without.

He went into the library and picked up the telephone receiver.

“Good morning, sir.”

He heard Cornwallis’s distinctive voice on the other end. “Good morning, Pitt. How are you? What is happening there?”

Pitt made his decision about Justine without even being aware of it.

“We had a closer look at Greville’s body, sir. He didn’t drown. He was killed by a very skilled blow to the side of the neck. A professional assassin, or at the very least someone who knew precisely what to do and how.”

“Hardly a surprise,” Cornwallis replied with disappointment. “That only really tells us what we had already assumed. We can’t keep those people there much longer—in fact, not more than tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest, and that may be more than I can manage. We can’t keep this secret, Pitt. The conference report is due tomorrow. I can’t delay beyond another twenty-four hours at the outside.”

“Yes, I know,” Pitt said slowly. “I do know more of what happened, but it doesn’t yet prove who was responsible.” He told Cornwallis about Finn Hennessey and the dynamite.

“Can’t you get anything from him?” Cornwallis said, but with a downward inflection in his voice as though he took for granted a negative answer.

“Not yet,” Pitt replied, but there was the faintest glimmer of hope in the back of his mind, too small to grasp.

“What are you going to do now?” Cornwallis pressed. “Surely from what you’ve told me it has to be Doyle or Moynihan. And Hennessey would hardly collaborate with Moynihan. Their views and aims are directly opposing! If they weren’t, we wouldn’t have an Irish Problem to begin with.”

“I know all that,” Pitt conceded. “But I can’t prove it, even to myself, let alone to a court. But we’ll go back to the bomb in Jack’s study and see if we can’t trace McGinley’s movements better and see how he knew it was there. We may be able to deduce what he learned, and it might be enough.”

“Please let me know this evening,” Cornwallis instructed. “Even if you have nothing.”

“Anything more on poor Denbigh?” Pitt asked him. He had not forgotten about the beginning of the case, or the anger and disgust he had felt then.

“A little, although I don’t think it will help much.” Cornwallis sounded very far away on the other end of the line, even as if his thoughts were distant. “We’ve been working on it with every man we could spare. We know a great deal more about the Fenians here in London than we did even a couple of weeks ago. But this man seen following Denbigh, and who we are sure is responsible for his death, is not among them.”

“You mean he went back to Ireland?”

“No … that’s the point. He infiltrated the Fenians as well. But he isn’t one of them. He learned a few bits of information about their plans, membership and so on, and then went. I think they’d like to get him almost as much as we would.”

Pitt was puzzled. “Then who is he, and why did he kill Denbigh?”

“I think that may be the point,” Cornwallis answered. “Maybe Denbigh discovered who he was, and that’s why he killed him, not to protect the Fenians at all. But it doesn’t help you, because he certainly isn’t at Ashworth Hall or you would have seen him. He’s unmistakable in appearance. Your man is either Doyle or just possibly Moynihan.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “Yes, I know. Thank you, sir.”

Pitt bade him good-bye and replaced the receiver. He went to look for Tellman and found him in the servants’ hall looking glum.

“Any tea?” Pitt asked.

“None that’s fresh,” Tellman answered dourly. After a moment’s hesitation he straightened up from the table where he had been leaning. “I’ll get some.”

Pitt was about to stop him and to say they had important things to do, then he changed his mind. All they could do to begin with was think, and that could be done as well with a fresh, hot cup of tea as without.

Tellman returned ten minutes later with a teapot on a tray, with milk jug, cups, sugar, and Suffolk rusks. He put down the tray with a grunt of satisfaction.

Pitt poured and stood with the steaming cup clasped in his hands, the saucer ignored.

“Go back over everything we know about what McGinley did the morning he died,” he said thoughtfully. “How did he know the dynamite was there? Hennessey didn’t tell him … which means Hennessey and his master were essentially on different sides … I suppose.”

“Doyle,” Tellman answered. “Hennessey was working for Doyle. He must have been.”

“Denbigh wasn’t killed by the Fenians,” Pitt said slowly. “Cornwallis just told me.”

Tellman’s face lit instantly. “Have they got who did it?”

“No … no, I’m afraid not, they just know he wasn’t one of the Fenians. He was an infiltrator, like Denbigh. The Fenians are just as keen to find him as we are.”

“Why’d he kill Denbigh?”

“Possibly Denbigh found out who he was.”

“How does that help us?” Tellman replied, and sipped at his tea. It was too hot and he took one of the rusks instead. “He isn’t here. We’d have seen him. No one broke in, I’m sure of that. It was either Doyle or Moynihan who killed Greville. And somehow or other they also put the dynamite there, or else somebody is lying and Hennessey put it there after all.”

Pitt said nothing. There was another idea in his mind, very vague, very uncertain indeed.

Tellman began his tea, drinking it gingerly, blowing on it now and then.

Pitt took a rusk, then another. They were excellent, crisp and very fresh, baked with a little butter. Then he drained his cup.

“I’m going to question Hennessey again,” he said when he had finished. “I want you there, and possibly a couple of footmen. It could be unpleasant. And I’ll ask Mr. Radley to be present, and Doyle, Moynihan and O’Day.”

Tellman stared at him, his eyes widening. He was on the verge of asking what Pitt was going to do, then he changed his mind, put down his cup and obeyed.

The questioning took place in the library. They sat in a semicircle and Tellman brought Finn Hennessey into the room and took the manacles off his wrists. He stood, head high, defiant, staring at Pitt. He studiously ignored everyone else.

“We know you brought the dynamite into Ashworth Hall,” Pitt began. “There is no point in your denying it, and to your credit, you have not tried. But you said you did not place it in Mr. Radley’s study, and I believe you, because from other evidence, it does not seem as if you had the opportunity. Who did put it there?”

Finn smiled. “I’ll never tell.”

“We ought to be able to deduce it.” Pitt looked around the room, first at Fergal Moynihan, sitting with his legs crossed, his fingers drumming on the leather arm of his chair. His fair skin was almost pasty, and he looked bored and in short temper. Beside him, Carson O’Day was eager, his eyes restless, flicking from Pitt to Doyle to Hennessey and back again. He was obviously impatient with Pitt’s approach and irritated because he did not believe it would achieve anything. Padraig Doyle leaned right back in his chair, but his expression was guarded. Jack simply looked profoundly worried.

“This is wasting time!” O’Day broke in. “Surely you’ve questioned everyone as to exactly where they were, what they were doing, who saw them there and whom they saw? That seems elementary.”

“Yes, of course we have,” Pitt agreed. “And with what we have learned, it appears impossible anyone placed the dynamite where it was. So someone must be lying.”

“There’s one answer which seems to have escaped you,” O’Day said with a touch of condescension. “McGinley put it there himself. He was not a hero trying to defuse it and save us all, as Hennessey would have us believe … he was an assassin placing it there to kill Radley. Only he was a clumsy assassin, and succeeded in blowing himself up instead. That solution would answer all your evidence, wouldn’t it?”

“All the evidence of the explosion, yes,” Pitt answered deliberately, a little tingle of excitement beginning in the center of the stomach. He must be very careful indeed. One slip and he would lose this. “But not the murder of Mr. Greville,” he went on. “McGinley couldn’t have done that because you yourself heard him talking to Hennessey at the relevant time.”

O’Day stared at him, his eyes growing wider, his body motionless.

No one else moved.

“Didn’t you?” Pitt said quietly.

O’Day looked as if he had received an astonishing revelation.

“No … he said almost under his breath. “No! I heard Hennessey talking to McGinley.” He swung around to stare at Finn. “I heard you. I never heard McGinley’s replies to you. I heard your voice. I heard you answer questions, I never heard McGinley’s voice. I don’t actually know if he was there … I assumed it. But you could be lying to cover for him, just as you did for the dynamite. He—” He stopped. There was no need to continue. The tide of color flooding up Finn’s cheeks made it unnecessary. O’Day swung to face Pitt. “There’s your murderer for you, Superintendent! Lorcan McGinley, acting for the Fenians, the saboteurs of Irish honor and dignity, prosperity and ultimate freedom to choose for themselves, not by bullet or dynamite, but by popular vote … the true voice of—”

“Liar!” Finn burst out. “You thieving, murdering liar! What freedom or honor is it to let women and children starve? To drive whole families off their land and steal it for yourselves? You hate the real people of Ireland. All you love is yourselves, your greed, your land and your dark, hypocritical, canting ways that deny the true Church of God! The Fenians are the fighters for Ireland!”

“Whether they are or not isn’t the point in this, Hennessey,” Pitt said clearly. “The Fenians weren’t behind the murders here.”

O’Day froze.

Doyle jerked around to stare at Pitt.

Finn Hennessey looked at him in total disbelief.

“Oh, it was someone who wanted to sabotage the conference all right,” Pitt continued. “Because he feared the conclusions it might come to and what recommendations it would make to Parliament. But it was chaired by a liberal Irish Catholic. It wasn’t only Fenians who had cause to be anxious over what the results might be.”

“It was Fenians!” Hennessey said defiantly.

“No it wasn’t,” Pitt contradicted with increased vehemence. “Ask your Fenian friends in London. They were infiltrated by a man with light, staring eyes who had tried to run Greville off the road earlier on, and then in London killed our man in the Fenians—”

“Your man?” Doyle said sharply.

“A policeman named Denbigh. He was murdered just before the conference started. We thought it was because he knew of the Fenian plot to murder Greville, only we now know the man who did it was no Fenian.” He looked back at Hennessey. “You were used, Finn, as you know you were … but not by your own side. You were used by the Protestants. They put you up to this, for their own reasons, and let you and the Catholic Nationalists take the blame. They wanted this conference to fail because they cannot accept any compromise at all, or they’ll lose the support of their own extremists.”

“That’s rubbish!” Moynihan exploded. “Absolute nonsense, and totally wicked and irresponsible! Of course it was the Fenians. It’s exactly the sort of thing they would do. We were close to agreement, and they couldn’t let that happen. It’s Doyle!”

“We were close to agreement,” Jack put in, his voice ringing with certainty. “It was a compromise … a real compromise, with both sides conceding something. But maybe one side never meant the conference to last? What could it matter what they gave away, to appear reasonable, if they knew it would never be implemented, in fact never be spoken of outside these walls?”

“The man with the light eyes …” Finn said, staring at Pitt. “He wasn’t a Fenian?”

“No.”

Finn turned to Doyle.

“No.” Doyle shook his head. He smiled very faintly. “We want him as much as the police do.” He glanced at Pitt. “Although if you repeat that outside Ashworth Hall, I’ll call you a liar.” He looked at Finn again. “You’ve been used, Hennessey, and not by your own.”

Fergal swung around to O’Day, horror in his face.

Finn snatched himself free of Tellman and launched himself at O’Day, fists flying, and the chair collapsed backwards, throwing them both onto the floor.

Tellman started forward.

Doyle put his hand out and held him back.

“Let him be, lad,” he said grimly. “If ever a man deserved beating, it’s Carson O’Day.” He looked at Pitt, his face filled with disgust. “You can’t even get him for instigating the murder of Greville. And if he had not prompted McGinley to try to kill Jack, Lorcan wouldn’t have blown himself up. God, it makes me sick!”

“No,” Pitt agreed with ironic satisfaction. “But with Hennessey’s help, we’ll establish the chain of evidence and we’ll hang him for conspiracy to murder Denbigh, and that will do.” He looked down at O’Day struggling on the floor beneath the burning rage of Finn, a man used and betrayed and now condemned. “I think Mr. Hennessey will make very sure he succeeds in that.”

“Oh, he will,” Doyle agreed. “God help Ireland.”