Bethlehem Road

Charlotte went with Great-aunt Vespasia and Zenobia Gunne to attend the funeral of Cuthbert Sheridan, M.P. The weather had changed, and the mild winds and sun were replaced by sharp squalls which brought swords of soaking rain one moment, and a cold, glittering light gleaming on wet surfaces, running gutters, and dripping leaves the next.

The three of them traveled in Vespasia's carriage, for convenience and so they might compare observations, if any, although none of them held any strong hope of learning anything useful. The whole investigation seemed to have come to a standstill. According to Pitt, Charlotte informed them, even the police had progressed no further. If Florence Ivory had killed Sheridan, they had discovered no motive for it, nor any witness who even knew of a connection between them, let alone could place her at the scene with means or opportunity.

Vespasia sat upright in the carriage, dressed in lavender 239

and black lace; Zenobia faced her, riding backwards. She wore a very fine, highly fashionable gown of dark slate blue overlaid with black in a fleur-de-lis design, stitched at the bosom with jet beads, the sleeves gathered at the shoulder. She wore with it a black hat which tilted alarmingly and threatened to take off altogether whenever a gust of wind veered to the east.

As had become her habit, Charlotte had borrowed an old dress of Vespasia's, of dark gray, and a black hat and cloak, and with her rich hair and honey warm skin the effect was remarkably becoming. Vespasia's lady's maid had done a few last-minute alterations, which removed from the gown the marks of five-year-old fashion, and now it was merely a very fine gown in which to attend a funeral and be distinguished but not ostentatious.

They arrived opportunely, after the mourners of duty, other members of Parliament and their wives, and immediately behind Charles Verdun, whom Vespasia knew and drew Charlotte's attention to in a whisper as they alighted and slowly walked the short distance from Prince's Road to the vestry of St. Mary's Church.

They were seated in their pew and able to observe Amethyst Hamilton when she arrived, walking straight and tall herself and a step in front of her brother, Sir Garnet Royce, refusing to accept the arm he offered her. Two paces behind them, holding a silk hat in his hand and looking suitably sad and more than a little harassed, came their younger brother Jasper, with a fair-haired woman who was presumably his wife. Charlotte identified them to Vespasia, and watched them discreetly as they were ushered to a pew in the far side three rows forward, which denied her the opportunity of seeing their faces. Sir Garnet was very striking with his high forehead and aquiline nose. The light from the south windows shone briefly on his silver head before the clouds blew across the sky again and the sunlight vanished. Charlotte noticed many eyes on him, and now and again he nodded in

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acknowledgment of some acquaintance, but his main attention seemed to be for his sister and her welfare, for which she appeared unaccountably ungrateful.

Jasper sat next to them in silence, fingering through his hymnal.

There was something of a stir as a well-known Cabinet figure arrived, representing the Prime Minister; after all this was a famous and shocking death. If Her Majesty's Government and their police force could not solve the crime and apprehend the criminal, they could at least be seen to pay all due respects.

Micah Drummond came in much more quietly and sat in the last pew, watching, although he had given up hope of learning anything of value. Neither Charlotte nor Vespasia saw Pitt standing at the very back, looking like one of the ushers, except for the pool of water collecting about his feet from his wet coat; but Charlotte knew he would be there.

At the far side among several other members of Parliament Charlotte saw the humorous, wing-browed face of Somerset Carlisle. She met his eyes for a moment before he saw Vespasia and inclined his head with the suggestion of a smile.

Then the Carfaxes arrived. James, in black, was remarkably elegant but paler than usual; his eyes downcast, he did not seek the glance of anyone else. His confidence in his charm seemed lacking, his old ease had fled. On his arm Helen walked calmly, and there was a peace in her face that added to her dignity. She drew her hand from James's arm before he had released it and sat with composure in the pew immediately to Charlotte's right.

Lady Mary came last. She looked magnificent, even regal. Her dress was highly fashionable; dark slate blue overlaid with black fleur-de-lis and stitched with jet beads across the throat and bosom, the sleeves gathered. A black hat adorned her head at a rakish angle, dashing and precarious. As she drew level with Charlotte, her eyes darted along the row, caught by Zenobia's gorgeous hat, her gown-and she froze,

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all the color draining from her already pallid face. Her black-gloved hand clenched on her black umbrella handle.

Behind her an usher murmured, "Excuse me, my lady," urging her to take her place. Shaking with fury, there was nothing she could do but obey.

Zenobia dived into her reticule for a handkerchief and failed to find one. Vespasia, who had seen Lady Mary arrive, handed her one with an unconcealed smile, and Zenobia proceeded to have a stifled fit of coughing-or laughter.

The organ was playing somber music in a minor key. Finally the widow came in, veiled and in unrelieved black, followed by her children, looking small and forlorn. A governess in black followed and knelt in the pew behind.

The sermon began. The familiar pattern of music and intoned prayer and responses, accompanied the monotonous, hollow voice of the vicar going through the ritual of acknowledging grief and giving it dignified and formal expression. Charlotte paid little attention to the words or the order, instead watching the Carfaxes as discreetly as she could from behind her prayer book.

Lady Mary stared in front of her with a fixed expression, studiously avoiding looking to her left at Zenobia. If she could have taken off her hat she would have, but that was impossible in church; even to alter its angle would be observed now and would only draw attention to the whole business.

Beside her James took part dutifully, rising when everyone else did, kneeling with his head bowed for prayer, sitting solemnly with his eyes on the vicar when he began the address. But the rather drawn look on his face, the strain and slow absorption of shock were not accounted for by grief. Nothing at all had suggested he knew Cuthbert Sheridan, and according to Zenobia a few days earlier he had certainly been in as good spirits as was decent after his father-in-law's death. In fact, he had seemed to her to exude a sort of confidence, a certainty of pleasures to come.

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Charlotte mechanically sang the hymn, her mind far from the words, and continued to watch James Carfax. The zest had gone out of him: in the last few days he had suffered a genuine loss.

The vicar was beginning his eulogy; Pitt would be listening to see if there was anything in it of the slightest use in the investigation, which was extremely unlikely. Charlotte turned her attention to Helen Carfax.

The vicar's voice rose and fell in a regular rhythm, sinking at the end of every sentence; curious how that made him sound so insincere, so devoid of all feeling. But it was the expected form and gave the proceedings a certain familiarity, which she supposed was uplifting to those who came for comfort.

Helen sat upright, her shoulders square, facing directly forward. During the entire service she had participated with something that looked like the very first germ of enthusiasm. There was a resolution in her quite unlike the distress and anxiety Zenobia and Pitt had described. And yet as Charlotte watched her gloved hands holding the hymn book in her lap, her pale cheeks, and the slight movement of her lips, she was quite certain that any relief Helen felt was only that of having reached some decision, not of having had her fear dissolve or turn out to be a shadow with no substance. Charlotte realized it was courage she was witnessing, not joy.

Had Helen somehow ascertained that her husband had had no part in her father's death? Or had the whole burden upon her been simply the pain of knowing that he did not love her with the depth and the commitment she longed for, which indeed he was incapable of doing. And now that she had faced the truth, tempered by the knowledge that it was a weakness in him, not in her, she had ceased to try to procure it by forfeiting her self-esteem, her dignity, and her own ideas of right. Perhaps it was a wholeness within herself she had recovered.

Three times during the service Charlotte saw James speak 243

to her, and on each occasion she answered him civilly, in a whisper; but she turned to him not so much like a woman desperately in love, but rather with the patience of a mother towards a pestering child who is at the age when such things are to be expected. Now it was James who was surprised and confused. He was used to being the object of her suit, not the suitor, and the change was sharply unpleasant.

Charlotte smiled and thought with sweetness of Pitt standing at the back in his wet coat, watching and waiting, and in her mind she stood beside him, imagining her hand in his.

After the last hymn and the final amen, many rose to leave. Only the widow and the closest mourners followed the pallbearers and the coffin to the graveside.

It was a grim performance; nothing of the music and pageantry of the church, not a dealing with the spirit and the words of resurrection, but the tidying away of the mortal remains, the box with its unseen corpse, and the cold spring earth.

Here emotions might show raw, there might be in some face or some gesture a betrayal of the passions that moved the hearts beneath the black silk and bombazine, the barathea and broadcloth.

The sunlight was sharp outside, brilliant on the stone face of the church walls and the thick green grass sprouting around the gravestones. Old names were carved on them, and memories. Charlotte wondered if any of them had been murdered. It would hardly be written in the marble.

It was wet underfoot, and the clouds above were gray-bellied. The wind was chill, and any moment it might rain again. The pallbearers kept their even measured tread, balancing the load between them, the breeze tugging at the fluttering crepe on their black hats. They kept their faces downward, eyes to the earth, more probably from fear lest they slip than an abundance of piety.

Charlotte followed decently far behind the widow, managing to fall in step beside Amethyst Hamilton. Charlotte

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smiled briefly in recognition-this was not the place to renew an acquaintance with words-and kept close to her as she followed her brothers towards the great oblong hole hi the earth with its fresh, dark sides falling away into an unseen bottom.

They gathered on three sides while the pallbearers lowered the coffin, and the grim ritual was played out, the wind whipping skirts and pulling at streamers of black crepe. Women held up black-gloved hands to secure their hats. Lady Mary and Zenobia put up their arms at exactly the same moment, and the two huge brims were pitched at even wilder angles. Someone tittered nervously and changed it into a theatrical cough. Lady Mary glared round for the culprit in vain. She skewered the ferrule of her umbrella into the ground with a vicious prod and stood with her chin high, looking straight ahead of her.

Charlotte watched Jasper Royce and his wife. She was well-dressed but unremarkably so and appeared to be there as a matter of duty. Jasper was a softer, less emphatic version of his brother. He had the same sweeping forehead but without the striking widow's peak. His brows were good, but straighter and less powerful; his mouth was more mobile, the lower lip a little fuller. He was not as individual, not nearly as striking, and yet, Charlotte thought, perhaps an easier man with whom to spend any degree of time.

Now he was bored; his glance wandered idly over the faces opposite him on the for side of the grave, and none seemed to catch his interest. He might have been thinking of dinner or the next day's patients, of anything but the purpose for which they were come.

Sir Garnet, on the other hand, was alert; in fact he seemed to be studying the others present quite as diligently as Charlotte herself, and she had to be careful he did not catch her eye and mark her observation of him. To stare at him as steadily as she was doing, if caught, would seem extraordinary and require an explanation.

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He watched quietly as the coffin was lowered into the grave and the first drops of rain spattered on the hats and skirts of the ladies and the bare heads of the men, and umbrellas were twitched nervously, and left alone. Only one person broke his poise sufficiently to look up at the sky.

The vicar's voice grew a trifle more rapid.

Garnet Royce was tense; there were lines of strain in his face more deeply etched than there had been after Lockwood Hamilton's death. He shifted uneasily, watching, glancing about as if every movement might be of some importance, as though searching might yield him an answer he needed so badly that the pursuit of it dominated his mind.

Was there some factor he knew of that Charlotte did not? Or was it merely that his intelligence made him fully aware of the magnitude of these horrors, more so than the other mourners, who were come from personal grief, or a sympathy born of a similar loss? But what about the other members of Parliament? Did they not know that the newspapers were clamoring for an arrest, that people wrote letters demanding a solution, more police, a restoration of law in the streets and safety for the decent citizen going about his duty or his pleasures? There was talk of treason and sedition, criticism of the government, of the aristocracy, even of the Queen! There were very real fears of revolution and anarchy! The throne itself was in jeopardy, if the worst rumors were to be believed.

Perhaps Royce could see what others only imagined?

Or did he guess at a conspiracy of a private nature, a secret agreement to murder for profit, or whatever three quite separate motives might drive three people to ally with each other to make all the crimes look like the work of one fearful maniac.

Then was Amethyst after all at the heart of at least her husband's death, either as the perpetrator, or the cause?

It was over at last, and they were walking back towards the vestry. The rain came harder, the glittering shafts silver

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where the light caught them. It was unseemly to hurry. Lady Mary Carfax put up her umbrella, swinging it fiercely round and swiping at Zenobia's skirt with the sharp ferrule. It caught in a ruffle and tore a piece of silk away.

"I do beg your pardon," Lady Mary said with a tight smile of triumph.

"Not at all," Zenobia replied inclining her head. "I can recommend a good maker of spectacles, if you-"

"I can see perfectly well, thank you!" Lady Mary snapped.

"Then perhaps a cane?" Zenobia smiled. "To help your balance?"

Lady Mary trod sharply in a puddle, splashing them both, and swept on to speak to the Cabinet Minister's wife.

Everyone was hastening towards the shelter of the church, heads down, skirts held up off the wet grass. The men bent their backs and tried to move as fast as was consistent with any dignity at all.

Charlotte realized with irritation that she had dropped her handkerchief, which she had taken out and held to her eyes from time to time so that she might observe Garnet Royce undetected. It was one of the few lace-edged ones she had left and far too precious to lose simply for the sake of keeping dry. She excused herself from Aunt Vespasia and turned to retrace her steps back round the corner of the church and along the track towards the grave.

She had just rounded the corner and was coming up behind a large rococo gravestone when she saw two figures standing facing each other as if they had met unexpectedly the instant before. The man was Barclay Hamilton, his skin ashen and wet with rain, his hair plastered to his head. In the harsh daylight the pain in him was starflingly clear; he looked like a man suffering a long illness.

The woman was Amethyst. She blushed darkly, then the blood fled from her face and left her as whke as he. She moved her hands almost as if to ward him off, a futile, flut-

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tering gesture that died before it became anything. She did not look at him.

"I. . . I felt I ought to come," she said weakly.

"Of course," he agreed. ''It is a respect one owes."

"Yes, I-" She bit her lip and stared at the middle button of his coat. "I don't suppose it helps, but I. . ."

' 'It might.'' He watched her face, absorbing every fleeting expression, staring as if he would mark it indelibly in his mind. "Perhaps in time she may feel . . . that it was good that people came."

' 'Yes.'' She made no move to leave. ' 'I-I think I am glad people came to-to-" She was very close to weeping. The tears stood out in her eyes, and she swallowed hard. "To Lockwood's funeral." She took a deep breath and at last raised her face to meet his eyes. "I loved him, you know."

"Of course I know," he said so gently it was little more than a whisper. "Did you think I ever doubted it?"

' 'No.'' She gulped helplessly as emotion and years of pent-up pain overtook her.' 'No!'' And her body shook with sobs.

With a tenderness so profound it tugged at Charlotte's heart to watch them, he took her in his arms and held her while she wept, his cheek against her hair, then his lips, for a moment, brief and immeasurably private.

Charlotte shrank behind the gravestone and crept away in the rain. At last she understood the icy politeness, the tension between them, and the honor which kept them apart, their terrible loyalty to the man who had been her husband and his father. And his death had brought no freedom to them, the ban on such a love was not dissolved-it was forever.

Pitt attended the funeral without hope that he would learn anything of value. During the service he stood at the back and watched each person arrive. He saw Charlotte with Ves-pasia and a woman of striking appearance and much more fashionable than Charlotte had led him to expect, but he presumed she must be Zenobia Gunne. Perhaps he was more

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ignorant of the niceties of fichus and sleeves and bustles than he had thought.

Then he saw Lady Mary Carfax sweep in in a gown so nearly identical as to look like a copy, and he knew he had been right the first time.

He also saw the new, inner calmness in Helen Carfax, and the self-assurance that had deserted James, and recalled what Charlotte had told him about Zenobia's visit. One day, if it were possible without social awkwardness, he would like to meet Zenobia Gunne.

He had noticed Charles Verdun as one of the first to arrive, and remembered how much he had liked him. Yet a business rivalry between Verdun and Hamilton was not impossible. Heaven knew, nothing yet made any real pattern; there were only isolated elements, passions, injustices, terrible loss and hatred, possibilities of error in the dark, and always in the background the murmur of anarchy in the ugly, teeming back streets beyond Limehouse and Whitechapel and St. Giles. Or madness-which could be anywhere.

Hamilton and Etheridge were physically similar, of the same height and general build under an evening coat, both with longish, pale, clean-shaven faces and thick silver hair. Sheridan had been younger, and fair-haired, but within an inch of the height. And on the bridge, between the small spheres of light in the vast darkness of the sky and river, what difference was there to the eye between gray hair and blond?

Was it some grotesque, lunatic mistake? Or was the murderer totally sane in its purpose, and there a key to it which he had not even guessed at yet?

He watched the players as they sat in outward devotion through the tedious service. He noticed Somerset Carlisle, and remembered his strange, passionate morality which had held to such bizarre behavior when they had first met, years ago. He saw the widow and felt churlish to question her grief. He watched Jasper and Garnet Royce, and Amethyst Hamilton.

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He saw Barclay Hamilton deliberately sit as far from them as he could without drawing attention to himself by asking others to move.

When the service was over he did not follow them to the graveside. He would be too conspicuous; no one would take him for family or associate. It would be a pointless intrusion.

Instead he hung back near the entrance to the vestry and watched. He saw Charlotte return and then look in her reticule and hurry back again out into the rain.

Micah Drummond stepped in a moment later, shaking the water off his hat and coat. He looked cold, and there was an increasing anxiety stamped in his face. Pitt could imagine the accusing stares his superior had endured from Members of Parliament, the asides from those in the Cabinet, the comments on police inefficiency.

Pitt caught his eye and smiled bleakly. They were no further forward, and they both knew it.

There was no time to talk, and to do so would compromise Pitt's "invisibility" as an apparent usher. A moment later Garnet Royce came in, heedless of the rain running down his face and dripping from the skirts of his coat onto the floor. He did not observe Pitt in the shadows but immediately approached Micah Drummond, his brow furrowed in earnestness.

"Poor Sheridan," he said briefly. "Tragedy-for everyone. Dreadful for his widow. Such a-a violent way to die. My sister is still suffering very much over poor Hamilton. Natural."

"Of course," Drummond agreed, his voice strained with the guilt he felt over his helplessness to do anything about it, to show that the investigation had taken a single step forward. He could offer nothing, and he would not lie.

It was not difficult for Royce to ask the next question. The silence invited it.

"Do you really think it is anarchists and revolutionaries? God knows, there are enough of them around! I have never

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heard so many rumors and whisperings of the collapse of the throne, and of new orders of violence. I know Her Majesty is not young and has undoubtedly taken her widowhood hard, but the people expect certain duties of a sovereign regardless of personal misfortune. And the Prince of Wales's behavior scarcely adds to the luster of the crown! And now the Duke of Clarence is causing gossip with his dissipation and irresponsibility. It seems everything we have taken half a millennium to build is in jeopardy, and we seem unable to stop wild murders in the heart of our capital city!" He looked frightened, not the panic of a hysterical or cowardly man, but the realization of one who sees clearly and is resolved to fight, knowing his anger immense and the prospect of victory uncertain.

Micah Drummond gave the only reply he could, but there was no pleasure in his thin face as he spoke. "We have investigated all the known sources of unrest, the insurrectionists and would-be revolutionaries of one sort and another, and we do have our agents and informers. But there is not a whisper that any of them ally themselves to the Westminster Cutthroat-in fact they seem little pleased by it! They want to win the common people, the little man whom society rejects or abuses, the man oppressed too far by overwork or underpayment. These lunatic murders improve no one's cause, not even the Fenians'."

Royce's face tightened as if some bleak fear had become reality.

"So you do not believe it is anarchists suddenly burst into open violence?"

"No, Sir Garnet, everything points away from it." Drummond looked down at his sodden boots, then up again. "But what it is, I don't know."

"Dear God, this is terrible." Royce closed his eyes in a moment of deep distress. "Here are we, you and I, the government and the law of the land, and we cannot protect ordinary people going about their lawful business at the heart

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of our city! Who will be next?" He looked up and stared at Drummond with brilliant eyes, almost silver in the light, now the rain had stopped outside. "You? Me? I tell you, nothing on earth would persuade me to walk home alone across Westminster Bridge after dark! And I feel a guilt, Mr. Drum-mond! All my life I have striven to make wise decisions, to develop strength of will and judgment, so that I might protect those weaker than myself, those it is given me both by God and by nature to care for. And here I am, incapable of exercising my own privileges and obligations because some lunatic is loose committing murder, apparently whenever he pleases!"

Drummond looked as if he had been struck, but he did not flinch. He opened his mouth to speak, but Royce cut in before he could find words.

' 'Good heavens, man, I'm not blaming you! How on earth does one find a random madman? It could be anybody! I daresay by daylight he looks the same as you or I. Or he may be any half clad beggar hunched in any doorway from here to Mile End or Woolwich or anywhere else. There are nearly four million people in the city. But we've got to find him! Do you know anything? Anything at all?"

Drummond let out his breath softly. "We know that he chooses his time with great care, because in spite of all the people around the Embankment and the entrance to the Houses of Parliament, the street vendors, prostitutes, and cabdrivers, no one has seen him."

"Or someone is lying!" Royce said quickly. "Perhaps he has an accomplice."

Drummond looked at him thoughtfully. "That supposes a kind of sanity-at least, on the part of one of them. Why should anyone aid in such a grotesque and profitless act unless they were paid?"

"I don't know," Royce admitted. "Perhaps the accomplice is really the instigator? He keeps a madman to commit his crimes for him?"

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Drummond shivered. "It is grotesque, but I suppose it is possible. Someone driving a cab across the bridge, by night, with a madman inside, whom he lets loose just long enough to commit murder, then removes him from the scene before the body is discovered? At a good pace he could be along the Embankment, or going south up the Waterloo Road, and indistinguishable from a thousand others in a matter of moments-before the body is discovered or crime known. It's hideous."

"Indeed it is," Royce said huskily.

They stood in silence for a moment or two. Outside, the eaves dripped steadily and the shadows of mourners leaving passed across the doorway.

"If there is anything I can do," Royce said at last, "anything at all that will help, call on me. I mean it, Drummond- I will go to any lengths to catch this monster before he kills again."

"Thank you," Drummond accepted quietly. "If there is any way, I shall call on you."

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11

Pitt left the funeral and walked in the rain all the way down to the Albert Embankment. He was halfway across the Lambeth Bridge before he finally caught a cab back to the police station at Bow Street. It gave him time to think before he should see Micah Drummond again. What Garnet Royce had said was fearful-but it could not be discarded. It was possible some conspiracy existed, some person was using a madman to achieve his ends, taking him to the bridge, directing him to his victim, and then driving him away again afterwards. They had long ago questioned every cabby with a license to drive a carriage of any sort in London, and learned nothing of value. In the beginning it was conceivable one might have lied, for bribe or out of fear, but with three murders it was no longer a serious thought.

Every effort to discover a sane motive for all three crimes had failed. No battle for money or power, no motive of revenge, love, or hate tied all three victims, nothing that he or Drummond had been able even to imagine, still less to find. Even Charlotte, usually so perceptive, had nothing to offer, except that she feared Florence Ivory had a passion of hatred

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strong enough to have moved her to murder, and the courage to act once her mind was set.

Yet with Etheridge dead, what reason had she to kill Sheridan? Except precisely that reason-that there was none- and perhaps by that means to establish her innocence. Could she have killed Hamilton by mistake, believing him to be Etheridge, and then killed Sheridan simply because it was senseless, to remove herself from suspicion? She would have to be a woman not only of passion but of terrifying coldness. He did not want to think so. In his mind sharp and unfeigned, unmarked by pretense or guilt, was an understanding of the pain of a woman who had lost all she valued, her last child.

There was nothing to do but return to the most basic, prosaic police work, rechecking everything, looking for the inconsistency, for the person who had seen something, recalled something.

Micah Drummond was already in his office when Pitt came up the stairs and knocked.

"Come in," Drummond said quietly. He was standing by the fire waiting, warming himself and drying his wet clothes. His boots were dark with water and his trousers steamed gently. He moved sideways so Pitt might receive some of the fire's warmth. It was a small gesture, but Pitt was touched by the graciousness of it more than by any words of praise or sympathy Drummond might have offered.

"Well?" Drummond asked.

"Back to the beginning," Pitt replied. "Interview the witnesses again, the constables on the beat closest to the bridge, find the cabbies again, everyone who crossed the bridge or passed along either embankment within an hour of the crime, before or after. I'll speak to all the M.P.s in the House on any of the three nights. We'll question all the street vendors again.''

Drummond looked at him with a flicker of hope in his eyes. "You think we might still find something?"

"I don't know.'' Pitt would not patronize him with groundless optimism. "But it's the best we have."

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"You'll need at least six more constables-that's all the men I can spare. Where do you want them?"

"They can question the cabbies, beat constables, and witnesses, and help with the M.P.s. I'll start this afternoon, find the street vendors tonight."

"I'll see some of the M.P.s myself." Reluctantly Drum-mond moved away from the fire and took his wet overcoat off the hook where he had hung it. "Where shall we begin?"

The long, chill afternoon's work yielded nothing new. The following day Pitt began again, the only difference being that Charlotte had told him in a few sad words that the feeling between Barclay Hamilton and his father's wife was not the jealousy or the loathing they had supposed, but a profound and hopeless love. It brought him no satisfaction, only a respect for the honor which had kept them apart over so many years, and a sharp and painful pity.

He was so suddenly grateful for his own good fortune that it was like a bursting inside him, a flowering so riotous there was barely room for all the blooms.

He found the flower seller near the bridge, a woman with broad hips and a weathered face. It was impossible to guess her age, it might have been a healthy fifty or a weary thirty. She had a tray of fresh violets, blue, purple, and white, and she looked at him hopefully when she saw his purposeful approach. Then she recognized him as the policeman who had questioned her before, and the light faded from her face. . "I can't tell yer nuffin' more," she said before he spoke. "I sell flars ter them as wants 'em, an' 'as the odd word wiv gennelmen as is civil, n' more. I didn't see nuffin' w'en them men was murdered, poor souls, 'cept the same as I always sees, nor no cabbies stop, nor any workin' girls, 'ceptin' those I already told yer abaht. An' Freddie wot sells 'ot pies an' Bert as sells san'wiches."

Pitt fished in his pocket and pulled out a few pence and 256

offered them to her. "Blue violets, please-or-just a moment, what about the white ones?"

"They's extra, cos they smells sweeter. White flars orften does. Ter make up fer the color p'raps?"

"Then give me some of each, if you will."

"There y'are, luv-but I still didn't see nuffin.' I can't 'elp yer. Wish I could!"

"But you remember selling flowers to Sir Lockwood Hamilton?"

"Yeah, course I do! Sold 'im flars reg'lar. Nice gent 'e was, poor soul. Never 'aggled, like some as I could name. Some gents wot 'as fortunes'll 'aggie over a farvin'." She sighed heavily, and Pitt imagined her life; a quarter of a penny on a bunch of flowers meant a difference to her, and she was only mildly indignant that men who ate nine-course dinners as a way of life would argue with her over the cost of a slice of bread.

"Do you remember that night? It was an unusually late sitting."

"Bless yer, they 'as late sittin's an' late sittin's," she said with a wink rather more like a twitch. "Wot was they sittin' over, eh? An argy-bargy, new laws fer us all-or a good bottle o' port wine?"

' 'It was a fine night, nice enough to walk home with pleasure. Go over it all again in your mind for me. Please. Did you have supper? What did you eat? Did you buy it from someone here?"

"That's right!" she said with sudden cheer. "I got some pickled eels an' a slice of 'ot bread down Jacko's stand, 'long the Embankment.''

"Then what? What time was that?"

"Dunno, luv."

' 'Yes you do. You would have heard Big Ben-think! You'd be waiting to catch the Members as they left the House."

She screwed up her face. "I 'eard ten-but that was afore I went down ter Jacko's.''

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"Did you hear eleven? Where were you when Big Ben struck eleven?"

Someone else came past and bought a bunch of purple violets before she replied. "I was talkm' ter Jacko. 'E said as it was a good night fer trade, and folk was still abaht, it bein' fine like. An' I said that was good, cos I'd gorn an' got an extra load o' flars, and they don't last."

"And then you came back up here sometime before the House rose," he prompted.

"No," she said, deep in thought, her brow furrowed. "That's wot I din' do! I got fed up wiv waitin' fer 'em, an I went up ter the Strand and the theaters. Sold all me flars there, I did."

"You can't have," Pitt argued. "That must have been another night. You sold flowers to Sir Lockwood Hamilton. Primroses. He was wearing fresh flowers when he was killed, and he didn't have them when he left the House a few minutes before he crossed the bridge."

"Primroses? I don't 'ave no primroses. Violets, me, this time o' year. All sorts later on, but violets now."

"Never primroses?" Pitt said carefully, a strange and dreadfully sensible idea opening up in his mind. "Would you swear to that?"

"Gor lumme! D'yer fink I sold flars all me life since I were six years old, and don' know the difference between a primrose nor a violet? Wot yer take me for?"

"Then who gave the primroses to Sir Lockwood Hamilton?"

"Someone wot poached my beat?" she said sourly. Then her face eased in innate feirness. "Not as I didn't go up the Strand, wot in't stric'ly my place, but . . ." She shrugged. "Sorry, ducky."

"I suppose you didn't sell primroses to Mr. Etheridge, or Mr. Sheridan either?"

"I told yer, I never sold primroses to no one!"

Pitt thrust his hands deep into his pockets and pulled out 258

a sixpence. He gave it to her and took two more bunches of flowers.

"Well then, I wonder who did."

"Cor!" She let out her breath in a moan of incredulity, which turned to horror. "The Westminster Cutthroat! 'Esold 'em! Don' it fair make yer blood cold? It do mine!"

"Thank you!" Pitt turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, then started to run, shouting and waving his arms for a cab.

"A flower seller?" Micah Drummond repeated, his brow puckered in surprise. He turned the thought over in his mind, examining it and finding it more and more acceptable.

"It gives me something to look for," Pitt said eagerly. "In a way, flower sellers are invisible, as long as you don't know that is what you are looking for. But once you do, they are a very definite body. They have their own territories, like birds. You won't get two of the same sort in one street."

"Birds?"

"The Parliament end of Westminster Bridge is usually Maisie Willis's patch; the night Hamilton was killed, as we know, she went up the Strand instead. But our cutthroat wouldn't know that in advance. He-or perhaps I should say she-seized the opportunity, and again when Etheridge and Sheridan were killed. She must have been waiting, watching for the opportunity. She might have been there several nights before the House rose when Maisie wasn't there, and she caught the man she wanted alone on the bridge. He probably stopped to buy flowers, not recognizing the seller in the half light, and naturally not expecting to see anyone he knew dressed in old clothes and with a tray of flowers!"

He leaned forward eagerly, the picture coming more sharply into his mind. "She, or he, took the money, gave him the flowers, and then reached up to pin them on for him"-he curved his right hand sharply sideways, fingers crooked as if to hold a razor-"and cut his throat. Then as

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he collapsed she propped him up against the lamppost and tied him to it with his own scarf, leaving the primroses in his buttonhole. She could hide the razor again on the tray of flowers and simply walk away. No one would notice her: she was a flower seller who had made a sale and pinned the flowers on her patron before leaving."

"She must be a damn strong woman!" Drummond said with a shiver of distaste. "Or it might have been a man; it would be perfectly possible for a man to disguise himself as a flower seller, muffled up on a chilly spring night, hat drawn down, shawl round his neck and chin. How in hell do we find him, Pitt?"

"We have an actual person to ask about now! We'll start again with other M.P.s. She can't have sold only the one bunch of flowers-others will have bought as well. Someone may remember something about her. After all, it was unusual for it to be anyone other than Maisie, and it was unusual to have primroses rather than violets. We ought to learn at least her height, that's hard to disguise; a stoop is noticeable. And you can add weight easily enough with clothes, but you can't take it off. A man can look like an old woman, but it's very much harder to look like a young one: the bones and the skin are wrong. Did anyone notice hands? No doubt she wore mitts, but the size? A big man can't make his hands look like a woman's."

"Perhaps it was two people?" Drummond met Pitt's eyes and his own were bright with unhappiness, his features pinched and weary. "Perhaps the flowers were a decoy, to hold his attention while someone else attacked?"

Pitt knew what he was thinking. Africa Dowell with flowers while Florence Ivory crept up with a razor from behind, the victim turning at the last moment-the cuts had been made from the front with the left hand-and then both women together holding him and tying him to the lamppost. More dangerous; more likely they'd be noticed, two women leaving the scene. But not impossible.

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"There must be clothes," he said levelly, forcing the picture from his mind's eye. "A flower seller in a lady's gown and cloak would be remarked instantly, and the M.P.s never mentioned that it was not the usual woman, therefore she must have looked something similar, of average height, broadly built, big shoulders and bosom, wide hips. Plain clothes, probably several layers; a hat and shawl, and probably a second shawl against the wind coming up off the river. And most important of all, a tray of flowers. She had to buy some, not very many. She would want to look as if she were at the end of a long day's selling: four or five bunches would be enough. But she had to buy them somewhere."

"Didn't you say Florence Ivory had a garden?" Drum-mond asked, moving back to the fire again and staring up at Pitt as he bent to put more coal on it. The day was colder and there was a thin drizzle of rain running down the window. Both men felt the chill.

"Yes, but you can't pick primroses by the bunch day after day from a private garden."

"Can't you? How do you know so much about gardens, Pitt? Don't have a garden, do you? When do you find the time?" He looked round. "Mind, you'll have more when you're promoted after we tie up this case."

Pitt smiled thinly. "Yes-yes I will. Actually, we do have a small garden, but Charlotte does more in it than I do. I grew up in the country."

"Did you?" Drummond's eyebrows rose. "I didn't know that. Somehow I thought you were a Londoner. Amazing how little we know about people, even though we see them every day. So she bought primroses?"

' 'Yes, probably from the same source as other flower sellers. One of the markets. We can send men out to search."

"Good; arrange it. And questioning the M.P.s, I'll go out on that again too. Which of the people we know would be capable of passing as a street vendor? Surely not Lady Hamilton?"

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' 'I doubt it, and I don't think Barclay Hamilton could pass himself off as a woman-he's far too tall, apart from anything else."

"Mrs. Sheridan?"

"Possibly."

"Helen Carfax?"

Pitt shrugged, the question was too hard. He could not visualize the pale, unhappy woman he had seen after her father's death, so torn with fears, so painfully in love with her husband, so wounded by his every small indifference, having the confidence and efficiency to acquire flowers and then stand on a street corner selling them to passing strangers so that she might commit murder. He remembered Maisie Willis's voice, casual, broad, idiosyncratic.

' 'I doubt she could master selling,'' he said frankly.' 'And James Carfax is the same as Barclay Hamilton, too tall not to be noticed."

"Florence Ivory?"

Florence had left her husband and found shelter for herself and her child, until Africa Dowell had taken her in. Perhaps she had also worked at something.

"Yes, I imagine she might. She certainly has the imagination and intelligence to do it, and the willpower."

Drummond leaned forward.

"Then, Pitt, we've got to catch her. We've got grounds to search her house now. We may find the clothes-if she means to do it again we almost certainly will. Dear God, she must bemad!"

"Yes," Pitt agreed with cold unhappiness. "Yes, I daresay she is, poor soul."

But the minutest search yielded only much-mended work clothes, gardening gloves, and kitchen aprons-nothing that would have dressed a flower seller-and only baskets and trugs for flowers, no trays such as street vendors use.

The third questioning of the members of Parliament pro-262

duced a little more. Several men, when specifically pressed, recalled a different flower seller on the nights of the murders, but they could describe only the roughest details: she was rather larger than Maisie Willis, and taller they thought, but not much else. What they really recalled was that she had sold primroses instead of violets.

Was she very muffled with scarves or shawls?

Not particularly.

Was she young or old, dark or fair?

Definitely not young, nor, they thought, very old. Perhaps forty, perhaps fifty. For heaven's sake, who spends their time estimating the age of flower sellers?

A big woman, they all agreed, bigger than Maisie Willis. Then it was certainly not Florence Ivory. Africa Dowell padded out a little, her face grimed and made up to hide her fine fair skin, her hair bound in an old scarf or hat, a little dirt judiciously rubbed in?

He returned to Bow Street and met with Drummond to share his findings and consider the next step.

Drummond looked tired and beaten. The bottoms of his trousers were wet, his feet were cold, and he was exhausted with talking, with searching for a courteous way of asking over and over again questions that had already been answered with negatives, worn out with weighing, measuring and sifting every fragment of memory, every fact or suggestion, and knowing at the end of it no more than the beginning.

"Do you think she'll do it again?" he asked.

"Only God knows," Pitt replied, not blasphemously-he meant it. "But if she does, this time we know what to look for." Drummond pushed the blotter and the inkstand away and sat on the edge of his desk. "That could be weeks, months, or never.''

Pitt looked at him. The same thought was mirrored in both their faces.

Drummond put it into words. "We must provoke her. We will have someone cross the bridge alone, after every late

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sitting. We will be close at hand; we can disguise ourselves as street vendors and cabbies."

"We haven't got a constable who can pass for an M.P."

Drummond pulled a very small face. "No, but I could. I'll go myself."

And for eight nights Micah Drummond slipped into the House of Commons strangers' gallery and sat there until the House rose, then mixed with the members as they left, talking for a few minutes with the one or two he knew. Then he turned and left, walking up past the great statue of Boadicea and onto Westminster Bridge. Twice he bought violets from Maisie Willis, and once a hot pie from the vendor on the Embankment, but he saw no one with primroses, and no one approached him.

On the ninth evening, discouraged and tired, he was turning up his coat collar against a chilly wind and wraiths of fog coming off the river, when Garnet Royce came up to him.

"Good evening, Mr. Drummond."

"Oh, er, good evening, Sir Garnet."

Royce's face was tense. The lamplight gleamed on his high forehead and reflected the pale brilliance of his eyes.

"I know what you're doing, Mr. Drummond," he said very quietly.' 'And that it is not succeeding.'' He swallowed, his breath uneven, but he was a man used to being in command, of himself and of others. "And you won't succeed-not this way. I offered to help you before, and I meant it. Let me walk back across the bridge. If this lunatic means to strike again, I am a legitimate target: a real M.P.. . ." He faltered for a moment, then he cleared his throat and made a fierce effort to speak without a quaver. "A real M.P. who lives south of the river, and who could reasonably go home on foot on a fine night.''

Drummond hesitated. All the risks swam before his eyes: his own guilt if anything were to happen to Royce, the charges that would be leveled against him. He winced as he thought how easily he could be accused of cowardice. And yet eight

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nights he had left the Palace of Westminster and walked alone across the bridge, and he'd achieved nothing. What Royce said was true: the cutthroat may well be insane, but she-or he-was not easily duped.

He knew Royce was afraid; he could see it in his eyes, in the fierce stare, in the nervous line of his mouth and the rigid way he held himself, seeming oblivious of the chill breeze and the clamor of other people busy less than twenty feet away, and yet for him they might have been geese on a lawn or pigeons in Trafalger Square.

"You are a brave man, Sir Garnet," he said honestly. "I accept your offer. I wish we could do it without you, but it seems we cannot." He saw Royce's chin rise a little higher, and the muscles in his throat tighten. The die was cast. "We shall be within a few yards of you all the time-cabbies, street vendors, drunks. I give you my word, we shall not allow you to be hurt." Please God he could keep it!

He told Pitt the following morning, sitting in his office by a roaring fire. The sight of its flames leaping up the chimney and the flicker and crackle of it seemed like an island of safety, a living companion as he thought of the night on the bridge. He had still had to cross it after speaking to Royce, still setting out at a measured pace into the gloom between the lamps, his footsteps falling dully on the wet pavement, veils of mist rising from the dark sheet of the water below, lights and voices from the bank distorted, far away.

Pitt was staring at him.

"Is there any other way?" Drummond asked helplessly. "We've got to stop her!"

"I know," Pitt agreed. "And if there's another way, I don't know what it is."

"I'll be there," Drummond added. "I can pretend to be a drunk coming home from the opera-"

"No!-sir!" Pitt was firm; at another time, with another man it would have been considered rudeness. "Sir, if we

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need Royce, then it is because the cutthroat knows you are not an M.P. For this to succeed Royce has to appear vulnerable, a victim alone, not a police decoy. You can't come any nearer than the Victoria Embankment. We'll have three constables at the far end, so he cannot escape that way, and we'll speak to the River Police so he doesn't get over the bridge and down to the water-though God knows how he'd do that. We'll have two constables dressed as street vendors at the House end, and I'll drive a cab across when Royce actually goes. If I stay a bit behind I can watch him; I'll get close enough without frightening anyone off. People always assume cabbies are watching the road."

' 'Can't we put a man actually on the bridge? As a drunk, or a beggar?" Drummond's face was pale, his nostrils pinched, and there was a transparent look to the skin across the top of his nose and under his eyes.

"No." Pitt felt no indecision. "If there is anyone else there, we'll frighten the cutthroat off."

Drummond tried one last tune. "I gave Royce my word we'd protect him!''

There was nothing to say. They knew the dangers, and they understood that there was nothing else they could do.

For the next three nights the House rose early, and they kept watch, but with small hope of anything occurring. The fourth night the sky was heavy with unshed rain. The light was thin and darkness came early. The lamps along the Embankment looked like a string of fallen moons. The air smelled damp, and up and down the river the barges moved like wedges of darkness slicing the whispering, hissing water, with its broken reflections.

Under the statue of Boadicea with its magnificent horses, hooves flying, chariot careering forever in doomed heroic fight against the Roman invader dead two thousand years ago, a constable stood dressed as a sandwich vendor, his barrow in front of him, his neck muffled against the cold,

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his fingers blue in spite of his mittens, eyes watchful, waiting for Garnet Royce and ready to move out and follow him the moment anyone approached. His truncheon was hidden under his overcoat, but his hand knew exactly where it was.

At the entrance to the House of Commons another constable, dressed as a footman, stood to attention as though waiting for his master to approach with some message, but his eyes were searching for Garnet Royce-and a flower seller.

At the far end of the bridge on the south bank three more constables waited; two on foot dressed as gentlemen with nothing better to do than idle away an evening looking for a little female company, and perhaps a trifle the worse for drink. The third constable drove a cab, which he kept standing twenty yards from the end of the bridge outside the first house on Bellevue Road, as though attending a fare who was visiting someone and might shortly return.

Micah Drummond stood in a doorway well out of the light on the Victoria Embankment and strained his eyes towards the New Palace Yard and the members of Parliament leaving. He could not make out any individuals, but he was as close as he dared be. He kept his face in shadow, his silk hat pulled forward and his scarf high round his chin. A passerby would have taken him for a gentleman who had celebrated rather too liberally and had stopped until his head cleared before going home. No one gave him a second glance.

Somewhere down the river towards the Pool of London the foghorns were sounding as the mist thickened and swept up with the incoming tide.

On the north bank, Pitt sat on the box of a second cab, on the Victoria Embankment just above the steps down to the water. He could see them all: the height of the cab seat gave him a vantage and also made his face less easy to recognize by a person on foot. He held the reins loosely in his hands while the horse shifted its weight restlessly.

Someone hailed him, and he called back, "Sorry guv, got a fare."

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The man grumbled that he could see none but did not bother to argue.

Minutes ticked by. The members were beginning to disperse. The constable sold some of his sandwiches. Pitt hoped he did not sell them all, or he would have no excuse to remain there. A vendor out on a night like this, at this hour, with no wares to sell, would draw suspicion.

Where was Royce? What on earth was he doing? Pitt could not blame him if his courage had failed; it would take a strong man to walk alone across Westminster Bridge tonight.

Big Ben struck quarter past eleven.

Pitt was longing to get down and go and look for Royce. If he had left by another way and gone west to Lambeth Bridge hi a cab, they might wait here all night!

"Cabby! Twenty-five Great Peter Street. Come on, man! You're half asleep!''

"Sorry sir, I've already got a fare."

"Nonsense! There's no one here. Now pull yourself together and get a move on!" The man was middle-aged and brisk, his graying hair waved neatly and his expression was fast becoming irritated. He reached out a hand to open the cab door.

"I already have a fare, sir!" Pitt said sharply, his nerves betraying the fear he tried to force from his mind. "He's in there!" he poked a gloved finger in the general direction of the buildings along the Embankment. "IVe got to wait for him."

The man swore under his breath and turned on his heel. He was an M.P. Pitt remembered seeing his photograph in The Illustrated London News; striking-looking man, well dressed, and-suddenly Pitt was as cold as if he had been drenched in ice water. He saw again in his mind's eye the pale blur of the flowers in the man's buttonhole-primroses!

His hand clenched so tight the horse started, throwing its head, and the harness clanked.

In his doorway Micah Drummond stiffened, but he could see nothing except Pitt, rigid on the cab box.

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The wail of a foghorn drifted upriver and the lights reflected in the water danced along the shore.

Garnet Royce was coming down the street. He called out loudly to someone, his voice husky; he was frightened. His steps were uneven as he passed the sandwich vendor and started across the bridge. His back was straight, shoulders stiff, and never once did he look behind him.

Pitt moved his horse forward a few yards. A man with an umbrella passed between him and Royce. The sandwich vendor left his barrow, and the footman stopped looking in the direction of the New Palace Yard and walked towards the bridge as if he had changed his mind about waiting.

From the black shadow under Boadicea another figure appeared: heavyset, broad-backed, a thick shawl round her shoulders and carrying a vendor's tray of flowers. She ignored the footman-natural enough, footmen seldom bought flowers-and moved surprisingly swiftly after Royce across the bridge. He was walking steadily in the center of the footpath, looking neither right nor left, concentrating on the lights. He was precisely halfway across.

Micah Drummond came out of his doorway.

Pitt urged the horse forward into a brisk walk and turned it left over the bridge. He was only two or three yards behind the flower seller. He could see her figure silhouetted against the paler mist beyond. She was walking soft-footed, gaining on Royce. He did not seem to hear her.

He left the milky haze of one lamp with its triple globes and entered the void of darkness beyond. The mist was silver round the lights, and the droplets hi the air gleamed like something beautiful and strange. His back was lit, showing the breadth of his shoulders, the precise angle of the rim of his hat, and his face was a mere lessening of the shadow, anonymous as he strode into the hollow of night between one lamp and the next.

Pitt held the reins so tightly his nails dug into his palms 269

even through the wet wool of his mittens. He could feel the sweat cold on his body.

"Flowers, sir? You buy sweet primroses, sir?" The voice was hardly audible, high, like a little girl's.

Royce spun round. He was close enough to the light for his features to show clearly: his hair was hidden by the hat, but the sweeping brow was plain, the vivid eyes, the big bones. He saw the woman and the tray of primroses. He saw her take a bunch of flowers in one hand, the other drawing something from underneath them. His mouth opened in a soundless exclamation of terror-and glittering, superb victory.

Pitt let go of the reins and leapt from the cab box, landing hard on the slippery road. The woman swung her arm up with the razor in her hand, its blade open and shining in the light. "I got yer!" she screamed, flinging the tray off and sending the flowers spinning and scattering on the stones. "I got yer at last, Royce!"

Pitt was on top of her, bringing his truncheon down on her shoulder. The pain of it stopped her, brought her round sharply, face blank with surprise, the razor still high.

For a second they were all motionless: the madwoman with her black eyes and mouth open, the blade still in the air, Pitt with the truncheon clenched in his hand, and Royce ten feet beyond them.

Then Royce's hand went to his pocket, and before the woman could move, the shot rang out, and she took a stumbling step towards Pitt. There was another shot, and another, and she fell into the road and lay across the gutter, blood soaking her shawl, the razor tinkling thinly on the stones and the pale blossoms of the primroses lying around her.

Pitt bent over her for a moment. There was nothing to do. She was dead, shot cleanly through the heart from behind, as well as through the shoulder and the chest. He had no idea which bullet had killed her; it might have been any of the three.

He stood up slowly and looked at Royce, who was still standing with the gun in his hand, a revolver, black and pol-

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ished, no longer hidden in the deep overcoat pocket. Royce's face was white, almost drained of expression; the fear had too recently left him.

"Good God, man-you nearly got yourself killed!" he said huskily. He passed his hand over his eyes and blinked, as though dizzy. He looked down at the woman. "Is she dead?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry." Royce went towards her but stopped more than a yard away. He passed the gun to Pitt, who took it reluctantly. Royce stared at the woman. "Although perhaps it is for the best. Poor creature may at last be at peace. This is cleaner than a rope."

Pitt could find no argument. Hanging was a grotesque and terrible thing, and why drag out a trial for a woman who was so patently insane? He faced Royce and tried to think of something appropriate to say.

"Thank you, Sir Garnet. We appreciate your courage- without it we might never have caught her." He held out his hand.

The constables were there from the south side of the bridge, and the pie vendor and the footman were approaching just beyond the circle of light. Micah Drummond stopped on the pavement and stared at the woman, then at Pitt and Royce.

Royce took Pitt's hand and wrung it so hard the flesh was bruised.

Micah Drummond knelt down and looked at the woman, moving the shawl away from her face, opening the front of it and searching for some mark of identity.

"Do you know her, sir?" he asked Royce.

"Know her? Good God, no!"

Drummond looked at her again, and when he turned back to them his voice was quiet, touched with compassion as well as horror.

"Some of her clothing comes from Bedlam. It looks as if she was in the asylum recently."

Pitt remembered what the woman's last words had been. 271

He stared at Royce. "She knew you," he said quietly, very levelly. "She called you by name."

Royce was motionless, his eyes wide; then very slowly he went and looked down at the dead woman. No one spoke. Another foghorn sounded on the river.

' 'I-I 'm not certain, but if she really has come from Bedlam, then it could be Elsie Draper, poor creature. She was lady's maid to my wife, seventeen years ago. She was a country woman, came with Naomi when we were married. Elsie was devoted to her, and when Naomi died she took it very badly. She became deranged, and we were obliged to have her committed. I-I admit, I had no idea she was homicidally insane. I wonder how in the name of heaven she came to be free.''

' 'We haven't been notified of an escape,'' Drurnmond answered. "Presumably she was released. After seventeen years they may have thought her safe."

Royce gasped. "Safe!" The word hung in the damp air, with the slow-curling mist glowing in the lamplight.

"Come," Drummond stood up. "We'll get a mortuary van and take her away. Pitt, get your cab and take Sir Garnet home to . . . ?"

"Bethlehem Road," Royce replied. "Thank you. I confess, I feel suddenly very tired, and colder than I thought."

"Naturally we're very grateful." Drummond offered his hand. "All London is much in your debt."

"I'd rather you didn't mention my part," Royce said quickly. "It would seem . . ."He left the rest unsaid. "And I-I'd like to pay for a decent burial for her. She was a good servant before . . . before she lost her reason."

Pitt climbed back up onto the cab box. Drummond opened the door for Royce to climb in, and Pitt lifted the reins to urge the horse on.

Charlotte was asleep when Pitt got home, and he did not awaken her. He had no sense of the euphoria of having

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brought to a conclusion a long and dreadful case. The release of tension brought mostly weariness, and the next morning he slept in and had to rush out without breakfast.

He told Charlotte nothing. First he would make sure that what had seemed so apparent last night was really the truth. There would be time then to send her a message so she could tell Great-aunt Vespasia that Florence Ivory was no longer under suspicion. He simply told her the case was close to a conclusion, kissed her, and strode out of the house with her calling after him to explain.

Micah Drummond was already at the Bow Street Station. For the first time in weeks he looked as if he had slept without nightmares or frequent waking.

"Good morning, Pitt," he said, and held out his hand. "Congratulations, Chief Inspector. The case is closed. There is no doubt that wretched woman was responsible. There were other bloodstains on her clothes, old stains on her sleeves and apron, as there would be from the first murders. The razor had bloodstains on the blade and the handle. We checked with the chief medical officer at the Bethlehem lunatic asylum: she is Elsie Draper, committed for acute melancholia seventeen years ago and released from Bedlam two weeks before the murder of Lockwood Hamilton. She had never given them any trouble and seemed to have been a trifle simple, but never violent. A dreadful misjudgment, but there is nothing anyone can do now. The case is closed. The Home Secretary sent his congratulations this morning. The newspapers have printed extras." He smiled slowly. "Well done, Pitt. You can go home and take a few days off-you've earned it. You'll come back next week as Chief Inspector, with an office upstairs." He held out his hand.

Pitt took it and held it hard. "Thank you, sir," he said graciously-but it was not what he wanted.

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12

jlitt returned home with a sense of relief only very slightly marred by a small question like a gnat bite at the back of his mind. The matter was closed. There could be no doubt whatsoever that Elsie Draper had been a criminal lunatic. She had murdered three men on Westminster Bridge and had tried to murder a fourth. Only Royce's courage in setting himself up as a decoy and the police who had warned and guarded him had prevented her almost certain success. And if it had not been Royce, it would have been someone else.

Now Pitt could take some time off and spend it with Charlotte and the children. Perhaps he could even get out into the garden. They could all work together, he with a spade, Jemima pulling weeds, Daniel carrying away rubbish, and Charlotte supervising. She was the only one who knew the overall design. He found himself smiling as he thought of it, as if his fingers were already in the earth, the warm sun on his back, and his family laughing and talking around him.

First Charlotte would go and tell Great-aunt Vespasia that Florence Ivory and Africa Dowell were no longer suspects.

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That would be one of the few real pleasures in this whole affair: to watch the fear and the anger disappear, to know the two women could pick up their lives again and begin to heal-that was, if they chose to, if Florence Ivory could let go of her rage.

He strode through the doorway and along the corridor to find Charlotte in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up, kneading dough, and Grade on the floor on her hands and knees. The whole room was filled with the smell of new bread. Daniel was outside in the garden running around with a hoop and Pitt could hear his crows of delight through the open window.

He put his arm round Charlotte and kissed her cheek and neck and throat, regardless of the flour and entirely ignoring Gracie.

"We've solved it!" he said after several minutes. "We caught the woman last night-in the act. Garnet Royce played decoy for us. She flew at him with a razor, and I jumped off the cab box to stop her, and Royce shot her, more or less to save me."

Charlotte stiffened and tried to draw back, fear rushing up inside her.

"No," he said quickly. "She wouldn't have gotten me; I had already struck her with a truncheon, and there were others coming. But it must have looked bad to Royce. Anyway, she was completely insane, poor creature, and this is better than a trial and a hanging. It's all over. And I'm a chief inspector."

This time she did pull away. She stared up at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide, questioning.

"I'm proud of you, Thomas; you more than deserve it," she said. "But is it what you want?"

"Want?" Surely he had totally hidden his reluctance, his dislike of leaving the streets.

' 'You can have the honor of being asked, and still refuse,'' she said gently. "You don't have to take preferment if it

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means sitting in the station directing other men." Her eyes were perfectly steady and showed no shadow of wavering, nor any trace of regret for her words. "We don't need the money. You could stay as you are, doing what you are so good at. If you had been directing others instead of speaking to the people yourself, would this case be solved now?"

He thought of Maisie Willis and the violets, the long cold hours spent on the cab box, and the moment when he had realized the M.P. who had accosted him for a ride had fresh primroses in his buttonhole.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "It might be."

"And it might not! Thomas," she said, smiling now, "I want you to be doing what you enjoy and are best at. Anything else is too high a price to pay for a little more money, which we don't need. We can meet our expenses, and that is enough. What would we do with more? What is more precious than being able to do what you want?"

"I've accepted it," he said slowly.

' 'Then go back and tell him you have changed your mind. Please, Thomas."

He did not argue, he simply held her very closely for a long time, happiness singing inside him, beating like the wings of a great bird.

Grade picked up her bucket and, humming a little song to herself, went out the back door to empty it down the drain.

"Tell me about it," Charlotte said presently. "How did you catch her-and who was she? Why did she do it? Why members of Parliament? Have you told Florence Ivory? Have you told Aunt Vespasia?"

"I haven't told anyone; I thought you'd like to."

"Oh yes-yes I would. I wish we had one of those telephones! Shall we go on the omnibus and tell her? Would you like a cup of tea first? Or are you hungry? What about luncheon?"

"Yes, yes, no, and it's too early," he replied.

"What?"

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"Yes we'll go and see Aunt Vespasia, yes I'd like a cup of tea, no I'm not hungry, and it's too early for lunch. And your bread is rising."

"Oh. Then put on the kettle. I'll finish kneading the dough, and you can tell me who she was and how you caught her-and why she did it." And she went to the sink, washed her hands, and began again to pummel the bread dough, sprinkling more flour on the board.

Pitt filled the kettle and put it on the stove as he was bidden, then began to recount the story of Royce's offer and how they had carried it out. Of course she already knew about the abortive attempts with Micah Drummond.

"So it wasn't blind,'' she said when he finished.' 'I mean, she wasn't after members of Parliament in general. She knew Royce-you said she called out his name."

Pitt remembered the blaze of hatred on the woman's voice, the triumph in the moment she recognized him and knew beyond doubt it was he. "I've got you at last," she had said, and careless of the cab looming behind her, or Pitt leaping from it, she had lifted and swung the razor to kill. She was insane, a creature beyond the reach of reason, a destroyer- and yet there had been something very human in that hatred.

Charlotte's voice cut into his thoughts.

"Do you think she was after Royce all the time, and mistook the others for him? They all lived on the south side of the river, they all walked home, as it was not far, and they all had Mr or gray hair.''

"They were all Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Home Secretary at some part in their careers. Except perhaps Royce himself-I don't know about him," he answered slowly. ' 'I wonder what he was doing seventeen years ago.''

She split the dough and put it into three tins and left them to rise. "You do think so! Why? Why did she hate Royce so much? Because he put her into Bedlam?"

"Perhaps." The faint dissatisfaction at the back of his mind was stronger, more like a prickle. It was Garnet Royce

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she had attacked, not Jasper, the doctor. Was that simply because he was the elder brother, the stronger, the one in whose house she had served? But what had turned melancholia over the death of her mistress into a homicidal mania such as he had seen on Westminster Bridge?

He finished his tea and stood up. "You go and tell Aunt Vespasia. I think I shall go back and talk to Drummond again.''

' 'About Elsie Draper?''

"Yes; yes I think so."

All the way back to Bow Street he saw the newsboys carrying .placards for extra editions. Headlines screamed westminster CUTTHROAT CAUGHT! PARLIAMENT SAFE AGAIN! MANIAC SHOT DEAD ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE! He bought a

paper just before he went into the police station. Under the big black leader was an article on how the threat of anarchy had receded and law had prevailed once more, thanks to the skill and dedication of the Metropolitan Police and the daring of an unknown member of Parliament. The whole of the nation's capital rejoiced in the return of order and safety to the streets.

Micah Drummond was startled to see Pitt back so soon, and on a spring day when he might have found gardening such a pleasure.

"What is it, Pitt?" There was a shadow of alarm in his face.

Pitt closed the door behind him. "First of all, sir," he began, "I thank you for the promotion, but I would rather remain at my present rank, where I can go out on investigations myself, rather than supervise other men to do it. I think that is where my skill lies, and it is what I want to do."

Drummond smiled. There was a certain ruefulness in his eyes, and a relief. Either he had been expecting something less pleasant, or else in part at least he understood.

' 'I am not surprised,'' he said candidly. ' 'And not entirely 278

sorry. You would have made a good senior officer, but we should have lost a lot by taking you away from the streets. Secondhand judgment is never the same. I admire you for the choice; it is not easy to decline money, or status."

Pitt found himself blushing. The admiration of a man he both liked and respected was a precious thing. He hated now to have to pursue the matter of Elsie Draper, instead of merely thanking Drummond and going out. But the question pressed on his mind, clamoring for an answer. He felt an incompleteness like hunger.

"Thank you, sir." He let out his breath slowly. "Sir, I would like to find out more about Elsie Draper-the madwoman. Just before she struck at Royce she called him by name. She wasn't killing at random; she hated him-personally. I'd like to know why."

Drummond stood still, looking down at the empty space on his desk, the quill and inkstand set in dark Welsh slate, unostentatious.

"I wanted to know too," he said. "I wondered if she were after Royce all the time, and she mistook the first three for him. I couldn't find anything in common among them, except that they live on the south side of the river not far from Westminster Bridge, within walking distance, and they have a superficial physical resemblance. They have no special political opinions in common, but then a madwoman who has spent the last seventeen years in Bedlam would hardly care about such things. But I did inquire what Royce was doing seventeen years ago."

"Yes?"

Drummond's smile was tight, bleak. "He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary.'' His eyes met Pitt's.

"So they all held that office!" Pitt exclaimed. "Perhaps that is why they died. She was looking for Royce, and she still thought of him in connection with the office he held when she worked in his house. She must have asked around,

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and she found three other men living south of the river who had held that position before she got the right one! But why did she hate him so long and so passionately?" "Because he had her committed to Bedlam!" "For melancholia? Perhaps. But may I go to Bedlam and ask about her, to see what they know?"

"Yes. Yes, Pitt-and tell me what you find."

The Bethlem Royal Hospital was in a huge old building on the Lambeth Road on the south side of the river, a block away from the Westminster Bridge Road where it curved up the hill away from the water and the Lambeth Palace Gardens, the official house of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England. Bedlam, as it was commonly known, was another world, shut in, as far from sweetness and ease as the nightmare is from the sleeper's sane and healthful room, where flowers sit in a vase and the morning sunlight will presently stream through the curtains onto a solid floor.

Inside Bedlam was madness and despair. For centuries this hospital, whether within these walls or others, had been the last resort for those no human reason could reach. In earlier times they had been shackled night and day and tormented to exorcise them of devils. Those with a taste for such things had come by to watch them and taunt them for entertainment, as later generations might go to a carnival or a zoo, or a hanging.

Now treatment was more enlightened. Most of the restraining devices were gone, except for the most violent; but tortures of the mind still persisted, the terror and delusion, the misery, the endless imprisonment without hope.

Pitt had been in Newgate and Coldbath Fields, and for all the superintendent in his frock coat and the stewards and medical staff, the walls smelled the same and the air had a fetid taste. Pitt's credentials were examined before he was permitted the slightest courtesy.

' 'Elsie Draper?'' the superintendent asked coldly. ' 'I shall 280

have to consult my records. What is it you wish to know? I assure you, when we released her she'd been calm and of good behavior for many years, nine or ten at least. She never gave the slightest indication of violence." He bristled, preparing for battle. "We cannot keep people indefinitely, you know, not if there is no need. We do not have endless facilities!"

"What was her original complaint?"

"Complaint?" The man asked sharply, sensitive to any criticism.

"Why was she admitted?"

"Acute melancholia. She was a simple woman, from some country area, who had followed her mistress when she married. As I understand it, her mistress died-of scarlet fever. Elsie Draper became deranged with grief, and her master was obliged to have her committed. Very charitable of him, I think, in the circumstances, instead of merely turning her out."

"Melancholia?"

"That is what I just said, Sergeant. . . ?"

"Inspector Pitt."

"Very well-Inspector! I don't know what else you think I can tell you. We cared for her for seventeen years, during which time she gave no Indication that she was homicidal. She was perfectly able to care for herself when we released her, and no longer in need of medical attention, nor had we reason to fear she would be a burden upon the rest of the community."

Pitt did not argue; it was a moot point now, and this was not what he had come to find out.

"May I speak with those who attended her? And is there anyone among the other patients she spoke to? Someone who knew her?"

"I don't know what you imagine you can learn! We can all be wise with hindsight, you know!"

"I am not looking for signs that she was homicidal," Pitt 281

said honestly. "I need to know other things: her reasons for acting as she did, or what she believed were her reasons."

"I cannot see how they can possibly matter now."

"I am not questioning your competence in your job, sir," Pitt replied a little testily. "Please do not question the way I do mine. If I did not believe this was necessary, I should be at home with my family, sitting in my garden."

The man's face grew still more pinched. "Very well, if that is what you wish. Be so good as to follow me," and he turned sharply on his heel and led the way down a chill stone corridor, up a flight of stairs, and along a further passageway to a door which opened into a large ward with ten beds in it. There were chairs beside the beds and set around at various places. It was Pitt's first sight of the inside of a lunatic asylum, and his immediate feeling was one of relief. There were enamel jugs with flowers, and here and mere a cushion or a blanket which was obviously not institutional. A bright yellow cloth half covered one of the small tables.

Then he looked at the people, the matron standing near the window, with the spring sun coming in through the bars and falling on her gray dress and white cap and apron. Her face was worn with tension and the sight of misery, her eyes flat. Her large hands were red-knuckled, and she had a key chain hanging from her belt.

To the left of her a woman of an age impossible to judge sat on the floor, knees hunched up to her chin, rocking back and forth ceaselessly, whispering to herself. Her hair hung over her face, matted and unkempt. Another woman with a blotchy skin and hair scraped back in a tight knot sat staring vacantly, oblivious of them all. She saw some vision of despair that excluded everything else, and when two others spoke to her she took no notice whatsoever.

Three elderly women sat at a table playing cards with vicious intensity, even though they put down a different card each time and called it always by the same name, the three of clubs.

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Another sat with an old news journal, which she held upside down, and kept repeating to herself, "I can't find it! I can't find it! I can't find it!"

' 'The Inspector wants to speak to someone who knew Elsie Draper," the Superintendent said tersely. "If you can find someone I should be obliged, Matron."

"In mercy's sake, what for?" the matron asked crossly. "What good can it do now, I'd like to know!"

"Is there anyone?" Pitt asked, trying to force himself to smile and failing. The hopelessness of the place was creeping into his skin-the confusion, the desperate faces that stared at him, the flickers of knowledge that they were betrayed from within. "I need to know!" He meant to keep his voice level, but a frantic note betrayed his feelings.

The matron had already heard every horror that there was; little moved her, for she could no longer find the emotion to allow it to.

"Polly Tallboys," she said patiently. "I suppose she might. Here-Polly! Come here and speak to the gentleman. No need to be afraid. He won't hurt you. You just answer him properly."

"I dint do it!" Polly was a small woman with pale eyes that drooped downward at the corners, and as she came forward obediently her fingers twisted the gray cotton of her dress. "Honest I dint!"

Pitt moved away from the matron and sat down on one of the chairs, motioning Polly to do the same.

"I know that," he said agreeably. "Of course you didn't. I believe you."

"You do?" She was incredulous, uncertain what to do next.

"Sit down, Polly, please. I need your help."

"Mine?"

"Yes, please. You knew Elsie, didn't you? You were friends?"

"Elsie? Yeah, I knew Elsie. She's gorn 'ome." S83

"Yes, that's right." The elemental truth of the words wrenched his heart. "Elsie used to be in service, didn't she." He made it a statement, not a question; perhaps questions were more than she could handle. "Did she ever tell you anything about that?"

"Oh yeah!" Polly's vacant face lit up for a moment. "Lady's maid, she were-ever so grand. Said 'er mistress were the best lady hi the world." Slowly the light faded from her eyes; tears filled them, spilling down her pallid cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away.

Pitt took his handkerchief and leaned forward to dry her tears. It was a pointless gesture-she kept on crying-but he felt better for it. Somehow it made her seem more like a woman, less a thing broken and shut away.

"She died, Elsie's mistress, a long time ago," he prompted. "Elsie was very sad."

Polly nodded very slowly. "Starved, poor soul; starved to death, for Jesus' sake."

Pitt was startled. Perhaps this had been an idiotic idea, coming to Bedlam for an answer when he did not even know what the question was, and asking lunatics.

"Starved?" he repeated. "I thought she died of scarlet fever."

"Starved." She said the word carefully, but her voice sounded empty, as if she did not know what it meant.

"Is that what Elsie said?"

"That's what Elsie said. For Jesus."

"Did she say why?" It was a wildly optimistic question. What could this poor creature know, and what could it mean, having come from Elsie Draper's jumbled mind?

"For Jesus," Polly repeated, looking at him with clear, shallow eyes.

"How was it for Jesus?" Was it even worth asking?

Polly blinked. Pitt waited, trying to smile at her.

Her attention wandered.

"How was it for Jesus, this starving?" he prompted her. 284

"The church," she said with a sudden return of interest. "The church in an 'all on Bethlehem Road. She knew it were true, an' 'e wou'nt let 'er go. That's wot Elsie said. Foreign, they was. 'E seen God-an' Jesus."

"Who had, Polly?"

"Idunno."

"What were they called?"

"She never said. Least, I never 'eard."

' 'But they met in a hall in Bethlehem Road? Are you sure?''

She made a momentous effort at thought, brow furrowed, fingers clenched in her lap. "No," she said at last. "I dunno."

He reached out and touched her gently. "Never mind. You've helped very much. Thank you, Polly."

She smiled warily, then some part of her grasped that he was pleased, and the smile widened. "Oppression-that's wot Elsie said. Oppression . . . wickedness-terrible wickedness." She searched his face to see if he understood.

"Thank you, Polly. Now I must go and find out about what you have told me. I'm going to Bethlehem Road. Goodbye Polly."

She nodded. "Good-bye, Mr. . . ." She tried to think what to call him and failed.

"Thomas Pitt," he told her.

"Good-bye, Thomas Pitt," she echoed.

He thanked the matron, and a junior warder showed him out, unlocking the doors and locking them behind him. He left Bethlem Royal Hospital and went out into the sun with a feeling of pity so deep he wanted to run, to leave not only the great building but all memory of it behind. And yet his feet clung leadenly to the damp pavements; the individual faces were too sharp in his mind to be left behind like anonymous facts.

He walked to Bethlehem Road; it took him less than fifteen minutes. He did not want to find Royce but to see if he could find anyone who knew of the religious order that had met in

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a hall seventeen years ago. Someone there might remember Mrs. Royce and know something about her. He had no idea what he could find. He had nothing but a simple-minded woman's recollection of a lunatic's rambling obsessions.

There was still a small hall in the road, and according to the board outside it was open to hire by the public. He noted the name and address of the caretaker, and within another ten minutes he was sitting in a small cold front parlor opposite a stocky, elderly man with pince-nez on his nose and a large pocket handkerchief in his hand against the sneezing which frequently overtook him.

"How can I help you, Mr. Pitt?" he said, and sneezed hard.

"Were you caretaker of the Bethlehem Road Hall seventeen years ago, Mr. Plunkett?"

"I was, sir, I was. Is there some trouble about it?"

' 'None that I know of. Did you lease the hall to a religious organization on a regular basis?"

"I did, sir; most assuredly. Eccentric people. Very strange beliefs, they had. Didn't baptize children, because they said children came into the world pure from God, and weren't capable of sin until they were eight years old. Can't agree with that, certainly I can't. Man is born in sin. Had my own children baptized when they were two months old, like a Christian should. But they were always civil and sober people, modestly dressed, and worked hard and helped each other."

"Are they still meeting here?"

"Oh no sir. Don't know where they all went to, I'm sure I don't. They got less and less, about five years ago, then the last of 'em disappeared."

"Do you remember a Mrs. Royce, some seventeen years ago?"

"Mrs. Royce? No sir, no I don't. There were a few young ladies. Handsome and nicely mannered they were, but they Ve all gone now. I don't know where, I'm sure. Maybe got

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married and settled down to a decent life-forgot all that nonsense."

Pitt could not give up now.

"Do you remember anyone at all from seventeen years ago? It is important, Mr. Plunkett."

"Bless you, sir. If I can recall anything you are more than welcome to it. What was this Lady Royce like?"

"I am afraid I don't know. She died about that time, of scarlet fever, I think."

"Oh-oh my goodness! I wonder if that was the friend of Miss Forrester? Lizzie Forrester. Her friend died, poor soul."

Pitt kept the excitement out of his voice. It was only a thread, perhaps nothing-it might break in his hands.

"Where can I find Lizzie Forrester?"

"Bless you, I don't know, sir. But I think her parents still live on Tower Street. Number twenty-three, as I recall. But someone'd tell you, if you were to go there and ask."

"Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Plunkett!" Pitt rose, shook the man's hand, and took his leave.

He did not even think of eating. He passed a public house, and the smell of fresh-baked pies did not even tempt him, so eager was he to find Lizzie Forrester and learn another side of the truth, something of the past of Elsie Draper which had sewn in her mind the seeds of such madness.

Tower Street was not hard to find: a couple questions of passersby and he was on the doorstep of number 23. It was a neat tradesman's-class front door, with a brass knocker in the shape of a horse's head. Pitt lifted it and let it fall. He stepped back and waited several minutes before a clean and dowdy maid answered it, not unlike the woman who did the heavy work in his own home.

"Yes sir?" she said in surprise.

"Good afternoon. Is this the home of Mr. or Mrs. Forrester?"

"Yes sir, it is."

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' 'I am Inspector Pitt, from the Bow Street Police Station.'' He saw her face blanch and was instantly sorry for his clumsiness. "There's been no accident, ma'am, and no crime that concerns this household. It is just that someone here may once have been acquainted with a lady we would like to kriow more about-in order to understand events that have no connection with this family."

She was still highly dubious. Respectable people did not have the police in their houses-for any reason.

He tried again. "She was a very distinguished lady, the lady we wish to learn more about, but she died many years ago; therefore we cannot ask her.''

"Well-well you'd better come in, an' I'll ask. You stay there!" She pointed to a spot on the hall floor on the worn red Turkey carpet next to the stand for sticks and umbrellas and the potted aspidistra. Pitt obeyed dutifully, waiting while she whisked away along the linoleum corridor past the stairs and the polished banisters, the samplers which read the eye of god is upon you and there's no place like home, and a picture of Queen Victoria. He heard the servant rap on a door, then the latch open and close. Somewhere in the back parlor his person and his errand were being described.

It was fully five minutes before a middle-aged couple appeared, dressed in neat and well-worn clothes, he with a watch chain across his middle and she with a lace fichu at her neck pinned with a nice piece of Whitby jet.

"Mr. Forrester, sir?" Pitt inquired politely.

"Indeed. Jonas Forrester, at your service. This is Mrs. Forrester. What may we do for you? Martha says you are inquiring about a lady who died some time ago."

"I believe she was a friend of your daughter Elizabeth."

Forrester's face tightened, some of the fresh-scrubbed pinkness fading from it; his wife's hand gripped his arm.

' 'We have no daughter Elizabeth,'' he said levelly. ' 'Catherine, Margaret, and Anabelle. I'm sorry; we cannot be of assistance.''

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Pitt looked at the very ordinary couple standing side by side in their hallway, faces set, hands clean, hair neat, the precise and God-fearing samplers on the wall, and wondered why on earth they should lie to him. What had Lizzie Forrester done that they should say she did not exist? Were they protecting her or disowning her?

He took a gamble.' 'The records say that you had a daughter Elizabeth born to you.''

The color flooded back into Forrester's face, and his wife's hand flew from his arm to cover her mouth and suppress a gasp.

' 'It would be less painful for you to tell me the truth,'' Pitt said quietly. "Far better than my having to go and ask questions of other people until I uncover it for myself. Don't you agree?"

Forrester looked at him with intense dislike.' 'Very well- if you insist. Although we've done nothing to deserve this, nothing at all! Mary, my dear, there is no need for you to endure this. Wait for me in the back parlor. I shall return when it is done."

"But I think-" she began, taking a step forward.

"I have spoken, my dear," he said levelly, but there was insistence under his genteel tone. He did not intend to be argued with.

"But really, I think I should-"

"I don't care to repeat myself, my dear."

"Very well, if you say so." And obediently she withdrew, nodding miserably at Pitt in a sort of half recognition of his presence. She retreated back the way she had come, and again they heard the door latch open and close.

"No need for her to suffer," Mr. Forrester said tartly, his eyes on Pitt's face, hard and critical. "Poor woman has endured enough already. What is it you want to know? We have not seen Elizabeth in seventeen years, nor are we likely to ever again. She ceased to be our daughter then, and whatever the law says, she is none of ours. Although what concern it

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is of yours I fail to see!" He opened the front parlor door, twisting the handle hard, and showed Pitt into a cold room with too much furniture, all spotlessly clean. The tables were crammed with photographs, china figures, Japanese lacquer boxes, two stuffed birds and a stuffed and mounted weasel under glass, and numerous potted plants. He neither sat down himself nor offered Pitt a seat, although there were three perfectly good chairs, all with embroidered antimacassars on their backs. "I completely fail to see!" he repeated accusingly.

"Perhaps I could speak to Elizabeth myself?" Pitt asked.

"You cannot! Elizabeth went to America seventeen years ago. Best place for her. We don't know what happened to her there or where she is. In fact, she could be dead for all we know!'' He said it with his chin high and his eyes bright, but Pitt caught a quaver in his voice, the first sign that there was pain as well as anger in him.

' 'I believe she belonged for a while to an unusual religious organization," Pitt began tentatively.

The pain vanished from Forrester's face, and only rage and bewilderment remained.

"Evildoers!" he said harshly. "Blasphemers, the lot of them." He shook with the depth of his outrage. "I don't know why they let them come into a God-fearing country and permit their wickedness to innocent people! That's what you should be doing-stopping wickedness like that! What's the use of your coming here seventeen years afterwards, I'd like to know? What good is that now, to us or to our Lizzie? Gone to join wicked men, she has, and never a word of her since. Mind, we're Christian people; we told her she'd be none of ours until she forsook her ways and came back to good Christian religion."

It was nothing to do with the case, but Pitt asked in spite of himself. "What was her religion, Mr. Forrester?"

"Blasphemy is what it was," he replied hotly. "Downright blasphemy against God, and all Christian people. Some

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charlatan who said he saw God, if you please! Said he saw God! And Jesus Christ! Separately! We believe in one God in this house, like all other decent people, and nobody is telling me some ignorant man with talk of magic and working miracles is going to have any part of me or mine. We told Elizabeth, forbade her to go to their meetings. We warned her of what would happen! Goodness knows how many hours her mother spent talking to her. But would she listen? No she wouldn't! Well in the end she went off to some place in America with the tricksters and wasters and fools who were taken in as she was, or saw a way to make a profit out of gullible women. You do everything you think is right, all you can do to keep your family God-fearing and Christian, and then they serve you like this! Well, Mrs. Forrester and I say we have no daughter Elizabeth, and that's how it is."

Pitt could see the man's grief, and his anger: he felt betrayed by his daughter and by circumstances, and it confused him, and the wound, for all his protestations, was not healed.

But Pitt had to pursue his own questioning.

"Was your daughter acquainted with a Mrs. Royce before she left England, Mr. Forrester?"

"Possibly. Yes, possibly she was. Another deluded young woman who would not take the counsel of her betters. But she died of typhoid or diphtheria as I recall."

"Scarlet fever, seventeen years ago."

"Was it! Poor soul. Dead without the time to repent, I daresay. What a tragedy. Still, the main damnation will be upon the heads of those who beguiled her away into idolatry and blasphemy against God."

"Did you know anything of Mrs. Royce, sir?"

"No. Never saw her. Wouldn't permit any of those people through my door. I lost one daughter, that's more than enough. But I heard Elizabeth speak of her often, as if she were quality." He sighed. "But I suppose being of gentle birth is no help to a woman, if she has a delicate constitution

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and a weak will. Women need looking after, sir, guarding from charlatans like that-that blasphemer!"

Pitt could not bear to give up. "Is there anyone who can tell me about Mrs. Royce? Did she ever write to your daughter? Would they have had mutual friends, anyone who still keeps that particular faith around here?"

"If there is, I don't know of them, sir, nor do I want to! Emissaries of the devil, performing his works!"

"It is important, Mr. Forrester." Was that the truth? To whom did it matter, after all these years? Pitt, because he wanted to know why Elsie Draper's sick mind had clung so passionately all the long years in Bedlam to her hatred for Garnet Royce? But what difference did it make now?

Forrester was looking uncomfortable, his eyes not quite steady on Pitt's face, his color mottled.

"Well, sir.

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Royce did write some letters to Lizzie, after Lizzie'd gone. We didn't send them on. Didn't know where to send them, and we'd sworn we'd never speak of Lizzie again, like as though she were dead, which she was to us, but then since they weren't ours, we couldn't rightly destroy them either. We've still got them somewhere, up in the box room."

"May I?" Suddenly Pitt was shaking with excitement, a wild hope beating upwards like a bird inside him. "May I see them?"

''If you wish to. But I'll thank you not to mention it to my wife. You'll read them in the box room, sir, and that's my condition.'' He looked uncertain as to whether he might impose any condition upon the police, but his resolution to try was strong, his pale eyes defiant.

"Of course," Pitt conceded. He had no wish to cause distress. "Please show me the way."

Fifteen minutes later Pitt was crouched under the beams of the roof in a small, stuffy, ice cold box room where three large trunks lay open, a variety of cases for hats and mantles

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were piled high, and in front of him at last were the six precious letters addressed to Miss Lizzie Forrester and postmarked from April 28 to June 2, 1871. They were all sealed, exactly as they had arrived.

Carefully he slipped the edge of his penknife under the flap of the first envelope. The letter was in a young, feminine hand and seemed to have been written in some haste, as if interruption were feared.

19 Bethlehem Road 28th April 1871 My dearest Lizzie,

I have tried every art or plea I know, but it is no use, Garnet is adamant. He will not even listen to me. Every time I mention the Church he forbids me to speak. Three times in the last two days he has sent me to my room until I should come to my senses and leave the subject alone, forget it forever.

But how can I? I know no other such sweetness or truth on the face of the world! I have gone over everything I have heard the Brethren say, over and over it in my mind, and I find no fault in it. Surely some of it seemed strange at first, and far from what I had been raised to believe, but when I consider it in light of what my heart tells me, it all seems so very right and just.

I hope I may prevail upon him; he is a good and just man, and only desires what is right for me. I know from all my past both as his betrothed and as his wife that he desires to protect and care for me and guard me from all ill.

Pray for me, Lizzie, that I shall find the words to soften his heart so he will permit me to come again to the Church and share the sweet companionship of my Sisters and receive some instruction in the true teachings of the Saviour of All Mankind,

Your dearest friend, Naomi Royce 293

The next letter was dated a week later.

Dearest Lizzie,

I hardly know how to begin! My husband and I have had the most dreadful disagreement. He has forbidden me ever to go to Church again, nor even to speak of the Gospel in the house. I must not mention the teachings or anything to do with the Brethren to him, nor try to explain to him why I know the Church is true, nor what makes me feel so.

I know it is hard for him! I do know it, believe me. I also was raised in the orthodox faith and believed it until I was eighteen years of age, when I began to find some of its doctrines did not answer the questions that cried out in my heart.

If God is such a holy and marvelous being as we are told-and I believe He is-and if He is our Father, as we are all taught, then how is it that we are such flawed creatures with no hope of growth, mere spiritual children, pygmies of such deformity of soul? I cannot believe it! I do not! There is endless hope for us, if only we will strive harder, learn who we are and stand upright, learn every good thing, seek after knowledge and wisdom, with the humility to let ourselves be taught. Then by the grace of Our Lord we shall become, in time, worthy to be called His children.

Garnet says I blaspheme, and he has ordered me to repent of it, and accompany him to a "proper" church every Sunday, as is my duty to God, to society, and to him.

I cannot! Lizzie, how can I deny the truth I know? Yet he will not listen to me. Pray for me that I may have courage, Lizzie!

May the Lord bless you and keep you,

Your dear friend, Naomi Royce 294

The third letter had been written only three days after the second.

Dearest Lizzie,

It is Sunday, and Garnet has gone to his church. I am sitting in my room and the door is locked-from the outside. He has said that if I will not go to his "proper" church, as a Christian woman should, then I shall go nowhere else.

I must be content with that. If I cannot have my freedom to choose where and how I shall worship God, as we believe all human creatures should, then I shall remain'here. I am resolved. I shall not go to his church, nor forswear my own conscience.

Elsie, my maid, is very good to me and brings my meals to my room. I don't know what I should do without her- she came with me when I was married, and seems to have no fear of Garnet. I know she will post this letter. I will have but three postage stamps left after I send this; after that Elsie has sworn she will evade the butler's eyes and deliver personally such letters as I write to you.

I hope next time I write I shall have better news.

In the meanwhile, keep your heart high and trust in God-no one ever trusted in Him in vain. He watches over all of us and will give us nothing more than we can bear.

Your devoted friend, Naomi

The next letter bore no date, and the handwriting was more sprawling and unsteady.

Dearest Lizzie,

It seems I have come to the greatest decision of my life. Yesterday I prayed all day to question myself as rigorously in every particular as I might, examining my beliefs in the 295

light of all that Garnet has said about our Faith being blasphemy, unnatural, and based upon the maunderings of a charlatan. He says that the Bible is sufficient for all the Christian world, and whoever adds to it in any way is wicked or deluded and should be denounced as such, that there is no further revelation, nor ever will be.

But the more I pray, the more firmly do I know that that is not so! God has not closed the heavens, the Truth has been restored, and I cannot deny it. On peril of losing my soul, I cannot!

What a terrible trial I am suffering! Oh Lizzie, I wish you were here so that just for a moment I might feel less alone. There is only Elsie, and bless her, she has no idea what I mean, but she does love me and will be loyal to me forever. And for that I am more grateful than I can say.

I had a dreadful quarrel with Garnet. He has told me that until I forswear this blasphemy I am to remain in my bedroom! I will, I told him I will, but I shall not eat until he permits me to choose for myself, by the light of my own conscience, what faith I will follow, and what I shall believe in God!

He was so angry. I think perhaps he truly believes he acts in my welfare, but Lizzie, I am a person-I have my own thoughts and my own heart! No one has the right to choose my path for me! They will not feel my pain, or my joy, nor be guilty of my sins. My soul is as precious as anyone else's. I have one life-this one-and I WILL choose!

And if Garnet will not permit me to leave my bedroom, then I shall not eat. In the end he will have to grant me my freedom to profess my own Faith. Then I shall be a dutiful and loving wife to him, fulfill all my callings both social and domestic, be modest and courteous and all else he would wish. But I will not forswear myself.

Your sister in the Gospel of Christ, Naomi 296

The next letter was much shorter. Pitt opened it without even being aware of his frozen limbs or the cramp that was stealing through his legs.

Dearest Lizzie,

At first it was terribly difficult to keep my word. I grew so dreadfully hungry! Every book I picked up seemed to speak of food. I had such a headache, and I became cold so easily.

Now it is easier. It has been a whole week, and I feel tired and very faint, but the hunger has passed. I am still terribly cold, and Elsie piles the blankets and quilts on top of me as if I were a child. But I will not give in.

Pray for me!

Keep faith, Naomi

The last letter was merely two lines, scribbled across the page, the writing faint and very hard to read.

Dearest Lizzie,

I fear if he relents it will be too late now. I am losing all my strength and cannot last much longer.

Naomi

Pitt sat in the cold box room oblivious of the rafters above him, the chill, the whole silent household below. Elsie was right; in her wild, mad brain she had held onto a core of truth all these years. Naomi Royce had died of starvation, rather than forswear the faith she believed. There had been no scarlet fever, only a religious order society would not have tolerated, a new belief that would have scandalized an M.P.'s constituency and caused him to be held up to ridicule.

So he had shut her in her room until she came to her senses.

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Only he had misjudged the passion of her belief, and the strength of her heart. She had starved to death rather than deny her God. And what a scandal that would have been- an unconventional religious sect would be a small scandal compared with that! He would have lost his seat and his reputation. Locked in her room and starved to death: oppression, madness, suicide.

So he had called on his brother Jasper to pronounce that the death had been from scarlet fever. And then what had happened? The faithful Elsie had spoken the truth. They could not let that abroad-such whispers would mean ruin. Better bundle her off to Bedlam, where she would be silenced forever. Get Jasper to write up the forms, and the matter could be settled that night: melancholia over the death of her beloved mistress. Who would know any different? Who would miss her? Her stories would be taken as the ravings of a madwoman.

Pitt folded up the letters and put the envelopes in his inside pocket. When he stood up his legs were so cramped the pain made him gasp. He nearly fell down the steep ladder to the upstairs landing.

In the hallway the maid was waiting for him, face weary and a little frightened. The police always frightened her- and it was certainly not respectable to have them in the house.

"Did you get what you need, sir?"

"Yes, thank you. Will youjell Mr. Forrester I shall take the letters, and give him my thanks."

"Yes sir-thank you, sir." And she let him out into the late afternoon sun with a gasp of relief.

Micah Drummond stared at Pitt, his face white.

"There's nothing we can do! There was no crime-all right! God knows, this was sin-but who do we charge? And with what? Garnet Royce did what he thought best for his wife; he misjudged. She starved herself to death; she mis-

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judged also. Then he did what he could to protect her reputation."

"His own reputation!"

' 'His own as well, but if we charged every man in London who did that we'd have half Society in jail."

' 'And half the middle classes aspiring to gentility as well,'' Pitt said chokingly. "But dear heaven, their wives weren't locked up to starve themselves to death so they shouldn't go to an inappropriate church! And how can any man take it upon himself to decide another person is insane and shut them in Bedlam for the rest of their lives? Just shut them away in a living tomb!"

"We've got to keep lunatics somewhere, Pitt."

Pitt slammed his fist on the desk, rattling the inkstand, unaware of the pain that shot through his hand; the outrage inside him was all he could feel.

"She wasn't a lunatic! Not before she was sent there! Dear God, what woman wouldn't lose her mind shut away in Bedlam for seventeen years? Have you ever been there? Can you even imagine it? Think what he has done to that woman. How can we let it happen? No wonder she tried to murder him-if she'd cut his throat it would have been an easy death compared with the slow torture he put her to."

''I know!'' Drummond's voice cracked under the strain of his emotion. "I know that, Pitt! But Naomi Royce is dead, Elsie Draper is dead, and there is nothing we can charge anyone with. Garnet Royce only exercised the same rights and responsibilities any man does over his wife. A man and his wife are one in law: he votes for her, is financially and legally responsible for her, and he has always determined what her religion should be, and her social status as well. He didn't murder her."

Pitt sank down into his chair.

"And all we could charge Jasper with would be falsifying a death certificate for Naomi Royce. We couldn't prove it

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after seventeen years, but even if we could, no jury would convict."

"And committing Elsie Draper?"

Drummond looked at him with deep pain. "Pitt, you and I believe she was sane when she was committed, but it's only our belief against the word of a respected doctor. And God knows, she was certainly mad when she died!"

"And Naomi Royce's word!" He put his hand on the letters spread out on the desk between them.' 'We've got these!''

"The opinion of a woman who had embraced a strange religious sect and starved herself to death rather than obey her husband and come back to the orthodox faith? Who's going to convict a dog on the basis of that?"

"No one," Pitt said wearily. "No one."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. May I keep these?"

"If you want-but you know you can't do anything with them. You can't accuse Royce."

⁴'I know.'' Pitt picked up the letters, carefully folding them and putting them back in their envelopes and into the inside pocket of his coat. ' 'I know, but I want to keep them. I don't want to forget."

Drummond smiled bitterly. "You won't. Neither shall I. Poor woman . . . poor woman!"

Charlotte looked up, eyes wide with horror. The tears ran down her cheeks unheeded and her hands holding the letters were shaking.

"Oh Thomas! It's too dreadful to have a name! How they must have suffered-first Naomi, and then poor Elsie. How that poor creature must have felt! To watch her mistress die slowly, growing weaker every day, and yet refusing to betray her truth, and Elsie helpless to do anything. Then when it had gone too far and she could not eat, even if she would, to watch her sink into unconsciousness and death. And when Elsie would not let them hush it all up and report it as scarlet

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fever, they told her she was mad, and bundled her away to spend the rest of her life behind the walls of a lunatic asylum. '' She seized his handkerchief from his pocket and blew her nose fiercely. "Thomas, what are we going to do?"

"Nothing. There is nothing we can do," he replied somberly.

"But that's preposterous!"

' 'There's been no crime committed.'' And he related what Drummond had said to him.

She stood stunned, too appalled to speak, knowing what he said was true, and that argument was pointless. And staring up at him, she was as aware of his pity and anger as she was of her own.

"Very well," she said at last. "I can see that. I am sure you would prosecute him if there were any grounds-of course you would. But there is no purpose in taking to law something which could never be acted upon. I think, if you don't mind, I shall show the letters to Great-aunt Vespasia tomorrow. I am sure she would like to know what the truth of the matter was. May I take them to her?" She half held mem out to nun, but it was only a gesture; she had not considered that he might refuse.

"If you wish." He was reluctant, and yet why should she not tell Vespasia? Perhaps they could comfort each other. She might want to talk about it further, and he was too exhausted by his own emotions to want to relive it. "Yes, of course."

"You must be tired." She put the letters in her apron pocket, regarding him gravely. "Why don't you sit down by the fire, and I shall make supper. Would you like a fresh kipper? I have two from the fishmonger today. And hot bread."

By late the following afternoon Charlotte knew precisely what she was going to do, and how she would accomplish it. No one would help her, at least not knowingly, but Great-

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aunt Vespasia would do all that was necessary, if she was asked the right way. Pitt had spent most of the day in the garden, but at five o'clock the weather had changed suddenly, a chill wind had sprung up from the east covering the sky with leaden clouds, and by nightfall there would be a freezing fog. He had come inside, then gone to sleep in front of the fire.

Charlotte did not disturb him. She left a leek and potato pie in the oven and a note on the kitchen table telling him she had gone to visit Aunt Vespasia. Since it was extremely cold and a fog was drifting in off the river, she took the rather expensive step of hiring a cab to take her all the way to Vespasia's house where she was received with pleasure and some surprise.

"Is anything wrong, my dear?" Vespasia asked, and looked at Charlotte more closely. "What is it? What has happened?"

Charlotte took the letters from her reticule and passed them over, explaining how Pitt had discovered them.

Vespasia opened them, adjusted her pince-nez on her nose, and read them slowly and without comment. Finally she put the last one down and sighed very quietly.

"How very terrible. Two lives wasted, and in such confusion and pain, over such terrible domination of one person by another. How unreasonably far we still have to go before we learn to treat each other with dignity. Thank you for showing them to me, Charlotte-although when I lie awake at night I shall wish you had not. I must speak to Somerset next time about the laws of lunacy; I am getting old to take up new causes about which I know nothing, but it will haunt me. What could be worse than madness, except to spend years as the only sane person in a fortress of the mad?"

"Don't! . . .I'm sorry. I should not have shown them to you."

' 'No, my dear. It was very natural.'' Vespasia put her hand over Charlotte's.' 'We wish to share our pain. And better you

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should have come to me than to poor Thomas. He has seen more than enough lately, and his helplessness must hurt him."

"Yes," Charlotte agreed; she knew it did. But it was nearly six o'clock and time to put the next part of her plan into progress. "I mean to visit Sir Garnet Royce, perhaps to deliver the letters to him.'' She saw Vespasia's body grow rigid. "After all, they are his, in a sense."

"Rubbish!" Vespasia snapped. "My dear Charlotte, you may be able to lie successfully to other people, although I doubt it, but please do not try it with me. You do not for a moment imagine they are Sir Garnet's property. They were written by his wife to a Miss Forrester, and if they cannot be delivered to her, then they are the property of Her Majesty's Postal Service. Nor would you give a fig if they were Sir Garnet's! What do you mean to do?"

There was no more purpose in lying; it had failed. "I mean to oblige him to know the truth, and to know that I know it," Charlotte replied. It was not all her plan, but it was part of it.

"Dangerous," Vespasia answered.

' 'Not if I take your carriage, with your coachman to drive me. Sir Garnet may be as angry as he likes, but he is not going to harm me. He would not dare. And I shall take only two letters, and leave the rest with you." She waited, watching Vespasia's face. Charlotte saw the doubt in it, as Vespasia argued back and forth with herr^lf.''He deserves to know!'' she said urgently. "The law cannot face him with it, but I can. And for Naomi's sake, and Elsie Draper's, I am going to. I shall arrive in a proper carriage, with a footman, and the servants will let me in. He cannot harm me! Please, Vespasia. All I want is the use of your carriage for an hour or two." She considered adding, "Otherwise I shall have to go by hansom," but it sounded too much like pressure, and Vespasia would not care for that.

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"Very well. But I shall send Forbes as well, to ride on the box. That is my condition."

"Thank you, Aunt Vespasia. I shall leave at about seven, if that is acceptable to you. That way I shall be most likely to find him at home, since the House of Commons is not debating anything of importance today, so I have been told.''

' 'Then you had better have supper.'' Vespasia's silver eyebrows rose. "I presume you have left something for poor Thomas to eat?"

"Yes of course I have. And a note to tell him I am visiting you and will be home at about half past eight or nine o'clock."

"Indeed," Vespasia said dryly. "Then I suppose we had better request the kitchen to send us something. Would you care for some jugged hare?"

An hour later Charlotte was sitting huddled up inside Vespasia's carriage while the horses drew it slowly through the fog-blinded streets from Belgravia, past the Palace of Westminster, across the bridge, and along the far side of the south bank towards Bethlehem Road. It was bitterly cold, and the dead air hung motionless, moisture freezing as it touched the icy stones. Half of her was dreading arrival, and yet she was so cold and the decision so firm in her mind that delay was of no value, there was nothing else to turn over or consider, nothing that would change her resolve. Garnet Royce was not going to be permitted to close his mind to Naomi, or Elsie Draper, and convince himself he had acted justly.

The carriage stopped, and she heard the footman's steps as he descended and a moment later the carriage door opened. She took his hand and alighted. The fog was so thick she could barely see the streetiamps oh either side of her, and the houses on the far side of the street, no more than a slight darkening of the gray, curling vapors, a mark on the imagination.

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' 'Thank you. I am sorry to ask you to wait here, but I hope I shall not be long."

"That's all right, ma'am," Forbes replied from the gloom just beyond.' 'Her ladyship said we were to wait for you right outside the door, and we shall."

Garnet Royce received her civilly enough, but his manner was distant and somewhat surprised. He had obviously forgotten her from her visit to Amethyst following Lockwood Hamilton's death, which was hardly surprising, and he now had no idea who she was. She did not waste time in niceties.

"I have come to see you, Sir Garnet, because I plan to write a book-about a certain religious movement, to which your wife Naomi Royce belonged, before she died."

His face froze. "My wife was a member of the Church of England, ma'am. You have been misinformed."

"Not according to her letters," she replied, equally coldly. "She wrote several very personal, very tragic letters to a certain Lizzie Forrester, who was a member of the same movement. Miss Forrester emigrated to America, and the letters never reached her. They remained in this country, and have come into my hands."

He remained stony-faced, his hand near the bell rope.

She must hurry before she was thrown out. She opened her reticule and pulled out the pages she had brought. She began to read, starting with Naomi's account of her husband's forbidding her to attend the church of her conviction and sending her to her room until she should comply with his wishes, and her vow that she would refuse to eat until he allowed her the freedom of her own conscience. When Charlotte came to the end she looked up at Royce. The contempt in his eyes was blistering, and his hands clenched in front of him in rage.

"I can only assume that you are threatening to make this a scandal if I do not pay you. Blackmail is an ugly and dangerous profession, and I would advise you to give me the

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letters and leave before you damn yourself by making threats."

She saw the fear in him, and her own disgust hardened. She thought of Elsie Draper and a lifetime in Bedlam.

"I don't want anything from you, Sir Garnet," she said, her voice so grating it hurt her throat. ' 'Except that you should know what you have done: you denied a woman the right to seek God in her own way and to follow her conscience in the manner of her belief. She would have obeyed you in all else! But you had to have everything, her mind and her soul. It would have been a scandal, wouldn't it? 'M.P.'s Wife Joins Extreme Religious Sect!' Your political party would have dropped you, all your Society friends! So you locked her in her room until she should obey you. Only you had not realized how passionately she believed, how strong she was-that she would die rather than renounce the truth she believed-and she did die!

' 'Oh how you must have panicked then. You sent for your brother to write a death certificate calling it scarlet fever"- she would not let him interrupt when he tried, raising her voice to drown him out-"and he agreed to do it, to avoid a scandal. 'M.P.'s Wife Commits Suicide in Locked Room! Did her husband drive her to it-or was she mad? Insanity in the family?'

"Only Elsie, loyal Elsie, wouldn't agree; she wanted to tell the truth-so you had her committed to Bedlam! Seventeen years in a madhouse, seventeen years of living death. No wonder when she got out she came hunting for you with a razor! God help her! If she wasn't mad when you put her in, she certainly was by the time she was allowed to leave!"

For many seconds of dreadful silence they stared at each other in mutual abhorrence. Then slowly his face changed. He caught a glimpse of what she meant, wild and heretical as it was to him, challenging all the rules he knew, overturning all order concerning the rights and obligations of the strong to protect the weak, to govern them for their own

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good-whatever their wishes. Then as he gazed at her those thoughts passed away; a conflict remained which Charlotte watched him wrestle with for several more minutes, while the clock on the mantelshelf ticked on, and far away someone dropped a tray in the kitchen.

"My wife was of fragile mind and disposition, madame. You did not know her. She was given to sudden fancies, and very easily prevailed upon by charlatans and people of feverish imagination. They sought money from her. That was not in her letters, perhaps, but it is so, and I was afraid of her being taken advantage of. I forbade them the house, as any man of responsibility would."

He swallowed hard, composing himself with difficulty, banishing the horror he had caught such a dreadful sight of for an instant, forcing the words out.

' 'I misjudged her. She was more vulnerable to their blandishments than I realized, and in poor health, which affected her mind. I appreciate now that I should have called medical help for her long before I did. I imagined she was being willful, whereas she was in truth suffering delusions from fever, and the effects of designing people. I regret my actions; you do not know how I regretted them, how I have done over the years.''

Charlotte felt her mastery was slipping away, somehow he was twisting what she had said. "But you had no right to decide what she should believe!'' she cried out. ' 'No one has the right to choose for someone else! How dare you? How dare you presume to judge another person as to what they should want? It is not protection, it is ... it is ..." She searched for the word. "It is dominion! And it is wrongl"

"It is the duty of the strong and the able to protect the weak, madame, and especially those born or given into their charge. And you will find that society will thank you little for seeking to make a profit out of my family's misfortune.''

"And what about Elsie Draper? What about her life? You shut her away in a madhouse!"

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A very slight smile touched the comers of his mouth.

"And do you contend, madame, that she was not mad?"

"Not when you put her away, no!" Charlotte was losing, and she saw it in his face, heard it in the stronger, calmer tone in his voice.

"You had better leave, madame. There is nothing for you here. If you write your book, and you mention the name of anyone in my family, I shall sue you for libel, and society will reject you for the cheap adventuress you are. Good day. My footman will show you out." And he rang the bell.

Five minutes later Charlotte was sitting in the carriage as the horses plodded slowly through the freezing fog down Bethlehem Road and back towards the Westminster Bridge and the darkness of the river. She had failed. She had not done more than shake his complacency for a few moments- just that brief space when he had glimpsed the idea that he had been guilty of a monstrous oppression. Then self-justification had swept back and everything was as before; he was powerful, complacent, secure. To think that she had even been frightened! How needless-he had dismissed her without any emotion but disgust. He had not even asked for the letters!

They were coming down onto the bridge now; she heard the difference in the echo of the horses' hooves. The fog was very dense and the ice slippery on the stones. She felt the occasional jolt as an animal lost and regained its footing.

What were they stopping for?

There was a rap on the carriage door and Forbes opened it.

"Ma'am, there is a gentleman wishes to speak to you."

"A gentleman?"

"Yes. He said it was confidential, if you would not mind stepping out for a moment; it would be more decorous than his climbing in."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, ma'am. I don't recognize him, and to tell 308

the truth, I wouldn't recognize my own brother on a night like this. But I shall be right here, ma'am, only a few yards from you. He said to tell you it was about passing a new law guaranteeing freedom of conscience."

Freedom of conscience? Could something she had said have touched Garnet Royce after all?

She stepped out, taking Forbes's hand and steadying herself on the ice-glazed pavement. She saw the figure dimly, only a few feet away. It was Garnet Royce, muffled up against the bitter night. He must have relented as soon as she had left, and followed her carriage; they had traveled at no more than walking pace.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately. "I realize I misjudged you. Your motives were not selfish, as I presumed. If I might have a moment of your time . . . ?" He took a step away from the carriage to be out of earshot of Forbes and the coachman.

She followed, understanding his desire for privacy. It was a highly delicate matter.

' 'I was too zealous, I confess. I treated Naomi as if she were a child. You are right. An adult woman, whether married or single, should have the freedom to follow her conscience and to embrace whatever religious teaching she will.''

' 'You mentioned a law?'' Could it be that after all something good would come of this? "Could such a law be framed?"

"I don't know," he said so softly she was obliged to move closer to hear him. "But I am certainly in a position to discover what can be done, and to introduce such a bill. If you would tell me what you think would be of benefit to all woman, and yet still keep order and protect the weak and the ignorant from exploitation. It is not easy."

She thought about it, trying frantically to come up with some sensible answer. A law? She had never thought of legal means. And yet he was very serious, his eyes with their clear silver-blue irises were bright in the triple lamplight and the

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halo of the fog. She could barely see even the outline of the carriage.

She looked back at him, and it was then she saw the sudden change in his expression, the gleam of passion as his lips twisted back from his teeth and his arm darted forward, his black-gloved hand clamping over her lips before she could cry out. She was being pushed backwards towards the balustrade and the long drop to the river!

She kicked as hard as she could, but it was useless. She tried to bite and only bruised her mouth. The balustrade was digging into her back. In a moment she would be lifted over and thrown into the void, then the freezing water would close over her, and darkness, and her lungs would fill to bursting. No one would survive the river tonight.

She swung her other hand round and jabbed for his eyes with outstretched fingers. There was a stifled yell of pain, muffled by the fog. He lunged forward to strike her but his feet gave way on the ice, and for a desperate second he hung on the balustrade, arms and legs flailing. Then, like a wounded bird, he went over and dropped into the long chasm of the night and the river. She did not even hear the splash as the water received him; the fog drowned it in choking silence.

She stood leaning on the rail, sick and shaking. The sweat of a few moments ago was now freezing on her skin. She felt too weak with fear and guilt even to stand without support.

"Ma'am!"

She stood rigid, not even breathing.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?"

It was Forbes, looming up, invisible until he was almost on top of her.

"Yes." Her voice sounded thin, unrecognizable.

"Are you sure, ma'am? You look . . . unwell. Did the gentleman-trouble you? If he did-"

"No!" She swallowed hard. There seemed to be an ob 310

struction in her throat, and her knees were wobbling so, she feared to walk. How could she explain what happened? Would they think she had pushed him over, murdered him? Who would believe her? And what was she guilty of anyway? Would they believe she had not tried after all to blackmail him, and pushed him over the bridge when he had threatened to expose her to the police?

"Ma'am, I think, if you will forgive me, that you should get back into the carriage and permit me to drive you back to Lady Cumming-Gould."

"No-no thank you, Forbes. Will you take me to the Bow Street Police Station? I have an-an incident to report."

"Yes ma'am, if that is what you wish."

Gratefully she took his arm, and awkwardly, tripping over the step, she half fell inside the carriage and sat there shivering while they covered the short distance across the rest of the bridge and up the north side to Bow Street.

Forbes helped her out again, now severely anxious for her welfare, going with her past the duty sergeant and up the stairs to Micah Drummond's office.

Drummond looked at her in alarm, then at Forbes. "Go and get Inspector Pitt!" he commanded. "Immediately, man!"

Forbes turned on his heel and ran down the stairs two at a time.

"Sit down, Mrs. Pitt." Drummond half carried-her to his own chair. "Now tell me what on earth has happened. Are you ill?"

She wanted above anything else to fall into Pitt's arms and be held, to weep herself into exhaustion and to sleep, but first she must explain, now, before Pitt came. It was her fault, not his, and the very least she owed him was not to involve him in the blame, and to spare him the anguish of her explanation.

Slowly and carefully, between sips of brandy, which she loathed, and staring at Micah Drummond's strained and gen

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tie face, she recounted precisely what she had done, and how Garnet Royce had responded. She saw the reflection of fear and anger in his eyes, his perception of what would happen before she reached that part of the account herself, and the briefest flicker of admiration for what she had said.

She faltered when she told him how Royce had slipped on the ice and plunged over the balustrade into the river, but slowly, with her eyes shut, she found the words, though they were inadequate to express her terror and her guilt.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. What would he do to her? To Pitt? Had she jeopardized not only herself but Thomas also? She was bitterly ashamed and afraid.

Drummond held both her hands.

"There can be no doubt that he is dead," he said slowly. "No one could live in the river in this weather, even if he survived the fall. The River Police will find him presently; maybe tomorrow, maybe later, depending on the tide. There are three conclusions they can come to: suicide, accident, or murder. You were the last person known to have seen him alive, so they will come to question you."

She wanted to speak but her voice would not come. It was even worse than she had thought!

His hands tightened over hers. "It was an accident, which occurred in the course of his attempting to commit murder. It seems his dread of scandal was so great he would kill to keep his position. But we cannot prove that, and it would be wiser not to try. It would distress his family and achieve nothing. I think the best thing would be for me to go to the River Police and tell them that he received letters written by his late wife which distressed him profoundly, and we fear that they may have disturbed the balance of his mind-which is perfectly true. Then they may draw whatever conclusions they wish, but I imagine they will find it to have been suicide. That would be the best thing, in the circumstances. There is no need to tar his name with accusations that cannot be proved."

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She searched his face, finding only gentleness there. The relief was so intense it was like the easing of a cramp, painful and exquisite. The tears would no longer be stayed, and she buried her head in her hands and sobbed with pity, exhaustion, and overwhelming, devastating gratitude.

She did not even see Pitt come in the door, ashen-faced, Forbes at his elbow, but she felt his arms go round her as she breathed in the familiar smell of his coat, feeling the texture of it under her cheek.

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