Farriers' Lane

5

“IS IT the Inner Circle again?” Charlotte asked grimly, taking the pins out of her hair and running her fingers through it in relief at letting it down. She felt as if she had had half an ironmonger’s shop in it keeping its heavy coils in place.

Pitt was standing behind her, debating whether to hang his jacket up or simply let it lie across the back of the chair.

“Probably,” he replied. “Although I can’t blame Lambert for not wanting the whole thing raked up again. It’s a terrible feeling to have your cases reopened and questioned as to whether you were right—especially if the man was hanged. Worse if you are not absolutely sure you did all you could, and you doubt your own honesty at the time.” He opted for laying the jacket on the chair. “It is so easy to make mistakes when everyone is crying out for a solution, and you are afraid for your own reputation, of being thought not good enough, not equal to the task.” He sat on the edge of the bed and continued undressing. “And if your men are panicking because witnesses are lying, and frightened, and full of hate …”

“Are they like that over Judge Stafford?” Charlotte asked, swiveling around on her dressing table stool to look at him.

“No, I don’t think so.” He stood up, took his shirt off and put it onto the chair as well, and his undervest on top of it. He poured warm water from the pitcher into the bowl and washed his hands, face and neck, and reached for his nightshirt and put it on, pulling it over his head, then trying to find the armholes. “It begins to look as if it may be personal, and nothing to do with the Farriers’ Lane case at all,” he added when he finally got his head through.

“You mean his wife?” Charlotte put her brush down, looked for a moment at the pile of clothes on the chair, and decided to leave them where they were and say nothing. It was not the occasion for fussing. “Juniper? Why would she kill him?”

“Because she was in love with Adolphus Pryce,” he answered, climbing into bed. He was quite oblivious of the scattered things he had left around—at least she thought he was.

“Was she?” she said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“No—not yet. But I cannot think why Livesey should say so if it is not true. I’ll have to enquire into it.”

“That seems a bit extreme.” She abandoned brushing her hair and rose to turn down the gas in the bracket on the far wall, then climbed into bed also. The clean sheets were cold, and she snuggled up to him comfortably. “I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t think you would.” He put his arm around her. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Farriers’ Lane murder worth looking into, certainly nothing to kill Stafford for.”

“But you don’t know what he found out,” she protested.

“I know what I found out. Nothing at all. Godman was seen coming out of Farriers’ Lane with blood on his coat, and identified by a flower seller in Soho Square, two streets away. He didn’t even deny that, just the actual time, and that was proved to be a lie. Sorry, my love, but it looks incontestable that he did it. I know you would like him to be innocent, because of Tamar Macaulay, but it seems he can’t be.”

“Then why are the Inner Circle telling you to leave it alone?” she demanded. “If there’s nothing to find out, why should they mind if you look?” She wriggled a little lower and knew Pitt was smiling in the darkness beside her. “In fact,” she added, “they should be very glad if you prove they were right!”

He said nothing, but reached over with his arm and touched her hair gently.

“Except perhaps they aren’t,” she went on. “Are you going to leave it?”

“I am going to sleep,” he said comfortably.

“But is the Farriers’ Lane case really closed, Thomas?” she persisted.

“For tonight—yes!”

“But tomorrow?”

He pulled her closer, laughing, and she was obliged to leave the matter.

In the morning Pitt ate a hurried breakfast, having woken late, and then kissed Charlotte long and gently, and left at a run to take an omnibus to see the medical examiner again.

Charlotte set about the small chores of the day, beginning with a pile of ironing, while Gracie washed the breakfast dishes and then cleaned and blacked the grate in the parlor, laid the fire for the evening, swept the floor and dusted, and made the beds.

At eleven o’clock they both stopped for a cup of tea and a chance to gossip.

“Is the master still on the case o’ the man wot was crucified in the stable yard?” Gracie asked with an elaborately casual air, stirring her tea in apparent concentration.

“I’m not really sure,” Charlotte replied without any pretense at all. “You haven’t any sugar!”

Gracie grinned and stopped stirring. “Won’t ’e tell you nuffing?”

“Oh yes—but the more he looks into it, the less it seems as if Judge Stafford could have found out anything new about it. And if he didn’t, then there isn’t any reason why anybody from that case should have killed him.”

“Then ’oo did? ’Is wife?” Gracie was transparently disappointed. Domestic murder was so much less interesting, especially if it were simply a matter of an affair, and the other party involved was known to them, and not really scandalous.

“I suppose so, or Mr. Pryce.”

Gracie stared at her, ignoring her tea.

“What’s wrong, ma’am? Don’t you think that’s ’oo did it?”

Charlotte smiled. “I don’t know. I suppose they might. I just keep remembering how I felt when I watched her the evening her husband died. Maybe it’s vanity to think I could not be so wrong in my judgment.”

“Maybe it was ’er lover, an’ she didn’t know nuffing about it?” Gracie suggested, trying to be helpful.

“Maybe—but I rather liked him too.” Charlotte sipped her tea and caught Gracie’s eye over the top of the cup.

“ ’Oo is it as you don’t like?” Gracie was ever practical.

“No one yet. But I’ve liked people who were guilty before.”

“ ’Ave yer? Really?” Gracie’s eyes were wide with interest and amazement.

“It depends why.” Charlotte thought she ought to explain. She was about to elaborate, recalling some of Pitt’s cases in which she had been involved, when the doorbell rang, and Gracie, in a flurry of surprise, put down her cup, stood up, straightened her skirts and scampered down the corridor to answer it.

She returned a moment later with Caroline, who was smartly dressed, but obviously she had dressed somewhat hurriedly, and without her usual attention to detail. After the greetings had been exchanged, and the answers that all were in good health, Caroline sat down at the kitchen table, accepted the tea Gracie gave her, and explained her reason for having come. She took a breath and plunged in.

“How is Thomas progressing with the murder of poor Mr. Stafford? Has he learned anything yet?”

“How devious and indirect you are, Mama,” Charlotte said with amusement.

“What?”

“You used to criticize me for being too blunt,” Charlotte replied cheerfully. “You said people did not like it, and that one should always approach things a little sideways, to give people a chance to avoid the subject if they wish.”

“Nonsense!” Caroline expostulated, but there was a distinct pinkness in her cheeks. “Anyway, that was with strangers, and with gentlemen—and I am neither. And what I said was that it is indelicate to be too forthright—it is …”

“I know—I know.” Charlotte waved her hand. “I am afraid he has discovered nothing new about the Farriers’ Lane murder. He has no idea why Judge Stafford should have been looking into it again. It seems quite beyond question that Aaron Godman was guilty.”

“Oh—oh dear. Poor Miss Macaulay.” Caroline shook her head minutely, her face full of sorrow. “I think she really believed her brother was innocent. This will be very hard for her.”

Charlotte put her hand on her mother’s. “I only said he had found nothing new, so far. I don’t think he will give up, unless it was Mrs. Stafford or Mr. Pryce, or both of them.”

“And if it wasn’t?”

“Then he will have to go back to the Farriers’ Lane case—unless there is something else.”

“What?” Caroline’s face was creased with anxiety now and she leaned farther forward across the table, her tea forgotten. “What else?”

“I don’t know—some other personal enmity. Something to do with money, perhaps, or another crime he knew about.”

“Is there evidence of anything like that?”

“No—I don’t think so. Not so far.”

“It doesn’t sound …” Caroline smiled bleakly. “It doesn’t sound very likely, does it? He’s bound to go back to the Farriers’ Lane case. I would.”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “It is what Mr. Stafford was doing the day he died. He must have had a reason. Even if all he intended was to prove forever that it was Aaron Godman, maybe someone else thought differently.”

“That’s illogical, my dear,” Caroline pointed out ruefully. “If Aaron Godman was guilty, then no one now would kill Mr. Stafford to prevent him from proving that. Miss Macaulay might grieve that she could no longer hope to clear her brother’s name, but she would not kill Stafford because he believed him guilty. Apart from the fact that it would be ridiculous, everyone else believes him guilty. She cannot kill everyone. And why should she? It wasn’t Stafford’s fault.” She bit her lip. “No, Charlotte, if Godman was guilty, there was no reason to kill Judge Stafford. But if someone else was, then there was every reason, if he knew that—or they thought he did.”

“Someone like whom, Mama? Joshua Fielding? Is that what you are afraid of?”

“No! No.” She shook her head fiercely, her face pink. “It could be anyone.”

“Now who is being illogical?” Charlotte said gently. “The only people the judge saw that day were his wife, Mr. Pryce, Judge Livesey, Devlin O’Neil, Miss Macaulay, and Joshua Fielding. Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Stafford and Judge Livesey had nothing to do with Kingsley Blaine. They only came into the case when it came to trial, and Judge Livesey only when it went to appeal. They couldn’t possibly be guilty of that crime.”

Caroline looked very pale.

“Then we’ve got to do something! I don’t believe it was Joshua, and we must prove it. Perhaps we can find out something before Thomas starts, while he is still investigating Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce.”

Charlotte felt a sudden, quick sympathy with her, but she could think of little that would be helpful. She knew the sense of fear that someone one liked could be implicated, hurt—even be guilty.

“I don’t know what we could find out,” she said hesitantly, watching Caroline’s face and the anxiety in it, the awareness of her vulnerable situation. It was so easy to be foolish. “If Thomas has tried …” She shrugged. “I don’t know where to begin. We don’t know Mrs. Stafford—although of course I suppose I could call on her …” She knew her reluctance to do it was plain in her voice and in her expression. “It’s …” She struggled to find words that were not too abrupt. “She will know it is curiosity; she knows I am a policeman’s wife. And if she is innocent, and grieving, whatever she feels for Mr. Pryce—and we don’t know what her feelings are—it is only rumor—then it would be so offensive.”

“But if innocent people were in jeopardy?” Caroline pressed, leaning forward across the table. “Surely that must be the most urgent thing, the most important.”

“That is not yet the case, Mama, and it may never be.”

“When it is, it will be too late,” Caroline said with rising anxiety. “It isn’t only charges and arrests, Charlotte—it is suspicion, and the ruin of reputations. That can be enough to destroy someone.”

“I know.”

“What did Lady Cumming-Gould say? You haven’t told me.”

“Actually I don’t know. I haven’t been to see her since then, and she did not send a note, so I assume she did not learn anything she thought of value.” She smiled. “Perhaps the case really was decisive.”

“Would you find out, please?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said with relief. That would be easy to do.

“You can take my carriage again, if you like,” Caroline offered, then blushed at her own forcefulness and the urgency with which she was pursuing the issue. “If that would help, of course,” she added.

“Oh yes.” Charlotte accepted with only the faintest smile. “That would help a great deal.” She rose to her feet, the laughter in her eyes unmistakable now. “It is so much more elegant to roll up in a carriage than to walk from the omnibus stop.”

Caroline opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.

Vespasia was out when Charlotte arrived at her house, but the parlormaid informed her she would be back in no more than half an hour, and if Charlotte cared to wait she could take tea in the withdrawing room. Lady Vespasia would be most disappointed to have missed her.

Charlotte accepted, and sat in Vespasia’s elegant room sipping her tea and watching the flames leap in the fireplace. She had time to look around, which she had never had before, when it would have been obvious and seemed an intrusive curiosity. The room was stamped with Vespasia’s character. There were tall, slender candlesticks on the mantel shelf, not at either end, as one might have expected, but both of them a little to the left of the center, asymmetrically. They were Georgian silver, very cool and simple. On the Sheraton table by the window there was an arrangement of flowers in a Royal Worcester gravy boat, three pink chrysanthemums low down in the center, and a lot of coppery beech leaves, and some dark purple red buds of which she did not know the name.

She lost interest in the tea and rose to her feet to look more closely at the few photographs which stood in plain frames on the top of the bureau. The one which drew her first was a sepia tint, oval faded away to nothing at the edges, a woman of about forty, slender necked, with high cheekbones and delicate, aquiline nose. Her wide eyes were heavy lidded under a perfect brow. It was a beautiful face, and yet for all its pride, and classic bones, there was individuality in it, and the romantic pose did not entirely mask either the passion or the strength.

It was several moments before Charlotte realized it was Vespasia herself. She had grown so accustomed to her as an old lady, she had forgotten that as a young woman she could be so different—and yet after a second look, so much the same.

The other pictures were of a girl of perhaps twenty, very pretty, but heavier boned, thicker of jaw and shorter nosed. The resemblance was there, and something of the charm, but not the mettle, not the fire of imagination. It must be Olivia, Vespasia’s daughter, who had married Eustace March, and died after bearing him so many children. Charlotte had never known her, but she remembered Eustace vividly, with both anger and pity.

The third picture was of an elderly aristocratic man with a high-boned, gentle face and eyes that looked into a far distance, beyond the camera into some world of his own vision. There was sufficient resemblance to Vespasia for Charlotte to guess from the faintness, the fashion of the dress and the style of the photograph that it was Vespasia’s father.

It was interesting that she should choose to keep in her favorite room a memory of her father, not her husband.

Charlotte was looking at the books in the carved bookcase when she heard a murmuring in the hall and footsteps across the parquet flooring. Quickly she turned around and moved towards the window, so that when the door opened and Vespasia came in, she was facing her, smiling.

Vespasia looked full of energy, as if she were about to go somewhere she anticipated with excitement, not as if she had just returned. Her skin glowed from the brisk wind, her back was straight and her shoulders squared, and she was dressed in the softest grape blue, a gentle color neither navy nor purple, nor yet silver. It was subtle, expensive and extremely flattering. There was almost no bustle, in the most up-to-the-moment fashion, and the cut was exquisite. No doubt she had left a sweeping brimmed hat in the hall.

“Good morning, Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said with surprise and a very definite pleasure. She had never seen Vespasia in such health since before the death of Emily’s first husband, Vespasia’s nephew and the only reason they could count her as a relative. Today she seemed to have shed the years that grief had added to her and to be the vigorous woman she had been before. “You look most excellently well.”

“There is considerable justice in that,” Vespasia replied, but her satisfaction was obvious. “I am excellently well.” She looked at Charlotte closely. “You look a trifle anxious, my dear. Are you still concerned about that miserable business in Farriers’ Lane? For heaven’s sake sit down! You look as if you were about to rush out of the door. You are not, are you?”

“No—no, of course not. I came to see you, and I have nothing else to do immediately. Mama is at home, and will care for everything that may arise.”

“Oh dear.” Vespasia sat down gracefully, arranging her skirt with a flick of her hand. “Is she still enamored of the actor?”

Charlotte smiled ruefully and sat down opposite her. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Vespasia’s arched eyebrows rose. “Afraid? Does it matter so much? She is free to do as she pleases, is she not? If she has a little romance—why not?”

Charlotte drew in a deep breath, her mind full of all sorts of excellent reasons why not. But as she came to enumerate them, despite the intensity of her emotions about it, spoken aloud, they seemed silly and of no worth.

Vespasia’s lips curled in amusement. “Just so,” she agreed. “But you are concerned that this unfortunate man may be suspected of having some involvement with the death of Kingsley Blaine?”

“Yes—at least, no. Thomas seems to think there is nothing more to learn in that, and Stafford was simply trying to find enough evidence to persuade Tamar Macaulay to let the matter drop at last.”

“But you don’t?” Vespasia asked.

Charlotte raised her shoulders fractionally. “I don’t know. I suppose it could have been the widow, but—I find it hard to accept. I was with her, holding her hand, when he died. I really cannot believe she clung onto me like that, watching him, and she had poisoned him herself. Apart from that, it would be so stupid—and so unnecessary!”

“The Farriers’ Lane murder again,” Vespasia said thoughtfully. “I did speak to Judge Quade about it. I have been remiss in not letting you know what I learned.” Extraordinarily there was a faint touch of pinkness in her cheeks, and Charlotte noticed it with surprise. She had never seen Vespasia self-conscious before. She waited for an explanation, but none was offered. Instead Vespasia launched into recounting what her enquiry had elicited, very casually, and yet with a precise care for each word.

“Judge Quade found the case most distressing, not only for the facts of the murder, but because the public emotion ran so high, and was so extremely ugly, that the whole matter was conducted in a fever and a haste in which it was not easy to ensure that the law was administered honorably, let alone that justice was done.”

“Does he think it was not?” Charlotte asked quickly, both hope and fear rising inside her.

Vespasia’s gray eyes were perfectly steady. “He thinks that justice was done,” she replied gravely. “But not well done.”

“You mean Aaron Godman was guilty?”

“I am afraid so. It was the atmosphere which troubled Thelonius, the fact that even Barton James, the counsel for the defense, seemed to believe his client guilty, and his handling of the trial was adequate, but no more. The whole city had worked itself into such a pitch of hatred that there was violence in the streets towards Jews who had nothing to do with it, simply because they were Jews. It would have been impossible to find an impartial jury.”

“Then how could the trial be fair?” Charlotte protested.

“I daresay it could not.”

“Then why did he allow it to proceed? Why did he not do something?”

For once there was no spark of humor or indulgence in Vespasia’s eyes. She was quick to defend.

“What would you suggest he do?”

“I—I’m not sure.” Then Charlotte realized the change in her tone, the subtle difference in her eyes. She could not bear to quarrel with her, and she remembered that Thelonius Quade was an old friend. Inadvertently she had questioned the honor of a man for whom Vespasia had regard. Perhaps it was a high regard? “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t suppose there was anything he could do. The law is very binding, isn’t it? He could hardly call a mistrial if nothing incorrect had been done.”

Vespasia’s face softened, her eyes bright.

“He considered doing something himself which would occasion the defense to do precisely that. Then he decided that would be dishonorable to his office, and a statement that he did not believe in the very law it is his calling to administer.”

“Oh.” Charlotte frowned, the extreme gravity of what Vespasia was saying impressing itself upon her. “If a judge had such thoughts, then it must have been very ugly indeed. How delicate of him to have weighed it so fairly, and cared enough to think of such a thing.”

“He is an unusual man,” Vespasia answered, looking down for a moment, and away from Charlotte.

Charlotte found herself smiling as she wondered what friendship there had been between Vespasia and Judge Quade. She had no idea how long ago it had begun. Had it been more than friendship, perhaps an affection? It was a nice thought and her smile grew broader.

She saw Vespasia’s erect back and elegant head. She could imagine her voice saying, “And what is amusing you, pray?” But no words came. Instead there was only the warm color in Vespasia’s cheeks.

“Thank you very much, Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said gently. “I am grateful to you for having asked about it, even though it does seem there is really nothing more to learn.”

“Yes, there is,” Vespasia argued, gathering her attention again. “Not a great deal, and perhaps not indicative, but Judge Quade said he was quite certain that Aaron Godman had been beaten while in custody. When he appeared at his trial he was suffering bruises and lacerations which were too recent to have occurred at the time of the murder. And he was unharmed immediately prior to his arrest.”

“Oh dear. How ugly. You think the jailers beat him while he was in prison?”

“Perhaps. Or the police when they arrested him,” Vespasia replied, watching Charlotte’s face with anxiety. “I am sorry, but it is not impossible.”

“You mean he fought them?”

“No, my dear, I do not The policeman concerned was totally unharmed.”

“Oh.” Charlotte took a deep breath. “But that doesn’t prove anything, does it? Except that, as you say, feelings were ugly, and very high. Aunt Vespasia …”

Vespasia waited.

“Do you think Mr. Quade is really saying, in a euphemistic sort of way, that he believes the police were so desperate to get a conviction, and satisfy the public’s desire, that they would knowingly have charged the wrong man?”

“No,” Vespasia said very definitely. “No. He was disturbed by the manner of the investigation, the haste of it and the emotion, and the indifference of the defense counsel, but he believed the evidence was true, and the verdict correct.”

“Oh—I see.” Charlotte sighed. “Then it seems that after all Judge Stafford was merely trying to prove once and for all that the matter was ended, and surely no one would have killed him for that. It must be his wife after all—or Mr. Pryce.”

“I regret that it does seem so.”

Charlotte looked at her. Was there a hesitation?

“Yes?”

“It is just conceivable that someone has something to hide of an ugliness so great that they feared Mr. Stafford’s investigation, not knowing its nature, or even if they did know it.” Her frown deepened. “And in case he was too thorough, they killed him. I admit it does not seem probable …”

“No,” Charlotte replied, the lift in her voice belying the word. “But not impossible. Not really. I think we might pursue that, don’t you? I mean …” She stopped. She had taken too much for granted. “Could we?” she asked tentatively.

“Oh, I don’t see why not.” Vespasia smiled with both amusement and pleasure. “I don’t see why not, at all. I have no idea how …” Her fine eyebrows arched enquiringly.

“Nor do I,” Charlotte admitted. “But I shall most certainly give the matter much thought.”

“I wondered if you might,” Vespasia murmured. “If I can be of any assistance, I shall be happy to.”

“I wondered if you might,” Charlotte said with a grin.

Charlotte was torn whether or not to tell Pitt of her visit to Great-Aunt Vespasia. If she did he would be bound to ask why she was so concerned in the matter. It would not take him long to deduce that it was because of Caroline’s regard for Joshua Fielding, and his possible implication in both the murder of Kingsley Blaine and thus also of Judge Stafford. She could always try to convince him that it was because Caroline had been present in the theater and so was intricately involved in the emotion of the crime. But she knew Pitt would see beyond that very quickly, and he might think her foolish, an older woman, recently widowed and alone, falling victim to a fancy for a younger man, a glamorous man utterly out of her own class and experience, offering her a last glimpse of youth.

And put like that it was absurd, and not a little pathetic. Pitt would feel no unkindness, no criticism, but perhaps a gentle, wry sort of pity. She could not subject Caroline to that. She was surprised how protective she felt, how fierce to defend the extraordinary vulnerability.

So she told Pitt only that she had been to see Vespasia, and when he looked up quickly she kept her eyes down on her sewing.

“How is she?” Pitt asked, still watching her.

“Oh, in excellent health.” She looked up with a quick smile. He would suspect if she simply stopped there. He knew her too well. “I have not seen her look in such spirits since poor George died. She is quite restored to herself again, with all the vigor she used to have when we first met her.”

“Charlotte.”

“Yes?” She raised wide, innocent eyes to him, holding her needle in the air.

“What else?” he demanded.

“About what? Aunt Vespasia looked in excellent health and spirit. I thought you would be pleased to know.”

“I am, of course. I want to know what else it is you have discovered that is making you feel so pleased.”

“Ah.” She was delighted. She had deceived him perfectly. She smiled broadly, this time without guile. “She has looked up an old friend, and I think perhaps she is very fond of him indeed. Isn’t that good?”

He sat up. “You mean a romance?”

“Well—hardly! She is over eighty!”

“What on earth does that matter?” His voice rose incredulously. “The heart doesn’t stop caring!”

“Well, no—I suppose not.” She turned the idea over with surprise, and then dawning pleasure. “No! Why not? Yes, I think perhaps it was a romance, at the time they first knew each other, and I suppose it could be again.”

“Excellent.” Pitt was smiling widely. “Who is he?”

“What?” She was caught out.

“Who is he?” he repeated, with suspicion.

“Oh …” She resumed her sewing, her eyes on the needle and linen. “A friend from some years ago. Thelonius—Thelonius Quade.”

“Thelonius Quade.” He repeated the name slowly. “Charlotte.”

“Yes?” She kept her eyes studiously on the linen.

“You said Thelonius Quade?”

“I think so.”

“Judge Thelonius Quade?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Yes …”

“Who just happens to have presided over the trial of Aaron Godman for the murder of Kingsley Blaine?”

There was no point whatever in lying. She tried evasion.

“I think their friendship had lapsed at that time.”

He shook his head with a wry expression. “That is irrelevant! Why did she suddenly renew his acquaintance now?”

She said nothing.

“Because you asked her?” he went on.

“Well, I am interested,” she pointed out. “I was there when the poor man died. I actually sat holding the hand of his widow!”

“And you don’t think she killed him,” he said with a harder edge to his voice. He was not angry—in fact there was a definite amusement in it—but she knew he would accept no argument.

“No, no, I really don’t,” she agreed, looking up at him at last. “But Judge Quade apparently was happy with the verdict, even if not with the conduct of the trial.” She smiled at him, candid finally. “It does look as if poor Godman was guilty, even if they did not prove it in the best way. But Thomas, it is just possible, isn’t it, that the fact that Judge Stafford was investigating the case again may have frightened someone so much, for some other reason, some other sin, that they killed him?” She waited anxiously, searching his face.

“Possible,” he said gravely. “But not likely. What sin?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to find out.”

“Perhaps—but I’m going back to the murder of Stafford first, and some investigation into the evidence of Juniper Stafford or Adolphus Pryce having obtained opium. I need to know a great deal more about them.”

“Yes, of course. But you won’t forget the Blaine/Godman case, will you? I mean …” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Thomas! If there were some affair, some misconduct in the case, bribery, violence, another matter involved which concerns someone powerful, an affair which would ruin someone. Then that might be a reason to kill Judge Stafford before he found out—even if it did not change Godman’s guilt. Couldn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said cautiously. “Yes, it’s possible—just.”

“Then you’ll look into it?” she urged.

“After Juniper and Adolphus. Not before.”

She smiled. “Oh good. Would you like a cup of cocoa before bedtime, Thomas?”

The following day Charlotte delegated Gracie to take care of matters at home and took an omnibus to Cater Street to visit Caroline. She arrived at a little after eleven o’clock and found her mother already gone out on an errand, and her grandmother sitting in the big, old withdrawing room by the fire, full of indignation.

“Well,” she said, glaring up at Charlotte, her back rigidly straight, her old hands clenched like claws across the top of her stick. “So you’ve come to visit me at last, have you? Realized your duty finally. A little late, girl!”

“Good morning, Grandmama,” Charlotte said calmly. “How are you?”

“I’m ill,” the old lady said witheringly. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Charlotte. How could I be anything but ill, with your mother behaving like a perfect fool? She was never a particularly clever woman, but now she seems to have taken complete leave of her wits! Your father’s death has unhinged her.” She sniffed angrily. “I suppose it was to be expected. Some women cannot handle widowhood. No stamina—no sense of what is fitting. Never did have much. My poor Edward always had to take charge!”

At another time Charlotte might have ignored the insult. It was part of her grandmother’s pattern of thought and she was accustomed to it, but at the moment she was feeling protective towards her mother.

“Oh fiddlesticks,” she said briskly, sitting down on the chair opposite. “Mama always had a perfectly good sense of what was appropriate.”

“Don’t you fiddlesticks me!” Grandmama snapped. “No woman with the faintest idea of propriety would marry her daughter to a policeman, even if she were as plain as a horse and daft as a chicken.” She waited for Charlotte to take offense, and when she did not, continued reluctantly. “And now she is making a fool of herself courting the friendship of persons on the stage. For heaven’s sake, that’s hardly any better! They may know how to speak the Queen’s English, but their morals are in the gutter. Not one of them is any better than they should be. And half of them are Jews—I know that for a fact.” She glared at Charlotte, daring her to argue.

“What has that got to do with it?” Charlotte asked, trying to look as if she were genuinely enquiring.

“What? What did you say?” The old lady was selectively deaf, and she was now choosing to make Charlotte repeat the remark in the hope it would cow her, or at worst leave time for her to think of a crushing answer.

“I asked you what that had to do with it,” Charlotte repeated with a smile.

“What has to do with what?” Grandmama demanded angrily. “What are you talking about, girl? Sometimes you are full of the most arrant nonsense. Comes from mixing with the lower classes who have no education, don’t know how to express themselves. I told you that would happen. I told your mother also—but does she ever listen to me? You are going to have to do something about her.”

“There is nothing I can do, Grandmama,” Charlotte said patiently. “I cannot make her listen to you if she does not wish to.”

“Now listen to me, you stupid girl. Really, sometimes you would try the patience of a saint.”

“I had not thought of you as a saint, Grandmama.”

“Don’t be impertinent!” The old lady flicked her stick sharply at Charlotte’s legs, but she was just too far away for it to do anything more than catch her skirts with a thwack.

“Is she expected home soon?” Charlotte asked.

The old lady’s faint eyebrows shot up almost to her gray hair.

“Do you imagine she tells me that?” Her voice was shrill with indignation. “She comes and goes all hours of the day—and night, for all I know! Dressed up like something out of a melodrama herself, stupid creature. In my day widows wore black—and knew their place. This is all totally indecent. Your father, poor man, hasn’t been dead five years yet, and here is Caroline careering around London like a giddy twenty-year-old trying to make a marriage in her coming-out year, before it is too late.”

“Did she say anything?”

“About what? She never tells me anything important. Wouldn’t dare, I should think.”

“About when she will be home.” Charlotte kept her voice civil with difficulty.

“And if she had, what do you suppose that is worth, girl? Nothing! Nothing at all.”

“What was it anyway?”

“Oh—that she had gone to the milliner, and would be back in half an hour. Stuff and nonsense. She could be anywhere.”

“Thank you, Grandmama. You look very well.” And indeed she did. She was bristling with energy, her skin was pink and her black, boot button eyes sharply alive. Nothing revived her like a quarrel.

“You need spectacles,” the old lady said viciously. “I am in pain—all over. I am an old woman and need care, and a life without worry or distress.”

“You would die of boredom without something to be offended by,” Charlotte said with a candor she would not have dared a few years ago, certainly not when her father was alive.

The old lady snorted and glared at her. She only remembered to be deaf when it was too late.

“What? What did you say? Your enunciation is getting very slipshod, girl!”

Charlotte smiled, and a moment later heard her mother’s steps in the hall outside. She rose to her feet, excused herself briefly, and leaving the old lady complaining about being excluded from everything, she arrived in the hallway just as her mother was halfway up the stairs.

“Mama!”

Caroline turned, her face alight with pleasure.

“Mama.” Charlotte started up the stairs towards her. Caroline wore a very beautiful hat, its broad brim decorated with feathers and silk flowers. It was lush, extravagant, and totally feminine. Charlotte would have adored such a hat herself, but then she had nowhere to which she could wear it anyway.

“Yes?” Caroline said eagerly. “Have you heard something?”

“Not a great deal, I am afraid.” She felt guilty for raising hopes ever so little, and an intense desire to protect such an openness to pain. “But at least it is a place to begin.”

“There is something we can do?” Caroline turned on the step as if to come down already. “What have you heard? From whom—Thomas?”

“Aunt Vespasia, but it is not a great deal, really.”

“Never mind! What can we do to help?”

“Learn more about them, the people involved, in case there is some other crime, or personal secret, as you suspected, which someone feared Judge Stafford might uncover.”

“Oh, excellent,” Caroline said quickly. “Where shall we begin?”

“Perhaps with Devlin O’Neil,” Charlotte suggested.

“But what about Mrs. Stafford, and Mr. Pryce?” Caroline’s face was pinched with concern, and a certain guilt because she was wishing them into such tragedy.

“We don’t know them,” Charlotte pointed out reasonably. “Let us begin where we can. At least Miss Macaulay or Mr. Fielding may help us there.”

“Yes—yes, of course.” Caroline looked Charlotte up and down. “You are dressed very becomingly. Are you ready to leave now?”

“If you think we may go without first obtaining an invitation?”

“Oh yes, I am sure Miss Macaulay would receive us if we go this morning. They rehearse in the afternoons, and that would be inconvenient.”

“Do they?” Charlotte said with surprise and a touch of sarcasm. She had not realized Caroline was so well acquainted with the daily habits of actors and actresses. With difficulty she refrained from remarking on it.

Caroline looked away and began to make arrangements, calling to the footman to send for the carriage again, and informing the staff that she would be out for luncheon.

Several of the cast of the theater company rented a large house in Pimlico, sharing it among them. The manager, Mr. Inigo Passmore, was an elderly gentleman who had been a “star” in his day, but now preferred to take only character parts. His wife also had been an actress, but she seldom appeared on the stage these days, enjoying a place of honor and considerable power, directing the wardrobe, properties and, when it was required, music. They had the ground floor of the house, and thus the garden.

Joshua Fielding had the rooms at the front of the next floor, and a young actress of great promise, Clio Farber, the rooms at the back. The third floor was occupied by Tamar Macaulay and her daughter.

“I didn’t know she had a child,” Charlotte said in surprise as Caroline was remarking on the arrangements to her during their carriage ride from Cater Street to Pimlico. “I didn’t know she was married. Is her husband in the theater?”

“Don’t be naive,” Caroline said crisply, staring straight ahead of her.

“I beg your pardon? Oh.” Charlotte was embarrassed. “You mean she is not married? I’m sorry. I did not realize.”

“It would be tactful not to mention it,” Caroline said dryly.

“Of course. Who else lives there?”

“I don’t know. A couple of ingenues in the attic.”

“A couple of what?”

“Very young actresses who take the part of innocent girls.”

“Oh.”

They said no more until they arrived at Claverton Street in Pimlico, and alighted.

The door was opened to them by a girl of about sixteen, who was pretty in a fashion far more colorful than that of any parlormaid Charlotte had encountered before. Added to which she did not wear the usual dark stuff dress and white cap and apron, but a rather flattering dress of pink, and an apron that looked as if it had been put on hastily. There was no cap on her thick, dark hair.

“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Ellison,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll be to see Mr. Fielding, I daresay. Or is it Miss Macaulay? I think they’re both at home.” She held the door wide for them.

“Thank you, Miranda,” Caroline said, going up the steps and into the hallway. Charlotte followed immediately behind her, startled by the familiarity with which the girl greeted Caroline.

“This is my daughter, Charlotte Pitt,” Caroline introduced her. “Miranda Passmore. Mr. Passmore is the manager of the company.”

“How do you do, Miranda,” Charlotte replied, hastily collecting her wits and hoping it was the correct thing to say to someone in such an extraordinary position. Nowhere else had she met a haphazard parlormaid who was the daughter of a manager of anything at all.

Miranda smiled broadly. Perhaps she had met the situation many times before.

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt. Please go on up. Just knock on the door when you get there.”

Charlotte and Caroline obeyed, crossing the hall in which Charlotte at least would have liked to have remained for several minutes. Like the room in the theater where she had been too busy to look, it was entirely decorated with old theater posters, and she saw wonderful names that conjured images of limelight and drama, ringing voices and the thrill of passion and drama: George Conquest, Beerbohm Tree, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, a marvelous, towering figure of Sir Henry Irving as Hamlet, and another of Sarah Bernhardt in magnificently dramatic pose. There were others she had no time to see, and she followed Caroline reluctantly.

On the first landing were more posters, these for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas Iolanthe and Patience and The Yeomen of the Guard. Caroline was uninterested; not only had she seen them before, but she was intent upon her mission, and drama behind the footlights held no magic for her in comparison. She hesitated only a moment on the first landing, and then continued on up the steps to the second. This was decorated only with one large poster of the dynamic and sensitive face of Sarah Bernhardt.

She knocked on the door, and after a few moments it was opened by Tamar Macaulay herself. Charlotte had expected her to look different in the harsher light of morning, and with no performance in the immediate future. But on the contrary she looked startlingly the same. Her hair was dead black, without the usual touches and lights of brown that even the darkest English hair so often possesses, and her eyes were deep and vivid with a flash of amusement in spite of the tension and the awareness of pain. She was dressed very plainly, but instead of being dull it merely emphasized the drama of her face.

“Good morning, Mrs. Ellison, Mrs. Pitt. How pleasant to see you.”

“Good morning, Miss Macaulay,” Caroline replied. “Forgive my coming without warning, and bringing my daughter with me, but I feel the matter is important, or may be, and there is little time to fritter away.”

“Then you had better come in.” Tamar stepped back to allow them to pass her and go into the large, open room. It was furnished as a sitting room, although perhaps it had originally been a bedroom when the house was occupied by a single family. There was an interesting mixture of styles. On one side stood an old Chinese silk screen which had once been of great beauty, now faded, its wooden frame scratched in places, but it still held an elegance that gave it charm and a comfortable grace. There was a Russian samovar on a side table, Venetian glass in the cabinet, a French ormolu clock on the mantel shelf above the fireplace, and a late Georgian mahogany table of total simplicity and cleanness of line which to Charlotte was the loveliest thing in the room. The colors were pale, creams and greens, and full of light.

Caroline was endeavoring to explain their errand.

Charlotte’s eyes continued to wander around, looking for evidence of the child Caroline had mentioned. There was a casual untidiness, as of a place which is the center of the life in a house, a shawl laid down, an open book, a pile of playbills and a script on a side table, cushions in a heap, disordered. Then she saw the doll, fallen off the sofa and half hidden by the flowered frill. She felt a sudden and unreasonable sense of sadness, so sharp it caught her breath and her throat ached. A child without a father, a woman alone. Was it conceivable Tamar Macaulay had truly loved Kingsley Blaine? Or was that just a fancy, leaping ahead of fact? She had no reason to suppose he was the father. It could be anyone—even Joshua Fielding. Please heaven, not him. Caroline would find it intolerable.

“Of course,” Tamar was saying. “Please sit down, Mrs. Pitt. Thank you for concerning yourself in the matter. We have struggled long enough with it alone, and now it looks as if it has become more dangerous, we may badly need help. It appears someone has been frightened, and reacted with violence—again.” Her face was bleak.

Charlotte had not heard the conversation, but she guessed at its meaning. She accepted the invitation to sit.

“We were there when Judge Stafford died,” she said with the shadow of a smile. “It is natural we should feel an involvement in finding the person who killed him, and being absolutely sure it is the right person, and not a miscarriage of justice.”

The expression in Tamar’s face was a mixture of irony, anger and pain, and a bitter humor. If there was still hope in it, it was beyond Charlotte’s vision to see it. How had this woman kept courage all these years, after such a fearful bereavement? The death of someone you know is always hard, but public disgrace, the hatred, the slow torture of the person by the law is immeasurably worse. And then there was the knowledge that at a certain hour of a set day, they would come to take that person, still young, still in health, and break his neck on the end of a rope, deliberately, to satisfy a cheering crowd! How must he feel the night before? Does the darkness seem endless—or only too short? Could one dread daylight more?

Tamar was staring at her.

“Are you thinking of Aaron?” she said with total bluntness.

Charlotte was taken aback for a moment, then she realized how much easier it would be to speak frankly rather than skirt around such an agonizing subject, seeking a way to convey the meaning without actually using the words, and understand what someone meant beneath the layers of euphemisms.

“Yes.” She allowed the shadow of a smile across her face.

“You allow the possibility there was an injustice?” Tamar asked.

“Of course,” Charlotte agreed warmly. “I have known for a certainty of innocent men who would have been hanged but for chance. It could easily happen, and I am sure it has at times. I wish it were impossible, but it is not.”

“That is a dangerous thought,” Tamar said wryly. “People do not like it. They cannot live with the idea that we may be guilty of such a mistake. It is much better to convince yourself he was guilty and go to sleep.”

“I did not have any part in it, Miss Macaulay,” Charlotte pointed out. “I have no guilt in thinking he may have been innocent, only grief. The guilt will come if I do not do what I can now to find out the truth, both of the death of Kingsley Blaine and the death of Judge Stafford.”

Tamar smiled openly for the first time. It was a gesture full of charm, lighting her face and changing its whole aspect.

“What an extraordinary creature you are. But then I suppose you would have to be, to have married a policeman.”

Charlotte was surprised. She had not realized Tamar would have any appreciation of her affairs, or what they involved.

“Oh—Joshua told me,” Tamar explained with amusement. “I gather your mother told him.” She glanced around and saw that Caroline had left them. “I imagine that is where she has gone now. Possibly tact—or …” She lifted her slight shoulders expressively, but said nothing more.

Charlotte had a moment of discomfort, wondering if Caroline were making a fool of herself, being too bold, but there was no way in which she could retrieve it now without making her situation even worse. There was nothing she could profitably do but pursue the case.

“Do you know anything about the death of Kingsley Blaine that did not come out in court?” she asked bluntly. “Anything you told Judge Stafford which could have caused him to reopen the matter?”

Tamar shook her head. “Nothing that wasn’t in the appeal. The medical evidence was shaky. Humbert Yardley, the examiner, began by saying that the wound which killed Kingsley …” Her face tightened, the soft skin around her mouth almost white. She kept her voice level with an effort. “… Was caused by something longer than a farrier’s nail. Then later he said it could have been an unusual nail.”

“Was such a nail found?”

“No, but the police said he could have disposed of it anywhere—down the nearest drain. It was only the uncertainty on which we raised the appeal. We tried other things; the coat which no one found, the necklace. But they were explained away. They said the coat was picked up by a tramp, and that I kept the necklace.”

“Didn’t the flower seller also change her mind?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes—but only before the trial, not once they put her on the witness stand. God help her, she was only a simple person, and once it was fixed in her mind, she was too afraid of the police to argue.”

“Miss Macaulay”—Charlotte looked at her gently, trying to convey in her face that she was asking only because she had to—“apart from love for your brother, why do you believe, in the face of so much, that he was innocent?”

“Because Aaron had no reason to kill Kingsley,” Tamar replied, her eyes brilliant, wry, candid. “They said that Kingsley had seduced me and was playing with my affections, and Aaron killed him in revenge for me. But that was nonsense. Kingsley loved me, and was going to marry me.” She said it quite quietly, as if it were a simple matter of fact and she did not care if Charlotte believed her or not.

Charlotte was shaken with total surprise, and yet her immediate reaction was not disbelief. Had Tamar been more emotional, more urgent to convince her, she might have doubted, but her simple statement, as of something long familiar to her, left her with no instinct to fight against it.

“But he was already married,” she said, not to disprove it, but to seek explanation. “What was he going to do about that?”

Tamar bit her lip, for the first time shame in her face. “I did not know that then.” She lowered her eyes. “To begin with I did not take him seriously.” She shrugged. “One doesn’t. Young men with time to spare and a roving eye come to the theater in hundreds. They only want a little entertainment, a little excitement, and then to go home to their wives as society expects of them. It was months before I could believe Kingsley was different. By then I had learned to love him, and it was too late to alter my feelings.” She looked up quickly, her expression defensive. “Of course you will say I should have asked if he was married, and so I should. But I didn’t want to know.”

“What was he going to do about his wife?” Charlotte asked, refraining from making another judgment.

“I don’t know.” Tamar shook her head, but her eyes did not leave Charlotte’s face. “I only learned after his death that he was married. If he meant to marry me, then I suppose he was going to leave her. Or perhaps he didn’t mean to marry me, he only promised in order to keep me. But the point is, Aaron didn’t know that either. He thought Kingsley was free, and would marry me.”

“Are you sure?” Charlotte said softly. “Is it not possible he learned that Mr. Blaine was married, and that is why he killed him? That would be an excellent reason.”

“It would be, if it were true. I saw Aaron just before he left the theater, and he didn’t know then, any more than I did.”

“Would he have told you—honestly?”

“Probably not, but he would not have spoken to Kingsley as he did. He was a good actor—but not good enough to deceive me like that. I knew him too well.”

“You did not say that at the trial, did you?”

Tamar gave a bitter little laugh, more a choking on her own breath.

“No—Mr. James said no one would believe that Kingsley really intended to marry me, and it would only make me look ridiculous, and even more of a victim than if I pretended I were the seducer and were playing with him. That way I would seem less vulnerable, and Aaron have less cause to avenge me.”

Charlotte could see the sense of it, and reluctantly she admitted it.

“I think had I been in his place, I might have done the same. It would not have helped to tell the truth.”

Tamar pulled a face. “Thank you for that!”

“Did you tell Judge Stafford?”

“Yes. I have no idea whether he believed me or not. He had the kind of face and manner I could not read.”

“Who else have you told?”

Tamar stood up and walked over towards the window, the sunlight harsh on her face, discovering every plane and line, and yet it made her more beautiful because of the honesty of her emotion.

“Everyone who mattered, who would listen. Barton James, the barrister for the defense, and before him Ebenezer Moorgate, Aaron’s solicitor.” She stared out of the window in front of her. “I even went to Adolphus Pryce. He said the same as Barton James. If I had said so at the trial, he would have made great capital out of it. I believed him. I saw the appeal judges as well—all of them. But none of them listened to me except Judge Stafford, poor man!”

“Why was he different?” Charlotte asked curiously. “Why was he prepared to look into the case again after five years?”

Tamar turned from the window and looked at her steadily. “I am not sure. I think he believed me about Kingsley, which no one else did. And he asked me several questions about the time Aaron left the theater, and the time Kingsley left, but he would not say why. Believe me, Mrs. Pitt, I have racked my brain to think why he was going to reopen it. If I knew that, I could take the evidence to Judge Oswyn. He seemed once or twice as if he might have listened, then his courage failed him.”

“Courage?”

Tamar laughed and there was harshness deep and hard in it. “It would hardly be popular to say now that Aaron had been innocent. Think of it! The disgrace, the embarrassment, the people who were wrong—the things that cannot be undone. And worse than all that, the disrepute of the law.” Regret overtook anger in her. “That is the worst thing about Stafford’s death—he was a brave man, and an honest one. He died for it.”

Charlotte looked at her passionate face and its blazing conviction. Was that what had moved Stafford: the power of her belief, rather than evidence? Or had he simply wanted to silence her once and for all, to save the shame she spoke of, the disrepute of the law?

“If it was not Aaron,” she said aloud, “who was it?”

Tamar’s face reflected laughter and pain at once.

“I don’t know. I cannot believe it was Joshua, although he and I had been … close.” She used the word delicately, allowing deeper meaning to be understood. “But it was over by then. It was really no more than propinquity and youth. The police suspected him out of jealousy, but I cannot believe that—not of him. I suppose the only other person would be Devlin O’Neil, but the quarrel would have to be far greater than the few guineas’ wager they spoke of.”

“He married Kathleen Blaine,” Charlotte pointed out. “Perhaps he was in love with her then.”

“Perhaps. It is not impossible.”

“Did she have money?”

“How very practical of you!” Tamar’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, I believe so, or at least very good expectations. I think she is an only child, and old Prosper Harrimore is wealthy—by our standards.”

“Did Mr. O’Neil have money?”

“Good heavens, no, only enough to support a handsome style of life for a short while.” She walked back to the sofa and sat down again facing Charlotte. “He rented his rooms and owed his tailor and his wine merchant—like most good-looking and idle young men.”

“So he gained considerably by his friend’s death?”

Tamar hesitated only a moment. “Yes—that is true, if ugly, and perhaps not relevant. But I don’t know who else, unless it was a complete stranger—a robber …” She left it unfinished, knowing how unlikely that was.

“Who crucified his victims?” Charlotte said skeptically.

“No—that was obscene,” Tamar admitted. “I don’t know. I don’t know why O’Neil should do such a thing, except to try to put the blame on someone Jewish.”

“Do you know Devlin O’Neil?”

“Not now. Why?”

“Well, the best way we might learn something more about it would be through him.”

“He would hardly tell us something that incriminated him.”

“Not intentionally, of course,” Charlotte agreed. “But we can only learn the truth from those who know it.”

There was a sudden lift in Tamar’s face, a spark of hope in her dark eyes.

“You would be prepared to do that?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said without giving it a minute’s thought.

“Then we shall get Clio to take you. She still knows Kathleen, and it would not be difficult.”

“Not we, I think,” Charlotte corrected quickly. “It must be done as if by chance. They should not know I have any interest in the case.”

“Oh—yes, of course. That was stupid of me. I’ll introduce you to Clio. She is not in this morning, but next time—soon. She’ll take you.”

“Excellent! Explain to her what we need, and why, and I will do all I can.”

When Charlotte began to discuss the case frankly with Tamar, Caroline realized that her presence was unnecessary, and very quietly she turned and walked over to the door, opened it and went out. She was down the stairs and in the hallway outside Joshua Fielding’s room with her hand raised to knock before she realized how forward she was being, how indelicate and unlike everything she had been taught, and had tried to teach her own daughters. Had Charlotte behaved this way she would have been horrified, and told her so.

Self-consciousness overcame her and she stepped back again. It would look odd, foolish, but she would have to go back upstairs and hope no one would ask her for an explanation. She turned and was halfway across to the stairs upwards when Miranda Passmore came running up from the floor beneath.

“Hallo, Mrs. Ellison! Is Mr. Fielding not in? I thought he was, in fact I was sure. Here, let me knock again.” And without waiting for an answer, and misunderstanding Caroline’s gasp, she crossed the landing and rapped sharply on Joshua’s door.

There was a moment of desperate silence. Caroline drew in her breath to protest.

The door swung open and Joshua Fielding stood in the entrance smiling, looking first at Caroline, then at Miranda.

“Oh Joshua, I thought you were there,” Miranda said cheerfully. “Mrs. Ellison called to see you, but she could not make you hear.” She smiled and ran on up the stairs and disappeared.

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you,” Joshua apologized.

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” Caroline said quickly. “I didn’t knock.”

He looked puzzled.

“I—I came with my daughter, to see Miss Macaulay—about—about Judge Stafford’s death. I thought …” She stopped, aware she was speaking too much, explaining where he had not asked.

“It is good of you to become involved in the matter.” He smiled. There was both warmth and a certain shyness in it. “It must have been very distressing for you to have been there and seen the poor man die, and then learning it was murder. I am sorry it should have happened to you.”

“I am also anxious that there should be no injustice done,” she said quickly. She did not want him to think her feeble, simply concerned in the unpleasantness for herself, and unconcerned for others.

“I don’t think you can help,” he said, pulling a face. “Judge Stafford was going to reopen the case of Kingsley Blaine’s death, but since he apparently left no notes on it, it looks as if it will remain closed—by default. Unless we can discover what he intended.”

“That is what we must try to do,” she said urgently. “Not only to clear his name but also to protect you—and Miss Macaulay.”

He smiled, but it was an expression full of self-mockery and pain.

“You think they will blame us for that death too?”

“It is not impossible,” she said quietly, a sudden chill inside her as she realized the truth of what she said. “They will have no choice, if neither Stafford’s widow nor her lover are guilty. It will be the natural thing to do.”

“I don’t think like a policeman,” he said ruefully. “But please do not stand out here in the hallway. Would it be very improper for you to come inside? The house is full of people.”

“Of course it would not,” she said quickly, feeling the color burn up her face. “Nobody could possibly imagine—” She broke off. What she had been going to say would have been rude. She was trying too hard, because the thoughts racing in her mind were absurd. “That you would be other than courteous,” she finished lamely, walking past him as he held the door open for her.

The room inside was highly individual, but the first glance startled her. She had previously met him only in the theater, or downstairs in the large sitting room of the Passmores, along with Tamar Macaulay. This room was quite markedly his. A huge portrait of the actor Edmund Keene, painted in sepia and black, decorated the far wall. It was dramatic in pose, and reached from the floor to above head height. It dominated the room with its presence, and made her realize far more powerfully than before how deeply he loved his art.

Along the narrow wall were shelves full of books. A small table was littered with papers which she thought were scripts of a play. Several easy chairs filled the open space, as if he frequently entertained many people, and she felt a sharp regret that she was not one of them, and could not be. A gulf of social status and experience divided them. Suddenly she felt horribly alone and outside all the laughter and the warmth.

“I wish I knew what to do about it.” He resumed the first conversation, pulling a chair a little straighter for her and holding it while she sat down. It was a gracious gesture, and yet it reminded her sharply that she was probably fifteen or sixteen years older than he, little short of a generation.

“We must fight back,” she said briskly, battling her own misery with anger. “We must find the truth that they have not. It is there—they simply were content to accept the easiest answer. We will not.”

He looked at her with dawning amazement—and admiration.

“Do you know how?”

“I have some idea,” she said with far more certainty than she felt. She sounded like Charlotte, and it was appalling—and exciting. “We will begin by making the acquaintance of the people concerned. Who are they? I mean—who are all the people who might know the truth, or some part of it?”

“I suppose Tamar and myself,” he replied, sitting down opposite her. “But we have talked about it so endlessly that I don’t think there can be anything we have not considered.”

“Well, if neither of you killed Mr. Blaine, and Aaron Godman did not, then there must be someone else involved,” she said reasonably. Pitt’s wry, intelligent face flashed into her mind, and she wondered if this was how he thought. “Who do you believe killed him?”

He thought for a moment, his chin resting on one hand. It might have seemed a theatrical pose in anyone else, and yet he looked totally natural. She was acutely conscious of his presence, of the sunlight from the window on the thick wave of his hair. He was too young for there to be any gray in the bright brown of it. Yet there were fine lines in the skin around his eyes; it was not a face without experience, or pain. There was none of the brashness or the untempered spirit of youth. Perhaps he was not so far short of forty.

But she was fifty-three. Merely naming it hurt.

“I suppose it has to be Devlin O’Neil,” he said, looking up at her at last. “Unless it is someone we know nothing about. I don’t suppose it is even imaginable that his wife knew he intended leaving her for Tamar, and employed someone to kill him.” A bitter humor lit his eyes for an instant, and then changed to pity. “That is, of course, if he really did mean to leave her. I don’t think he had much money of his own, and he would have given up a very comfortable life, and all social reputation. I’ve never told Tamar, but I think honestly it was unlikely he would have done such a thing. He probably told her he would because he really loved her, and couldn’t bear to lose her, so he lied, hoping to keep it going as long as he could. But we’ll never know.”

She chose deliberately to ask the most painful question. It was there in her mind, and it would get all the blows dealt at one time.

“And would she have married him? Isn’t she Jewish? What about her faith, marrying outside her own people?” She hated the words even as she heard herself saying them.

“Not desirable,” he admitted, meeting her eyes very directly. “But we are not very strict. She would have done it.”

“And her brother did not mind?” She pushed it to the sticking point.

“Aaron?” He lifted his shoulders very slightly. “He wasn’t pleased. And of course Passmore wouldn’t have been pleased either, if she had given up the stage and become a respectable matron—or perhaps respectable would have been impossible, since Blaine would have left his wife for her—but at least quietly domestic, raising a family. She is the best actress on the London stage at the moment—with the possible exception of Bernhardt.”

“So he would have wished Blaine … elsewhere?”

He smiled broadly. “Certainly, had he known about it. But he didn’t. He thought Blaine was just one more stage door johnnie. They were pretty discreet. And she did have other admirers, you know.”

“Yes, of course. I suppose it is natural.” Unconsciously she smoothed down her skirt.

“Very.”

“Then it comes back to Devlin O’Neil,” she said decisively. “We must make his acquaintance and learn all we can about him. If we cannot prove Aaron’s innocence, then we must prove someone else’s guilt.”

His admiration was undisguised. “How wonderfully obvious! We have spent five years trying to show Aaron did not do it; we should have tried harder to show that someone else did. But we didn’t have the necessary skills.” He relaxed a little farther into the chair. “And of course O’Neil was not exactly well disposed towards us, nor ignorant of our interest.”

“Of course not. But he does not know me, nor my daughter, who is quite practiced in these things.”

“Is she? What a remarkable family you are. I shall never judge people so hastily again. You seem so utterly respectable. I apologize!” He laughed very lightly. “I supposed that you spent your mornings visiting dressmakers and milliners, writing beautiful letters to friends in the country, and ordering your households. And in the afternoons you would call upon acquaintances, or receive them, taking tea and cucumber sandwiches cut by your cook, and doing good works for the less fortunate, or stitching fine embroidery. I pictured your evenings at the very best social functions, or sitting by the fire reading improving books and holding suitable conversations—uplifting to the mind. I am truly sorry; I eat the bread of humility.” The laughter was vivid in his face. “I was never so mistaken! Women are the most mystifying creatures, so often not at all what they seem. All the time you were out detecting fearful crimes and unearthing desperate secrets.”

Caroline felt the color flooding up her cheeks, but she lied in her teeth.

“We should not succeed if we were open in the matter,” she said with a catch in her voice and a fluttering in her stomach. “The art of detection lies in appearing quite harmless.”

“Does it?” he said curiously. “We have been so singularly unsuccessful, perhaps that was one of our problems? We tried to appear too clever.”

“Well, you were hopelessly handicapped by the fact that everyone had to realize your interest in the affair,” she pointed out. “Tell me, what was Aaron like? And what about Kingsley Blaine?”

For half an hour he told her of the two men, both of whom he had known and liked. He recounted anecdotes with gentleness and laughter, but all the time she was acutely aware that they were both dead, and their youth, their hopes and their weaknesses ended. He spoke softly, his voice holding the words with regret, as if they were more than mere memories. There was an emotion in him that made her wish both to laugh with him and to cry.

“You would have liked Aaron,” he said with certainty. It was a compliment, and she found herself warming with pleasure. He said it not because Aaron Godman was so obviously charming a person, but because he had liked him himself, and he could not conceive of her being blind to the qualities which were so apparent to him. “He was one of the most generous people I ever knew. He was happy for other people’s success.” He pulled a little face. “That’s one of the hardest things to do, but it came to him naturally. And he could be terribly funny.” His face softened at the memory, then suddenly the sadness was so sharp it was close to tears. “I don’t seem to have laughed the same way since he went.”

“And Kingsley Blaine?” she said gently, longing to comfort him, and knowing it was impossible.

“Oh—he was a decent enough fellow. A dreamer, not much of a realist. He loved the theater, loved the imagination of it. He had no patience with the craft. But he was generous too. Never held a grudge. Forgave so easily.” He bit his lip. “That’s the worst part of it, the stupidest. They liked each other. They had so much in common it was easy.” He looked at her, silently, full of apology for the emotion.

She smiled back at him and there was total ease between them, no need of explanation.

The sunlight filled the room in a brief blaze, and then clouded over.

It was past time for luncheon, and she had not even thought of it, when Charlotte knocked on the door and reminded her of the present, and their role as visitors who must rise, bid farewell, and take their departure out into the busy, noisy street with all its urgent clatter.

“I suppose you have been out chasing after those theater people again!” Grandmama said as soon as Caroline was in the hallway. The old lady was standing in the entrance to the withdrawing room, having heard the carriage draw up. She was leaning heavily on her stick and her face was sour with curiosity and disapproval. “No good, any of them—immoral, dissolute and hopelessly vulgar!”

“Oh, I do wish sometimes you would hold your tongue,” Caroline said abruptly, handing her cape to the maid. “You know nothing about it whatsoever. Go back to the withdrawing room and read a book. Have a crumpet. Write to a friend.”

“My eyes are too weak to read. It is only two o’clock, and far too early to eat crumpets. And all my friends are dead,” the old lady said viciously. “And my daughter-in-law is making a complete fool of herself, to my everlasting shame!”

“You have enough follies of your own to be ashamed about,” Caroline replied briskly, for once not caring a jot what the old lady thought. “You don’t need to concern yourself with mine!”

“Caroline!” The old lady glared after her as she swept across the hall and up the stairs. “Caroline! Come back here at once! Don’t you dare speak to me like that! I don’t know what’s come over you!” She stood watching Caroline’s straight back and erect head retreating up the stairs—and swore.