Farriers' Lane

10

PITT ARRIVED HOME a little before eleven o’clock, wet through from the steady rain, his face white, hair plastered over his brow. He took off his outer clothes in the hall and hung them on the hook, but the weight of the water in them pulled them off, and they lay in a sodden heap on the linoleum. He ignored them and went down the corridor towards the kitchen and the warmth of the stove where he could take off his soaking boots and thaw out his feet.

Charlotte met him at the kitchen door, her face startled and her hair loose around her shoulders. She had obviously been asleep in the rocking chair waiting for him.

“Thomas? Oh, you’re wet through! What on earth have you been doing? Come in! Come—” Then she saw his face, the expression in his eyes. “What is it? What’s happened? Is—is somebody else dead?”

“In a way.” He slumped down in the chair beside the stove and began to unlace his boots.

She knelt in front of him and started on the other one.

“What do you mean, ‘in a way’?”

“Aaron Godman. He didn’t kill Blaine,” he replied.

She stopped, her fingers curled around the wet laces, staring up at him.

“Who did?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t him. The flower seller was wrong about the time, and Paterson discovered it the day he died. Maybe he knew who it was, and that was why he was killed.”

“How can she have been wrong about the time? Didn’t they question her properly?”

He told her about the clock, and the malfunction when it was cleaned. She finished undoing his boots, took them off and put them close to the stove to dry out, then his socks, and rubbed his frozen feet with a warm towel. He wriggled his toes in exquisite relief, explaining how Paterson had misunderstood, how he had pressed until his conviction that Godman was guilty had overridden the woman and she had given in.

“Poor Paterson,” she said quietly. “He must have felt dreadful. I suppose it was his guilt over that which made him reckless for his own safety. He must have wanted desperately to put things right.” She went to the kettle which was singing quietly on the back of the stove, and pulled it forward onto the hot plate to bring it right to the boil, reaching with the other hand for the teapot and the caddy.

“Why did he write to Judge Livesey and not to you, or to his own inspector?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He continued rubbing his cold feet, rolling up his trousers to keep the wet fabric from his legs. “I suppose he thought Livesey had the power to reopen the case. I certainly hadn’t, without some absolutely conclusive evidence, and even then I could only take it to the courts. Livesey could do it much more directly. And he was involved with the original appeal; in fact he was in charge of it. It was he who presented the judgment.”

Charlotte poured the scalding water onto the tea and closed the lid of the pot. “I suppose he couldn’t be … at fault, could he?”

“He had nothing to do with the original case,” he replied. “He certainly couldn’t have killed Blaine—and he couldn’t have killed Paterson. He was at a dinner all evening until well into the small hours of the morning. By which time Paterson was dead. We can prove all that by the medical evidence, and also by the landlady’s testimony of the time the outer doors were locked.”

She brought the teapot to the kitchen table, and cups, milk from the pantry, and a large slice of brown bread, butter and pickle. She poured the tea, gave him his, and sat down opposite him as he began to eat hungrily.

“I suppose it must have been whoever killed Blaine,” she said thoughtfully. “Paterson must have told them he knew, which means that he had worked it all out. I wonder how.” She frowned. “I don’t see how knowing it couldn’t have been Godman tells him who it was.”

“Nor do I,” Pitt said with his mouth full. “Believe me, I’ve racked my mind over and over to think of what he could have seen or deduced which told him the answer—and I cannot think of it.” He sighed. “I wish to heaven he’d told someone! It was only in retracing his steps I even discovered that he’d found out Godman wasn’t guilty.”

She held her mug of tea in both hands.

“Who have you told?” she asked very quietly.

“Drummond—only Drummond,” he replied, watching her face. “It isn’t something anyone wants to know. It means they were all wrong—the police, the lawyers, the original trial and jury, the appeal—everyone. Even the hangman executed an innocent man. I imagine he’ll see that in his nightmares for a while.” He shivered and hunched his shoulders as though it were cold in the kitchen, in spite of the stove. “And the newspapers, the public—everyone, except Joshua Fielding and Tamar Macaulay.”

“What did Mr. Drummond say?”

“Not much. He knows as well as I do what the reaction is going to be.”

“What will it be? They cannot deny it—can they?”

“I don’t know.” He set his mug down wearily. “There’ll be a lot of anger, probably a lot of blame, everyone saying someone else should have known, should have been more competent, should have done something differently.” He smiled with a bitter humor. “I think Adolphus Pryce is about the only one who will come out of it without blame of some sort. He was supposed to prosecute, and he did. But Moorgate, Godman’s solicitor, is going to feel guilty for not having believed his client, whatever he does about it now; and Barton James for not having pressed the flower seller harder—but then he believed Godman was guilty, so he wouldn’t have seen any point. But he still had an innocent client, and let him be hanged.”

He picked up the mug again but it was nearly empty. “And Thelonius Quade, who tried the first case, will be bound to wonder if he could have or should have directed something differently and found the truth. Lambert will feel guilty for having charged the wrong man—and just as bad, let the right one go, not only free but unsuspected, to kill again.”

“And the appeal court judges,” Charlotte added, reaching for his mug and refilling it. “They denied the appeal and confirmed the wrong verdict. They are not going to retreat easily.” She passed him back the mug. “When will you tell Tamar Macaulay?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about that yet.” He passed his hand over his eyes, rubbing them and shaking his head. “Tomorrow, maybe. Maybe later. I would really rather have a better idea of who it was before I tell her. I’m not sure enough what she’ll do.”

“Anyway”—she smiled bleakly—“not tonight. In the morning it will look different, maybe clearer.”

He finished his tea. “I doubt it.” He stood up. “But for the moment I don’t care. Let us go to bed, before I get too tired to climb the stairs.”

“Could it be Joshua Fielding?” Charlotte said over the breakfast table, her face pale with anxiety, watching Pitt as he spread his toast with marmalade. “Thomas, if it is, what am I going to do about Mama?”

Reluctantly he forced his mind to that problem. He did not want to face it. He had enough to occupy his mental and emotional energy with Paterson’s death and the fact that Godman was innocent, but he heard the fear in her voice and he knew it was well founded.

“To begin with, don’t tell her that Godman is innocent,” he said slowly, thinking as he spoke. “If it is Fielding, she is much safer if he has no reason to think he is suspected.”

“But if it is?” she said urgently, panic rising inside her. “If he murdered Blaine, and Judge Stafford, and Paterson—Thomas, he’s—he’s absolutely ruthless. He’ll murder Mama, if he thinks he needs to, to be safe!”

“Which is exactly why you don’t tell her Godman is innocent!” he replied decisively. “Charlotte! Listen to me—there is no point whatever in telling her Fielding might be guilty. She is in love with him.”

“Oh, rubbish!” she said hotly, feeling a strange choking inside her, a sense of loneliness, almost of betrayal, as though she had been abandoned. It was absurd, and yet there was an ache in her throat at the thought of Caroline really in love, as she was in love with Pitt—emotionally, intimately. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. “That’s nonsense, Thomas. She is attracted to him, certainly. He is interesting, a kind of person we don’t even meet in the normal way of things. And she was concerned that justice should be done.”

His voice cut across her. “Charlotte! I haven’t time to argue with you. Your mother is in love with Joshua Fielding. I know you have been trying hard not to accept that, but you will have to. It is a fact, however you dislike it.”

“No, it isn’t!” She thrust it away from her. “Of course it isn’t. Thomas, Mama is well over fifty!” She could feel the choking in her throat again, and a revulsion against the pictures that were forming in her imagination. Thomas should understand that. “It is friendship, that is all!” Her voice was growing higher and louder. She knew it was unfair, but she resented Emily being away in the west country and avoiding all this. She should have been here to help. This was a crisis.

Pitt was staring at her, irritation in his eyes.

“Charlotte, there is no time for self-indulgence! People don’t stop falling in love because they are fifty—or sixty—or any other age!”

“Of course they do.”

“When are you going to stop loving me? When you are fifty?”

“That’s different,” she protested, her voice thick.

“No, it isn’t. Sometimes we grow a little more careful in what we do, because we have learned some of the dangers, but we go on feeling the same. Why shouldn’t your mother fall in love? When you are fifty Jemima will think you as old and fixed as the framework of the world, because that is what you are to her—the framework of all she knows and that gives her safety and identity. But you will be the same woman inside as you are now, and just as capable of passions of all sorts: indignation, anger, laughter, outrage, making a fool of yourself, and of loving.”

Charlotte blinked fiercely. It was stupid to feel so close to tears, and yet she could not help it.

Pitt put his hand over hers. Her fingers were stiff. She pulled away.

“What am I going to do about her?” she asked abruptly, sniffing hard. “If he killed Kingsley Blaine, not to mention Judge Stafford, and now poor Paterson, then he’s about as dangerous as a man could be! He wouldn’t think twice about killing her if he thought she was a threat to him.” She sniffed again. “And if he didn’t, how can I stop her behaving like a fool? People can, when they fall in love. I should have tried to discourage her sooner. I should have warned her—told her his faults. And she can’t possibly marry him, even if he’s totally innocent.” She shook her head fiercely. “Even if he were to ask her—which of course he won’t.”

“If he asks her to marry him, you are going to do nothing,” Pitt replied with a hard edge to his voice that took her by total surprise, leaving her staring at him in amazement.

“Nothing!” she protested. “But Thomas—”

“Nothing,” he repeated. “Charlotte, I will tell her what we know of the case, in a few days, when I have weighed the evidence further. Then she will make her own decisions as to what to do.”

“But, Thomas—”

“No!” His hand was warm and hard over hers. “I know what you are going to say, but it would do no good. My dear, when did anyone in love listen to the good advice of their families? When you point out that he may be dangerous, guilty, unsuitable, unworthy, anything else you think of, the more she will be inclined to be loyal to him, even against her own better judgment.”

“You make her sound so foolish.” She pulled away, but he would not let her go.

“Not foolish, just in love.”

She glared at him, tears prickling in her eyes. “Then you have got to find out whether he killed Kingsley Blaine or not. And if it wasn’t he, then who was it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose Devlin O’Neil.”

She pushed her chair back, scraping the legs on the floor, and stood up. “Then I am going to find out more about them.” She drew in her breath quickly. “And don’t you dare tell me I mayn’t. I shall be very discreet. No one will have the slightest idea why I am interested, or that I have the least suspicion of anything even immoral, let alone criminal.” And before he could argue she swept out and raced up the stairs to start sorting through her gowns to see what she should wear to visit Caroline, Clio Farber, Kathleen O’Neil, or anyone else who might prove helpful in solving the Farriers’ Lane case.

Actually she did not succeed in arranging anything until the day after, and that was with great difficulty, and the assistance of Clio Farber. It was something of a contrivance. Clio invited Kathleen O’Neil to meet her at the British Museum, a place Adah Harrimore much enjoyed visiting. It gave her the opportunity to walk around slowly (her health was still excellent), to gossip and stare at other people, while at the same time feeling that she was improving her mind, without obligation to any hostess, or the need for invitation, or a return of hospitality. One could wear what one pleased, come at any hour, and leave when one had had sufficient. It was the perfect answer to all the intricate rules and restrictions of social hierarchy and etiquette.

Clio informed Charlotte of this arrangement, and accidentally Charlotte bumped into them at the Egyptian exhibit at exactly quarter to three, with a show of surprise and pleasure. She had considered asking Caroline to come, and then rejected it, because she was not sure enough of her own ability not to betray her knowledge that Aaron Godman was innocent, and her consequent fear that Joshua was guilty. Devlin O’Neil was another matter altogether. She liked Kathleen and would grieve if he proved to be guilty, but her art of concealment was perfectly able to match that eventuality.

“How charming to see you,” she said with just the right degree of surprise. “Good day, Mrs. Harrimore. I hope you are well?”

Adah Harrimore was dressed in dark brown with a sable trim and a hat which had been extremely elegant a couple of seasons ago and had since been altered to mask its year of vogue.

“I dislike the winter, but I am quite well, thank you,” she replied with an air of graciousness. “And you, Miss Pitt?”

“Very well, thank you. I do agree with you, the cold can be most disagreeable. But you know, I don’t think I should care for the heat such as they have in Egypt either.” She looked with intensity at the artifacts on display in the case in front of them: copper instruments, shards of pottery and beautiful turquoise and lapis beads. A small glass jar caught her attention in particular. “It makes one wonder about the lives of the people who fashioned and wore these, doesn’t it?” she went on enthusiastically. “Do you suppose they were so very different from us, or if actually their feelings were much the same?”

“Quite different,” Adah said decisively. “They were Egyptian—we are English.”

“That will affect our habits, and the clothes we wear, our houses, what we eat. But do you think it changes the way we feel, and what we value?” Charlotte asked as politely as she could. It was a quite genuine question, but the fierce and instant response from Adah had startled her, and she saw something in the old woman’s face which disturbed her. It was not merely an opinion which would not be moved, it was a flicker of fear, as though there were something dangerous in the alien quality of those people from another land, and so long dead.

Adah looked at the artifacts, and then at Charlotte.

“If you forgive my saying so, Miss Pitt, you are very young, and consequently naive. I daresay you have had little experience of peoples of other races. Even if they are born here in England, and grow up amongst us, they still have an element which is different. Blood will tell. You may teach a child as much as you wish; in the end his heritage will come through.”

They were passed by two ladies in the height of fashion who inclined their heads graciously and continued walking.

Adah smiled stiffly. “How can you expect those who are born elsewhere,” she continued to Charlotte, “and grow up among totally different beliefs, to have anything in common with us but the most superficial manners? No, my dear Miss Pitt, I do not think they feel as we do about anything at all—at least anything of sensitivity or moral value. Why should they?”

Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, then realized she had no answer which would not sound either trite or rude.

“They worshiped fearful gods, with heads like animals.” Adah warmed to her subject. “And they tried to preserve the corpses of their dead! For goodness sake! We may find them most interesting to learn of, edifying to know the past, I am sure, and uplifting to realize how superior is our own culture. But to imagine we have anything in common with them is sheer folly.”

Charlotte scrambled for some dim recollection out of her schoolbooks.

“Was there not a pharaoh who believed in one god?” she enquired.

Adah’s eyebrows rose. “I have no idea. But he was not our God—that is beyond question. Pharaoh tried to kill Moses, and all his people! That was unarguably wicked. No one who believed in the real God would do such a thing.”

“People sometimes do terrible things to their enemies, especially when they are afraid.”

A shadow passed over Adah’s face, something in her eyes that for a moment froze. Then with a supreme effort it was conquered, and vanished.

“That is perfectly true, of course. But it is in moments of panic that our deeper natures are exposed, and you will find that foreigners will behave differently from us, because at heart they are different. That is not to say that some of them do not create most beautiful things, and know much that we may benefit from seeing.”

A governess in plain brown stood at the next exhibit, her twelve-year-old charge giggling at a bust of a long-dead queen.

“I find that particularly true of the Greeks,” Adah continued, her voice raised. “Some of their architecture is quite marvelous. Of course they were a people of most exquisite self-discipline, and sense of proportion. My grandson-in-law, Mr. O’Neil, whom you met, has been to Athens. He said that the Parthenon is beyond description. He finds the Greeks most uplifting. He admires the work of Lord Byron, which I admit I find somewhat questionable. I greatly prefer our own Lord Tennyson. You know where you are with Lord Tennyson.”

Charlotte gave up without further struggle. To continue to argue would lose her far more than she could possibly gain. And the look in Adah’s eyes still haunted her mind.

“That must have been a wonderful experience,” she said dutifully. “Are there good Greek exhibits here?”

“Most certainly. Let us go and see some of the urns and vases. This way, I think!” And with a sweeping gesture Adah led the way out of the Egyptian hall and into the next chamber.

Charlotte passed Clio and Kathleen on the steps. She smiled, then hurried after Adah, catching up with her just as they entered the room where the Greek artifacts were displayed.

“How very fortunate of Mr. O’Neil to have been able to go to Greece,” she said conversationally. “Was it recently?”

“About seven years ago,” Adah replied.

“Did Mrs. O’Neil go with him?” Charlotte kept her voice politely interested, although she knew Kathleen had been married to Kingsley Blaine then.

“No,” Adah said flatly. “That was before their marriage. But no doubt they will go again some time in the future. I take it you have not been to Greece, Miss Pitt?”

“No, I am afraid not. That is why it is so fortunate to be able to come to the museum and see such lovely things here. Have you been, Mrs. Harri more?”

“No. No, I never traveled. My husband did not care to.” A look of bleak unhappiness crossed her face, a tightness of the skin and of the muscles beneath as if a pain uglier than mere grief had been reopened.

“It does not suit everyone,” Charlotte said quietly, answering the words because the feeling was too private to acknowledge, and too subtle to understand. “Some people become quite ill, especially at sea.”

“So I believe,” Adah said through thin lips.

“And it can be very costly,” Charlotte went on, walking in step with her. “If the family is large. One does not always wish to leave younger children behind for long periods of time, and yet one also does not feel advised to take them where the climate may not be healthy, the food will certainly not be what they are accustomed to, and one has no idea what medical help may be available. There are many reasons for such a decision.”

Adah stared at a large marble figure of a woman clothed in fine drapes, her body solid, massive, and yet the very lines of the stone giving it all such a simple and fluid grace one felt a draft might move the suggested fabric. It was chipped, the face disfigured, and yet it still had a grave loveliness.

“We were not a large family.” Adah spoke to the statue, not to Charlotte. “There is only Prosper, no more.”

They stood close in front of the statue. Clio and Kathleen had followed them and were admiring some exhibit at the far end of the room, and out of earshot. Adah seemed to have forgotten them, and there was no one else except two elderly gentlemen, one apparently lecturing the other on the artistic merits of a vase. Her emotions consumed her, as if she had found a place of complete privacy where she could relax her inner vigilance for a few moments before taking up the burden again. She looked tired, and oddly naked.

Charlotte wished she could touch her, extend some comfort less crass than words, but it would have been intrusive and impertinent on so short an acquaintance—and considering their respective ages. And always at the edge of her mind was Aaron Godman. Funny how she had given him a face, although she had never met him, nor seen a likeness.

“What a shame. Mr. Harrimore is a man of such character …”

“You do not understand.” Adah stared at the stone figure ahead of her a moment longer, then moved on to a fine black and terra-cotta vase with figures around it in a scene of debauchery Charlotte was quite sure the older woman did not see, in spite of her fixed eyes. Her expression would never have retained that intense, painful immobility if she had. “You are very naive, Miss Pitt, and no doubt your remarks are well meant …”

Such damnation in the turn of a phrase. But Charlotte quashed her instinctive rebellion and continued.

“I—I don’t think I see—”

“Of course you don’t,” Adah agreed, “You have never had to, and with God’s grace you never will. He is flawed, Miss Pitt.”

Charlotte was confused. It was an extraordinary thing for a woman to say of her son, and yet, looking at Adah’s face, there was no doubt she meant it passionately. It was not a passing remark, but something which troubled her so much it remained in the forefront of her mind.

Charlotte fumbled for something to say in reply.

“Are we not all flawed in one way or another, Mrs. Harrimore?”

“Of course we are none of us perfect.” Adah moved on from the vase to a set of shards which composed pieces of dishes of an earlier period, again without seeing them as anything but a faint blur. “That is trite, and perfectly obvious. Prosper has a clubfoot. I cannot believe you failed to notice it.”

“Oh—yes, I see what you mean.”

“What did you imagine I meant? Never mind! Never mind. It is not serious, not a crippling thing, not fatal. But other children—once the well is poisoned …” Suddenly she recollected where they were and pulled her shoulders back sharply as if coming to attention. “I should not have spoken of myself. It is hardly the uplifting and educational experience you were seeking. Talk of my husband”—again the bitterness crossed her face—“is not edifying for you. Let us go and see some of the Chinese exhibits. A very clever people, not even European, let alone English, but I believe most civilized, after their own fashion, and a great many years ago. Heaven only knows what they are now, of course! We were at war with them over something or other when I was a girl. We won—naturally.”

“Would those have been the opium wars?” Charlotte struggled to recall her fairly recent history. “In the eighteen-fifties?”

“Quite possibly that was the name of them,” Adah conceded. “Certainly it was just after the war in the Crimea, and then the awful mutiny in India. We seemed to be always at war with someone in those days. Of course our dear Queen had only been on the throne for twenty years. Now it is quite different. Everyone knows who we are, and they have more sense than to start wars with us.”

Such monumental assurance was unanswerable, and Charlotte was happy enough to see Clio and Kathleen O’Neil in the distance, and attracted their attention with a smile.

Some thirty minutes later they left the exhibits and retired to take afternoon tea and converse about various subjects such as fashion, one’s health, the weather, the Princess of Wales, the books one had read, all harmless and quite suitable for such an occasion.

“How is your dear Mama?” Kathleen enquired courteously, looking at Charlotte over the cucumber sandwiches. “I do hope she will be able to join us, perhaps for an evening at the opera, or the theater?”

“I am sure she would love to,” Charlotte said with more honesty than they knew. “I shall tell her that you mentioned it. It is most kind of you to ask. She has taken something of an interest in the theater lately. My Papa died some few years ago, and since then she has not gone out to such places as much as she used. She is just beginning to enjoy it again.”

“Very natural,” Adah agreed, nodding her head. “One has to mourn for a certain period. It is expected. But after that, one must continue one’s life.”

“I know she has become fast friends with Joshua,” Clio said quickly, smiling. “Indeed, it is really quite romantic.”

“Romantic?” Adah said stiffly. Then she swiveled around to Charlotte, her eyebrows raised.

“Well …” Charlotte hesitated, then she took a decision she was afraid she might desperately regret. “Yes—yes, it is. I have—I am not quite sure how I feel. Perhaps the word is apprehensive.” Clio continued to eat and reached for a tiny cream cake.

Kathleen glanced at Adah, then at Charlotte, and changed the subject.

When they rose to leave, Adah grasped Charlotte by the arm and drew her aside, her face tense, her eyes full of pain.

“My dear Miss Pitt, I do not know how to put this to you without seeming intrusive in what is your most private affair, but I cannot stand by and say nothing. Your mother is in a most vulnerable situation, bereaved of her husband, alone in the world, and quite naturally wishing to move into society again. But really—an actor!”

Charlotte agreed with her intensely, and at the same time instinctively rushed to defend Caroline. “He is very agreeable,” she said with a gulp. “And a pillar of his profession.”

“That is immaterial!” Adah’s voice was fierce, her grasp on Charlotte’s arm painful. “He is a Jew! You cannot possibly allow your mother to have—to have anything but—how can I say this with the remotest delicacy? For love of heaven, my dear, you cannot allow her to have relations with him!”

Charlotte felt herself blushing hotly. The idea was repellent to her, not because of anything to do with Joshua Fielding, but because she could not imagine her mother in such a situation. It was profoundly … distressing, offensive.

“I can see you had not thought of it,” Adah went on, misreading her reaction entirely, thinking only of the word Jew. “Of course not. You are innocent. But my dear, it is not impossible—and then your mother would be ruined! Of course it is not as if she were still of childbearing age, so it would not contaminate her, but all the same.”

“Contaminate?” Charlotte was confused.

“Naturally.” Adah’s face was twisted with pain, pity, memory of something too ugly for her to speak of. “Having”—she hesitated on the word—“union—with a Jew—will leave a person … different. It is not something one can explain to a maiden lady of any sensibility at all. But you must believe me!”

Charlotte was speechless.

Adah mistook her silence for doubt.

“It is perfectly true,” she said urgently. “I swear it. God forgive me, I should know!” Her voice was raw with shame and misery. “My husband, like many men, satisfied his appetites beyond the walls of his own home, only he did it with a Jewess. I was with child at the time. That is why poor Prosper is deformed.” She caught her breath on the word as though the act of forcing it through her lips was a further wound to her. “And why I never had another child.”

Suddenly Charlotte saw the barren years, the shame, the sense of betrayal, of being unclean, which had lasted even until now. She felt a pity so intense she longed to reach out and put some kind of balm on the wound. And yet she was also revolted. It was alien to all her beliefs to imagine that there was a kind of human being who was so different that union with them was unclean, not because of immorality or disease, but simply by the nature of their race.

She did not know what to say, but Adah’s passionate face demanded some reply.

“Oh.” She felt idiotically inadequate. “I am sure—I am sure my mother is unaware of that.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and at least that much was true.

“Then if you have any care for her at all, you must tell her,” Adah urged intensely. “Never mind her age in life,” she went on. “It is the beginning of downfall. Who knows what may be next? Now we must join the others, or they will wonder what is amiss. Come!”

The day after the trip to the museum, Charlotte accompanied Caroline, at Caroline’s invitation, to visit Joshua Fielding and Tamar Macaulay at the theater, after rehearsal and before the evening performance. Charlotte felt acutely uncomfortable. It was one of the least enjoyable times she had ever spent in her mother’s company. She longed to be able to tell her that Pitt knew Aaron Godman had been innocent, but she had promised Pitt she would not, and she knew his reasons for demanding such a thing were excellent. But still she felt deceitful, and she doubted Caroline would understand, even when she knew the full truth.

She was also horribly afraid that perhaps Joshua Fielding was the one who had murdered and crucified Kingsley Blaine, and then poisoned Judge Stafford because he was going to reopen the case—and now killed Constable Paterson because he also knew the truth.

And if he were not guilty, but it was Devlin O’Neil, or someone else, then what if Caroline did have an affair with him? How could Charlotte possibly govern her emotions about that? She could not be happy for it. And all the reasoning in the world, and Pitt’s arguments, which were so sensible, still did not alter the way she felt.

So she accompanied Caroline, who looked less smart than was her custom a few months ago, and definitely younger. She was not in the height of fashion at all, rather more in the romantic vision of the pre-Raphaelites, her gown with a design of flowers and leaves, her hair more loosely dressed, and no hat at all.

They were welcomed at the theater door and permitted in as if they were old friends, which in itself disturbed Charlotte. The rehearsal was just coming to an end. It was a comedy, although there were highly dramatic elements. Even as an amateur with very little experience of the theater, Charlotte could see the skill in the timing of a line, the precise inflection of a voice, the gesture of a hand, the line of the body. It fascinated her to see how much greater was the skill of Tamar Macaulay than that of any of the others on the stage; and how much more her eye was drawn to Joshua than to the other men. It was not that he concerned her personally, or that Caroline never took her eyes from him, it was that he had a magnetism which would have compelled anyone.

When the final line was delivered, almost before Mr. Passmore gave them leave to go, Tamar turned and came towards Charlotte, her vivid face tense, her eyes searching. Charlotte was taken by surprise. She had not even thought Tamar aware of her presence; her concentration had seemed total. She did not bother with any formality.

“Charlotte! How good to see you. I had feared you had abandoned us. I would hardly blame you.” She took Charlotte by the arm and guided her away from the wings where they had been waiting and along a bare-board passage. “We have been trying for five years, and achieved nothing. It was most unfair of me to place my hopes upon you, and in a matter of weeks. I am most sincerely sorry, and the inexcusable thing is that I shall certainly go on doing it. I cannot help it.” She took a deep breath, facing Charlotte, her black eyes burning. “I still do not believe Aaron was guilty. I don’t believe he could have killed Kingsley, and I am quite sure he would not have done that to him afterwards.” A brief, ironic smile crossed her lips and there was a catch in her voice. “And he cannot have poisoned Judge Stafford.”

“Or hanged Constable Paterson,” Charlotte added impulsively.

Tamar blinked. “Hanged Constable Paterson?” she said confusedly. “Why was he hanged? Was it he who killed Judge Stafford? But why? And how can he be hanged so soon? I didn’t even read of a trial.”

“He was not executed,” Charlotte explained. “He was murdered. We don’t know why, or by whom, but it seems most probable that it had to do with the Farriers’ Lane case, although of course it is not certain.”

Tamar reached past her and opened the door to the small, cramped dressing room. It was filled with costumes on a rail in one corner, a hamper with petticoats spilling out in another, a table with a mirror, jars of greasepaint and powder, and three stands with wigs. But as she was the leading actress, it was at least private.

“Tell me,” she demanded, leading the way in, pushing a chair around for Charlotte and then leaning backward to close the door again.

“Constable Paterson was the—” Charlotte began.

“I know who he was,” Tamar interrupted. “What happened to him?”

“He was murdered,” Charlotte said simply. “Someone came in the late evening and hanged him from the chandelier fitting in his own bedroom.”

“You mean attacked him?” Tamar was incredulous. “Did he not fight to defend himself?”

“It seems not.” Charlotte shook her head. “Perhaps it was someone he knew, and he did not expect to be harmed, and the person contrived to get behind him and garotte him.”

“I suppose it could have happened like that,” Tamar agreed, coming away from the door into the room. It had an odd smell, unfamiliar, at once musty and exciting. “It is the only thing which seems to make sense,” Tamar went on. “But who, and why? At the time of the trial I certainly hated the man.” Her face wrinkled with the pain of memory. “He hated Aaron so much. He was not dispassionate, he was full of rage, his voice shook when he was in the witness box. I remember him very clearly. And I believe it was he who beat Aaron, although Aaron would never say—at least not to me. But I think that was to protect me.” She stopped, for a moment having to struggle to keep any control at all. She turned away, fumbling for a handkerchief, bumping against one of the wig stands. Suddenly all the fear and the terror were back again, as if Aaron Godman were still alive, still suffering …

Charlotte could hardly bear to keep silent. It was only the knowledge of Caroline a few yards away, with Joshua Fielding, which held her from telling Tamar now that Aaron was innocent, and at last Pitt could prove it.

Nothing anyone could say would heal the past, words would be stupid and only betray a complete failure to understand. The only balm was to speak of something else.

“Don’t give up hope,” she said quietly to Tamar’s stiff, shaking back. “We are very close to the end now. I cannot yet tell you, but I am not simply speaking to comfort you. It really is close—I give you my word!”

Tamar stood absolutely still, then very slowly she turned around to face Charlotte. For several moments she did not speak but searched Charlotte’s face, trying to judge both her sincerity and her actual knowledge.

“Would it be pointless to ask you how you know?” she said almost under her breath. “Why you can say that?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied. “If I could tell you I would have. But please believe me—it is true.”

Tamar took a deep breath and then swallowed hard. “Aaron will be cleared?”

“Please, don’t ask me to say any more now—and if you wish it to happen, say nothing to anyone—not even to Mr. Fielding. He may inadvertently say or do something which will ruin everything. I believe that Aaron did not do it—but I have no idea who did.”

Tamar smiled with a sad, ironic humor, sitting a little sideways on the clothes hamper.

“What you mean is you think it may have been Joshua,” she answered.

“Is that impossible?” Charlotte said very quietly.

Tamar sat a little farther back.

“I would like to say that of course it is, but I assume you are asking not for emotions but for reason. No, it is not impossible. He said he did not know whether Kingsley would have married me or not, and would not have interfered anyway; and that he went home straight from the theater that night. But there is no way he can prove it.” She lifted her chin a little. “I don’t believe it was him, but I don’t imagine that will weigh heavily with you.”

“I cannot allow it to,” Charlotte replied, knowing that was less than the truth. Part of her wished it to be Joshua. It would remove any threat from Caroline. It would end the uncertainty, the odd mixture of loss and anger, tenderness and jealousy. Jealousy! At least she had recognized the feeling, and the very pain of naming it was partially healing.

“No, of course not.” Tamar squared her shoulders and smiled. She stood up again, the wicker of the hamper squeaking. “Shall we take some tea? I am sure you must be cold, and quite ready to sit comfortably and talk of something more cheerful …” She hesitated at the door.

“Yes?” Charlotte waited.

“If I can help, you will tell me?” Tamar asked anxiously.

“Of course.”

Caroline was still standing on the edge of the stage when Joshua Fielding turned and smiled at her. He must have known she was there, even though his attention had apparently been on the other actors. She felt a sudden warmth, as if the sun had come out from the clouds. She wanted to move forward to him, but reticence held her back.

He waited a few moments, speaking to Clio, then an older actress, congratulating her with a touch on the arm. Mr. Passmore addressed them all, except Tamar, who had disappeared, giving last-minute instructions for the evening’s performance, encouragement, criticism, praise, prophecy of a magnificent success, carefully guarded by superstitious formulae against the bad luck of overconfidence. Amulets were touched, hands went to pockets for lucky pieces to reassure for the umpteenth time that they were still there. When he had finished he turned away, a large figure in a frock coat and flowing tie, and Joshua came over to Caroline.

But instead of greeting her with words of welcome and enquiry as ordinary courtesy dictated, he simply met her eyes, the questions understood between them. It was a familiarity which warmed her far more than she expected, and left her wishing for words, and finding none of them satisfactory.

“Was that Charlotte I saw with you?” Joshua asked quietly.

“Yes—yes, she wished to come.”

He took her by the arm and guided her away from the stage wings towards the audience seats, out of earshot of the others, and into the half shadow.

“Is she still pursuing Kingsley’s death?” he asked very quietly, his voice filled with anxiety.

“Of course,” she replied, meeting his eyes. “We can hardly give up.”

“I don’t think she needs to anymore.” He spoke as if he were feeling his way through complicated thoughts. “Since Judge Stafford’s death the police are involved. It is no longer as if it could be forgotten or marked as closed. Poor Aaron cannot be blamed for this. Please, Caroline, persuade her to leave it to those whose profession it is.”

“But they have not been very successful so far,” she reasoned. She felt a stab of guilt towards Pitt, but her fear for Joshua far outweighed it. “They have not succeeded yet. It does not appear they suspect either Mrs. Stafford or Mr. Pryce, in fact the very contrary. They are persuaded they are innocent.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly I am sure. Thomas would not lie to me.”

He smiled, a mixture of affection and amusement. “Are you sure, my dear? Might he not tell you something less than the truth, in the knowledge that you have formed a friendship for Tamar”—he colored very faintly—“and for me, which might incline you to be biased in the matter?”

She felt the heat burn in her cheeks. “He might well tell me less than the truth, but he would not fabricate something gratuitously,” she replied. “I have come to know him quite well over the years. He was certainly not my choice of a husband for my daughter, it is true, but I have learned that there are occasions when a man who is socially unsuitable may make one far happier than any man one’s friends or one’s family may have chosen—” She stopped, realizing she had spoken her thoughts too frankly. They were capable of interpretation for herself, as well as for Charlotte.

He made as if to respond, then changed his mind, cleared his throat and began again, but she did not miss the momentary flash of laughter in his eyes.

“All the same, I think it would be well for Charlotte to leave the matter,” he said gravely. “It may become dangerous. If it was not Aaron, then it was someone else, someone who obviously does not hesitate to kill again, and again, if he feels endangered. I have no idea whether Charlotte will come close enough to him for that, but she may, even without knowing it. She and Clio have become friendly with Kathleen O’Neil. I can only imagine it is to pursue Devlin. If he realizes that, or only fears it …” He left the rest unsaid.

Caroline was torn. Was Charlotte really in danger? More than she had been in every other case in which she had helped? Who would suspect a woman, an ordinary wife and mother? “Of being overly inquisitive, perhaps,” she said aloud. “Of being vulgar in her curiosity. Of trying to intrude where she has no—no right of background or breeding.” How disloyal she sounded. “But that is not dangerous, merely undignified and possibly absurd.”

“Judge Stafford is dead, and so, I read, is Constable Paterson,” he pointed out.

“But they were officers of the law,” she argued vehemently. “And you say she and Miss Farber are pursuing Devlin O’Neil. But the police are far more likely to pursue you. Have you no fear for yourself?”

“Caroline!” He took both her hands in his, gently but holding her too hard for her to withdraw. “Caroline! Of course I have. But what kind of friend would you consider me if I placed my own fear of being suspected ahead of Charlotte’s danger from whoever really killed Kingsley—and the others? Please, tell her she must leave the matter altogether. I am too afraid that it may really have been Devlin O’Neil. I cannot think of anyone else it could be—except some madman. But if it was that, there would surely have been others the same, and there have not been.”

“And what about you?” she said urgently, still in her own mind clinging to the hope that Charlotte might solve it, as she had other crimes in the past. “The police were wrong once, and there was nobody who could save Aaron.”

“I know that, my dear, but it does not alter the situation.” His voice was very gentle, his hands over hers warm, but his hold was hard and there was no wavering in his eyes. “I know the police suspect me. I will at least have a trial, and a chance to appeal. Whoever is killing people will not give Charlotte as much.”

“No,” she said quietly. “No, I suppose not. I will tell her.”

He smiled, letting go of her hands but at the same time taking her arm. “Shall we go somewhere pleasant and take afternoon tea? We can forget the world and its dangers and suspicions, tonight’s performance, and simply think how much we enjoy talking. There are so many other things.” He started to move and pull her gently with him. “I have just read a fascinating book about a journey of the imagination. Quite impossible to turn into a play, of course, but I am still enormously enriched to have read it. Provoked all kinds of thoughts—and questions. I shall tell you about it, if I may? I want to know what you think.”

Caroline gave in to the sheer pleasure of it. Why not? She wished this sweet intimacy could last forever, but she was realist enough to know that of course Grandmama was right; it was a dream, a delusion, and waking would be much the colder afterwards. But it was not afterwards yet, and she would give all her heart to it while she could.

“Of course,” she agreed with a smile. “Please tell me.”

“You ’aven’t said anyfink about the murder for days, ma’am,” Gracie said to Charlotte the next morning as they were working in the kitchen. Gracie was cleaning the knives with Oakey’s Wellington knife polish, made of emery and black lead; and Charlotte cleaned the spoons and forks with a homemade mixture of hartshorn powder, water and alcohol.

“That is because I haven’t learned anything further,” she explained, pulling a face. “We know it wasn’t Aaron Godman, but we are no nearer knowing who it really was.”

“Don’t we know nuffink at all?” Gracie said, squinting around the knife she was holding up.

“Yes, of course we know some things,” Charlotte replied, polishing industriously. “It was someone who knew his name and that he was at the theater, and deliberately sent him to a place where he would pass through Farriers’ Lane to get there. And to do what was done to him, they must have hated him very much indeed.” She reached for a fresh cloth to raise a shine. “Apart from the obscenity of it, it would be dangerous to remain there any longer than necessary after having killed him. The rage must have outweighed the sense of self-preservation.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Gracie said with feeling. “If I’d just murdered someone I wouldn’t ’ang around to nail ’im up to a door—which can’t ‘a’ bin easy!” She tipped more polish out of the tin into a saucer. “I’d ’ave been out o’ mere as fast as me legs ’d carry me! Afore anyone else came an’ found me there!”

“So it was someone so overcome with hatred they would rather take the risk, or else they didn’t even think of it,” Charlotte concluded.

“Or else …” Gracie rubbed the knife blade furiously. It was already shining. “Or else it were someone wot ’ad another reason for doin’ it—like to put the blame on someone else. Which since poor Godman was ’anged fer it, worked very well.”

“But how did crucifying him put the blame on Aaron Godman?” Charlotte asked, passing the buffing cloth to Gracie.

“Well, it made everyone think it were someone as were Jewish,” Gracie reasoned.

“But a Christian person wouldn’t do that, surely?”

“Maybe ’e would! Maybe that’s exactly what ’e would do, if ’e ’ated Jews and wanted ’em blamed.”

“Why would anyone hate Jews that much?” But already Charlotte’s mind was racing over the Harrimores, Adah’s beliefs, Devlin O’Neil’s knowledge that Kingsley Blaine was in love with Tamar Macaulay, a Jewess. Perhaps in some twisted way he had hated not only Blaine but all the theater people, and when he killed Blaine he had suddenly thought of a way to implicate someone else in the crime.

“You don’t think so, do you, ma’am?” Gracie said, watching her face carefully. “You still fink as it were Mr. Fielding, ’im wot Mrs. Ellison likes.”

“I don’t know, Gracie. I suppose it could be Mr. O’Neil. Part of me wishes it were. Mama is going to be terribly hurt if it is Mr. Fielding. And yet if it isn’t …” She sighed, and refrained from saying what was in her mind.

“You shouldn’t ought to worry so much, ma’am,” Gracie said, her little face puckering up with anxiety, the knives momentarily ignored. “Mrs. Ellison’ll do what she wants ter, and there in’t nothing you nor the master can say as’ll change it. But I do understand as yer gotter know ’oo done the murder in Farriers’ Lane. An’ I keep on thinking about it, like.” She stopped even pretending to work and put her cloth down, staring at Charlotte with total concentration. “That lad wot took the message across the street to Mr. Blaine at the door. If the master could speak to ’im proper, away from all them other rozzers, maybe ’e’d be able ter say summink more as ter wot the man were like.” Her face was sharp with hope. “The rozzers before, the ones wot did the case in the beginning, they told ’im as it were Mr. Godman. Well, bein’ as ’e were just a lad on the street, ’e wouldn’t want ter argue wiv ’em, would ’e? But bein’ as you know it weren’t Mr. Godman, maybe ’e’d say summink ’elpful?”

“Mr. Pitt found him,” Charlotte said with a bleak smile. “He wouldn’t say anything that was helpful at all, I’m afraid. But it was a good idea.”

“Oh.” Gracie renewed her polishing, but her face was deep in thought, and she said little more for the rest of the morning, except to look very carefully at Charlotte just before they began peeling the vegetables for dinner.

“You goin’ ter the theater termorrow wif them ’Arrimores?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you be careful, ma’am! If it were that Mr. O’Neil as done it, then ’e’s a very wicked man, an’ ’e don’t care nuffink for nobody ’cept ’isself. Don’t you go askin’ questions.”

“I shall be very careful,” Charlotte promised. But there was a sinking feeling in the bottom of her stomach and a catch in her throat, as if she were close to something that would prove to be very dreadful.

Charlotte felt guilty that Pitt was not included in the evening visit to the theater because it was such a vivid, exciting event quite apart from any information that might be gleaned from the Harrimores or the O’Neils. But had Pitt come it would almost certainly have put an end to any discussion at all, now, and in the future.

So with an effort of will she followed Caroline up the wide stairs behind Kathleen O’Neil on Devlin’s arm, and Adah Harrimore leaning heavily on Prosper, who, although he limped in an ungainly fashion, seemed to feel no pain in his foot. Presumably the limp’s cause was the deformity with which he was born, and not a degenerative disease.

The entire foyer was filled with people. The chandeliers blazed so one could barely look at them, shedding cascades of light. Jewels sparkled in elaborate coiffures and at arms, throats and wrists, and on hands. Feathers waved as heads turned. Pale shoulders gleamed amid bowers of silk, taffeta, voile and velvet of every shade, the pallor of lilies, the warmth of peach and rose, the flaring vibrancy of scarlet, magenta and blue, and behind them all the stark black and white of dinner suits.

Everywhere was the rustle and whisper of fabric, the murmur of voices, every few moments a burst of laughter.

Charlotte turned once on the stairs to look behind her and remember it all, the quickening of the pulse, the overflowing life, the expectancy as if a thousand people all knew that something thrilling was about to happen.

Then Caroline pulled at her arm and obediently she went on up and around the wide balcony towards the Harrimores’ box, where she and Caroline were offered center seats, as guests, between Adah on their left and Kathleen on their right. The two men sat on the outside a little to the rear. It was some fifteen or twenty minutes before the performance was due to begin. Watching others arrive was a great deal of the pleasure of such an event, and of course being seen oneself.

A very handsome woman walked up the aisle beneath them, dressed in shades of fuchsia and palest pink, her black hair piled luxuriantly, her step graceful, but nonetheless a slight swagger. She looked from right to left, smiling a little.

“Who is she?” Charlotte asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Caroline replied. “She is certainly most striking.”

Kathleen gave a very tiny laugh, and stifled it immediately.

“No one,” Adah answered crisply. “She is no one.” Charlotte was puzzled.

Adah turned to face her, her expression a mixture of amusement and distaste.

“Such persons may pass in front of you, my dear, but you do not see them. To a lady, they are invisible.”

“Oh—oh, I see. She is …”

“Precisely.” Adah waved her arm very slightly towards one of the boxes farther around the tier of the balcony. “On the other hand, or perhaps not. That is Mrs. Langtry—the Jersey Lily.”

Charlotte did not bother to hide her smile. “Has anyone ever seen Mr. Langtry? I’ve never even heard him mentioned.”

“I have,” Adah answered dryly. “But I shall not repeat what was said—poor man.”

She obviously meant it, so Charlotte did not ask. Instead she looked farther around the tier of boxes for other people of interest. It did not take her long to observe that at least half those she watched were turned towards one particular box over on the far side where there was a considerable amount of coming and going, of both men and women. The men especially were dressed in the height of fashion, although what fashion was harder to say. Their hair was far longer than customary, they were clean-shaven, and large, floppy ties overflowed their collars. However, there was an elegance about them, almost a languor, which was quite distinctive.

“Who are they?” Charlotte asked, her interest piqued. “Are they critics?”

“I doubt it,” Devlin replied with a smile. “Actors come frequently very well dressed, but a little more conventionally than that. They are almost certainly members of the aesthete set, very self-consciously artistic of soul, even if not necessarily of output. I am afraid Mr. Gilbert guyed them terribly in his opera Patience. You should see it; it is extremely entertaining, and the music is delightful.”

“I shall, quite definitely.” She smiled back at him cordially, then suddenly remembered what she was here for. She froze, still looking at him. For a moment the situation struck her with all its farcical quality. They were dressed in their very best clothes, he in black dinner suit with gold cuff links, and onyx and mother of pearl studs, she in a gown borrowed from Caroline and retrimmed to be more up to date, but a shade of dark wine which suited her marvelously, and she knew it, deep at the bosom and with only a tiny bustle. They were here as guests of Prosper Harrimore, waiting for the curtain to go up on the stage where the people who had brought them together by virtue of a notorious tragedy were going to play out a comedy of manners, all saying words no one meant, on stage or off it. And all the time she was trying to determine whether he was the person who had murdered and crucified Kingsley Blaine and allowed Aaron Godman to be hanged for it.

Devlin O’Neil was looking at her curiously.

She forced her eyes away, turning her head to look back at the great sweep of the auditorium, the boxes tier on tier, plush lined, filled now with expectant people, the pallor of their faces turned towards the stage. Their own dramas were played out, or temporarily forgotten. Lillie Langtry sat well forward, not only to see, but to be seen. Even the aesthetes were for once oblivious of each other and had their faces towards the curtain, their own wit set aside.

What an extraordinary convention that a few hours of precise and formal unreality should hold mem spellbound, together and yet unreasonably separate, all held by the power of the imagination woven by a few men and women in borrowed costumes speaking borrowed words.

The murmur of voices died and the silence quivered with indrawn breath, and the faint rustle of fabric and creak of whalebone. The curtain went up. There was a sigh like a wind stirring leaves. The lights picked out Tamar Macaulay standing alone in the center of the stage. She did not move, and yet she was a figure of such arresting power that every eye was fixed upon her. Even Lillie Langtry ignored her admirers and stared ahead. Tamar had not the Jersey Lily’s beauty, nor her fame, but she had a depth of emotion that surpassed both, and for this space of time, the audience was hers.

Joshua Fielding came onto the stage. Beside Charlotte, Caroline stiffened, held her breath and leaned a little forward. The drama began.

Charlotte watched the stage as well, but more often she turned to look at the people in her own box. Kathleen O’Neil sat graciously, a slight smile on her lips, her eyes on the figures on the lit stage below her. Charlotte searched her expression when she looked at Joshua and saw nothing in the smooth cheeks, the slanted eyes, no suspicion, no curiosity. If she wondered about Aaron Godman’s guilt, about Joshua’s part in the tragedy, those thoughts did not seem to occupy her now.

Then Tamar was back on the stage, the lights brilliant on her face as she spoke her lines, her voice ringing with emotion.

A flicker crossed Kathleen’s brow. Her mouth narrowed and her tongue touched her lips. She would have been less than human had she not wondered what this woman was like, what fire burned in her, that Kathleen’s own husband had risked so much to stay with her. But even staring as openly as she dared, Charlotte could see no hatred in Kathleen’s eyes, no violence of feeling, only a sad curiosity, and behind her Prosper’s hand on her chair tightened, the knuckles white. Perhaps he relived her pain more than she did herself.

Kathleen turned, not seeing Charlotte, and smiled at Devlin O’Neil, standing behind Adah. He smiled back, a warm, gentle look, and her lips curled upwards as she moved her head back to watch the stage.

How long had Devlin O’Neil been in love with her? Long before Kingsley Blaine’s death? It was a very ugly thought, and Charlotte resented its necessity. She liked them both. One tragedy was more than enough.

She looked again at Devlin’s arm on Adah’s chair. His hand was fine, well manicured, the cloth of his jacket excellent gabardine, his shirt with its gold links was made of silk. What had it been before his marriage to Kathleen?

Charlotte looked away, her eyes going to Adah, seeing her face set in hard lines of some emotion that troubled her deeply. It was not new, there was no urgency in it, only an old pain she had borne a long time. It had already cut deep into her; it was a matter of enduring it.

What was it? Disappointment? No, it was too sharp. It was not fear. It was harder than grief.

Charlotte turned to Prosper where he stood beyond Caroline, his hand still over Kathleen’s chair. His heavy face with its deep-set eyes and hatchet nose was fixed on the stage, oblivious of his family and guests. Was it the drama which held him, or Tamar Macaulay, who had stolen his daughter’s husband?

Everyone else was totally unaware of Charlotte or the O’Neils, or Adah or Prosper Harrimore. Only Joshua Fielding turned and moved in the spotlight.

Charlotte looked at Adah again, and then she knew what the emotion was that tore at her: guilt.

Why?

Was it still because Prosper had a clubfoot and she felt responsible? That ridiculous idea that her husband had defiled himself with a Jewess, and then contaminated her, causing her unborn child’s deformity?

Adah looked around and caught Charlotte staring. Her eyes widened.

Charlotte gulped and felt her face flush.

“I am so grateful to you for inviting us.” She forced the words out of her mouth and felt an abject hypocrite. “It is a marvelous drama. What that woman is suffering for her child. I find it most moving—” She stopped. The words stuck on her tongue.

“I am pleased you are enjoying it,” Adah said with an effort. “Yes, it is very powerful.”

They sat in silence for several more minutes, perhaps almost a quarter of an hour. Then the action of the stage came to a climax with the entrance of the child in the play. Charlotte had not expected a real child and she was startled when he appeared, slender, fair-haired, with a wistful, innocent face. He reminded her intensely of someone else she had seen, but she could not think who. He was nothing like her own children, he was fairer, softer of feature.

Then she heard Kathleen O’Neil gasp and saw her hand fly to her lips as if to stifle a further cry, and behind her Prosper Harrimore’s hand clench so tight on the chair back, his nails drew a thin trickle of blood down his wrist.

The child was startlingly like Kathleen’s daughter, only this was a boy, or dressed to look like one. They must have been within a few months of the same age. And the child stood in front of Tamar Macaulay, his mother in the drama, and surely in life as well?

Kingsley Blaine’s child—by a Jewess—a beautiful child, perfect in face and limb. Tamar must have carried him when Kathleen was carrying her daughter.

With a sudden sick realization Charlotte understood Adah’s guilt, and the fear she had seen in her before—and what emotion it was which drew blood in Prosper Harrimore’s clenched hands.

It was not Aaron Godman who had killed Kingsley Blaine, nor was it Joshua Fielding in jealousy, nor Devlin O’Neil to win Kathleen. It was Prosper Harrimore, hating and fearing that which was different and which he thought responsible for his own imperfection, his deformity. And then history had repeated itself with his daughter betrayed by her husband with a Jewess; and while she was carrying his child—another child to be born deformed, imperfect.

There was no proof, no way to be sure except in her own intense conviction. But she had no doubt. It was there in Adah’s face, and it was in his as he stared at the child on the stage.