Farriers' Lane

3

THE MORNING AFTER the theater Charlotte went out quite early, and during the rest of the day was fully occupied in domestic matters, since it was her maid Gracie’s afternoon off. Therefore it was the following day, when Pitt already knew that Stafford had died of opium poisoning, that she began the long task of making a rich fruitcake, and had the opportunity to tell Gracie what had happened.

The first job with the cake was to prepare the fruit itself. The currants and sultanas had to be rubbed in flour to ease out the lumps. Charlotte was busy doing this in the center of the scrubbed kitchen table while Gracie took everything down from the dresser and washed the shelves and the plates and polished the saucepans. She had been with Charlotte for several years now, and was nearly seventeen, but in spite of all Charlotte’s efforts, she was still almost as small and waiflike in appearance as when she had first come. However, her bearing had altered beyond recognition. She had a confidence greater than that of any other maid on the street, quite probably in half of Bloomsbury. She not only worked for a detective, the best in the whole metropolitan force, but she had actually assisted in a case herself. She had had adventures, and she did not accept a cheeky answer from any errand boy or tradesman, whoever they were.

Now she was perched on the dresser at risk to life and limb, a damp cloth in one hand and a china tureen in the other, her face set in concentration as she turned very slowly and set down the tureen before wiping the top shelf with first one side of the cloth, then the other, regarding the dirt with satisfaction, then doing it again.

Charlotte bent over the fruit, her fingers exploring the hard-packed knobs of currants and forcing them into separate pieces.

“Was it a wonderful drama, ma’am?” Gracie asked with interest, climbing backwards precariously.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said with candor. “To tell you the truth I hardly noticed it. But the main actor was extremely attractive.” She smiled as she said it, thinking of Caroline’s vulnerability in the matter.

“Was ’e terrible ’andsome?” Gracie said curiously. “Was ’e dark and very dashing?”

“Not really dark.” Charlotte pictured Joshua Fielding’s highly individual, whimsical face. “Not really handsome, I suppose, in an ordinary way. But extremely appealing. I think because one felt he had such an ability to laugh without cruelty, and to be gentle. One imagined he might understand all sorts of things.”

“Sounds very nice,” Gracie approved. “I’d like to know someone like that. Was the heroine beautiful? What was she like? All golden ’air and big eyes?”

“No, not at all,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully. “In fact she was about the darkest woman I have ever seen who was still English. But she could make you feel she was the most beautiful woman in the world when she wanted to. She really had a presence. Everyone else looked pallid and washed out beside her. She seemed to burn inside, as if other people were half alive—but not ostentatious, if you know what I mean?”

“No, ma’am,” Gracie admitted. “Oss what?”

“Oh—outwardly showy.”

“Oh.” Gracie climbed down, her skirts and apron in a bunch, and went to the tap to wash her cloth. “I can’t imagine a woman like that—but I’d like to. She sounds real exciting.” She wrung out the cloth with small, thin, very strong hands, and clambered back up onto the dresser. “Why was it you didn’t enjoy the drama, then, ma’am?”

“Because there was a murder in the next box,” Charlotte replied, tipping out more flour onto the sultanas.

Gracie stopped in midair, one hand on the top shelf, the other brandishing a sauceboat. She turned very slowly, her sharp little face alight with excitement.

“A murder? Really? Are you joshing me, ma’am?”

“Oh no,” Charlotte said seriously. “Not at all. A very eminent judge was killed. Actually I exaggerated a little; it wasn’t the next box, it was about four boxes away. He was poisoned.”

Gracie screwed up her face, ever practical of mind. “How can you poison anyone in a theater? I mean on purpose—I ate some eels once wot made me sick—but nobody did it intentional, like.”

“In his whiskey flask,” Charlotte explained, kneading out the last lump from the sultanas and putting them all into the colander ready to wash them under the tap in order to remove the grit before she searched them for odd stalks.

“Oh dear—poor gentleman.” Gracie resumed wiping the shelves. “Was it ’orrible?”

Charlotte took the colander to the sink.

“No, not really. He just sort of sank into a coma.” Charlotte turned on the tap and flushed the water through the fruit. “I was sorrier for his wife, poor soul.”

“She weren’t the one wot done it?” Gracie asked dubiously.

“I don’t know. He was a judge of the appeal court, and he had started to look into a case he dealt with several years ago—a very dreadful murder. The man who was hanged for it was the brother of the actress I told you about.”

“Cor!” Gracie was now totally absorbed. She put the sauceboat back on the wrong shelf, without its dish. “Cor!” she said again, pushing her cloth into her apron pocket and standing quite still on the dresser, her head almost to the airing rail just below the ceiling. “Was it a case the master was on?”

“No—not then.” Charlotte turned the tap off and took the fruit back to the kitchen table, tipped it out onto a soft cloth and patted it dry, then began to look for stalks. “But he will go into it all now, I expect.”

“Why’d they kill the judge, then?” Gracie was suddenly puzzled. “If ’e were goin’ ter look inter the case again, in’t that what she’d want? Oh! O’ course! You mean whoever really did the murder was scared as ’e’d find out it were them. Cor—it could be anybody, couldn’t it? Were it very ’orrible?”

“Yes, very. Much too horrible to tell you about. You’ll have bad dreams.”

“Garn,” Gracie said cheerfully. “Won’t be worse ’n I already ’eard!”

“Possibly not,” Charlotte agreed ruefully. “It was the Farriers’ Lane murder.”

“I never ’eard o’ that.” Gracie looked disappointed.

“You wouldn’t,” Charlotte agreed. “It was five years ago. You were only twelve then.”

“That were before I could read,” Gracie agreed with considerable pride. Reading was a real accomplishment, and placed her considerably above her contemporaries and previous social equals. Charlotte had taken time in which they should both have been employed in domestic chores in order to teach her, but the reward had been enormous, even if she was quite sure Gracie spent much of her reading time with penny dreadfuls.

“The master’s goin’ ter investigate it?” Gracie interrupted her thoughts. “Actresses and judges. ’e’s gettin’ ever so important, in’t ’e?”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed with a smile. Gracie was so proud of Pitt her face shone when she mentioned his name. Charlotte had more than once overheard her speaking to tradesmen, telling them precisely who she worked for, whose house this was, and that they had better mind their p’s and q’s and provide only the very best!

Gracie began wiping the lower shelves of the dresser and replacing the dishes and pans. Twice she stopped to hitch up her skirt. She was so small that skirts were always a bit too long for her, and she had not taken this one up sufficiently. Charlotte spread out the fruit on a baking tray and put it into the warm oven, which was well damped down to keep it from getting any hotter for the time being.

“Of course it may have been his wife,” Charlotte said, referring back to the murder of Stafford. “Or her lover.” She went to the pantry and took out the butter to wash away the salt, then wrap it in muslin and squeeze out any water or buttermilk.

Gracie hesitated for a moment, working out whether Charlotte meant the original murder in Farriers’ Lane or the death two nights ago in the theater. She made the right choice.

“Oh.” She was disappointed. It seemed too simple, not adequate to test Pitt’s skills. It offered no adventure, and certainly nothing in which she herself could help. She swallowed. “I thought as you was a little worried, ma’am. I s’pose I got it wrong.”

Charlotte felt a pang of guilt. She was touched by a considerable anxiety, just in case it had been something to do with Joshua Fielding. If it were the Blaine/Godman case, then he was implicated, and that would distress Caroline, the more so since she had actually met him.

“I shouldn’t like it to be the actor,” she explained. “My mother found him most pleasing, and when she met him …” She tailed off. How would she explain to the maid that her mother was enamored of a stage actor at least thirteen or fourteen years her junior? Of course it was only a superficial feeling, but still capable of causing hurt.

“Oh, I see,” Gracie said cheerfully. She had heard how gentlemen felt about the Jersey Lily, and some of the music hall queens. “Like as she’d go to the stage door, if she was a man.” She began to sieve the flour to remove the lumps. She would leave the grating of the orange peel and nutmeg to Charlotte. That required a certain amount of judgment. “Well, maybe it weren’t ’im.”

“I don’t think it was the judge’s wife,” Charlotte said slowly.

“What are you going to do about it, ma’am?” Gracie said with no hesitation at all, no possibility in her mind that Charlotte would do nothing.

Charlotte thought for several minutes, her mind racing over the snatches she had pieced together in the theater, and the little Pitt had told her. Why did she not think it was Juniper? And was her judgment of any value? She had been wrong before, several times.

Gracie sieved the flour a second time.

“I suppose we should solve the murder in Farriers’ Lane,” Charlotte said expansively at last.

Gracie did not for an instant question her mistress’s competence to do such a thing. Her loyalty was absolute.

“That’s a good idea,” she approved. “Then they couldn’t say it were ’im. Wot ’appened?”

Charlotte summarized it concisely and not entirely accurately. “A young gentleman, who was married, was paying court to the actress Tamar Macaulay. After a performance someone followed him and murdered him in Farriers’ Lane, and nailed him up to a door, like a crucifixion. They said it was her brother, because he thought the young gentleman was betraying her. They hanged him, but she has always believed he was innocent.”

Gracie was too interested to look for any other job. She sieved the flour yet again, her eyes wide and never leaving Charlotte’s face.

“ ’Oo does she think as did it?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted with surprise. “I don’t know if anyone asked her.”

“Does she think it was this—wot’s ’is name?”

“Joshua Fielding? No—no, they are great friends.”

“Then I’ll wager ’e didn’t,” Gracie said firmly. “We got to show ’em as ’e’s innocent, ma’am.”

Charlotte heard the “we,” and smiled inside herself, but said nothing aloud.

“A good idea. I’ll have to think where to begin.”

“Well, Mrs. Radley can’t ’elp us this time,” Gracie said thoughtfully. “Seein’ as she’s orf in the country.”

It was true. Emily, Charlotte’s sister and usual companion in such matters, was in the later stages of expecting her second child, and she and her husband, Jack, had taken a holiday in the west country away from the social bustle of London until after the birth. Charlotte received letters regularly and wrote back less often. Emily had so much more time, and was finding the hours heavy on her hands. She had more than ample means, inherited from her first husband, whereas Charlotte had extensive housework and the care of her own two children to keep her busy. Of course there was Gracie’s help all the time, and a woman to do the heavy scrubbing three days a week, and the heavy linen was sent out; but Emily had a full staff of at least twenty servants, indoor and out.

“Well,” Gracie went on cheerfully, “seein’ as she can’t, maybe your mam’d like to? Since she’s smitten like, she’d care—wouldn’t she?”

Charlotte tried to be tactful, not something at which she was naturally gifted.

“I don’t think so. She doesn’t approve, you know?”

“But if she likes ’im?” Gracie was puzzled.

“Will you pass me the fruit and open the damper in the oven?” Charlotte requested, beginning to mix her ingredients at last in the large yellow earthenware bowl.

Gracie obeyed, ignoring the oven cloth and using her apron as usual.

For a quarter of an hour they worked diligently till the cake was in tins and beginning to bake. Gracie put on the kettle and they were about to make tea when there was a ring at the front doorbell.

“If that’s that greengrocer’s boy come to the front again,” Gracie said tartly, “I’ll give ’im a flea in ’is ear ’e’ll not forget in an ’urry!” And so saying she tightened her apron, patted her hair and then scampered along the corridor to answer the bell.

She was back in less than a minute.

“It’s yer mam. I mean it’s Mrs. Ellison.”

And indeed Caroline was only a step behind her, dressed in a jacket of swirling green with fur at the collar, a beautifully swathed skirt, and a glorious hat dipped over her left brow and laden with feathers. Her cheeks were flushed, but there was anxiety in her eyes. She seemed oblivious of Charlotte’s old blue stuff dress with sleeves rolled up, and a white apron hiding the front. She also ignored the kitchen, the sink full of bowls and spoons, and even the delicious smell of cooking coming from the oven.

“Mama!” Charlotte greeted her with pleasure and surprise. “You look wonderful! How are you? What brings you here at this hour?”

“Oh—” Charlotte waved a gloved hand airily. “Ah—well—” Then her face creased with concern and she abandoned the effort. “I wondered—” She stopped again.

Without being asked Gracie reached down the tea caddy and started to lay out the cups.

Charlotte waited. She knew from Caroline’s search for words that it was nothing to do with Emily. Had there been a family illness or difficulty of any sort she would have looked troubled, but there would have been no inarticulacy in her manner.

“Are you all right, after the tragedy in the theater?” Caroline began again. This time she looked at Charlotte, but there was no concentration in her face. She seemed to be seeing beyond her, to something imagined.

“Yes, thank you,” Charlotte replied warily. “Are you?”

“Of course! I mean—well—it was most distressing, naturally.” Caroline at last sat down on one of the wooden chairs at the table. Gracie placed the steaming teapot and two cups on a tray and brought them over, with milk and sugar.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said tactfully. “But if you please, I’d better be going to change the linen.”

“Yes, of course,” Charlotte agreed with gratitude. “That would be a very good idea.”

As soon as Gracie had gone Caroline frowned again, staring at Charlotte with puckered brows as she poured the tea.

“Does Thomas know yet if …” she began tentatively, “… if the poor man was murdered?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied, having some inkling at last of what was disturbing her mother so much. “I am afraid he was. He was poisoned with opium in his flask, as Judge Livesey feared. I’m sorry you should have been involved in it, Mama, even so indirectly. But any number of perfectly respectable people were at the theater. There is no need to fear anyone will think ill of you.”

“Oh, I’m not!” Caroline said with genuine surprise. “I was …” She looked down, a very faint blush in her cheeks. “I was concerned in case it should be either Mr. Fielding or Miss Macaulay who would be suspected. Do you—do you think Thomas believes they may be guilty?”

Charlotte was at a loss to answer. Of course it was not only possible but probable that Pitt would suspect both of them, and without question he would suspect Joshua Fielding, which was what she realized Caroline really had in mind. She remembered Fielding’s wry, charming face and wondered what emotions lay behind it, and just how skilled an actor he might be. What might his words conceal about Aaron Godman, or the reason Mr. Justice Stafford had come to see him the day of his death?

Caroline was staring at her, her eyes intent, darkening with anxiety.

With a painful searching of memory Charlotte remembered how she had woven so many dreams in her youth, and made a mantle of them with which she had clothed her brother-in-law, Dominic Corde. It was so easy to imagine that a handsome face was filled with passion, sensitivity, dreams to match your own, and then invest the person with abilities he never possessed, or wished to—and in so doing to be blind to the real person.

Was Caroline doing the same to a stage actor she had watched wear other men’s thoughts with such artistry that she had lost the distinction between the world of the mind and the world of reality?

“Yes. I’m afraid he will have to,” she said aloud. “It can only be someone he saw that day who had the opportunity to put poison in the flask, and if he was indeed investigating the old murder, then that is an excellent reason why someone might wish him dead. How could Thomas ignore that?”

“I cannot believe that he did it!” Caroline said very quietly, a fierceness in her voice, an intense determination. “There is some other answer.” She looked up quickly, all the indecision and awkwardness vanished from her. “What can we do to help? What could we find out? Whom do we know?”

Charlotte was startled. Did Caroline realize she had spoken as if she herself intended to become involved? Was it a slip of the tongue?

“We?” Charlotte could not help smiling.

Caroline bit her lip. “Well—you, I suppose. I have no idea how to—detect …”

Charlotte could not decide whether her mother was trying to excuse herself from taking any part or was seeking to be reassured that she could, in fact, be of use. She looked both vulnerable and determined. There was a vitality to her, a most odd mixture of fear and exhilaration.

“Do you know anyone?” Caroline persisted.

“No,” Charlotte said quickly. “I never knew anyone; it is Emily who knows people. But we could attempt to make someone’s acquaintance, I suppose.”

“We must do something,” Caroline said vehemently. “If the wrong person was hanged once—then left to themselves the police may do the wrong thing again. Oh! I’m so sorry! I did not mean to imply Thomas. Of course it will be different with Thomas in charge. But all the same …”

Charlotte smiled broadly and picked up her rapidly cooling cup of tea.

“That is all right, Mama. You had better not say anything further—you are only digging yourself deeper. Thomas is not infallible—he would be the first to say so.” She sipped her tea. “And I would be the first to defend him to the death if anyone else said so. But I really know very little about this case, except what you know yourself. Apparently it was perfectly horrifying. Do you recall it? It was five years ago.”

“Certainly not. Your father was alive, and I never read the newspapers.”

“Oh. Well, I assume you did not know the Blaines, or anyone connected with them—and I am perfectly sure that when Papa was alive you did not know anyone on the stage.”

Caroline blushed deeply and sipped her tea.

“I don’t suppose Great-Aunt Vespasia did either,” Charlotte said, trying to smother the laughter out of her expression. “At least not lately. Actors, I mean.”

Caroline’s eyebrows shot up, missing the humor entirely. “Do you think Lady Cumming-Gould would have known actors? Oh, I think that most unlikely. She is very well bred indeed.”

“I know,” Charlotte conceded, straight-faced with difficulty. “Well, enough not to need to care what other people thought. She would have known anyone she wished—discreetly, perhaps. But that doesn’t help us. She is over eighty now. The actors she may have known are no use to us. They are probably dead. But she may just possibly have known someone who knew Kingsley Blaine—or knew of him. Perhaps I should ask her?”

“Oh, would you?” Caroline said eagerly. “Would you please?”

The prospect was very appealing. Charlotte had not seen Great-Aunt Vespasia for some time. She was not Charlotte’s aunt at all, but Emily’s by marriage to her first husband, but both Charlotte and Emily cared for her more than anyone else except most immediate family, and quite often more even than those.

“Yes,” Charlotte said with decision. “I think that would be an excellent idea. I’ll make arrangements to go tomorrow.”

“Oh—do you think it can wait?” Caroline looked crestfallen. “Had you better not go today? It will surely not be easy. Had we not best begin as soon as possible?”

Charlotte looked down at her stuff dress, then at the oven.

“Gracie can take the cakes out,” Caroline said quickly, at last showing awareness of the increasingly delicious aroma. “And she will be here when the children return from school, should you be held up. Or I will wait, if that would set your mind at rest. You can take my carriage, which is outside. That would be excellent. Now go upstairs and change into a suitable gown. Go on!”

Charlotte did not need a second tempting. If Caroline wished it so much, and was willing to remain here, then it would be churlish not to accede to her wishes.

“Certainly,” she agreed, and without hesitation left the kitchen and went upstairs to find a suitable gown and inform Gracie of the change of plans.

“Oh,” Gracie said with excitement lighting her face. “You are going to work on the case. Oh ma’am—I was ’opin’ as you would!” She brushed her hands on the sides of her apron. “If’n there’s anything I can do …?”

“I shall surely tell you,” Charlotte promised. “Regardless, I shall tell you all I discover, if I discover anything at all. For now I am going to call upon Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, to see if I can enlist her help.” She knew Gracie admired Great-Aunt Vespasia intensely. Vespasia had been one of the leading beauties of her day, and had all the unconscious dignity and charm of total confidence, a biting wit, and an utter disregard for convention. Gracie had met her when she had called upon Charlotte and sat in the kitchen, fascinated by the impedimenta of washday, which she had never seen before. To Gracie she was a creature of magical dimensions.

“Oh ma’am, that’s a wunnerful idea.” Gracie applauded, her face shining. “I’m sure she’ll ’elp, if anyone can.”

It was an hour later that Charlotte arrived in Gadstone Park and was admitted by Vespasia’s parlormaid, a girl Pitt had found in a workhouse in a previous case, and recommended to Vespasia. Then the girl had looked like a shadow; now the color had returned to her skin and her hair was a shining coil on her head. She had learned Vespasia’s preferences well enough to know that Charlotte was to be admitted at any time. She did not call on trivial social issues, only if there was some urgent adventure afoot, or some extremely interesting story to relate.

Vespasia herself was sitting in her private withdrawing room, not a reception room for visitors but a smaller, quietly furnished room full of light and boasting only three chairs, upholstered in cream brocade and with carved woodwork. A close-haired black-and-white dog lay on the floor in a patch of sun. She appeared to be something like a lurcher, a cross between whippet and general collie, with perhaps a touch of spaniel in the face. She was highly intelligent, but lean, built for running, and irregularly marked.

As soon as Charlotte came in she wagged her long tail and moved closer to Vespasia.

“Charlotte, my dear, how pleasant to see you,” Vespasia said with delight. “Don’t mind Willow, she doesn’t bite. She’s a complete fool. Martin’s bitch got out and this is the result! Neither fish nor fowl, nor good red herring. And they were hoping to have a litter that would make good carriage dogs. They said the bitch is ruined, which of course is a lot of nonsense. But you can’t convince people.” She patted the little dog affectionately. “All this little creature does is stand in every puddle God made and jump about like a rabbit.”

Charlotte bent and kissed Vespasia’s cheek.

“Well, sit down,” Vespasia ordered. “I assume since you have come unheralded and at a most unusual hour that you have something remarkable to say?” She looked hopeful. “What has happened? Nothing tragic, I see from your face.”

“Oh.” Charlotte felt abashed. “Well, it is—for those concerned …”

“A case?” Vespasia’s clear, almost silver eyes were bright under her arched brows. “You are about to meddle, and you wish my assistance.” There was a smile on her lips, but she was not unaware that no matter how bizarre or testing of the intelligence and the wits, a case meant also fear and loss to someone, and the far deeper tragedy of a life perverted and twisted out of all the happiness it might have had. Since chance had forced her acquaintance with Thomas Pitt, she had seen a darker side of life, a poverty and despair she had not perceived from her own glittering social circle, even in the political crusades for which she worked so hard. She had enlarged her own capacity for pity, and for anger.

None of this was necessary to explain between them. They had shared too much to need such words.

Charlotte sat down, and the little dog came over to her, sniffing gently and wagging her tail. She patted its soft head absently.

“Judge Stafford,” she began. “At least it is half …”

“Half?” Vespasia was nonplussed. “You are half concerned with his death, poor man. The obituary said he had died suddenly in the theater. Watching a romance, a somewhat trivial work to be the last earthly engagement of so distinguished a luminary of the bench. Now that I come to think of it, the cause of his demise was conspicuously absent from the comments.”

“It would be,” Charlotte said dryly. “He drank liquid opium in his whiskey.”

“Oh dear.” Vespasia’s highly intelligent face was filled with a curious mixture of emotions. “I assume it was not accidental, or self-inflicted?”

“It could not have been accidental,” Charlotte replied. “Whatever sort of an accident would that be? But I admit no one has suggested suicide.”

“They wouldn’t,” Vespasia said dryly. “Such people as Samuel Stafford are not supposed to commit suicide. It is a crime, my dear. We can scarcely try people for it, of course, but it is still a very serious offense on the statute books, and we all know a suicide is buried in unconsecrated ground and the punishment is delivered in the world to come—so it is believed.” Suddenly her face was filled with a wild anger and pity. “I have even known unfortunate girls in despair dragged back from the brink of death and revived sufficiently to be hanged for it. God forgive us. Is there any reason to suppose Samuel Stafford might have done such a thing?”

Charlotte blinked and took a deep breath to smother the emotions inside her. “None at all,” she replied. “And there seem to be several reasons why various people might have wished him dead.”

“Indeed. Who? Is it something unbearably tedious, like money?”

“Not at all. His wife is said to be having an affaire, and either she or her lover may have wished him dead. They both had the opportunity to put something in his flask that day. But the matter which brings me to you is much darker.”

Vespasia’s eyes widened. “Is it? That seems quite dark enough to me. I thought you were going to ask me if I were acquainted with Mrs. Stafford. I am not.”

“No—are you acquainted with anyone related to Kingsley Blaine?”

Vespasia thought for a moment, giving it her entire concentration.

“No, I am afraid the name Blaine means nothing,” she said finally, her disappointment apparent.

“Godman?” Charlotte made a last attempt, although she really held no hope at all that Vespasia would have any acquaintance with Aaron Godman, except across the footlights.

Vespasia frowned, understanding coming very slowly.

“My dear Charlotte—you don’t mean that abysmal affair in Farriers’ Lane? What in heaven’s name could that have to do with Mr. Justice Stafford’s death in the theater two nights ago? That was all over in ’eighty-four.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Charlotte said very quietly. “At least it may not have been. Mr. Stafford seems to have been looking into it again.”

Vespasia frowned. “What do you mean, ‘seems to have been’?”

“There is a difference of opinion,” Charlotte explained. “What is indisputable is that the day he died he was visited by Tamar Macaulay, the sister of Godman, and after she left he went and saw Adolphus Pryce, the barrister who prosecuted the case, Mr. Justice Livesey, who was another of the judges who heard the appeal with him, and Devlin O’Neil and Joshua Fielding, two of the original early suspects.”

“Good heavens.” Vespasia’s face was intent, all amusement or doubt fled from it. “Then what question is there?”

“Whether he intended to reopen the case, or merely to prove even more totally that the original verdict was correct.”

“I see.” Vespasia nodded. “Yes, I can quite understand how that might raise a great many questions as to who wished him to leave the matter, and if he would not, which seems very plain, then to force the conclusion by killing him.”

Charlotte swallowed. “The matter is further complicated because my mother has made the acquaintance of Mr. Fielding, and is involved in his cause.”

“Indeed.” A very faint gleam flickered in Vespasia’s eyes, but she made no remark. “Then you wish to become … involved?” She hesitated only momentarily before the word. She sat up a little straighter. “I regret I do not know, even on nodding terms, Mrs. Stafford or Mr. Justice Livesey, or indeed Mr. Pryce. No doubt I should have little difficulty in scraping an acquaintance with Mr. Fielding, but it would now seem that that is redundant.” She did not even look at Charlotte as she said it, but her gentle amusement was palpable, like a warmth between them. “But I do have the acquaintance of the judge of the original trial.” She hesitated minutely. “A Mr. Thelonius Quade.”

“Oh, do you?” Charlotte was too pleased to have caught the inflection in Vespasia’s voice, and only realized its import later. “Do you know him well enough to call upon him? Could you raise the subject, or—or would it be … indelicate?”

A shadow of a smile curled Vespasia’s lips.

“I think it might be accomplished without indelicacy,” she replied. “Do I conclude correctly that there is some haste in the matter?”

“Oh yes,” Charlotte agreed. “I think you do—thank you, Aunt Vespasia.”

Vespasia smiled, this time with pure affection. “You are welcome, my dear.”

One could not call upon a judge in the middle of the day and expect him to have time to indulge a purely social acquaintance. Accordingly Vespasia wrote a short note:

My dear Thelonius,

Forgive me for a somewhat abrupt, and perhaps questionably tasteful, request that you receive me this evening, but our friendship was never such that convention ruled, or polite excuses covered either thought or emotion. A matter has arisen concerning a very dear friend of mine, a young woman I regard as family, and I believe you may be able to help with recollections, in the public domain, but not in mine.

Unless I hear that it is inconvenient to you, I shall call upon you in your rooms in Piccadilly at eight this evening.

Yours in friendship,

Vespasia

She sealed it and rang the bell for her footman. When he came she gave him the note with instructions to take it immediately to the chambers of Mr. Justice Thelonius Quade in the Inner Temple, and to await such reply as there might be.

He returned an hour later bearing a note which read:

My dear Vespasia,

What a delight to hear from you again, whatever the reason. I shall be in court all day, but have no engagements of any importance this evening, and shall be happy to see you, especially if you would care to dine, while you tell me of the concern for your friend.

Be assured I shall do all in my power to help, and count it my privilege.

May I look forward to seeing you at eight o’clock?

Always your friend,

Thelonius

She folded it again and placed it in one of the pigeonholes in her bureau. She would not yet keep it with the others of nearly twenty years ago. The space between them had been too great. Memories filled her mind, delicate, without sorrow now. She would accept the invitation to dine. It would be most pleasant to have time to speak of other things as well, to develop the conversation slowly, to enjoy his company, his wit, the complexities of his thoughts, the subtlety of his judgment. And there would be good humor, there had always been that—and honesty.

She dressed with care, not only for herself but also for him. It was a long time since she had worn anything to please anyone else. He had always liked pale colors, subtle tones. She put on ivory silk, smooth over the hip and with a very discreet bustle exquisitely swathed, and lace at the neck, and pearls, lots of pearls. He had always preferred their sheen to the brilliance of diamonds, which he thought hard, and ostentatious.

She alighted from her carriage at five minutes past eight, close enough to the appointed hour to be polite, and yet not so prompt as to be vulgar. The butler who answered the door was very elderly. His white hair shone in the light from the hallway and his shoulders were more than a trifle stooped. He looked at her for a moment before his features lit in a smile. “Good evening, Lady Cumming-Gould,” he said with unconcealed pleasure, memories flooding back. “How very pleasant to see you. Mr. Quade is expecting you, if you will come this way. May I take your cape?”

It was twenty years since Thelonius Quade had been in love with her, and to be honest, she had also loved him far more than she had ever intended when she had begun their romance. He had been a brilliant barrister in his early forties, lean and slight with an ascetic dreamer’s face full of beautiful bones, married to his career and the love of justice.

She had been sixty, still possessed of the great beauty which had made her famous, married to a man of whom she had been fond but never adored. He had been older than she, a chilly man who had little humor, and at that time he was retreating from life into a dour old age, seeking even more physical comfort and less involvement with other people, except a few like-minded friends, and a large number of acquaintances with whom he conducted an enormous correspondence about the dire state of the Empire, the ruin of society and the decline of religion.

Now as she found herself on the brink of seeing Thelonius Quade again, she was ridiculously nervous. It was too absurd! She was over eighty, an old woman; even Thelonius himself must be over sixty now! She had been perfectly composed when she suggested the idea to Charlotte, but as she followed the butler across the familiar hallway her heart was fluttering, and her hands were stiff, and she nearly missed her step between the parquet flooring and the Aubusson carpet of the withdrawing room.

“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould,” the butler announced, opening the doors for her and stepping back.

Vespasia swallowed, lifted her head even higher, and went in.

Thelonius Quade was standing by the fireplace, facing her. He looked leaner than she had recalled, and perhaps taller. Even his face was gaunt, its sensitive lines thrown into sharper relief. The marks of age had given him a quality it would not be misplaced to call beauty, such was the power of his character that shone through.

He smiled as soon as he saw her, and came across the room slowly, holding out his hands a little, palms upwards.

Without thinking about it, she placed her hands in his, smiling back.

He moved no closer but stood searching her face, and finding in it what he had hoped.

“I suppose you must have changed,” he said quietly. She had forgotten how good his voice was, how very clear. “But I cannot see it—and I do not wish to.”

“I am twenty years older, Thelonius,” she replied with a little shake of her head.

“Ah, but my dear, so am I,” he said gently. “And that cancels it out. Come, let us move a little closer to the fire. The evening is chilly, and it would be hasty to begin dinner the moment you are through the door. We cannot possibly catch up twenty years in one short encounter, so do not let us pretend.” He led her towards the warmth as he spoke. “Tell me instead what it is that concerns you so much. We do not need to play games of trivial conversation and skirt around what we mean. We never did. And unless you are totally different, you will not rest until we have dealt with the matter of importance.”

“Am I so very … direct?” she said with a rueful smile.

“Yes,” he replied without compromise. He searched her face carefully. She had not remembered his eyes were blue, or so perceptive. “You do not look deeply troubled. May I assume it is not a matter of distress?”

She lifted an elegant shoulder and the pearls on her bosom shone in the light.

“At the moment it is only interest, which may develop into concern. I am very fond of the young woman.”

“You said in your note that you regarded her as family.” He was standing next to the fireplace, facing her. She stood also; she had been sitting most of the day, and all the journey here, and she felt comfortable. In spite of her age, she was straight-backed and erect, and nearly as tall as he.

“She is the sister of a niece, by marriage.”

“I detect a hesitation, Vespasia—an evasion?”

“You are too quick,” she said dryly, but there was no irritation in her. On the contrary, it was vaguely comforting that he should still know her so well, and be willing to show it. “Yes, she is of very moderate family, and has chosen to appall them by marrying beneath herself, in fact a very great deal beneath herself—to a policeman.”

His eyes widened, but he said nothing.

“Of whom I am also very fond!” she added defensively.

Still he forbore from commenting, still watching her.

“She—she frequently involves herself in his … cases.” Now she was finding it harder to explain so that it did not sound in the worst possible taste. “In a pursuit of truth,” she said warily, searching his face and not knowing what she read in it. “She is an intelligent and individual young woman.”

“And she is presently so … involved?” he enquired, the amusement so nearly in his voice.

“That will depend.”

“Upon what?”

“Upon whether there is any way in which she can meet any of the participants in the affair in a manner which might be productive.”

He looked confused.

“Really, Thelonius,” she said quickly. “Detecting is not a matter of going ’round in a bowler hat asking impertinent questions and writing down what everyone says in a notebook! The best detecting is done by observing people when they are unaware that you have any interest in them, or knowledge of the matter deeper than their own—and of course by making the odd remark which will provoke a reaction in the guilty.” She stopped, seeing him regard her with surprise and fast dawning amusement.

“Vespasia?”

“And why not?” she demanded.

“My dear! No reason on earth,” he conceded. Then as the gong sounded, he took her by the arm and guided her through the archway to the dining room. The mahogany table was set for two, silver gleaming in the candlelight, tawny chrysanthemums smelling rich and earthy, white linen folded with monograms outward.

He pulled out her chair for her before the butler could reach it, then took his own seat. Tacitly the butler set about his duties.

“And what case is this friend of yours—Does she have a name?”

“Charlotte—Charlotte Pitt.”

“Pitt?” His eyebrows rose and there was sharp interest in his face. “There is an inspector of considerable ability named Thomas Pitt. Is he by any chance the one towards whom you have developed this regard?”

“Yes, yes he is.”

“An excellent man, so I have heard.” He opened his napkin and spread it across his lap. “A man of integrity. What is this matter in which his wife is interested? Why is it you believe I may have any knowledge?”

The butler poured white wine for him. He sipped it, then offered it to Vespasia. She accepted.

“If it is in the public domain,” he continued, “surely Inspector Pitt will know at least as much as I. And do I gather that he does not wish his wife to participate in the matter?”

“Really, Thelonius,” she reproved him with amusement. “Do you imagine I would set Charlotte against her husband? Certainly not! No—the matter is some five years old, and your knowledge will be superior to almost anyone else’s because you were involved yourself.”

“In what?” He began his soup, a delicate cream of winter vegetables.

She took a deep breath. It was distasteful to intrude such an ugly affair into so pleasant an evening, but they had never restricted themselves to the purely pleasant. Their relationship had been deepened by the sharing of the tragic and the ugly as well as the beautiful.

“The Blaine/Godman murder—in Farriers’ Lane in ’eighty-four,” she said gravely. The lightness vanished. “It seems more than possible that the sudden death in the theater two nights ago of Mr. Justice Stafford is connected with his continued interest in the case.”

His manner sharpened, his expression clouded with concern and he stopped, his spoon in the air.

“I did not know he had any continued interest. In what way?”

“Well, there is some difference of opinion on that,” she answered, aware of the change in him, the undercurrent of old unhappiness. It darkened her mood also, but it was too late to retreat. His eyes were watching her with intensity, waiting.

“Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce were present when Mr. Stafford died,” she continued. “Both say that he was intending to reopen the case, although neither of them knew upon what grounds. Mr. Justice Livesey, on the other hand, who was also there, is quite sure that he was intending to prove once and for all that the verdict was true and in every way proper, so there would be no more speculation even by the hanged man’s sister, who has been mounting a crusade to have his name cleared.”

The soup dishes were removed and salmon mousse served.

“What is beyond argument,” she resumed, “is that Mr. Stafford was reinterrogating many of the original participants. The day he died he saw Tamar Macaulay, Joshua Fielding, Devlin O’Neil and Adolphus Pryce, as well as Mr. Justice Livesey.”

“Indeed,” Thelonius said slowly, letting his fork rest on his plate, his salmon momentarily ignored. “But I assume he died before he could clarify the matter?”

“He did—and it seems …” She hated saying it. “It seems he died of poison. Opium, to be precise.”

“Hence the interest of your Inspector Pitt,” he said dryly.

“Exactly. But Charlotte’s interest is more personal.”

“Yes?” He picked up the fork again at last.

She found herself smiling. “I know of no delicate way of phrasing this, so I shall be direct.”

“Remarkable!” he said with the gentlest of sarcasm. His face held only laughter, and she was reminded again how very much she had cared for him. He was one of the few men who was more than her intellectual equal, and who was not overawed by her beauty or her reputation. If only they had met when—but she had never indulged fruitless regrets, and would certainly not begin now.

“Charlotte’s mother has conceived an affection for the actor Joshua Fielding,” she said with a tight smile. “She is concerned he may be suspected, both of the Farriers’ Lane murder and of poisoning Stafford.”

He reached for his wineglass.

“I cannot see any likelihood of that,” he said, still looking at her. “If that is what you wish to hear from me. I think Livesey is almost certainly correct, and Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce are either mistaken in their interpretation of his remarks, or something uglier.”

She did not need to ask him what that might be; the possibilities were apparent.

“And if it is Livesey who is incorrect?” she asked him.

Again the darkness came into his face. He hesitated several moments before answering her.

It was on the edge of her tongue to apologize for having raised the subject at all, but they had never skirted truth before. It would be a kind of denial to do it now, the closing of a door which she deeply wished to remain open.

“It was an extremely ugly case,” he said slowly, his eyes searching her face. “One of the most distressing I have ever presided over. It is not just that the crime itself was horrifying, a man nailed against a stable door like a mockery of the crucifixion of Christ, it was the hatred it engendered in the ordinary man in the street.” The ghost of a smile crossed his lips, a wry tolerance in it. “It is amazing how many people turn out to have religious susceptibilities when this sort of affront is given, people who customarily do not darken a church doorway from one year’s end to another.”

“It is easier,” she replied frankly, “and often more emotionally satisfying to be mortally offended on behalf of your God than to serve Him by altering one’s style and manner of life—and in a short space, it is certainly much more comfortable. One can feel righteous, very much one who belongs, while heaping vengeance on the heads of sinners. It costs a lot less than giving time or money to the poor.”

He ate the last of his salmon and offered her more wine.

“You are becoming cynical, my dear.”

“I was never anything else”—she accepted the wine—“where the self-proclaimed righteous were concerned. Was the case really so different from most?”

“Yes.” He pushed his plate away and like a shadow the butler removed it. “There was a distinct alien culture which could be blamed,” Thelonius continued grimly, his eyes sad and angry. “Godman was a Jew, and the resultant anti-Semitic emotions were among the most unpleasant manifestations of human behavior that I have seen: anti-Semitic slogans daubed on walls, hysterical pamphlets scattered all over the place, even people hurling stones in the streets at those they took to be Jews—windows smashed in synagogues, one set fire to. The trial was conducted at such a pitch of emotion I feared it would escalate beyond my control.” His face pinched as the memory became sharp in his mind. Vespasia could see in his eyes how much it hurt him.

Saddle of mutton was served in silence and they ignored it. The butler brought red wine.

“I am sorry, Thelonius,” she said gently. “I would not willingly have reawakened such a time.”

“It is not you, Vespasia.” He sighed. “It seems it is circumstances. I don’t know what Stafford could have found. Perhaps there really is new evidence.” A wry expression crossed his face, half amusement, half regret. “It is not anything in the conduct of the original trial.” His smile became more inward, more rueful and apologetic. “You know, for the first time in my life, I considered deliberately letting pass something incorrect, some point that would allow a diligent barrister to find grounds to call for a mistrial, or at least a change of venue. I was ashamed of myself even for the thought.”

His eyes searched her face to read her reaction, afraid she would be shamed for him. But he saw only grave interest.

“And yet the hatred was so palpable in the air,” he went on. “I was afraid the man could not receive a fair hearing in that court. I tried—believe me, Vespasia, I lay awake many nights during that time, turning it over and over in my mind, but I never found any specific word or act I could challenge.” He looked down for a moment, then up again. “Pryce was excellent, he always is, and yet he never exceeded his duty. Barton James, for the defense, was adequate. He did not press hard—he seemed to believe his client was guilty, but I don’t think one could have found an attorney in England who did not. It …” He seemed almost to hunch inside himself a little and Vespasia was keenly aware that the memory of it still caused him pain. But she did not interrupt.

“It was so … hasty,” he continued, picking up his wineglass and turning it by the stem in his fingers. The light shone brilliant through the red liquid. “Nothing was omitted, and yet increasingly I had the feeling that everyone wished Godman to be found guilty as rapidly as possible, and to be hanged. The public required a sacrifice for the outrage that had been committed, and it was like a hungry animal prowling just beyond the courtroom doors.” He looked up at her suddenly. “Am I being melodramatic?”

“A trifle.”

He smiled. “You were not there, or you would understand what I mean. There was a rawness in the air, a heat of emotion that is dangerous when one is trying to pursue justice. It frightened me.”

“I have never heard you say such a thing before.” She was startled. It was unlike the man she remembered, at once more vulnerable, and yet, in a curious fashion, also stronger.

He shook his head. “I have never felt it,” he confessed. His voice dropped lower and was full of surprise and pain. “Vespasia, I seriously considered committing one injudicious act myself, so as to provide grounds in order that the whole thing could be tried again before the justices of appeal, without the hysteria, when emotions were cooler.” He breathed in deeply and sighed. “I tortured myself wondering whether that was irresponsible, arrogant, dishonest. Or if I simply let it all proceed was I a coward who loved the pomp and the semblance of the law more than justice?”

With another man she might have leaped to deny it, but it would have made their conversation ordinary; it would have set a distance between them that she did not wish. It would be the polite thing to say, the obvious, but not the more deeply truthful. He was a man of profound integrity, but his soul was as capable of fear and confusion as any other, and that he should have slipped and given in to it was not impossible. To suggest it was would be to desert him, to leave him, in a particular way, desperately alone.

“Did you ever reach an answer you knew was true?” she asked him.

“I suppose it is all about ends and means,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes—one truth is that you cannot separate them. There is no such thing as an end unaffected by the means used to obtain it.” He was watching her face. “In effect I was asking myself if I would intentionally nullify a trial because there was a passion and a haste about it of which I personally did not approve. You understand, I did not think Aaron Godman was innocent, nor do I think so now. Nor did I think that any of the evidence offered was tainted or perjured. It was simply that I felt the police had acted more in emotion than in impartial duty.”

He stopped for a moment or two, perhaps uncertain if he should continue. “I was perfectly certain Godman had been beaten while in custody,” he said at last. “He was bruised and lacerated when he appeared in court, and the wounds were too fresh to have occurred before his arrest. There was an air of both outrage and urgency which had nothing to do with the seeking of truth, nor the proof of it. And yet Barton James did not refer to it. I could not prejudice his defense by raising the matter myself. I did not know the explanation of it, nor do I now. It is assumption on my part.”

“Beaten by whom, Thelonius?”

“I don’t know. The police, or his jailers I assume, but it is conceivable they were self-inflicted, I suppose.”

“What about the appeal?” she asked.

He began to eat again. “It was raised on grounds of evidence not fully explained—something to do with the medical examination of the body. The doctor concerned, Humbert Yardley, had first stated that the wounds were deeper than could be accounted for by the farrier’s nails that the prosecution stated were used, not only to nail him afterwards to the stable door, but actually to kill him—with a piercing wound to the side. Thank God he was dead when he was crucified!”

“You mean Godman might have used some other weapon?” She was confused. “How does that affect the verdict? I don’t understand.”

“No other weapon was ever found either in Farriers’ Lane or anywhere near it,” he explained. “And the people who saw him come out of the lane with blood on his clothes were quite definite he had no weapon with him. And he had nothing of that nature on him when he was arrested, or in his lodgings.”

“Could he not have disposed of it?”

“Of course—but not between the stable yard and the end of the alley where he was observed on the night of the murder. The alley lay between the sheer walls of buildings. There were no places to conceal anything at all. Nor was anything found in the yard itself.”

“What did the judges of appeal say to this?”

“That Yardley was uncertain, and later under examination did not deny that a long farrier’s nail might have caused the fatal injury.”

“And that was all?” She was curious, troubled.

“So I believe,” he answered. “They dealt with it quickly, and ruled that in every particular the trial verdict was correct, and should stand.” He shivered. “Aaron Godman was hanged three and a half weeks later. Since then his sister has attempted to have the matter raised again, and failed. She wrote to members of Parliament, to the newspapers, published pamphlets, spoke at meetings and even from the stage. Always she failed, unless, of course, Mrs. Stafford is correct, and Samuel Stafford was intending to reopen the case before his death prevented him.”

“There seems little reason,” she said quietly. She looked up at him, meeting his steady, clear eyes. “Are you quite sure he was guilty, Thelonius?”

“I have always thought so,” he replied. “I hated the manner in which the investigation was conducted. But the trial was correct, and I don’t see that the judges of appeal could have found differently.” His brow furrowed. “But if Stafford had learned something between then and his death, then possibly—I don’t know …”

“And if not Aaron Godman, then who killed Blaine?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Joshua Fielding? Devlin O’Neil? Or someone we know nothing about as yet? Perhaps we shall know more if we learn who killed Samuel Stafford, and why. It is an extremely ugly matter; every answer is tragic.”

“There are seldom any answers to murder which are not. Thank you for having been so frank with me.”

His body relaxed at last, his shoulders easing and the tension, the doubt, softening from his smile.

“Had you imagined I should prevaricate with you? I have not changed so very much as that!”

“You would not have told me anything I should better like to hear,” she replied, and knew immediately that that was not true. There were other things, but they were indiscreet—foolish.

“Don’t flatter me, Vespasia,” he said dryly. “That is for acquaintances. Friends should tell the truth, or at worst keep silence.”

“Oh, please! When was I ever capable of silence?”

He smiled suddenly and dazzlingly. “On a given subject, any time you chose. But tell me what you are presently engaged with—apart from your friend Mrs. Pitt. It would be impossible to relate all that you have done since we last spoke to each other with any candor.”

So she told him of her crusades to reform the poor laws, the education acts, the housing acts, of the theater and the opera she had enjoyed, and some of the people she felt most deeply for—or against. The evening slipped by as present news was replaced by memories, laughter recalled, and sadness, and it was long after midnight when finally he saw her to her carriage steps, held her hands in his for a moment, and bade her farewell for what they both knew would not be long.

Micah Drummond could not free his mind from the Blaine/Godman case. Of course it was possible, very possible, that Samuel Stafford had been poisoned by his wife, or her lover, although there seemed to be no driving necessity for such a violent and dangerous act on their part. If they were discreet, and it appeared they had been, they could hope to continue seeing each other, on occasion, almost indefinitely. Divorce was out of the question; it was socially ruinous. Pryce could never marry a divorced woman and continue to practice the law as he did now. Society would be scandalized. Stafford was not only his friend, he was a most senior judge.

But an affaire was quite a different matter, as long as they did not flaunt it. Why should they do anything as ugly—and as dangerous—as killing him? There was no need. Juniper Stafford was well into her middle forties. She would hardly be hoping to marry Pryce and have children. The pleasure of domestic life together was something that had never been a possibility, unless they were prepared to forgo all social acceptance and reduce their standard of living to approaching penury by comparison with their present situations. And Pryce at least would never countenance that, on her behalf, even if he might on his own.

Was that enough to resort to murder?

He knew what it was like to love a woman so completely that she haunted all private moments; all pleasure was pervaded with thoughts of her, the desire to share; all loneliness and pain were reflections of being separated from her. But never in the blackest or most self-wounding times had he imagined any happiness lay in forcing the issue or resorting to physical or emotional violence.

If Juniper and Pryce had descended to an affair, deceiving Stafford, Micah Drummond despised their weakness and their duplicity, but he also felt a compassion he could not deny.

He inclined to think Livesey had misunderstood Stafford’s intentions about reopening the Blaine/Godman case, or else Stafford had intentionally misled him, for whatever reason. It had been an unusually ugly case. Emotions had been fever high, beyond the edge of hysteria. It would not surprise him to learn that some of that emotion had lasted this long, even though he could not think who would have killed Stafford, or what purpose they now hoped to serve.

Stafford had left no notes to indicate what evidence he was investigating, or what he believed to be the truth, who he suspected, even, of lying, far less of having killed Kingsley Blaine.

The only way to learn would be to investigate the case again themselves. Pitt would probably begin with the original witnesses and suspects. Drummond could start at the top, with the senior police officer in charge of the men who had conducted the investigation—a deputy commissioner, and senior to himself. Therefore he sent a brief note requesting an interview.

It was granted, and Drummond found himself in the ornate and overfurnished office of Deputy Commissioner Aubrey Winton at ten o’clock the following morning.

Winton was a man of average height, fair curling hair receding a little at the temples, and an expression of calm, satisfied confidence.

“Good morning, Drummond,” he said civilly. “Come in—come in!” He held out his hand and shook Drummond’s briefly, then returned to his seat behind the desk. He leaned back and swung around to face Drummond, indicating another chair. “Please, sit down. Cigar?” He waved his hand at a heavily scrolled silver box on the desk top. “What can I do for you?”

Drummond did not prevaricate; there was no time. They were colleagues, not friends.

“The Blaine/Godman case,” he answered. “It seems it may be the cause of a further crime in my area.”

Winton frowned. “That is most unlikely. It was all cleared up—five years ago.” There was heavy disbelief in his voice. He was not going to accept anything so unpleasant without irrefutable proof. Already the atmosphere was cooler.

“Mr. Justice Stafford,” Drummond explained, resenting the necessity, “was killed in the theater three nights ago. He had said he was reopening the case.” He met Winton’s eyes and saw them harden.

“Then I can only assume he found something improper in the conduct of the trial,” Winton said guardedly. “The evidence was conclusive.”

“Was it?” Drummond asked with interest, as if the matter were still undecided. “I am not familiar with it. Perhaps you would acquaint me?”

Winton shifted his body but his face remained immobile, eyes on Drummond’s face.

“If you insist, but I can see no purpose to it. The case was final, Drummond. There is nothing more to add. Stafford must have been pursuing something in the trial,” he repeated.

“For example?” Drummond raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“I have no idea. I am not a lawyer.”

“Nor I.” With difficulty Drummond curbed his desire to be openly critical. “But Stafford was—and he heard the appeal. What could have arisen now that he did not have available to him then? He and the other judges of appeal must have had the whole trial before them at the time.”

Winton’s face pinched with anger and his fingers on the desk top were clenched. “What is it you want, Drummond? Are you implying that we did not investigate the case thoroughly? I suggest you refrain from making such offensive and ill-informed remarks on a case about which you know very little.”

The swiftness and the belligerence of his response betrayed a sensitivity that took Drummond by surprise. Justification he had expected, but not such a leap to defend. Obviously Winton still felt a guilt, or at least a sense of accusation.

Drummond kept his temper with an effort. “I have the murder of a judge to investigate,” he said in a hard, careful voice. “If you were in my position, and heard that he had been planning to reopen an old case, and was interviewing the chief witnesses again on the very day he was murdered, and they were among the few people who had the opportunity to have killed him, would you not look into the evidence of the case yourself?”

Winton took a deep breath and his face relaxed a little, as though he realized his reaction had been excessive, exposing his own vulnerability.

“Yes—yes, I suppose I would, however pointless it proved to be. Well, what can I tell you?” He colored faintly. “The investigation was very thorough. It had to be. It was an appalling crime; the whole country was watching us, from the Home Secretary down.”

Drummond did not make the polite assurances the remark invited. The very fact that Winton had defended himself so sharply indicated he doubted it.

Winton shifted his position again.

“The officer in charge was Charles Lambert, an excellent man, the best,” he began. “Of course the public outcry was immense. The newspapers were headlining it in every issue, and the Home Secretary was calling us regularly, putting tremendous pressure on us to find the killer within a week at the outside. I don’t know if you have ever handled such a case yourself.” His eyes searched Drummond’s face for understanding. “Have you experienced the pressure, the outcry, everyone angry, frightened, anxious to prove themselves? The Home Secretary actually came down here to the station himself, all frock coat, pinstripe trousers and white spats.” His expression hardened at the recollection, and Drummond could imagine the scene: the Home Secretary irate, nervous, pacing the floor and giving impossible commands, not thinking how they might be obeyed, only of the pressure on him from the House of Commons and the public. If the murder were not solved and the man tried and hanged quickly, his own political reputation would be in danger. Home Secretaries had fallen before, and no man was secure if the outcry were sufficient. The Prime Minister would sacrifice him to the wolves of fear.

“We put every man on it we could,” Winton continued, his voice sharp with memory. “And the best!” He grunted. “But in the event it turned out not to be particularly difficult. It was not a random lunatic; the motive was plain enough and he was not very clever. He was seen actually leaving Farriers’ Lane at the time, with blood on his clothes.”

“Seen leaving Farriers’ Lane?” Drummond interrupted incredulously. If that were true, how could Tamar Macaulay possibly doubt his guilt? Surely even family love could not be so blind? “By whom?”

“A group of men lounging around,” Winton replied.

Drummond caught some inflection in his voice, some lack of force which made him uncertain.

“Saw Godman—or saw someone?” he asked.

Winton looked fractionally less confident. “They did not identify him with any surety,” he replied. “But the flower seller did. That was a couple of streets away, but she had no doubt whatever. There was no shadow there, and he actually stopped and spoke to her just after the clock had struck, joked with her, she said! So she not only saw his face and heard his voice, she also knew the time.”

“Going away from Farriers’ Lane or towards it?” Drummond asked.

“Away.”

“So it was after the murder. And he stopped to talk to a flower seller? How extraordinary! Didn’t she notice the blood on him? If it was visible to the layabouts in the street, it must have been very obvious to her.”

Winton hesitated, anger flickering in his expressive eyes. “Well—no, she didn’t see it. But that is easily explainable. When he came out of Farriers’ Lane he was wearing an overcoat. He had disposed of it by the time he reached the flower seller. Which is natural! He could not afford to be seen in a coat covered with blood. And there must have been a hell of a lot of it from a murder like that.”

“Why did he not leave it in Farriers’ Lane, rather than come out still wearing it and risk being seen at all?” Drummond asked the obvious question.

“God knows!” Winton said savagely. “Perhaps it was being seen by the layabouts that made him aware of it. He may not even have noticed it himself until then. He was a man in an insane rage, demented enough to kill a man and crucify him, for God’s sake! Don’t expect logical thought from him.”

“And yet he behaved like a perfectly normal man a couple of streets away, joking with a flower seller. Did you find the coat? There cannot have been much ground to look.”

“No, we didn’t!” Winton snapped. “But then that’s hardly surprising, is it! A good winter coat doesn’t lie around long, bloodstained or not, on a cold evening on the London streets. Wouldn’t expect to find it, days after the event.”

“Where did he go after the flower seller saw him?”

“Home. We got the cabby who took him. Picked him up in Soho Square and set him down in Pimlico. Not that it makes much difference. The murder was already committed by then.”

There was little more for Drummond to say. He could sympathize with Winton and indeed with all the men who worked on the case. The pressures must have been constant and intense, newspapers screaming headlines of horror and outrage, the public in the street full of criticism and demand that the police do the job for which they were paid, grudgingly, and from taxes. And certainly the hardest to resist, the most powerful and most uncomfortable, would be from their own superiors, giving orders, demanding that solutions be found and proved within days, even hours.

And then there was the other pressure, which was between them in a silent understanding, not needing speech, certainly not explanation. Drummond was a member of the Inner Circle, that secret brotherhood dedicated to works of beneficence, discreet gifts to help charitable organizations, and the furtherance of the careers of individual members so that they should gain influence—and power. Membership was secret. Any given man might know a few by name, or by sign and word, but not all. Allegiance to the Circle was paramount; it overrode all other loves and loyalties, all other calls upon honor.

Drummond had no idea whether Aubrey Winton was a member of the Inner Circle or not, but he thought it extremely likely. And that pressure would be the greatest of all, because it would be hidden; there would be no appeal and no help.

His sympathy for Winton was sharpened. It was not an enviable position, then or now, except that it seemed he had done all that anyone could, and his behavior was beyond exception.

“I cannot think what Stafford was following,” he said aloud. “Even had there been some irregularity in the trial—or in the appeal—it seems beyond question Aaron Godman was guilty. Nothing can be served by raking it up again. I begin to think the answer lies elsewhere.”

Winton smiled for the first time.

“Not an appealing thought,” he agreed. “I understand why you sought to find another answer, but I am afraid it doesn’t lie with the Blaine/Godman case. Sorry.”

“Indeed,” Drummond said. “Thank you for your time.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll tell my man all you told me.”

“Not at all. Very delicate,” Winton said with understatement. “Sometimes our position is not easy.”

Drummond smiled sourly and bade him good-day.

The afternoon was fine, with a brisk wind blowing away the clouds and allowing brilliant shafts of autumn sunlight into the streets. Trees along the pavement and in the squares and parks were shedding their last leaves and there was a sharpness in the air that made Drummond think of woodsmoke, ripening berries in the hedges, and gardeners turning the damp earth and lifting and breaking the clumps of perennial flowers ready to replant for the spring. In the past when his wife had been alive and his daughters young, before he sold the house and took a flat in Piccadilly, there would have been chrysanthemums blooming in the borders, great shaggy, tawny-headed things that smelled like loam and rain on leaves.

He ached to share such thoughts. As always lately, his mind turned to Eleanor Byam. He had seen her very little since the scandal. Many times he had wished to go to her, but then he had remembered how he and Pitt—no, that was untrue, it had been Pitt with Charlotte who had done it; but it was their investigation, their persistence and intelligence which had uncovered the truth, and that truth had ruined Eleanor, made her a widow and an outcast where before her husband had been honored and she had been respected and liked.

Now she had sold their big house in Belgravia and retired to a small set of rooms in Marylebone, her income gone and her name only whispered in society, with awe and pity. There were no invitations, and precious few calls. Drummond was not responsible. No part of the crime or the tragedy which had overcome Sholto Byam had been his doing, and yet he felt the very sight of him must bring back to her only painful thoughts and comparisons.

Yet he found himself walking towards Milton Street, and unconsciously lengthening his stride.

It was late afternoon and the lamplighters were lifting their long poles to turn on the gas and bring the sudden glow of warmth along the darkening street when he came to Eleanor’s rooms. If he stopped to think now his courage would fail him. He walked straight up to the door and pulled the bell. It was a very ordinary house, curtains drawn in grim respectability, small garden neat, bright with a few late daisies and golden leaves.

A middle-aged maid with a suspicious face opened the door.

“Yes sir?” The “sir” was an afterthought on seeing the quality of his coat and the silver head to his stick.

“Good evening,” he said, lifting his hat a fraction. “I would like to see Mrs. Byam, if she is at home.” He fished in his pocket and brought out a card. “My name is Drummond—Micah Drummond.”

“Is she expecting yer, Mr. Drummond?”

“No. But”—he stretched the truth a little—“we are old friends and I was in the neighborhood. Will you please ask her if she will see me?”

“I’ll take the message,” she said less than generously. “But I can’t do no more’n that. I work for Mrs. Stokes as owns the ’ouse, not for the ladies wot ’as the rooms.” And without waiting for a reply she left Drummond on the step and went to discharge her errand.

Drummond looked around him, oppressed by the change from the old circumstances. Such a short while ago, Eleanor had been mistress of a rich and spacious house in the best part of London, with a full staff of servants. Now she had a few rooms in someone else’s building, and her door was answered by someone else’s servant who it seemed owed her no allegiance, and precious little courtesy. What permanent staff she had he did not know. He had only seen one ladies’ maid on his previous visit shortly after she had come.

The maid returned, her face pinched with disapproval.

“Mrs. Byam will see you, sir, if you come this way.” And without waiting to see if he followed, she turned on her heel and marched along the passage towards the back of the house. She knocked sharply on a glass partition door.

It was opened by Eleanor herself. She looked very different from her days in Belgravia. Her hair was still dressed in the same manner, sweeping back from her forehead, jet-black with a peppering of gray which was broader now at the temples, almost a streak. Her face was still the same with olive skin and wide gray eyes. But there was a tiredness in it; the certainty and the composure had slipped away, leaving her vulnerable. She wore no jewelry at all, and her gown was very simple dark blue. It was well cut, but devoid of lace or embroidery. To Drummond she looked younger than before and, in spite of all that lay between them, more immediate, more warmly real.

“Good evening, Micah,” she said, pulling the door wide. “How pleasant of you to call. Please come in. You look well.” She turned to the maid, who was standing in the center of the hallway and was filled with curiosity. “Thank you, Myrtle, that will be all.”

With a sniff Myrtle retreated.

Eleanor smiled as Drummond came in. “Not the most appealing creature,” she said wryly, taking his hat and stick and setting them in the stand. “Please come into the sitting room.” She led the way, offering him a seat in the small, modestly furnished parlor. He had never been farther than this, and guessed there was probably no more than a bedroom, maid’s room, kitchen and possibly a bathroom or dressing room of some sort beyond.

She did not ask him why he had come, but he had to offer some sort of explanation. One did not simply arrive on people’s doorsteps. And he could hardly tell her the truth—that he desired above all things merely to see her again, to be near her.

“I was—” He nearly said “passing.” That was absurd, an insult she did not deserve. It would be idiotic to pretend the visit was chance. They both knew better than that. He should have thought what to say before he came this far. But then he would not have come at all had he stopped and weighed it. He tried again. “I have had a long and trying day.” He smiled and saw the color creep up her cheeks. “I wanted to do something totally pleasing. I thought of chrysanthemums in the rain, and the smell of wet earth, and leaves and blue woodsmoke, and I knew of no one else I could share them with.”

She looked away and blinked several times. It was a moment before he realized there were tears in her eyes. He had no idea whether he should apologize or be tactful and pretend not to have noticed. Or if he did that, would she find him unbearably cold? Or if he remarked it, would that be offensively intrusive? He was in an agony of indecision and felt his face burn.

“You could not have said anything kinder.” Her voice was gentle and a little husky. She swallowed hard, and then again. “I am sorry your day was trying. Have you a difficult case? I suppose it is confidential?”

“No—not really, but it is most unpleasant.”

“I’m sorry. I imagine most of them are.”

He wanted to ask her about herself, how she felt, what she did with her days, if she was all right, if there was anything he could do for her. But it would unquestionably have been intrusive, and worse than that, it might seem as if it were based in pity, as if his entire visit were one of a sense of obligation and compassion, and she would hate that.

She was sitting looking at him, waiting, her face quick with interest. Between them the low fire burned with just sufficient coal to keep it alight.

He found he was talking about himself, and that was not what he had wanted to do, apart from the ill manners of it. It was she he cared about, not himself, but he had to fill the silence and he was so afraid of appearing to condescend. He wanted to talk about music, or walking in the rain, the smell of wet leaves, the evening light across the sky, but then she would find him too pressing—too forward when she was so vulnerable.

So he told her about Judge Stafford, and what Aubrey Winton had told him of the Blaine/Godman case.

It was silent outside, and raining in the dark; the hall clock had struck eight, when he suddenly realized how long he had been there, and that it was past time he left. He had outstayed a social call. Now it had become difficult to return to politeness and excuse himself. The outside world intruded again.

He rose to his feet.

“I have kept you too long, because for a while I forgot my manners and simply enjoyed myself. Please forgive me.”

She rose also, gracefully, but the shadows of reality returned to her face.

“There is nothing to forgive,” she replied. It was the obvious thing to say, yet he felt she really meant it. For all the stilted words there was an ease of understanding between them. It was on the edge of his tongue to ask if he might call again, then he changed his mind. If she refused, and she might feel she should, then he had closed the door to himself. Better simply to come.

“Thank you for receiving me,” he said with a smile. “Good night.”

“Good night, Micah.”

He hesitated only a moment, then picked up his hat and his stick and went out into the main hallway and back to the wet, lamplit street, the loneliness within him warmed and illuminated, and yet also sharper.