by Perry, Anne
“It must have been dreadful,” Charlotte agreed. “I can barely imagine such a thing.” She glanced at Caroline briefly, hoping she understood the apology she intended for what she was about to say. “Although my own eldest sister was murdered, several years ago now, so I do have the deepest sympathy with you.”
Kathleen looked startled, and then immediately profoundly sympathetic. She regarded Charlotte anxiously. “Does that sound heartless? But you cannot grieve at fever pitch all the time. You get so tired, so incredibly weary. You need to be able to think of something else for a space, just to remind yourself that there is still a normal life separate from your loss.” She smiled self-consciously, then instantly was grave again. “You see, all London seemed to be obsessed with our tragedy and the horror of it. They talked about it day and night.”
“However, the court case was over quickly,” Charlotte hastened on. “And there was no appeal. The poor creature was quite mad.” She frowned. “Why on earth did this man appeal? Surely there can have been no purpose but to prolong everyone’s agony?”
“He always maintained he was not guilty.” Kathleen bit her lip. “Right to the gallows steps, so I heard.” She looked down at her hands clenched in her lap. “I sometimes have nightmares that that was true, and he died just as wrongfully as poor Kingsley—and in a way, even more terribly, because it was cold-blooded, if we can say such a thing of so public a rage.” She looked up at Charlotte. “I’m sorry. This is quite an appalling thing to be discussing with people one barely knows who have called for tea. I am ashamed of myself, but you were so quick to understand—and I do appreciate that.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Charlotte said quickly. “I would far rather discuss reality. I assure you I am not in the least interested in the weather, I know very little of society, and I care even less. And I cannot afford to be fashionable.”
On any other occasion Caroline would have kicked Charlotte under her skirt for such indiscreet candor, but this time she cared far too much about the real issue behind their presence.
Kathleen smiled ruefully. “You really are the most refreshing person to speak with, Miss Pitt. I am so grateful you came.”
Charlotte felt a stab of guilt, then thought of Aaron Godman, and it was immediately overridden.
“I should not let it trouble you,” she said gently. “Some people will protest, even when they are most certainly responsible for what happened. Why was he supposed to have done such a thing? Robbery? Or did they know each other?”
“They knew each other,” Kathleen said very quietly indeed. “Kingsley, my husband, was having an affaire with the man’s sister, and she believed he would marry her—which of course was nonsense. But she was misled, as women so often are, when they are in love.” A sad reflective smile touched her lips, utterly without bitterness. “We all have our dreams, and some are so precious it is not easy to let them go.”
“How dreadful for you.” Charlotte meant it wholeheartedly. The thought of Pitt even entertaining desires for another woman was acutely painful. How she would bear it if she learned he was actually having an affaire she had no idea. “I am so terribly sorry!”
Caroline was silent, allowing Charlotte to lead the conversation.
Kathleen heard the anguish in Charlotte’s voice and shook her head a tiny fraction, dismissing the grief.
“Oh, Kingsley was very charming, and amusing, and generous,” she said gently. “And I never saw him in an ill temper, but I always knew he was weak. He liked to please, which can be a fault as well as a virtue. I imagine he loved her also, and never found the courage to hurt her by telling her the truth.” She looked at Charlotte with wide, dark eyes. Then, as if reading her thoughts: “You see, he had very little money of his own. We lived quite well because Kingsley did small jobs for Papa, in his business. He was so charming he was excellent at entertaining people and cementing a bargain. But if he had left me, society would have ostracized him completely, and Papa would have made quite certain that any chance he might have had would be ruined.”
Her eyes softened. “Papa can be such a gentle man, I cannot imagine anyone more patient or concerned than he is with my children, and he is always affectionate with me, and with Grandmama. But he can be very different when he detects cruelty or dishonesty in people. He hates evil with a passion—and he would have regarded Kingsley leaving me to be quite evil. And for all his ease and pleasantness, Kingsley knew that.”
“And it could not have been a chance robbery?” Charlotte tried to put concern in her tone, as though she did not already know possibly more of the facts than Kathleen herself.
“I doubt it.” Kathleen winced. “It was far too dreadful and pointless a thing to have done simply to rob someone. And it did—it did seem to have been someone Jewish. I think that is why Grandmama now feels so strongly about them. She was very fond of Kingsley.”
“Oh dear—you must have suffered greatly.” Charlotte meant it. “I should not trouble yourself anymore with doubts about”—she caught herself just in time from mentioning his name—“the man who was hanged. After all, if it was not he, then who could it have been?”
“I don’t know.” Kathleen shrugged very slightly. “I wondered if it was the other actor—did I say that the man they hanged was an actor? No. Well, he was. You see, it was an actress Kingsley was having an affaire with.” For all her frankness, she still avoided saying “in love.”
Charlotte swallowed. “The other actor?”
“Yes—Joshua Fielding. He is Jewish also—and he was in love with Kingsley’s actress.”
“You think he was jealous?” Charlotte asked, her throat tight, painfully aware of Caroline sitting rigid a few feet away, her hands clenched hard in her elegant gloves.
“Or that he knew Kingsley would never marry her,” Kathleen replied. “And he hated him for hurting her, albeit without really intending to. Kingsley had a terrible quarrel with him only a couple of days before he was killed.”
“With—Joshua Fielding?” Caroline interrupted for the first time. Her face was white and her voice husky.
Kathleen turned to her, as if only now fully aware of her presence.
“Yes. He came home most upset and with his clothes ruffled and dirty. I think it must have been very fierce.”
“He told you this?” Caroline tried to keep the fact at bay.
“Yes—you had to know him,” Kathleen explained, totally misunderstanding Caroline’s distress. “He did not tell the truth if it was painful, but neither would he deliberately lie. I knew something was very wrong, and of course I asked him. He said he had had a violent quarrel with Joshua Fielding. But when I asked him the subject, he said I would not wish to know, and kissed me, and went to change from his soiled clothes before retiring.” She shook her head. “Of course when his relationship with—with his mistress came out in the trial, I realized what the quarrel must have been.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said quickly, aching for Caroline, knowing the pain as if it were a tangible thing. Her stomach was clenched, and a little sick. “Yes, I see.” She scrambled for something else to say. She wished they could leave, but it would be pointedly rude, and make a return impossible. And they needed to return. She was convinced there was far more they could learn about Kingsley Blaine which might lead to his murderer, even if it was what they most dreaded to hear. To stop now would be worse than if they had never begun.
“Even so.” She tried to put a lift into her voice, but her throat was so tight it sounded more like a squeak. “Even so, I still think you should not feel any remorse. It was none of it your fault. He was fairly tried.”
“But I did not tell anyone about the quarrel,” Kathleen said, looking from Caroline to Charlotte and back again, her face pale. “No one asked me, and I did not offer it. Do you think it might have made a difference?”
“No,” Charlotte lied. “None at all. Now I really don’t wish to distress you anymore. The last thing I want is for you to think of my visit as a t
ime of anxiety and the raking up of old wounds.”
She was lying, and yet it was certainly true she did not wish to hurt Kathleen, even less now that she knew her better. But Joshua Fielding’s wry, gentle face filled her mind as she tried to imagine it contorted with the hatred that would stab a man to death and then crucify his corpse. It was impossible. And yet he was an actor. It was his art and his living to convey passions he did not feel, and hide those he did.
And more powerful than her own doubt or unhappiness over it was a biting misery for Caroline. The wound would be so deep, so out of proportion to the brief time she had known him. But emotion has little to do with time, and love nothing at all.
Kathleen was talking again, but she did not hear her words. The rest of the visit was spent in more pleasant conversation. Charlotte was forced to drag her mind from her thoughts and concentrate. Caroline could only sit and stare, making the odd remark when civility made it absolutely necessary.
When they took their leave it was full of smiles and thanks, and they went out into the blustery wind with skirts whipping around their ankles and a bleak unhappiness inside, as if the sun had disappeared.
8
PITT RETURNED AGAIN to Juniper Stafford. All he had learned about her, and her relationship with Adolphus Pryce, still left him uncertain whether he suspected her or not. Perhaps his reluctance was purely emotional, because he had been there as she watched her husband die. He had not believed her guilty then; all his thought had been of pity for her. He had never doubted her grief. He had heard no false note in it.
Was it vanity that made it so hard for him to change his mind, or was there a sound instinct, some observation a little below conscious level, which told him her grief was real? Or was it that he wanted Aaron Godman to have been innocent? That was an ugly thought. It would bring tragedy to everyone involved except Tamar Macaulay, the real and believable tragedy of dishonor.
He stood outside the Staffords’ house, raised the door knocker and let it fall. There were still black crepes on the windows, the curtains half drawn. There was a desolate air about it, a weariness.
The door opened and a footman with a black armband looked at him enquiringly.
“I am sorry to disturb Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said with more authority than he felt. “But there are some further questions I need to discuss with her regarding the judge’s death.” He produced his card. “Will you ask her if she will see me?”
“Yes sir,” the footman said with obedience devoid of feeling.
Five minutes later Pitt was in the chilly morning room when Juniper Stafford came in. She was wearing black, but it was beautifully cut, fashionable and gleaming. She wore jet jewelry discreetly set with seed pearls at her ears and throat, and there was a glow to her skin, a faint flush. Her eyes were soft and alive. He was surprised, and instantly he knew the truth of Livesey’s statement that she was in love.
“Good morning, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a slight smile, stopping just inside the door. “Have you made any progress?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Stafford,” he replied soberly. “I regret it is very slight. Indeed, the more I learn of the matter, the less does it point to any solution.”
She came farther into the room and he was aware of a subtle perfume about her, elusive, less sweet than lavender. She moved with a rustle of silk like a breath in leaves, and yet her gown looked like barathea. If she grieved for Samuel Stafford, it was an emotion overpowered by that other emotion which so elated her and made the blood run more swiftly and high in her cheeks. Even so, that did not necessarily mean any guilt in her husband’s death.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you to help.” She was looking at him very directly. “I know almost nothing of his cases, only what the general public can read. He did not discuss them.” She smiled, her eyes puzzled. “Judges don’t, you know. It is not an ethical thing to do. And I doubt any man would discuss such things with his wife.”
“I know that, ma’am,” he conceded. “But women are very observant. They understand a lot that is not said, especially about feelings.”
She shrugged very slightly in acknowledgment. “Please sit down, Mr. Pitt.”
She sat first, gracefully, a little sideways on one of the large chairs, her skirts falling naturally in a sweeping arc around her. The art of being totally feminine came to her so easily she attended to such details without conscious thought.
Pitt sat opposite her.
“I should be most grateful if you would tell me everything you can remember about the day your husband died,” he requested.
“Again?”
“If you please. Perhaps with hindsight you may see something new, or I may understand the relevance of something I did not grasp the first time.”
“If you think it will be helpful.” She looked resigned. If there were anxiety in her he could not see it, and he searched her smooth face for anything beyond sadness and confusion at the memory.
Detail by detail she retold him exactly what she had said the first time: their rising; breakfasting; Stafford’s spending some time in his study with various letters; Tamar Macaulay’s visit; the raised voices, not in anger but in vehemence of feeling; then her departure; and very shortly afterwards, Stafford’s departure also, saying he wished to interview again the people concerned in the Farriers’ Lane murder. Juniper had not seen him after that until he returned in the evening, deep in thought, preoccupied and speaking only briefly, telling her nothing at all.
They had dined together, eating the same food from the same serving dishes, then changed into formal dress and left for the theater.
During the interval Stafford had excused himself and gone to the smoking room, and returned to his box only just in time for the curtain going up again. What had happened after that, Pitt was as aware of as she.
“Surely it must be someone involved in the Farriers’ Lane case, Mr. Pitt?” she said with a frown. “It is repugnant to accuse anyone, but in this case it seems unavoidable. Poor Samuel discovered something, I have no idea what, and when they realized that, they—they murdered him. What other possibility is there?”
“Everything I have been able to learn indicates the verdict in that case was perfectly correct,” he replied. “The conduct of the case may have been hurried, and there undoubtedly seems to have been far too much ugly emotion, but the outcome remains unaltered.”
For the first time there was a spark of anxiety in her dark eyes. “Then there must be some fact which Samuel discovered, something deeply hidden. After all,” she argued, “it took him many years to find it. Even the court of appeal failed to, so it cannot be easy. It is hardly surprising you have not learned it in so short a time.”
“If he had been sure of it, Mrs. Stafford, would he not have told someone?” he asked, meeting her gaze. “He had more than adequate opportunity. He saw Judge Livesey alone that day, and yet said nothing about it.”
Again there was that faint flush on her cheeks, the merest pinkening of the skin.
“He spoke to Mr. Pryce about it.”
“That is what Mr. Pryce says,” Pitt agreed.
She took a deep breath, hesitated at the edge of saying something, and then changed her mind. She looked down at her hands in her lap, then up at Pitt again.
“Perhaps Judge Livesey is lying.” Her voice was husky and the color was now deep in her skin.
“Why should he do that?” Pitt asked levelly.
“Because his reputation would be in jeopardy if the appeal were wrong after all.” Now her words were hasty, falling over each other as if her tongue would not obey her. “It was a very infamous case. He gained immensely in stature for his handling of it, the dignity and sureness of his dispatch. People felt safer because of his presence on the bench. Forgive me, Inspector, but you do not understand what it means for a judge of appeal to go back on his considered verdict. He would be admitting he was wrong, that he did not discover all the facts of the case; or worse, that his assessment of them wa
s incorrect, and unwittingly connived at a terrible injustice. I doubt there would be any official censure, but that is hardly what matters. It is the public shame, the loss of all confidence in him which would be so appalling. His judgments would never stand in the same way again; even his past cases would not have the weight they used to.”
“But surely that would apply to Judge Stafford equally, if the verdict were overturned for a reason they could have known at the time?” Pitt reasoned. “And if it were something they could not have known, then they were in no way at fault.”
She was about to argue, certainty in her face and patience to explain to him. Then confusion overtook it. “Well, I—I suppose so. But why should Mr. Pryce lie about it? He was prosecuting counsel. It was his duty to obtain a conviction if he could. He is in no way to blame if the defense was inadequate or the judgment faulty.”
He watched her closely. “There is always the possibility it had nothing to do with the Farriers’ Lane case, Mrs. Stafford.”
She blinked, the shadow of fear plain in her eyes now.
“Then he would have even less reason to lie,” she argued.
“Unless the motive were personal.” He hated doing this. It was like an animal toying with its prey. For all the gravity of the crime, he felt no satisfaction in the end of the chase. He could not feel the anger that would have made it easy. “I am aware, Mrs. Stafford, that Mr. Pryce is deeply in love with you.” He saw the color fade from her skin, leaving it pallid, and the alarm in her eyes. Were there no guilt, no fear for him—or perhaps for herself—then such a remark would have made her blush. “I am afraid his motive is all too clear,” he finished.
