by Anne Perry
“I … I suppose so,” Tallulah said at last. “I hadn’t thought of it like that….”
Charlotte smiled. “Yes, you had. Your concern for your brother is unselfish. You are prepared to get into a considerable amount of unpleasantness yourself in order to clear him of suspicion. It will not enhance your reputation—with society in general, or Jago in particular—if you admit to having been at that party. Nor will your father be inclined to view it favorably. You may well find your freedom curtailed, or your dress allowance cut short or even suspended altogether.”
Tallulah was very pale. “Yes,” she said softly. “I know. But that’s different.” Her hands clenched in her lap. “Fin is my brother. I’ve known him all my life. If I don’t stand by him, who will?”
“Probably no one,” Charlotte said honestly. “But please don’t think so lightly of liking someone. It’s terribly important. It is a kind of loving, you know, and one that frequently lasts a lot longer than romance. You can fall out of love, as well as in. Most of us do, especially if you don’t actually like the person as well. It doesn’t always grow into love by any means, but sometimes it does.”
Tallulah blinked and frowned.
“Would you care to spend the rest of your life with someone you didn’t actually like?” Charlotte added.
“No, of course not.” Tallulah looked at her closely, as if trying to judge what kind of woman she was. “Would you marry someone you merely liked, and who no more than liked you?”
Charlotte had to smile broadly. “No, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea. I married highly unsuitably because I loved my husband wildly, and still do.”
“Well, Jago doesn’t love me,” Tallulah said with flat desperation. “And the whole discussion is pointless because he doesn’t even like me either.”
“Don’t give up yet,” Emily cut in. “Merely not going to parties and being extravagant is not enough. It is negative, a case of not doing things. Your heart isn’t in it, and he knows that. You must find something to do that you care about, a cause to fight for. We’ll think about it after we have won this battle. We have a pretty big cause in these terrible murders. If no one is going to believe you, then we must find someone else who was there, and sober enough to recall seeing Finlay, or if not Finlay, then at least seeing you. That would prove you were there. It might push someone’s memory. Are you willing to do that?”
“Of course I am.” Tallulah was very white, but she did not hesitate. “As soon as he comes home, we shall speak with him.” She reached for the bell and rang it. When the parlor maid answered, expecting a request for tea, Tallulah asked her to inform them as soon as Mr. Finlay should come in.
“Yes, miss. Is there any message?”
“Only that there is something most urgent I have to see him about,” Tallulah replied. “It concerns him, and it may be of service to him. Please be sure to let him know immediately, and then tell me.”
The maid had no sooner gone than there was a knock on the door, and before Tallulah had time to respond, it opened and Aloysia FitzJames came in. She was a handsome woman with a quiet, well-bred manner. There was a serenity in her face, as if she deliberately closed out that which was ugly and, by strength of will, created her own world.
“Good afternoon,” she said as they rose to greet her. “How pleasant of you to call.” It was now considerably after the appropriate hour for formal calls, or even informal ones. Their presence needed some explanation.
“Mama,” Tallulah began, “these are my good friends, Mrs. Radley and her sister, Mrs….” She was obliged to hesitate, not having been told Charlotte’s name.
“Pitt,” Charlotte supplied.
It was a moment before Tallulah realized what she had said. She glanced at Emily, saw the consternation in her face, turned to Charlotte and saw it there also. Anger flamed up inside her, a sense of betrayal which she held in check only with extreme difficulty.
Aloysia noticed nothing.
“How do you do, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt,” she said with a smile. “Tallulah my dear, are your guests remaining for dinner? I think now would be an appropriate time to inform Cook.”
“No.” Tallulah forced out the word between clenched teeth. “They have previous matters to attend to which would make that impossible.”
“What a shame,” Aloysia said with a slight shrug.
“It would have been pleasant to have an interesting conversation over the dinner table. Men tend to talk about politics so much of the time, don’t you think?”
“Yes indeed,” Emily agreed. “My husband is in the House. I hear a great deal too much of it.”
“And your husband, Mrs. Pitt?” Aloysia enquired.
“We already know Mrs. Pitt’s husband,” Tallulah said viciously. “He is a policeman!” She turned to Charlotte. “I imagine you hear about all manner of things over the dinner table? Thieves, arsonists, prostitutes …”
“And murderers … and politicians,” Charlotte finished with a bright, brittle smile. “Usually they are separate, but not invariably.”
Aloysia was totally bemused, but she did not falter. She had kept up a calm, agreeable conversation in worse circumstances than this.
“I feel very sorry for these women that have been killed,” she said, regarding Emily and then Charlotte. “Perhaps if we could make prostitution illegal, then such things wouldn’t happen?”
Tallulah stared at her.
“I don’t think it would help, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte said quite gently. “There isn’t much point in making a law you can’t enforce.”
Aloysia’s eyes widened. “Surely the law must be a matter of ideals, Mrs. Pitt? We cannot call ourselves a civilized or a Christian people if we make laws only on those issues where we feel we have control. All crime must be against the law, or the law is worthless. My husband has said that many times.”
“If you pass a law against something, that defines it as a crime,” Charlotte argued, but still with perfectly conceded patience. “There are a multitude of things which are sins, such as lying, adultery, malice, envy, ill temper, but it would be completely impractical to make them against the law, because we cannot police them, or prove them, or punish people for them.”
“But prostitution is quite different, my dear Mrs. Pitt,” Aloysia said with conviction. “It is utterly immoral. It is the ruination of good men, the betrayal of women, of families. It is unbelievably sordid! I cannot believe you really know what you are talking about….” She took a deep breath. “Neither do I, of course.”
“I hold no advocacy for it, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte replied, suffocating an intense desire to giggle. Tallulah was so furious she could scarcely contain herself. “I simply believe it is impossible to prevent. If we really wished to do so, we would have to address the issues which cause prostitution, both the women who practice it and the men who use them.”
Aloysia stared at her.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Charlotte gave up. “Perhaps I am not very good at explaining myself. I apologize.”
Aloysia smiled charmingly. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Perhaps you will come again one day? It was charming to have met you, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt.” And with that she made some comment about the weather and excused herself.
Tallulah glared at Emily, pointedly ignoring Charlotte.
“How could you?” she said furiously. “I suppose you contrived my acquaintance right from the beginning. You must have found my confidences very entertaining, if not particularly instructive.”
She swung around on Charlotte. “It still hasn’t cleared your husband of the blame for hanging the wrong man, has it? Are you here now trying to help him hang the person you believe to be the right one this time?”
Emily opened her mouth to explain, but Charlotte cut in before her. “If what you say is true—and I believe you—then it is certainly not your brother. Is it not as much in your interest as mine that he should be cleared, and that beyond question? P
roving he was somewhere else the first time would be an excellent start, but proving that someone else is definitely guilty would be even better. That would remove the slightest speculation.” She took a deep breath. “I would have thought you would also be very keen to know who it is that is so determined to incriminate him. I would, if he were my brother … or indeed anyone I cared about.”
Tallulah regarded her with intense dislike, which only gradually softened as she realized the truth of what Charlotte had said.
“We all have the same interests, even if it is for slightly different reasons,” Emily pointed out practically. “And I assume we all believe that Finlay is innocent?”
“Yes,” Charlotte answered.
“I know he is,” Tallulah agreed.
Emily smiled charmingly. “Then shall we pretend that we are still friends, at least for the time being?”
Tallulah accepted with surprising grace, considering her rage only a few moments earlier.
When Finlay arrived home he came almost immediately to the boudoir and was startled to see two other women there. He did not know Charlotte, and he did not remember Emily. Tallulah introduced them, omitting Charlotte’s surname but being surprisingly gracious about her, speaking of her desire to help as if she had been aware of it from the beginning.
Finlay looked doubtful, although there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.
Charlotte returned his gaze, trying not to peer at him with the curiosity she felt. He must already be sensitive to the speculative thoughts of others, intrusive, on occasion prurient, considering the crime of which he was suspected.
He was a handsome man, but he had not the kind of looks she found appealing. She could not see in him the strength she admired, or the width of imagination which excited her. She thought she saw something vulnerable in him, something which should be guarded from injury, because it would not recover, would not heal.
He turned away from Charlotte. The name meant nothing to him, and she herself did not spark his interest.
“Thank you for your confidence,” he said dryly, touching Tallulah lightly on the shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, but one of affection, and perhaps gratitude. “Are you really prepared to face what Papa will say if you tell him you were there? It may not be very easy to find anyone else willing to admit it. I can’t remember anything. Except I know perfectly well I wasn’t anywhere near Pentecost Alley. The first thing I can remember clearly was having a cracking headache the next morning. It could be that most other people will feel the same way.” His face looked bleak. “I couldn’t swear before a jury as to who was there.”
“Some of the others might have been soberer than you, Fin,” Tallulah pointed out.
He gave a halfhearted laugh, glancing at Emily with a smile. “Well, I can give you a list of the sort of people who were likely to have been there. I can ask them if they were and if they remember seeing me. I daresay one of them might own up to it.”
“It’s me they need to have seen,” Tallulah pointed but. “Then people will believe me when I say I saw you. It won’t have to be public. At least …” She looked at Charlotte. “Will it? I mean, it is not as if the whole of society will have to know?”
“Or the Foreign Office?” Finlay added. “Although I’m not sure how much difference that will make now.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and paced across the floor and back again. “None at all, if they charge me with killing Nora Gough. Or even if they suspect me of it and no one else is charged.” He looked hopeless. There was a kind of blank fear in his eyes, as if he knew disaster was inevitable but he still did not understand where it had come from, or how it had happened to him.
“Someone is very determined to incriminate you, Mr. FitzJames,” Charlotte said gravely. “They took your belongings and put them at the scenes of two murders. It must be someone who hates you with almost insane passion—”
“Or hates my father,” Finlay interrupted. “I can’t imagine anyone hating me so much. A few people dislike me, naturally. And quite a few might be envious of the family wealth, or opportunity. I daresay there are several who don’t think I deserve my position, let alone an ambassadorship in the future.” He looked at Charlotte, then at Emily. “But I haven’t ravished anybody’s wife, welched on any debts, stolen anything, or … well, anything.” He stood at the far side of the room staring at them, defiant and helpless, as if an ugly reality had come to him, drying up what he had been going to say.
“Well, perhaps it is your father,” Charlotte agreed. “But there is another point, Mr. FitzJames. Whoever it is has considerable knowledge of you. He had your original club badge and your cuff link. And not only that, but he knew you were unable to account for where you were that night. There would have been little point in trying to blame you if you had been at dinner with your family, or with friends, or at the opera, for example. All of which were pretty likely. How did he know that you weren’t?”
Finlay stared at her, a terrible comprehension dawning in his face.
Charlotte waited.
Emily stared at him too. No one spoke.
“What?” Tallulah demanded, her voice high and sharp. “Who is it, Fin?”
Finlay looked straight ahead of him, his face pasty, his eyes full of fear.
“Who?” Tallulah said even more sharply.
“Jago,” Finlay replied in a whisper, then coughed, avoiding turning his head towards her. “I saw Jago Jones that afternoon, and I mentioned to him that I was going to a party in Chelsea. I said where it was. Joked about it not being the sort of thing he would go to, being so self-righteous these days. He—”
“That’s impossible!” Tallulah said abruptly. “That’s a wicked thing to say … and stupid. You know perfectly well Jago would never hurt anyone … let alone …” She stopped. Her voice filled with tears, and her face was so white she looked about to collapse.
“Of course not,” Emily said quickly, and without conviction. “But he may have mentioned it, unwittingly, to someone else….”
“Who?” Tallulah demanded, swinging around in panic, her eyes glittering with tears. “Why would he tell anyone about Finlay going to some drunken party? Who would Jago know that had ever even heard of Fin?” She turned back to her brother again. “Who else did you tell? Someone must have invited you? Think!” Her voice was rising, angry and raw with pain. “Don’t stand there like a … a fool. Anyone could have seen you there and left early. For the love of heaven, Fin, use your brains!”
“I don’t know!” He shouted back at her. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you? For God’s sake, Tallulah, I’m the one they’ll hang … not bloody Jago!”
“Stop it!” Charlotte said sharply. “They aren’t going to hang you if we can prove you couldn’t be guilty. But we’ve got to use our wits. Turning on one another won’t accomplish anything. Control yourself, and think.”
Finlay stared at her, his mouth open.
“She’s right,” Tallulah said grudgingly. “Anyone who was there could have seen you and the state you were in. Or simply known you well enough to be sure you couldn’t remember the night, and neither would most other people.”
“And there’s also the fact that most people would be unwilling to admit they were there either,” Emily added.
“Try your friends,” Charlotte instructed. “Surely one of them at least will have the honor to own up to you having been there, and having seen you, if not at the relevant time, at least earlier. He may know who else was there at the beginning.”
“What are you going to do?” Tallulah asked, mainly of Charlotte, but including Emily.
Charlotte’s mind was racing ahead.
“I assume you are going to do something?” Tallulah continued. “After all, the question is as urgent for you as it is for us … at least almost.”
“Hardly,” Finlay said bitterly.
“Oh, yes it is,” Tallulah argued with a flash of temper. “If we never find who did it, you will be ruined because of the mystery
and the whispers. Nothing bad will happen to you, but neither will anything good.”
“I know that!” Finlay said, self-pity sharp in his voice and his face.
“And Mrs. Pitt’s husband will be ruined as well,” Tallulah finished. “Because he hanged the wrong man and never caught the right one.”
Finlay looked up at Charlotte, his eyes wide, then a tide of scarlet rushed up his cheeks.
“Pitt! Pitt—of course.” His voice was thick. “I never connected it! I never even thought of policemen as having wives, let alone ones who could pass for ladies!” And he began to laugh, a thin, sharp note of hysteria creeping into it and rising up the scale, louder and more shrill.
Tallulah looked as if she would like to have hit him.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Charlotte, her face pink. “I shall send a message as soon as I learn anything which could be of value.”
“So will we,” Emily promised a trifle mendaciously, then she and Charlotte took their leave.
“He’s frightened,” Emily said as soon as they were seated in her carriage and moving along Devonshire Street.
“So would I be,” Charlotte replied vehemently, “if I knew I had an enemy prepared to go to these lengths to have me hanged.” She shivered, for a moment uncontrollably, cold deep inside her. “He has tortured and killed two women just to destroy Finlay. To hate anyone that much is insane.”
Emily hugged her arms around herself.
“What are we going to do next?” she asked very quietly.
“I don’t know. Try to see if there is any connection between Ada McKinley and Nora Gough, I suppose. Why did he choose them? Why not somebody else?”
“Maybe it didn’t matter who it was,” Emily said miserably. “Maybe there isn’t a reason. It could just as easily have been anyone.” She looked even more wretched. “What if it is Jago Jones?”
“If it is, it will be terrible,” Charlotte replied. “But we shall have to live with it.”
10
EMILY RETURNED home determined to do all she could against the injustice she felt hung over the head of Finlay FitzJames. Perhaps it was more for Tallulah’s sake than for his, but she had sensed the fear in him, and the complete bewilderment. She would have sworn before any authority in the land that he had no idea how his belongings had come to be in Ada McKinley’s room, nor who had put them there. That it had been done in order to see him blamed for her death was the only certainty in the grim, chaotic picture.
