But that was foolish. Why else was he telling her like this, but precisely because he did not want her to sense his misgivings! He must not spoil it now. He pushed her away a little and smiled at her.
She searched his face, and the brilliance in her eyes turned to questioning.
“What is it? What is wrong?”
“Just this case,” he answered. “The further I look into it the less I seem to have hold of.”
“Tell me more about it. Tell me about this latest victim,” she invited him. “I’ll get your dinner. Gracie’s upstairs with the children. You can explain it to me while we eat.” And taking his agreement for granted she took the lid off the pan and stirred it once or twice, filling the kitchen with a delicious odor. Then she lifted plates out of the warming oven and served mutton stew with thick leeks and slices of potato and sweet white turnips and a touch of dried rosemary that gave it sharpness and flavor.
He told her all that he had omitted on his previous, rather scattered accounts, which had been more emotional than logical, together with the little of value he had learned since and the skeletal knowledge he had of Cuthbert Sheridan.
When he had finished she sat for several minutes in silence, looking down at her empty plate. When at last she did look up there was a deep color in her cheeks and the half shame-faced look of embarrassment and defiance he had seen so many times before.
“How?” he said quietly. “How are you involved? It’s nothing to do with us, any of us. And Emily’s in Italy—isn’t she?”
“Oh yes!” She seemed almost relieved. “Yes, she’s in Florence. At least, the letter I got this morning was from there. She may be somewhere else by now, of course.”
“Well then?”
“Great-aunt Vespasia ... sent for me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “To discover the Westminster Cutthroat?” he said with heavy disbelief.
“Well, yes, in a way... .”
“Explain yourself, Charlotte.”
“You see, Africa Dowell is the niece of Great-aunt Vespasia’s closest friend, Miss Zenobia Gunne. And they think the police suspect her—quite rightly, as it turns out. Of course I didn’t tell them it was you!”
He searched her face for several moments and she held his gaze without flinching. She could keep a secret, sometimes, and she could be evasive, with difficulty, but she was no good at all at lying to him, and they both knew it.
“And what have you discovered?” he asked at length.
She bit her lip. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Well I made friends with Amethyst Hamilton—”
“How on earth did you do that? Does Aunt Vespasia know her?”
“No—I just lied.” She looked down at the table, embarrassed, then up again, meeting his eyes. “She and her stepson loathe each other so much they cannot even be civil, but I can’t see anything in that which could lead to murder. She’s been married for many years, and nothing new has happened ...” she trailed off.
“And,” he prompted.
“She inherits quite a lot of money, but that’s hardly a reason, especially not—” Again she stopped.
“Not what?”
“I was going to say, not to kill Etheridge and Sheridan as well, but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily follow, does it?”
“Not necessarily,” he agreed. “It could be that the last two murders were close to hide the one that matters, or they could have been committed by a copycat. I don’t know.”
She put out her hand and gently covered his. “You will,” she said with conviction, but he was not sure whether it was her mind or her heart which spoke. “We will,” she added, as if as an afterthought.
9
CHARLOTTE SET OUT the following morning on the omnibus to see Great-aunt Vespasia. It was a sparkling spring day, the air mild and the sun warm. It would be lovely to be in the country, or even in one of the fashionable squares with all the new leaves bursting and the sound of birdsong. Perhaps she and Pitt would be able to go to the country for a weekend this summer. Or longer—a whole week?
In the meantime she thought of the small things she could buy with the extra money Pitt would have. A new hat would be an excellent start, one with a very large brim, and pink ribbon on it, and flowers—big cabbage roses with golden centers, they were so becoming! One should wear it at a certain angle, up at the left and a little down over the right brow.
And she could get two or three muslin dresses for Jemima, instead of having to make do with only one best one for Sundays. Should she get pale blue, or a very soft shade of green? Of course, people said that blue and green should never be worn together, but personally she liked the combination, like summer leaves against the sky.
She employed the entire journey in such pleasant thoughts, so much so that she was almost carried past her stop, which would have been very annoying, since there was a considerable distance to walk anyway. People like Great-aunt Vespasia did not live on the routes of the public omnibus.
She climbed off with indecent haste and all but fell over as she reached the pavement. She ignored the critical comments of two large ladies in black, setting off at a very brisk pace towards Great-aunt Vespasia’s town house.
She was admitted at once and shown into the morning room, where Vespasia was sitting with a pen in her hand and several sheets of writing paper in front of her. She put them aside as soon as Charlotte came in.
“Have you discovered something?” she asked hopefully, dispensing with the formalities of greeting.
“It is as bad as we fear.” Charlotte sat down immediately. “I did not tell you before that it is Thomas who is handling the case! I was afraid Zenobia might not believe I could be open-minded, and I thought that if you knew it might place you in something of an embarrassing position. But it is Thomas who went to Mrs. Ivory, and he does indeed think it may be she. They’ve got everyone possible out looking for anarchists, revolutionaries, Fenians, and anyone else who might be political, but no one has found anything at all. The only ray of light, if you can call anything so tragic a light, is that Mrs. Ivory would have no sane reason for killing Cuthbert Sheridan.”
“Not a light I care for,” Vespasia said grimly.
“And Thomas will be promoted as soon as the case is solved.”
“Indeed?” Vespasia’s silver eyebrows rose minutely, but there was satisfaction in her eyes. “Not before time. You must tell me when it is official, and I shall send him a letter of congratulation. Meanwhile, what can we do to help Zenobia?”
Charlotte noted that she had said Zenobia, not Florence Ivory. She caught her eye and knew the choice was deliberate.
“I think it is time for a little cold reason,” Charlotte said as gently as it was possible to say such a thing. “Thomas says they have done everything they can to discover a conspiracy of any political or revolutionary nature, and they can find nothing whatsoever. Indeed, it seems hard to imagine any political end that would be served by such acts, unaccompanied by any demand for change or reform. Except, of course, anarchy—which seems to me to be something of a lunatic idea anyway. Who can possibly benefit from that?”
Vespasia looked at her with impatience. “My dear girl, if you imagine that all political aims owe either their conception or their execution to unadulterated sanity, then you are more naive than I had supposed!”
Charlotte felt the color climb in her cheeks. Perhaps she was naive. She certainly had not mixed in the circles of government that Vespasia had, nor heard the private dreams of those who wielded power, or aspired to. She had indeed imagined them to have a degree of common sense, which on consideration might well be an unfounded conclusion.
“Sometimes those who cannot create enjoy the power to destroy,” Vespasia went on. “It is all they have. After all, what else is much of violence? Think back on the crimes you yourself have helped to solve. Look at most domination of one person over another: the fishwife or the washerwoman could have told such pe
ople that it would not produce the admiration or the love or the peace they desired, but one hears what one wishes to.”
“But anarchists are noisy, Aunt Vespasia. They don’t want anarchy alone! And Thomas says the police are aware of a great many of them, and none seems to have been involved with the Westminster Bridge murders. After all, there is no political power in anonymous acts, is there! One has to own up to them at some point in order to reap the reward.”
“One would presume so,” Vespasia agreed, part of her reluctant to let go of the idea of some unknown assailant lashing out wildly for a cause. It was less ugly to her than the possibility of a friend, even a relative of the intended victim prepared to murder three people in order to mask the one murder that might implicate them. “Is it possible there is some connection between the three that we have not thought of?” she pressed.
“They are all M.P.s,” Charlotte said bleakly. “Thomas has not been able to discover anything further. They have no business connections, they are not related, they are not in line for any one position, for that matter they are not even of the same party! Two are Liberal, one Tory. And they have no political or social opinions in common, not even regarding Irish Home Rule, Penal Reform, Industrial or Poor Law Reform—nothing, except that they are all against extending the electoral franchise to women.”
“So are most people.” Vespasia’s face was pale, but sixty years’ training showed in her hands, resting elegantly in her lap over the wisp of her lace handkerchief. “Anyone planning to kill members of Parliament for that reason is going to decimate both houses.”
“If it is personal, then we had better begin to consider very seriously who might have motive,” Charlotte said gently. “And pursue them in ways that would be impossible for Thomas. I have already made the acquaintance of Lady Hamilton, and although I find it hard to believe it was she, there may be some connection.” She sighed with unhappy memories. “And of course sometimes the truth is hard to believe. People you have liked, still do like, can have agonies you never conceived, fears that haunted them until they escaped all reason and turned to violence, or old wounds so terrible they cannot leave them behind. Revenge obsesses them beyond everything else—love, safety, even sanity.”
Vespasia did not reply; perhaps she was thinking of the same people, or at least one of them, for whom she too had cared.
“And there is young Barclay Hamilton,” Charlotte said. “Although there seems to be a profound emotion troubling him regarding his father’s second marriage, I don’t know what should lead him to murder.”
“Nor I,” Vespasia conceded quietly, a weariness in her that she overcame with difficulty. “What of Etheridge? There is a great deal of money.”
“James Carfax,” Charlotte replied. “Either he himself, or his wife, in order to keep him from going to other women, or even leaving her altogether.”
“How tragic,” Vespasia sighed. “Poor creature. What a terrible price to pay for something that is in the end merely an illusion, and one that will not remain for long. She will have destroyed herself to no purpose.”
“Or if indeed he has had other relationships,” Charlotte said, thinking aloud, “some other love, or infatuation, perhaps ...” she trailed off.
“Quite possibly he had had affairs with other women,” Vespasia agreed dourly. “But even in the unlikely event they had husbands who were offended by it, to cut the throats of three members of Parliament and hang them on Westminster Bridge seems oblique, and excessive to a degree!”
Charlotte was suitably crushed. It was absurd. Had it been Etheridge alone it might have made sense. “It doesn’t seem to be a crime of passion,” she said aloud. “Indeed it does not appear to make any kind of sense!”
“Then there is only one conclusion,” Vespasia said grimly. “There is either a passion or a reason of which we are not aware. Certainly if it is a passion, it was not momentary, but rather extremely sustained, and therefore I would suppose it is one of great depth.”
“Someone has been done a wrong so terrible it corrodes their souls like a white-hot acid,” Charlotte offered.
Vespasia stared at her. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Charlotte not to be melodramatic; then she glimpsed for an instant the horror of what such a thing might be, and remained silent.
Charlotte pursued her own line. “Or there is a motive we have not seen, perhaps because we do not know the facts, or the people, or because it is too ugly to us, and we have refused to see it. All we know of what those three men had in common was a fierce disapproval of the movement to extend the franchise to women.”
“Hamilton’s disapproval was not fierce,” Vespasia corrected automatically, but there was no lightness in her voice; it need not be said between them that Hamilton’s death may have been a mistake, due to the assumption, in the dim light on the bridge, that he was Etheridge. “It could be others trying to blacken the reputation of the women fighting for suffrage,” Vespasia went on, “knowing they would be blamed.”
“Oblique, and excessive to a degree,” Charlotte repeated Vespasia’s own words, then instantly regretted the impertinence. “I’m sorry!”
Vespasia’s face softened for a moment in recognition of the emotion. “You are quite right,” she conceded. “If somewhat cruel in your manner of observation.” She stood up and went to the window, gazing out at the sunlight in the garden, slanting pale and brilliant on the tree trunks and the first red shoots of the rose leaves. “We had best pursue what we can. Since we fear Florence Ivory may indeed be guilty, it would be profitable for you to form a further opinion of her character. You might call upon her again, if you will.”
Charlotte looked at Vespasia’s slender back, stiff under her embroidered lace dress, her shoulders so thin Charlotte was reminded quite painfully of how old she was, how fragile; she remembered that with age one does not cease to love or to be hurt, nor feel any less vulnerable inside. Without waiting to allow self-consciousness to prevent her, she went over and put her arms round Vespasia, regardless of whether it was a liberty or not, and held her tight as she would have a sister or a child.
“I love you, Aunt Vespasia, and there is nothing I would like in the world more than one day to become a little like you.”
It was several moments before Vespasia spoke, and when she did her voice was hesitant and a little throaty. “Thank you, my dear.” She sniffed very delicately. “I am sure you have made an excellent beginning—both the good and the bad. Now if you would be so good as to let go of me, I must find my handkerchief.” She did, and blew her nose in a less ladylike manner than usual, with her back to Charlotte. “Now!” she said briskly, stuffing the totally inadequate piece of cambric and lace up her sleeve. “I shall use the telephone to speak to Nobby and have her call upon Lady Mary Carfax again; I shall renew some political acquaintances who may be able to tell me something of use; you will call upon Florence Ivory; and then tomorrow we shall meet here at two o’clock and go together to express our condolences to the widow of Cuthbert Sheridan. It may even be that it was he who was the intended victim.” She tried hard to keep hope out of her voice—it had a certain indecency—and failed.
“Yes, Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said obediently. “Tomorrow at two o’clock.”
Charlotte set out for her visit to Florence Ivory with little pleasure. Indeed, the fear was strong inside her that she would either learn nothing at all or that her present anxieties would be strengthened and she would feel a greater conviction that Florence was both capable of such murders and likely to have committed them, with the help perhaps of Zenobia’s niece Africa Dowell. She herself hoped she might find that they were not at home.
She was to be disappointed. They were at home and willing to receive her; in fact, they made her welcome.
“Come in, Miss Ellison,” Africa said hastily. Her face was pale, but there were spots of color high on her cheeks, and smudges of shadow under her eyes, from fear and too little sleep. “I am so glad you have called again. We
were quite concerned lest this latest horror should have turned you from our cause. The whole matter is a nightmare.” She led Charlotte towards the charming sitting room, with its flowered curtains and its plants. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and three blue hyacinths filled the room with a perfume so heady, at another time it would have distracted the attention.
Now however Charlotte had eyes and thoughts only for Florence Ivory, who sat in a rattan chair with cushions of green and white, a raffia basket in her hands, which she was mending. She looked up at Charlotte with a face more guarded than her companion’s.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ellison. It is very civil of you to call. May I presume from your presence that you are still engaged in our cause? Or have you come to tell me that you now consider it past help?”
Charlotte was a little stung; there was in Florence’s turn of phrase a whole array of assumptions which she found offensive.
“I shall not give up, Mrs. Ivory, until the matter is either won or lost, or until I find some evidence of your guilt which makes pursuing-it further morally impossible,” she replied crisply.
Florence’s remarkable face, with its widely spaced eyes full of haunting intelligence, seemed for a moment on the edge of laughter; then reality asserted itself and she gestured to the chair opposite and invited Charlotte to be seated.
“What else can I tell you? I knew Cuthbert Sheridan only by reputation, but I have met his wife on a number of occasions. In fact I may have been instrumental in her joining the movement for women’s suffrage.”
Charlotte observed the pain in the woman’s face; saw the irony in the eyes, the bitterness in the mouth, the small, bony hands clenched on the raffia basket. “May I presume that Mr. Sheridan did not approve?” she asked.
“You may,” Florence agreed dryly. She regarded Charlotte closely, and her expression gradually became one of barely disguised contempt. Only her need for help and a residue of good manners concealed it at all. “It is a subject which produces great emotion, Miss Ellison, of which you seem to be largely unaware. I have no idea what your life has been. I can only assume you are one of those comfortable women who are satisfactorily provided for in all material ways and are happy to pay for your keep with a docile temperament and skill in keeping a home—or organizing others who do it for you—and that you consider yourself fortunate to be in such a position.”
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