“St. Drudmilla’s, you mean.”
“Yes. You and I know now that Sir Adrian was raised in an orphanage- the place Coffield mentioned to me-so we can discount the part of Sir Adrian’s novel where the sensitive young boy left his family behind in Wales. Looks like it was the other way around-someone abandoned him-and it was still very much a sore spot. Since St. Drudmilla’s is a home for unwed mothers, he must have flat-out purchased the title in an even dodgier deal than George believes. I doubt ‘Sir Adrian,’ as we may as well continue to call him, could have learned of some remote blood tie to the Beauclerk-Fisks-the 1976 Adoption Act hadn’t been passed at the time. How did he manage it? Forged documents-had to be. In any event, he was willing to tell the truth about other people’s secrets, but he still couldn’t bring himself to come entirely clean about his origins. He’d look a fool after so many years of passing himself off as to the manor born.
“More than that, I think that coming from a poor background was one thing, but being born on the wrong side of the sheets, to someone of his generation, was another. He would have wanted to take that one secret to his grave.”
Sergeant Fear shook his head in disbelief.
“Who would care, in this day and age?”
“Sir Adrian, apparently. No wonder he felt that nothing would do but that Natasha and George had to get married, and the sooner the better. Well, what next? The lady of the house, I think.”
They found her in the sitting room that separated her bedroom from Sir Adrian’s, flipping through a fashion magazine as thick as a telephone directory. Perhaps she felt the occasion of the murder of her new husband called for a freshening of her wardrobe.
She looked up and smiled wanly. There were signs of strain around her eyes, perhaps a smudge of shadow beneath that hadn’t been there before, along with a fine etching of wrinkles, but she was remarkably composed for someone who had sustained such a shock. Her hair was pulled back in the gleaming black, sleek chignon that was apparently her trademark, her lips were carefully lined in dark red, and she wore a dress of soft, dove-gray wool. Perhaps there were degrees and shades of mourning, and pale gray was the best she could manage.
St. Just greeted her and accepted her invitation to sit down. Sergeant Fear took up a position at the window, apparently just watching snow melt against the panes, but listening closely.
“According to Mrs. Romano, you and Sir Adrian were together in his study before he died. But according to our examiners, he was dead well before five, when she heard you in there together. Can you explain the discrepancy?”
“Quite easily. Mrs. Romano is either lying or she is mistaken.”
“You claim you were not in Sir Adrian’s study the afternoon or evening that he died?
“I was not, Inspector,” she said flatly. “Adrian in his study was like a tribal chief in his hut. It was well understood by all that he was not to be disturbed, without permission, which I gather was seldom granted. If he wanted to see anyone, he commanded them into his presence. One did not just casually drop in.”
“Even his wife?”
“Rules of the house. I was no exception, Inspector. Mrs. Romano was granted more leeway than most. She’s been around since the last ice age, and seems to think she owns the place. Perhaps she has her own reasons for implicating me. Not the first time, as you must know by now, that I’ve been in that position.”
“Your first husband-”
“Was murdered. Yes. But not by me.”
Suddenly she smacked the magazine down on the table in front of her, looking straight at him.
“Not by me,” she repeated. “Let me tell you, Chief Inspector, something about Winnie Winthrop and myself, since you’re so curious: No matter what you read or hear, or what you choose to believe, that was a love match. He was rich and I was young. People put two plus two together and came up with four, or so they thought. But I can tell you Winnie was the kindest man who ever lived. Anyone would tell you the same. Also, they would tell you I was devoted to him. He was my best friend, Inspector. I trusted and respected him. To my astonishment, he felt the same, for which I will always be grateful to whatever God allowed me that brief time of happiness. I simply adored the man. Do you have any idea how rare that is, for two people to feel that way about each other?”
St. Just, long a widower, said quietly, “I have some idea. Yes.”
“No one else has ever taken his place for me. No one.”
“Not even Sir Adrian?”
She laughed.
“Especially not Sir Adrian.”
His face must have registered his surprise.
“Does my honesty shock you, Inspector? If you want the whole truth, you will find I am capable of nothing but. I have nothing more to fear, you see. Those of us who have been unjustly accused of a crime can fear nothing, ever again. The truth is I did not murder my husband. Either of my husbands. Believe me or not; I don’t care what you think or what I say to you. I am quite used to being called a liar, ever since Winnie… I don’t care. Because you see, whoever killed Winnie, killed the best part of me as well.”
“Why did you marry Sir Adrian, if you felt that way about him?”
“Do you really need me to spell it out? He promised me security. A retreat from the probing eyes of the world. More money than Zeus, he had, and that was the kind of money I needed to escape the notoriety once and for all. You may think it a terrible reason to marry, but I had no other reason. He loved me, so he said. That I did not love him, he was well aware. I told him so, many times, when he proposed. He said many times it didn’t matter. Somehow, I doubted that and I doubt it still. Don’t most people want more than anything to be loved? But he took me on my own terms. That was our bargain. Life was hard for me after Winnie… died. All the accusations, the suspicions. Sir Adrian offered me not just a refuge, but a comfortable old age, and an unassailable position. ‘He who laughs last,’ after all. If you see anything wrong with my wanting that financial shield against the world, Inspector, you are not a realist. Perhaps, you are just not a realist when it comes to women.”
Somehow, St. Just didn’t doubt that for a moment. What she said about this marriage of convenience struck him as true. What that said about her character, he could only imagine. As to the rest of her story…
“Here is another dose of reality for you,” she was saying. “Sir Adrian was in failing health. He knew he would not live many more years. That was part of his calculation, part of the deal he struck with me. I had no reason to kill him. The odds were he would be dead long before I was. He knew this, even if you do not.”
“And Ruthven?”
“Ruthven was no threat to me,” she said, a tinge of exasperation in her voice. “Not once Adrian and I were married. There was plenty of money to go around, and Adrian was always generous- with me. I am many things, but greedy is not one of them. You want a motive-I’m the only one in this bunch without a motive.”
Her sang-froid was admirable, he had to admit. But was it the poise of innocence or the arrogance of a woman born without a conscience? St. Just had long ago given up believing he could, at first go, tell the difference.
20. BOOK OF REVELATIONS
“YOU WERE TOLD, SIR, to keep the police apprised of your whereabouts,” St. Just was saying. “Imagine my surprise to learn you were in Felixstowe yesterday.”
Paulo had telephoned the station with ill-concealed delight to report the prodigal’s return to Sergeant Fear.
“Trying to escape and changed his mind,” was Paulo’s verdict.
“He’d be hard put,” Fear told him. “We had a man trailing him the entire time. But thank you for your vigilance, Sir. We’ll put a gold star on your form.”