“No,” Charlotte replied, the lift in her voice belying the word. “But not impossible. Not really. I think we might pursue that, don’t you? I mean …” She stopped. She had taken too much for granted. “Could we?” she asked tentatively.
“Oh, I don’t see why not.” Vespasia smiled with both amusement and pleasure. “I don’t see why not, at all. I have no idea how …” Her fine eyebrows arched enquiringly.
“Nor do I,” Charlotte admitted. “But I shall most certainly give the matter much thought.”
“I wondered if you might,” Vespasia murmured. “If I can be of any assistance, I shall be happy to.”
“I wondered if you might,” Charlotte said with a grin.
Charlotte was torn whether or not to tell Pitt of her visit to Great-Aunt Vespasia. If she did he would be bound to ask why she was so concerned in the matter. It would not take him long to deduce that it was because of Caroline’s regard for Joshua Fielding, and his possible implication in both the murder of Kingsley Blaine and thus also of Judge Stafford. She could always try to convince him that it was because Caroline had been present in the theater and so was intricately involved in the emotion of the crime. But she knew Pitt would see beyond that very quickly, and he might think her foolish, an older woman, recently widowed and alone, falling victim to a fancy for a younger man, a glamorous man utterly out of her own class and experience, offering her a last glimpse of youth.
And put like that it was absurd, and not a little pathetic. Pitt would feel no unkindness, no criticism, but perhaps a gentle, wry sort of pity. She could not subject Caroline to that. She was surprised how protective she felt, how fierce to defend the extraordinary vulnerability.
So she told Pitt only that she had been to see Vespasia, and when he looked up quickly she kept her eyes down on her sewing.
“How is she?” Pitt asked, still watching her.
“Oh, in excellent health.” She looked up with a quick smile. He would suspect if she simply stopped there. He knew her too well. “I have not seen her look in such spirits since poor George died. She is quite restored to herself again, with all the vigor she used to have when we first met her.”
“Charlotte.”
“Yes?” She raised wide, innocent eyes to him, holding her needle in the air.
“What else?” he demanded.
“About what? Aunt Vespasia looked in excellent health and spirit. I thought you would be pleased to know.”
“I am, of course. I want to know what else it is you have discovered that is making you feel so pleased.”
“Ah.” She was delighted. She had deceived him perfectly. She smiled broadly, this time without guile. “She has looked up an old friend, and I think perhaps she is very fond of him indeed. Isn’t that good?”
He sat up. “You mean a romance?”
“Well—hardly! She is over eighty!”
“What on earth does that matter?” His voice rose incredulously. “The heart doesn’t stop caring!”
“Well, no—I suppose not.” She turned the idea over with surprise, and then dawning pleasure. “No! Why not? Yes, I think perhaps it was a romance, at the time they first knew each other, and I suppose it could be again.”
“Excellent.” Pitt was smiling widely. “Who is he?”
“What?” She was caught out.
“Who is he?” he repeated, with suspicion.
“Oh …” She resumed her sewing, her eyes on the needle and linen. “A friend from some years ago. Thelonius—Thelonius Quade.”
“Thelonius Quade.” He repeated the name slowly. “Charlotte.”
“Yes?” She kept her eyes studiously on the linen.
“You said Thelonius Quade?”
“I think so.”
“Judge Thelonius Quade?”
She hesitated only a moment. “Yes …”
“Who just happens to have presided over the trial of Aaron Godman for the murder of Kingsley Blaine?”
There was no point whatever in lying. She tried evasion.
“I think their friendship had lapsed at that time.”
He shook his head with a wry expression. “That is irrelevant! Why did she suddenly renew his acquaintance now?”
She said nothing.
“Because you asked her?” he went on.
“Well, I am interested,” she pointed out. “I was there when the poor man died. I actually sat holding the hand of his widow!”
“And you don’t think she killed him,” he said with a harder edge to his voice. He was not angry—in fact there was a definite amusement in it—but she knew he would accept no argument.
“No, no, I really don’t,” she agreed, looking up at him at last. “But Judge Quade apparently was happy with the verdict, even if not with the conduct of the trial.” She smiled at him, candid finally. “It does look as if poor Godman was guilty, even if they did not prove it in the best way. But Thomas, it is just possible, isn’t it, that the fact that Judge Stafford was investigating the case again may have frightened someone so much, for some other reason, some other sin, that they killed him?” She waited anxiously, searching his face.
“Possible,” he said gravely. “But not likely. What sin?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to find out.”
“Perhaps—but I’m going back to the murder of Stafford first, and some investigation into the evidence of Juniper Stafford or Adolphus Pryce having obtained opium. I need to know a great deal more about them.”
“Yes, of course. But you won’t forget the Blaine/Godman case, will you? I mean …” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Thomas! If there were some affair, some misconduct in the case, bribery, violence, another matter involved which concerns someone powerful, an affair which would ruin someone. Then that might be a reason to kill Judge Stafford before he found out—even if it did not change Godman’s guilt. Couldn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said cautiously. “Yes, it’s possible—just.”
“Then you’ll look into it?” she urged.
“After Juniper and Adolphus. Not before.”
She smiled. “Oh good. Would you like a cup of cocoa before bedtime, Thomas?”
The following day Charlotte delegated Gracie to take care of matters at home and took an omnibus to Cater Street to visit Caroline. She arrived at a little after eleven o’clock and found her mother already gone out on an errand, and her grandmother sitting in the big, old withdrawing room by the fire, full of indignation.
“Well,” she said, glaring up at Charlotte, her back rigidly straight, her old hands clenched like claws across the top of her stick. “So you’ve come to visit me at last, have you? Realized your duty finally. A little late, girl!”
“Good morning, Grandmama,” Charlotte said calmly. “How are you?”
“I’m ill,” the old lady said witheringly. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Charlotte. How could I be anything but ill, with your mother behaving like a perfect fool? She was never a particularly clever woman, but now she seems to have taken complete leave of her wits! Your father’s death has unhinged her.” She sniffed angrily. “I suppose it was to be expected. Some women cannot handle widowhood. No stamina—no sense of what is fitting. Never did have much. My poor Edward always had to take charge!”
At another time Charlotte might have ignored the insult. It was part of her grandmother’s pattern of thought and she was accustomed to it, but at the moment she was feeling protective towards her mother.
“Oh fiddlesticks,” she said briskly, sitting down on the chair opposite. “Mama always had a perfectly good sense of what was appropriate.”
“Don’t you fiddlesticks me!” Grandmama snapped. “No woman with the faintest idea of propriety would marry her daughter to a policeman, even if she were as plain as a horse and daft as a chicken.” She waited for Charlotte to take offense, and when she did not, continued reluctantly. “And now she is making a fool of herself courting the friendship of persons on the stage. For heaven’s sake, that’s hardly any better! They may know how to speak the Queen’s English, but their morals are in the gutter. Not one of them is any better than they should be. And half of them are Jews—I know that for a fact.” She glared at Charlotte, daring her to argue.