“Did Mr. O’Neil have money?”
“Good heavens, no, only enough to support a handsome style of life for a short while.” She walked back to the sofa and sat down again facing Charlotte. “He rented his rooms and owed his tailor and his wine merchant—like most good-looking and idle young men.”
“So he gained considerably by his friend’s death?”
Tamar hesitated only a moment. “Yes—that is true, if ugly, and perhaps not relevant. But I don’t know who else, unless it was a complete stranger—a robber …” She left it unfinished, knowing how unlikely that was.
“Who crucified his victims?” Charlotte said skeptically.
“No—that was obscene,” Tamar admitted. “I don’t know. I don’t know why O’Neil should do such a thing, except to try to put the blame on someone Jewish.”
“Do you know Devlin O’Neil?”
“Not now. Why?”
“Well, the best way we might learn something more about it would be through him.”
“He would hardly tell us something that incriminated him.”
“Not intentionally, of course,” Charlotte agreed. “But we can only learn the truth from those who know it.”
There was a sudden lift in Tamar’s face, a spark of hope in her dark eyes.
“You would be prepared to do that?”
“Of course,” Charlotte said without giving it a minute’s thought.
“Then we shall get Clio to take you. She still knows Kathleen, and it would not be difficult.”
“Not we, I think,” Charlotte corrected quickly. “It must be done as if by chance. They should not know I have any interest in the case.”
“Oh—yes, of course. That was stupid of me. I’ll introduce you to Clio. She is not in this morning, but next time—soon. She’ll take you.”
“Excellent! Explain to her what we need, and why, and I will do all I can.”
When Charlotte began to discuss the case frankly with Tamar, Caroline realized that her presence was unnecessary, and very quietly she turned and walked over to the door, opened it and went out. She was down the stairs and in the hallway outside Joshua Fielding’s room with her hand raised to knock before she realized how forward she was being, how indelicate and unlike everything she had been taught, and had tried to teach her own daughters. Had Charlotte behaved this way she would have been horrified, and told her so.
Self-consciousness overcame her and she stepped back again. It would look odd, foolish, but she would have to go back upstairs and hope no one would ask her for an explanation. She turned and was halfway across to the stairs upwards when Miranda Passmore came running up from the floor beneath.
“Hallo, Mrs. Ellison! Is Mr. Fielding not in? I thought he was, in fact I was sure. Here, let me knock again.” And without waiting for an answer, and misunderstanding Caroline’s gasp, she crossed the landing and rapped sharply on Joshua’s door.
There was a moment of desperate silence. Caroline drew in her breath to protest.
The door swung open and Joshua Fielding stood in the entrance smiling, looking first at Caroline, then at Miranda.
“Oh Joshua, I thought you were there,” Miranda said cheerfully. “Mrs. Ellison called to see you, but she could not make you hear.” She smiled and ran on up the stairs and disappeared.
“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you,” Joshua apologized.
“Oh, you wouldn’t,” Caroline said quickly. “I didn’t knock.”
He looked puzzled.
“I—I came with my daughter, to see Miss Macaulay—about—about Judge Stafford’s death. I thought …” She stopped, aware she was speaking too much, explaining where he had not asked.
“It is good of you to become involved in the matter.” He smiled. There was both warmth and a certain shyness in it. “It must have been very distressing for you to have been there and seen the poor man die, and then learning it was murder. I am sorry it should have happened to you.”
“I am also anxious that there should be no injustice done,” she said quickly. She did not want him to think her feeble, simply concerned in the unpleasantness for herself, and unconcerned for others.
“I don’t think you can help,” he said, pulling a face. “Judge Stafford was going to reopen the case of Kingsley Blaine’s death, but since he apparently left no notes on it, it looks as if it will remain closed—by default. Unless we can discover what he intended.”
“That is what we must try to do,” she said urgently. “Not only to clear his name but also to protect you—and Miss Macaulay.”
He smiled, but it was an expression full of self-mockery and pain.
“You think they will blame us for that death too?”
“It is not impossible,” she said quietly, a sudden chill inside her as she realized the truth of what she said. “They will have no choice, if neither Stafford’s widow nor her lover are guilty. It will be the natural thing to do.”
“I don’t think like a policeman,” he said ruefully. “But please do not stand out here in the hallway. Would it be very improper for you to come inside? The house is full of people.”
“Of course it would not,” she said quickly, feeling the color burn up her face. “Nobody could possibly imagine—” She broke off. What she had been going to say would have been rude. She was trying too hard, because the thoughts racing in her mind were absurd. “That you would be other than courteous,” she finished lamely, walking past him as he held the door open for her.
The room inside was highly individual, but the first glance startled her. She had previously met him only in the theater, or downstairs in the large sitting room of the Passmores, along with Tamar Macaulay. This room was quite markedly his. A huge portrait of the actor Edmund Keene, painted in sepia and black, decorated the far wall. It was dramatic in pose, and reached from the floor to above head height. It dominated the room with its presence, and made her realize far more powerfully than before how deeply he loved his art.
Along the narrow wall were shelves full of books. A small table was littered with papers which she thought were scripts of a play. Several easy chairs filled the open space, as if he frequently entertained many people, and she felt a sharp regret that she was not one of them, and could not be. A gulf of social status and experience divided them. Suddenly she felt horribly alone and outside all the laughter and the warmth.
“I wish I knew what to do about it.” He resumed the first conversation, pulling a chair a little straighter for her and holding it while she sat down. It was a gracious gesture, and yet it reminded her sharply that she was probably fifteen or sixteen years older than he, little short of a generation.
“We must fight back,” she said briskly, battling her own misery with anger. “We must find the truth that they have not. It is there—they simply were content to accept the easiest answer. We will not.”
He looked at her with dawning amazement—and admiration.
“Do you know how?”
“I have some idea,” she said with far more certainty than she felt. She sounded like Charlotte, and it was appalling—and exciting. “We will begin by making the acquaintance of the people concerned. Who are they? I mean—who are all the people who might know the truth, or some part of it?”
“I suppose Tamar and myself,” he replied, sitting down opposite her. “But we have talked about it so endlessly that I don’t think there can be anything we have not considered.”
“Well, if neither of you killed Mr. Blaine, and Aaron Godman did not, then there must be someone else involved,” she said reasonably. Pitt’s wry, intelligent face flashed into her mind, and she wondered if this was how he thought. “Who do you believe killed him?”
He thought for a moment, his chin resting on one hand. It might have seemed a theatrical pose in anyone else, and yet he looked totally natural. She was acutely conscious of his presence, of the sunlight from the window on the thick wave of his hair. He was too young for there to be any gray in the bright brown of it. Yet there were fine lines in the skin around his eyes; it was not a face without experience, or pain. There was none of the brashness or the untempered spirit of youth. Perhaps he was not so far short of forty.