“He told you this?” Caroline tried to keep the fact at bay.
“Yes—you had to know him,” Kathleen explained, totally misunderstanding Caroline’s distress. “He did not tell the truth if it was painful, but neither would he deliberately lie. I knew something was very wrong, and of course I asked him. He said he had had a violent quarrel with Joshua Fielding. But when I asked him the subject, he said I would not wish to know, and kissed me, and went to change from his soiled clothes before retiring.” She shook her head. “Of course when his relationship with—with his mistress came out in the trial, I realized what the quarrel must have been.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said quickly, aching for Caroline, knowing the pain as if it were a tangible thing. Her stomach was clenched, and a little sick. “Yes, I see.” She scrambled for something else to say. She wished they could leave, but it would be pointedly rude, and make a return impossible. And they needed to return. She was convinced there was far more they could learn about Kingsley Blaine which might lead to his murderer, even if it was what they most dreaded to hear. To stop now would be worse than if they had never begun.
“Even so.” She tried to put a lift into her voice, but her throat was so tight it sounded more like a squeak. “Even so, I still think you should not feel any remorse. It was none of it your fault. He was fairly tried.”
“But I did not tell anyone about the quarrel,” Kathleen said, looking from Caroline to Charlotte and back again, her face pale. “No one asked me, and I did not offer it. Do you think it might have made a difference?”
“No,” Charlotte lied. “None at all. Now I really don’t wish to distress you anymore. The last thing I want is for you to think of my visit as a time of anxiety and the raking up of old wounds.”
She was lying, and yet it was certainly true she did not wish to hurt Kathleen, even less now that she knew her better. But Joshua Fielding’s wry, gentle face filled her mind as she tried to imagine it contorted with the hatred that would stab a man to death and then crucify his corpse. It was impossible. And yet he was an actor. It was his art and his living to convey passions he did not feel, and hide those he did.
And more powerful than her own doubt or unhappiness over it was a biting misery for Caroline. The wound would be so deep, so out of proportion to the brief time she had known him. But emotion has little to do with time, and love nothing at all.
Kathleen was talking again, but she did not hear her words. The rest of the visit was spent in more pleasant conversation. Charlotte was forced to drag her mind from her thoughts and concentrate. Caroline could only sit and stare, making the odd remark when civility made it absolutely necessary.
When they took their leave it was full of smiles and thanks, and they went out into the blustery wind with skirts whipping around their ankles and a bleak unhappiness inside, as if the sun had disappeared.
PITT RETURNED AGAIN to Juniper Stafford. All he had learned about her, and her relationship with Adolphus Pryce, still left him uncertain whether he suspected her or not. Perhaps his reluctance was purely emotional, because he had been there as she watched her husband die. He had not believed her guilty then; all his thought had been of pity for her. He had never doubted her grief. He had heard no false note in it.
Was it vanity that made it so hard for him to change his mind, or was there a sound instinct, some observation a little below conscious level, which told him her grief was real? Or was it that he wanted Aaron Godman to have been innocent? That was an ugly thought. It would bring tragedy to everyone involved except Tamar Macaulay, the real and believable tragedy of dishonor.
He stood outside the Staffords’ house, raised the door knocker and let it fall. There were still black crepes on the windows, the curtains half drawn. There was a desolate air about it, a weariness.
The door opened and a footman with a black armband looked at him enquiringly.
“I am sorry to disturb Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said with more authority than he felt. “But there are some further questions I need to discuss with her regarding the judge’s death.” He produced his card. “Will you ask her if she will see me?”
“Yes sir,” the footman said with obedience devoid of feeling.
Five minutes later Pitt was in the chilly morning room when Juniper Stafford came in. She was wearing black, but it was beautifully cut, fashionable and gleaming. She wore jet jewelry discreetly set with seed pearls at her ears and throat, and there was a glow to her skin, a faint flush. Her eyes were soft and alive. He was surprised, and instantly he knew the truth of Livesey’s statement that she was in love.
“Good morning, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a slight smile, stopping just inside the door. “Have you made any progress?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Stafford,” he replied soberly. “I regret it is very slight. Indeed, the more I learn of the matter, the less does it point to any solution.”
She came farther into the room and he was aware of a subtle perfume about her, elusive, less sweet than lavender. She moved with a rustle of silk like a breath in leaves, and yet her gown looked like barathea. If she grieved for Samuel Stafford, it was an emotion overpowered by that other emotion which so elated her and made the blood run more swiftly and high in her cheeks. Even so, that did not necessarily mean any guilt in her husband’s death.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you to help.” She was looking at him very directly. “I know almost nothing of his cases, only what the general public can read. He did not discuss them.” She smiled, her eyes puzzled. “Judges don’t, you know. It is not an ethical thing to do. And I doubt any man would discuss such things with his wife.”
“I know that, ma’am,” he conceded. “But women are very observant. They understand a lot that is not said, especially about feelings.”
She shrugged very slightly in acknowledgment. “Please sit down, Mr. Pitt.”
She sat first, gracefully, a little sideways on one of the large chairs, her skirts falling naturally in a sweeping arc around her. The art of being totally feminine came to her so easily she attended to such details without conscious thought.
Pitt sat opposite her.
“I should be most grateful if you would tell me everything you can remember about the day your husband died,” he requested.
“Again?”
“If you please. Perhaps with hindsight you may see something new, or I may understand the relevance of something I did not grasp the first time.”
“If you think it will be helpful.” She looked resigned. If there were anxiety in her he could not see it, and he searched her smooth face for anything beyond sadness and confusion at the memory.
Detail by detail she retold him exactly what she had said the first time: their rising; breakfasting; Stafford’s spending some time in his study with various letters; Tamar Macaulay’s visit; the raised voices, not in anger but in vehemence of feeling; then her departure; and very shortly afterwards, Stafford’s departure also, saying he wished to interview again the people concerned in the Farriers’ Lane murder. Juniper had not seen him after that until he returned in the evening, deep in thought, preoccupied and speaking only briefly, telling her nothing at all.
They had dined together, eating the same food from the same serving dishes, then changed into formal dress and left for the theater.
During the interval Stafford had excused himself and gone to the smoking room, and returned to his box only just in time for the curtain going up again. What had happened after that, Pitt was as aware of as she.
“Surely it must be someone involved in the Farriers’ Lane case, Mr. Pitt?” she said with a frown. “It is repugnant to accuse anyone, but in this case it seems unavoidable. Poor Samuel discovered something, I have no idea what, and when they realized that, they—they murdered him. What other possibility is there?”