Lenox was mostly quiet. Edmund spoke, stating to each woman at the outset of the conversation that they now had some evidence that Stevens Stevens had been guilty in his lifetime of very serious trespasses upon his secretaries; they were here to gather information, anonymous information, and also to offer the apology of the town.
The reception they received was different each time — and in truth, Lenox wasn’t entirely sure at the end of their trip, at nearly midnight, that they had been right to make the visits. One woman, formerly Miss Sather, now Mrs. Berry, a bony middle-aged person, wanted no part of their apology: “Out,” she had hissed. “I only thank God my husband is away. If he knew I had entered our marriage in a state of sin he’d thrash me within an inch of my life. And I would deserve it.”
On the other hand, Miss Barth, who had worked for Stevens relatively recently, and still lived with her father on a street adjacent to Potbelly Lane, burst into tears, offered them tea, and said, in a roundabout, halting way, how inexpressibly relieved she was that it hadn’t been her alone upon whom Stevens had preyed.
“I wondered what I had done to make him — to make him that way,” she said.
“Nothing at all, I am quite sure,” Edmund said softly.
There was another blank reaction from the woman who had been Miss Moore, now Mrs. Clarendon, but there was a restrained look of grief on Miss Tuttle’s face, after she heard them out — and then asked them to go without responding, though she spoke politely.
The last person they visited, Miss Harville, lived alone in a set of rooms on the High Street; she stood up after Edmund had spoken, poured herself a glass of sherry, drank three-quarters of it, and then stood by the window, looking out at the town hall, whose spire was visible from her window.
As they left her house a few minutes later — promising as they had to all the women that she would have the protection of their silence, offering her whatever help they could — Edmund said, “There. Now that’s done.”
“Mm.”
“What an unforgivable thing to happen in Markethouse.” He stopped and shook his head, his face illuminated by the silvery light of the moon. He pulled his pipe out of his pocket and jammed it moodily with tobacco. Then he turned to his brother. “I know it’s late, but I propose we walk home. So much has happened tonight. A walk might clear our minds.”
“With pleasure,” said Charles.
“Stevens, damn him. I wish I had known years ago. I would have been tempted to kill him myself.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
At the breakfast table the next morning, Lenox, Jane, Toto, and Edmund gathered, a little later than usual perhaps — only Lenox among them at all fresh or lively, because he had risen early to go out on a horseback ride, and returned just in time for a bath and a bite to eat. He would fall to earth again later in the day, but for now he was full of energy.
The other three were not, and the responses Jane and Toto made to the brothers’ inquiries about Liza Calloway were first sluggish, then obstinate. This came to a head when Edmund asked if they knew, at least, what Clavering’s night had been like, and Toto stood up from the breakfast table, stormed across the breakfast room, and speared a few kippers angrily onto her plate.
“Stop asking so many questions!” she said.
Lenox adopted a conciliatory tone. “Please,” he said, “you must understand how hard we’ve worked — and how intimately it’s of interest to Edmund, particularly, who lives here.”
Jane and Toto exchanged a glance, and he saw both of them relent. “Our worry is that she’s still not safe,” said Lady Jane.
“Why not?” said Edmund.
“She’s going to London first, to collect her husband’s legacy in a lump sum.”
“Jane!” said Toto. “We promised!”
“We gave our word that nobody would follow her if we could prevent it. Will you set the law after her?” Both Lenox and Edmund hesitated, and Jane shook her head gravely. “Only two men could equivocate after the story we heard. I suppose there’s a limit to what you can understand of how it is to be a woman.”
“I won’t set the law after her,” said Lenox.
“Oh, how decent of you,” said Toto.
“On the other hand, I am more experienced than you are when it comes to things of this kind, and I can assure you that setting a killer free — even with the best intentions — does not always have a happy sequel. I lost the arrogance of thinking I knew when to do it a very long time ago.”
“Well — that’s fair,” said Jane. “But you won’t tell?”
“I won’t.”
And so Jane and Toto explained. After Lenox, Edmund, and Pointilleux had left the night before, they said, the people remaining in the room had hurried into action. Elizabeth Watson and Claire Adams — largely silent while the two men were present — became the leaders, more or less, of the initiative: Where would she go? What would she eat? What would she do?
As Jane and Toto described it together, the plan emerged fairly easily. The two of them could provide her with enough money to survive for a while, long enough to claim her husband’s legacy in a lump sum, hopefully a bit longer. Adelaide Snow’s father had a small house in Shepherd’s Bush, in London, and when they returned to gather her things, Adelaide would give Liza Calloway the key and an address.
She had also offered to go along with Liza, in fact, Jane recounted with admiration. (“I think she’s a very warmhearted and bright girl. I’m going to ask her to tea. When we asked her about Stevens, she said he was only a bully, and hadn’t had his way with her — and then added that all she’d had from him were a few bruises, which only lasted a week, and which she refused to let settle in.”)
Elizabeth Watson, however, had said that she wanted to be the one to go to London with her niece. It had been ten years: ten years since her sister’s death, too, two lights gone out of her life simultaneously. Her husband, her sons, and Mr. Hadley could survive a week without her.
“Is it clever to stay in Shepherd’s Bush and leave a link to Adelaide Snow?” asked Lenox. “Mr. Clavering may not be very savvy, but I fear the case will attract wider attention than the local police force.”
“We thought of that,” said Toto. “She’ll only be there a day. Then she hopes to move on.”
“To where?”
Somewhere, was the answer. She didn’t quite know herself. Her only question had been whether she could be allowed to write to her father and Adelaide (it was safe enough, they had all decided together), and her only request that she be allowed to take the dog with her to London.
“Wonderful, a dog thief, too,” said Lenox.
“The farmer kicked the dog!” said Toto.
“Farmers do kick dogs,” Lenox replied.
With Liza’s plans settled, Claire Adams had gone down to the kitchens to cajole a packet of sandwiches out of them for the journey, Elizabeth Watson home to pack her things into a carryall, and Adelaide and Liza to Adelaide’s father’s house, where they would act as if they were simply returning from the ball. (Her father had known only that his daughter had a friend she wished to claim as a cousin — and was too besotted by his child to question her judgment, said Lady Jane.) Jane and Toto had given them ready money and devised a plan by which they could all credibly contend that she had slipped away unnoticed; both had also offered help farther down the road, should she need it.
The whole thing filled Lenox with trepidation, as he sat there sipping his coffee, the sun rising to cast its pale morning light over the hills — but with respect, too. Here were two maids, two aristocrats, and two women somewhere of the middle, for Liza Calloway’s father had some distinction of birth, while Adelaide Snow’s had none, but did have a great deal of property.