Her anger and her contempt for him burned in a pain that ran through her mind and body, consuming her. She sat down suddenly in his chair, the newspaper dropped onto the table, still open at the article. It had been proved that Francis Wray was not the third person, but too late to save his grief, or his sense that all his life’s meaning had been denied as far as those who had loved and cherished him could see. Too late, above all, to prevent him from committing the irretrievable act of taking his own life.
Could she ever forgive Reginald for his part in letting that happen, for his utter cowardice?
What was she going to do? Reginald was even now going to Southampton Row to see if he could find and destroy the evidence that implicated him. What loyalty did she owe him?
He was doing something she believed to be profoundly wrong. It was hypocritical and ugly, but it was largely his own destruction rather than anyone else’s. Worse, he had allowed Francis Wray to be blamed for long enough to destroy him, to be the last weight of misery on top of his grief, which had broken him, perhaps not only for this life but for the life to come. Although she could not accept that God would condemn forever any man, or woman, who had finally broken, perhaps only for one fatal instant, beneath something too great for them to bear.
It could not be undone. Wray was gone. The degree of sin in his death was beyond anyone to alter. If the church concealed it and gave him a decent burial that would redeem him to the world, but it altered none of the truth.
What was her deepest loyalty now? How far along the road of his cowardice did she have to go with her husband? Not all the way. You did not owe it to anyone to drown yourself along with him.
And yet she was perfectly sure that he would regard it as betrayal whenever she left him.
Did he know who had killed Maude Lamont? Was it even imaginable that he had done it himself? Surely not! No! He was shallow, self-important, condescending, totally absorbed in his own feelings and oblivious of the joy or the pain of anyone else. And he was a coward. But he would not have committed any of the open sins, the ones that even he could not deny because they were against the law of the land, and he would be forced to conceal them. Even he could not justify murdering Maude Lamont, no matter what she had blackmailed him for.
But he might know who had, and why. The police must know the truth. She had no idea how to contact Pitt at Special Branch, and the new commander of Bow Street was a stranger to her. She needed to speak to someone she knew. This was going to be agonizing enough without trying to explain to a stranger. She would go to Cornwallis. He would begin halfway towards understanding.
Now that she had made up her mind she did not hesitate. It hardly mattered what she wore, simply that she composed her mind to speak sensibly and to tell only the truth she knew and allow him to make all deductions. She must not permit her anger or her contempt to show through, or the bitterness that welled up inside her. There must be no manipulation of emotions. She must tell him as one person to another, no more, and with no reminder, however subtle, of what either of them might feel.
Cornwallis was in his office but occupied with someone. She asked if she might wait, and nearly half an hour later she was taken up by a constable and found Cornwallis standing in the middle of his room waiting for her.
The constable closed the door behind her and she remained standing.
Cornwallis opened his mouth to say something, the conventional greeting, to give himself time to adjust to her presence. And then before he could speak, he saw the pain in her eyes.
He took half a step forward. “What is it?”
She stood where she was, keeping the distance between them. This must be done carefully, and without ever losing her self-control.
“This morning something occurred which makes me believe that I know who the third person was who visited Maude Lamont on the night of her death,” she began. “He was indicated only by the little drawing which looks rather like a small f with a semicircle over the top.” Now it was too late to retreat. She had committed herself. What would he think of her? That she was disloyal? He probably regarded that as the ultimate human sin. One does not betray one’s own, no matter what the circumstances. She stared at him, and could read nothing of what was in his face.
He looked at the chair as if to invite her to sit down, then changed his mind. “What was it that happened?” he asked.
“The police have issued a statement saying that they believe Maude Lamont knew the identity of that person,” she replied. “She was blackmailing him, and there are papers still in her house in Southampton Row, together with the information that Mr. Pitt gathered from the Reverend Francis Wray.” Her voice dropped at mention of Wray’s name, and for all her intentions not to allow it, her anger came through. “It will make his identity plain.”
“Yes,” he agreed, frowning. “Superintendent Wetron told the press.”
She took a deep breath. She wished she could control the lurching of her heart and the dizziness in her, the sheer physical reactions that were going to let her down. “When my husband read that at the breakfast table he went completely white,” she continued. “And then he rose and said that he was canceling his appointments this morning, and has left the house.” Put like that it sounded absurd, as if she wanted to believe it was Reginald. That was proof of nothing at all, except what was going on in her own mind. No wife who loved her husband would have leaped to such a conclusion. Cornwallis must see that—and despise her for it! Did he think she was trying to create some excuse to leave Reginald?
That was terrible! She must make him understand that she truly believed it, and that it had come to her only slowly, and reluctantly.
“He is ill!” she said jerkily.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. He looked terribly awkward, not knowing whether to offer any more sympathy, as if it were an irrelevance.
“He is afraid he is dying,” she hurried on. “I mean really very afraid. I suppose I should have realized years ago.” Now she was speaking too quickly, words falling over each other. “All the signs were there if I’d been looking, but it never occurred to me. He preached so vividly . . . sometimes . . . with such power . . .” That was true, at least it was how she remembered it. Her voice dropped. “But he has no belief in God. Now, when it really matters, he is not sure if there is anything beyond the grave. That is why he went to a spirit medium, to try to contact a dead person, any dead person, just to know they were there.”
He looked stunned. She could see it in his face, his unblinking eyes, the line of his lips. He had no idea what to say to her. Was it pity that silenced him, or disgust?
She felt both herself, and shame because Reginald was her husband. However far apart they were in thought or care, they were still tied together by the years they had been married. Perhaps she could have helped him if she had loved him enough? Perhaps the depth of the love she longed for had nothing to do with it; common humanity for a fellow being should have reached across the gulf and offered something!
It was too late now.
“Of course when she knew who he was, that gave her the means to blackmail him.” Her voice was now little more than a whisper. She felt the color hot in her cheeks. “‘Church of England Bishop goes to spirit medium to seek proof of life after death!’ He’d be a laughingstock. It would ruin him.” As she said it she realized just how much that was true. Would he have killed to prevent it? She had started out quite sure that that was impossible—but was it? If his reputation were gone, what had he left? How far had his illness, and the fear of death, unbalanced his mind? Fear can warp almost anything, only love was strong enough to overcome it . . . and did Reginald really love anything well enough for that?