"Are you trying to spare my feelings, Sergeant? I assure you, it is not necessary. I must be where I can do the most good, that is the only thing which will be of any comfort to me." She looked at him very directly. She had amazing eyes; their darkness almost concealed her emotions and made her a peculiarly private woman. He imagined the great Spanish aristocrats might have looked something like that: proud, secretive, hiding their vulnerability.
"No, Mrs. Duff," he denied. "I was trying to find out as much as I can from you about what occurred yesterday while it is fresh in your mind, before you are fully occupied with your son. At the moment it is Dr. Riley's help he needs. I need yours.”
"You are very direct, Sergeant.”
He did not know if it was a criticism or simply an observation. Her voice was without expression. She was too profoundly shocked from the reality of what he had told her, to touch anything but the surface of her mind. She sat upright, her back rigid, shoulders stiff, her hands unmoving in her lap. He imagined if he touched them he would find them locked together, unbending.
"I am sorry. It seems not the time for niceties. This matters far too much. Did your husband and son leave the house together?”
"No. No… Rhys left first. I did not see him go.”
"And your husband?”
"Yes… yes, I saw him leave. Of course.”
"Did he say where he was going?”
"No… no. He quite often went out in the evening… to his club.
It is a very usual thing for a gentleman to do. Business, as well as pleasure, depends upon social acquaintances. He did not say…
specifically.”
He was not sure why, but he did not entirely believe her. Was it possible she was aware that he frequented certain dubious places, perhaps even that he used prostitutes? It was tacitly accepted by many, even though they would have been shocked if anyone had been vulgar and insensitive enough to speak it. Everyone was aware of bodily functions. No one referred to them; it was both indelicate and unnecessary.
"How was he dressed, ma'am?”
Her arched eyebrows rose. "Dressed? Presumably as you found him, Sergeant? What do you mean?”
"Did he have a watch, Mrs. Duff?”
"A watch? Yes. Oh, I see. He was… robbed. Yes, he had a very fine gold watch. It was not on him?”
"No. Was he in the habit of carrying much money with him?”
"I don't know. I can ask Bridlaw, his valet. He could probably tell you. Does it matter?”
"It might." Evan was puzzled. "Do you know if he was wearing his gold watch yesterday when he left?" It seemed a strange and rather perverse thing to go into St. Giles, for whatever reason, wearing a conspicuously expensive article like a gold watch, so easily visible.
It almost invited robbery. Was he lost? Was he even taken there against his will? "Did he mention meeting anyone?”
"No." She was quite certain.
"And the watch?" he prompted.
"Yes. I believe he was wearing it." She stared at him intently. "He almost always did. He was very fond of it. I think I would have noticed were he without it. I remember now he wore a brown suit. Not his best at all, in fact rather an inferior one. He had it made for the most casual wear, weekends and so forth.”
"And yet the night he went out was a Wednesday," Evan reminded her.
"Then he must have been planning a casual evening," she replied bluntly. "Why do you ask, Sergeant? What difference does it make now?
He was not… murdered… because of what he wore!”
"I was trying to deduce where he intended to go, Mrs. Duff. St.
Giles is not an area where we would expect to find a gentleman of Mr.
Duffs means and social standing. If I knew why he was there, or with whom, I would be a great deal closer to knowing what happened to him.”
"I see. I suppose it was foolish of me not to have understood." She looked away from him. The room was comfortable, beautifully proportioned. There was no sound but the crackle of flames in the fireplace and the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantel.
Everything about it was gracious, serene, different in every conceivable way from the alley in which its owner had perished. Quite probably St. Giles was beyond the knowledge or even the imagination of his widow.
"Your husband left shortly after your son, Mrs. Duff?" He leaned a little forward as he spoke, as if to attract her attention.
She turned towards him slowly. "I suppose you want to know how my son was dressed also?”
"Yes, please.”
"I cannot remember. In something very ordinary, grey or navy I think.
No… a black coat and grey trousers.”
It was what he had been wearing when he was found. Evan said nothing.
"He said he was going out to enjoy himself," she said, her voice suddenly dropping and catching with emotion. "He was… angry.”
"With whom?" He tried to picture the scene. Rhys Duff was probably no more than eighteen or nineteen, still immature, rebellious.
She lifted her shoulder very slightly. It was a gesture of denial, as if the question were incapable of answer.
"Was there a quarrel, ma'am, a difference of opinion?”
She sat silent for so long he was afraid she was not going to reply. Of course it was bitterly painful. It was their last meeting. They could never now be reconciled. The fact that she did not deny it instantly was answer enough.
"It was trivial," she said at last. "It doesn't matter now. My husband was dubious about some of the company Rhys chose to keep. Oh… not anyone who would hurt him, Sergeant. I am speaking of female company. My husband wished Rhys to make the acquaintance of reputable young ladies. He was in a position to make a settlement upon him if he chose to marry, not a good fortune many young men can count upon.”
"Indeed not," Evan agreed with feeling. He knew dozens of young men, and indeed older ones, who would dearly like to marry, but could not afford it. To keep an establishment suitable for a wife cost more than three or four times the amount necessary to live a single life. And then the almost inevitable children added to that greatly.
Rhys Duff was an unusually fortunate young man. Why had he not been grateful for that?
As if answering his thought she spoke very softly.
"Perhaps he was… too young. He might have done it willingly, if… if it had not been his father's wish for him. The young can be so… so… wilful… even against their own interests." She seemed barely to be able to control the grief which welled up inside her. Evan hated having to press any questions at all, but he knew that now she was more likely to tell him an unguarded truth. Tomorrow she could be more careful, more watchful to conceal anything which damaged, or revealed.
He struggled for anything to say which could be of comfort, and there was nothing. In his mind he saw so clearly the pale, bruised face of the young man lying first in the alley, crumpled and bleeding, and then in St. Thomas's, his eyes filled with horror which was quite literally unspeakable. He saw again his mouth open as he struggled, and failed even to ut tera word. What could anyone say to comfort his mother?
He made a resolve that however long it took him, however hard it was, he would find out what had happened in that alley, and make whoever was responsible answer for it.
"He said nothing of where he might go?" he resumed. "Had he any usual haunts?”
"He left in some… heat," she replied. She seemed to have steadied herself again. "I believe his father had an idea as to where he frequented. Perhaps it is known to men in general? There are…
places. It was only an impression. I cannot help you, Sergeant.”
"But both men were in some temper when they left?”
"Yes.”
"How long apart in time was that?”
"I am not sure, because Rhys left the room, and it was not until about half an hour after that when we realised he had also left the house. My husband then went out immediately.”
"I see.”
"They were found together?" Again her voice wavered and she had to make a visible effort to control herself.