Bennett flushed. “I must confess to you. I am a warmhearted man.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “When Judith walked away and did not return, I was hurt, unhappy, grieved. I put it about that she must have died so no one would know she deserted me. Her father, you see, was very unhappy about her marrying me, and she began to feel that she wronged him. She wished to reconcile. I believed, when she did not come home that day, that she had returned to her family.”
“You would have soon learned otherwise,” I said sternly.
“I did. I missed her so much.” Bennett dabbed his cheeks with the brandy-stained handkerchief. “I finally went to the heart of the Hebrew area, and demanded to speak to Judith. Her father told me he hadn’t seen her. I did not believe him, of course.”
“So you went to court to have her declared dead?” He was not winning my respect with this story.
“I asked her neighbors, those who would speak to me. Her father did not allow her mother and sister to come down and listen to me—they might have told me the truth. But the Hebrews, they band together, and I was an outsider, the Englishman who’d stolen one of their own. The entire street more or less shoved me out and slammed the door, so to speak.”
“Her father told you the truth. She hadn’t come home.”
“I concluded that after a time,” Bennett admitted. “Judith was a sweet thing. She would have found some way to talk to me if she could, would have written at least. What I believed, gentlemen, your ladyship, was that her father had spirited her off somewhere—back to the Continent, out to the countryside to some other enclave of Hebrews, and she would never come back.”
He sighed. “When I met my Seraphina, we came to love each other deeply, and it broke my heart that I could not marry her. Hartman had metaphorically buried Judith—it hurt me to imagine what life she had—and so I hired a solicitor to help me declare Judith dead so that I could marry Seraphina. I wish you could have met her, Captain. You’d understand. A finer woman did not walk the world.”
“You were living with her,” I pointed out. “For a few years, I understand. Why the sudden need to have the banns read?”
Bennett blushed like a schoolboy. “We believed she was increasing. I did not want a child of mine to be born on the wrong side of the blanket. And so, I obtained a declaration that Judith was dead, and I married Seraphina. The banns were posted. It was in the newspapers. Hartman could have come forward, told the truth, stopped the marriage. He did not. I concluded he wanted nothing more to do with me—with me married again, Judith would be safe.” His face fell. “Only now you tell me …”
Tears trickled from his eyes, and he sniffled into the handkerchief.
“Mr. Bennett.”
At my tone, Bennett looked up, eyes puffy and red. “Sir?”
“I do not understand you. You loved Judith, and yet you quickly married another. And since have married a third woman.”
Bennett nodded. “Yes. My Maggie. The best woman in the world. You met her, Captain.”
“So why this outpouring of grief for Judith?” I asked him severely. “You had finished with her years ago. Fifteen years, to be precise.”
The handkerchief came up again. “Because all this time, I thought she was still alive. I had a notion that perhaps someday, we would meet once more. Spend our dotage together. Foolish, perhaps, but she was still in my heart.”
“What of your current wife? Your dear Maggie?”
Bennett went redder still. “You can scarce understand, Captain. I loved Judith. I love Maggie. My heart does not shirk from both.” He shook his head, eyes screwing up. “That scarce matters now. You’ve revealed that my poor, my dearest, sweetest Judith is …”
Grenville and I exchanged a glance. He expressed in one flick of his brows that he had no idea what to make of the man.
Bennett’s tears seemed real enough. He did everything to put forth a picture of a hapless gentleman caught in his own deeper feelings. Loved too much, grieved too hard. Pity me.
And yet, I understood why Woolwich did not like him. There was something wrong with the way Bennett spoke, begged us to understand him.
I felt as though I watched a play. The description of Bennett wandering into a Hebrew neighborhood and having every single one of them driving him, the Gentile, away, protecting their own, had the ring of the theatre to it. I knew that Londoners as a whole put the Hebrews into a box, and many men, as Brewster did, considered them “other” and disdained them collectively. Even so, I felt that Shakespeare or Sheridan could have written the scene.
I thought of Margaret Woolwich, good-natured but, as her father had claimed, not very intelligent. She’d have seen Bennett’s surface and been satisfied with it. I wondered if Judith had been satisfied, or come to her senses—too late.
Donata, Grenville, and I were too worldly, had known too many, to take Bennett’s character as absolute.
Donata, in particular, regarded him with blatant cynicism. “You see, Mr. Bennett,” she said, leaning down a little to pin him with her sharp stare. “We were of the mind that you had killed Judith. Struck her down with a poker or some such, so that you could marry your dear Seraphina.”
Bennett came off the sofa. I was in his way, but his bulk shoved me aside.
“I?” Again the drama, his hand pressed to his heart, his eyes wide with horror. “Dear lady, Judith was to me as the most precious jewel in all the world. I would never hurt her. Not one hair on her head.”
“Her hair was not in jeopardy,” Donata said in her acerbic way. “Her head was bashed in, rather, and she was pushed into the river.”
The slight widening of his eyes in shock was not feigned, I thought. “Please. How horrible. I cannot bear to think of it.”
Donata was remorseless. “It was a bit worse for Judith.”
“Please.” The handkerchief went to Bennett’s mouth again, and he shuddered.
I broke in. “If not you—can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Judith?”
Bennett lowered his hand. He was white about the mouth. “No, indeed. Everyone loved her.”
“Apparently not everyone,” I said dryly. “If her death distresses you so, please help us find her killer.”
“Oh. Ah, I see what you mean.” Bennett’s brows lowered as he thought. “She truly was well liked.”
“Yet, she angered her family and her friends by becoming a converso and marrying you.”
“That is true.” Bennett pondered again, the very image of a concerned gentleman trying to help. “Very true. I do hate to speak ill of any lady, but her sister, Devorah—she is a bitter woman.”
I gave him a neutral nod, not wanting to convey my own opinion of her. Devorah was indeed bitter.
“Her father and mother were quite angry as well,” Bennett said. “And of course, the young man who had hopes of becoming her husband.”
I hid my start. Neither Hartman nor Devorah had mentioned another suitor. “His name?” I asked.
“Let me think. I scarce remember. He was a Hebrew, of course, with one of their outlandish names. No, I have it—Stein. Yes. Itzak was his given name. I remember, because I told Judith I thought it a damned odd way to say Isaac.”
Bennett regarded us as though we should be amused with him, but we remained stone-faced.
“Anyone else?” I asked.
Bennett shrugged. “I have little idea, Captain. I am not good at this sort of thing. Her father would know.”
I would get her father to speak to me somehow. “If you happen to remember any more,” I said, “you will send word, won’t you?”
“Of course. Of course.” Bennett flashed me an appealing look. “Please discover who killed my Judith. I beg of you, Captain, bring this man to justice. If I can be of further help, I will, I assure you.”
Sincerity oozed from him. Grenville, who’d silently let Donata and me get on with interrogating him, finally spoke. “We shall do our best. Perhaps you should go home, Mr. Bennett. You have had a shock.”