Chapter Six

A gain, everyone was present except Mrs. Winsom.

As Constance sat down, Albright said, “We have been talking, and it would make a great deal of sense if we could present these London policemen with the basic facts that will prevent them prying too disturbingly. I have asked Mrs. Goldrich to collate this information.”

Constance, discovering Solomon Grey seated next to her, met his hooded but admiring gaze with limpid good nature.

“Clever,” he breathed.

“I thought so.” She looked apologetically around the table. “Of course, I shall write it all down, so that we may all see it,”

“With what purpose?” Miriam asked.

“That of saving your family as much discomfort as possible. I cannot imagine you want the police hanging around you any longer than they need to. You all have enough to bear.”

“Why don’t you begin, Mrs. Goldrich?” Grey said, with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“Very well. I went upstairs when we all did, just before eleven o’clock, and went to my room. Once there, my mind would not settle to sleep, so I went in search of a book.”

“What time was this, Mrs. Goldrich?” Grey asked with apparent interest.

“Not long after midnight. I definitely heard the clock in the drawing room chime the hour before I left my room. I went straight to the library—where I saw Mr. Grey.”

“I can confirm that,” he said solemnly to the company. “She left again when she saw me there. Did you see anyone else moving about the house, Mrs. Goldrich?”

“No, I did not.”

“And how long were you in the library?” Randolph asked. There was a certain sulkiness in his face because she had accounted for not being in her room. But he would hardly want to say in front of his sisters that he had been there.

“Just a few minutes. The curtains were not drawn, and Mr. Grey thought he saw movement outside. He went off to investigate.”

“And why were you in the library, Mr. Grey?” Mrs. Bolton asked.

“For the same purpose as Mrs. Goldrich. I must have been there for about five minutes before she came in. She did not linger. I decided to investigate what I had seen from the window and left the house via the French window in the drawing room.”

It was Constance’s turn for an admiring glance. He had preserved them both without telling any direct lies.

And yet he could still have committed the crime before she entered the library. She could be complicit by her silence as to what he had been doing there. She acknowledged it again. There was a hardness about him. She did not put killing past him, but killing in such a way? A knife in the back? And why on earth would he do such a thing? He wanted information from Winsom about his missing brother—which was a whole different mystery. Could Winsom have told him something that had inspired ungovernable fury?

Going to the kitchen for a weapon first?

Hardly a moment of rage, and she doubted he was subject to those anyway. He was far too self-controlled. And in any case, the knife had vanished before Grey got here. That surely proved his innocence.

She thought.

“And you, Mr. Grey?” she asked. “Did you see anyone else apart from me in the house or garden, between the time you left your bedchamber and when you roused the household after discovering Mr. Winsom?”

“No, I did not. Only the shadowy figure outside, whom I could not identify.”

“And which may not even have been real,” Ivor Davidson drawled. “Tree branches move. Cats, foxes, swooping owls—all cast shadows that can fool us.”

“You are right, of course,” Grey said, inclining his head. “And yourself, Mr. Davidson? Did you go straight to sleep?”

“I did not. I wrote some letters first. It must have been just before midnight that I prepared for bed, for I had just closed my eyes when, like Mrs. Goldrich, I heard the clock chime downstairs.”

“Did you hear or see anyone else in that time?” Grey asked.

“I heard quiet footsteps in the passage,” Davidson said, a hint of malicious amusement in his eyes as they found Randolph, who blushed furiously. Davidson knew exactly whose footsteps he had heard and where they had gone. “They retreated again almost at once. That was all I heard before the household was aroused.”

Constance inclined her head and turned to Alice Bolton next to him.

“Mrs. Goldrich,” Thomas Bolton said suddenly, “how do you propose to remember all of this in detail?”

“Oh, I remember everything, sir,” Constance said amiably. “Whether written or spoken. I find it both a gift and a curse.”

“I find the whole thing an impertinence,” Mrs. Bolton snapped.

“It is,” Constance agreed at once. “But I think we will all find it less impertinent than answering the police.”

*

“Disingenuous,” Grey said to her later. “The police will ask exactly the same questions, whatever detailed notes you give them. Unless they are entirely incompetent or far too easily intimidated.”

“I’m sure you are right,” Constance admitted.

They sat alone in the morning room, where they had agreed to meet to compare notes. Grey lounged on the window seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Constance sat at the little bureau, drawing up a table on a sheet of paper. She had the names of everyone in the household written down the left-hand side and was recording their answers under various columns.

“However,” she added, setting her pen in its stand, “it gives us a head start, and still might prove useful if someone gives the police different answers to the ones they have given us.”

“There could be any number of reasons for that.”

“There could. But we can still learn from them. What do you make of our suspects so far?”

“No real surprises,” Grey said. “The Boltons and the Albrights both claimed to have been in bed with their spouses all night until the household was roused. No one heard anything except Randolph’s footsteps to your room, and I don’t even know if that was true or if Davidson said it just to annoy Randolph. Or you.”

“No one heard our footsteps,” Constance observed.

“You walk very quietly for a woman.”

She glanced up at him in surprise that he had noticed. Was that a hint of darkness creeping along the fine blade of his cheekbone?

“Most woman rustle,” he said, a little too quickly. “Particularly in such ridiculously wide skirts.”

“ Fashionable is the word you are looking for. Not ridiculous. And in my profession, as you may know, a woman learns to move quietly.”

She said it to annoy him, just to see the effect, now that she suspected he observed her more than he appeared to. It worked, too, though not in any way she had expected.

A frown tugged down his brow. “Why do you do that?” he demanded.

“Do what?” she asked, genuinely bewildered. Idly, as though she had no interest in his words, she picked up the rather ugly statuette on the table beside her.

“Remind me constantly of your profession.”

“Hardly remind ,” she said, turning the figurine in her hands. It felt too smooth and cold. “I’m sure you never forget it.”

His gaze held hers, unreadable but curiously…turbulent. “Why do you still continue with it? You must be wealthy enough to retire or invest in some legitimate trade.”

“Why should I?” She kept her voice carefully amused, though her fingers tightened on the ornament. “In order to be invited to respectable houses such as this under my own name? If you believe that would ever happen, Mr. Grey, you are considerably more na?ve than you look.”

“You could travel, live anywhere, do whatever you want.”

“I am doing what I want,” she said. How could such meltingly dark eyes pierce so sharply it was an effort to meet them? “I happen to enjoy my work.”

Mockery was her best weapon, but he didn’t rise to it. Neither embarrassed nor angry now, he simply held her gaze until it became damnably difficult to withstand.

“Do you?” he asked deliberately, just as if he had seen or guessed the truth.

“Of course,” she said, smiling. “I am good at it. You are welcome in my establishment any time you choose.”

Surprising her again, he quirked his lips into a half-smile, but at least he released her eyes. “I do not care to pay for such favors.”

“And yet you do. One way or another. One always does.”

“Who has hurt you, Constance Silver?” he asked softly.

The figurine fell into her lap, and his eyes followed it before lifting slowly to hers once more.

She laughed. “Oh, no one hurts me , Mr. Grey. One needs a heart to be hurt. Contrary to popular belief, it is my mind that is my strength. Women do think, you know. Many of us are good at it.”

“I know.”

She replaced the ornament on the table, appalled by the slight tremor of her fingers. Picking her pen back up, she returned to her notes.

“Ellen,” she said, determinedly writing the girl’s name. “She claimed to be asleep and to have seen and heard nothing.”

“You don’t believe her,” Grey observed after only a very short pause.

“Do you?”

“I think she’s much too curious by nature to go tamely to sleep when other people are still wandering about the house and grounds. People such as you and I, Randolph, Winsom…”

“And whoever killed him.” Constance, tranquil once more, replaced her pen in the stand.

“And whoever isn’t telling us the truth,” Grey added. “Which is probably all of them.”

“And we still need to talk to Mrs. Winsom. And the servants.”

“The servants won’t talk to strangers like us—not about the family, at any rate. They’ll have seen nothing, heard nothing, and know nothing. We might be better leaving them to the police.”

“Perhaps,” Constance said noncommittally.

*

It was difficult, Solomon thought with rueful amusement, to win any encounter with Constance Silver. Just when he thought he had found a chink in her armor, she saw through his own. His other suspicion, that she had been hurt, should not have surprised him. Many women lived with abuse, and prostitutes were in more danger of it than most. Constance had taught herself ladylike refinement, but she had dragged herself out of the stews—she would not otherwise have admitted to having been born there, the illegitimate child, presumably, of another prostitute and, possibly Thomas Winsom. Or someone considerably less savory.

He did not want to think of what had happened to her, then or now. It angered him, hurt him, even. Worse, somehow, was the idea that she could be hurt in less physical ways. Hard as nails … He doubted his previous assumption now.

The woman who had sat so silently beside him in the Tizsa house had not been hard but overwhelmed. The woman searching na?vely for her father was not hard either, whether or not she had been looking for financial gain from the fact.

But she was damnably perceptive, and he must never forget that she could read him like a book. Or at least like any other man.

“Mr. Grey, sir.” He turned to face a red-eyed maid in a plain dress without an apron.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Winsom is asking for you. If you could spare the time.”

From second nature, he hid his excitement. “Of course.”

“Please follow me, sir.”

She led him upstairs to the large bedroom he had glimpsed last night through the open door. Although it was dominated by the large, velvet-curtained bed, Mrs. Winsom was not reclining there. This afternoon, she sat in an armchair beside the fire, which made the room uncomfortably warm, a shawl about her shoulders as though her very bones were chilled. She looked ten years older than yesterday, and indescribably frail.

“Mr. Grey!” Her face lit at the sight of him as he followed the maid inside, and then immediately, tears started in her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Grey, forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” he repeated, startled. He moved toward her, and the maid closed the door softly. “For what, dear lady?” He took her outstretched hand.

“I have brought this suspicion upon you,” she said brokenly.

He kept the same gentle expression on his face. At least, he hoped he did. “How did you do such a thing, ma’am?”

“By bringing you here! And now Wilson—my maid—has heard gossip among the servants that my other guests are blaming you for Walter’s death. I would not have had this happen for the world.”

“They are merely shocked, ma’am, and latching on to the next best thing to a stranger.”

She looked unconvinced, so he smiled, releasing her hand, and sat in the chair close to hers.

“What possible reason,” he asked lightly, “could I have for so attacking a man I had known only a few hours?”

“Me,” she said tragically. “To be rid of my husband and marry me yourself.”

It certainly took his breath away. “No one could truly think such a thing,” he said, and then, seeing the added hurt in her eyes, he added hastily, “The world knows you as a virtuous lady and a loyal wife. How could anyone mistake your kindness to a stranger for that kind of encouragement? Besides, a man with such designs upon you would hardly accept an invitation to meet your husband, especially not one issued in public at a hospital board meeting. Seriously, you have enough to distress you without imagining you owe me any apologies.”

“And so I told her, sir,” the maid said roundly from her place by the door.

Mrs. Winsom scowled at her. “Go and find something to do in the dressing room, Wilson.”

Obediently, the woman opened the door on her right and went into the room beyond. Solomon glimpsed a fully made-up bed with an opulent, masculine dressing gown laid across it, and a mirrored dressing table with a man’s hairbrushes and other accoutrements laid out. A quick glance about the much more feminine outer room showed him only feminine accoutrements. Mr. and Mrs. Winsom had slept apart.

He wondered how recent that was. Only since she had learned about his affair with her friend Alice Bolton? Or had she? Did it even exist in more than Constance’s imagination?

He refocused his eyes on the widow. She looked terrible, her skin somehow shrunken and pale, her eyes red with weeping.

“How are you?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know.” She tried to smile. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Remember all the good things about him and your time together.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly. “He was a good man, generous and kind. And such fun. Everyone liked him, you know! Didn’t you?”

“Indeed I did,” Solomon said honestly. How could he question this fragile creature about her husband’s murder? About where she was, and who had hated him?

“And yet someone killed him,” she whispered, gripping her chair arm so fiercely that her knuckles were white. “Do you think the police will find the terrible person who did this?”

“I sincerely hope so.” He leaned forward. “You know they will ask you questions that seem both intrusive and impertinent?”

Her eyes widened. “Me? Questions such as what?”

“Such as the state of your marriage, who were your husband’s friends and enemies, why he would be walking in the garden so late, what time he left you—that kind of thing.”

Her mouth opened and closed in silence. She dropped her hands into her lap, gripping her fingers together, and gazed at them. “And must I answer?”

“I think so. It is their duty to find out everything they need to in order to discover the culprit. We have all been cooperating downstairs in order to tell the police where we were at the crucial time.”

A surprisingly cynical smile flashed across her face and vanished. “Have you?”

“Sort of. Mrs. Goldrich has written it all down.”

“Mrs. Goldrich,” she repeated. She lifted her eyes suddenly to his face. “Does she want to marry my son?”

“I don’t believe so. Her feelings seem to me more…sisterly. Do you not approve of her?”

“She is a widow, several years his senior, and he is too young to be married.”

“I don’t believe you need to fear it. Nor has she any need to marry anyone for money.”

“Perhaps she is lonely, being a widow.” She closed her eyes. “Like me.”

“It might help to talk to her,” Solomon said, not entirely to pave Constance’s way to a more intimate conversation. When she chose, Constance could exude an unjudging understanding that was both soothing and beguiling. And probably a professional skill. Knowing that, he had still told her about David’s disappearance. Sort of. He had never told anyone that. His many exhaustive, fruitless inquiries had always been impersonal.

“I shall think about it,” Mrs. Winsom said. “I have been thinking about so many things… It must be terrible for everyone to be trapped here with this awfulness.”

“Everyone is concerned for you and would help if they could. Mrs. Winsom, did your husband discuss his business ventures with you?”

“Not really. Ladies do not have a head for business, you know. Why?” Her expression changed. “You think someone was in such a dispute with Walter that they—”

“I don’t know,” he said quickly when she struggled for breath. “I’m sure the police will look into it. I can’t imagine anyone here had such a dispute.”

“No,” she said a little doubtfully, but did not elaborate.

“Were your husband and Mr. Bolton in broad agreement about the running of the bank?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, without any real thought. “Thomas always so admired Walter…and Walter was quite in awe of Thomas’s head for figures, his knowledge of the markets…whatever they are. It was a perfect partnership. Thomas will be lost without him.”

“He will have your son as his partner now.”

“I suppose so. Though I am not sure banking is quite Randolph’s forte…”

Solomon rose to his feet. “I should leave you to rest… Just before I go—for Mrs. Goldrich’s records, did you happen to see or hear anyone after we all retired? You followed the rest of us upstairs, did you not?”

“I did. Wilson looked after me. Walter came up, but only for a little before he went out again.”

“Was he going to meet someone else?”

“He didn’t say.” Her voice was very small. Because she suspected her husband of going to meet Alice Bolton? Or was she covering for someone? Her son? One of her daughters?

Either way, Solomon could not ask more just now without losing her good will. He smiled, bowed, and left her.