you like to live with someone who didn't even look at or listen to you, but only used you as a figure of fantasy? Someone to pretend about, someone to make responsible for all your emotions so that they are to blame if you are happy or unhappy? You have no right to do that to anyone else.'
Caroline stopped and stared at her, tears running down her face.
'Those are terrible things to say, Charlotte,' she whispered, her voice difficult and hoarse. 'Terrible.'
'No, they aren't.' Charlotte shook her head hard. 'It is just the truth, and when you've looked at it a bit longer you'll find you like it!' Please God that could be true!
'Like it! You tell me I have made a ridiculous fool of myself over a man who doesn't care for me at — all, and that even the feeling I had was an illusion, and selfish, nothing to do with love-and I shall come to like that!'
Charlotte threw her arms around her because she wanted to be close to her, share in her pain and comfort her. Besides, looking at her face right now would be an intrusion into privacy too deep to allow forgetting afterward.
'Maybe 'like it' was a silly phrase, but when you see it is true, you will find the lies something you don't even want to remember. But believe me, everyone who was ever capable of passion has made a fool of themselves at least once. We all fall in love with a vision sometime. The thing is to be able to wake up and still love.'
For a long time neither of them said anything more, but stood in the footpath with their arms around each other. Then very slowly Caroline began to relax, her body lost-its stiffness, and the pain changed from anger to simple weeping.
'I'm so ashamed of myself,' she said softly. 'So terribly ashamed!'
Charlotte's arms tightened. There was not anything else to say. Time would ease it away, but words could not.
In the distance there was the sound of hooves, someone else making an early visit.
Caroline straightened up and sniffed hard. For a moment her hand lingered on Charlotte's; then she withdrew it and fished in her reticule for a handkerchief.
'I don't think I shall make any more calls this afternoon,' she said calmly. 'Perhaps you would like to come home for tea?'
'Thank you,' Charlotte said. They began to walk again, slowly. 'You know, Mina was quite wrong about Theodora. Her money doesn't come from a brothel at all, or blackmail-she has a business for selling bathroom furniture!'
Caroline was stunned. Her eyebrows shot up.
'You mean-'
'Yes, water closets!'
'Oh, Charlotte!'
10
Two days later Pitt was still as confused as ever about who had killed Mina Spencer-Brown. He had a wealth of facts, but no conclusions that were subject to proof-and, worse than that, none that satisfied his own mind.
He stood still on the pavement of Rutland Place in the sun. It was warm there, sheltered from the east wind by the high houses, and he stopped to collect his thoughts before going on to Alston for yet more questioning.
He had been talking to Ambrosine Charrington, and the inter shy;view had left him less sure than he had been before he went. It was always possible that Mina had observed Ambrosine in the act of stealing and Ambrosine had been unable to deny it. If that had been so, Mina might have threatened her with exposure.
But would Ambrosine have minded? From what Charlotte had told him, that was far from the case! She might even have been perversely pleased by the disgrace. Ottilie had said it was her motive for doing it in the first place, a desire to shock and distress her husband, to break out of the mold into which he had cast her. Of course she might well not see it so lucidly herself. But he found it impossible to believe she would commit murder to protect a secret she half wanted known.
Did she hate Lovell enough to have allowed Mina to blackmail him? In theory it was possible. It had an irony that would appeal to Ambrosine.
And yet he felt that he would have had some sense of the anger and the tension in Lovell, and of the bitter taste of satisfac shy;tion in Ambrosine herself. And he had not. To him she seemed just as elegantly imprisoned as before, and Lovell just as undis shy;turbed in his massive, impregnable security.
Mention of Ottilie had shaken Lovell's composure most markedly, and he had become white-lipped, sweat- browed. He had tried intensely to hide the whole affair. Yet Ambrosine left Pitt entirely comfortable!
Perhaps it was Alston Spencer-Brown after all? Maybe Mina's long-standing involvement with Tormod Lagarde had finally proved too much for him, and when Alston had learned that she was still enamored, he had procured more belladonna from some other doctor, in the city, poured it into the cordial, and left it to do its work.
All Pitt's investigations had pointed to the conclusion that Mina's infatuation with Tormod had been discreet but very real. Many a husband had killed for less, and Alston's ordinary exterior could hide a violent possessiveness, a sense of outrage where murder might seem to him no more than justice.
Pitt was driven back to the facts. The cordial wine was homemade, a mixture of elderberry and currants. People in Rutland Place did not make their own wines! Of course, it was impossible to tell who might have been given some, and if they had used it to mask poison, they would hardly own to its possession now.
The belladonna could have been distilled by anyone, or even crushed from the deadly nightshade plant itself, which, while less common than the brightly flowered woody nightshade, was far more lethal. It did not need the fruit that ripened in the autumn; even the leaves were sufficient. And they might be found in hedgerows or woodlands in any wild area in the south shy;east of the country.
It was perhaps a little early for a biennial plant, but in a sheltered place-ror even blown and taken root in a conservatory or hothouse? A few shoots above the ground would be enough.
The facts proved nothing. Anyone could have given her the bottle, at almost any time. Mina's servants had not seen i! before, or any like it, but then one does not always tell servants of cordial wine. It is not drunk at table. Anyone could have picked the nightshade and crushed the leaves. It required no skill, no special knowledge. It was well-known lore that the plant killed; every child was warned. Even its name told as much.
He was driven back again to motive, although you could not damn anyone on motive alone. One man will kill for sixpence, or because he feels he has been insulted. Another will lose reputation, fortune, and love-anything rather than commit murder,
He was still standing in the sun when a hansom cab swung around the far corner and clattered down the Place, jolting to a stop in front of the Lagardes' entrance.
Pitt was close enough to see Dr. Mulgrew practically fall out, clutching his bag, and scramble up the steps. The door opened before he got to it, and Mulgrew disappeared inside.
Pitt hesitated. Natural instinct prompted him to wait there a while and see what should happen' next. But then, since there was a man in desperate injury in the house, an emergency call for the doctor was not surprising and probably had nothing whatsoever to do with Mina's death. If Pitt were honest, he would admit that he was using the doctor's arrival as an excuse to put off the next round of questions.
When Pitt got to the Spencer-Browns' Alston was out, which in a way was a relief, although it only postponed what would have to be done another time. He contented himself with talking to the servants again, going over endless recollections, impressions, opinions.
He was still there, sitting in the kitchen accepting with consid shy;erable pleasure the cook's offer of luncheon with the rest of the servants, when the scullery door burst open, a maid ran in, and the smells of stew and puddings were dissipated by the scents of sharp wind and earthy vegetables.
'For goodness' sake, Elsie, close that door!' the cook snapped, 'Where were you brought up, girl?'
Elsie kicked at the door with one foot, obeying out of habit.
'Mr, Lagarde's dead, Mrs. Abbotts!' she said, her eyes like saucers. 'Just died this morning, so May from over the way says! Seen the doctor come, she did, and go again. A mercy, I says! Poor gentleman. So beautiful, he was. Reckon as he was destined to die. Some of us is. Shall I go and shut the blinds?'
