'May I ask how you met him, Lady Holcroft?'
'He was at Court one afternoon. His brother was one of the musicians there and he had been invited along to hear him. We met by chance,' she said, looking away, 'and that's all I'm prepared to tell you about it. Henry, I know, took a different view of it all.'
'He felt that he had been dispossessed.'
She flashed her eyes at him. 'He never possessed me, Mr Redmayne,' she said with controlled anger. 'He had no claim whatsoever upon me. I told him that a dozen times. He was nursing an illusion.'
'Henry is rather prone to do that,' admitted Christopher. 'But illusions can exert a tremendous power. In my brother's case, it provoked an extreme hatred. Not of you, Lady Holcroft - that would be unthinkable - but of the other person we are talking about.'
'Go on.'
'It made the two of them sworn enemies. They were rivals for your affection.'
'No!' she said sharply. 'What kind of person do you take me to be? I do not play one man off against another like that. Henry was never more than a friend and he ceased to be that. It was weeks before…' She broke off and took a deep breath. 'This is very painful for me, Mr Redmayne. I hoped that these chapters in my life were closed. I'm afraid there's little I can add that may be of help to you.'
'Answer me this,' he said. 'Do you believe that my brother is guilty of murder?'
'I'd not be here if I believed that.'
'Thank you, Lady Holcroft. That means so much to me.'
'Henry would never hurt me deliberately,' she said, 'and I was deeply upset by that particular death. Even though my friendship with that gentleman had come to an end, I was stricken by the news. And I was even more distressed when your brother was arrested for the crime. He'd not do such a thing to me.' She lifted her chin with patrician pride. 'He'd not dare!'
Christopher began rearranging questions in his mind. Lady Holcroft was not at all the helpless victim of an Italian lover that he had been led to expect. Nor did she requite his brother's love in the manner that Henry had implied. There was a hard edge to her. She would divulge nothing that would be of use to him unless she was sure that it did not compromise her. Yet he saw a potential weakness. She had something of a temper. If he could play on that, he might find out what he wanted to know.
'Henry could not bear the way that his rival treated you, Lady Holcroft.'
'They were not rivals,' she retorted. 'Not in the sense that you mean.'
'They were, in Henry's imagination.'
'That was always far too lively, Mr Redmayne. It was one of the things that persuaded me that our friendship had to end. Your brother, alas, began to make certain assumptions.'
'About what?'
She was curt. 'That's a private matter and, in any case, no longer relevant.'
'It is to Henry. He still reveres you.'
'I've not encouraged him to do that.'
'But it explains why he was deeply upset when you were cast aside.'
'I beg your pardon!' she said with indignation.
'Henry claimed that the other gentleman took advantage of you.'
'He did nothing of the kind, sir.' Cheeks blushing, she jumped to her feet. 'I regard that as a cruel insult.'
'It was not intended to be, Lady Holcroft.'
'Neither you nor your brother know anything about that particular friendship.'
'But the gentleman did bring that friendship to a sudden end, did he not?'
'No, Mr Redmayne,' she snapped, wrestling to contain her fury. 'I did that. No man would ever cast me aside. I dispense with
'The error was entirely of my brother's making,' he said, rushing to intercept her. 'Henry is the victim of a misunderstanding. He felt sorry for you because he thought that you were abandoned when the other gentleman tired of you.'
'It was I who tired of him and his infernal questions.'
'Questions?'
'You are standing in my way, Mr Redmayne.'
'What sort of questions did he ask?'
'The wrong ones, sir,' she said coldly. 'And you have done the same.'
Christopher stood aside. 'Thank you for coming, Lady Holcroft. I appreciate it.'
Without a word, she swept past him into the hall and out through the front door. A moment later, he heard the coach pulling away from the house. Susan came into the parlour with a look of consternation.
'Lady Holcroft has just left without me,' she said.
'That was my fault,' admitted Christopher. He gave her a warm smile. 'I suppose that I'll have to take responsibility for getting you back to your friends.'
Susan relaxed visibly. 'There's no hurry,' she said.
A cold night in Newgate had left its imprint on Pietro Maldini. On the advice of Jonathan Bale, the Italian had been locked in a cell with fifteen other prisoners, sharing their stink, deafened by their noise and recoiling from their abuse. They mocked his accent, they reviled his nation and more than one of them felt obliged to punch or jostle him. He was already in pain. The blood had been cleansed from his face but nothing could be done about the broken nose and it throbbed unmercifully. After a sleepless night, Maldini was hollow- eyed and frightened. The fierce rage that had brought him to Newgate in the first place had been drained out of him.
Jonathan had him moved to a small private room so that he could talk to him in relative comfort. Maldini was pathetically grateful even though the constable had been the person who stopped him from achieving his objective. Stripped down to shirt and breeches, he cut a forlorn figure, the once handsome face disfigured by the broken nose, the neat black beard caked with wisps of straw. They sat either side of a bare wooden table. Jonathan explained who he was and why he had come. Maldini was in a daze. His command of English was good, his accent quite pronounced.
'What will happen to me?' he asked.
'You'll have to stand trial on a charge of attempted murder, sir,' said Jonathan. 'You tried to kill Mr Redmayne and we believe that you made two attempts to kill his brother as well.'
'I had to do it. That man, he stabbed Jeronimo in the back. I want revenge.'
'People are not allowed to take the law into their own hands in this country. In any case, you attacked the wrong people. There's growing evidence to suggest that Henry Redmayne is not guilty of the murder and his brother, of course, was not involved in any way. You might have killed two completely innocent men.'
'No,' denied the other. 'Henry Redmayne, he stabbed my brother. Everyone say so. Jeronimo's friend, he told me it was true.'
'His friend?'
'Captain Harvest.'
'Ah,' said Jonathan. 'I had a feeling that he might be involved somehow.'
Speaking slowly, he told the prisoner how the soldier had been exposed as an impostor and how he was liable for arrest on a number of charges. Maldini listened with increasing discomfort. When he heard that the man was under suspicion for the murder as well, he was confused.
'No,' he said, 'this cannot be. The captain, he was Jeronimo's friend.'
'I know that he worked at the fencing school with your brother.'
'It was more than that. Jeronimo, he told me this man was a great help to him.'
'In what way, sir?'
'He did not say. My brother and me, we did not speak often. Our lives, they were very different. But I still loved him,' he asserted. 'When I hear of his death, I have to get revenge. It's - what do you call it - a matter of honour?'
'I see no honour at all in trying to throttle a man to death,' said Jonathan harshly, 'especially as he may well turn out to have nothing to do with this crime.'
