though there were too many of them for this room. He had given several of the pictures to his daughters, but there was still the Land-seer and the small Bonnington seascape. He would never willingly part with them.
Now he stood in his large bay window looking towards Green Park and tried to disentangle his thoughts.
What about the other names on the list, the second list? From what Pitt had said, Addison Carswell was almost certainly being blackmailed. And he could not, or would not, account for his time the night Weems was killed. Was the wretched man really so besotted with the Hilliard girl he would rather risk everything he possessed-not just his home and his family, but his very life-by murdering Weems, rather than simply give her up? Thousands of men all over London had mistresses, all over England, for that matter. If one was discreet, it mattered little.
What could Weems have done, at the very worst? Told Mrs. Carswell? What of it? If she did not know, or guess, and if this was the first time he had strayed, she might well be distressed. But if you keep a mistress, a wife’s distress is not an agony to you-certainly not worth risking the hangman’s rope for. His daughters? Grieved, angry perhaps; but they were old enough to have some awareness of the ways of the world, and hardly in a position to do anything worse than cool their affection for him, treat him to some isolation in his own house. That could certainly be unpleasant, but again, the smallest triviality compared with the unpleasantness of murder and its consequences. And as a magistrate, he would be acutely aware of just how fearful those consequences were. He, more than most, would know what a spell in Coldbath Fields or Newgate could do to a man, let alone the rope.
And what had happened to Byam’s letter, and Weems’s record of his payments to him? Byam had been so sure they were there, he had actually called Drummond and confessed his connection with Weems, the blackmail and the death of Laura Anstiss and thus his motive for killing him. Without them he would never have been connected with it at all.
His thoughts were interrupted by the manservant standing in the doorway, coughing discreetly.
“Yes, Goodall, what is it?”
Goodall’s thin face was very nearly expressionless.
“There is a Lady Byam to see you, sir.”
It was ridiculous. Drummond felt his breath catch in his throat and the color rush to his face.
“Lady Byam?” he repeated pointlessly.
“Yes sir.” Goodall’s eyebrows rose so minutely it might have been Drummond’s imagination.
“Ask her to come in.” Drummond swallowed and turned away. What had happened? Why had Eleanor Byam come here to see him, to his house, and in the evening, though it was still daylight, and would be for another two hours. It was an extraordinary thing to do. Something must be wrong.
Goodall opened the door again and Drummond swung around to see Eleanor just inside the room. She was wearing a dark dress of some color between navy and gray, or perhaps it was green. It looked like the sky a little after dusk, and there was a soft bloom to her skin, reminding him that for all the cool colors of her clothes she would be warm to the touch, and very alive.
Of all the idiotic and wildly inappropriate thoughts! The heat he could feel in his face must make him look as if he were running a fever.
“Good evening, Lady Byam,” he said hastily, moving forward to greet her.
Goodall closed the door and they were alone.
“Good evening, Mr. Drummond,” she replied a little hesitantly. “It is very kind of you to see me without notice like this, and at such an hour.” She touched her lips with her tongue, as though her mouth were dry and speech difficult for her. Obviously she too was aware that this was a circumstance requiring some explanation. Women of respectability, let alone quality, did not come alone to visit the houses of single gentlemen, uninvited and at such a time of day. She took a deep breath. He could see the rise of her breast and the tiny pulse beating in her throat. “I came because I felt I must talk to you about the case,” she hurried on, still standing just inside the door, the colors of the carpet between them bright with the low evening sunlight. “I know you promised to tell my husband if there were any new events that touched on us-but I find waiting more than I can bear.” She stopped abruptly and for the first time met his eyes.
Her words were ordinary; the apology he would have expected, the reasons could be understood by anyone, but far more powerful than that he could see the fear in her. Her body was stiff under the soft muslin gown and the shawl around her shoulders, a matter of decorum rather than necessity in this warm evening.
He forgot himself for a moment in his desire to make her feel at ease.
“I understand,” he said quickly. “It is most natural.” He felt nothing ridiculous in saying this, although in all his years in the police force no other woman had called upon him in his house because she could not contain her anxiety. But then he had never been involved in a case like this. “Please don’t feel the need to apologize. I wish there had been more I could have told you so this would not have been necessary.” Then he heard his words in his own ears and was afraid she might think he meant to make her visit avoidable. He fumbled but could think of no way of undoing it without being overful-some, and that might be worse. He would appear such a fool.
She swallowed and looked even more uncomfortable, aware that she was intruding in his home with a matter which was strictly professional. They had no acquaintance other than his attempt to help her husband, for reasons of which she knew nothing. The Inner Circle permitted no women-nor indeed did any secret society of which he had ever heard. Such organizations were a totally masculine preserve.
She opened her mouth to make some apology, and looked as if she was even considering retreating.
“Please,” he said hastily. “Please allow me to take your shawl.” He stepped forward and held his hand ready, thinking that to reach for it would be precipitate.
She took it off slowly and handed it to him, a tiny smile on her lips. “You are very generous. I should not have intruded into your time this way, but I wanted to speak to you so much, and not at the police station…”
For a ridiculous instant his heart leaped. Then he told himself furiously that her eagerness was born solely of her fear-fear for her husband-and was in no way personal.
“What may I do to help you?” he said more stiffly than he had intended, placing the shawl clumsily over the back of the sofa.
She looked down at the floor, still standing, just a few feet from him. He was aware of the very faint perfume of some flower he could not identify, and he knew it was she, her hair and her skin.
“Inspector Pitt is doing all he can,” he began tentatively. “And he is making progress. He has discovered strong evidence against several other suspects.”
She looked up quickly and met his eyes.
“It seems terrible to say that I am glad, doesn’t it? Some other poor woman somewhere may be just as afraid as I am, only for her it will end in tragedy.”
Without thinking he reached out his hand and touched her arm.
“You cannot change it for her,” he said gently. “You have no cause to feel oppressed by a grief that you did not create and cannot help.”
“I-” She stopped, her face deeply troubled.
He became aware of his hand still on her arm and removed it quickly. Was that what she had been going to say? That he had trespassed; he was taking advantage of her anxiety to be more familiar than he would have had this been her house, and he the supplicant?
They both began to speak at once, he simply to say her name. He stopped abruptly.
“I’m sorry-”
She smiled fleetingly and then was desperately serious again.
“I know that you told Sholto you will do everything you can, and to begin with that seemed to ease my mind so much that it was almost as if the matter were already over. But now he is so worried he is ill with it.” Her lips tightened for a moment. “He tries to conceal it from me, so as not to frighten me, but I hear him up during the night, pacing the floor, and for long hours the light is on in his study.” She looked at him with a flash of humor so bleak he longed to be able to comfort her. He tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing.
“You will think I intrude into my husband’s affairs,” she went on quickly, looking downward, abashed. “But I don’t. I was simply concerned in case he was ill. I went downstairs to see if there were anything I could do to help…” She stopped and raised her eyes slowly, her voice very soft. “I found him in his study, not working as I had thought, but pacing the floor back and forth.” She bit her lip. “He was angry when he saw me in the doorway, and he denied there was anything wrong. But I know him, Mr. Drummond. He will work late, if there is occasion to. I have seen him stay up till one or two in the morning often. But never before in the eighteen years we have been married has he gone to bed, and then risen at three o’clock to go down and pace the floor of the study, with no
