He sighed, it was natural. Who ever does believe such a thing of a husband or a wife?
'Did he do it?' she asked solemnly.
It was the question he had been avoiding ever since he walked out of the courtroom. He did not want to talk about it now, but he knew she would insist until he gave her an answer.
'I imagine so,' he said wearily. 'But I am not part of the jury, so what I think doesn't matter. I gave them all the evidence I had.'
She was not so easily put off. He noticed the sewing was idle in her lap. She had the thimble on her finger and had threaded the needle, but she had not put it through the cloth.
'That's not an answer,' she said, frowning at him. 'Do you believe he did it?'
He took a deep breath and let it out silently.
'I can't think of anyone else.' 144
She was onto it immediately. 'That means you don't believe it!'
'It doesn't!' She was being unfair, illogical. 'It means just what I said, Charlotte. I cannot think of any other explanation, therefore I have to accept that it was Jerome. It makes excellent sense, and there is nothing whatsoever against it-no awkward facts that have to be faced, nothing unexplained, nothing to indicate anyone else. It's a pity about Eugenie, and I understand the way she feels. I'm as sorry as you are! Criminals sometimes have nice families- innocent and likable, and they suffer like hell! But that doesn't stop Jerome from being guilty. You can't fight it and you won't help by trying. You certainly can't help Eugenie Jerome by encouraging her to believe there is some hope. There isn't! Now accept it, and leave it alone!'
'I've been thinking,' she replied, exactly as if he had not spoken.
'Charlotte!'
She took no notice of him.
'I've been thinking,' she repeated. 'If Jerome is innocent, then someone else must be guilty.'
'Obviously,' he said crossly. He did not want to think about it anymore. It was not a good case, and he wanted to forget it. It was finished. 'And there isn't anyone else implicated at all,' he added in exasperation. 'No one else had any reason.'
'They might have!'
'Charlotte-'
'They might have!' she insisted. 'Let's imagine Jerome is innocent and that he is telling the truth! What do we know for a fact?'
He smiled sourly at the 'we.' But there was no purpose in trying any longer to evade talking about it. He could see she was going to follow it to the bitter end.
'That Arthur Waybourne was homosexually used,' he answered. 'That he had syphilis, and that he was drowned in bathwater, almost certainly by having his heels jerked up so his head went under the water and he couldn't get up again. And his body was put down a manhole into the sewers. It is almost impossible that he drowned by accident, and completely impos-
145
sible that he put his own body into the sewer.' He had answered her question and it told them nothing new. He looked at her, waiting for acceptance in her face.
It was not there. She was thinking.
'Then Arthur had a relationship with someone, or with several people,' she said slowly.
'Charlotte! You're making the boy seem like-like a-' He struggled for a word that would not be too coarse or too extreme.
'Why not?' She raised her eyebrows and stared at him. 'Why should we assume that Arthur was nice? Lots of people who get murdered have brought it upon themselves, one way or another.
