There was no reason why she should be, but Charlotte was startled. She realized she had formed a picture of him quite differently. If there had been a photograph in the newspapers, she had not seen it.
Perhaps Juno noticed her surprise. “Would you like to see him?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes… please.”
Juno stood up and opened a small, rolltop desk. She took out a photograph in a silver frame. Her hand was shaking as she held it out.
Charlotte took the picture. Had Juno kept it in the desk to avoid draping it in black, as if to her he were still alive? She would have done the same thing. And the unbearableness of Pitt’s being dead washed over her in a wave so immense for a moment she was dizzy with it.
Then she looked at the face in the frame. It was broad-boned, with a wide nose and wide, dark eyes. It was full of intelligence and humor, almost certainly a quick temper. It was vulnerable, the face of a man with profound emotions. He and Adinett might have had many interests in common, but their natures, as far as one could read, were utterly different. The only link was a bold, direct stare at the camera, the sense of dedication to a purpose.
Martin Fetters might also have made people uncomfortable, but it would be by his honesty, and she imagined he was a man who inspired deep friendship.
She gave it back with a smile. He was unique. She could think of nothing to say that would help the pain of his loss.
Juno replaced the picture where she had found it. “Do you want to see the library?” It was a question with many layers of meaning. It was where he had worked, where his books were, the key to his mind. It was also where he had been killed.
“Yes, please.” She rose and followed Juno into the hall and up the stairs. Juno stiffened as she approached the door, her shoulders square and rigid, but she grasped the handle and pushed it open.
It was a masculine room, full of leather, strong colors, walls lined with books on three sides. The fireplace had a brass fender padded in green leather. A tantalus stood on the table by the window, and there were three clean glasses.
Charlotte ’s eyes went to the large chair nearest the corner opposite and to the left, then to the smoothly turned polished ladder pushed hard up against the shelves. It was only three steps high, with a long central pole to hold on to. It would be necessary to use it in order to reach the top shelves, even for a tall man. If Martin Fetters had been little more than Juno’s height, he would have had to stand on the top step to see the titles on the uppermost shelf. This made it seem all the more unlikely that he would have kept his most frequently used books there.
She turned to the big chair, which was now placed some six feet from the corner and facing the center of the room. Given the position of the window, and the gas brackets on the wall, it was the obvious situation in which to have it in order to read.
Juno followed her thoughts. “It was over here,” she said, pushing her weight against it and heaving it until it was only three feet from the shelves and the wall. “He was lying with his head behind it. The steps were there.” She pointed to the far side.
Charlotte went to where his head must have been, squeezing behind the chair on her hands and knees. She turned to look towards the door, and could see nothing of that entire wall. She stood up again.
Juno was regarding her gravely. There was no need for either of them to say that they believed it had happened as Pitt had said and the jury had accepted. Any other way would have been awkward and unnatural.
Charlotte looked around the room more closely, reading the titles of the books. All those on the most easily accessible shelves were on subjects she realized after several minutes held one train of characteristics in common.
Farthest away from the most worn chair were books on engineering; steel manufacture; shipping; the language, customs and topography of Turkey in particular, and the Middle East in general. Then there were books on some of the great ancient cities: Ephesus, Pergamon, Izmir, and Byzantium under all its names from the Emperor Constantine to the present day.
There were other books on the history and culture of Turkish Islam: its beliefs, its literature, its architecture and its art from Saladin, in the Crusades, through the great sultans to its current precarious political state.
Juno was watching her.
“Martin began traveling when he was building railways in Turkey,” she said quietly. “That was where he met John Turtle Wood, who introduced him to archaeology, and he found he had a gift for it.” There was pride in her voice and a softness in her eyes. “He discovered some wonderful things. He would show them to me when he brought them home. He would stand in this room holding them in his hands… he had beautiful hands, strong, delicate. And he’d turn them ’round slowly, touching the surfaces, telling me where they were from, how long ago, what kind of people used them.”
She took a deep, shaky breath and continued.
“He would describe all he knew of their daily life. I remember one piece of pottery. It wasn’t a dish, as I thought at first; it was a jar for ointment. It was fanciful, perhaps, but as I looked at him, his face so full of excitement, I could see a real Helen of Troy, a woman who fired men’s imaginations with such passion two nations went to war for her, and one of them was ruined.”
Charlotte was angry for Pitt, and for the injustice that men she could not even name had the power to take so much from him. Now she was also touched with the reality of the loss of a man who had been loved, who was full of life, dreams and purpose.
“Where did he meet Adinett?” she asked. Archaeology was interesting, but there was no time to waste on such luxuries.
Juno recalled herself to the task.
“That came long after. Martin learned a lot from Wood, but he moved on. He met Heinrich Schliemann, and worked with him. He learned all sorts of new methods from the Germans, you know.” There was enthusiasm in her face. “They were the best at archaeology. They used to map a whole site and draw it all, not just bits and pieces. So afterwards anyone else could form a picture of a way of life, not just one household, or perhaps one aspect, such as from a temple or a palace.” Her voice dropped. “Martin loved it.”
“When was this?” Charlotte asked, sitting down in one of the chairs.
Juno sat opposite her. “Oh… I don’t think I know when Martin met Mr. Wood, but I know they started work on the site in Ephesus in ‘63. I think it was ‘69 when the British Museum bought the site and they started work on the Temple of Diana, and it must have been the following year that Martin met Mr. Schliemann.” Her eyes were distant with memory. “That’s when he fell in love with Troy and the whole idea of finding it. He could recite pages of Homer, you know…” She smiled. “In the English translation, not the original. At first I thought I would be bored by it… but I wasn’t. He cared so much I couldn’t help caring too.”
“And Adinett was a scholar in the same things?” Charlotte asked.
Juno looked startled. “Oh, no! Not at all. I don’t think he ever went to the Middle East, and he had no interest in archaeology that I heard of, and Martin would certainly have mentioned it.”
Charlotte was confused. “I thought they were good friends who spent much time together…”
“They were,” Juno assured her. “But it was ideals which they held in common, and admiration for other peoples and cultures. Adinett had been interested in Japan ever since his elder brother was posted there as part of the British Legation at Yedo-that’s the capital city. I believe it was attacked by some of the new reactionary authorities who were trying to expel all foreigners.”
“He traveled to the Far East?” Charlotte could not see any value in the information, but since she had not even the first thread of an idea as to the motive for murder, she would gather everything there was.
Juno shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was just fascinated by their culture. He lived in Canada for quite a long time, and he had a Japanese friend in the Hudson Bay Trading Company. They were very close. I don’t know his name. He always referred to him as Shogun. It was what he called him.”
“He talked about him?”
“Oh, yes.” Juno’s expression was bleak. “He was very interesting indeed. I listened to every word myself. I can see him across the dinner table as he told us of traveling over those great wastes of snow, how the light was, the cold, the vast polar sky, the creatures, and above all the beauty.
“There was something in it he loved, and it was there in his voice.
