Farriers' Lane

Charlotte looked at Adah again, and then she knew what the emotion was that tore at her: guilt.

Why?

Was it still because Prosper had a clubfoot and she felt responsible? That ridiculous idea that her husband had defiled himself with a Jewess, and then contaminated her, causing her unborn child’s deformity?

Adah looked around and caught Charlotte staring. Her eyes widened.

Charlotte gulped and felt her face flush.

“I am so grateful to you for inviting us.” She forced the words out of her mouth and felt an abject hypocrite. “It is a marvelous drama. What that woman is suffering for her child. I find it most moving—” She stopped. The words stuck on her tongue.

“I am pleased you are enjoying it,” Adah said with an effort. “Yes, it is very powerful.”

They sat in silence for several more minutes, perhaps almost a quarter of an hour. Then the action of the stage came to a climax with the entrance of the child in the play. Charlotte had not expected a real child and she was startled when he appeared, slender, fair-haired, with a wistful, innocent face. He reminded her intensely of someone else she had seen, but she could not think who. He was nothing like her own children, he was fairer, softer of feature.

Then she heard Kathleen O’Neil gasp and saw her hand fly to her lips as if to stifle a further cry, and behind her Prosper Harrimore’s hand clench so tight on the chair back, his nails drew a thin trickle of blood down his wrist.

The child was startlingly like Kathleen’s daughter, only this was a boy, or dressed to look like one. They must have been within a few months of the same age. And the child stood in front of Tamar Macaulay, his mother in the drama, and surely in life as well?

Kingsley Blaine’s child—by a Jewess—a beautiful child, perfect in face and limb. Tamar must have carried him when Kathleen was carrying her daughter.

With a sudden sick realization Charlotte understood Adah’s guilt, and the fear she had seen in her before—and what emotion it was which drew blood in Prosper Harrimore’s clenched hands.

It was not Aaron Godman who had killed Kingsley Blaine, nor was it Joshua Fielding in jealousy, nor Devlin O’Neil to win Kathleen. It was Prosper Harrimore, hating and fearing that which was different and which he thought responsible for his own imperfection, his deformity. And then history had repeated itself with his daughter betrayed by her husband with a Jewess; and while she was carrying his child—another child to be born deformed, imperfect.

There was no proof, no way to be sure except in her own intense conviction. But she had no doubt. It was there in Adah’s face, and it was in his as he stared at the child on the stage.

11

“HARRIMORE?” Drummond said incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense, Pitt! For heaven’s sake, why?” He stood in front of the bookcase in his office. The fire was burning strongly, its warmth spreading through the room. “He may have discovered that Blaine was deceiving his daughter, but no sane man murders over something like that! He could have stopped him easily enough, if he had just confronted him with it! After all, Blaine was dependent on him for his livelihood.” He looked at Pitt sharply. “And don’t tell me he confronted Blaine in the smithy’s yard in Farriers’ Lane and they fought over it. That’s rubbish. He could have faced him with it quite comfortably in his own home. The man lived in his house. He didn’t need to rig up an elaborate charade to get Blaine to Farriers’ Lane in the middle of the night. And you’ll have to do better than tell me Prosper Harrimore is insane. He’s a thoroughly well thought of member of the business community, at least as respectable as anyone in trade can be.”

Pitt smiled very slightly. “You’ve answered all the arguments I haven’t made,” he replied.

“What?” Drummond frowned. He was sharper tempered and slower of perception than usual. Pitt knew his heart was no longer in the pursuit.

“I said that you have answered all the reasons I did not give,” he repeated.

“Oh. So what reason do you believe Harrimore had for murdering his son-in-law? How did you come to the conclusion anyway? You haven’t told me that.”

Pitt bit his lip and felt abashed.

“That is less easy. Actually Charlotte came to the conclusion.” He looked at Drummond quickly, but did not see the impatience he expected. He drew breath and plunged on. “She had cultivated the acquaintance of Adah Harrimore, Prosper’s mother, and spent some time in conversation with her. We knew she had very deep feelings against Jews, but I assumed it dated from her belief that a Jew murdered her granddaughter’s husband in a particularly brutal and offensive way.” He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, a comfort he would not have felt possible in front of any other superior.

“A great many people felt the same who didn’t even know him. But it seems her anti-Jewish feeling dates from long before that; in fact it has been there probably from childhood. She believes Jews are unclean, that they are responsible for the crucifixion of Christ.”

“They are,” Drummond exclaimed, his eyes troubled.

“Of course they are,” Pitt retorted exasperatedly. “Almost everyone in the entire story, good, bad and indifferent, including Christ Himself, was Jewish! So were Mary, and Mary Magdalene, and the apostles. All the Old Testament prophets as well.”

“I suppose so.” Drummond frowned as if the thought were new to him. “But what has that to do with Adah Harrimore, and still less to do with Prosper?”

“She subscribes to the view, held by several people,” Pitt explained with embarrassment, “especially prize stock breeders—I came across this when I was growing up in the country—if a good bitch gets out and gets with pup to a mongrel—”

“Pitt! For God’s sake, man,” Drummond exploded. “What the devil are you talking about?”