“I don’t think you can help,” he said, pulling a face. “Judge Stafford was going to reopen the case of Kingsley Blaine’s death, but since he apparently left no notes on it, it looks as if it will remain closed—by default. Unless we can discover what he intended.”
“That is what we must try to do,” she said urgently. “Not only to clear his name but also to protect you—and Miss Macaulay.”
He smiled, but it was an expression full of self-mockery and pain.
“You think they will blame us for that death too?”
“It is not impossible,” she said quietly, a sudden chill inside her as she realized the truth of what she said. “They will have no choice, if neither Stafford’s widow nor her lover are guilty. It will be the natural thing to do.”
“I don’t think like a policeman,” he said ruefully. “But please do not stand out here in the hallway. Would it be very improper for you to come inside? The house is full of people.”
“Of course it would not,” she said quickly, feeling the color burn up her face. “Nobody could possibly imagine—” She broke off. What she had been going to say would have been rude. She was trying too hard, because the thoughts racing in her mind were absurd. “That you would be other than courteous,” she finished lamely, walking past him as he held the door open for her.
The room inside was highly individual, but the first glance startled her. She had previously met him only in the theater, or downstairs in the large sitting room of the Passmores, along with Tamar Macaulay. This room was quite markedly his. A huge portrait of the actor Edmund Keene, painted in sepia and black, decorated the far wall. It was dramatic in pose, and reached from the floor to above head height. It dominated the room with its presence, and made her realize far more powerfully than before how deeply he loved his art.
Along the narrow wall were shelves full of books. A small table was littered with papers which she thought were scripts of a play. Several easy chairs filled the open space, as if he frequently entertained many people, and she felt a sharp regret that she was not one of them, and could not be. A gulf of social status and experience divided them. Suddenly she felt horribly alone and outside all the laughter and the warmth.
“I wish I knew what to do about it.” He resumed the first conversation, pulling a chair a little straighter for her and holding it while she sat down. It was a gracious gesture, and yet it reminded her sharply that she was probably fifteen or sixteen years older than he, little short of a generation.
“We must fight back,” she said briskly, battling her own misery with anger. “We must find the truth that they have not. It is there—they simply were content to accept the easiest answer. We will not.”
He looked at her with dawning amazement—and admiration.
“Do you know how?”
“I have some idea,” she said with far more certainty than she felt. She sounded like Charlotte, and it was appalling—and exciting. “We will begin by making the acquaintance of the people concerned. Who are they? I mean—who are all the people who might know the truth, or some part of it?”
“I suppose Tamar and myself,” he replied, sitting down opposite her. “But we have talked about it so endlessly that I don’t think there can be anything we have not considered.”
“Well, if neither of you killed Mr. Blaine, and Aaron Godman did not, then there must be someone else involved,” she said reasonably. Pitt’s wry, intelligent face flashed into her mind, and she wondered if this was how he thought. “Who do you believe killed him?”
He thought for a moment, his chin resting on one hand. It might have seemed a theatrical pose in anyone else, and yet he looked totally natural. She was acutely conscious of his presence, of the sunlight from the window on the thick wave of his hair. He was too young for there to be any gray in the bright brown of it. Yet there were fine lines in the skin around his eyes; it was not a face without experience, or pain. There was none of the brashness or the untempered spirit of youth. Perhaps he was not so far short of forty.
But she was fifty-three. Merely naming it hurt.
“I suppose it has to be Devlin O’Neil,” he said, looking up at her at last. “Unless it is someone we know nothing about. I don’t suppose it is even imaginable that his wife knew he intended leaving her for Tamar, and employed someone to kill him.” A bitter humor lit his eyes for an instant, and then changed to pity. “That is, of course, if he really did mean to leave her. I don’t think he had much money of his own, and he would have given up a very comfortable life, and all social reputation. I’ve never told Tamar, but I think honestly it was unlikely he would have done such a thing. He probably told her he would because he really loved her, and couldn’t bear to lose her, so he lied, hoping to keep it going as long as he could. But we’ll never know.”
She chose deliberately to ask the most painful question. It was there in her mind, and it would get all the blows dealt at one time.
“And would she have married him? Isn’t she Jewish? What about her faith, marrying outside her own people?” She hated the words even as she heard herself saying them.
“Not desirable,” he admitted, meeting her eyes very directly. “But we are not very strict. She would have done it.”
“And her brother did not mind?” She pushed it to the sticking point.
“Aaron?” He lifted his shoulders very slightly. “He wasn’t pleased. And of course Passmore wouldn’t have been pleased either, if she had given up the stage and become a respectable matron—or perhaps respectable would have been impossible, since Blaine would have left his wife for her—but at least quietly domestic, raising a family. She is the best actress on the London stage at the moment—with the possible exception of Bernhardt.”
“So he would have wished Blaine … elsewhere?”
He smiled broadly. “Certainly, had he known about it. But he didn’t. He thought Blaine was just one more stage door johnnie. They were pretty discreet. And she did have other admirers, you know.”
“Yes, of course. I suppose it is natural.” Unconsciously she smoothed down her skirt.
“Very.”
“Then it comes back to Devlin O’Neil,” she said decisively. “We must make his acquaintance and learn all we can about him. If we cannot prove Aaron’s innocence, then we must prove someone else’s guilt.”
