as if you were touched with it too.”
“No it wouldn’t!” Emily contradicted her. “You couldn’t blame—”
“It may not be fair,” Charlotte went on, cutting across her, “but that is how you would feel. Weren’t you embarrassed when your friends commented on Mama being seen with Joshua?”
“Yes. But that’s—” Emily stopped, realization flooding her face. “Yes, of course,” she said quickly. “And that’s nothing, beside this. I see what you mean. One would feel as if one had contributed to it, even if by sheer ignorance of something terribly, hideously wrong. One would fight against believing it to the very last, unarguable fact.” Her face crumpled with pity. “How truly appalling.”
“I suppose it could conceivably be Mina,” Charlotte said slowly. “She might protect her brother, especially if he killed Winthrop to protect her.”
“I can’t think who else,” Emily was thinking aloud. “Mr. Carvell hasn’t a wife, and no one knows anything about the omnibus conductor.”
“Do you suppose Mrs. Arledge might know anything?” Charlotte asked dubiously, half hating herself for speaking ill, even by suggestion, of Dulcie. Pitt so obviously admired her, and with excellent cause. It seemed small-minded to raise her name in this connection.
“Such as what?” Emily asked. “I doubt she has the faintest idea who killed Arledge, or she would have told Thomas, to get the matter cleared up and get the police out of her house. Then she could continue with her life discreetly.”
Charlotte stared at her. “What do you mean, ‘discreetly’? You sound as if you thought she had something to hide.”
“Oh Charlotte, at times you are obtuse,” Emily said with a patient smile. “Dulcie has an admirer, or maybe more than that. Haven’t you seen?”
Charlotte was taken completely by surprise.
“No! Who is it? Are you sure? How could you know?”
“I don’t know who it is, but I know he exists. It’s obvious.” Emily shook her head a little. “Haven’t you looked at her, I mean really looked?”
“At what?”
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Charlotte!” Emily said exasperatedly. “At the way she dresses, the little touches, the dainty mourning brooch, the lace, the perfect fit of her gown around the waist and the fashionable sleeves set with the point at the shoulder. And she wears a beautiful perfume. She walks as if she knows people are watching her. And even when she is not speaking to anyone there is a …”—she shrugged—“… a sort of composure about her, as if she knew something special and secret, and very delicious. Really, Charlotte, if you don’t know a woman in love when you see one, you are a useless detective. In fact, even as a woman you are extraordinarily unintelligent.”
“I thought it was …” Charlotte protested.
“What?”
“I don’t know … courage?”
Emily smiled and nodded at an acquaintance who had campaigned for Jack, then continued urgently. “I don’t doubt she has courage too, but that doesn’t give anyone that inner satisfaction, it doesn’t make you smile for no reason, and glance at yourself in mirrors, and always look your very best, just in case you run into him.”
Charlotte stared at her. “How did you observe her so much? I only saw her at the Requiem.”
“You don’t need to see anyone very much to notice that. What were you thinking of that you didn’t see?”
Charlotte blushed, remembering what her feelings had been. “I wonder if it matters,” she said, changing the subject.
“Of course it doesn’t matter,” Emily replied, then stopped. “What are you talking about? Does what matter?”
“Who it is, of course!” She drew in her breath sharply. “Emily, do you think—I mean …”
“Yes,” Emily said instantly, not even noticing an elderly man who was trying to attract her attention. He gave up and moved away. “We must find out,” she continued. “I don’t know how, but we must discover who it is.”
“Do you suppose it could be Bart Mitchell? Maybe that is the connection Thomas is looking for.”
“Tomorrow morning we shall begin,” Emily promised. “I shall think about what to do, and so can you.”
They were interrupted, before the quite unnecessary ending could be added, by Caroline and Joshua arriving, both dressed very formally and looking excited and happy.
“Oh thank goodness,” Emily said with immense relief. “I really thought she was not going to come.” She moved forward to welcome her mother, and Charlotte came immediately behind her.
“Congratulations, my dear,” Caroline said ebulliently, kissing Emily on the cheek. “I am delighted for you. I am sure Jack will be magnificent, and there is certainly much to be done. Where is he?”
“Over there, talking to Sir Arnold Maybury,” Emily replied. She looked at Joshua’s charming, mobile face with its very slightly crooked nose and wry smile. “I’m glad you came too. Jack will be very pleased.”
“Of course he came too,” Caroline said with an odd little smile. Then she turned and looked up at Joshua, her face flushed and suddenly self-conscious.
This time it was Charlotte who noticed, and Emily who was unaware.
“Mama?” Charlotte said slowly. “What do you mean?”
Emily looked at her, frowning. It sounded such a foolish question. She was about to make some impatient remark, then she realized she had missed a nuance, something far more important than the words. She waited,
