“It is something a woman has to learn to resign herself to, Mr. Pitt. One tries not to believe it, but …” She looked up at him suddenly. “Yes, if I am honest, it had occurred to me. There were small things, absences that he did not explain, gifts, things I had not given him. I wondered …”
There was no need to tell her it had lasted thirty years. He could at least spare her that.
“Superintendent.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She was searching his face. “Is she—married?”
The reason for her question was obvious; it was the same thought which had driven Farnsworth.
“Why do you hesitate, Superintendent?” she asked, anxiety in her voice now. “Is she—very young?” She stumbled over the word. “She has a father, perhaps? Or a brother …” She trailed off.
“The house belongs to a man, Mrs. Arledge.”
Her brow puckered.
“I don’t understand. I thought you said—” She stopped.
He could no longer evade the issue.
“The person your husband loved is a man.”
She was totally confounded.
“A—a man …?”
“I am sorry.” He felt brutal and guilty of a terrible intrusion.
“But that’s—impossible!” Suddenly her face flushed scarlet and her eyes were wide, stunned. “It cannot be. You made a mistake. It’s—no—no!”
“I wish I had, ma’am, but I have not.”
“You must have,” she repeated foolishly. “It cannot be….”
“He admitted it readily, and your husband’s belongings, among them a silver-backed hairbrush, a pair to the one upstairs, were in the dressing room.”
“It’s—horrible,” she said, shaking her head repeatedly, fiercely. “Why have you told me this—this— monstrosity?”
“I would much rather not have, Mrs. Arledge,” he said with intense feeling. “If I could have allowed his secret to die with him, I would have done so. But I need to ask a great many more questions, and from them you would have known that there was something.” He looked at her earnestly, willing her to believe him. “You would have been left with all the horror and the fears, until perhaps you would have read about it in the newspapers instead.”
She stared at him helplessly, her face still full of denial.
“What questions?” she said at last. Her voice caught in her throat, but it was obvious that at last her intelligence was reasserting itself, in spite of the horror and her new, unimagined pain.
“Any other friends to whom your husband was extremely close?” he said gently. “Perhaps you could show me all the gifts he received that you did not give him, or know where they came from. Can you recall any occasions on which he was distressed in the last three or four weeks? When you think perhaps he may have been involved in a quarrel or a situation of high emotional anxiety or trouble.”
“You mean—you mean he may have quarreled with this man … over some other person?” She was quick to seize the point and all its implications.
“It is possible, Mrs. Arledge.”
She was very pale. “Yes—yes I suppose it is. And when I look back, how dreadfully it makes sense.” She covered her face with her hands and sat motionless. He saw her shoulders rise and fall as she breathed deeply, in and out, in an effort to retain control of herself.
He stood up and went to the chiffonnier to see if he could find a decanter of sherry or Madeira to pour for her. It took him only a moment to see it and return with a glass. He waited until she looked up.
“Thank you,” she said very quietly, accepting it with trembling hands. “You are most considerate, Superintendent. I am sorry to have so little mastery of myself. I have had a shock I could never have imagined—in my wildest and most fearful dreams. It will take me some little time to—to believe it.” She looked down at the glass in her hands and sipped the sherry, and then her face crumpled. “I suppose I do have to believe it?”
He was still standing close to her.
“I am afraid it is true, Mrs. Arledge. But it does not invalidate all that was good in him, his generosity, his love and reverence for what was beautiful, his humor …”
“How can you …” she began, then bit back the words. “Poor Aidan.” She lifted her eyes. “Superintendent, will this have to be made public? Couldn’t he be allowed to rest in peace? It is not his crime that he was murdered. If he had died in his sleep no one would ever have known.”
“I wish I could promise it to you,” he said honestly. “But if this man is implicated in his death, then it will become public in all probability as soon as he is arrested. Certainly at his trial.”
She looked as if he had struck her. It was several moments before she could master concentration to form her next question, and he stood by helplessly, wishing there were anything at all he could do to ease her burden.
“Do you believe this—this man—killed Aidan, Superintendent?” she said at last, her voice tight with the effort of control.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I am inclined to think not. There is no evidence that he did, but it seems very
