“Where are you going?” he said in surprise. “You’re not going to Eudora?”
“No … I’m going to Justine.”
“Why?”
She put her robe on and tied the long sash. She was completely awake now, but she did not bother to wash her face from the ewer of cold water or run the brush over her tangled hair.
“Because I want to tell her she didn’t kill Ainsley Greville. She thinks she did.”
He stood up. “Charlotte, I don’t know that I want Justine to know ….”
“Yes you do,” she said firmly. “If you have to arrest Padraig Doyle tomorrow, you need this dealt with tonight. Don’t come with me. I can speak to her better on my own. We need to know the truth.”
He sat frozen on the bed. She was right in that they needed the truth, but he also dreaded it.
She went quietly along the corridor, across the landing and into the other wing. The whole house was silent. Everyone had long since gone to bed, apart from Pitt and Tellman, and presumably Piers. But he would not go to Justine’s room at this hour, and certainly not after what he had just been involved in. He would not take the smell and the emotional chaos of such a thing to her.
It was dim in the corridor, the gaslamps on very low, only sufficient to guide anyone who might wish to get up for any personal reason. She knocked on Justine’s door once, sharply, then without waiting for a reply, went in.
It was in darkness and complete silence.
“Justine,” she said in a soft voice, but well above a whisper.
There was a faint sound of movement, then a crinkle of bedclothes.
“Who is it?” Justine’s voice was tight, afraid.
“It’s Charlotte. Please turn up the light. I can’t see where it is.”
“Charlotte?” There was a moment’s silence, then more movement and the light came on.
Charlotte could see Justine sitting up in bed, but wide awake, her ink-black hair over her shoulders and a look of anxiety and puzzlement in her face.
“Has something happened?” she said quietly. “Something more?”
Charlotte came over and sat on the end of the bed. She must learn the truth from Justine, but she could think of no subterfuge with which to trick her in any way, nor did she want to trick her.
“Not really,” she said, making herself comfortable. “But we know more than we did at dinnertime, although we knew quite a lot then.”
Justine’s face reflected no emotion except relief that no further disaster had happened.
“Do you? Do you know who killed Mr. McGinley yet?”
“No.” Charlotte smiled in sad irony. “But we know who did not kill Mr. Greville ….”
“We already know who did not,” Justine said, still keeping a suitably good temper in the circumstances. “Mr. O’Day and Mr. McGinley, and the valet Hennessey, if you had considered him. I hope you would know it was not Mrs. Greville, or Piers, but I suppose you cannot take that for granted. Is that what you have come to say … that it was not Mrs. Greville?” She put her hand on the covers as if to get out.
Charlotte leaned forward and stopped her.
“I don’t know whether it was Mrs. Greville or not.” She met Justine’s dark eyes levelly. “But I should think it unlikely, although she might very well know who did. It was someone very skilled, very professional at killing.” She watched Justine closely, her eyes, her movement. “It was done with one very accurate blow.”
Justine sat absolutely motionless, but she could not keep the start of shock from her eyes. The instant after came a shadow of fear as she wondered how much Charlotte knew, what she had seen in her face. Then it was gone again.
“Was it?” she asked, her voice very nearly steady. Any huskiness in it could easily be attributed to the unpleasantness of the subject and the fact that she had been awoken from the first deep sleep of the night.
“Yes. His neck was broken.”
This time the surprise was accompanied by bewilderment, and for all her iron will and practiced composure she could not hide it. She masked it the instant she saw the recognition in Charlotte’s eyes. She shuddered in revulsion.
“How horrible!”
“It is cold-blooded,” Charlotte agreed. She clenched her hands in her lap where Justine could not see them. “Less understandable than the person who came in after that, with a maid’s cap on and a maid’s dress over her own, and walked behind him with ajar of bath salts in her hand and hit him over the back of the head, then, believing him senseless from the blow, pushed him under the water and held him there.”
Justine was white. She grasped the sheets as if they kept her afloat from drowning.
“Did … somebody … do that?”
“Yes.” Charlotte kept all doubt out of her voice.
“How …” Justine swallowed in spite of her effort at control. “How do you … know that?”
“She was seen. At least her shoes were seen.” Charlotte smiled very slightly, not a smile of triumph or blame. “Blue fabric slippers, stitched on the sides, with blue heels. Not a maid’s shoes. You wore them today at luncheon, with your muslin dress.”
This time Justine made no pretense. She would not lose her dignity so far as to continue to fight when the
