“What is it?” he asked when the door was closed.
She stood in front of him, very earnest. For the first time he noticed signs of strain in her, a momentary hesitation, a small muscle working in the side of her jaw. This must be appalling for her. She had arrived at the house of strangers, at the invitation of the man she intended to marry, in order to meet his parents. They had stumbled into a political conference of the most delicate and volatile nature. And the very next morning they had awoken to the murder of Greville, and then the long, draining task of trying to comfort and sustain Eudora when Justine should have been the center of attention and happiness herself.
He admired her courage and her unselfishness, that she had borne it not only with dignity but considerable charm. Piers had found a remarkable woman. Pitt was not surprised he was determined to marry her—and had informed his parents rather than sought their permission. He respected Piers for that more than he had previously realized.
“Mr. Pitt,” Justine began quietly, “Mrs. Greville told me what you have been obliged to tell her about her maid, Doll Evans.” She breathed in deeply. He could see the fabric of her gown tighten as her body stiffened. She seemed to be weighing her words with intense care, uncertain even now whether to say this or not.
“I wish it had not been necessary,” he said. “There is much I wish she did not have to hear.”
“I know.” The ghost of a smile crossed Justine’s face. “There are many truths it would be better to hide. Life can be difficult enough with what we have to know. Things can be rebuilt more easily if we do not shatter them before we have the strength to cope with the magnitude of it. When you see the whole task, it can be too much. One loses the courage even to try, and then you are defeated from the beginning.”
“What is it you want to say, Miss Baring? I cannot take back what I told her. I would not have spoken at all without having done all I could to make sure it was true.”
“I understand that. But are you sure it was, Mr. Pitt, really sure?”
“Doll told Mrs. Pitt’s maid. Gracie hated breaking the confidence, but she realized that it might be at the core of this crime. It is a very real motive for murder. Surely you can see that?” he asked gently.
“Yes.” Her face was tight with emotion. “If he really did that to her, then I can … I can see how she might have felt he deserved to die. And it seems he did … have affairs with other women, acquaintances … but, Mr. Pitt, they are none of them here in this house now! Isn’t all that matters who is here now, and could have killed Mr. Greville? Can’t you let all the past indiscretions be buried with him, for Mrs. Greville’s sake, and Piers … and even for poor Doll? After all, Doll was with Mrs. Greville almost all the time you are speaking about. And …”
“And what?”
Again she stiffened, her face tight with anxiety.
“And you do not know that the story is true. Yes, of course Doll was with child, and unspeakable as it is”—her eyes were hard with suppressed fury—“she had little chance but to have the child aborted. That would be a better death than any other it faced. But you don’t know that Mr. Greville was responsible.”
He stared at her, for a moment taken aback.
“But she said it was Greville. Who … what are you saying? That she blamed him when it was someone else? Why? Greville’s dead … murdered. To blame him makes her a suspect when no one would have thought of her otherwise. It makes no sense.”
She looked back at him with wide eyes, almost black, her body tense like an animal ready to fight. Was she so in love with Piers she must defend his father with this fierceness and determination? He admired her for it. The uniqueness of her face was no accident, the sudden strength where one had expected only beauty.
“Yes it does,” she argued. “If she had already said it was Greville, before, she couldn’t go back on it now. And better she tell someone first, before anyone else did, and she appear to have hidden it and lied. So she told Gracie, knowing it would come back to you.”
“She didn’t know it would. Gracie very nearly didn’t tell me.”
She smiled with a flash of humor. “Really, Mr. Pitt! Gracie’s loyalty to you would always win in the end, for a dozen reasons. I know that. Doll must know it too.”
“But Doll didn’t know that anyone else was aware of her tragedy,” he argued back.
“She said so?” Her eyebrows arched delicately.
“Perhaps that is not true,” he conceded. “At least one other servant knew, although I doubt she told him.”
“Him?” she said quickly. “No, more likely she confided in another woman, or they guessed. It is one of the first things that would come to a woman’s mind, Mr. Pitt. They would know something was wrong at the time she was raped … if it was rape. Or seduced, which is more likely. Women are very observant, you know. We notice the slightest change in other people, and we can read our own sex very clearly. I would be surprised if the cook and the housekeeper didn’t know, at least.”
“So she told them it was the master, rather than say who it really was?” He still found the idea difficult, but it was making more sense all the time. “Why? Wouldn’t that be a very dangerous thing to say? What if it were reported back to him?”
“Who would do that?” she asked. “And if it were one of the menservants, surely they would be willing to protect their own? After all, she didn’t say it outside the house. Mr. Greville himself never knew of it, and certainly neither Mrs. Greville nor Piers did.”
He thought about it a little more seriously. It was not impossible.
She saw his indecision in his face.
“Do you really think a politician and diplomat of Mr. Greville’s standing is going to seduce a maid in his own household?” she urged. “Mr. Pitt, this is a political murder, an assassination. Mr. Greville was brilliant at his task. For the first time in a generation it seems there may really be some improvement in the Irish Problem, and he was responsible for that. It was his skill at diplomacy, his genius at the conference table that was bringing it about. This is what was unique about him. Surely that was why he was killed … here … and now?”
Her face became suddenly more grave. There was a new and greater tension in her body. “Perhaps he did not tell you—he may have wished not to frighten anyone further—but there was a very unpleasant happening yesterday when an urn was crashed onto the terrace only a yard away from Mr. Radley. If it had struck him he would
