convince you this was normal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I did take something, but not from the old woman.”
“Something to get rid of the baby?” Sarah asked.
Garnet turned her head away. “That’s what it was supposed to do. So far, it’s just made me sick.”
“When did you take it?”
“This morning. I didn’t know you and Mr. Malloy were going to turn our world upside down today.”
“I don’t know of anything you can drink that will really be effective, but most things they sell for that purpose can make you very sick. If you aren’t feeling better by tomorrow, you should probably see a doctor.”
Garnet sighed. “I can’t bear the thought of having his child. How could I ever love it or care for it? How could I even stand the sight of it?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t. Nobody does.”
Sarah ached for her. At least she had her mother to help her through it. She looked around, half expecting to find Mrs. Richmond sitting in a corner, but she wasn’t there. “I thought your mother was visiting you.”
“I almost forgot the maid said you came to see Mother. She wasn’t very happy at the prospect of a visit with you, I’m sorry to say. She went downstairs to make me some tea to settle my stomach. She’ll be back in a moment. What did you want to see her about?”
“Nothing important.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Mrs. Brandt. You’d never last a day in this house. Obviously, it’s something
“I believe he visited her.”
“Oh, yes, he was the one who told her about the child. But I don’t think I know why he went to see her in the first place.”
“Didn’t she tell you?”
“She doesn’t like to distress me,” Garnet said with a small smile. “But you’ve never seemed to mind, so tell me.”
In spite of what Garnet thought, Sarah didn’t want to distress her either. “I’d rather wait until she comes.”
“Ring for the maid to fetch her, then. She might stay downstairs until she thinks you’ve left. I told you she really did not want to see you.”
Sarah pulled the bell rope and in a few moments, the maid came in.
“Would you ask my mother to come back up?” Garnet asked.
“Mrs. Richmond left, ma’am.”
“What do you mean, she left?”
“She left the house.”
“When?”
“Right after she came downstairs.”
“How strange.” Garnet dismissed the maid and turned back to Sarah. “I didn’t want to tell you, but she actually seemed afraid when she heard you were here to see her. Why would she be afraid?”
Sarah still didn’t want to tell her, but Garnet would find out soon anyway. “We believe your mother is the one who stabbed Devries.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I’m perfectly serious.”
“Why would she do a thing like that? And how? She hasn’t seen him in years!”
“We believe she saw him on the day he died, and she had a very good reason to stab him. He was trying to kill her.”
“Dear God!” Garnet clamped her eyes shut and covered her mouth with both hands.
Sarah grabbed a bowl sitting on the bedside table and held it ready in case Garnet was sick, but after a moment, she opened her eyes and lowered her hands. “Why on earth would he try to kill her?”
“We suspect he was afraid she would encourage you to leave Paul. He was desperate to keep Paul’s secret, which is why he arranged your marriage in the first place. If you left him, people would want to know why.”
“I didn’t want to leave Paul, you know. I just wanted to leave this house, to get away from
“I know that now, and maybe that was another reason he wanted your mother out of the way. You couldn’t leave if you didn’t have a place to go.”
“Which explains why he wanted her dead, but it doesn’t explain how she could have stabbed him.”
“We don’t know for sure, but we believe that after Devries visited Angotti—”
“Who’s Angotti?”
“He’s an Italian gentleman who…uh…arranges things for people. Devries tried to hire him to murder your mother.”
“Dear God,” she murmured again.
“Mr. Angotti doesn’t do these things himself, you understand, but even so, he didn’t have much stomach for having a woman killed, so he went to see your mother. When he heard her story, he decided not to accept Devries’s offer, and he apparently gave your mother a small knife to use in case Devries decided to try to do the job himself.”
Garnet groaned. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I’m sure she didn’t want to distress you,” Sarah said without irony.
“You still haven’t told me how it happened.”
“As I said, we don’t know for sure, but on the day he died, Devries went to see Angotti, and Mr. Angotti told him he wouldn’t accept his offer. Devries was angry and he went someplace for a few hours before eventually turning up at his club, where he died.”
“What makes you think he saw my mother?”
“The fact that Mr. Angotti probably gave your mother a knife that could have killed him, and the fact that she received a telegram shortly after Devries left Angotti.”
“I send her telegrams all the time.”
“Did you send her one that day?”
Garnet had no reply.
“This telegram upset her very much, and she went out and didn’t come back for a long time. We think Devries arranged to meet her someplace, intending to kill her himself perhaps.”
“Or force himself on her.”
Sarah blinked in surprise. “Do you really think…?”
“Of course I think he’d do something like that! He’d done it to me, and that morning…Well, he didn’t expect me to fight back, but I just couldn’t let him use me again, so I screamed. I’d never done that before, and of course Paul came rushing in, and…Well, he left without getting what he’d come for. He was angry, and if he did want to kill Mother, he’d want to humiliate her first. Oh, no, do you think he raped her? I couldn’t stand the thought of that! Poor Mother!”
Garnet started to weep.
“She stabbed him, Garnet. I’m sure she stabbed him to prevent him from hurting her.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked brokenly.
“Yes, I do. I’m sure of it.”
Garnet dashed the tears from her eyes. “And now Mr. Malloy has come to arrest her.”
“He just wants to find out what happened. If Devries was going to harm her, it was self-defense. She won’t be arrested for that.”
Garnet stared back at her for a long moment, absorbing the truth of Sarah’s words, but then her eyes widened. “Dear heaven, she’s going to kill herself!”
