Greta heard the longing in Thomas’s voice, and she didn’t know how to respond.
“You’re very sweet,” she said lamely.
“No, I’m not,” he said with sudden vehemence as his voice broke through his earlier whisper. “You are beautiful. I’ve never met anyone as beautiful as you are.”
“But you will, Thomas. I promise you, you will.”
“Don’t say that,” he said. “I love you, Greta. Can’t you see that? I love you. Not anyone else. You.”
“You mustn’t say that, Thomas. It’s not right.”
“Don’t you feel anything about me at all?”
“I like you. No, more than that. I’m very fond of you. But that’s all it can be. I’m too old, Thomas. Too old for you.”
Tears had formed in the boy’s eyes, and they now began to trickle down his cheeks. Greta put her hand under his chin and turned his half-resistant head toward her. Then, leaning forward, she kissed him on the forehead.
“Don’t cry, Thomas,” she said. “Don’t spoil our wonderful afternoon.”
Thomas did not reply. There was no time. The taxi drew up in front of the house, and he could see his father on the doorstep waiting impatiently for his personal assistant to get out. Thomas hung back for a moment before he followed Greta out onto the sidewalk. He did not know in that instant whether he loved or hated this mysterious green-eyed woman with whom he had become so obsessed.
Looking up at the house as he got out of the taxi, Thomas caught sight of his mother standing framed in one of the high windows of the drawing room on the first floor, and he never afterward forgot the look of infinite sadness on her face. It was as if she knew that she had less than two months left to live.
Chapter 12
“And now, with your Lordship’s leave, I will call my first witness,” said John Sparling, turning his attention away from the jury and focusing on the old judge above him, who was busy sharpening a set of colored pencils.
Sparling felt his opening had gone well. The jury had stayed attentive and seemed suitably upset when shown the murder photographs. Now was the time to build on that effect, and who could be better for the purpose than the crime-scene officer? Detective Constable Butler would keep the jury concentrating on the appalling circumstances of Lady Anne’s death, and the more the jury thought about that, the more they would want to find someone responsible for it. The more they would be prepared to follow Sparling’s lead down the paths of circumstantial and uncorroborated evidence that led to the defendant.
Sparling had no doubt in his mind that Lady Greta had conspired to murder her husband’s first wife, but proving it was quite another matter, particularly when he had Old Lurid Lambert to contend with. He did not underestimate his opponent; he’d lost too many guilty defendants to Miles over the years to allow himself to do that.
Detective Butler came into court preceded by Miss Hooks, the diminutive usher, who looked no more than half his height as he towered above her in the witness box and read the oath from the card that she held up in front of his solar plexus.
He must be six feet six. Detective Giant, thought Greta as she looked across at the crime-scene officer and imagined the back pain that he must endure bending over to examine floors and recesses for tiny bits of forensic evidence.
“I arrived at the House of the Four Winds at ten fifty-five P.M., having been called to the scene by the two officers who had attended in response to the original 999 call,” said Detective Butler, adopting the impersonal voice of the professional witness.
“It’s agreed, members of the jury, that that was made by Thomas Robinson from the house of a neighbor, Christopher Marsh,” said Sparling, speaking across his witness. “He’d gone there to raise the alarm.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” said Butler. “The officers had entered the house through the open side door by which Thomas Robinson had exited. They had climbed the back stairs and discovered the body, and they had afterward gone through the rooms in the house in order to ascertain if there were any other persons present.”
“Any intruders, you mean?”
“Yes. They found nobody, and they did not disturb the scene of the crime. I was satisfied that upon my arrival it was in the same condition as when Thomas Robinson had left the property to raise the alarm.”
“Why would he have needed to do that?”
“Because the telephone cable on the outside wall of the house by the side door had been cut. It is my opinion that a pair of garden shears were used for the purpose, although none were recovered from the scene.”
“What else did you find in that area?”
“The side door was open, as I have already said. There was a key in the lock on the inside of the property, suggesting that it had been unlocked from the inside. There is a study room to the left of this side entrance with two windows that look out over the north lawn.”
“Please refer to the plan if it assists, Detective Butler,” said Sparling. “The jury have copies.”
“Thank you, sir. One of the panes in the window on the left had been smashed.”
“Using what?”
“I can only say that a blunt, hard object with an even surface would have been used.”
“Could it have been the butt of a handgun?”
“It could have been. The window was open, and I found some wet earth and debris in the study room and the front hall area, which suggested that the intruders had entered through the study window and had then gone through these rooms and up the front staircase. I believe that that was their exit route as well, since there was no debris on the back staircase.”
“It was at the top of the front staircase that the body of Lady Anne was found?” asked Sparling.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“You can assume that the jury have already seen the photographs, Detective Butler.”
“Thank you, sir. She was lying as shown midway between the top of the stairs and a large bookcase, which was turned so as to disclose a hiding place behind.”
“Again we have the photograph. Did you find anything in the hiding place?”
“No forensic evidence, sir, except that the carpet near the center of the bookcase was stained with urine. This was subsequently found to match a sample given by Thomas Robinson.”
“Did you find any forensic evidence to assist with identification of the perpetrators of the crime?”
“A small amount of blood on the study windowsill from which a DNA profile has been obtained but not one that matches any suspect on the database. Otherwise there are only the intruders’ footprints and the car tire marks in the roadway known as the lane.”
“We’ll return to them later. Are you able to say whether or not the intruders wore gloves?”
“They must have done, sir. There is no fingerprint evidence.”
“Thank you, Detective Butler. Please continue.”
“The electric lights in the upper corridor and on the back staircase were on, and so was the lamp beside the bed in the master bedroom. These were the only lights on in the house. The telephone by the bed had been unplugged, and the bedroom had been ransacked. However, none of the other rooms in the house showed any sign of having been searched. As I have already said, the grass and earth debris were only found in the study, the front hall, and in the master bedroom.”
“What do you mean by the word ransacked, Officer?”
“The pictures were all removed from the walls and were lying on the floor. The glass in several of them was broken. The drawers in a high chest positioned between the two windows were all pulled out and their contents strewn over the floor.”
“The curtains?”
“They were drawn, sir. There was also a safe over the fireplace, and it was empty.”
“Had it been broken into?”
“It had been opened, sir. It’s impossible to say whether the person who opened it already knew the
