She slipped into her mules and nipped her cheeks. Her face in the vanity mirror was the color of chalk, tinted only by smudges of last night’s mascara. There wasn’t time for cold cream. She scrubbed with a tongue-moistened corner of a handkerchief and still looked ghastly.
Two men stood peering at the two oil portraits above the mantel in Philip’s library. They turned when she entered. One was young, with unruly red hair, pale-blue eyes, and a pocked complexion. He wore a starched policeman’s uniform. The other was an indeterminate age with a bristly brown pompadour and a wide, florid face. He was dressed in a tweed jacket and ill-pressed white shirt, its collar straining to encircle his neck. “Miss Kydd? Miss Julia Kydd?”
Philip entered bearing a tray with a full coffee service. Julia remembered that Christophine was out all day, no doubt beguiling Mr. Earl with her beautiful hat. Remarkable that Philip should step so ably into her shoes. She knew he could pour, but brew?
He placed the tray on the low table in front of the sofa and wordlessly retreated to the far, shadowed corner of the room, to which he had apparently been banned. Twisting sideways in his chair to ensure he heard everything clearly—unbeknownst to all but his closest friends, he was deaf in his left ear—he shrugged and touched a finger to his lips. Consigned to silence as well?
Julia offered the men coffee. When both refused, she poured herself a cup, hoping it might jolt her brain into clarity. “What brings you here, gentlemen?” she asked, bracing herself.
“I’m Sergeant Millard Hannity of the New York Police Department,” the older man said, “and this is Officer O’Leary.” He jutted his thumb at his companion. “Homicide bureau.”
Homicide. Julia sat carefully on the sofa. This might be bad. Possibly very bad. He hadn’t answered her question. She was desperate to know why he had come, and yet a small part of her was relieved, hoping to be spared bad news. His ominous manner might be a ruse to frighten her, though for what purpose she couldn’t imagine.
“Are you ill, Miss Kydd?”
“I’m well, thank you.” The cliché bred into her from childhood limped out. Of course she looked awful, but it was a ghastly question to ask a woman, whatever her appearance. He’d already knocked her off balance. Her vanity in shambles, she needed to preserve at least some semblance of dignity. She must concentrate, take better heed of whatever the man was here to say. He seemed determined to make her guess the trouble, which hardened her caution. Until she knew what had happened, she needed to speak with care.
“My sister was fast asleep a few minutes ago, Sergeant,” Philip said from the corner. It was a mild rebuke for such an affront, but welcome.
Hannity fingered his left cuff. “No offense, miss. It’s just, well, the time.” He turned to his assistant. “O’Leary here and I figure ladies are receiving visitors by now, that’s all. Don’t we, O’Leary?”
The boy dragged watery eyes from Julia to his superior. “Right, sir. We do, sir.”
Why was he fussing about the time? What did it matter if she was a dissolute layabout, as he clearly inferred? She tried again. “How can I help you, Sergeant?”
“Did you go out last night, Miss Kydd?”
Last night. Julia hoped her dismay did not show. Something terrible must have happened. Had Pablo’s bawdy tastes landed him in the soup? Had someone strangled poor Dolly Clark? Julia had seen Goldsmith’s hands twitching once or twice in her direction. But that was nothing compared to the real violence of the evening: all those guns. Particularly the one shoved hard into Eva’s cheek. Dear God. Had she gone back upstairs? Without Wallace there to intervene, anything could have happened. Had Timson made good on his threat? Had he shot her?
Julia’s heart pounded as she waved her hand to convey a calm she couldn’t trust her voice to achieve. “Last night? As a matter of fact, I did go out.”
“Mind telling me where?”
“Harlem. With several others.” She swallowed. “Why do you ask?”
“We’ll get to the others in a minute. Go any place in particular?”
“A club called Carlotta’s. What’s this about, Sergeant?”
“And after the show? What did you do then?”
Julia took a hasty sip of coffee and burned her tongue. This was like watching disaster unfurl in slow motion and being powerless to intervene or look away. Hannity was determined to reveal nothing. She managed to answer somewhat steadily, “The club’s owner invited us up to his private rooms. Why?”
Hannity roamed the room, stopping to study the brooding African tribal masks mounted on the crimson wall behind Philip’s piano. “And what happened there?”
She risked another scalding swallow. “We chatted, as one does.” He couldn’t mulishly continue to ignore her questions and expect her to fully answer his own.
Hannity sauntered back to the sofa, stopping behind her. He bent abruptly and whistled into her ear, startling Philip and O’Leary as much as Julia. “I wouldn’t advise you try that la-di-da with me, Miss Kydd,” he said. “Fact is, you’re mixed up in some nasty business.”
Julia stood, scattering the remnants of her composure. “For pity’s sake, what’s happened?”
Hannity studied her, face to face across the sofa. His wordless scrutiny was unbearable. To busy her hands, she helped herself to one of the Régies from Philip’s cigarette case on the mantel and bent gratefully over O’Leary’s match.
Hannity waited until she looked at him. “Please sit down, Miss Kydd.”
She shook her head, rustling the skirts of her dressing gown to hide her still-trembling knees. She needed to sit, but not at this man’s command.
Hannity shrugged. “So you say you chatted about nothing special. We’ll try that again in a minute. Who was there?”
Julia lifted her eyes toward the ceiling, as if to reconstruct the scene from a hazy memory. In truth, in her growing dread she wasn’t sure she could remember her own name.
“I was there, Sergeant.” Austen strode into the room, hand extended
