band together for a cause, let alone half a million?” Her thin fingers smoothed over the velvet back of the chair. “We all live our separate lives, in our own kitchens if we are poor, our withdrawing rooms if we are well-to-do; and we do not cooperate for anything, but see ourselves as rivals for the few eligible and well-financed men that are available. Men, on the other hand, work fairly well together, imagining themselves the protectors and providers of the nation, obliged to do everything they can to preserve the situation precisely as it is-in their control-on the assumption that they know best what is right for us and must see that we get it, come hell or high water.” Her head jerked up. “And there are only too many women who are happy to assist them, since the status quo suits them very well also, and they are invariably the people with power.”
“Miss Danver! I think you are a revolutionary!” Charlotte said with delight. “You
Before Adeline could respond there were footsteps in the passageway and Harriet appeared at the door, her face pale and her eyes heavy, as if she lacked sleep.
“The gentlemen have rejoined us. Won’t you come back, Aunt Addie?” Then she remembered her manners. “Miss Barnaby?”
A look of pity passed over Adeline’s face and vanished so rapidly that Charlotte was almost doubtful she had seen it; perhaps she had only imagined an echo of her own quick understanding. “Of course.” Adeline moved towards the door. “We were admiring your mother’s painting of the Bosphorus. Come, Miss Barnaby, asylum is over for this evening. We must leave Theodora and Byzantium and return to the world and the pressing matters of the present, such as whether Miss Weatherly will become engaged to Captain Marriott this month, or next, or whether perhaps he will evade her entirely”-she shrugged her thin shoulders-“and go to sea in a sieve.”
Harriet looked puzzled, glancing uncertainly at Charlotte.
“Edward Lear,” Charlotte hazarded an explanation. “ ‘Their heads were blue and their hands were green,’ or the other way round, and they went to sea in a sieve-I think. But he was also an excellent artist. His paintings of Greece are beautiful.”
“Oh.” Harriet looked relieved, but no wiser.
“Well?” Jack asked her as soon as they were alone in the carriage, huddled together in biting cold, breath white as steam. Outside the wind moaned and rattled and the gutters were filled with freezing slush, dark with mud and frozen manure, for once odorless. The horses’ hooves thudded heavily on the ice.
“All sorts of things,” she replied with chattering teeth. She decided not tell him that Harriet was in love with Felix Asherson; it was young Miss Danver’s own private heartache, and if he had not noticed it, then it should remain so. “They seem to have quite as much money as the Yorks, so that is not a motive. And apparently the two families have known each other for some time, so Julian and Veronica might have fallen in love before Robert died. On the other hand, and this really is most interesting, Aunt Addie-”
“Whom you like enormously,” he interrupted.
“Whom I like enormously,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t blind my wits.”
“Of course not.”
“It doesn’t! Aunt Adeline said that twice at least she had seen a strange and beautiful woman in the house, at night, up until three years ago, but not since! She wore an outrageous shade of cerise, always.”
“You mean both times?”
“All right, both times. But who was she? Maybe she was the spy, after Julian’s secrets from the Foreign Office. Perhaps she inveigled him.”
“Then why hasn’t she been seen since?”
“Perhaps after Robert York’s death she went away, or into hiding. Or maybe he was the one with the secrets, and since he is dead, there is nothing for her anymore. Maybe Julian Danver wouldn’t fall for her-he loved Veronica. I don’t know!”
“Are you going to tell Thomas?”
She took a deep bream and let it out slowly. Her hands deep in Emily’s muff were numb with cold. It was so late that she was going to have to stay the night with Emily and go home tomorrow, which would not please Pitt. She could tell him Emily was upset, so she had remained, which was true after a fashion, but she hated lying to him, and it was a lie at heart.
The alternative was to tell him the truth, and the reasons for pursuing the York murder. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think so.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” he said doubtfully.
“I’m an awfully bad liar, Jack.”
“You amaze me!” he said, his voice rising mockingly. “I would never have guessed it!”
“Pardon?” she asked sharply.
“I should say I’d witnessed a bravura performance this evening.”
“Oh-that’s quite different. It doesn’t count.”
He started to laugh, and although she was furious, she liked him for it. Perhaps Emily would be all right.
Charlotte got up before dawn the following morning, and by seven o’clock she was at home in her own kitchen frying prime bacon and fresh eggs, a peace offering from Emily.
“Is Emily ill?” Pitt looked worried, but she knew he was on the edge of losing his temper if her answer was not satisfactory. She knew perfectly well that she looked too excited, too pleased with herself, to have been up all night by a sickbed.
“Thomas …” She had thought about this a long time, at least an hour of the short night.
“Yes?” His voice was guarded.
“Emily isn’t ill, but she is very lonely, and being in mourning is pretty wretched.”
“I know that, my dear.” Now there was compassion in his voice, and it made her feel guilty.
“So I thought we should get involved in something,” she hurried on. She poked the bacon and it hissed gently, sending out an exquisite aroma.
“Something?” he pressed with heavy skepticism. He knew her far too well for this to succeed.
“Yes, something totally absorbing-like a mystery. So we started to look into Robert York’s death, which you told me about.” She reached for an egg and cracked it into the pan, then another. “Jack Radley-and that’s another reason: I really do want to get to know him rather better, just in case,” she hurried on, taking a deep breath, “Emily considers marrying him. Someone has to look after her interests-”
“Charlotte!”
“Well, I did have two reasons,” she insisted, then went on hastily. “Anyway, I went to tea with Veronica York and her mother-in-law. Emily arranged it so that Jack Radley took me-that way I was able to observe him while making some discoveries about the Yorks.” She could feel Pitt’s presence behind her as she turned the eggs gently, then took them out and put them on his plate next to the bacon. “There you are,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Last night I dined with the Danvers. I met them all, and they are most interesting. By the way, the Yorks and the Danvers appear to have about the same financial status, so neither Veronica nor Julian Danver would marry the other for money.” As she spoke she made the tea and set it on the table, all without meeting his eyes. “And Aunt Adeline told me the oddest thing: she saw a beautiful, glamorous woman wearing an outrageous shade of cerise in the house. Do you suppose she was a spy?” At last she looked at her husband, and was immensely relieved to see amazement in his face. His eyes were wide and his hand had stopped halfway to his mouth.
“A woman in cerise?” he said after a moment’s silence. “Did she say in cerise?”
“Yes. Yes, why? Have you heard of her? Is she a spy? Thomas!”
“I don’t know. But the maid at the Yorks’ saw her too.”
Charlotte slipped into the seat opposite him and leaned forward, forgetting her own bacon. “What did she say? When did she see her? Do you know who she is?”
“No. But I shall go back and speak to the maid again, I think, and ask her for a closer description, and exactly when she saw this woman. I must find out who she is, if I can.”
But before he went to Hanover Close again, he called by at the Bow Street station to attend to a few other inquiries, particularly a burglary in the Strand. He was halfway through reading the reports when a constable came in, a mug of tea in one hand. He put it down on Pitt’s desk.
“Thank you,” Pitt said absently.
“Thought you’d like to know, Mr. Pitt,” the constable said with a sniff as he reached for a large cotton handkerchief, sneezing into it and blowing his nose, “been a haccident yesterday, sir, at ’anover Close. Very sad.
