Midnight at Marble Arch (19 page)

“Was her marriage reasonably happy?” Pitt asked.

“Happy?” Narraway thought about it and was puzzled. “What makes a person happy, Pitt? Are you happy?”

Pitt did not hesitate. “Yes.”

For an instant Narraway was overtaken by a sense of loss, of something inexpressible that he had missed. Then he banished it. “No, I don’t think it was,” he answered. “She was making as much happiness for herself as she could, but through aesthetic or intellectual appreciation.”

“Has Knox given up looking for suspects?” Pitt asked.

“There’s a young man named Alban Hythe who seems likely,” Narraway replied. “He is smart, likes the same arts and explorations that she did, and attended many of the same functions. He admits to being acquainted with her, although since they were seen together a number of times he could hardly deny it.”

Pitt frowned. “Then what troubles you? Her reputation, if she was known to have a lover? Or are you concerned for Quixwood’s embarrassment? There’s nothing you can do about that.” His face was filled with regret. He gave a very slight shrug. “I’m finding it hard to face that fact myself.”

Narraway heard Pitt’s dilemma and for the moment ignored it.

“My problem is, I’m not certain I believe it was Alban Hythe,” he argued. “I met him and he seemed a decent chap. The rape was violent. Whoever did it hated her. It doesn’t seem like the crime of a lover unexpectedly denied—not a sane one.”

Pitt shook his head. “If rapists didn’t appear perfectly natural we’d find them a lot easier to catch.”

“I can believe it of an arrogant young pup like Neville Forsbrook a lot more easily,” Narraway retaliated, startled by his own anger.

Pitt looked at him in silence for several moments before replying. “If Hythe is innocent, then someone else is guilty,” he said at last. “Whether he was her lover or not, whoever it was raped her violently and killed her. That can never be excused.”

Narraway took a deep breath. “That’s another part of the problem,” he admitted. “The medical evidence suggests it’s possible he didn’t kill her directly. She actually died of an overdose of laudanum—it very easily could have been suicide. It will be difficult to convince a jury otherwise. It’s easy to believe, given the violence of the rape, that she was traumatized to the extent that she wanted to end her life.”

Pitt continued to stare at him, his gray eyes steady and full of pain. “We know far too little about it, this rape or any other,” he said levelly. “Perhaps we know too little about ourselves as well. But if Alban Hythe isn’t the man, and the circumstantial evidence is piling up against him, then you need to prove he’s innocent, or he may eventually be imprisoned, or worse, for something he didn’t do. Not to mention the fact that whoever did do it will escape entirely, and probably do it again. And there may be something to be salvaged of Catherine’s reputation, at the very least.” His mouth turned down in a bitter twist. “People are now suggesting that Angeles Castelbranco was with child, and that was why she killed herself.”

“Like you said, it’s doubtful she wanted to go out that window,” Narraway said with some heat. “Judging by what you know, I don’t believe she thought of anything except getting away from Forsbrook and his taunts.”

“I agree,” Pitt said. “But if I say so, then Pelham Forsbrook will defend his son.” The misery and the anger were cut deep in his face. “How does anyone prove Neville is truly to blame for anything beyond cruel words and insensitive behavior?”

Narraway clenched his fists, hardly aware of it until his nails dug into the flesh of his palms. “I refuse to be so bloody helpless!”

“Good.” Pitt smiled bleakly. “When you discover how to accomplish that, please share it with me.”

Narraway rose to his feet. “Can’t you at least prove Angeles wasn’t with child? There would have been signs, surely?”

“That isn’t the point,” Pitt answered wearily. “If she thought she was, or could have been, then her reputation is equally ruined.”

Narraway no longer had the energy for this. He felt a coldness close around him, in spite of the warmth of the day and the sunlight streaming through the window. The brightness seemed curiously far away. He should recall what he had come for and ask Pitt, before the opportunity slipped away.

“I haven’t dealt with rape before,” he said. “What kind of proof do the police look for if the victim is dead and can’t say anything herself?”

Pitt thought for several moments. “I’m not sure that they would try to prove rape,” he said at last. “If she was badly beaten that might be enough to convict the guilty party. That is a crime, and the jury would read more into it, under the circumstances. The sentence could be just as heavy; obviously she could not have done that to herself. If you can prove the accused was there, and no one else could have been, it should be sufficient.”

“I see. Then that is the approach I shall take.” Narraway rose to his feet. “Thank you.”

Pitt relaxed a fraction. “It was good to see you,” he replied.

N
ARRAWAY WAS STILL TURNING
the matter over in his mind early that evening. He sat with the windows open onto the deepening colors as the sun lowered toward the horizon. He was startled when his manservant knocked discreetly and stood in the doorway to say that Mrs. Hythe was in the entryway and wished to speak with him.

“Shall I bring tea, my lord?” he added with elaborate innocence. “Or a glass of sherry, perhaps? I don’t know the lady sufficiently well to guess.”

“But you know her sufficiently well to assume that I will see her?” Narraway said a trifle waspishly. He was tired, more by frustration than
action, and would have been happy to forget the whole issue of the Quixwood case for a few hours.

“No, sir,” the manservant replied, his eyes momentarily downcast. “But I know you, my lord, well enough to be certain you would not refuse someone in considerable distress, and who is counting on you to be of help.”

Narraway stared at him and did not see even a flicker of irony in the man’s face. “You should have been a diplomat,” he said drily. “You are far better at it than most of those I know.”

“Thank you, my lord.” A light glinted for a moment in the man’s eyes. “Shall I bring tea or sherry?”

“Sherry,” Narraway answered. “I would like it, whether she would or not.”

“Yes, my lord.” He withdrew silently and a moment later Maris Hythe came in. Her face was as charming as before, with the same blunt gentleness, but she could not hide the fact that she was both tired and frightened. Instantly Narraway regretted his self-absorption.

He rose to his feet and invited her to sit down in the chair facing the window and the deepening sunset.

“I apologize for coming uninvited, my lord,” she said a little awkwardly. “Normally I would have had better manners, but I am frightened, and I don’t know of anyone else who might help.”

Narraway sat down opposite her, leaning forward a little as if he too were tense. “I assume the situation has worsened with regard to Mr. Knox’s investigation? I haven’t spoken to him for a day or two. What has happened?”

Her answer was forestalled by the return of the manservant with a silver tray bearing sherry and two long-stemmed crystal glasses.

Maris hesitated.

The manservant poured a little of the rich dark golden liquid into one of the glasses and placed it on the table beside her. He poured a second and gave it to Narraway.

After he had gone Narraway picked his up, so she might do the same, and waited attentively for her to speak.

“Nothing Mr. Knox finds could prove my husband’s guilt, because
he is not guilty,” she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “But every new fact does make it look worse for him.”

“He has never denied that he and Mrs. Quixwood were friends,” Narraway pointed out. “What new information has been added to that?”

She kept her composure with difficulty, taking a sip of sherry, probably more to hide her eyes for a moment than because she wished for its taste.

He waited.

“Small gifts he gave her,” Maris replied very quietly. “I didn’t know about them. I think he felt sorry for her. She … she was very lonely. Mr. Quixwood has been both honest and contrite about it, as if he blames himself for putting so much effort into his work that he did not accompany her to the places she wished to go.”

“It is natural to feel guilty when it is too late to go back and make a better task of it,” he said with a twinge of guilt for his own sins of omission.

She smiled very slightly. “I think he is a kind man who did not see how she really felt. And perhaps she did not tell him. One doesn’t. It sounds so like complaining, and when you have comfort, position, no need to worry … and respect as well, from a man who is honorable, to ask for more is … greedy, don’t you think?” She looked at him as if she genuinely wished for an answer.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. He tried to think of the women he knew. Charlotte would certainly want more. She would sacrifice financial security or social position for love, she had already proved that. Perhaps within the definition of “love” she would include a sharing of purpose, and a commonality of interest. Above all she might require to be needed, not an ornament but a part of the fabric of life.

Her sister Emily loved her husband and had considerable wealth and social standing, and yet she envied Charlotte her purpose, her excitement, the danger and variety. Narraway had seen it in her eyes, heard it in the sharp edge of her voice in a rare unguarded moment.

And what of Vespasia? That was a question perhaps he preferred not to consider. Because of her title and extraordinary beauty she had
lived in the public eye all her adult life, but she was still acutely private with her emotions. He had never thought of her as vulnerable, capable of such frailties as doubt or loneliness.

“My lord …” Maris interrupted a little anxiously.

He returned his attention to her, slightly embarrassed to have been discourteous. “I’m sorry. I was considering what you had said about Catherine Quixwood.” That was true, in a way. “It is perceptive of you to have seen the possibility of her loneliness.”

A look that he could not read flickered across her face. The only thing he recognized in it for certain was fear.

He leaned forward a little more to assure her that she had his attention, in spite of his earlier lapse. “What is it you would like me to do, Mrs. Hythe?”

“Mr. Knox is still working on the case,” she replied. “I really don’t think he will give up until his superiors tell him he must. He seems to me to be a good man, gentle, in spite of the terrible things he has to deal with every day.” The ghost of a smile was in her eyes for an instant. “He speaks of his family once in a while, when he is in my house. He admired a teapot I have, and said his wife would like it. It seems she collects teapots. I wondered why. Surely two or three are sufficient? But he said she likes to arrange flowers in them, so I tried it myself—daisies. It worked extraordinarily well. Now every time I look at the thing it makes me think of him, and then of Catherine.”

Narraway did not know how to respond to that. How had Pitt dealt with the reality of people, the details of their lives that stayed in the mind? He thought of Catherine lying on the floor, and the ornaments in the room. Had she chosen them, put them there because they pleased her, or reminded her of someone she cared for?

“You have not told me what it is you wish of me, Mrs. Hythe,” he said, bringing the conversation back to the practical.

“Every detail he finds makes it clearer that Catherine was fond of my husband,” she answered. “And that they liked and trusted each other, and met … often.” She swallowed with a tightening of her throat that looked painful. “He believes that she let her attacker in herself, and that could only be because she knew him—”

“Yes,” he cut in. “There was no break-in.”

She lowered her eyes. “I know that too. But I also know that my husband is a good man—not perfect, of course, but decent and kind. He felt sorry for her and he liked her, no more than that.” She looked up at Narraway earnestly. “If they were having an affair, perhaps I would have hated her for it and—if I were crazy enough—wished her harm. But I could not have raped her. And my husband didn’t either.”

She gave a little shiver. “On the other hand, her husband could have, but that doesn’t work either, does it, as he was at a party while she was being attacked. Don’t mistake me; I care very much that you catch whoever did this. I think any woman would. It was a terrible way to die.” She took a deep breath and continued. “But in spite of his kindness to her, the small gifts he gave her, the times they met at one exhibition or another, my husband was
not
her lover. And, as I’ve said, even if he had been, he could not have committed such an atrocious crime against her.”

Narraway was brutal, to get it over with: “And if he found her fascinating, flattering to his vanity, a beautiful older woman with sophistication and intelligence, and she suddenly rebuffed him?” he asked. “How would he react to that? Are you certain that it would not be with anger?”

Color burned up her face, but she did not look away from his gaze. “You don’t know Alban, or you wouldn’t ask that. I’m aware you think I am being idealistic and naïve. I’m not. He has his faults, as do I, but losing his temper is not one of them. Sometimes I wish he would. For some time, I am ashamed to say, I thought him something of a coward because he was so gentle.” She winced. “Now I risk seeing him hanged for a crime he could never even imagine committing. I think perhaps he even helped her with something that troubled her, although I don’t know what. He never mentioned it to me. Don’t let him be destroyed for that.”

Narraway stared at her, trying to assess if she truly believed what she said, or if, even more than to convince him, she was trying to convince herself.

“Are you positive you have no idea what it was?” he urged. This was a new thought and perhaps worth pursuing.

She looked down at her hands for a moment, weighing her answer before she spoke.

“Alban is a banker. I know he is young yet, but he knows a great deal about business, especially investment. I … well, I think it may have something to do with that, investments, in Africa, the Boers, and Leander Jameson. I know Alban read a lot about the raid, and the difference it might make to people if Dr. Jameson is found guilty. He listened to Mr. Churchill, and his talk of the possibility of war.”