Farrier's Lane (23 page)

Tamar was staring at her.

“Are you thinking of Aaron?” she said with total bluntness.

Charlotte was taken aback for a moment, then she realized how much easier it would be to speak frankly rather than skirt around such an agonizing subject, seeking a way to convey the meaning without actually using the words, and understand what someone meant beneath the layers of euphemisms.

“Yes.” She allowed the shadow of a smile across her face.

“You allow the possibility there was an injustice?” Tamar asked.

“Of course,” Charlotte agreed warmly. “I have known for a certainty of innocent men who would have been hanged but for chance. It could easily happen, and I am sure it has at times. I wish it were impossible, but it is not.”

“That is a dangerous thought,” Tamar said wryly. “People do not like it. They cannot live with the idea that we may be guilty of such a mistake. It is much better to convince yourself he was guilty and go to sleep.”

“I did not have any part in it, Miss Macaulay,” Charlotte pointed out. “I have no guilt in thinking he may have been innocent, only grief. The guilt will come if I do not do what I can now to find out the truth, both of the death of Kingsley Blaine and the death of Judge Stafford.”

Tamar smiled openly for the first time. It was a gesture full of charm, lighting her face and changing its whole aspect.

“What an extraordinary creature you are. But then I suppose you would have to be, to have married a policeman.”

Charlotte was surprised. She had not realized Tamar would have any appreciation of her affairs, or what they involved.

“Oh—Joshua told me,” Tamar explained with amusement. “I gather your mother told him.” She glanced around and saw that Caroline had left them. “I imagine that is where she has gone now. Possibly tact—or …” She lifted her slight shoulders expressively, but said nothing more.

Charlotte had a moment of discomfort, wondering if Caroline were making a fool of herself, being too bold, but there was no way in which she could retrieve it now without making her situation even worse. There was nothing she could profitably do but pursue the case.

“Do you know anything about the death of Kingsley Blaine that did not come out in court?” she asked bluntly. “Anything you told Judge Stafford which could have caused him to reopen the matter?”

Tamar shook her head. “Nothing that wasn’t in the appeal. The medical evidence was shaky. Humbert Yardley,
the examiner, began by saying that the wound which killed Kingsley …” Her face tightened, the soft skin around her mouth almost white. She kept her voice level with an effort. “… Was caused by something longer than a farrier’s nail. Then later he said it could have been an unusual nail.”

“Was such a nail found?”

“No, but the police said he could have disposed of it anywhere—down the nearest drain. It was only the uncertainty on which we raised the appeal. We tried other things; the coat which no one found, the necklace. But they were explained away. They said the coat was picked up by a tramp, and that I kept the necklace.”

“Didn’t the flower seller also change her mind?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes—but only before the trial, not once they put her on the witness stand. God help her, she was only a simple person, and once it was fixed in her mind, she was too afraid of the police to argue.”

“Miss Macaulay”—Charlotte looked at her gently, trying to convey in her face that she was asking only because she had to—“apart from love for your brother, why do you believe, in the face of so much, that he was innocent?”

“Because Aaron had no reason to kill Kingsley,” Tamar replied, her eyes brilliant, wry, candid. “They said that Kingsley had seduced me and was playing with my affections, and Aaron killed him in revenge for me. But that was nonsense. Kingsley loved me, and was going to marry me.” She said it quite quietly, as if it were a simple matter of fact and she did not care if Charlotte believed her or not.

Charlotte was shaken with total surprise, and yet her immediate reaction was not disbelief. Had Tamar been more emotional, more urgent to convince her, she might have doubted, but her simple statement, as of something long familiar to her, left her with no instinct to fight against it.

“But he was already married,” she said, not to disprove it, but to seek explanation. “What was he going to do about that?”

Tamar bit her lip, for the first time shame in her face. “I did not know that then.” She lowered her eyes. “To
begin with I did not take him seriously.” She shrugged. “One doesn’t. Young men with time to spare and a roving eye come to the theater in hundreds. They only want a little entertainment, a little excitement, and then to go home to their wives as society expects of them. It was months before I could believe Kingsley was different. By then I had learned to love him, and it was too late to alter my feelings.” She looked up quickly, her expression defensive. “Of course you will say I should have asked if he was married, and so I should. But I didn’t want to know.”

“What was he going to do about his wife?” Charlotte asked, refraining from making another judgment.

“I don’t know.” Tamar shook her head, but her eyes did not leave Charlotte’s face. “I only learned after his death that he was married. If he meant to marry me, then I suppose he was going to leave her. Or perhaps he didn’t mean to marry me, he only promised in order to keep me. But the point is, Aaron didn’t know that either. He thought Kingsley was free, and would marry me.”

“Are you sure?” Charlotte said softly. “Is it not possible he learned that Mr. Blaine was married, and that is why he killed him? That would be an excellent reason.”

“It would be, if it were true. I saw Aaron just before he left the theater, and he didn’t know then, any more than I did.”

“Would he have told you—honestly?”

“Probably not, but he would not have spoken to Kingsley as he did. He was a good actor—but not good enough to deceive me like that. I knew him too well.”

“You did not say that at the trial, did you?”

Tamar gave a bitter little laugh, more a choking on her own breath.

“No—Mr. James said no one would believe that Kingsley really intended to marry me, and it would only make me look ridiculous, and even more of a victim than if I pretended I were the seducer and were playing with him. That way I would seem less vulnerable, and Aaron have less cause to avenge me.”

Charlotte could see the sense of it, and reluctantly she admitted it.

“I think had I been in his place, I might have done the same. It would not have helped to tell the truth.”

Tamar pulled a face. “Thank you for that!”

“Did you tell Judge Stafford?”

“Yes. I have no idea whether he believed me or not. He had the kind of face and manner I could not read.”

“Who else have you told?”

Tamar stood up and walked over towards the window, the sunlight harsh on her face, discovering every plane and line, and yet it made her more beautiful because of the honesty of her emotion.

“Everyone who mattered, who would listen. Barton James, the barrister for the defense, and before him Ebenezer Moorgate, Aaron’s solicitor.” She stared out of the window in front of her. “I even went to Adolphus Pryce. He said the same as Barton James. If I had said so at the trial, he would have made great capital out of it. I believed him. I saw the appeal judges as well—all of them. But none of them listened to me except Judge Stafford, poor man!”

“Why was he different?” Charlotte asked curiously. “Why was he prepared to look into the case again after five years?”

Tamar turned from the window and looked at her steadily. “I am not sure. I think he believed me about Kingsley, which no one else did. And he asked me several questions about the time Aaron left the theater, and the time Kingsley left, but he would not say why. Believe me, Mrs. Pitt, I have racked my brain to think why he was going to reopen it. If I knew that, I could take the evidence to Judge Oswyn. He seemed once or twice as if he might have listened, then his courage failed him.”

“Courage?”

Tamar laughed and there was harshness deep and hard in it. “It would hardly be popular to say now that Aaron had been innocent. Think of it! The disgrace, the embarrassment, the people who were wrong—the things that cannot be undone. And worse than all that, the disrepute of the
law.” Regret overtook anger in her. “That is the worst thing about Stafford’s death—he was a brave man, and an honest one. He died for it.”

Charlotte looked at her passionate face and its blazing conviction. Was that what had moved Stafford: the power of her belief, rather than evidence? Or had he simply wanted to silence her once and for all, to save the shame she spoke of, the disrepute of the law?

“If it was not Aaron,” she said aloud, “who was it?”

Tamar’s face reflected laughter and pain at once.

“I don’t know. I cannot believe it was Joshua, although he and I had been … close.” She used the word delicately, allowing deeper meaning to be understood. “But it was over by then. It was really no more than propinquity and youth. The police suspected him out of jealousy, but I cannot believe that—not of him. I suppose the only other person would be Devlin O’Neil, but the quarrel would have to be far greater than the few guineas’ wager they spoke of.”

“He married Kathleen Blaine,” Charlotte pointed out. “Perhaps he was in love with her then.”

“Perhaps. It is not impossible.”

“Did she have money?”

“How very practical of you!” Tamar’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, I believe so, or at least very good expectations. I think she is an only child, and old Prosper Harrimore is wealthy—by our standards.”

“Did Mr. O’Neil have money?”

“Good heavens, no, only enough to support a handsome style of life for a short while.” She walked back to the sofa and sat down again facing Charlotte. “He rented his rooms and owed his tailor and his wine merchant—like most good-looking and idle young men.”

“So he gained considerably by his friend’s death?”

Tamar hesitated only a moment. “Yes—that is true, if ugly, and perhaps not relevant. But I don’t know who else, unless it was a complete stranger—a robber …” She left it unfinished, knowing how unlikely that was.

“Who crucified his victims?” Charlotte said skeptically.

“No—that was obscene,” Tamar admitted. “I don’t know.
I don’t know why O’Neil should do such a thing, except to try to put the blame on someone Jewish.”

“Do you know Devlin O’Neil?”

“Not now. Why?”

“Well, the best way we might learn something more about it would be through him.”

“He would hardly tell us something that incriminated him.”

“Not intentionally, of course,” Charlotte agreed. “But we can only learn the truth from those who know it.”

There was a sudden lift in Tamar’s face, a spark of hope in her dark eyes.

“You would be prepared to do that?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said without giving it a minute’s thought.

“Then we shall get Clio to take you. She still knows Kathleen, and it would not be difficult.”

“Not we, I think,” Charlotte corrected quickly. “It must be done as if by chance. They should not know I have any interest in the case.”

“Oh—yes, of course. That was stupid of me. I’ll introduce you to Clio. She is not in this morning, but next time—soon. She’ll take you.”

“Excellent! Explain to her what we need, and why, and I will do all I can.”

    When Charlotte began to discuss the case frankly with Tamar, Caroline realized that her presence was unnecessary, and very quietly she turned and walked over to the door, opened it and went out. She was down the stairs and in the hallway outside Joshua Fielding’s room with her hand raised to knock before she realized how forward she was being, how indelicate and unlike everything she had been taught, and had tried to teach her own daughters. Had Charlotte behaved this way she would have been horrified, and told her so.

Self-consciousness overcame her and she stepped back again. It would look odd, foolish, but she would have to go back upstairs and hope no one would ask her for an explanation.
She turned and was halfway across to the stairs upwards when Miranda Passmore came running up from the floor beneath.

“Hallo, Mrs. Ellison! Is Mr. Fielding not in? I thought he was, in fact I was sure. Here, let me knock again.” And without waiting for an answer, and misunderstanding Caroline’s gasp, she crossed the landing and rapped sharply on Joshua’s door.

There was a moment of desperate silence. Caroline drew in her breath to protest.

The door swung open and Joshua Fielding stood in the entrance smiling, looking first at Caroline, then at Miranda.

“Oh Joshua, I thought you were there,” Miranda said cheerfully. “Mrs. Ellison called to see you, but she could not make you hear.” She smiled and ran on up the stairs and disappeared.

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you,” Joshua apologized.

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” Caroline said quickly. “I didn’t knock.”

He looked puzzled.

“I—I came with my daughter, to see Miss Macaulay—about—about Judge Stafford’s death. I thought …” She stopped, aware she was speaking too much, explaining where he had not asked.

“It is good of you to become involved in the matter.” He smiled. There was both warmth and a certain shyness in it. “It must have been very distressing for you to have been there and seen the poor man die, and then learning it was murder. I am sorry it should have happened to you.”

“I am also anxious that there should be no injustice done,” she said quickly. She did not want him to think her feeble, simply concerned in the unpleasantness for herself, and unconcerned for others.

“I don’t think you can help,” he said, pulling a face. “Judge Stafford was going to reopen the case of Kingsley Blaine’s death, but since he apparently left no notes on it, it looks as if it will remain closed—by default. Unless we can discover what he intended.”

“That is what we must try to do,” she said urgently. “Not
only to clear his name but also to protect you—and Miss Macaulay.”

He smiled, but it was an expression full of self-mockery and pain.

“You think they will blame us for that death too?”