Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [158]
“Caroline!” He took both her hands in his, gently but holding her too hard for her to withdraw. “Caroline! Of course I have. But what kind of friend would you consider me if I placed my own fear of being suspected ahead of Charlotte’s danger from whoever really killed Kingsley—and the others? Please, tell her she must leave the matter altogether. I am too afraid that it may really have been Devlin O’Neil. I cannot think of anyone else it could be—except some madman. But if it was that, there would surely have been others the same, and there have not been.”
“And what about you?” she said urgently, still in her own mind clinging to the hope that Charlotte might solve it, as she had other crimes in the past. “The police were wrong once, and there was nobody who could save Aaron.”
“I know that, my dear, but it does not alter the situation.” His voice was very gentle, his hands over hers warm, but his hold was hard and there was no wavering in his eyes. “I know the police suspect me. I will at least have a trial, and a chance to appeal. Whoever is killing people will not give Charlotte as much.”
“No,” she said quietly. “No, I suppose not. I will tell her.”
He smiled, letting go of her hands but at the same time taking her arm. “Shall we go somewhere pleasant and take afternoon tea? We can forget the world and its dangers and suspicions, tonight’s performance, and simply think how much we enjoy talking. There are so many other things.” He started to move and pull her gently with him. “I have just read a fascinating book about a journey of the imagination. Quite impossible to turn into a play, of course, but I am still enormously enriched to have read it. Provoked all kinds of thoughts—and questions. I shall tell you about it, if I may? I want to know what you think.”
Caroline gave in to the sheer pleasure of it. Why not? She wished this sweet intimacy could last forever, but she was realist enough to know that of course Grandmama was right; it was a dream, a delusion, and waking would be much the colder afterwards. But it was not afterwards yet, and she would give all her heart to it while she could.
“Of course,” she agreed with a smile. “Please tell me.”
“You ’aven’t said anyfink about the murder for days, ma’am,” Gracie said to Charlotte the next morning as they were working in the kitchen. Gracie was cleaning the knives with Oakey’s Wellington knife polish, made of emery and black lead; and Charlotte cleaned the spoons and forks with a homemade mixture of hartshorn powder, water and alcohol.
“That is because I haven’t learned anything further,” she explained, pulling a face. “We know it wasn’t Aaron Godman, but we are no nearer knowing who it really was.”
“Don’t we know nuffink at all?” Gracie said, squinting around the knife she was holding up.
“Yes, of course we know some things,” Charlotte replied, polishing industriously. “It was someone who knew his name and that he was at the theater, and deliberately sent him to a place where he would pass through Farriers’ Lane to get there. And to do what was done to him, they must have hated him very much indeed.” She reached for a fresh cloth to raise a shine. “Apart from the obscenity of it, it would be dangerous to remain there any longer than necessary after having killed him. The rage must have outweighed the sense of self-preservation.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Gracie said with feeling. “If I’d just murdered someone I wouldn’t ’ang around to nail ’im up to a door—which can’t ‘a’ bin easy!” She tipped more polish out of the tin into a saucer. “I’d ’ave been out o’ mere as fast as me legs ’d carry me! Afore anyone else came an’ found me there!”
“So it was someone so overcome with hatred they would rather take the risk, or else they didn’t even think of it,” Charlotte concluded.
“Or else …” Gracie rubbed the knife blade furiously. It was already shining. “Or else it were someone wot