Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [179]
“The omission was necessary, Mrs. Stafford,” he replied. She had assumed Harrimore guilty, as indeed he had himself, but Juniper did not even ask why. Did she suppose Stafford had threatened him with discovery, or did she no longer particularly care? “Prosper Harrimore did not kill the judge,” he said aloud.
She frowned very slightly. “I don’t understand. That’s ridiculous. If he didn’t, then who did? And why?” The first very faint flicker of humor lit her eyes, totally without fear. “You cannot have returned because you imagine it was I—or Mr. Pryce. You have very effectively proved that it was not, by helping us to blame each other.” She turned a little away from him. “I will not say you made it happen, that would be to give you too much credit—or blame. Had we been stronger, had we the love we imagined we had, you could not have done such a thing.” She brushed her hand over her skirt, removing a fleck of thread. “So why have you come?”
He was sorry for her, in spite of the contempt he had felt before. Disillusion is one of the bitterest of all griefs.
“Because I am driven back to the beginning again,” he replied candidly. “All the information I thought I had is of little use. The judge’s death appears, after all, to have had nothing to do with the Farriers’ Lane case. Or if it does, it is a connection I haven’t seen, and still cannot see now. There is nothing for me to do but go back to the physical details and reexamine each one to see if I have missed something, or misinterpreted it.”
“How tedious.” she said without feeling. “I can repeat everything I told you before, if you believe it may be helpful.” And without waiting for him to reply, in a monotone she recited the events of the last day of Stafford’s life, from seeing him at breakfast through Tamar Macaulay’s visit, his agitation, to his leaving to go and interview Joshua Fielding and Devlin O’Neil again. She told him of Stafford’s return, his preoccupation, which was not particularly unusual, the dinner they had shared.
“And he was perfectly well then?” he interrupted. “He was not sleepy, unusually inattentive? He ate well, without complaint of pain or discomfort?”
“Yes, he ate excellently. And we were served from the same dishes. There was nothing he took which I did not. More, of course, but just the same dishes. He cannot have been poisoned in this house, Mr. Pitt.”
“No, I had already concluded that, Mrs. Stafford. Besides, we found the traces of opium in his flask. I wondered if he could have taken anything from it already, before the meal, that’s all. I am checking everything …”
“I can see you are totally lost,” she agreed with a flicker of a smile.
He could not entirely blame her, although her amusement stung. It was he who had shed light on a truth that maimed her so much. Without him she might never have seen her love for Pryce as anything less than a great passion. She would have to have been a woman of great generosity not to have hated him for it.
“May I speak with the valet, please?” he asked.
“Of course. He is still here, although I shall have to dismiss him presently. I have no need for his services.” She reached for the bell rope embroidered in silk, and pulled it to summon a servant.
But the valet could tell him nothing useful. He had not seen the flask that evening, nor did he think that the judge had drunk from it. It was not his habit to use the flask when in his own home where he could send for a drink from the decanter merely by ringing a bell. Nor could any of the other servants add anything to what they had already said. He could feel their unspoken contempt that after this time, and all the questions, he was reduced to going over old facts he had known all along, and still he found no pattern from which he could deduce an answer. He was disgusted himself, and discouraged and angry.
The next person he saw was Judge Livesey, but he had to wait until the middle of the afternoon and find him in his chambers between other