Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [29]
“I don’t know,” Charlotte said with candor. “To tell you the truth I hardly noticed it. But the main actor was extremely attractive.” She smiled as she said it, thinking of Caroline’s vulnerability in the matter.
“Was ’e terrible ’andsome?” Gracie said curiously. “Was ’e dark and very dashing?”
“Not really dark.” Charlotte pictured Joshua Fielding’s highly individual, whimsical face. “Not really handsome, I suppose, in an ordinary way. But extremely appealing. I think because one felt he had such an ability to laugh without cruelty, and to be gentle. One imagined he might understand all sorts of things.”
“Sounds very nice,” Gracie approved. “I’d like to know someone like that. Was the heroine beautiful? What was she like? All golden ’air and big eyes?”
“No, not at all,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully. “In fact she was about the darkest woman I have ever seen who was still English. But she could make you feel she was the most beautiful woman in the world when she wanted to. She really had a presence. Everyone else looked pallid and washed out beside her. She seemed to burn inside, as if other people were half alive—but not ostentatious, if you know what I mean?”
“No, ma’am,” Gracie admitted. “Oss what?”
“Oh—outwardly showy.”
“Oh.” Gracie climbed down, her skirts and apron in a bunch, and went to the tap to wash her cloth. “I can’t imagine a woman like that—but I’d like to. She sounds real exciting.” She wrung out the cloth with small, thin, very strong hands, and clambered back up onto the dresser. “Why was it you didn’t enjoy the drama, then, ma’am?”
“Because there was a murder in the next box,” Charlotte replied, tipping out more flour onto the sultanas.
Gracie stopped in midair, one hand on the top shelf, the other brandishing a sauceboat. She turned very slowly, her sharp little face alight with excitement.
“A murder? Really? Are you joshing me, ma’am?”
“Oh no,” Charlotte said seriously. “Not at all. A very eminent judge was killed. Actually I exaggerated a little; it wasn’t the next box, it was about four boxes away. He was poisoned.”
Gracie screwed up her face, ever practical of mind. “How can you poison anyone in a theater? I mean on purpose—I ate some eels once wot made me sick—but nobody did it intentional, like.”
“In his whiskey flask,” Charlotte explained, kneading out the last lump from the sultanas and putting them all into the colander ready to wash them under the tap in order to remove the grit before she searched them for odd stalks.
“Oh dear—poor gentleman.” Gracie resumed wiping the shelves. “Was it ’orrible?”
Charlotte took the colander to the sink.
“No, not really. He just sort of sank into a coma.” Charlotte turned on the tap and flushed the water through the fruit. “I was sorrier for his wife, poor soul.”
“She weren’t the one wot done it?” Gracie asked dubiously.
“I don’t know. He was a judge of the appeal court, and he had started to look into a case he dealt with several years ago—a very dreadful murder. The man who was hanged for it was the brother of the actress I told you about.”
“Cor!” Gracie was now totally absorbed. She put the sauceboat back on the wrong shelf, without its dish. “Cor!” she said again, pushing her cloth into her apron pocket and standing quite still on the dresser, her head almost to the airing rail just below the ceiling. “Was it a case the master was on?”
“No—not then.” Charlotte turned the tap off and took the fruit back to the kitchen table, tipped it out onto a soft cloth and patted it dry, then began to look for stalks. “But he will go into it all now, I expect.”
“Why’d they kill the judge, then?” Gracie was suddenly puzzled. “If ’e were goin’ ter look inter the case again, in’t that what she’d want? Oh! O’ course! You mean whoever really did the murder was scared as ’e’d find out it were them. Cor—it could be anybody, couldn’t it? Were it very ’orrible?”
“Yes, very. Much too horrible to tell you about. You’ll have bad dreams.”
“Garn,” Gracie said cheerfully. “Won’t be worse ’n I already ’eard!”
“Possibly not,” Charlotte agreed ruefully. “It was