Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [45]
His sympathy for Winton was sharpened. It was not an enviable position, then or now, except that it seemed he had done all that anyone could, and his behavior was beyond exception.
“I cannot think what Stafford was following,” he said aloud. “Even had there been some irregularity in the trial—or in the appeal—it seems beyond question Aaron Godman was guilty. Nothing can be served by raking it up again. I begin to think the answer lies elsewhere.”
Winton smiled for the first time.
“Not an appealing thought,” he agreed. “I understand why you sought to find another answer, but I am afraid it doesn’t lie with the Blaine/Godman case. Sorry.”
“Indeed,” Drummond said. “Thank you for your time.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll tell my man all you told me.”
“Not at all. Very delicate,” Winton said with understatement. “Sometimes our position is not easy.”
Drummond smiled sourly and bade him good-day.
The afternoon was fine, with a brisk wind blowing away the clouds and allowing brilliant shafts of autumn sunlight into the streets. Trees along the pavement and in the squares and parks were shedding their last leaves and there was a sharpness in the air that made Drummond think of woodsmoke, ripening berries in the hedges, and gardeners turning the damp earth and lifting and breaking the clumps of perennial flowers ready to replant for the spring. In the past when his wife had been alive and his daughters young, before he sold the house and took a flat in Piccadilly, there would have been chrysanthemums blooming in the borders, great shaggy, tawny-headed things that smelled like loam and rain on leaves.
He ached to share such thoughts. As always lately, his mind turned to Eleanor Byam. He had seen her very little since the scandal. Many times he had wished to go to her, but then he had remembered how he and Pitt—no, that was untrue, it had been Pitt with Charlotte who had done it; but it was their investigation, their persistence and intelligence which had uncovered the truth, and that truth had ruined Eleanor, made her a widow and an outcast where before her husband had been honored and she had been respected and liked.
Now she had sold their big house in Belgravia and retired to a small set of rooms in Marylebone, her income gone and her name only whispered in society, with awe and pity. There were no invitations, and precious few calls. Drummond was not responsible. No part of the crime or the tragedy which had overcome Sholto Byam had been his doing, and yet he felt the very sight of him must bring back to her only painful thoughts and comparisons.
Yet he found himself walking towards Milton Street, and unconsciously lengthening his stride.
It was late afternoon and the lamplighters were lifting their long poles to turn on the gas and bring the sudden glow of warmth along the darkening street when he came to Eleanor’s rooms. If he stopped to think now his courage would fail him. He walked straight up to the door and pulled the bell. It was a very ordinary house, curtains drawn in grim respectability, small garden neat, bright with a few late daisies and golden leaves.
A middle-aged maid with a suspicious face opened the door.
“Yes sir?” The “sir” was an afterthought on seeing the quality of his coat and the silver head to his stick.
“Good evening,” he said, lifting his hat a fraction. “I would like to see Mrs. Byam, if she is at home.” He fished in his pocket and brought out a card. “My name is Drummond—Micah Drummond.”
“Is she expecting yer, Mr. Drummond?”
“No. But”—he stretched the truth a little—“we are old friends and I was in the neighborhood. Will you please ask her if she will see me?”
“I’ll take the message,” she said less than generously. “But I can’t do no more’n that. I work for Mrs. Stokes as owns the ’ouse, not for the ladies wot ’as the rooms.” And without waiting for a reply she left Drummond on the step and went to discharge her errand.
Drummond looked around him,