Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [141]
Tallulah looked as if she would like to have hit him.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Charlotte, her face pink. “I shall send a message as soon as I learn anything which could be of value.”
“So will we,” Emily promised a trifle mendaciously, then she and Charlotte took their leave.
“He’s frightened,” Emily said as soon as they were seated in her carriage and moving along Devonshire Street.
“So would I be,” Charlotte replied vehemently, “if I knew I had an enemy prepared to go to these lengths to have me hanged.” She shivered, for a moment uncontrollably, cold deep inside her. “He has tortured and killed two women just to destroy Finlay. To hate anyone that much is insane.”
Emily hugged her arms around herself.
“What are we going to do next?” she asked very quietly.
“I don’t know. Try to see if there is any connection between Ada McKinley and Nora Gough, I suppose. Why did he choose them? Why not somebody else?”
“Maybe it didn’t matter who it was,” Emily said miserably. “Maybe there isn’t a reason. It could just as easily have been anyone.” She looked even more wretched. “What if it is Jago Jones?”
“If it is, it will be terrible,” Charlotte replied. “But we shall have to live with it.”
10
EMILY RETURNED home determined to do all she could against the injustice she felt hung over the head of Finlay FitzJames. Perhaps it was more for Tallulah’s sake than for his, but she had sensed the fear in him, and the complete bewilderment. She would have sworn before any authority in the land that he had no idea how his belongings had come to be in Ada McKinley’s room, nor who had put them there. That it had been done in order to see him blamed for her death was the only certainty in the grim, chaotic picture.
There was an enemy somewhere, just out of sight, an implacable enemy, verging on insanity with hatred. Over what? It did not seem as if Finlay had any idea, and the more she considered that, the more did it seem certain that it must be his father’s enemy rather than his own.
The following morning she approached Jack over breakfast, beginning as soon as he sat down.
“I have been thinking a great deal about Thomas’s present case,” she said before he had even reached for the dish with the bacon. “I feel we must do anything whatever that we can to help.” She took a small serving of scrambled eggs and a slice of toast. “Finlay FitzJames is not guilty, we know that—”
“No we don’t,” he said sharply. “He may very well be guilty. The only person we know is innocent is Albert Costigan, poor devil.”
With a sudden sinking inside, Emily realized she had led herself into a trap. Naturally she had told Jack nothing whatever about her trip to Beaufort Street. He would disapprove fiercely, he would have to. In the past he might very well have attended such a party himself, but things were very different now; he was a Member of Parliament and a respectable family man with a reputation which was of great value.
“Oh.” She tried hastily to think of some way to retreat. No argument to justify her statement came to her mind. There was nothing but to deny it. “Perhaps I spoke more in hope than reality. I …” She had better not mention Tallulah. That could lead to complications. “I cannot believe Thomas would make such a mistake….”
He lifted two poached eggs out of the dish onto his plate.
“You mean Costigan was guilty?” he asked, raising his eyes and looking very directly at her. She was still taken aback by how very beautiful his eyes were.
“No … no, what I meant was that Thomas wouldn’t let Finlay FitzJames go just because of who he is. He wouldn’t think he had to be innocent, and not follow it up, because …” She stopped. He was looking at her with patient disbelief.
“Do you know Finlay FitzJames?” he asked.
“I’ve met him.” She never lied outright. There was all the world of difference between deceit and discretion. “But only twice, and both times by chance. I don’t know him.”
“But there is no doubt in your mind