The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [171]
“How on earth can we find out the identity of someone’s lover?” Charlotte said desperately, sipping her lemonade. “We can’t follow her.”
“That is impractical,” Emily pointed out. “And anyway it would take far too long. It might be days before they see each other again. We must do something more rapid than that.”
“But if she doesn’t see him?” Charlotte said desperately.
“Then we must make her!” Emily had lost none of her resolution. One unexpected victory had filled her with confidence. “We must send her a letter, or something of that sort. An invitation, purporting to come from him.”
“She will know it was not his handwriting,” Charlotte pointed out. “Beside that, people who are in love usually have a special way of communicating with each other, some term of endearment, or pet name or the like.”
Emily frowned at her.
“Apart from that,” Charlotte went on. “Even if she answered it, that would not tell us who he is.”
“Don’t be obstructive,” Emily said with a touch of asperity. “We should have to word it so that she would go to him, and then we should know who he was.”
“And he would equally know who we were,” Charlotte finished for her. “They would then know there was something very peculiar going on. It would look like the most vulgar of curiosity. We might do more harm than good.” She set down her lemonade glass. “Don’t forget that establishing who he is is only the beginning. To have an admirer is not a crime, in fact if you are discreet, it is not really even regarded as a sin.”
Emily glared at her. “Do you want to solve this or not?”
Charlotte did not even bother to answer her.
“I don’t think Dulcie will betray herself,” she said thoughtfully, taking up her lemonade again. It really was delicious, and most refreshing. “But he might”
“But we don’t know who he is,” Emily retorted. “Before we know that, we have to trace him—through her.”
“I am not sure that that is necessarily true.”
Emily drew her brows together with suddenly sharpened concentration. “Do you have an idea?”
“Possibly. Let us consider what qualities he must possess.”
“To be a lover?” Emily looked incredulous. “Don’t be absurd. He must be virile—that’s about all. Everything else is purely a matter of taste.”
“You are being simplistic,” Charlotte said acidly. “I mean what is it that makes sense of murdering Aidan Arledge now, instead of sooner, or later, or better still, not at all? Most people who are lovers don’t murder a spouse. Why did it happen this time, and why now?”
Emily sat silent for several minutes, carefully eating a piece of fudge before she replied.
“Circumstances have changed,” she answered at length. “That is the only thing that makes sense.”
“Yes, I agree, but in what way?” Charlotte took a piece of the fudge also.
“Someone discovered her? No, that would mean they killed the discoverer, if he, or she, threatened blackmail. Her husband discovered, and was about to expose her to public shame? Even to throw her out for adultery?”
“When he was having a love affair with Jerome Carvell? Hardly!”
“She discovered him with Jerome Carvell and killed him in a fit of utter disgust,” Emily offered.
“Thomas thought she didn’t know about Jerome Carvell,” Charlotte said. “She suspected he had a lover, but she thought it was a woman, as anyone would.”
“But Thomas thinks she is a grieving widow,” Emily responded, pulling a face. “He doesn’t know she has a lover herself.”
Charlotte conceded that point in silence. Pitt’s opinion of Dulcie was not something she wished to dwell on.
“I love Thomas to distraction,” Emily continued. “But he is not always the best judge of a woman. Very few men are,” she added graciously. “Well, something made it imperative. Perhaps he was going away, because she couldn’t marry him, and she had to make herself free to stop him leaving forever?”
“And maybe he was going to marry someone else?” Charlotte suggested.
“Which would mean he was free to marry,” Emily said with rising