Page 71 of Murder at the Dinner Party
“She’s the type, that’s all. It wouldn’t surprise me if she instructed her husband. She was wily, that one. S’pose we’ll never known the truth, especially with his lordship gone. She has no reason to admit it.”
“I just thought I’d drop by and let you know that you helped me complete the picture of what occurred that night,” I went on. “I appreciate your assistance.”
“I would say it was my pleasure, but there’s nothing pleasurable about murder, is there?” She shook her head and sighed. “I sometimes wonder where Charlotte would be now if she’d lived, but I always come to the same sad conclusion.”
I suspected I’d regret asking, but I did anyway. “And what conclusion is that?”
“She would have given birth to several children by now, all by different fathers, and all adopted out because she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take proper care of them.” She set aside the box and picked up a framed photograph of a young woman dressed in a maid’s outfit standing on some familiar-looking stairs. “Children are a gift, Miss Fox. Mr. Hatch and I only had the one daughter, but Betty is everything I could have wished for in a child.”
Betty?
“May I have a closer look?” I asked.
She passed me the photograph, smiling proudly. “You can’t tell from that, but she has lovely hair.”
I stared at the girl’s face, hardly believing the coincidence. Orwasit a coincidence? I tried to think back to the previous conversation with Mrs. Hatch and couldn’t recall mentioning the name of the Campbells to her. “Is this photograph taken at your daughter’s first placement?”
“Yes, the Campbells of Mayfair. She has nothing to do with Sir Ian or Lady Campbell, but she likes the other staff and says the housekeeper is kind. She’s very content there.”
That wasn’t the Betty I’d seen. The girl always looked like she’d been crying. “This picture wasn’t here when I last called on you.”
“I knocked it off the table and the frame broke. I placed the photograph in the drawer until Betty bought another. Isn’t she pretty?”
“Yes,” I murmured. She was even prettier in person, I could have added but did not. I didn’t want Mrs. Hatch to know that her daughter worked in the house where I’d been investigating the death of the butler. I wasn’t yet sure why I withheld that information. It might not be important.
I needed to think it through to decide if the connection mattered. Actually, I needed totalkit through with someone. And I knew just the person.
CHAPTER14
Imay have been determined not to see Harry today, but circumstances had changed. I couldn’t jeopardize the investigation based on my decision to put some distance between us. It would be wrong of me.
That’s what I told the voice in my head that sounded remarkably like Harmony.
I stopped at the Roma Café before going up to Harry’s office. Luigi signaled for me to wait while he finished serving a trio of women seated at one of the tables. Dressed in housemaids’ uniforms, they spoke in rapid Italian until Luigi joined them, at which point they fell silent. The younger one smiled sweetly at him as he set down a cup of coffee in front of her.
When he walked away, the other two women gave the third girl teasing looks that made her blush.
Quite oblivious to the byplay, Luigi returned to his usual position behind the counter where the two elderly men sat on their stools, openly watching me as if I were an exhibit in the zoo. I ignored them. I was used to them staring by now.
“Will it be two coffees, Miss Fox, or would you like a cup of dirty water?” Luigi asked.
“Not tea, just coffees, please. I need something strong to get me through the day.”
One of the elderly men withdrew a battered old flask from his inside jacket pocket and offered it to me.
“Grazie, but I’ll just take the coffees as they come,” I said.
Luigi reached for the pot warming on the stove behind him and poured coffee into two cups. “How’s the detective business coming along?”
“All right, I suppose.”
“That’s what Harry says.” He nodded at the ceiling, to indicate Harry’s office, above. “You’d be busier if you joined together. Two heads are better than one, and you could cast your net wider.”
“I used to think the same thing, but I’d rather work alone now.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
