Page 2 of Evidence of Evil
He was saved the necessity of answering that by the arrival of Jenks carrying a tea tray. A coat hung over one arm. After placing the tray on the low table between the chairs, Jenks handed the coat to Solomon, who shrugged into it as casually as he could under Constance’s amused gaze.
Jenks departed as impassively as he had entered, and Constance began to pour the tea without being asked.
“Tell me your proposition,” Solomon said, sitting down at last, aware of a spurt of excitement that might have been to do with her mere presence, or with what she had come to say.
“I have a friend who is afraid she will be accused of murder.” She handed him his cup of tea the way he preferred it, with neither milk nor sugar.
“Is she guilty?” he asked. It was not unreasonable to inquire. Constance lived among thedemimonde, owning a discreet and expensive brothel in Mayfair. Wealthy and powerful men were rumored to frequent her establishment.
“No,” Constance said. “Lizzie would not hurt a fly, let alone a living person. I want to prove her innocence.”
“By discovering whodidcommit the murder?”
“I thought you might like to help.” She sipped her tea as gracefully as any Mayfair lady. “Considering how successful we were at Greenforth Manor this summer. And two heads are obviously better than one.”
Was she giving him too many reasons? She must have known he would not be eager to poke about among the unsavory lives of her women and their clients.
“Who is she? Who is the victim?”
“My friend is Elizabeth, Lady Maule,” Constance said, meeting his gaze. “She is the wife of Sir Humphrey Maule, a landowning baronet in Sussex.”
He refused to betray as much as a blink of surprise. He should have known.
“The dead lady is a Miss Frances Niall,” she went on, “the daughter of Maule’s neighbor. Her father is a colonel recently retired from India.”
“And why should your friend Lady Maule be accused of killing this woman?”
“Because she was the last person known to have seen her alive.”
“But with what motive?”
“I believe they had quarreled. And Miss Niall’s body was recovered from the lake on Maule grounds.”
“But you don’t believe she did it? Why not? How well do you know her?”
Constance sighed. “I thought I would impress you with the respectability of my friends, but I see I will have to be truthful. Lady Maule once stayed in my establishment.”
“She was one of your girls,” he said neutrally.
Constance waved that aside.
“And this Maule married her?”
“Well, he did not meet her in my establishment,” Constance said. “She answered an advertisement to become governess to his children—he was a widower. And they married the following year.”
Solomon did not regard himself as a puritan, but this sat uneasily with him. “I take it you engineered this? Was it right to put such a person in charge of children?”
“I believe so. Whores are not all cut from the same cloth, any more than seamstresses or bankers or plantation owners.”
“Point taken,” he said politely, though he should have known better.
“Liar. What do you think happens to the girls of respectable families who are seduced by the uncaring and disowned? How do you think they live, eat, feed the results of their seduction? They have no character. No one will house or employ a ruined woman, though the man who bears at least half the responsibility walks away without a care in the world.”
“Is that what happened to you?” he asked.
“God, no. But it’s what happened to Elizabeth. She comes from a gentry family, has the education and the nature to take care of children. She was an excellent governess, and I daresay she is an excellent mother. She should not have this taken away from her by false accusations.”
“Is that really likely to happen?”
