Page 31 of Evidence of Evil
Chapter Seven
Alone in therose garden, Constance contemplated the beauty of the flowers and the ugliness of human nature. It depressed her spirits to the extent that she didn’t notice anyone approach until the bench creaked under a man’s weight.
“Maule spoke to me,” Solomon said heavily.
“Elizabeth spoke to me. Frances Niall was an unpleasant and vindictive person. But she doesn’t seem to have been the only one. And the worst of it is, the truth provides Elizabeth with a motive. And Sir Humphrey.”
“I know. But what is the truth?”
Constance frowned at him. “That Frances was carrying Humphrey’s child.”
Solomon’s eyes widened. “Is that what she said to Elizabeth? She told Maule something quite different.”
“What?” Constance demanded. What could be worse than that kind of betrayal by a husband who was supposed to love her?
“Frances told him than she knew of Elizabeth’s past. On the streets around Covent Garden.”
“The truth,” Constance said in despair. “Which makes it all the more likely that she told Elizabeth the truth too.”
“Does it? It can’t have been mentioned at the inquest, and Dr. Laing certainly didn’t mention it to us.”
“Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Colonel Niall and Sir Humphrey are both his patients still.”
“We need to find out if it was true,” Solomon insisted.
“Why on earth would she lie about such a thing?”
“I really don’t know, but a rather nasty person is emerging from behind Frances’s halo. I don’t like her.”
“No… I still don’t believe Elizabeth killed her.”
“I don’t see how. Besides which, Maule said he was uneasy enough about Frances’s visit to watch them from the attic window as they walked around the lake. He claims he saw them part.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I think so. His story matches Elizabeth’s, even though they don’t seem to have conferred much on the subject.”
Constance shifted uneasily on the hard bench. “What if, having seen them part from the attic window, Sir Humphrey followed Frances, and killed her somehow to prevent her telling the world about his child?”
“After he called acknowledgment to Elizabeth when she told him she was back and all was well? It’s possible.”
“You sound doubtful.”
“I am. I don’t doubt Maule could have carried her body back to the lake and dropped her in—but she was wearing her nightgown. When did that change happen?”
“If they were having an affair, he might well have had one at hand. Where did they meet? We need to find their cozy love nest.”
“I don’t believe they had one,” Solomon said, irritatingly certain in his manner. “He does not speak of her as someone he loved or had anything but contempt for. I don’t think it’s in his character, either to have the affair or to kill his lover and his own child.”
“People will do anything to maintain the appearance of respectability,” Constance insisted. “He probably felt he had enough to cope with if Elizabeth’s past was about to come out.”
“But he doesn’t believe that part. He thinks it was all Frances’s malice.”
Constance stared at him, then struck the heel of her hand against her forehead in despair. “Elizabeth didn’t tell him. She confessed only to the love affair that caused her parents to throw her out. Not about her continued…fall.”
Solomon said nothing.
“Oh, drat the girl,” Constance whispered.
