Page 43 of Evidence of Evil
“Perhaps you would give me the name and address of that agency? Since I am going up to London today.”
Bingham began to look hunted.
“Doesn’t it exist?” Solomon asked.
“Of course it does!” she said indignantly. “They put me forward for the position, just like I said. They know—” She broke off, biting her lip. “It’s just as I said.”
Constance leaned forward. “Look, we are not interested in your past, except insofar as it touches on the death of Miss Niall. Anything else you say will be treated in confidence.”
“Yes, but what if you decide it gives me a reason to have killed her?” Bingham demanded. “If they can accuse Lady Maule, they can certainly arrestme, however innocent I am!”
“Why?” Constance asked. “What reason did you have, except that she was capricious and occasionally unkind?”
Bingham looked from her to Solomon, then closed her eyes. “I’m damned whatever I say. Look, shemademe stay with her. If I tried to leave, she said she’d tell everyone about the reason I left my old place. Not because she liked me—because she didn’t—but because she liked the power. She liked to be in control of people.”
At last. Constance cast Solomon a warning glance before she asked gently, “And what was the reason you left your last employment?”
“I lost my old place because I was accused of stealing and dismissed.” Bingham glared with fresh defiance. “The old bat even admitted she was wrong, once she found the stupid ring I was meant to have stolen. Even offered me my place back, but I wouldn’t go. She gave me a character instead. The agency knows all this, and Miss Niall must have got it out of them. Because if ever I displeased her, she’d point out how easy it would be to get me thrown out again without a character. And who’d believe intwosuch mistakes?”
Constance sat back in her chair, frowning. “I think…mere power might not have been Miss Niall’s only motive. You knew her secrets, didn’t you? How often she left the house clandestinely, what she had been up to away from home, who gave her presents. She had to keep you with her in case you ruined her reputation more effectively than she could ruin yours.”
Bingham’s eyes widened. “Do you think so?”
“Don’t you?”
It was clear she hadn’t considered matters from this angle, which at least said something for her character. “Perhaps…”
“Do you know who gave her the silver bracelet with the diamond at its center?”
Bingham frowned. “I don’t think I ever saw that one.”
“Did you know she had a number of such items hidden at the back of the bottom drawer in her sitting room desk?”
“Yes, but I never looked. I’d have been well slapped.”
“Did she have a lover?” Constance asked.
Bingham hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Who?” Solomon asked when Constance hesitated. She was too afraid, for Elizabeth’s sake, of what the maid would say.
“I don’t know,” Bingham said. “She hinted it was Sir Humphrey Maule, which makes me think he was the one man it wasn’t.”
“We heard a rumor about the head groom at the Grange,” Constance said.
Bingham grimaced. “Lance Godden? Could have been. He’s handsome enough, and full enough of himself to risk it. She was kind of flirtatious with him. Never found any straw on her clothes, though.”
“What did you find on her clothes?” Solomon interjected. “That was…unusual?”
Unexpectedly, Bingham blushed. “A funny smell sometimes. When she come home from one of her…walks.”
Constance again met Solomon’s gaze briefly. “When did she go for these walks? During the afternoon? Evening? Early morning.”
“It varied.”
“But she didn’t tell you where she was going, or who she was meeting?”
“Course not. She just told me to keep quiet or say she was visiting the sick or something equally unlikely. Sometimes shetook me with her and sentmeto visit the sick on her behalf while she swanned off on her own.”
