Page 63 of Evidence of Evil
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but it could have been. I was sure there was someone creeping among the trees while I was walking around the lake. Then I stopped where we think Frances went in. I was deep in thought and forgot to pay attention. I even dropped a stone into the water, trying to feel what could have happened. I saw a reflection behind me, just in time to twist away, but I couldn’t make out his features for the ripples. He was wearing a top hat.”
“Like Darby’s?”
“Yes, I suppose so. My foot slipped further down the bank—that’s why my skirts are wet—and I managed to pull myself back up the bank by that tree root. But whoever pushed me had vanished. I’m sure I heard him moving away from the lake before Darby appeared from the other direction. But I could be wrong. He seemed more bent on lustful pursuits than murder, though he was quite eager to get me to the boathouse.”
He released her gaze at last. “I’ll go and take a look around. There may be footprints.”
“Wait,” she said, unreasonably annoyed—she wanted to look around too, but if it wasn’t Darby, whoever had pushed her was long gone, and she had more urgent questions. “What did you learn in London?”
“Ah.” His face cleared, and he sat down on the bed. “Quite a lot. Frances was not looking for Elizabeth’s child. She was looking for her own.”
“Like any other mother forced to abandon her baby,” she said. “So when she told Humphrey about Elizabeth’s past, she was just stabbing in the dark. It makes a horrible sense, Solomon. It must always have been Humphrey she loved, Humphrey she waited for and probably even trysted with after she came home from India. I don’t want to believe that.”
“Neither do I,” Solomon said. There was a rueful twist to his mouth. “But that isn’t everything. Tracing her child was not thefirst task Dunne had performed for Frances. She also wanted information about the death of Humphrey’s first wife.”
Constance stared at him. “Oh no. Was there something suspicious about how she died?”
“She contracted fever after the birth—which is not unusual. But it was comparatively mild, and she appeared to recover. And then suddenly, she sickened once more and died. There seemed to be no other reason. A recurrence of the fever was assumed, and no further action was taken. There was no autopsy. Dr. Laing signed the death certificate.”
Constance lowered herself to the chaise longue. “Does that sound terribly familiar to you?”
“I’m afraid it does.”
“Humphrey justkillswomen who are inconvenient to him?” she said with horror. “He killed his first wife to be with Frances? Only then he changed his mind, or perhaps just forgot about her when her father took her to India, and then he met Elizabeth. So when Frances came home, threatening his peace and his happy marriage, he killed her too. It fits horribly.”
“Except we don’t know how he did it, or evenifhe did.”
“But he seems so…”
“People are rarely the same beneath the face they show the world.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
They sat in silence for several moments, both deep in thought, before Solomon rose. “You need to change your dress. I’ll leave you in peace.”
She blinked up at him as he brushed past her. “You really don’t blame me?”
He paused, frowning down at her. “For what?”
“For misleading Darby.”
“Did you?” He actually sounded surprised, which felt like a healing balm.
“I encouraged him to come and speak to us without his wife, to give us details of his affair with Frances.”
Solomon’s lip curled. “A man like that only ever sees women in one light. The problem is his, not yours.”
He had said something similar once before. It was a rare man who did not blame a woman for such misunderstandings. Especially a woman like her.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely.
His brow twitched. “How much danger were you in?”
“None I could not have dealt with—somewhat less discreetly than you managed. And yet he doesn’t know me. To him, I am a respectable lady, and yet still fair game.”
“No one is fair game,” he snapped. “The man is a menace.”
Constance had spent years protecting women whom no one else believed were not “fair game” in one way or another. His words enchanted and distracted her.
