'No!' His face was red. 'I don't even know who she was.'

'Then you will not mind telling me a or telling the magistrates a the real reason for your presence in the shrubbery that day.'

He gave a kind of snort and kicked furiously at the leg of his bench. 'You had better ask Harris about it,' he said. 'For what you don't understand is that there are a great many things beside murder which a gentleman might wish to conceal.'

'I do not doubt it, Mr Lomax. But I think that to clear himself of the suspicion of murder a gentleman might own to most secrets.'

'You really are the most insufferable, interfering woman I ever met!' cried Tom furiously. He jumped up from the bench, paced to the window then back to the fireside and stood before her on the hearth rug, talking vehemently. 'But it is not me, it is Harris who most wants secrecy in this case. And though you do not seem to mind stirring up trouble for me, I think you might regret the embarra.s.sment you will bring on John Harris a and on his womenfolk a with your infernal questions.'

That made Dido hesitate. But it was only for a moment. 'If you would but tell me the facts of the case, Mr Lomax.'

'And if I do not then I suppose you will go running to the magistrates bleating about me not being engaged?'

'Yes, I will.'

He strode back to the window, kicking the bench out of the way as he went. He leant upon the window sill and stared out into the yard.

'Mr Lomax, I believe it will not be long before our friends join us. And if I have not received some a.s.surance from you before we return to Belsfield...' She left the broken sentence to hang in the air of the little parlour.

'Very well, I shall tell you what my business was in the shrubbery,' he said violently. 'And you will not like what you hear. But remember you pressed me to tell you. It is not me that chooses to relate such details to a respectable spinster.' (There was a sneer in that.) 'Harris and I went to the hermitage to talk. He was too afraid of being overheard to transact our business in the spinney. And I was not lying: we went to talk about me marrying one of the girls. And it is true that he and I came to an agreement.'

'Indeed? I think it must have been a rather unusual agreement.'

'Perhaps it was.' He turned to face her, which put her at rather a disadvantage for the morning sun was behind him and, though he could watch her face, he was nothing to her but a tall dark figure against the brightness and she could make out nothing of his expressions. 'The agreement was that he would not oppose me marrying either of his daughters. But I did not fix on either of them. In fact,' he added with a heavy attempt at humour, 'I was gentleman enough to say that I would wait for Colonel Walborough to take his pick and pay my addresses to the one that was left.'

'How very generous of you! But what interests me, Mr Lomax, is how you persuaded Mr Harris to this arrangement. What was he to get in return for his consent to the marriage of his daughter to a man so deep in debt that even the village apothecary is refusing his business?'

That hit home. The dark figure looming against the s.h.i.+ning squares of the window started visibly and when he spoke again his voice was choking with fury. 'He is to get my silence, Miss Kent. That is what he is to get a and very valuable it is to him.'

'Yes?' said Dido calmly. 'Your silence on what subject?'

'On the subject of his marriage.'

'I see,' said Dido, taking great care that neither her face nor her voice should betray the shock which he hoped to detect. 'Now, I wonder what you have to tell on that subject. It is nothing to do, I am sure, with Mrs Harris's low origins, for all the world must know of those since she talks so freely of them herself.'

'Ah,' said Tom with relish. 'All the world knows that John Harris's present lady was nurse to his first wife, but what no one else in England knows is that she was still no more than a nurse when Miss Amelia was born. And that was a month before her patient died. Now, what do you say to that?'

'One of your acquaintance in India has informed you of this, I suppose?'

'More than one, as it happens; bad news has a way of travelling. And there is nothing to be gained by trying to doubt my word, Miss Kent, for Harris has admitted to the business himself a or as good as done so, for he has not denied it.'

Dido did not doubt its truth, nor could she doubt that Mr Harris would be anxious to keep it hidden a for the sake of his wife's reputation. She became aware that Tom was watching her closely and she did not doubt that he was smiling. Indeed, when he spoke again she could actually hear the smile in his words even though the sun was still dazzling her too much to see his face.

'So you see, Miss Kent, if you broadcast your suspicions about me, you would do no good at all and you would be the means of destroying the Harrises' respectability. Is that what you wish to do?'

He knew that it was not. He knew that she would not now speak out about her suspicions. In short, he was sure that he had got the better of her. He really was the most horrible, provoking man!

'No,' she said, standing up. 'That is not what I wish to do. All I wish to do is to find out who killed that woman, and to discover why Mr Montague has absented himself from his father's house.' She walked to the door, but there she hesitated. 'Though I believe I have just acquired a new purpose,' she added thoughtfully. 'I think I now also intend to put a stop to your selfish plans. Good morning, Mr Lomax.'

Chapter Sixteen.

...And so, Eliza, here I am back at Belsfield, and I have just received a piece of news which I had hoped very much not to hear.

There was a note awaiting me when we returned this afternoon, brought by Jenny, the housemaid. Here is what it says: Deer Madam, Mary that is made at the crown aks me to rite My Kate sys Mr Blaglog is a torl yung genlman he has big brown eys and a vere plesunt smile Yor servent Eliz. Potter (Mrs) PS she is a vere trothful chile and wos 2 yers at Sundy Scol Well, there is only one man at Belsfield who suits that description and that one man is Richard Montague. As I said, it is a piece of news which I would much rather not have received.

Oh, this really is a wretched business, Eliza! For everything seems to bring me back to those suspicions which are most dangerous to Catherine's happiness. I begin to wonder whether the time has come when I must talk very seriously with her. But still I do not know enough. I wish that I could find out more about this household; in particular about Mr Montague's absences from home and how long they last and whether there are ever arguments between him and his father.

I had hoped to make some discoveries from the servants and, to that end, have been questioning as many of them as I might since my return from Lyme; but their loyalty, or rather, I think, their fear of their master, has proved too strong for me and I can find out nothing. I think that I must somehow create a remarkable degree of goodwill in one or other of them before I can break down this reserve.

Have I not become very calculating since I turned into a solver of mysteries? But it cannot be helped for, as Charles often a.s.sures us, success in any enterprise is never achieved without a little deviousness. And I do believe that I have devised a way of gaining the goodwill of the young footman, Jack.

When he came to my room to bring some logs a for he still keeps me very well supplied a I noticed that his eyes were red and, all in all, though one does not like to suspect it of a young man, it seemed to me that he had been crying.

So I asked him what was the matter and, as you may imagine, he denied that he was upset and so we went on for a little while with fruitless questions; but the upshot of it all is that it is Colonel Walborough who is troubling him by sending for him at all hours to bring logs and wine and I know not what to his bedchamber. And the boy is very distressed by it for he seems to have taken quite an inordinate dislike to going to the colonel's room alone.

Well, I suppose servants are as ent.i.tled to have their vagaries as much as the rest of us! But the great advantage of this to me is that I have undertaken to relieve Jack of the gentleman's inopportune demands a though Jack shakes his head doubtfully and says that this is not something a 'nice, kind lady' can do anything about. My plan is that, by so doing, I shall win his grat.i.tude and, I hope, his willingness to talk about his master's business.

Well, I shall let you know how I go on...

Dido frowned so earnestly at Colonel Walborough as he drank his soup at dinner that evening, that he became nervous and began to suppose that she had had some terrible premonition concerning him.

Indeed, if the other people at the dining table had been as superst.i.tious as the colonel, they might all have shared his apprehension. For, during the course of dinner, she considered them all; moving on from her contemplation of the colonel to meditate upon the changes in her knowledge of them all since she first sat at that table. She had discovered that there was hardly one of them who was not hiding a secret.

Here was Sir Edgar, smiling so benignly as he carved the fine goose; yet she knew now that there was stark tyranny behind his geniality. At his side sat Mrs Harris, cheerfully relating some tale which required her to fold her napkin about and about in explanation. In her past there were indiscretions which should make any woman blush.

Beside her was Mr William Lomax, returned at last from his business and looking more than usually grave. What did he have to hide? A guilty liaison? Or only the family secrets of his employer? Dido was some time watching him and wondering what the reason might be for his excessive gravity this evening. A little while ago, in just crossing the hall to the drawing room, she had overheard Sir Edgar and Mr Lomax talking in the library. 'I am determined to find the killer,' the baronet had been saying. 'I will do everything in my power...' But she had been unable to distinguish the words of Mr Lomax's reply. Had he been arguing for more zeal or for more caution in the investigation?

Then, further along the table, there were the Harris girls, whose pretended incompetence and rage for accomplishments hid very real talents a but why? And there was Tom (with his side-whiskers still no more than a shadow) sitting between the girls and rolling his eyes about in a great effort of gallantry. His charming smiles concealed a plan of utter selfishness. And a little higher up was Margaret, and next to her, Mr Harris, his hard, leathery face set now in lines of resignation, looking sometimes at Tom and sometimes, with a softening of his expression, at his wife. Dido found herself wondering whether there might be some truth in Charles's words about the insensible hardness of men with fortunes got from India. It certainly seemed that Mr Harris had only one point of weakness a his wife. And for her comfort he was willing to sacrifice even his daughters.

And then, sitting on the other side of Mr Harris, there was Catherine: even paler than usual, and rather silent, but with little else to show how many tears she had lately been shedding. Of Catherine, too, her opinion had changed in the last few days. Catherine's affection for Mr Montague was more firmly founded than Dido had at first supposed... And did that mean that she too had secrets to hide: confidences that had been exchanged between the lovers and which she was determined not to break? Dido was beginning to suspect that it might be so.

And then, at the head of the table, sat her ladys.h.i.+p. Dido paused, for here perhaps was the greatest mystery of the household. With her blank face and her fingers forever twisting at her rings, her insipid air and her flashes of sharp intelligence, her exquisite beauty and her costly fas.h.i.+onable clothes...

Dido stopped. She had noticed something that she should have noticed long ago. There was something wrong about the way my lady was dressed.

When the ladies were alone in the drawing room, Dido looked about her purposefully. She had a plan in her head for saving Jack from the colonel's constant demands and, in order to carry it out, she had need of a pack of cards.

At the pianoforte the candlelight shone on the bright little faces and the bobbing curls of the Misses Harris, and on the rouged cheeks of their mother. At the fireside, in another pool of candlelight, her ladys.h.i.+p was already spreading out the first Patience of the evening, her attention absorbed in the patterns she was making with the deft little movements of her hands. It was, thought Dido, a way of removing herself from the company around her. She moved towards her and took a seat, close enough for conversation but not so close as to be quite overwhelmed by the scent of rose water, which was mixing with the wood smoke. On the opposite side of the hearth, Margaret noticed the intrusion with pursed lips.

'May I have the use of these a little while?' asked Dido, picking up an unbroken pack of cards from the inlaid table.

Her ladys.h.i.+p nodded graciously and Dido began to rearrange the cards in the pack. As she did so, she covertly studied her companion's hands. They moved elegantly and precisely over the table, never fumbling or making a mistake. Delicate hands with long white fingers, looking very beautiful with the creamy lace of her sleeves falling half across them; but, Dido saw now for the first time, their beauty was sadly marred by my lady's habit of twisting her rings. The flesh around the rings was rubbed red and sore. It was as if the fine gold and diamonds and rubies were nothing more than the chafing bonds of a prisoner.

Dido set down her cards, and reached across the table. Making some pleasant remark about its loveliness, she just lifted the edge of lace at the lady's wrist.

Instantly the hand was withdrawn and all the cards my lady was holding cascaded onto the floor.

There was a loud 'hmph' of disapproval from Margaret.

'I beg your pardon,' said Dido bending quickly to retrieve the cards.

'It was nothing, Miss Kent. You merely startled me.' Her face was impa.s.sive; but her eyes were cold and angry.

Dido was glad that the appearance of the gentlemen and Sir Edgar's approach to his lady with his usual questions about her health and her medicine gave her an excuse to move away to the other side of the room. There was no staying within range of those furious eyes.

She walked away very thoughtfully and took up her post on a distant sofa. She laid the pack of cards down on a table at her side a and she waited.

She did not doubt that the colonel would walk into her trap.

...And I was right. He soon came. My looks in the dining room had of course alerted him to the terrible peril that I had foreseen for him.

And I had foreseen a terrible peril for him, Eliza. I did not attempt to conceal it from him. Though, I confessed, I might have withheld the awful knowledge from a lesser man. A lesser man might have been too much frightened. But to a military hero like himself I was willing to own that I had received the most direful presage of doom.

What kind of doom? he asked immediately.

Well, to own the truth, the society of someone within this house was of the greatest danger to him. There was someone within this house who he should sedulously avoid. I did not, of course, know who it might be that was so dangerous to him.

Could I not discover the ident.i.ty of this individual?

No, no, I did not think I could. It would be too great a test of my abilities.

Was there no way of discovering more?

Well, sometimes a careful reading of the cards might...

And then, since we discovered that, quite by chance, there was a pack of cards on the table beside us, and since he pressed me so very urgently, I reluctantly consented to try what might be done. I was not pleased, however, with my own performance and regretted very much that it seemed to help him not at all. For twice when I dealt the cards there appeared a quite unaccountably a in the very centre of my pattern, a black jack. Which could only suggest to me a dark-haired fellow in a lowly walk of life a and how such a person could be an a.s.sociate of the colonel I was quite at a loss to understand...

He, however, much to my surprise, nodded vigorously and thanked me again and again for my warning.

How strange!

It is as well, I think, that I am not inclined to turn spy, Eliza. For it would, no doubt, be of the utmost advantage to the French to know that they might lay aside their muskets and cannons because the doughty leaders of our armies can be routed with a mere pack of cards.

It is late now and I am in my chamber celebrating my victory with a very wonderful luxury indeed a a delicious hot jug of chocolate. Jack has just brought it to me with a great many smiles and thanks. So it seems that he is already enjoying the good effects of my warning. How he came by the stuff I do not know. In all probability he raided Sir Edgar's private store. But I find myself liking Sir Edgar less and less so I do not care about stealing from him; and, besides, I learnt long ago that in these great houses it is as well to accept such kindnesses gratefully and hold one's tongue.

I am becoming quite accustomed to Belsfield's luxurious manner of living and you will, no doubt, find me completely spoilt when I come home.

I must go to bed now, for tomorrow I shall be very busy. I intend to put some of those questions to Jack which I was too weary to begin upon tonight. And, emboldened by my success this evening, I have determined that tomorrow I will set about defeating Mr Tom Lomax. You see, Eliza, I have concocted a plan. It is made partly from the things that he said to me once when he found me writing to you, and partly from that extraordinary conversation which I had with Lady Montague in the gallery. It is a bold scheme and I hardly think that you will approve it, but I think that it might just succeed...

Chapter Seventeen.

'Thank you.' Sophia Harris put a shaking hand to her throat as if talking was a very great effort. 'Thank you, Miss Kent, for telling me this.'

'I hope,' said Dido rather fearfully, 'that I have done right in speaking to you. Mr Tom Lomax did not expect me to take such a measure, I am sure. And if I could have thought of any other means of defeating him, I should have spared you the pain of hearing his plans a and his accusations.'

'Please,' said Sophia exerting herself to sound calm. 'Do not distress yourself on that account. I was already acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of my sister's birth a and of all the cruel things that could be said about Mama were they known. Once or twice over these last days I have wondered whether Mr Lomax meant mischief by the things he was saying a those remarks about his wide circle of friends in India. My father, too, I know has been uneasy about it almost since we came to Belsfield, and I am sure it is only my mother's good nature which has allowed her to remain ignorant of the danger.'

She paused, her face burning red in the cold, gloomy afternoon and her gloved hands pounding together in evidence of her inward agitation. They had walked out into the gardens for privacy and were now seated upon a wooden bench against a high, clipped yew hedge that formed a kind of alcove in which was placed a statue of a plump little boy that was so worn and moss-grown that it was impossible to determine whether he was pagan cupid or Christian cherub.

Sophia had listened to the news just as Dido had hoped she would: with strong emotion a but with good sense too. She was pleased to find that her a.s.sessment of the girl had been sound. The silly manner was, after all, not an essential part of her character. There was no trace of it to be seen now. There was instead a strange self-possession and, certainly, no lack of intelligence.

'Something must be done about this,' Miss Sophia was saying now. A strand of hair, damp from the misty air, fell down across her face and she pushed it back impatiently. She tapped a finger against her lip. 'But what can we do?' She shook her head. 'Tell me, Miss Kent, what do you know of Mr Tom Lomax?'

'Very little a but I know that there are few young men that I like less. His father seems to be a very respectable man.'

'Yes. I wonder whether an appeal to Mr William Lomax might help us.'

'I think not. I considered it; for I am sure he would be mortified by the way his son is behaving. But, from what Catherine tells me, I collect that Mr Tom is quite in the habit of defying his father.'

'I have heard he has very heavy debts,' said Sophia with a sigh.

'Yes, his circ.u.mstances are, I believe, becoming desperate. He is holding his creditors off with promises and I think he is determined to make his fortune by marrying well, for he is too indolent to take up any profession.'

'Ah! And that must make matters worse. For I do believe, from everything I have read, Miss Kent, that there are few things more dangerous than a desperate man.'

'Quite so,' said Dido. 'And yet, perhaps we may be able to use his desperation a and his own plans a against him.'

'You have an idea?'

'Maybe a yes, I think I do.'

'What is it?'

Dido hesitated. She could not quite say that in return for her help she wished to have her curiosity satisfied. Though that was the truth of the matter. 'I wonder,' she began cautiously, 'whether, before I explain myself to you, you might explain yourself to me.'

Sophia folded her hands in her lap and stared down at the gravel. 'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Miss Kent,' she said stubbornly.

There was silence between them for several minutes and the little sounds of the garden crept into their alcove: a little desultory birdsong; the rattle and sc.r.a.pe of a gardener's rake working somewhere in the gravel; the splas.h.i.+ng of the great fountain on the lower terrace.

'I hope,' said Dido quietly at last, 'that Miss Harris is feeling better today?'

'Yes. I thank you,' said Sophia gravely. She was silent for several more minutes, then she sighed and gave her companion a sidelong look. 'The proposal was unexpected,' she explained reluctantly, 'and Amelia was a little shaken by it. It will, of course, be refused a politely, regretfully. And the business will soon be forgotten.'