“Except I don’t really see him as a poisoner. Though experiments with opium are unlikely to be beyond him. No, on the whole, I believe he’s no more than thecauseof the blackmail. Though he did suggest we look more closely at her maid of that time—who, sadly, was not Veronique. On the other hand, the surprise of the evening was the sudden arrival of one Kenny, who has a rich wife in the West End.”
Constance sat up straighter. “Thatisunexpected…”
While Solomon told that tale, too, she looked increasingly excited. “All these disparate people from different worlds, but we’re finding connections all the time. St. John and Neville, Mrs. St. John and Veronique, Mrs. Willow and Veronique, Mrs. St. John and Madly, Madly and Veronique through her husband Kenny… It must mean something, Sol.”
He met her gaze. “What do you think it means?”
“I wish I knew,” she said ruefully. “Because you’re right. I really don’t see blackmailers killing the source of their wealth.”
“Unless…” Solomon said, setting down his coffee cup with a dangerous crack. “St. John had had enough and refused to pay anymore. They were bleeding him dry, after all, and payinghadn’t got them off his back. Perhaps he decided to stand up to them, and they made an example of him.”
“Because they had Mrs. Willow and her sister waiting in the wings,” Constance said thoughtfully. “I wonder what sin these impossibly self-righteous ladies committed? Snaffling the church collection?”
“It can’t be that trivial.”
“You think not? For blackmailers, it’s not about the actual sin, is it? It’s about how their victimsperceivethat sin. Mrs. St. John is obsessed with respectability and conformity—of course she is, after her youthful adventure almost ruined her. Mrs. Willow and Miss Morton have so hemmed themselves in with righteousness that any trivial, one-off folly would cause them to be mocked and jeered out of Town by all, from duchesses to maidservants to whores.”
She sounded eager, and yet he knew she didn’t really believe it.
“Constance—”
The kitchen door was opened with a key and Ally the footman came in. “Trouble in the mews.”
Solomon leapt to his feet and Constance reached for her shawl. “What sort of trouble?” she asked.
“Someone creeping about, peering over walls and gates. He’s carrying something heavy, too.”
“Oh, God, not another body…”
“Why don’t you wait here?” Solomon suggested, and just as he’d expected, she sailed first out of the back door. He tried not to grin as he followed her.
“Where exactly was he when you saw him?” Solomon murmured to Ally in the doorway.
Ally pointed diagonally to the left, and then swept his arm right to explain the direction of the man’s movement.
“Did you recognize him?”
Ally shook his head and locked the back door.
Moving as fast as they could without making a noise, the three of them crept across the garden to the well-oiled gate. Interestingly, the object of their suspicion seemed to have walked straight past the establishment gate, for faint, slow footsteps sounded to the right. Solomon opened the gate and peered in that direction.
A lean man slouched toward the house two doors down, carrying something wrapped in cloth. At least it was far too small to be a body—an adult body, at any rate. He paused to peer over the gate and moved on. The moon was bright enough to show his dark figure pass the next garden too, and then, abruptly, he vanished.
“Mrs. Willow’s,” Constance whispered. “Hurry!”
Solomon was already through the gate, loping along the muddy track as fast as he could without splashing in the puddles left by the evening’s rain. The intruder hadn’t latched the gate, and it too was so well oiled that he made so sound entering the garden. Nor did Constance or Ally behind him.
In the moonlight, the intruder was crouched down at the back door, unwrapping whatever it was he’d been carrying. He’d pulled off several flower heads in passing. Solomon could feel them thick beneath his feet, further silencing his steps. The man rose to his feet, leaving the wrapping—it must have been a towel or some other soft material, for it had made no rustling sound.
Only when the man hefted the unwrapped object mightily over his head did Solomon see that it was an axe.
He sprang forward without caring about noise any more, for the back door was opening to reveal a woman in a voluminous dressing gown. Solomon caught a glimpse of her face, wide-eyed and terrified before the descending axe.
*
Constance had rarelybeen as glad for Solomon’s speedy reflexes. Her heart was in her mouth as he made a desperate leap for the axe. He seized it and the hand that held it, yanking them both back so hard that he fell, bringing man and axe down on top of himself.
But Ally was there, hauling the miscreant off Solomon by the arms, which he twisted up the man’s back. Constance had swept past them to the terrified woman, who was gasping and weeping.
