Chapter Four #2
Constance moved toward him with impeccable grace, stepping over discarded clothes and books as though they weren’t there, and offering her hand. “Mr. Darrow. You remember my husband, Mr. Grey?”
“Yes, of course,” Darrow said, though he gave Solomon an extra peer as though to be sure. “How do you do? Um…sorry for the mess. There’s a sitting room that might be better…if Reid’s not in it. He’s a pianist.”
“I think he might have gone out,” Solomon said, as Darrow laid his violin and bow in an open case on his unmade bed, then led the way into a parlor that was a good deal tidier and dominated by a slightly battered grand piano.
Darrow gestured politely for them to sit on the sofa. “How can I help you?”
Constance sat while Solomon kept his gaze on Darrow’s face. “It is about the death of Mrs. Digby Montague, otherwise Caterina di Ripoli.”
Darrow’s expression changed at once. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known, Solomon thought, or even that he was acting, but that he remembered. There was a definite flash of agony in his eyes, an involuntary, tragic grimace before he swung away from them.
“She is a terrible loss,” he said, his voice uneven. “But why do you come to me?” He turned back on the last word, a hint of defiance, even challenge, in his manner.
“Because you knew her,” Constance said. “And her death was so sudden.”
Darrow’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “Are you saying it was not her heart?”
“What makes you think it was?” Solomon asked.
The dark, pain-filled eyes turned on him. “It was in the newspaper. And she did suffer from an irregularity…”
“Did she tell you that?” Constance asked.
“Yes.” The defiance was back. “We were friends. I don’t understand—why does this concern you?”
“We have been asked to look into the circumstances of Mrs. Montague’s death,” Solomon said.
Darrow glanced at Constance, looking confused.
“It is another business of ours,” she said, holding out the business card that his landlady had rejected. “Inquiries.”
“He sent you,” Darrow said with loathing.
“Who?” Constance asked.
“Montague.”
“He has given us leave to speak to those concerned,” Constance said carefully.
“And so you come straight to me when you should be looking closer to home. If anyone caused her death, he did.”
“What makes you say that?” Solomon asked. “Was theirs not a happy marriage?”
“How could it be?” Darrow all but snapped, ramming his fingers through his hair to drag it back from his forehead.
“Because he is a little older than his wife?” Constance asked with deceptive innocence. “Or because he is a mere merchant and not a musician?”
Darrow paused, blinking at her. “Both,” he said at last.
“Or,” Solomon suggested, “because she was susceptible to your own charms?”
Darrow looked at him, then at Constance. “You know,” he said. “You know we were lovers.”
There was pride as well as defiance in his thrown-back head, his flashing eyes.
“Did her husband know?” Solomon asked.
Darrow let out a bitter laugh, full of savage contempt. “That dullard could not see what was under his nose. He hasn’t got the imagination.”
“Was she taking medicine for her heart trouble?” Constance asked.
Darrow nodded.
“Do you think she forgot to take it that day?”
“It’s more likely he gave her too much!”
Then he knew how digitalis worked, the lethal importance of the correct dosage. Interesting.
Constance leaned back against the sofa cushions. “How did you meet Caterina?”
“At a charity concert. I was one of a trio playing Mozart. She noticed me and asked me to accompany her when she sang. We worked wonderfully together. It was more than her beauty, you know. More even than her voice. She was…captivating.”
“In what way?”
“In every way! Her laughter, her understanding, her interpretation of the music and the sheer emotion… She was sweet, and funny, and vital…” His voice broke and he dashed the back of his hand across his eyes. Moisture still glistened.
“When was this?” Constance asked. “When you first met?”
Darrow shrugged. “A year ago? Just before she became ill. It was months before we met again. That was when we knew.”
“When you became lovers?” Constance asked.
Darrow nodded curtly.
“Where did you meet for your assignations?” Solomon asked.
“At the house of a friend from the theatre. She arranged to be out on the afternoons we met.”
Constance rummaged in her bag and passed him a pencil and a piece of paper. “Will you write down her name and address?”
Darrow did not hesitate.
While he wrote, Solomon said, “When did you last see Caterina?”
“To speak to? Just a couple of days ago. Tuesday afternoon.”
The day before she died… “At this friend’s house?” Solomon asked.
Darrow nodded.
“How did she seem to you?” Constance asked. “Well? Happy?”
“Yes,” Darrow said. “Just as she always was.”
“Did you send her flowers?” Constance asked.
He smiled as he passed the paper and pencil back to Constance. “I gave them to her often. At our meetings. She took them with her to performances and then took them home, telling her husband they had been left at the stage door for her by admirers in the audience.”
“Did you give her flowers on Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Roses. Red roses.”
Solomon did not look at Constance, though they seemed to have solved that mystery. “Where did she go when she left you on Tuesday afternoon?” he asked.
“To Covent Garden.”
“Directly?”
“So far as I know.”
“Taking the roses with her?”
“Yes.”
He left it to Constance to ask the last question. She would appear less threatening.
“Where were you on Wednesday night, Mr. Darrow?”
“At Covent Garden. Thanks to Caterina, I stand in when any of the violinists are absent.”
“So you did see her after Tuesday. Did you speak to her at the theatre?” Solomon asked.
“No. She insisted on discretion. She didn’t want Montague to find out about us. I didn’t care whether he did or not, but I did as she asked to please her.”
“Did she sing well?”
“Gloriously,” Darrow said with complete sincerity.
“And when she left the stage, did she seem physically well? No signs of illness that you could see?”
Darrow frowned and shook his head. “None. Perhaps I should have noticed something. Perhaps I only saw what I wished to, dazzled like everyone else…”
“And when the performance was over,” Solomon said, “where did you go?”
“Home,” Darrow said in surprise. “Here.”
“Alone or with friends?”
Darrow regarded him thoughtfully. He knew what the question meant, but it did not appear to upset him.
“Alone. Mrs. Philpot—the dragon downstairs—saw me, if you’re looking for witnesses.
Reid, who shares these rooms with me, is another.
If you suspect someone killed Caterina, look at Montague. She was afraid of him.”
“What makes you say that?” Constance asked quickly.
“I told you, she spoke to me. But if you had seen her morbid fear of Montague finding out, you would not doubt me.”
“Did he beat her?” Solomon asked steadily.
Darrow shrugged impatiently. “Not that I could ever prove. There are other ways to frighten people. If you really believe her death was not natural, know that I’ll help in any way I can. It has to have been him.”
His young face was earnest, tortured, difficult to look at.
Constance rose to her feet. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Darrow. You’ve been most helpful.”
Darrow nodded. It did not appear to enter his head to show them out.
He just bade them goodbye. As Solomon closed the door of the sitting room behind them, Darrow sank onto the piano stool, watching them as though in a daze.
The tragic look was back in his eyes, making him seem both younger and more vulnerable, almost like a lost child.
As they descended the stairs, the woman who had let them in waddled up the hall from the depths of the house—presumably Mrs. Philpot, “the dragon downstairs.”
“Well, at least you made him stop for five minutes,” she said with some satisfaction.
“Goes on for hours most days, you know, all that screeching. And when he stops, the other one starts. Gawd knows how the neighbors put up with it. If I didn’t make it a rule that there’s to be no noise after ten, they’d make their racket all night too. ”
“You don’t care for music?” Solomon asked.
“Not the same few notes over and over! Drive a person to drink, it would.”
“It can’t be easy,” Constance said sympathetically, “having two lively young men in your house.”
Mrs. Philpot sniffed. “They’re not so bad. Leastways, not at night. They don’t try to hold parties, or bring people—or women!—round late.”
Solomon felt his lip twitch. Covering it, he said, “I gather Mr. Darrow came home about eleven on Wednesday—the night before last.”
“That he did. And the other came in shortly after—tripped on the stairs, so I reckon he weren’t exactly sober.”
“You reckon?” Solomon repeated. “Then you didn’t actually see them?”
“They use their own keys, and I can tell each of their steps. They’re quite distinctive.
Carl’s is quieter, more careful. Geoffrey races around, jaunty, always in a hurry.
Mind you, I did see Carl—Mr. Darrow—that night.
He called goodnight when he heard me in the kitchen and I stuck my head round the door.
I put the lights out, and five minutes later, I heard Geoffrey—Mr. Reid—clattering about and falling up the stairs. ”
“I don’t suppose you heard either of them go out again that night?” Constance asked.
“Lord, no,” Mrs. Philpot said with unexpected indulgence. “They’re good boys really, and very good about getting up early—especially Carl, who practices in the mornings.”
“So on Thursday morning, Mr. Darrow was practicing his violin as usual?” Solomon asked.
“Oh yes, every day without fail.”
Solomon inclined his head and thanked her, and she opened the door for them. The violin remained silent.