Chapter Thirteen #2
“But does he?” Constance asked as Solomon reached forward to open the door.
“He hasn’t come to us since Thursday night, and he could hardly ask much at the funeral luncheon.
If he’s guilty, I can’t really understand his stirring up this investigation in the first place.
Can you really see him climbing up to Caterina’s bedroom window and letting himself in? ”
“Yes,” Solomon said frankly, handing her down from the carriage.
He nodded to the coachmen, and Constance took his arm.
“He is very fit for a man of his years, and the climb is not arduous. That there is no evidence of foul play fits his character and the skills we suspect him of possessing. And he could well be using us as we first suspected, just to prove his innocence. Then there is the reason for keeping his address secret. Simply the habit of a man who tends to make enemies?”
“Possibly. I’m certainly glad to know Francis Fanshaw.
A man can’t apply for such a prominent position without an address, after all.
” And Sir Francis, fortunately, had seen no reason to keep it secret.
“Actually,” she added thoughtfully, “I doubt he wants me endangering his reputation by visiting him.”
“What a shame,” Solomon said, halting to knock briskly on what they believed to be Kellar’s front door.
It was opened by a tall, thin manservant with a face as veiled but considerably less friendly than Kellar’s.
“Mr. Kellar, if you please,” Solomon said, proffering his card. “The matter is urgent.”
The servant took the card without looking at it and made a very slight bow. “Please follow me.”
Constance suspected they would be abandoned in a reception room while Kellar nipped smartly from the house, but it seemed she maligned their host. The servant led them straight to a parlor, where Kellar himself stood in front of the empty fireplace.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grey, sir,” the manservant announced, still without apparent reference to Solomon’s card.
He saw us arrive, Constance thought, and he’s quite prepared for us. The man was annoying.
Kellar advanced upon them, smiling, hand held out, quite the consummate diplomat. “You will join me for luncheon, won’t you? I am about to sit down, and there is plenty for three.”
“In that case, thank you, we will,” Constance replied, and they followed him through to the cozy dining room, where Kellar was an attentive host, holding Constance’s chair and waiting for them both to sit before he assumed his own place between them at the head of the table.
The same manservant brought in a tureen of soup and several other dishes, which he left on the table before withdrawing discreetly. Kellar himself served the soup and offered Constance a glass of wine.
“Thank you, no,” she said. “We have more to do this afternoon.” And one needed all one’s wits around Kellar.
“Ah. Then you doom me to drinking alone, unless I can persuade you to a small glass, Grey?”
“No, thank you,” Solomon said.
Kellar let them appreciate a mouthful of excellent, creamy vegetable soup and a bite of delicious herb toast before he said, “Well, how does your investigation progress?”
“Interestingly,” Solomon said. “It seems you could well be right that Montague had something to do with his wife’s death.”
Kellar paused for an instant with his soup spoon halfway to his mouth. “You have evidence?”
They didn’t answer immediately. Instead, Constance said, “Why didn’t you tell us that Montague’s betrothed had died in similar circumstances?”
This time, Kellar laid his spoon in the bowl. Constance could have sworn he was surprised, though whether by the news or by their discovery of it, she could not decide.
“I didn’t know,” he said slowly. “I merely sensed something about him that I did not care for. Caterina told me nothing about an earlier betrothal, merely denied that he had been married before.”
“It does not appear to be a secret. The servants speak of it openly.”
Kellar picked his spoon up again. “When you say similar circumstances, what exactly do you mean?”
Constance told him the little she knew.
“Interesting,” Kellar remarked.
Constance could not quite read the expression that flickered briefly through his veiled eyes. Consternation, perhaps, or guilt. Hoping to keep him off balance, she said, “Why do you keep bothering my mother?”
Kellar blinked. “Bothering her? Dear lady, I happened to wander into her shop one day and on another I knocked on her door to call, as one occasionally does upon old friends. Consider yourselves, comfortably calling on me today. And since we are questioning each other—why did you not introduce her when she blundered into your dining room on Friday?”
“I wasn’t sure she wanted to speak to you,” Constance said.
“Neither was I,” Kellar replied. “Hence my brief visits.”
“And what did you learn from those brief visits?” Constance asked frostily.
The hint of a smile tugged at Kellar’s lips. “That she doesn’t seem to be sure either.”
“Then we can take it that is the end of the matter?” Constance said, sounding for all the world like an overprotective parent. Part of her wanted to laugh. Most of her was far too uneasy.
“Probably,” Kellar said vaguely.
“But you still haven’t answered my question,” Constance pointed out.
“Why did you go there? You even knew where to go, and neither of us told you that. You can’t have expected to find your Miss Silver running a curiosity shop in Covent Garden.
And don’t tell me it was an accident, because I wouldn’t believe you. ”
Kellar smiled, lifting his wine glass and turning it in his fingers. “Of course it wasn’t an accident. Why wouldn’t I seek her out?”
Constance laid down her spoon, meeting the challenging, yet humorous gaze. “Cards on the table, Mr. Kellar. You know who and what I am. I’m sure you can guess who gave me the idea. Juliet is doing better than she has in twenty-five years, and I won’t have her…bothered.”
She almost said upset, but that would perhaps have betrayed too much.
“You love your mother,” Kellar observed.
“That is not the point at issue,” Solomon intervened. “What interests us is why a gentleman in pursuit of an important Foreign Office promotion should start visiting a lady of questionable reputation.”
“Nicely put,” Constance said without taking her gaze from Kellar.
“Thank you,” Solomon returned. “The other thing that concerns us is what Caterina Montague might have known about you that you wish to keep silent. And yes, the two questions are connected.”
Kellar caught his breath, his eyes dancing. “Oh my goodness, I have become a suspect! That, I did not foresee.”
“No, you foresaw acquittal,” Constance said coldly, “well before accusation.”
“It seems I was wrong. How did I do it?”
“You could have persuaded her to let you in through the front door. After all, she knew and trusted you. Or you could have climbed up through her window while she slept. You knew where her bedroom was.”
Kellar stood and began to collect the bowls, which he placed on the sideboard with the soup tureen before lifting the lids from the remaining dishes on the table.
“You are very thorough,” he remarked. “I commend you. But in this case, you are quite, quite wrong. I would never have hurt a hair on Caterina’s head because, you see, I hold myself responsible for her parents’ deaths.”
It was simply said, without obvious emotion or urbanity. A simple fact. Either he was telling the truth or he was the best actor never to walk the stage. Constance inclined to the former.
Judging by Solomon’s next remark, so did he. “You will appreciate that we have had dishonest clients before. If you truly want our help, you must tell us the whole truth. Do you want our help?”
“Yes,” Kellar said, resuming his seat. “More than ever, now.”
“Then tell us,” Constance said, “about the last times you saw Caterina alive. From Monday the twenty-seventh of June.”
“Allow me to help you to some cold meats while I try to remember…”
*
“What do you think?” Constance asked when they had left Kellar’s abode.
“That we took him by surprise, both by finding his home and by our discoveries about Caterina.”
Despite the calm neutrality of his voice, she knew he was troubled, and she shared that unease.
“Why would he be surprised?” she wondered aloud.
“He was the one who suspected murder in the first place. Whatever his reasons—and I do mostly believe in his guilt over her parents—did he expect us to be such poor investigators?”
“Perhaps he did,” Solomon said slowly. “Perhaps, as we thought, he really did employ us to find nothing. Which means there must be something to find.”
“Insulting.” Catching sight of the carriage ambling toward them, she halted. “But why would he think so little of us? He knows we found the killer in Venice.”
“I have no idea. The trouble is, I still like the man. I don’t believe he lies to us. He just keeps things back, probably from habit.”
“Are you ruling him out as Caterina’s killer?”
Solomon made a frustrated gesture with one hand as the carriage came to a halt beside them.
“We have no evidence one way or the other. But if he killed Caterina to keep her quiet and preserve his reputation, why would he then go anywhere near Juliet, whose company could ruin him at least as effectively?”
Constance shivered. “He could have hurt her, in the flat. He had the time. She’s used to taking care of herself, but…”
“But he left when she bade him. Which implies he is indeed a man of honor.”
“But we have no proof. Montague is still our likeliest suspect. Where now?”
“The Royal Academy of Music,” Solomon said, “as we originally planned. We have been neglecting Darrow.”
Perhaps, but it didn’t take two people to talk to his teachers at the academy. Not when everything was pointing toward Montague as the culprit. “Why don’t I let you off at the academy,” Constance suggested, “while I go and speak to the Worthingtons about their daughter’s death?”
*
Solomon had some sympathy with Constance’s eager pursuit of Montague.
He did indeed seem the likeliest suspect.
But his own tidy nature required a closer look at all suspects, and they knew considerably less about Darrow than about the other two.
Of course, he was much younger and there would be less to find, but a school was bound to be less biased in its opinions than friends.
The Royal Academy of Music was just off Hanover Square. Made from three old houses knocked into one, it appeared to be a maze of low doorways and passages that resembled tunnels more than hallways or corridors.
Solomon discovered the administrative office more by luck than anything else, and explained to the elderly gentleman he found there that he would like the opportunity to speak to the teachers of the violinist Carl Darrow.
The man’s eyes widened. “Darrow? I have heard him play. A most promising young talent. But I don’t believe he was one of our students. I would surely have recalled him, being a violinist myself.”
The old gentleman might well have been a violinist, but he also resembled most people’s idea of an absent-minded academic at best. At worst, an aging old man whose memory had wandered off with the years.
“Could you possibly check your records?” Solomon asked politely, just as a younger man entered the office.
The old fellow beamed. “Of course! Mr. Vallance here will help you. The gentleman is looking for Carl Darrow’s instructors. He isn’t one of ours, of course, but best to be sure. He might have come for a few lessons…”
The younger man marched over to a formidable array of cabinets. “What year do you believe he left the academy?”
“I’m not sure. 1852 at the latest, I would say, possibly a year or so before that.”
The clerk, if such he was, looked irritated, but opened the second drawer from the top of the last cabinet in the row. After a moment of rummaging, he shut the drawer again, moved to the next cabinet, and repeated the process.
This went on for some time, without explanation. Eventually, the young man strode across the office to more ancient-looking cabinets and carried on.
Eventually, he swung around to face Solomon. “I have looked back over ten years, and there is no Darrow in our records at all.”
Solomon, who had begun to suspect as much, said hopefully, “Could some member of staff have removed them temporarily? Perhaps to write a character reference or some such?”
“His registration would remain. He never matriculated here, and was never taught here, even on short courses.” The faintest of smiles dawned, and the young man cast an almost affectionate look at his ancient colleague. “Besides, if Mr. Laurel doesn’t recall him, he never stepped through our door.”