Chapter 2 #2
"I believe so. It was one of the earlier signs.
I mentioned it to Dr. Hale at one of his visits, and he said it was consistent with the kind of chronic gastric condition Richard was suffering from.
" I watched the Inspector's face as I said this.
His expression revealed nothing, but his pencil moved across the notebook with increased speed, and I noted with a small inward contraction of alarm that he was recording my words with the precision of a man who intended to examine them later.
Peripheral neuropathy as an early symptom of arsenic poisoning was a connection that a well-read detective might make, and Inspector Aldric had the look of a man who read extensively.
"Was the Earl taking any other medications? Tinctures, tonics, anything of that nature?"
"Only what Dr. Hale prescribed. Bismuth, primarily, and later a preparation for his nerves. I am not certain what it contained. I can ask Dorothea; she managed the household medicines."
"I would appreciate that."
There was a pause. The Inspector closed his notebook and appeared to consider his next question, and in that pause, I conducted a rapid assessment of the situation.
He had not yet asked about my previous marriages, but I could see the trajectory of his questions.
The physician's notes, the progression of symptoms, the tingling in the extremities.
He was circling toward something, not a specific accusation but a general suspicion, and the shape of that suspicion was one I recognised from long experience. He was looking for a pattern.
If he asked about my previous marriages, and he would, I needed to be prepared.
The facts themselves were not incriminating.
Two dead husbands before Richard were tragedies, not crimes.
The circumstances of their deaths were matters of public record, and the records, in each case, told a story of natural or accidental demise with no hint of foul play.
But the facts, arranged in a certain order and viewed through a certain lens, could suggest something more sinister, and the Inspector was precisely the kind of man who would arrange facts in that order and view them through that lens.
"Lady Ashworth," he said, and I could see in his posture a subtle shift, a leaning forward that signalled the approach of a more sensitive question, "I must ask you about your previous marriages. I understand this may be distressing, and I apologise for the necessity."
I allowed a brief silence, the kind of pause that communicates pain too deep for immediate speech, and then I said, in a voice that was slightly lower and slightly less controlled than it had been, "You mean Arthur and Henry."
"Yes. I have been reviewing the circumstances of their deaths as part of my assessment of the Earl's estate."
I stared at him. Not with hostility, which would be counterproductive, but with the wounded bewilderment of a woman who has been asked to relive the most painful experiences of her life by a stranger with a notebook.
The expression required no acting. I had rehearsed it many times, in mirrors and in the more demanding theatre of actual social encounters, and I knew it was convincing because it was built from genuine components, fragments of emotional behaviour that I had observed in others and reproduced with sufficient fidelity to deceive even those who were watching for deception.
"I fail to see," I said, with quiet dignity, "what the deaths of my previous husbands can have to do with Richard's passing. Each was a separate tragedy, unconnected to the others. To suggest otherwise is, with all respect, Inspector, not only distressing but absurd."
He held my gaze without flinching. "I am not suggesting anything, Lady Ashworth.
I am conducting a review, as I have been instructed.
The circumstances of the Earl's death are a matter of record, and the circumstances of your previous marriages are, as you say, also matters of record.
It is my duty to examine the full picture. "
"The full picture," I repeated, and I allowed a note of incredulity to enter my voice, the faintest suggestion that the Inspector was overstepping the bounds of reasonable inquiry.
"I have buried three husbands in eight years, Inspector.
I do not need a detective from Scotland Yard to remind me of that fact.
I live with it every day." I pressed my handkerchief to my lips, a gesture of composed distress that my mother had considered one of her finest inventions.
"Arthur died of heart failure. He had suffered from angina for years.
His physician had warned him that his condition was serious.
I was with him when he died, just as I was with Henry and just as I was with Richard, and in each case, I held their hands and watched the life leave them, and I do not appreciate being made to feel as though my presence at those moments is evidence of something sinister. "
The Inspector's expression shifted, and for a moment I saw something in his face that I had not expected: not suspicion, but something closer to uncertainty.
He had anticipated resistance, but he had not anticipated the quality of my response, which was not defensive but wounded, and which had the particular power of a woman of rank expressing dismay at the conduct of a social inferior.
I had deployed the only weapon available to me that was more formidable than my intelligence, and I had used it with the precision of a surgeon.
He cleared his throat. "I apologise, Lady Ashworth. No offence was intended."
"None taken, Inspector." I folded my handkerchief and returned it to my sleeve.
"I am happy to answer any questions you have about Richard's health, his habits, his final weeks.
But I must ask you to understand that the death of a husband is not a subject I discuss with pleasure, and the implication that three such deaths might be connected is one that I find both painful and offensive. "
"Of course. I understand completely." He consulted his notebook, and I could see that the trajectory of his questions had been deflected, not destroyed but redirected, and that he would return to the subject of my previous marriages when he had gathered more information and felt better prepared to ask.
This was acceptable. Deflection was a temporary strategy, not a permanent solution, and I would need to develop a more comprehensive plan for managing his investigation as it progressed.
But for the present, I had demonstrated that I was not the kind of woman who could be interrogated without consequence, and he had retreated, which was what I wanted.
"Perhaps," I said, softening my tone with deliberate generosity, "you could tell me what specific concerns prompted this review. If there are questions about the estate, I am sure Sir William Hartwell, our solicitor, could be more helpful than I."
"There are no specific concerns about the estate itself.
The review was prompted by a complaint from a member of the extended family, which I am satisfied is without merit.
" He paused, and then, with the air of a man who knows he is trespassing but cannot help himself, added, "The Earl's physician, Dr. Hale, noted some features of the case that I found unusual. "
"Unusual?"
"The progression of his symptoms. The neuropathy.
The rapidity of the hepatic failure." He phrased it carefully, as a medical observation rather than an accusation, but I could see the intelligence behind the careful phrasing, the detective's instinct that had seized upon a detail that most physicians would have overlooked.
"Dr. Hale is a competent physician," I said. "He attended Richard for years. If he had suspected anything amiss, I am certain he would have said so."
"Quite. I am sure you are right." The Inspector stood, and I rose with him, the graceful, unhurried movement of a woman who is accustomed to receiving guests and seeing them out. "Thank you for your time, Lady Ashworth. I may have further questions."
"You are welcome at any time, Inspector.
" I extended my hand, and he took it briefly, formally, his grip firm and dry and entirely professional.
His eyes met mine as our hands touched, and in that instant, I saw something that made the small, precise machinery of my assessment stutter and nearly stall.
He was looking at me not with pity, not with the awkward sympathy that most men adopted when confronting a grieving widow, and not with the aggressive suspicion that I had expected from a detective who had been reviewing my history.
He was looking at me with the focused, uncomfortable attention of a man who was trying to see behind a mask, and who was not certain whether what he was seeing was the mask or the face beneath it.
I released his hand and smiled, the warm, composed smile of a gracious hostess seeing a guest to the door, and I turned to Dorothea, who had appeared at the drawing room door with the timing of a woman who understood that her mistress wished to be alone.
"Show the Inspector out, Dorothea."
"Yes, my lady."
I waited until I heard the front door close, and then I walked to the window and stood looking out at the square.
The November light was thin and cold, the trees bare, the sky the colour of wet slate.
A hansom cab stood at the kerb, and I watched the Inspector descend the front steps and climb into it with the economical movements of a man who was accustomed to the practicalities of London transport.
He did not look back at the house. He did not need to.
I was certain that he had memorised its layout, its entrances and exits, the sight lines from the street, the positions of the neighbouring houses, all the details that a detective accumulates in the course of a single visit.