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He nodded reluctantly. ‘Hugo said to me, several times, that I wasn’t to listen to rumour or false allegations, and that Prue would suffer if there was any talk. It was, oh, framing the debate, much like the way he’s gone about making me seem unbalanced. I think he’s afraid of her accusing him.’
‘She refused to tell me anything about the father,’ Ella said slowly. ‘I thought she was ashamed. I thought she might be jealous, even, because Aaron and I were happy. I have rather a habit of distrusting people’s motives, which...which I didn’t quite realise until a few years ago. Oh, the devil.’
‘I think she said something to Miss Keele,’ Jem said. ‘She asked me if Prue had loved her son, and sounded surprised when I said yes. One wouldn’t normally ask that about a child, would one?’
‘No,’ Ella said. ‘I don’t suppose one would. Oh God. Why didn’t shesay? I was full of our engagement, I suppose, and Finals, but still?—’
‘He’s Hugo Morley-Adams. Would people have believed her?’
‘I would!’ Ella snapped.
‘Engagement rings and wedding bells can be a little off-putting to those for whom they aren’t available,’ Nicky said. ‘She might not have felt able to speak to you at that time. Jem was as insignificant as she, socially speaking, I am no one’s first choice for a sympathetic ear, and Aaron ran with Hugo. But Toby—Toby who could do wonders when he put his mind to it, Toby who was the only one of us to be Hugo’s social superior… If she was afraid of retaliation, or of the consequences of going to the police, to have Toby stand by her would make all the difference.’
‘Dear heaven.’ Aaron was massaging his temples. ‘This is appalling. Can we be sure?’
‘If anyone has another explanation, I’ll listen,’ Jem said. ‘And perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps he and Prue had an affair of the normal kind and he’s merely afraid of it becoming known that he had an illegitimate child, but I don’t think so. I think Hugo committed a rape, and Toby used that to blackmail him into proposing to Ella. But Toby died and Prue vanished, and Hugo got away with it. And then he had my letter just when his ducal marriage was coming off and the Liberals are set to form a government for the first time in ten years. There’s not a chance that he could be gaoled now, but this would be the worst possible time for an accusation.’
‘Or for you to drag the murder up,’ Nicky said. ‘Suppose Prue had been accused of murder: her reasons would be all over the front pages. Suppose Toby’s blackmailing activities became known to the police, and they started asking hard questions. If Hugo saw the possibility of a scandal, he might well have panicked.’
Aaron scrubbed his hand over his hair. ‘We have to talk to Prue. We need her confirmation, her voice. We can’t do anything without that.’
‘If she wishes to talk to us,’ Ella said. ‘She didn’t before. Which is, in itself, suggestive. Hell and the devil.’
‘Undoubtedly we should talk to Prue. But there is also the attack on Jem,’ Nicky said. ‘I should very much like to speak to Hugo about that, and I’m disinclined to wait.’
‘I want to see him too,’ Ella said. ‘I want to see his face.’
‘MrMorley-Adams has a lot of explaining to do,’ Nicky said. ‘Are we going en masse?’
They left Nicky’s rooms together: Ella, Aaron, Nicky, Jem, striding through Front Quad in an uneven line, long coats flapping like scholars’ gowns, as if nothing had ever changed. Moffat was in the Porters’ Lodge. He looked round at them, and his slack-jawed expression brought a suppressed snort from Aaron.
‘He’s going to have a seizure,’ Ella said as they passed. ‘Shall we all book tea with the Master as well?’
The Randolph Hotel was all quiet, oaken, intimidating elegance. Ella swept up to the concierge without the slightest regard for his magnificence, and demanded Hugo.
She received a bow. ‘I regret to say, MrMorley-Adams left us this morning, madam, not half an hour ago.’
‘How extremely tiresome. I wanted to speak to him.’ Her tone suggested Hugo’s absence was the hotel’s fault, and that she expected them to deal with it.
‘I do beg your pardon, madam. I believe he received and sent a number of telegrams this morning, so I am sure the matter was urgent.’
‘I suppose he must have hurried back to London,’ Nicky said. ‘Might we still catch him at the station? What train was he taking?’
‘He’s travelling by motor, sir, but I don’t believe he was going directly to London,’ the man offered. ‘He requested a motoring guide.’
‘He can’t possibly have gone off sightseeing,’ Ella said. ‘A guide to where?’
‘He asked for a motoring map of Hertfordshire, madam, and if I knew of any good hostelries in Aylesbury. I recommended the King’s Head off Temple Street.’
‘Aylesbury?’ Jem asked. ‘Do you have another map, please?’
One was produced. Jem leaned over and traced the road from Oxford through Aylesbury to Aldbury, Prue’s village. It was very nearly a straight line.
Ella was leaning next to him and saw where his finger rested. ‘Aldbury. Do you think?—’
‘Aylesbury’s on the way.’
‘But does he know where she lives?’
