“Thank you for your help.” Solomon nodded to the elderly constable and walked away.
Uneasily, he wondered what David’s chances would be against such seething prejudice as Napier’s, without Solomon’s protections of wealth, respectability, and important allies.
*
Solomon returned toSilver and Grey’s offices mainly because he couldn’t make up his mind whether to go home or to Constance’s house. Indecisiveness rattled him, for he was used to thinking clearly and quickly and reacting accordingly. Today, bombarded by tiredness and emotion, nothing seemed clear except his desire to see Constance.
He found her in her own office, frowning over whatever she had been writing, but she greeted him with clear relief, jumping up and hurrying toward him.
“Solomon! What did you learn? Did you see Harris?”
“No,” Solomon said with a rueful twist of the lips. “But I did see Napier. Remember him?”
She grimaced. “Vividly. I can’t imagine he told you anything.”
“No, but in spite of him, I did learn that there really was a murder outside the Crown and Anchor, and the victim was one Herbert Chase, a respectable gentleman in disguise for some unknown purpose.”
“Which makes David’s story substantially true,” Constance said, tugging him by the hand and forcing him to sit down.
“You doubted it?”
Constance sat down beside him. “He’s a bit of a mess, Solomon.”
“Straws and camels’ backs,” he said vaguely, rubbing at his forehead and forcing his mind away from Constance’s beauty to the unpalatable problem. “You think he might have committed the murder? Both murders?”
“It’s whatheis afraid of. He doesn’t trust himself or his memories.”
He stared at her. “Well, that would test our commitment to justice. Are we harboring a felon?”
“We’re harboring your long-lost brother, who is innocent until proven guilty.”
“But you don’t trust him,” Solomon said. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing in particular. He needs time to adjust.”
“Would you let him near your girls?”
This was Constance’s acid test of a man’s very basic decency. If she sensed—or knew of—physical cruelty or violence, a man was not allowed to enter her establishment, whatever his wealthor rank in the world. She was more adept at reading a man’s character than anyone else he knew.
She hesitated, which caused his stomach to tighten. “I would say he’s not quite stable,” she said carefully. “And yet I sense less violence in him than I ever did in you. I think…from pity, I would allow him the comfort.”
Startled, Solomon said, “You thinkIam a violent man?”
“It’s there, under your ironclad self-control. David seems less so—unless he really is two people.”
Solomon threw his head back against the chair. “I can’t leave him alone with Jenks.”
“He would have no reason to hurt Jenks—whatever his character. This dead man, Chase, is presumably part of his past, so I suppose we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that David was involved in his death.”
With relief, Solomon turned back to facts. “I went to the St. Catherine’s office, spoke to some of my people. We’ve never had anything to do with Chase, but he is not unknown. He began respectably enough and made some good money importing on a small scale. More recently, he began to fall on hard times, and some of his business dealings are no longer quite so respectable.”
“Which would explain his presence—in disguise—at the Crown and Anchor,” Constance said. “It would be helpful to know whom he was there to meet.”
“No one at the Crown and Anchor is going to tell us that. Nor who left the place with him. Our best chance is to find some passerby who might have seen someone running away.”
“Someone who was not David,” Constance said. “He did say someone else was being chased, too.” She smoothed her hand over her skirts, a betraying gesture of unusual uncertainty. “Do you want to stay here tomorrow to pursue this?”
“Actually, I thought we might ask Lenny Knox to investigate Chase’s place of business. And he and Janey could look around for witnesses. We do have an appointment tomorrow, though I’m hoping we can wrap up the matter of those letters without too much difficulty.”
