“Just a few weeks,” Kellar replied vaguely. “You?”
“Since May,” Solomon replied, placing a third chair at the side of the desk, at a right angle to both the others, and sitting down. “What can we do to help you?”
Don’t mention my mother. Don’t mention my mother…In Venice Constance had been stunned to discover that Kellar, obviously a gentleman, had once wanted to marry her mother Juliet, who, he seemed to imagine, was equally respectable. She may have been thirty years ago—though Constance had trouble picturing it—but she certainly wasn’t now, with careers of whoring and fencing behind her. Currently, she was running a shop trading in curiosities and antiques. Although Constance owed Kellar for a timely saving of the day in Venice, that debt did not supersede loyalty to the maddening Juliet.
Kellar did not answer for a few moments—which itself was odd. Constance remembered him as the consummate diplomat, a man who thought on his feet and always said the right thing, never by accident. His hesitation implied thoughts were taking a little longer than usual. And now that she focused on him, there was a new tension in the set of his face, in his very posture.
“Over the years,” he said at last, “I have developed an instinct for trouble, for the wrongness of a situation. I imagine,” he added politely, “that you both have similar kinds of instincts.”
“And what is yours telling you?” Solomon asked.
“About you two?” Kellar beamed. “I no longer need instinct. I have made my own inquiries. Honesty and success are a heady combination in any business.”
“You forgot discretion,” Solomon said. “If that is why you hesitate, our discretion with clients is absolute, unless they have committed a crime.”
“Haveany of them?”
“Not yet, although it’s come close. Shall we return to your instincts?”
“By all means.” Kellar’s smile faded. “A young friend of mine diedlast night.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Constance said sincerely. “How did it happen?”
“According to the doctor, it was heart failure. She had been troubled by irregularities of the heart over the last year.”
“And according to your instincts?”
“They tell me something is wrong. She controlled her heart problem with digitalis prescribed by her doctor, and appeared as healthy as ever. The whole household is astounded as well as devastated.”
“And who is the whole household?”
“Her husband, their servants.”
“Does the husband accept the doctor’s findings? Will there be an autopsy?”
“Yes, Montague accepts it, and no, there will be no autopsy.”
“Then have you cause for suspicion?”
“Nothing I can lay my finger on, except she looked exceedingly well when I saw her at the theatre the previous evening. That and the fact that Montague—her husband—inherits all her money.”
Constance raised her eyebrows. “You believe he killed her somehow?”
“I will believeyou,” Kellar said, “if and when you tell me he did not.”
“You don’t like him.”
Kellar shrugged. “Not hugely, though I know nothing to his discredit, except that a run of bad luck in business has left him a little short of funds. I always thought him a trifle…dull for someone as bright and vital as Caterina.”
“Caterina is the dead lady? Was she very wealthy?”
“She commanded considerable fees for her appearances, plus she had shares in several theatres across the country. And, of course, the money she inherited from her parents.”
“Is that a great deal?” Constance asked him.
“It is.”
Solomon pounced. “How do you know?”
