“Isn’t it possible that this excitement prevented her from sleeping? And I’m sure she was quite capable of dressing and undressing herself.”
Kellar frowned. “Isn’t it more likely that Montague picked them and took them to her?”
“Before murdering her?” Solomon asked. “How? Anyway, he denies giving the flowers to her, though he admitted he had a key for his wife’s door. He was perfectly open.”
Kellar continued to eat with evident enjoyment, as though they were conversing about everyday matters that did not trouble him. And yet he wouldn’t have begun this if he were not deeply concerned.
“What about the pillows?” he asked at last.
Constance had not forgotten about the pillows, but they seemed the sort of oddity that would never have an explanation. “Who knows? The propped-up pillows could have fallen during the night and shepulled one under her head while still asleep.”
“Placing the other neatly beside her, also in her sleep?” Kellar said blandly. “Pillows can be used to kill, you know.”
Constance shivered. “We do know. We have investigated such a case. I looked, as it happens, and there was no sign of tearing on any of the pillowcases, or of damage to her fingernails, which were quite elegantly long.”
“If she was asleep, she might not have struggled,” Kellar pointed out.
“If she was asleep,” Solomon retorted, “how did the killer get in? If it was Montague, he must know her preferred pillow arrangement. Why would he make such a mistake?”
“People do, in the heat of the moment.”
“I thought he was too dull to have heated moments?” Constance argued.
Kellar laughed and laid down his knife and fork.
“I think,” Solomon said, “it is time you told us the true reason for your suspicions—which, frankly, aren’t borne out by any evidence whatsoever. The truth, Kellar, if you please.”
The man’s eyes widened only slightly, but Constance did not believe in his surprise. The mystery of the man had beguiled her in Venice. She had even wondered at one point if he was her father. But for an instant, she saw him clearly, an aging man with a lifetime of deviousness behind him, whatever his role for the government he served. His friendship, his help, were always conditional, and she doubted she would ever know what those conditions were.
In that moment, she did not like him at all.
“You are manipulating us,” she said. “Why?”
She could not even trust her sudden sense of his vulnerability because, frustratingly, he was not looking at her. But at the doorway—where her mother stood.
Oh, for the love of… Trust Juliet to interrupt at this precise moment!Now what were they meant to do?
But Juliet appeared to be up to the challenge. Dressed in her usual, flowing, tentlike garments of many colors, she threw up her hands in horror.
“Bless me, dearies, I never knew you had company,” she exclaimed. She had never called Constancedeariein her life. “Silly girl just told me to go in. I’ll see meself out again and come back tomorrow.”
And with that, she did indeed whisk herself out of the door, closing it behind her as softly as she had opened it.
Constance closed her mouth and, with an effort, refused to be distracted. In fact, distractinghimfrom the brief interruption was now imperative.
“Well?” she demanded of Kellar, who was looking as bland as ever.
“Well,what, my dear Mrs. Grey?” he asked. “I asked you to do something for me and you agreed. Do you accuse all your clients of manipulation?”
Constance thought of Angela Lambert and her ghost, of Barnabas Lloyd and his entire family, and said, “Only those who are guilty of it. If you really want the truth, if you really want us to pursue Caterina’s death any further, you have to tell us exactly why you are suspicious, and what she was to you.”
He curled steady fingers around his wine glass without lifting it. There was nothing about him that spoke of unease, let alone lies.
“I don’t know why I’m suspicious,” he said seriously. “I just feel it in my bones, as I told you at the outset. As for what she was to me, I told you that, too. I knew her parents and helped her escape from trouble in Rome to England. I am fond of her, and I feel responsible for her.”
“Were you her lover?” Constance asked directly.
His face broke into smiles. “Of course not. She could be my daughter.”
