Montague had already told him he hadn’t put the roses there. Hemerely looked very slightly irritated, without the guilt of a man caught in a lie. “We don’t take flowers from there.”
“Who does?”
“No one. In theory, though, I have heard people complaining about it from time to time. To be honest, I never paid much attention. I have less trivial things to occupy me.”
“You obey the rules,” Solomon said. “From talking to people about her, I see your wife as a more rebellious spirit.”
A smile flickered across the widower’s face. “She was.” The smile was already dying.
“My wife had the idea that Mrs. Montague, wakeful that night for whatever reason, slipped outside during the night and cut the roses herself in order to give them to you first thing in the morning. Does that sound like something she might do?”
Montague blinked rapidly. “Yes,” he whispered, and buried his face in his barely touched sherry glass.
“Thank you,” Solomon said. “I don’t suppose she was a climber?”
Montague lowered his glass, frowning. “What on earth do you mean?”
Solomon smiled. “My wife likes, in private, to remind herself of a wild childhood by climbing trees and so on.” More like drainpipes, stone walls, and roofs. “The dignity of adulthood can be frustrating for her. I wondered if your wife was the same.”
Montague looked baffled. “I never saw her do such a thing, and she never mentioned it. Besides, after her heart issues, she would have surely been foolish to takeexcessiveexercise.”
It didn’t seem to enter Montague’s head that his answer kept the mystery open. Again, not the act of a guilty man. Solomon imagined Montague’s feeling for his wife to be much like Solomon’s own when he had first seen Constance—dazzled and overwhelmed by beauty and the force of desire. He wondered now if Montague had ever got beyond the heady brilliance to an understanding and deeper love ofthe woman beneath, flaws and all.
“But she could easily have slipped out of the house for five minutes without anyone hearing?” Solomon asked.
“She probably could, but I doubt she did. She knew the importance of rest to her career and, latterly, to her health. She was very strict about sleep.”
“Even though, by the accounts of everyone, she seemed particularly euphoric after her performance that night?”
To give him his due, Montague considered that, and again came the flicker of a tragic smile. “There was a mischievous streak in her—rebellious, you called it—and she had a loving nature. She might have taken those few minutes to fetch forbidden roses, just to surprise me in the morning. Is that all that troubles you?”
Solomon decided frankness might work. “Apart from the arrangement of the pillows, and Mr. Kellar’s certainty that something is wrong.”
“That,” said Montague, “is down to Kellar’s own arrogance. He wanted Caterina to depend on him alone. He is jealous.”
Solomon’s stomach gave an uncomfortable twist. He had been here before with suspicions of Kellar, which had then proved to be untrue. “You mean he wanted to marry her himself?”
Montague gestured impatiently with his free hand. “He was more like a doting father—no man would have been good enough for his precious girl. And, of course, there is snobbery. Kellar is a gentleman. I am merely in trade.”
Something else to ask Juliet, perhaps—was Kellar really the gentleman of birth and breeding he always seemed? Exactly who were his antecedents?
“Will you excuse me?” Montague said with perfect politeness.
Solomon inclined his head. “Of course.”
Montague moved away to some other people, who had clearly already helped themselves from the buffet laid out in the dining room.The figure of Carl Darrow caught Solomon’s attention. He stood alone, his expression solemn, as suited the occasion, but not betraying the profound grief of the previous day.
It was a good act. But Solomon felt sure that was all it was. There was something just a little lost and entirely vulnerable about the violinist. And then Geoffrey appeared at his elbow and the impression passed.
Solomon strolled on, listening to the hushed conversations about Caterina’s great talent and Montague’s touching devastation. He decided to look into the dining room. First, though, he sought the cloakroom to wash his hands, which still bore traces of dirt from the garden and the windowsill.
As he left the cloakroom again, two men were crossing the hall to the front door. Montague, showing a valued guest out. Only the guest in question was Darrow. Intrigued, Solomon paused by the cloakroom. Neither man had seen him. They appeared to be talking together with perfect courtesy. Whatever Darrow’s animosity, he was hiding it.
Montague opened the front door, ushering the other man out. “I’ll walk with you to your hackney.”
Darrow did not demur, and a twinge of unease twisted through Solomon. Impossible to tell if the tension he sensed came from himself or the men in front of him. From Darrow, he thought suddenly. The man was definitely uncomfortable, his shoulders rigid and held just a little too high.
If he had killed Caterina, in some moment of mad rage at her rejection, what fury might he harbor toward her husband? Surely no harm could come to the man in broad daylight…?
