Darrow shrugged. “She didn’t believe it would be an issue.”
“Will you go by yourself?” Constance asked.
He shook his head, once more morose. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the same without her.”
Solomon stood up. “Well, we’re sorry for disturbing you. Thank you again for your honesty. Er… Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?”
Darrow met his gaze without fear. “Because it’s none of your business. And because, even then, I was trying to protect her memory.” His lips twisted. “And yes, my own reputation.”
*
“They can’t bothbe right,” Constance burst out almost as soon as Mrs. Philpot had closed the door behind them.
“They can boththinkthey’re right,” Solomon replied. “Both Darrow and Marianne seemed genuine to me, but they don’t necessarily have all the facts.”
“Neither do we,” Constance complained. “Only Caterina did, and she can’t tell.”
Solomon ushered her toward the carriage, which had just appeared around the corner. “Perhaps she can. We need to look more closely ateverything she did, everywhere she went and everyone she spoke to from the Monday she was supposed to end things with Darrow, to the day she died.”
“That’s more than a week,” Constance protested.
“It won’t be easy. But her life seems to have been more of a bubbling cauldron than we realized. Some man picked roses in the square—”
“If Janey’s informant is accurate,” Constance interrupted.
“As you say. Someone certainly entered Caterina’s room, possibly via the window, and left her twelve red roses.”
“And disturbed her pillows,” Constance added bleakly. “Someone was in her room who shouldn’t have been. They may or may not have killed her, but it’s looking increasingly likely. Let’s visit my mother.”
Solomon’s eyebrows rose, though he gave the order to the coachman and handed her inside. No wonder he was surprised. She had almost frightened herself with her sudden urgency.
“You want to ask more about Kellar?” he asked.
“Yes.” Though she had no specific questions. She just needed to see that Juliet was safe and was trying to justify it. “We have three real suspects in Caterina’s murder. Montague, Darrow, and Kellar. Of the three of them, Kellar is by far the subtlest. If Caterina died because she knew something about him, something that would damage his ambitions for this new position he’s pursuing, then it’s quite possible that Juliet knows it too.”
Solomon took her hand in a strong grip. “It doesn’t follow at all,” he said gently. “If Caterina knew anything to his discredit—and we don’t know that she did—then it was about something that happened decades after Juliet last saw him.”
“True,” Constance allowed, yet the speed of her heart didn’t slow, and the knot of worry in her stomach did not unravel. Rather, it seemed to be tying and retying itself into bigger and more complicated tangles.
It was not far to her mother’s shop, and she jumped out of the carriage before Solomon could move. She went straight through the gate to the back door. Somehow, she prevented herself from battering on it like a mad thing. Even so, her knock was loud enough to earn Juliet’s wrath.
And yet no one answered. The knot in her stomach dived deeper, seemed to fill her whole body.Damn you, Ma, don’t do this to me…
She knocked again and stepped back. “Juliet!” she called at the upper window.
Solomon took her place at the door and turned the handle. It swung open.
“She would never leave it unlocked,” Constance whispered. “Never.” Juliet had known too many thieves and casual “borrowers” in her life to give just anyone easy access to her shop and her home.
“Wait here,” Solomon said quietly, and went in.
Of course, she followed him.
*
Digby Montague saton his late wife’s bed, his violin and bow in one hand, and gazed around the familiar room. He should probably feel the presence of her spirit here, at least some echo of the woman who had been his wife only days ago. He should be able to imagine her here with him. It would be some comfort.
He had come up here to play to her, as if that would somehow connect her to him once more. She had liked him to play to her, even though his skill was so imperfect. Sometimes she had sung along with him, not in her full, operatic voice that could reach the furthest corners of the largest theatres, but softly, sweetly, just for him. He wanted to remember that, to feel it again.
