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DANIEL TOOK THE underground train to the station nearest to the fford Croft house and walked the rest of the way. By the time he arrived, he had almost worked out in his mind what he was going to say. All of which, of course, depended upon whether Miriam was at home.
The butler welcomed him without surprise, although Daniel wondered whether, after having worked for the fford Crofts for years, anything would surprise him.
“Good morning, Mr. Pitt,” he said, opening the door. “Miss fford Croft has gone to the post office, but I expect her back within about ten or fifteen minutes. If you would care to wait for her in the morning room, sir, I will inform her when she returns. I expect you have had breakfast. Is it too early for a pot of tea for mid-morning? And perhaps a piece of shortbread? Cook is very skilled at baking, if I may say so.”
Daniel smiled. “I remember,” he said with some enthusiasm.
“Very good, sir.” He bowed and withdrew.
Daniel was enjoying his third piece of shortbread and wondering if he should eat the last piece, or if good manners suggested he should leave it, when he heard footsteps across the parquet of the hall floor that were definitely not the butler’s. Did he recognize Miriam’s step?
The next moment there was a brief knock on the door, then without waiting for an answer, she came in.
He stood immediately.
She glanced at the teapot and the plate full of crumbs and then closed the door behind her and walked across the Turkish carpet. “I see you have been taken care of. I am sorry to have kept you waiting. Is it the Sidney case again?”
All his articulate arguments vanished, as if he had not formulated them. “Yes. It doesn’t make sense. Something new has come to light, and there’s something missing. In fact, quite a lot. I thought if I told you all we have, you might…put a different shape to it.” He was gabbling.
She sat down in the chair opposite the one he had risen from. “Do you mind if I stop you if not everything is clear?”
“No, I…I hope I’m not wasting your time,” he apologized.
For a moment she, too, was awkward. “I…have nothing urgent. I know you are several days into the trial.”
“You’ve been following it?” He was surprised. There was nothing forensically interesting in it. And yet he was pleased.
“There isn’t much to follow,” she replied. She was looking at her hands, not at his face.
“Not yet,” he admitted. “I’m afraid it’s going to end without having ever really begun. It doesn’t make sense. The core of it is missing. I thought you’d help me see what shape it is…” He stopped. He was embarrassing himself. He sounded so young and foolish.
She looked perfectly serious. “What’s missing? And you haven’t told me what it is now!”
He did not reply immediately.
He saw her face shadow.
“When the news reaches London, I mean the last piece of it, they’ll be changing the charge to murder,” he answered.
She stiffened. “What? Who’s dead? When did that happen?”
“A young man called Morley Cross,” he replied. “He worked with Sidney in the same department of the British Embassy in Washington. He was just pulled out of the river there, and they haven’t proved when he died yet. It all hangs on whether it was before Sidney left Washington.”
“How was he killed?”
“Shot in the back of the head. That can’t have been an accident.”
“I see.” It was clear from her face that she understood completely. “The timing would be hard to prove. Water can do a lot of damage. And the longer the body was in it, obviously the harder it is to prove a time. What else? I mean, to make sense of it.”
“A thread that ties it all together,” he said immediately, “so that we can see a plan, a motive strong enough to make whoever is behind this follow it all the way from Washington to here, and drive it through the courts.”
“And what are the real reasons for any of it?” she asked.
He looked at her greenish-blue eyes, searching for a moment, and saw no mockery in them. “It could be anything: love, hate, money, revenge,” he started. “Even ambition if someone felt Sidney was standing in his way for promotion.”
“What about fear?”
