Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

“Yes, but more than that. He didn’t do much to save Sean. He barely tried. If he’d told the truth, Sean might have been a hero, not a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage.”

“Perhaps to Cormac he was a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage,” she pointed out. “People react slowly sometimes when they are shattered with grief. Cormac might have been too shocked to do anything useful. What could it have been anyway? Didn’t Sean himself tell the truth as to why he killed Kate?”

“He barely said anything,” McDaid admitted, this time looking down at the floor, not at her.

“Stunned too,” she said. “But someone told Talulla that Cormac should have saved her father, and she believed them. Easier to think of your father as a hero betrayed than as a jealous man who killed his wife in a rage because she cuckolded him with his enemy, and an Englishman at that.”

McDaid looked at her with another momentary flare of anger. Then he masked it so completely she might almost have thought it was her imagination.

“It would seem so,” he agreed. “But how do we prove any of that?”

She felt the coldness sweep over her. “I don’t know. I’m trying to think.”

“Be careful, Mrs. Pitt,” he said gently. “I would not like you to be incidental damage as well.”

She managed to smile just as if she did not even imagine that his words could be as much a threat as a warning. She felt as if it were a mask on his face: transparent, ghostly. “Thank you. I shall be cautious, I promise, but it is kind of you to care.” She rose to her feet, vigilant not to sway. “Now I think I had better go back to my lodgings. It has been a … a terrible day.”

When she reached Molesworth Street again, Mrs. Hogan came out to see her immediately. She looked awkward, her hands winding around each other, twisting her apron.

Charlotte addressed the subject before Mrs. Hogan could search for the words.

“You have heard about Mr. O’Neil,” she said gravely. “A very terrible thing to have happened. I hope Mr. Narraway will be able to help them. He has some experience in such tragedies. But I quite understand if you would prefer that I move out of your house in the meantime. I will have to find something, of course, until I get my passage back home. I daresay it will take me a day or two. In the meantime I will pack my brother’s belongings and put them in my own room, so you may let his rooms to whomsoever you wish. I believe we are paid for another couple of nights at least?” Please heaven within a couple of days she would be a great deal further on in her decisions, and at least one other person in Dublin would know for certain that Narraway was innocent.

Mrs. Hogan was embarrassed. The issue had been taken out of her hands and she did not know how to rescue it. As Charlotte had hoped, she settled for the compromise. “Thank you, that would be most considerate, ma’am.”

“If you will be kind enough to lend me the keys, I’ll do it straightaway.” Charlotte held out her hand.

Reluctantly Mrs. Hogan passed them over.

Charlotte unlocked the door and went inside, closing it behind her. Instantly she felt intrusive. She would pack his clothes, of course, and have someone take the case to her room, unless she could drag it there herself.

But far more important than shirts, socks, personal linen, were whatever papers he might have. Had he committed anything to writing? Would it even be in a form she could understand? If only she could at least ask Pitt! She had never missed him more. But then of course if he were here, she would be at home in London, not trying desperately to carry out a task for which she was so ill suited. She was in a foreign country where she was considered the enemy, and justly so. The weight of centuries of history was against her.

She opened the case, then went to the wardrobe and took out Narraway’s suits and shirts, folded them neatly, and packed them. Then, feeling as if she were prying, she opened the drawers in the chest. She took out his underwear and packed it also, making sure she had his pajamas from under the pillow on the bed. She included his extra pair of shoes, wrapped in a cloth to keep them from marking anything, and put them in as well.

She collected the toiletries, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, razor, and small clothes brush. He was an immaculate man. How he would hate being locked up in a cell with no privacy, and probably little means to wash.

The few papers there were in the top drawer of the dresser. Thank heaven they were not locked in a briefcase. But that probably indicated that they would mean nothing to anyone else.

Back in her own room, with Narraway’s case propped in the corner, she looked at the few notes he had made. They were a curious reflection on his character, a side of him she had not even guessed at before. They were mostly little drawings, very small indeed, but very clever. They were little stick men, but imbued with such movement and personality that she recognized instantly who they were.