Stone's Fall

'I will tell you when I accept your apology.'

She stood up. I was dismissed. Or maybe not. I did not know.

'Is there anything else?'

'No. Except – who is this other woman mentioned in his will? This Italian lady?

'Signora Vincotti? I don't know. I have never heard the name before. I assume, as I suppose you have already done, that she was his mistress.'

'Does that upset you?'

She looked gravely at me. 'Of course. I am distressed he did not trust me more.'

'Pardon?'

'He kept a secret from me. That wounds me. He must have known that I would not have caused a scene over such a trivial matter.'

'It seems he kept more than one secret,' I pointed out.

She looked at me stonily. 'Any more questions?'

'Yes. To leave that amount of money to this woman suggests she was not trivial.'

'That is true.'

'Are you not . . . curious, at the least?'

'I suppose I am. What do you suppose I should do about it?'

'If you wish, I could visit this lady on your behalf. I understand she arrives tomorrow and will stay at the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury.'

She thought about that. 'I have a better idea. I will visit her myself. You may come with me.'

A vision of two jealous women rolling on the floor trying to scratch each other's eyes out floated before me. 'I don't think I would recommend that.'

'It is not for you to recommend anything. I will send a note this afternoon and make an appointment.'

That put me in my place. I could either go with her or not; it would not make any difference to her decision. I decided to go.

'And at the same time,' she said lightly, 'we may discover something that will put you out of a job.' Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke, and I looked on, horrified at the thought that I might have to witness her embarrassment. She was a woman deceived, and had discovered it under the most terrible circumstances.

'I'm sorry,' I said. It was not a useful remark, and she paid it no attention.

'I had no children,' she said eventually. 'John said he didn't mind, that it was enough to have me. That I had brought him all the happiness in the world, and he wanted no more. I am a fool to be so distressed. Of course he had the right to do as he pleased; it made no difference to our life together, and does knowing really make any difference?'

'Yes?'

She nodded. 'I should have been able to do that for him. Not some other woman who was so unimportant he never even mentioned her existence. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some matters to attend to. My husband's papers are in those cabinets over there. You may look at whatever you wish. I have instructed the servants that you are to be allowed into the house at all times, whether I am here or not. You see, I have nothing to hide.'

And she left. I contemplated beginning on the daunting array of filing cabinets – which, I considered, would be most likely to contain something of use – but could not face it. The interview had left me disoriented, shaking almost.

CHAPTER 11

I was feeling increasingly out of my depth. Commenting on a murder case was one thing; unravelling someone like Lady Ravenscliff was another. So I went to the Ritz, to see my little elf. It was, I gathered, where Xanthos habitually stayed when in London; I learned that he maintained permanent rooms there, at gigantic cost. 'So he is some grandee, then?' I asked, slipping into reporterly mode. I was in the Lamb, just round the corner in Mason's Yard; it was where the Ritz went. I bought a round of drinks to reinforce the question. That's the good thing about hotels: servants of the variety who work for the Ravenscliffs have a sort of loyalty, and it is difficult to chisel information out of them. But people who work in hotels will tell you anything for a drink; they have no discretion at all.

'Must be,' was the collective reply. But no one really knew. He came, he went. In general he was never there for more than a fortnight at a time, but always wanted his rooms ready. No women had ever been spotted, but visitors and guests aplenty. The bills, though, were paid. That they knew, but there the limitations of their trade came into operation. Xanthos was rich. He was foreign – Greek, they reckoned. What did they care how a strange little Greek came to be able to afford a suite at the Ritz? I knew salesmen, they made good murderers. Lonely people, shuffling from boarding house to boarding house, washing their shirts overnight. No family, no friends; never in the same place long enough. They were the nomads of the industrial age, always wandering, always moving on. There was, no doubt, a camaraderie, a fraternity of such people, but it did not seem much of a life to me. And they did seem to commit murder – normally squalid, dirty little murders – more often than they should have done. Or maybe they were too miserable to take the necessary steps to avoid being caught.