VIOLET FARTHINGALE HAD ROOMS above a draper’s shop on Saint Helbrin Street in sight of the statue of King Randolph II on his charger. It was a pleasant street lined with tantu trees, where hornbills and fire-eyed grackles called to each other. The apartment itself was compact, elegant if a little old-fashioned, and scrupulously clean: good, white, middle-class housing, modest in its way but safe and comfortable, the kind of place in which few of the city’s black or Lani population could ever realistically expect to live. The curtains and chairs looked older than the lady herself, so I guessed the place came prefurnished. Violet Farthingale had been reluctant to speak to Andrews and had kept him at the door, claiming to be too busy to see him, till he said that he had not come on police business.
“I have brought a lady who wishes to speak with you,” he said, carefully hiding any doubts he had about what we were doing.
The young woman was clad in a simple and uncorsetted tea gown of soft mauve, which made her look, if anything, even lovelier than she had the night before, though her eyes were shadowed and still showed signs of weeping. She had cracked the door open a little, and blinked in surprise at the sight of me standing in my Istilian finery in the hallway. She had let me in more out of bafflement than decision, and I had done my part by giving Andrews a pointed look, till he—reluctantly—stepped back outside.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Inspector,” I said, “take the police vehicle around the corner and wait for me there.”
Andrews opened his mouth to speak, but then just nodded stiffly and left. Violet looked relieved.
“Would you care for tea, my lady?” she asked, nervous and confused. She was perhaps five or six years older than me, but looked suddenly like a child, hesitating in front of the bay window and watching the police coach roll away. Its departure seemed to calm her nerves, and she turned back to me, gesturing to a chair.
“No tea, thank you,” I said, in my Istilian lilt. “I will not be staying long.”
“I’m afraid you’ve caught me rather … I mean, I did not expect visitors.…”
“There is no reason you should,” I said as kindly as I could. Whatever her crime, I doubted she deserved the crippling malice of Bar-Selehm’s high society as Dahria had painted it. Unless, of course, she really was involved in Agatha’s murder. “I wanted to speak to you about what happened last night.”
“Why?” she asked. She had a small girlish mouth without makeup.
“Partly my own curiosity,” I said, “and because I suspect that you are being badly treated in ways you do not deserve.”
“Whether that is so or not,” she said, clasping her hands together in her lap, “I do not believe there is anything you can do about it, though your kindness is appreciated.”
“Perhaps not,” I said. “But then the support of a lady such as myself … Well, you know best.”
An unworthy trick, playing on the woman’s hope and despair, particularly when I knew my status in Bar-Selehm society would likely evaporate within the hour, but a part of me wanted the idea that I could help her to be true and I privately vowed to make it so. For it to work, I had to play the thing through. I got to my feet.
“You are upset, and I am intruding,” I said. “I will leave you to your thoughts.”
I took one step toward the door. Another. Then she spoke.
“Wait,” she said, looking at her hands. “What is it you wish to know?”
I sat down again and smiled at her.
“Did you like Mrs. Markeson?” I asked.
“Yes!” she shot back, a quick, thoughtless answer given in fear. A moment later, she shook her head sadly. “Not really.”
“She seemed quite a forceful woman,” I said. “Opinionated.”
“Yes,” she agreed, softer this time.
“Probably quite hard to please.”
“Sometimes,” said Violet. “But she was fair. Mostly.”
I took a fractional pause to digest that last word.
“Mostly?” I prompted.
“She was quite strict with Hyacinth, her daughter. As well as me. In what I taught Hyacinth, I mean. She always wanted to see the girl work, hear her play.”
“Is Hyacinth an agreeable child? Talented?”
“Oh, most agreeable,” she answered, smiling suddenly in ways that lit up the little room. “Not, perhaps, the most academic of children, but exceedingly pleasant and good-natured.”
“Was that enough for Mrs. Markeson?”
Violet looked at her hands again. “I think she would have liked her to have more obvious gifts. She was very critical of her piano playing and said I did not push the child hard enough.”
“She was a good player herself?”
“Not at all!” said Violet, indignation pinking her cheek. “She could not play a note.”
“I see,” I said. “Sometimes it is the faults that parents see in themselves that they most want to correct in their children.”
“Indeed,” said Violet. “That is very true.”
“So Mrs. Markeson was strict with you too?”
“Not at first,” said Violet. “But in the last few months, she became quite hard on me.”
“Why was that, do you think?” I said, still taking it slowly.
“I really couldn’t say.”
That was, I thought, her second lie, and it was more an evasion than a flat-out untruth.
“Mr. Markeson continued to value your contribution to the household, I take it?”
“Yes,” she said, and something of the smile was back, though it flickered and died like a spent candle.
“Perhaps Mrs. Markeson resented his support of you,” I said as if I was merely thinking aloud.
Violet nodded fervently.
“Once, when Hyacinth had painted a charming watercolor of the flowers on her windowsill and Mr. Thomas was admiring it, Mrs. Markeson came in and began to say quite unpleasant things about the picture so that Hyacinth began to cry. When Mr. Thomas said she was being too hard on the girl, Mrs. Markeson became very angry indeed and accused her husband of terrible things.”
She broke off, her eyes bright with tears. I waited for a moment, nodding thoughtfully.
“Things about you,” I said.
The woman’s tears spilled down her cheeks, and she hung her head.
“There was nothing to any of it,” she said between her sobs. “Sometimes older gentlemen take a fatherly interest in younger women. It was all quite harmless if a little silly, but nothing ever … ever happened.”
“I understand,” I said. “Tell me about the shawl.”
She looked up at that, surprised, and it took her a moment to realize what I was talking about.
“Did she say something after I had gone?” she said.
“No, but I surmised.”
“Well, it’s true,” she said with weary resolve. “I had only been to Merita once before. Mrs. Markeson did not approve, but Mr. Thomas said he thought it was good for me to mix with ladies of my own station. They weren’t, of course, but it was kind of him, and after our first visit, he said I needed some new finery so that no one would sneer at me. That was how he put it. I being merely a governess and all. You see, Mrs. Markeson had already said things, scandalous things, about me, and most of the other ladies had not been very welcoming.”
I nodded and let her finish, though I fancied I knew what she was going to say.
“So yesterday evening as I was putting Hyacinth to bed, Mr. Thomas came and said he had a gift for me. ‘Something to make them all jealous,’ he said.”
“The shawl.”
“Exactly. It was quite beautiful. I had never seen anything like it.”
“But Mrs. Markeson took it from you,” I said. “Didn’t she?”
Violet put her hand to her mouth and began to sob again. She nodded, speechless for a moment, then managed to say, “She was so angry. I had never seen her in such a rage. She snatched it off me and asked how I dared parade the fruit of my … my strumpeting in polite society! I protested, of course, but she would hear nothing of it, and for once, Mr. Markeson did not dare to contradict her. So she wore the shawl, and showed it off, and I could not abide to be in the room and—”
She broke off.
“There, there,” I said. “I understand. Where did you go?”
“Outside at first. I needed some air. Then, once the fireworks began, I went to the Markesons’ withdrawing room on the second floor, three doors down from yours.”
“You knew which one mine was?”
“Everyone did. One of the maids told us before you arrived. Everyone was so excited to meet you, even the ones who usually…”
“Yes?”
“Well, some of the ladies have few good things to say about people who are different from them.”
“But not you.”
“No. I am, as they like to remind me, not one of them, and there are many things on which we do not agree.”
I took in this note of solidarity without comment.
“You stayed in the Markesons’ room until the police came?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Alone?”
“No,” she said. “Constance went with me to let me in. You will be surprised to hear that she can be very sweet. We often talk together. She can be most amusing when discussing the other ladies and their silly ideas and small-minded hatefulness.…” She almost laughed at the recollection, then remembered why I was there and came back to the matter at hand. “She had seen me during the fireworks and could tell I was upset. She brought me lavender water to cool my temples.”
“She let you into the Markesons’ retiring room?”
“Yes, Mrs. Markeson kept the key to herself, but Constance also had a room so she could let me in.”
“I don’t think I understand,” I said. “Why did Constance’s key open the Markesons’ room?”
“All the retiring rooms are the same,” she said. “That’s the sort of place Elitus is. They assume the bad people are all outside. Once you’re in, no one worries very much about security.”
She said it wryly, and I found I was warming to her all the more.
“What did you do after the alarm was raised about the intruder?” I asked.
“I went back to the Merita parlor with the other ladies.”
“All of them?”
“No. Lady Alice never came, and several of the others only arrived later. Is that when it happened?”
“I think so, yes. And you did not see the shawl again?”
“The shawl? No. Why, is that relevant? Did she not have it on when she…”
“No.”
“You think someone killed her for her shawl?”
“That seems unlikely,” I said, “though its disappearance is strange.”
“It was very unusual.”
“Expensive?”
She shrugged fractionally. “I had never seen anything like it in the shops. The fabric was quite remarkable. It was like wearing water.”
“Where did it come from?”
She hesitated and bit her lower lip.
“Was it a secret?” I asked.
“It doesn’t feel very important now,” she said, “it being just cloth, after all, but Mr. Markeson did say I shouldn’t talk about where it came from.”
“And did you?”
She shook her head fervently.
“Absolutely not. I may not have been what people said to Mr. Markeson, but he was kind to me and I sought to deserve his trust. But now…” She paused and looked at me. “Why do you want to know?”
“I think it might help reveal who killed Mrs. Markeson.”
“Really? I don’t see how. It was pretty, but surely … surely?” She faltered again, then blurted out, “Mr. Markeson’s friend made it, Mr. Horritch.”
“Nathan Horritch?”
“Well, not he himself, but people at one of his factories.”
I considered this.
“Have I helped?” she asked.
“I believe so,” I replied, smiling. “Have I?”
She beamed at me.
“Most definitely,” she said.