I stood near him, feeling absolutely helpless. What can one say or do in the face of such distress? I stretched out my hand to lay it on his shoulder, then took back the pathetically insignificant gesture. I wanted to talk about Julian, but dared not speak his name.

I remained hesitating for no more than a minute before my thoughts were distracted sharply by the sounds of shouting and turmoil in the street below. I started up at once. I had sent Jenny away, because it seemed urgent to me that she leave before the thought that Philip Archer must have a brother became concrete in her mind, with the possibility of instant verification to hand.

‘Get away, get away!’ I heard the shouted words outside, ‘or we’ll call the police! Creatures like you are not wanted here!’

I bounded down the stairs and ran into the street, in time to make out Jenny, running at full tilt and already at the far end of Petty Cury, disappearing around the corner, and a flushed, angry group of customers clustered at the door of Heffers.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘A crazy woman came in here and threatened the manager,’ was the reply.

‘I saw her first,’ said a lady. ‘She came out of that door right there and stared into the shop window, then she strode in, and went up to him and asked him his name. When he answered, she flung herself at his throat like a wildcat, screaming and scratching!’

‘It was all we could do to push her outside,’ added another gentleman, pulling down his cuffs and smoothing his hair.

‘Like a jilted lover,’ said the lady. ‘She must be quite mad.’

‘Didn’t you come out of the same door just now?’ someone else suddenly asked. ‘Do you know who that woman is?’

‘Ah, n-no,’ I stammered, deeply dismayed by this turn of events. My confusion and horror was increased by the sight of Julian Archer himself stepping into the doorway of the shop, clearly back from his expedition. His face bore a long, scarlet scratch, but he seemed calm. I stared at him with fascination. I had found this man charming and pleasant; I had not noticed in him the traces of cruelty so perceptible in his father. And they were still as invisible as they had been. His face lit up with a warm smile upon seeing me. I bit my tongue and forced myself to stretch my lips in return; then with a little nod, I turned on my heel and hurried off after Jenny as fast as was seemly and before any awkward questions could be asked.

I made my way home, talking to myself to calm my anxiety. I didn’t know if Jenny would have gone to my house or not, but I was afraid of the girl; I thought her mental state dangerous, and feared what she might do both in my house and out of it. I was more certain than ever that Julian Archer must be the murderer, yet still unable to put together a convincing version of the chain of events. At every point in my story there was some little, niggling contradiction necessitating an unrealistic explanation. How could he have known Ivy was in the bookshop? He could not have seen her arriving, and from what Jenny had told us, it did not seem possible that she would have exchanged even a word with Julian Archer, let alone arranged a secret meeting. And even if she had accepted such a meeting for some reason (some kind of blackmail?), surely she would not have sat down comfortably to pen a letter to Philip at the very moment she was expecting his brother to enter the shop? What was she doing in the shop at all? Writing a letter and preparing herself to go upstairs and – as was now clear – slip it into the hand of her beloved behind his brother’s back, in order to afford him a moment of joy before the morrow.

Reaching home, I hastened inside and found Arthur on the sofa reading the newspaper, no sign of a distraught woman to be seen. Quickly I sat next to him, removed the paper from his hands, set it aside to gain his full attention, and told him the gist of everything that had occurred.

‘Arthur, I didn’t know what to do with her! I’m afraid she’ll do someone a mischief, or get herself hurt,’ I said.

‘What are we to do with her?’ he replied with understandable dismay.

‘Please watch over her for a day or two, if she comes here,’ I said. ‘Do not let her wander away by herself. She has realised who Julian Archer is; I believe she realised on her way downstairs that Philip Archer must have a brother – I expected her to see it even sooner. Then she must have spotted him through the shop window and recognised him by his physical similarity to his father, whom she met in London. If she did not thrust her knife into his breast to the hilt then and there, it is only because she had left it upstairs. I am afraid she is stalking him even now. I wish I knew where she was.’

‘Is he the girl’s murderer?’ he asked me.

‘Oh, Arthur, I think he must be, but he has a perfect alibi. I don’t know what to do! But even if I can prove that he is, she mustn’t be allowed to attack him. Keep her from harming him and herself, Arthur. If only she would come here.’

We sat down to dine together; Arthur was exactly as always, but I was unpleasantly tense with waiting. And finally, she came. The knock snapped sharply on the door, I flung it open, and she dropped almost into my arms, dishevelled, exhausted and in a state of mental disturbance bordering on despair.

‘You didn’t tell me he had a brother,’ she said immediately.

‘It is not for you to act!’ I said severely, preparing a drink for her to which I added a dose of laudanum.

‘I waited all this time for him to come out, the rat, but he never did,’ she said, trembling. ‘It got dark, so I came here. But he won’t escape me.’

‘You did right to come,’ I said gently but firmly, handing her the drink and ringing to ask Mrs Widge to provide her with dinner on a tray, and Sarah to prepare the spare bedroom for her.

Sarah and I got her to bed soon after, and I did not waste much time in following, taking the precaution of leaving the bedroom door open, however, in case she might think of sneaking away during the night. I slept badly, my confused dreams circling obsessively around Julian’s alibi, his alibi, his alibi. The alibi came entirely from his brother – well, his brother and the guest – but how tightly did it really hold? Philip had spoken to the police with no inkling of his brother’s guilt. Would he now realise that he must think over the evening again? I resolved to visit him again as soon as the morning was reasonably advanced.

I rose early, shaking the night’s cobwebs from my brain, and took my early morning tea out into the garden to think. Arthur and Jenny were both still asleep; I could hear Sarah moving about in the nursery. I wanted to wait a little longer before going to see Philip, at least until Arthur should be up and alert to watch over Jenny.

‘Miss Duncan!’ I started as I heard the bright, eager whisper from some distance away, in the street. If the voice had said ‘Vanessa’, I might almost have taken it to be Pat in its muffled enthusiasm. I jumped up and approached the garden gate.

‘Mr Archer!’ I gasped. The old gentleman was standing there, leaning on the gate, peering in.

‘So this is where you live?’ he said, flashing his toothy leer in my direction. ‘I got your address from the Darwins.’

I nodded quickly, awkwardly. It could only be a matter of time before my different identities amongst the members of this circle came to a clash. A matter of time which might easily be reduced to no more than a few seconds, should Sarah happen to emerge into the garden with the twins now, and should they, as they undoubtedly would, run to me calling out ‘Mamma!’

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I came to see if you still meant to come to the Kingstown Regatta with me. It’s tomorrow, you remember? I’m taking the train up today. I couldn’t get away earlier, but I’ll join with a couple of friends there who sailed up in my yacht. It’s a wonderful event; you’d enjoy it enormously, you know. You promised you’d manage to get away from here for the day. Do you think you can?’

‘Oh,’ I said, recalling suddenly that I had indeed made such a promise, at a time when it seemed expedient, and wondering what I ought to do. I looked at Mr Archer, thinking rapidly: Ivy had come straight from his house to Heffers – carrying his money. So much money – why so much? He had spoken of three pounds, one of the witnesses had said a roll of bank notes; yet Jenny had said he never gave her more than a few shillings. She had gone to the bookshop carrying all that money. Why? Why?

Could the elderly gentleman in front of me have played some part in her death, in some way that I could not yet completely comprehend?

It was not certain, but it was possible; it would have been enough for him to wait for her perfectly natural, voluntary departure from his party, at the hour of her own choice, witnessed by any number of his guests, and then as she left, to communicate the exact time to his son. He would know just how long it would take for her to walk the distance, something very close to half an hour; they must have done it together any number of times. Certainly I knew almost to the minute how long it took me to walk to town from my own house, ten minutes or so nearer than his.

And if he received such a message, Julian would have no need to look out of the window or feel anxious about her arrival; he would know to within a minute or two when she was likely to arrive, he could content himself with slipping downstairs at the right time and either finding her there or waiting for her.

Yet what kind of a message could the father have sent to the son, across a town, instantaneously?

Telepathy?

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ I said abruptly. ‘I’m free tomorrow, but I can’t get away today. Can I get up there by a night train?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Night express to Liverpool, and early morning ferry over to Dublin. Then there’s a short train to Kingstown. Look about for me, my girl; you’ll find me easily enough, I think, and if you don’t, meet me at the Anchor Hotel at midday.’

‘I’ll be there!’ I promised. ‘But oh, please go away now. I’ll be in trouble if anybody sees you.’ And I cast an anxious glance over my shoulder at the house, which was still silent.

He winked at me and left, to my great relief, and I went inside and found Arthur seated at the dining room table, enjoying coffee, toast and sausages. I extracted his promise to look after Jenny for the next two days. He did not look enthusiastic, but I sketched the situation clearly enough to make him understand that it was no joke, that it might indeed be a matter of extreme danger, and in spite of his obvious doubts, he squeezed my hand and promised not to let her out of his sight. And I scrambled into my boots and snapped off a button with the button-hook, in my haste to return to Petty Cury.

I arrived in front of the flat trembling with haste and anxiety. A glance told me that Julian Archer was already working in the bookshop, and I rang at the door of the flat, pressing myself against the wall in case he should look out. Simpson opened it, and I rushed into the hall and told him that I must speak to Mr Archer at once. He went up, and I followed on his very heels.

Philip was standing at the head of the stairs when I reached the second floor, supported on his crutches. He held out his hand to me, and gripped mine with a grasp full of nervous, bony strength.

‘I hoped you would come back,’ he said. ‘I still don’t understand – I need to understand.’

I entered the sitting room, and he struggled after me and sat down in his wheeled chair. I sat on the sofa, and leant towards him. An electric current flowed between us, much stronger than the feeling Sir Oliver had managed to induce in me with all his experiments.

‘Mr Archer,’ I said, grasping the nettle, ‘who murdered Ivy Elliott?’

‘Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question?’ he said, his mouth twisted. ‘If I could tell you, I would.’

‘But you can, can’t you?’ I said. ‘The police say that you gave him a complete alibi.’

‘You’re talking about Julian?’ he said, looking up sharply. ‘My brother did not kill her – it’s impossible! Even if he did do the dreadful, horrible things that Miss Wolcombe told us yesterday, making them work in my father’s flat, forcing them to pay him, that doesn’t make him a murderer, for God’s sake! Not my own brother! Anyway, I know he did no such thing. The police told me that she was killed between midnight and one o’clock in the morning of the twenty-second, and he was here with me for that whole evening, and the whole night. He can’t have killed her, no!’ He stopped for a moment, heaving, looking not unlike a man who has just run a long distance. Suddenly his lips parted and he murmured almost inaudibly, ‘And yet…’

‘And yet?’

‘There is something,’ he said. ‘I believe now – I am sure – that he had found out about the marriage. Once I found Ivy’s letters to me disarranged on my desk, and wondered about him. But I didn’t ask, and he never said a word. Still, the more I think about it, the more I am certain that he did know. I know him so well!’

‘And you think that would constitute a motive?’ I asked gently. ‘I mean, a stronger motive than what Miss Wolcombe surmised, that Ivy might tell others about his – his, ah, activities?’

‘That wouldn’t be a motive at all,’ he replied. ‘Ivy would never have spoken of all that again once she had got right away from it. She was not vindictive.’

‘You may be right,’ I said. ‘But why would your brother kill her rather than let her marry you?’

‘Rather than let me marry her,’ he said bitterly. ‘Don’t you see? Ivy was expecting a child, who would have become my child. A son, perhaps. She was sure it was a little boy.’

‘A son?’ I repeated slowly, wonderingly. ‘A son? To inherit? Do you mean that your son would inherit the Archer fortune if Julian did not have a son?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘My son would inherit the Archer fortune in any case. I am the older brother, not Julian.’

I was stunned. Why had I never even thought of this?

‘You?’ I said. ‘But – but Julian talked about the fortune at table…I understood that he was the heir…and I saw his portrait in your father’s study at Chippendale House! I thought that only the Archer heirs were painted there.’

‘My portrait is there as well,’ he replied. ‘My father had us both sit for the American, Sargent. He had Julian painted because the doctors told him I might die at any age; according to some, I was not likely to live past the age of twenty-five.’

‘Of course!’ The portrait I had noticed in Mr Archer’s study leapt suddenly out of my memory, as clearly as if it stood again in front of my very eyes. Now I knew why Philip had seemed familiar to me when I first saw him, although so different from his father and brother. I remembered what I had thought of his portrait when I first noticed it. I had thought it the face of a burdened man – burdened by the Archer evil…

‘She was desperate when she found out about the child,’ he said suddenly. ‘She told my father, she told Julian, she begged them for help. She didn’t know what to do; she had no money, no one who could help her; she was going to lose the work as an actress that she cherished. She came here to the flat to see Julian – to beg him yet again! I knew her already, of course; I’d seen her often with my father. She was so beautiful…But we had never really spoken together. She had such eyes…She came to see Julian, and he wasn’t here, and she talked to me instead; she talked to me for hours; she laid her head on my knees and cried; she told me everything about herself, and I think…I think I told her everything also, about myself…words that I had never before spoken aloud. And I asked her to marry me then, at the end of that afternoon. When I think it was barely more than a month ago. It seems forever.’

He stopped, drew a deep breath and continued.

‘We were to be married the very day she died; did you know that? It was all planned. She was to come upstairs in the night, after leaving my father’s party. She didn’t have any things with her, she didn’t want anyone to suspect what she meant to do. She had chosen her Ophelia costume from the theatre for a wedding dress; she didn’t possess anything else remotely suitable, and she wouldn’t hear of my offering her anything before the wedding – I had enough ado persuading her to accept just a little, simple pearl engagement ring. I would have kept her here for the rest of the night, and first thing in the morning after Julian went down to work, I would have sent Simpson out for something, and she would have helped me get to the church. But she never came. She was killed on her way here, and I only found out about it weeks later, when the police came to tell me. For all that time, I knew nothing of what had become of her; nothing, not one word. I thought that she had just changed her mind, and couldn’t bear to tell me. God knows I wasn’t even surprised. I thought that she couldn’t go through with it – that she couldn’t face marrying a – a thing like me. After all…no woman could.’

‘You are wrong,’ I said. ‘She could have, and she would have. She loved you. Didn’t you hear what Jenny said? Haven’t you read her letters? She was going to marry you, and she was killed for it.’

‘I loved her,’ he said, ‘loved her and was in love with her. Strange, isn’t it? That can happen even to a man like me. The body is ill, but the heart is just like anyone’s heart. After those hours we spent together, I was like a madman. I told her so; she stared at me; I’ll never forget her look full of amazement and tears. I didn’t want to force her or blackmail her into marrying me out of despair, if she didn’t want to of her own free will. I told her I would give her money; I have an allowance of my own, I could have kept her decently. I would have had her child brought up at my expense and never asked anything of her. But I took her hand in mine and told her that if she could accept it, I would marry her. I would adopt her child and make it legitimate. I knew what she felt about men and the love of men, the physical, bodily love; I knew she felt nothing but revulsion. I swore to her that our marriage would be exactly as she wanted; nothing, or everything – or anything. And she told me I was the first man in the whole of her life who had spoken such words to her. I remember what she said – many of those she had taken home with her for money had spoken of love, but not one had ever spoken to her with generosity. I’ll treasure every one of her words until I die. I had so few of them! I wanted her – I wanted her child. Can you understand that? I wanted her child, to hold and cherish; I, who will never have a child of my own. That’s why we chose not to tell Julian until the thing was done. He’s always known that I cannot live long; he had but to wait, and the family fortune would be his. He’s known that all his life; he wouldn’t have accepted this.’

Julian – his name, inevitably, had reappeared.

‘Did the police tell you where she was killed, and what we believe she was doing when she was killed?’ I asked him suddenly.

‘No,’ he said, glancing up at me, surprised. ‘I know she was found in the Cam, in the Lammas Land. I didn’t know they knew anything about what she was doing when she died.’

‘You should know,’ I said. ‘It concerns you closely. It seems virtually certain now that she was killed in the bookshop just downstairs. I don’t know why she went in there or how she had a key, but I believe that she was there, writing a letter to you, which she meant to slip into your hand as she came upstairs a few minutes later, so as not to let your brother hear any special words pass between you. I found her letter to you; she thrust it down into the armchair. I gave it to the police, so I don’t have it here, but I can tell you what it said.’ And as closely as I could remember, I quoted the words of Ivy’s last little note. He bent forwards to catch my words.

‘Can I have the letter back?’ he asked softly.

‘I will get it for you,’ I promised him. ‘But – now we must talk about your brother – I have to ask you the most difficult question of all. Given that Ivy was in the bookshop, do you not think that your brother could have slipped down and killed her there during one of the times that he briefly left the room?’

There was an awful silence. When he spoke, his voice was no more than a low croak.

‘It is horrible to say…Julian – my brother! Is it possible? No – it’s too horrible.’

It was not enough. I waited, but as he did not speak again, I urged him gently.

‘No one knows Julian like you do,’ I said. ‘No one but you can answer this question: would he have been capable of it?’

‘I thought he would go to any lengths to prevent my marrying Ivy. I thought it, and feared it, and did everything to hide it,’ he admitted. ‘He could have done it, perhaps – yet no! I told you, he spent the whole evening with me.’

‘Except for a few minutes now and then,’ I reminded him. ‘And she was just downstairs. It would have taken no more.’

‘But he couldn’t have known she was there!’ he said, as though with a last surge of energy in the defence of his brother. ‘Even I had no idea she meant to stop down there before coming up here.’

‘Couldn’t they have planned it between them?’ I persisted gently. ‘Could he not have asked her to meet him for some reason?’

‘Impossible,’ he replied. ‘Ivy would never have agreed to meet him anywhere, day or night. She hated him; her one desire was never to see him again. I didn’t know why, I thought she had some inkling of the difficulties he might put in the way of our marriage; she never told me about my brother’s role in her life; I believe she kept silent about it to protect my feelings. But she told me she hated seeing him. And besides, if she had meant to meet him down there secretly, she wouldn’t have written to me while waiting for him.’

‘I know, I’ve thought of that,’ I admitted. ‘Listen, perhaps he did not find out that she was going to the bookshop from Ivy herself. Might it not have been your father who sent her there, and told Julian?’

‘My father?’ He stopped, stunned, and stared at me. ‘Why would my father do that?’

‘Why would he send her to Heffers? I don’t know, but he could easily have found a pretext. He gave her quite a lot of money before she left his house, a whole roll of bank notes, according to a lady who saw him do it. He admits it, and says it was a gift, but it seems like too much money…’

‘She wouldn’t have accepted a gift from him, not on that day,’ he said. ‘She no longer needed it! When she begged him for help the week before, he gave her just ten shillings – and she was in desperate need!’ He covered his eyes with his hand.

‘Well,’ I said, pursuing an idea that had been vaguely in my mind, ‘do you think it is possible that he asked her, as a favour, to bring that money to Heffers? Could he have borrowed it and meant to return it, or told her some such story, and lent her the key to get in and put the money there?’

‘My father doesn’t have the key to the bookshop,’ he said weakly.

‘Julian could have given it to him,’ I said.

‘But why?’

‘To save his son from losing the family fortune to a bastard child…’ I said wearily. I hated saying the words, but he must know. He stared at me.

‘Are you saying that my father would have sent Ivy there on purpose to be killed?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, unable to speak my honest thought: yes!

‘It can’t be,’ he said, echoing the logical objections that hovered in my mind, contradicting my own intuitive conviction. ‘Even if Julian gave him the key and knew he meant to send her there during the night, how could he have known exactly when she would be there? He didn’t spend his time listening or looking out for her, I swear it. He sat at the piano and played waltzes and…comic songs…’ His voice trailed away, trying to reconcile the memory of that cheerful moment with the murder.

I was struck by a sudden revelation. ‘The telephone!’ I shouted suddenly, springing to my feet! ‘I’ve been wondering how your father could have let Julian know exactly when Ivy left his house – just that one detail would make it easy for him to predict her arrival at the bookshop and slip down within a few minutes of the right time! I’ve been so stupid, thinking about telepathy. Mr Archer – do you have the telephone installed?’

He looked at me blankly, and shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘The shop downstairs has one, but we don’t, up here.’

My face fell utterly. ‘Is there any other way your father could have communicated with your brother on that evening, without leaving his house, without your knowing anything about it?’ I said.

He did not answer. He looked utterly wretched.