? ? ?
JACK WATCHED CONRAD Belmont shift in his seat, and he understood the man’s discomfort. In the privacy of a shared bed he could listen to Anna talk about anything, but in company it was quite a different matter to hear her use terminology only she and Sophie would consider technical and benign.
“A curette?” Sophie asked.
“Possibly,” Anna said. “Or a long-handled metal scraper or spoon of some kind.”
“Do I understand correctly that Mrs. Campbell may have undergone the operation to end a pregnancy that didn’t exist in the first place? And this was her own work? Self-induced?”
“I think it must have been,” Anna said. “But I can’t be sure; I was working as fast as possible. The doctors who did the postmortem will have more to say on that count.”
“Was she unbalanced, to have done this?” Conrad asked.
Anna said, “Desperate, certainly. Unbalanced is a different matter entirely.”
Conrad folded his hands on the table and was silent while he gathered his thoughts.
“I’m going to assume for a minute that neither of you has ever been questioned by the coroner before,” he began. “First, you will not be under oath and you don’t have to answer any question put to you. I’ll speak up if I don’t want you to answer. The other thing to remember—and it’s something most people don’t realize at all: the coroner himself and the lawyers who question you—during this hearing or at trial—are not under oath.”
Jack’s face was set in a grim smile, and Anna took note. She would have questions for him later, when they could speak freely.
23
ON THE WAY to the coroner’s office, alone in a cab with Anna, it seemed to Jack that she had regained her calm, or at least to have gotten the upper hand over her anger.
Sophie had changed her clothes before they left for the coroner’s office, but there hadn’t been time for Anna to go home, and so she still wore the pretty gown she had put on this morning for the wedding. It was pale yellow with a raised pattern woven in; there was a name for it that he couldn’t recall just now, and really, he asked himself, why was he worried about fashions at this moment? He wasn’t, of course. His worries were elsewhere.
He covered her hand with his own and could feel how cold it was, even through her glove.
“Are you worried?”
The question surprised him. He said, “I wish we were married already.”
She smiled at him. “You want some kind of legal grounding to stand beside me?”
“Married or not, nothing less than a bullet would move me from where I am right now.”
She drew in a short, startled breath and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. He had robbed her of words and made her forget her question, which was exactly what he hoped to do. The simple truth was, he wasn’t sure he could lie convincingly, and he was glad not to have to admit to her that he was very worried indeed.
? ? ?
FOR SOPHIE THE first surprise came before she had even gotten out of the carriage in front of the coroner’s office. Newspaper reporters—too many of them to count—were jostling for position like boys at a baseball game. They shouted questions before the horses came to a full stop, their voices clashing, tossing up random words impossible to overhear: Dr. Savard and Cap Verhoeven and coroner and malpractice and marriage. She wondered if the day’s scandals might even warrant an extra edition.
“Don’t,” Cap said. “Don’t engage them in any way.”
“Try to keep your face neutral,” Conrad said. He sat across from her, his hat resting on his lap. “Don’t respond to even the simplest question. Don’t scowl, but don’t smile, either.”
Sophie swallowed hard to make sure her voice wouldn’t wobble. “I will do my best.”
Cap was sitting tucked back into the corner of the leather cushions, his lower face still masked. Sophie saw now that it was flecked with a fine spray of blood.
“You should be at home,” she said. “Right now, turn the carriage around and go home.”
“Nonsense.” The gauze mask puckered when he smiled. “I am perfectly comfortable right here. We’ll drive off a ways and come back to wait around the corner. Then I’ll nap while we wait. Anna and Jack are here. Best to get inside as soon as possible.”