“Then you know about as much as the rest of us. He’s only been Aunt Dottie’s solicitor for five years, since her last one died and he took over the practice. There are conflicting stories of where he came from, and he seems to have no other clients.” He glanced at me. “He’s a womanizer.”
I looked at him openmouthed. “You can’t possibly know that. And he has a wife.”
“I’m a man, so yes I do. And marriage has nothing to do with womanizing, though few people have ever seen the elusive Mrs. Wilde.”
“Dottie trusts him,” I said.
“Perhaps she does, but I don’t, and he knows it. He was at Wych Elm House that day, meeting with Aunt Dottie about business matters.”
I frowned. “But Dottie said she was on the terrace when it happened. She thought she heard a sound.”
“And Wilde was sitting in the library, waiting for her to return, or so he says. There was no one in the room with him when Franny died.”
I pressed a damp, gloved hand to my forehead, under the brim of my hat. “This is terrible,” I said. “I thought there would be too few suspects to make a convincing case for murder. Now I find there are too many. I think I am the only person we can safely say could not possibly have murdered your cousin.”
“I still haven’t convinced you that I didn’t do it, have I?” Alex said. “Do you trust me so little?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. I’ve known this would happen since I saw your face that day in Victoria Station, when I left you alone, sick with influenza.”
I recoiled away from him, moving out from under the umbrella and into the rain. I’d never told him about the influenza. “I had a cold,” I said.
“No,” Alex said, his voice going dark and bleak. “You didn’t. You had influenza. I knew it when I looked at your face, when I felt the fever burning you up.” We had stopped walking, and he stepped closer to me, looked down at me with his features hard and unforgiving. “Do you understand? That is the sort of husband you chose. A man who could walk away and leave you in a crowded train station, suffering from a deadly illness, so he could return to the Front as a German. A man who did not defy his orders to send you a single telegram or make a single phone call to end your misery. No wonder you aren’t happier to see me.”
“Stop it,” I said. He was in the grip of that icy anger again, the unfamiliar despair that I had seen last night. “You said yourself you’d have been shot for treason.”
He took my arm, his grip solid, though even in his rage he did not hurt me. “Our business is done here,” he said. “I think we’ve put on enough of a display for the village of Anningley, don’t you? Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
After a quick supper, bolted in the kitchen to avoid Alex and the family in the dining room, I was on my way to the stairs when I heard low, whispered voices. I detoured down the corridor and looked through the open door of the morning room.
Martin stood framed in the doorway to the terrace, his back to me. The French door was open, and he was leaning out, speaking in harsh undertones to someone outside. I could not hear the words, but the hostility in his voice made me stop, surprised. From the darkness outside, a woman’s voice answered, low and angry.
“Go,” Martin said.
I saw a shape through the window—a woman in a dark skirt and coat, retreating. Martin straightened and moved to close the door. I took a step back to turn and leave.
“Cousin Jo,” he said.
I stopped still.
He latched the French door shut and turned to me. The rising moonlight was behind him, casting shadows, but I could see that he gave me an apologetic smile. “Well,” he said, “here we are. I assumed you’d be at supper with all the others tonight, now that Alex is home. But it looks like you avoided it, like me.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s quite all right.” He came toward me. “I’m on my way back upstairs, and I’m not feeling well. Do you think you could accompany me?”
“Yes, of course.” I took his arm, which felt like a matchstick inside the sleeve of the loose sweater he wore. “You should eat something.”
“Not possible,” he said as we moved out the doorway and down the hall. “I’m not improving, Cousin. That’s the truth of it.” He was quiet for a long moment as we began to ascend the stairs. “I suppose you’re wondering who she was.”
“It’s none of my business,” I replied.
“Still, it looks very bad.” He gripped the stair railing with one thin hand and pulled himself up the steps. “The fact is, she’s the wife of a man who used to work here.”
“I see,” I said, though I didn’t see much of anything.
“He wasn’t here long,” Martin said, keeping his gaze on the stairs in front of him. His jaw was set tight, either in pain or in reluctance to tell the story. “He was one of the gardeners. He was a drunk, unreliable, given to fits of anger. Mother sacked him after a few weeks.”