“How tedious.” she said without feeling. “I can repeat everything I told you before, if you believe it may be helpful.” And without waiting for him to reply, in a monotone she recited the events of the last day of Stafford’s life, from seeing him at breakfast through Tamar Macaulay’s visit, his agitation, to his leaving to go and interview Joshua Fielding and Devlin O’Neil again. She told him of Stafford’s return, his preoccupation, which was not particularly unusual, the dinner they had shared.
“And he was perfectly well then?” he interrupted. “He was not sleepy, unusually inattentive? He ate well, without complaint of pain or discomfort?”
“Yes, he ate excellently. And we were served from the same dishes. There was nothing he took which I did not. More, of course, but just the same dishes. He cannot have been poisoned in this house, Mr. Pitt.”
“No, I had already concluded that, Mrs. Stafford. Besides, we found the traces of opium in his flask. I wondered if he could have taken anything from it already, before the meal, that’s all. I am checking everything …”
“I can see you are totally lost,” she agreed with a flicker of a smile.
He could not entirely blame her, although her amusement stung. It was he who had shed light on a truth that maimed her so much. Without him she might never have seen her love for Pryce as anything less than a great passion. She would have to have been a woman of great generosity not to have hated him for it.
“May I speak with the valet, please?” he asked.
“Of course. He is still here, although I shall have to dismiss him presently. I have no need for his services.” She reached for the bell rope embroidered in silk, and pulled it to summon a servant.
But the valet could tell him nothing useful. He had not seen the flask that evening, nor did he think that the judge had drunk from it. It was not his habit to use the flask when in his own home where he could send for a drink from the decanter merely by ringing a bell. Nor could any of the other servants add anything to what they had already said. He could feel their unspoken contempt that after this time, and all the questions, he was reduced to going over old facts he had known all along, and still he found no pattern from which he could deduce an answer. He was disgusted himself, and discouraged and angry.
The next person he saw was Judge Livesey, but he had to wait until the middle of the afternoon and find him in his chambers between other engagements. Livesey looked surprised to see him, but not disconcerted.
“Good afternoon, Inspector. What may I do for you on this occasion? I hope you have no further disasters to report.” He said it with a smile, but there was no ease in his face, and certainly no humor. He looked tired; the purplish smudges under his eyes and the creases in his face from his nose to the corners of his lips were deeper, his mouth set in harder lines. Pitt remembered how harsh the news of Harrimore’s arrest would be to him. The Godman appeal had been one of the achievements of his career. The dignity and assurance with which he had conducted it had earned him considerable praise both from the general public and, which would be sweeter, from his peers. Now, when it was too late, he was proved tragically wrong.
“No,” Pitt said quietly. “No, there is nothing new, thank God. I am still back with the first crime for which I was called in. I am no further forward in learning who killed Mr. Stafford than I was at the beginning.”
“Frustrating for you,” Livesey remarked, almost without expression. “I have no idea how I can help you. I know nothing more than I did then.”
“No sir, I had not held any hope that you did. But perhaps there are questions I omitted to ask which I might put to you now?”
“Of course.” Livesey sat down heavily in the chair close to the fire, which must have been lit long before he returned from court. He indicated the other chair opposite, not so much in an invitation as a request that Pitt should cease to stand over him. “Please ask what you must. I will try to be of service to you.” He sounded tired and as if the courtesy cost him a considerable effort.
“Thank you, sir.” Pitt reclined less than comfortably. He did not bother to go over Stafford’s visit to Livesey earlier that day, and the proof that the flask was uncontaminated when Stafford left. They had already exhausted that. He started with their meeting at the theater.
“You first saw him in the foyer, you said?”
“That is correct, but I did not speak to him then. There was a considerable crush of people, and a great deal of noise, as I daresay you recall?”
“Yes, indeed.” Pitt remembered vividly the air of excitement and expectation, the raised voices, the constant, jostling movement. Conversation would have been difficult. “Where did you go from there?”
Livesey thought for a moment. “I started off up the stairs towards my box, then in the gallery I saw someone I knew and was about to stop for a word when he was accosted by a woman I find exceedingly tedious, so I changed my mind and went back down again for about five minutes, by which time they were gone. I went up to my box then, and sat down alone from that time until the curtain went up.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders very slightly. “Of course I saw several other people I knew, taking their seats, but I spoke to none of them. One cannot, without making a spectacle of oneself.” He searched Pitt’s face curiously. “Is this really of any service to you, Inspector?”
“Not so far,” Pitt admitted. “But it may be. Anyway, I know nowhere else to look.”
“It will be regrettable if you are obliged to leave the matter unresolved,” Livesey said with a curious, bitter twist to his mouth. “Not, I imagine, what you wish.”
“I have not reached that stage yet.”
There was nothing so crude as disbelief in Livesey’s voice, or in the very gentle arching of his eyebrows. “Well, I shall certainly relate all that I remember of that evening, if you feel it may assist. You were in the box on the far side of him, one or two spaces away, as I recall. No doubt you saw all that I did.”
“I don’t mean anything of what happened in the box,” Pitt said quickly, then as he saw Livesey’s expression, realized his error. “No, that is foolish,” he corrected himself before Livesey could do so. “I do not know what is relevant. If you saw anything at all, please tell me.”
Livesey shrugged, and this time there was definitely humor in his face—dry, entirely intellectual, but very real.
“Of course. Naturally I did not spend the majority of the evening looking sideways at Mr. Stafford’s box, but I glanced that way on several occasions. He was sitting towards the back to begin with, a little behind Mrs. Stafford. I formed the opinion that he had come largely on her account. He did not seem to have his attention entirely upon the stage, but to be concerned with his own thoughts. Not surprisingly. I have taken my wife to many events for her pleasure, not my own.”
“Did he appear ill?”
“No, merely thinking. At least that is how it seemed to me. With the wisdom of hindsight I appreciate that he may have felt unwell.” Livesey was watching Pitt now, and his blue eyes were amused. “Are you trying to ask me if I saw him drink from his flask? I don’t believe so, but I cannot swear. He did reach for something from his pocket, but I was not paying sufficient attention to see what it was. I am sorry.”
“It is not of importance. He did drink from it at some time, that is beyond question,” Pitt said flatly.
“Indeed, tragically, that is true.” Livesey frowned. “Tell me, Pitt, what is it you hope to learn? If I knew I might be better able to answer you. I confess, I don’t see what you believe there is that could help. We know the poison was in the flask, and that he died of it. What assistance would it be if someone had seen him actually drink? Surely it is inescapable that it did happen?”