She shrugged, trying to seem indifferent, but there was concern in the blue eyes.
‘It’s a problem,’ said Cribb, as if the worry were all on his side. ‘You made a number of payments to Perceval over a period of four months. You visited a pawnbroker, put your jewellery in hock. It’s evident that you hadn’t spoken to your husband about it. I’m bound to wonder why.’
‘She made the reason perfectly clear in her affidavit,’ said Allingham. ‘It could serve no practical purpose except to extend the blackmail to Howard. He is highly-strung, an impulsive man-’
‘I’m aware of that, sir,’ Cribb said to cut him short. ‘What I’m coming to, ma’am, is that it wasn’t just the photographs that you believed would alarm your husband. It was the connection with West Hampstead. Something had happened there, something that caused him to shut down his studio and go to Kew with a different name.’ He paused, watching her, hearing her breath quicken. ‘Judith Honeycutt’s death from cyanide poisoning.’
‘There was an inquest,’ she said at once. ‘Judith committed suicide.’
Cribb waited. Her reaction now would be crucial.
She turned to look towards Allingham. Ripples of tension had formed in her cheeks.
Allingham slipped his hand on her arm, but said nothing.
‘One thing was not made clear at the inquest,’ said Cribb. ‘The coroner was not informed that Judith Honeycutt was engaged to be married to Julian Ducane.’
‘What?’ Allingham said in a gasp. He withdrew his hand from Miriam’s arm.
‘It was never official,’ she said immediately, more to him than Cribb. ‘There was no ring. For that matter,’ she added, facing Cribb again, ‘how can you know?’
‘The day before Judith died, she met Miss Lottie Piper.’
‘Lottie?’ she said in amazement. ‘Lottie has spoken to you?’
‘Yesterday.’
Her voice changed. It took on a harder resonance. ‘Lottie never liked me. She was absurdly jealous. Do you know why? Because Howard chose me as his model.’ She emphasised it by pressing her hand to her chest. ‘I was the one he wanted to photograph. He wanted me, not Lottie or Judith. Simon, tell him that is true.’
Before Allingham could speak, Cribb said, ‘Judith was expecting a child.’
She looked at Cribb and said slowly, spacing her words. ‘And Howard poisoned her.’
‘Miriam!’ Allingham barked her name.
‘Why deny it now?’ she demanded. ‘The girl was a slut, no better than the creatures on the streets. Worse, because her price included marriage as well as money. Howard allowed himself to be trapped.’
‘I suggest you say no more,’ Allingham urged.
‘If I don’t speak now, I shall be hanged, Simon. God knows, I have kept silent all this time.’
‘This isn’t the way,’ said Allingham through his teeth.
She hesitated. Cribb watched her twist her fingers into the fabric of her skirt. Whatever Allingham advised, the impulse to talk was too strong to resist.
With an effort to keep her speech slow, she said, ‘No one can accuse me of disloyalty to my husband. He has condemned himself by running away. You said just now that the motive for murdering Perceval could be attributed to Howard as much as me. You were right. His reputation was at risk, his studio.’ She paused, her eyes ransacking Cribb’s. ‘It was not the photographs of three deluded girls in their skins that caused him to panic. It was the knowledge that Perceval had traced the pictures to Hampstead. Howard lived in dread of his past being uncovered. His nightmare was that someone would discover the real circumstances of Judith’s death. When I told him Perceval intended going to Hampstead to try to trace the plates of those photographs, he was seized with fright. He was certain it would raise questions that had never been asked about Judith and himself. He believed his arrest for the murder of Judith would be inevitable if he did not act. So instead of travelling to Brighton that Monday morning, he remained at Park Lodge and put poison in the decanter. My husband is the murderer of Josiah Perceval. I am innocent.’ She drew back on her stool and widened her glance to take in everyone in the cell. ‘Do you understand? You have condemned an innocent woman to die!’
Cribb’s eyes switched to Allingham. The young solicitor was deathly pale and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
‘Do you have anything to say, sir?’
‘Say?’ Allingham shook his head.
‘As Mr Cromer’s solicitor,’ Cribb prompted him.
Miriam swung round to Allingham. ‘Simon, you must tell him. Howard is guilty. You must confirm it.’
Allingham’s discomfiture was written on his features. ‘My dear, I cannot do that,’ he told her in a low voice.
‘Simon!’
He looked away.
‘Simon, for me. For us.’ She snatched at his hand. One of the wardresses moved to restrain her. ‘Leave me alone!’ she blurted, close to hysteria. ‘Simon, won’t you save me?’
Averting his eyes, Allingham said tonelessly to Cribb, ‘On the morning of 12th March, Howard Cromer was with me in my chambers here in London. He came to consult me about the blackmail, which Miriam had confided to him at the weekend. He was with me from half past eleven to just before one, when he left for Victoria, to catch the train to Brighton. My clerk will confirm this.’
‘No!’ cried Miriam. ‘It isn’t true!’ She turned back to Cribb. ‘Don’t believe him! They want me to die, both of them. They plotted this between them. Can’t you understand? They made me confess so that Howard should escape. They promised I should be pardoned. They promised!’
Cribb nodded to subdue her. ‘That I believe, ma’am. You expected to be pardoned.’
He looked into the pale, attentive face. It was no longer the face in the photograph. The delicate balance of probabilities had shifted. It was beautiful, but it held no mystery. It was the face of a murderess. She was guilty not of one murder, but two. And ready to kill again. She wanted Howard Cromer to hang.
Cribb saw in her eyes an implacable force: the strength of her will. It was a force that in other circumstances might have made Miriam Cromer a social crusader of her time, for it refused to recognise defeat. But events had turned it inwards. It had become an impulse to self-gratification. She had coveted marriage. She would not be thwarted. She had murdered her own friend. Marriage had brought frustration, not fulfilment. She had discovered what it was to be the object of someone else’s obsession. Isolated and unloved, yet treated with devoted kindness, she had concentrated her will into playing the part of a wife. When blackmail had intervened, she had expunged it ruthlessly. The trial and sentence had provided a fresh challenge for her strength of purpose. She had come within an ace of cheating the hangman.
Oddly, he felt a measure of respect for her. He did not want this to end in an undignified scene.
‘You were cleverly advised,’ he told her. ‘Considering the evidence against you, it’s a marvel that you had us in two minds about your guilt.’
She looked at him through smouldering eyes, trying to read his face.
‘You should have heeded Mr Allingham’s advice,’ Cribb continued. ‘Said nothing, left us to draw conclusions. Mr Allingham would not have told us your husband had an alibi until you were pardoned. But you forced it from him by accusing your husband of murder. You wanted too much out of this-a pardon and your husband’s conviction. A charge of murder against your husband would never stick, and Mr Allingham knows it. The purpose of the plan was to raise enough doubts to secure your release.’