“What time did Badger leave?”

“Something after nine, Harold says. P’rhaps ten past.”

“He must have been on his way to meet Mrs. Langtry,” Charles mused. Hearing all this, he was now more inclined to agree with Kate that Lillie was innocent.

Murray nodded. “Some of the men who were arguing followed Badger out the door. Some came back in a few minutes, others didn’t. Harold noticed, because he thought that several were very angry. He remembers wondering whether Badger knew how to take care of himself.”

“Who didn’t come back?” Charles asked sharply.

“Pinkie Duncan, Jesse Clark, and Eddie Baggs.” Murray swigged the last of his beer. “Of course, they might have gone on to another pub.”

“Or they might have followed Badger into the alley and shot him,” Charles said.

“That’s what Harold thinks.” Murray rolled the greasy paper into a bundle and thrust it and the empty bottles under the seat. “He says his money is on Clark, because he and Enoch Wishard, the other American trainer, had the most to lose if Badger succeeded in organizing the bookies, or forcing the Jockey Club to outlaw doping.”

“We should talk to Baggs,” Charles said.

Murray nodded. “I went to his lodging, but the landlady said he’d left. Took his clothes with him.” He gave Charles a significant look. “We’re not the only ones looking for him, either. She said that another gentleman had been around, asking for him.”

“She couldn’t say who, I don’t suppose.”

“No,” Murray said regretfully. “She couldn’t. But whoever he was, the fact that he’d missed Baggs made him angry.”

Charles wiped his hands on his handkerchief and picked up the reins. “How about Sobersides? Was he at the Great Horse with the others?”

“Not then. Harold said he came in earlier in the evening. He had left by the time Badger arrived.”

“Did you discover where we might find him?”

Murray nodded. “His brother Thomas has a small farm the other side of Snailwell. Harold says he may’ve gone there, or to another brother, in Edinburgh. His real name, by the way, is Oliver Moore. He’s called Sobersides because he never smiles.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have anything to smile about,” Charles said, and urged the horse back onto the road. “Let us hope that Oliver Moore stayed close. I have no great wish to track him to Edinburgh.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“How on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter? I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not.”

Mrs. Erlynne in Lady Windemere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde

When Charles had gone, Kate sat very still, trying to collect her thoughts. The man who had been in this room-stern-faced, so severe as to be almost abusive-was not her husband, but some other person, a stranger she had never seen before and hoped never to see again.

But at the same time that her heart felt wounded by the harshness of his words and the coldness of his expression, her mind understood that he had been playing a part, and that he had done so in an effort to force Lillie Langtry to tell the truth. Kate knew, too, that he had left Regal Lodge unconvinced of Lillie’s innocence, and for that she was sorry. For she herself was sure that Lillie had told the truth, about the murder, at least, and also about the gun. The actress might well be hiding something else-indeed, Kate knew that she almost certainly was-but she had not been aware of the bookmaker’s death until that morning at breakfast, and she had fully expected to find her gun when she opened that drawer.

When at last Lillie spoke, her voice was ironic. “Beryl, I must say you are right on one count. Lord Sheridan is certainly a ‘rare’ man-although not, I think, in the way you meant.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate said sincerely. “He was unpardonably rude. But he was only trying-”

Lillie began to pace across the room. “I know what he was trying to do,” she said bitterly. “He was trying to wring the truth out of me-or at least, the truth he wanted to hear.” She turned and held out her hands with a look of pure appeal. “I swear to you, Beryl. I learned of Alfred Day’s death from you, this morning. And I had no idea that the gun was gone. Everything I said to Lord Charles was the truth.”

“I know,” Kate said simply. Whatever the reasons Charles had for coming here, she trusted that they must be important. Perhaps she could help him by finding out what he could not. Perhaps she could persuade Lillie to tell her-

“Well, thank God for that,” Lillie exclaimed, casting her eyes upward. “But you must convince your husband, Beryl. You must! Imagine the scandal if I am accused in court of murdering a bookmaker, on top of all my other sins!” She closed her eyes and clasped her hands to her breast. “Even if I were acquitted, the Prince could never again be able to give me any notice. And if it came out that-” She stopped. “I would be ruined,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Utterly and eternally ruined.”

“If I am to convince Charles of your innocence,” Kate said in a practical tone, “I must know all the truth. For instance, I must know who might have taken your gun-besides the servants, that is.”

“It was a servant,” Lillie snapped. “I’ve never trusted them, none of them. They steal and gossip and-” She threw up her hands. “Why, the person who is serving as my temporary lady’s maid here cannot even dress hair! One is such a victim of one’s servants.”

“You saw the gun yesterday, you said. Who besides the servants has been in this room since yesterday morning?”

“Well…” Lillie frowned. “You, of course. And Dick Doyle and Tod Sloan, whom you met here. But I can’t think why either of them would want to take my little pistol. It makes no sense.”

Kate thought about the enormously fat man and the slender young jockey. Both of them were involved with racing, and Alfred Day had been a bookmaker. Surely they had known the dead man, and might have had a more sinister connection with him. But there was something else.

“I was in the garden yesterday afternoon,” she said, “and saw a gentleman leaving the house. Was he in this room alone? Would he have had an opportunity to take the gun?”

The change in Lillie’s face was so subtle that if Kate hadn’t been watching closely, she would have missed the tension in the mouth, the almost imperceptible narrowing of the eyes. But when Lillie spoke, her voice was light and easy.

“Oh, that was just Spider,” she said, with a careless toss of her head. “And he wasn’t in this room at all-we met and talked in the library.”

For the moment, Kate did not challenge Lillie’s lie. She remarked, instead: “Spider-an odd nickname.”

“I give nicknames to all my male friends,” Lillie replied. She frowned. “It had to be one of the servants, I’m sure of it. It wouldn’t be the first thing they’ve stolen. Jewelry, silver, pieces of valuable lace. One never knows what will go missing next.” She returned to the sofa and sat down, an irritated look on her face. But there was something else, too. Was it apprehension? Fear? Had Lillie realized that her afternoon visitor had taken the gun?