“Well, then,” Kate said, “let’s try a different angle. You’ve known Mr. Day for some time, I think you said. Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”

“Who didn’t want to kill the man?” Lillie retorted, arranging her skirts around her. “He had enemies everywhere, not just in Newmarket.” She became scornful. “In London, he was nothing more than a common thief, dealing in stolen goods.”

“A fence, you mean?” Kate asked, wondering how Lillie had come by this information about Mr. Day, and whether Charles knew it as well. “Like Harold Knight in ‘The Duchess’s Dilemma’?”

Lillie sat suddenly very still, pinching a fold of silk between her fingers. “Yes,” she said slowly, “now that you mention it. He was a fence, like Harold Knight.” She lifted her chin, regarding Kate with a guarded expression. “In fact, I must confess that when I read your story, Beryl, I was sure that you had known someone like Alfred Day, perhaps even Day himself. After all, the names Knight and Day-” She shrugged expressively.

Kate gazed at her, and suddenly into her mind came the tale of Lillie’s missing jewels and the similarity she had already noted between that story and the “Duchess’s Dilemma.” Did Lillie Langtry fear that she might have some secret knowledge about those gems? Had the actress invited her to Regal Lodge, not to discuss the staging of her story, but rather to determine how much she knew about the theft of Lillie’s own jewels?

She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “I do assure you, Lillie, Harold Knight is not a real person. I’m afraid that my acquaintance is rather limited when it comes to criminals. I made him up.”

“But the two are so much alike,” Lillie persisted, an odd tension in her voice. She eyed Kate narrowly. “Even the manner of their deaths is similar. Don’t you see?”

The hair on the back of Kate’s neck prickled. She hadn’t thought of it until this moment, but what Lillie said was true. In the play, the man who had sold the duchess’s jewels had been shot to death when he and one of the other thieves had fallen out-a just reward for his many evil deeds.

She smiled a little. “Art and life frequently mirror each other. The events may be similar, but Harold Knight is an entirely fictitious character. I assure you, Lillie-there is no connection between him and Alfred Day. None at all.”

Lillie’s eyes held hers. “And the duchess? Did you make her up, too?”

“Not exactly,” Kate said, and saw the involuntary flare of Lillie’s nostrils, the pulling-in of her breath. She leaned forward. “The duchess is modeled after one of my neighbors, you see, and the theft in the story was based on a real event that occurred several years ago. The lady’s emeralds were taken and pawned by her son to buy some worthless stock, and were only thought to have been stolen. In real life, they were eventually redeemed and returned to their owner.” What she didn’t say was that the neighbor was Bradford Marsden’s mother, Lady Marsden, and that Charles had written a check for five thousand pounds to redeem the pawned emeralds and keep Lady Marsden from learning what her son had done.*

* The story of the missing Marsden emeralds is told in its entirety in Death at Gallows Green.

“I see,” Lillie said, relaxing almost imperceptibly. “So there was a real event behind your story, after all. Perhaps that’s what gave it the ring of truth.”

“Yes,” Kate said, with a rueful sigh. “In fact, I’ve often regretted having drawn the duchess so near to life. While it is tempting to take real people as the models for one’s characters, it may be dangerous to blur the line between fiction and reality. Someone who knows the facts might be misled by the fiction, or a reader of the fiction might be deceived by taking invention for the truth.” She took a deep breath. This discussion gave her the opportunity to make her intention clear-and an understandable excuse. “That is why I must tell you that I cannot allow you to stage the story,” Kate added. “If the owner of the emeralds were to see it or hear of it, she might feel betrayed.”

If she were disappointed, Lillie hid it rather well. In fact, she was clearly relieved.

“Now that you’ve put the matter in those terms,” she said brightly, “I understand completely. When one’s artistic work is important to one, one does not want it misinterpreted.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. “Now, might we go back to my question? Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill Mr. Day?”

Lillie pulled her brows together. “I really do not think-”

The drawing room door opened and the butler reluctantly stepped in. “Mrs. Langtry-”

Lillie turned, suddenly angry. “Oh, what now, Williams?” she cried. She seized a velvet cushion and fired it at him as hard as she could. “Can’t you leave us alone for an instant?”

Williams raised his arm to deflect the cushion that would otherwise have struck him squarely in the face. “Miss Jeanne Marie is here, ma’am,” he said, with infinite dignity.

He stepped back, opening the door wide. A brown-haired girl of seventeen or so, her face blotchy with tears, blouse rumpled, straw sailor askew, pushed past him. Hands on hips, she planted herself in front of Lillie and stared down at her.

“Jeanne!” Lillie gave a little gasp. “I thought you were staying with Lady Ragsdale.” She peered around the girl. “Have you run on ahead? Where is she?” She stopped and looked up at the girl. “And why are you crying?”

“I came down by myself,” the girl said, in a voice so low that Kate had to strain to hear. “On the train.”

“On the train?” Lillie exclaimed. “Alone? Has something happened, Jeanne?”

“I know the truth at last,” the girl said. “That’s what has happened. After all the years of make-believe, I finally know what’s real.”

“Ma petite chérie,” Lillie said, taking the girl’s small white hand. “Whatever are you talking about?”

Kate half-rose from her chair, thinking that she should not intrude on this private scene, but realized that Lillie had entirely forgotten her and that the girl, Jeanne-Marie, had never even noticed that she was there. She sat back as the girl took out a pocket handkerchief and mopped her streaming eyes.

“Lady Ragsdale says that you’re not my aunt, after all, Aunt Lillie. You’re my mother!”

Lillie stared at her for a moment in unfeigned consternation, her lips trembling, tears starting in her eyes. Then she pulled the girl onto the sofa beside her, took the handkerchief, and began tenderly to wipe away her tears.

“For once in her life, sweetheart,” she murmured, “Emily Ragsdale has told the truth. My darling Jeanne, I am your mother. And I love you more than life.”

At this confession, the girl pulled away and began to weep again, even more stormily. Lillie held her tightly, trying to calm her without success. “Hush, Jeanne!” she commanded at last. “Do you want the servants to hear? You know how they talk.”

This admonition seemed to produce the desired result. When Jeanne was calm enough to speak, she managed to choke out, “If you loved me, why did you pretend? Why did I have to spend all those dreadful years with Gram on that hateful little island? Why couldn’t I have been with you?”

Lillie took her hand. “I had hoped to put off this discussion until you were older, my dear, but now that you know part of the story, you might as well know the whole. You were born after your father and I agreed to live separately and I was forced to make my own way in the world. I decided to become an actress. But the theater is no place for a child, and I knew that if I were to be successful, I should have to be away a great deal, traveling. Your grandmother and I felt it would be best for you to live with her on Jersey, where you could have friends and lessons and a stable life.”

Jeanne’s face twisted and she jerked her hand away. “But to tell me that my parents were dead-”