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medical report comes in.”
    “I see.” Joshua bit his lip. “And you have come here because both Tamar and I saw him during the day, and you suspect us?” His face was tight, full of hurt. Almost unconsciously he put out his hand and touched Tamar’s arm. It was a protective gesture, although she looked in some ways the stronger of the two. Her face was fiercer, less vulnerable than his.
    Watching her, Charlotte thought of the little she had heard of the Godman case, and the appalling loss of her brother. She wondered what Aaron Godman had been like. If he resembled her, Charlotte could imagine how people might have feared him, and believed him at least capable of a passion that could have ended in murder!
    “Among many others.” Pitt did not prevaricate. “But it is also possible you may provide some observation which will simply guide us to the truth.”
    “You mean implicate someone else,” Tamar said coolly. “We have been through a murder investigation before, Inspector Pitt. We cherish no illusions that it will be a pleasant affair, or that the police will rest before they have found evidence to satisfy a court of someone’s guilt.”
    Charlotte was acutely aware of how exact was her use of words. The wound of her brother’s conviction was far from healed.
    “It is ours to present the evidence, Miss Macaulay,” Pitt replied without anger or criticism in his face. “Not to decide on it—thank God. But I have never knowingly provided anything which I did not believe to be true. I am aware that you feel your brother was wronged, and that itwas in connection with that case that you visited Mr. Stafford today.”
    “Of course.” Her amusement was genuine, if bitter. “I have no other reason for seeking his acquaintance. I am aware that actresses have a certain reputation. In my case it is not warranted. And I know no reason to suppose it was in Mr. Stafford’s either.” There was savage laughter in her eyes, a mockery of Stafford and of herself and all people suppressed of emotions. “He was a somewhat humorless man,” she went on. “Lacking in imagination, and in the unlikely event he were to pursue a romance, I think he would be more discreet than to choose an actress with whom to do it!”
    Charlotte looked at Pitt’s face and saw the imagination take flight in him. Tamar was a woman a man might fall in love with, even passionately, but not a woman with whom he would have an affaire. She was the stuff of dreams, even of visions, not a pleasant pastime, a little laughter and sensuality away from the duties of marriage or the loneliness of a bachelor life. Charlotte could not imagine her as a comfortable woman, and she believed Pitt did not either.
    “I do not leap to conclusions, Miss Macaulay.” Pitt’s voice cut across her thoughts. “Even when they seem on the firmest of ground.”
    A smile flashed across Tamar’s face and vanished.
    “And you, Mr. Fielding?” Pitt turned to Joshua. “Did Mr. Stafford come to sec you about this case?”
    “Yes, of course. I gathered from what he said that he was considering reopening it after all.” He sighed heavily. “Now we have lost that chance. We have not managed to persuade anyone else to consider it at all.”
    “Did you see him alone, Mr. Fielding?”
    “Yes. I imagine that there is no point in my telling you what happened, since there is no one to verify it.” Joshua shrugged. “He simply asked me about the night Blaine was killed, and made me rehearse everything I know all over again. But he said he was off to see Devlin O’Neil—that was Blaine’s friend, with whom he quarreled that evening—over money, I think.”
    “Did he have this with him?” Pitt pulled the silver flask out of his pocket and held it forward.
    Joshua regarded it curiously. “Not that I saw, but then one doesn’t usually carry such a thing where it is visible. Why? Is it poisoned?”
    Tamar shrank a little into herself and looked at it with distaste.
    “I