“I was in the army and at times conducted investigations. That was where I started and learned. After Waterloo, I was with my regiment in France, part of the army that remained there while matters were sorted out. A Frenchman was found dead in the town. Knife wounds. Someone said one of our men had been seen nearby. I was told to look into it.”

She did not move or react. She only listened.

“I learned this man had a lover. A woman of renowned beauty. And he had a rival. One of our officers. A friend of mine. A good friend.”

Only briefly did he consider not finishing. Yet it felt good to speak of it, finally. With her.

“I knew it could not possibly have been him. I knew him. I had for years. I would have sworn to his character. So I kept searching for another, and yet—there was no one else. I did not accept the truth until they arrested him. One of her servants came forward and admitted she had seen it all. An argument over the woman. A crime of passion, the French called it. The British army claimed jurisdiction, however, and we have no provisions for such an excuse. He was sure to hang.”

“How terrible for him. And for you if he was a friend.”

“It meant an ignoble death, and the loss of his good name. An embarrassment to his family and all who claimed him as a friend.” He was there again, hearing the damning evidence, and knowing all that it meant, even beyond death. He could see the fear in his friend’s eyes, worse than any seen in battle. Did you do it? Did you kill him?

“On the second morning of the trial he was found dead in his cell. A single pistol wound, well placed. A suicide wound, it appeared, but no pistol was found.”

She turned her body so she looked up at him.

“Did you kill him?”

Brave woman. Braver than he was. He had never asked her that question, after all.

“He admitted his guilt to me, then asked me to. Begged me to. I refused. I gave him my pistol, however, and stood aside, outside the cell while he used it. Then I took the pistol, so he would not in fact be a suicide.” He only got it out by speaking without pause, by forcing down the emotions of that dank donjon of a gaol and the friendship that led him to such a choice. “No one could prove a thing, but they guessed. Few thought the less of me for it. ‘I would have done the same,’ one senior officer confided, even though I had admitted nothing. When asked if I killed him, I said I had not.”

“You hadn’t.”

“Not officially. But in a way I had.”

“Is that why you left the army?”