“I suppose Jack might be desperate to marry her?” Fen offered dubiously. “A grand passion, no chance of divorce, this is the only way for her to be free?”

“How...newspaperish. People do kill for love, I suppose.”

Fen pulled a face. “I wouldn’t have guessed that he loved her that much. Not that he could show it in the circumstances, so perhaps I’m wrong, but it doesn’t look like a great tragic love affair. Which brings us back to the family.”

“Yes. Although— Oh Lord, Fen, there’s something else. Haworth was a blackmailer. I heard him at it.”

Fen’s eyes rounded. “What? When?”

“My first morning here.” Pat explained how she’d come to hear the conversation. “I couldn’t tell who he was speaking to, only that it was a man, but he was unquestionably demanding money and threatening to spill the beans about something.”

Fen nodded slowly. “Are you going to tell the police what you heard?”

Pat hugged her knees closer. “It would be concealing important evidence not to.”

“Does it make a difference, though? I suppose if he were blackmailing Mr. Keynes—but that’s awfully hard to imagine. I don’t see how he could do much damage to Mr. Bouvier-Lynes either. A scandal might be inconvenient to him, but not in the way it would be to Lady Anna.”

“I wasn’t really thinking of him.”

“No.” Fen took a gulp of whisky. “You’re thinking of Mr. Merton and Jimmy.”

“Oh God, Fen,” Pat whispered. “He was a blackmailer, and Jimmy hated him, and we saw Jimmy heading into the East Wing with Haworth coming after him—and if it was Jimmy, if Haworth was blackmailing him over Bill— Oh dear heaven, what will I do? I can’t tell the police about the blackmail if it risks Bill, but if I don’t and someone gets away with murder—”

“Stop it. Come here.” Fen held out her arm. Pat hesitated a second and then leaned against her side. Fen pulled her close, and Pat twisted to bury her face in the warm shoulder.

“I can feel your heart beating,” Fen murmured. Her hand was moving gently over Pat’s hair. “Breathe.”

Easier said than done with her nose and mouth pressed against Fen’s skin. “I can’t,” Pat mumbled.