I promised, I know. Forgive me.

I draw in a breath, and face the two of you. ‘It was not her husband’s baby. She . . . and Mr Cambridge –’

You look at each other in surprise.

‘She didn’t want anyone to know. I kept it because she wanted to bury it when she was well.’

‘She was unwell?’

‘That’s the reason I went back. She wrote to me and asked me to.’ I tell you about coming back, how frightened she’d been.

‘Frightened? Of what?’

Of her husband, of what he might do, of her own narrowing choices. I tell you about finding her that day, inconsolable. I say that she’d seemed, even before her loss, to have sunk into a well of grief. Tomkin looks surprised, as if wondering how such a thing could ever be considered a loss. I tell you what Benham had proposed. But then I trail off, knowing I’ll be wiser to leave certain doors shut.

I tell you how I loved her. How I tried to help her. I don’t tell you about my harsh words. I don’t tell you that the thing she was frightened of might have been me. When I finish, I’m shaking. I try to hide it by flexing my hands in front of me.

‘I loved her,’ I say again, because it seems the most important thing to say.

You look at me steadily. ‘You loved her. That doesn’t change my advice. Even had it been mutual, it is more likely to harm than help your case.’ You glance down the hallway, lower your voice. ‘What happened afterwards?’

‘Afterwards?’

‘After you found her, as you’ve described?’

I pause. Caution. Careful. Do not say too much.

‘She went to her soirée. Mr Benham required it.’

‘And then?’

My mind races. It’s my own self I’m trying to outrun. When I reach inside, there’s nothing. That trick, somewhere between remembering and forgetting – and the only refuge I have left.

Give me something I can save your neck with.

I can’t remember.

From the end of the hallway, a clang of metal. The turnkeys. No time left. You turn to Tomkin. ‘What do you think?’

‘That we can’t do much with any of that.’

‘No. But –’ You stop. ‘Something struck me when I was cross-examining the housekeeper. How would it have been done? To kill one, then the other, and to be in such a deep sleep immediately afterwards? She took an excess of laudanum. Might there be something in that? What if we find a medical man who can make a defence out of it?’

Tomkin looks at me. ‘I know a doctor in Cheapside. Used him last week on something else. He might have knowledge of such matters. But where do you go with this?’

‘If we can get a doctor willing to swear to it, couldn’t we argue that she couldn’t have had the capacity to form an intention, not in that state? Therefore, the indictment, at least for murder, must fail?’