The matron, some yards ahead of them, had entered the small interior courtyard, sun-filled a short time earlier but now in shade. Tired by her exertions, she sank down onto the bench to fan herself, though the warmth had gone out of the day. She lay the bundle gently upon the bench beside her. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. Her excessive and fleshy body was disinclined to action.

She had laid the bundle gently and not, as one might expect a bundle of bloodied and soiled sheets to be laid, with careless disregard.

And Alice, at last, understood and stifled a cry. She did not pause. She divested herself of her guardian angel, the elderly woman in patched tartan, and striking out on her own she made her way along the silent corridor at such a smart pace that in a moment she had reached the shady little courtyard and the bench on which the fat and wheezing woman rested. In another moment Alice had ducked back inside and was gone, and the place where the bundle had lain was now bare.

A very short time later a slight young woman who had arrived at the courthouse carrying nothing now departed holding a most precious bundle, and could be seen hastening out of the side door of the great building and down the driveway and out of the gate and was soon lost among the throng of people on Oxford Street.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CORANGAMITE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CORANGAMITE

After the deed was done Eleanor had gone home and awaited Alasdair’s return. She had thought to greet him at the door, her excitement—yes, it was excitement, or something close to it—had thrilled through her, it had filled her up. She had stood at the door to greet him.

But in the end he had returned so late from a meeting she had given up and gone, alone, to her bed.

And so it had been on the second evening too. The third day, a Sunday, Alasdair had breakfasted without her, worked in his study all day, gone out in the evening, returning in silence. When she sat across from him at the dinner table he had been somewhere else. Her excitement, if that was what it was, had wavered. But this evening, a Monday evening, it had soared again. Three days had passed since she had done her deed and something, surely, must break.

Eleanor dressed slowly and purposefully. She chose a deep blue silk gown, the bodice sheathed in the palest tulle. She attached diamonds at ears, throat and wrist.

But every hour she feared a policeman at the door.