She told me, “I have nothing of my husband’s, Sergeant Williamson.”

Others might have missed her faint frown as she turned her face toward the windows. I did not.

It had been years since I’d felt so compelled to help, protect, and care for someone else. The feeling hit me like a hammer blow, and held me silent.

Gilroy said, “In such a case, the best approach is to attempt to find people who knew you and your husband, when he lived, and who could testify your marriage was a proper one. These witnesses you list on your certificate—”

“—are dead,” she said, “as you’ve observed.”

“But were they strangers called in off the street?” he asked. “I know that’s often how it’s done, with such clandestine marriages. Or were they people known to you?”

Still looking at the street beyond the windows, she replied, “They were my friends.”

“I see,” said Gilroy. “Barbara Malcolm, your first witness named, did she have any family?”

“Barbara Malcolm had a sister, but she died.” She looked at Gilroy. “Why?”

He made a note upon his papers. “And this other, Walter Browne?”

“He had brothers, though I don’t know what became of them.”

Another note. “And were these brothers well acquainted with you and your husband?”

“We were very private people.”

“Nonetheless. If you would have us help you, this is how it must be done. We must prepare a list of those who knew you as a married couple, and seek out their testimony.”

“How long will that take?”

“It depends upon the list. Perhaps a fortnight.”

Longer than she’d hoped, apparently, to judge by her expression when she brought her face around again to look at me. Her eyes were blue and shadowed with impatience and, behind that, something deeper and unspoken that looked very much like fear.

It hit me squarely in my gut.

I could not think why such a mundane thing as proving she’d been married to this man would make her frightened, but there were already many things about this “simple” inquiry I did not understand.

And in that moment I reacted without thinking; without caring what the others in the room might think. I hitched my chair around so that it faced hers more directly, and I told her, “Mrs. Graeme, I realize this is an uncomfortable position for you, sitting here with strangers, being judged. But I can promise, if you’ll trust me, I will help you find your way through all of this.” I met her eyes and asked her, “Will you trust me?”

It might well have been the longest moment I had ever spent.

And then, at last, it ended.

“Yes,” she said.

If I hadn’t already known I was in trouble, I would have been sure of it then, when she spoke that one word and attempted a smile and it seemed, for that heartbeat of time, there were only the two of us there in the drawing room, and all the rest of the world fell away.