to blame a husband with whom you were disillusioned and no longer in love.”
Vita turned gray-white.
“It was you who cried out, ‘No, no, Reverend!’ not Unity at all,” Pitt went on. “She broke her heel at the top of the stairs. It fell into a potted palm, where I found it this morning.”
“That’s nonsense,” Tryphena said suddenly, stepping towards her mother. “There was nothing wrong with Unity’s shoes. I saw them. They weren’t broken.”
“There wasn’t when you saw Unity’s body,” Pitt corrected her. “Mrs. Parmenter exchanged them with her own; that is why the chemical stain from the conservatory was there.” He looked at Mallory. “You said Unity didn’t come into the conservatory that morning. But your mother did, didn’t she?”
Mallory licked his lips. “Yes …”
“And the love letters?” Tryphena demanded, her voice sharp, her face pale. “I suppose Papa wasn’t in love with Unity either? What were they, then? And if they were innocent—which they couldn’t be—why did he try to murder Mama?”
“They were translations of classical love letters,” Pitt replied. “Those in Ramsay’s writing were his translations, those in Unity’s writing were hers, of the same letter.”
“Nonsense!” Mallory said, but with fading conviction. His face, too, was pasty white. “If that were true, he would have had no reason to have attacked Mama.”
“He didn’t.” Pitt shook his head. He was still holding Vita by the arm. She seemed frozen. He could feel her rigidity. “That was the murder in all this. Mrs. Parmenter always intended to kill him if I did not arrest him and have him hanged for Unity’s death. Act by act, she created a picture of him as violent and out of control. The letters were an excellent excuse, as long as we did not realize what they were, and both Ramsay and Unity were dead and could not explain.”
“But—but he attacked her!” Mallory protested.
“No, he didn’t,” Pitt corrected. “She took the paper knife in with her, and she attacked him.”
Dominic was aghast. He stared at Vita as if she had metamorphosed in front of his eyes into something almost beyond imagination.
“I did it for us!” she said urgently, ignoring Pitt, not even trying to pull away from him. “Don’t you see that, my darling? So we could be together, as we were always meant to be!”
Mallory gasped.
Tryphena staggered against the bishop.
“You—you and I?” Dominic’s voice cracked with horror. “Oh, no—I …” He stepped even closer to Clarice. “I don’t …”
“Don’t pretend!” Vita urged, her face softening to a knowing smile. “My dear, it isn’t necessary anymore. It’s all over. We can be honest now. We can tell the world.” Her voice was gentle, utterly reasonable. “You can step into Ramsay’s place. You can be all that he failed to be. It is your destiny to lead, and I will be by your side all the way. I have made it possible for you.”
Dominic closed his eyes as if he could not bear to see her. His whole body clenched.
The bishop swayed on his feet. “Oh, my God!” he muttered helplessly. “Oh, my God!”
“You didn’t do it for me …” Dominic said, in obvious agony. “I never—never wanted you to …”
“Of course you did,” Vita said in a soothing tone, as if she were persuading a child. “I know you love me just as much as I love you.” She shrugged her shoulders, regardless of Pitt’s hold on her. “You’ve told me so in a hundred different ways. You were always thinking of me, caring for me, doing little things for my comfort and my happiness. You gave me so much. I stored every keepsake in my room, where no one else would look. I take them out every night and hold them, just to be close to you …”
The bishop made clicking noises of disgust with his teeth.
Isadora put her heel on his toe and trod hard. He yelped, but no one was listening to him.
“Tell him to go away,” Vita urged, indicating Pitt with a jerk of her elbow. “Dominic, you can do anything; you have the power. You are going to be the greatest leader of the church in this century.” Her eyes shone with eagerness, with pride. “You are going to restore it to the place it belongs, so everyone looks up to it, to the clergy, as they should do. The church is going to be the head and the heart of every community again. You’ll show people; you’ll make it so. Tell this stupid policeman to go away. Tell