In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,82

spoiled her horribly, of course.” She paused and smiled. “But who could not love Fanny? He’s not the only one who feels a light has gone from their life, I can assure you. Fanny and I were as close as sisters. I feel absolutely bereft.”

“I’m sure all her friends feel the same way,” I said. “I’ve come with a rather awkward question, Mrs. Trotter. You were closer to Fanny than anybody—did she ever share any concerns with you about her husband?”

Her forehead wrinkled charmingly. “What kind of concerns, Miss Murphy?”

“I wondered if she ever mentioned to you that she suspected her husband of infidelity? Or that she was thinking of divorcing him?”

She looked shocked. “Thinking of divorcing Anson? No, whoever gave you that idea? I suppose it was Emily.”

“Actually . . .” I began, then I stopped. “Emily?” I asked.

“Well, naturally she came to mind,” Alice said. “Wishful thinking, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Miss Murphy, that Emily was hopelessly smitten with Anson during her Vassar days. Worshipped the ground he trod on. Of course it was all rather awkward for Fanny. But it was obvious from the first that Anson would pick Fanny over Emily, wasn’t it? Fanny had money and Anson liked to live well. Emily had nothing.”

“I see.” I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach.

“So I thought that maybe Emily had been spreading rumors in the hope of souring Fanny’s marriage.”

“So as far as you know she and Anson were happily married”

“Oh she complained about him sometimes,” she said airily. “The hours he came home. The amount he was away. Lack of attention. But then we can all find something to complain about in our husbands, can’t we?”

“You were with her a lot that last week,” I went on, not knowing how to put any of this now. “Was there anything about her sickness that seemed to you—well, not quite right?”

Again she frowned. “I don’t quite know what you are driving at, Miss Murphy. The only thing that was not right was that Fanny got sicker and sicker whatever we did for her. Watching her slip away from us was more than a body could bear.” Her expression suddenly sharpened again. “Wait? You are not suggesting that somebody—that Anson might have? No, that’s too ridiculous. He was distraught. I had to comfort him.”

“I really didn’t mean to suggest any impropriety,” I said hastily. “Emily merely suggested that the sickness didn’t seem to be following the usual course of influenza and she wondered whether Fanny had been taking anything that might have further upset and weakened her.”

“Emily again,” Alice snapped. “It sounds to me as if she wanted to cast suspicion on Anson. Who knows, perhaps she is out to get revenge for being spurned.”

“I don’t think that sounds like Emily,” I said. “Besides, she has a new beau now.”

“She always was devious,” Alice said. “I suppose it came from being on her own so much as a child.”

I got to my feet. “Look, I’m sorry to have troubled you. And I’m even sorrier to have worried you in this way. Obviously nothing I have mentioned is true and Fanny’s death was a tragic sickness.”

I left her sitting pensively on the sofa.

I stumbled down the steps and started to walk, faster and faster, trying to keep up with my racing thoughts. It was Emily who first suggested that something wasn’t right in the manner of Fanny’s death. And that, coupled with what Fanny had just told me about her intention to divorce Anson, had made me equally suspicious. But I had not, for one minute, suspected Emily herself: Emily the lonely, not very beautiful child who had grown up unloved and then been thrown out into the world. Surely if anyone had become bitter and twisted it could have been she. And she was bright, too—smart enough to learn a thing or two about clever poisons.

It suddenly struck me that I had been set up. Had she made friends with me because she thought I was gullible and she wanted a gullible witness? I stopped so abruptly that a woman with her shopping bag barreled into the back of me, then took off again, muttering. Emily was Fanny’s dear friend. Could Emily ever have killed Fanny just because she had married Anson? Killed her to get back at Anson? Surely this was far-fetched and went quite against the sweet Emily I had come to know. And we hadn’t even been allowed in to