Silence in Hanover Close Read Online Free PDF

into the kitchen in a whirl of black barathea trimmed with black fox fur up to her chin, her fair hair coiled under a sweeping black hat. For a moment Charlotte was envious; the expensive coat looked so indescribably elegant. Then she remembered the reason her sister wore black and was instantly ashamed. Emily looked pale, apart from the spots of color stung into her cheeks by the ice on the wind, and there were gray smudges under her eyes where the skin looked bruised and papery. Charlotte did not need to be told her sister was restless and sleeping too little. Boredom is not by any means the worst of afflictions, but it carries its own kind of debilitation. Christmas would be all too brief, and what would Emily do after that?
    “Have a cup of tea,” Charlotte offered, turning to the big kitchen range without waiting for an answer. “Have you ever been to Hanover Close?”
    Emily took off her coat and sat at the kitchen table, resting her elbows on its scrubbed wood. Her dress beneath the coat was equally elegant, although there were places where she did not fill it out as she used to.
    “No, but I know where it is. Why?” The answering inquiry was merely polite.
    Charlotte plunged in at the deepest point. “There has been a murder there.”
    “In Hanover Close?” This time she had Emily’s full attention. “Good heavens. That’s terribly exclusive. The best possible taste—and money. Who is dead?”
    “Robert York. He used to work at the Foreign Office— until he died, I mean.”
    “How was he killed? I didn’t read of it.” Normally a lady of Emily’s position would not have read a newspaper at all, apart from perhaps the society pages and the Court Circular. But unlike their papa, George had been very lenient where such things were concerned—as long as she did not offend people by discussing them. And, of course, since his death she did as she pleased.
    Charlotte poured the water from the kettle into the teapot, then placed it on the table with a cream jug and two of her best cups. “It happened three years ago,” she said as carelessly as she could. “Thomas has just been asked to reopen the case, because the widow is to marry again, to someone else in the Foreign Office.”
    Emily perked up. “Is she betrothed yet? I haven’t seen news of that either, and I always read the society pages. That is about the only way I get to hear anything. No one tells me anything anymore; it’s as if the whole subject of relationships between men and women were something I should not be reminded of.” Unconsciously her fist clenched.
    Charlotte noticed it. “That is the point!” she said quickly. “Thomas has been asked to investigate, to see if she is a suitable person to marry someone as important as Mr. Danver will become, when he is promoted.”
    “Might she not be?” Emily asked. “Please do pour the tea, I’m as dry as the Sahara, and it’s had plenty of time to brew. Has she a reputation? I wish I could hear more. I’m so cut off it’s as if I were a leper! Half the people I used to know are embarrassed to see me, and the other half spend their time sitting around solemnly and talking in whispers, as if I were dying myself.” She sniffed fiercely, searching in her reticule for a handkerchief. It was not self-pity so much as the sudden warmth of the kitchen after the cold air in the carriage which provoked the necessity.
    Charlotte shook her head. “No, that’s as much as I have learned, but the crime itself is very unexplained.” She poured the tea and pushed Emily’s cup across towards her, along with a piece of fresh ginger cake, which was taken readily. “It is rather odd.” And she told Emily all that Pitt had told her.
    “Very odd,” Emily agreed at last. “I wonder if she had a lover, and there was a quarrel. I suppose that is really what the Foreign Office wants Thomas to discover, but they are afraid to say so, in case it should get back to Mr. Danver, who would be furious. And