I couldn’t think of that, not now. Pushing it from my mind, I found the note of apology and comfort she’d sent the day of the verdict and compared the two.
The handwriting in the first letter appeared to be hers, but written as if in great haste. Yet the letter “t” on this first letter had the same curl-up the handwriting expert had pointed out at the trial in the rest of the forged documents.
For an instant, I thought: if I’d refused to answer Madame’s call, perhaps I would have been spared all this.
But David Bryce had already been taken. Yes, he was ruined, perhaps forever. But if not for me, he might be dead. Strangled, like the rest. First Eleanora Bryce had lost her oldest son, Air, then her next son, Herbert, both to murder. What would she have done if she’d lost David as well?
