In strained silence we made our way to the house. The conviction filled me that before we were through, there would be many more battles waged between Derrick and me.
The cell block door shut with a clang of finality I’d never grow accustomed to, no matter how often fate sent me back to this place. The very notion of being lawfully trapped behind that door, where sunlight became no more than weak, dust-ridden shafts of illumination sifting through the high-set bars, devoid of warmth, unable to penetrate the shadows . . .
I shivered and traversed the aisle until I reached Clara Parker’s cell, walking lightly to muffle the echo of my footsteps against the walls.
“Who’s there?” Clara’s voice trembled like airy notes on a flute. I could just make out the angle of her cheek pressed against the bars of her cell as she attempted to peer down the aisle.
“It’s me, Clara. Emma Cross.”
She gave me no greeting, but waited silently for me to reach her. As always, I stood about a yard away from the cell door, conscious of the guard watching through the other side of a small square window. My only consolation was that it wasn’t Jesse who escorted me back to the cells today. He hadn’t been in the main station when I arrived, and I couldn’t deny my relief. With the memory of his arms around me yesterday, seeing him today would have been uncomfortable at best, downright awkward at worst.
“How are you, Clara?” I asked when I reached the girl.
She frowned, obviously puzzled by the question. Looking at her surroundings, I could hardly blame her. The bleak contents and clammy stone walls of her tiny cell told me she was often cold, especially at night, and that her lungs no doubt felt the claw of the dampness; that she slept little on the lumpy mattress; that she ached from inactivity; that . . . I glanced down at a hardly touched plate of some unidentifiable porridge that occupied a wooden shelf beside her cot. She was hungry. And frightened. And feeling a miserable lack of hope.
The place reeked of mold and hopelessness, and I took shallow breaths in a selfish effort to avoid allowing that sense of despair to lodge inside me.
How I longed to see Clara free of this place, and to give her the hope she no longer believed in. I wanted to tell her how the circumstances of Amelia Beaumont’s death would surely prove her innocence. But Jesse’s admonishments yesterday stilled my tongue. Instead, I said, “Is it all right if I ask you a couple of questions, Clara?”
“Excuse me, miss, but what would be the use? No one but you believes I’m innocent.” She hiccupped a sob, but then swallowed and recovered with a brave and stubborn tilt of her chin. “Not even Tony. A guard told me, just yesterday, that Tony claimed I killed the medium to keep him out of trouble.”
I gasped. “He did not!”
“Yes, miss. He admits to the charges of ex . . . extor . . .”
“Extortion,” I supplied.
She nodded. “Of making people pay him to overlook their little crimes, but he’s telling anyone who’ll listen I must have taken it upon myself to kill Madame Devereaux out of love for him.”
“Oh, that fiend.” My hands curled into fists. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that a bully like Anthony Dobbs would willingly sacrifice another to save his own cowardly skin. More than ever I wanted to reassure Clara, but once again caution made me hold my tongue. “Clara,” I said as evenly as I could, “how much did you know about Lady Amelia? You served as her lady’s maid at Marble House, yes?”
“I did, miss. She’s a beautiful lady, very genteel. And, oh, her clothes . . .”
Clara had referred to Lady Amelia in the present tense . . . so no one had yet told her the news. “Her clothes are the finest,” I agreed, “but not of great quantity, would you say?”
“I suppose not, but she could mix her attire and make it out she had more than she really did. Clever, that.”
“And did she have many visitors come to see her at Marble House?”
“None that I knew of, miss.”
“Did she go out often?”
“Never, miss. Except for her walks. Lady Amelia enjoys a nice long walk, mostly in the mornings, but sometimes later in the day, too, especially while Mrs. Vanderbilt is napping or working in her office.”
“Do you know where she went? Did you ever accompany her?”
“Never, miss, but I assumed she walked in the gardens, and maybe along the Cliff Walk. I always had other work to do when I wasn’t tending her.” Clara moved back a few steps and sank onto the end of her cot. With her hands folded in her lap, she raised her thin face to me. “Why all these questions about Lady Amelia, miss? Is it anything to do with the murder?”