The Scandal at 23 Mount Street (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 9) by Clara Benson

of her keen powers of observation. It was almost unthinkable that she should have missed the sight of her husband lying dead in a pool of blood for nearly seven hours! No, the more he thought about it, the more certain Freddy became that Angela might have a perfectly good alibi if she chose to use it, but that up to now she had chosen not to use it. This would not do; evidently the shock of being arrested had affected her powers of thinking in some way, for it was quite absurd of her to risk her life over her reputation. If she would not admit to it, then it was up to him to find the evidence that would prove where she had been that night.
    His first thought was to ask the other members of the party whether any of them had seen Angela with a man that night, but somehow he could not bring himself to do it, for he knew she would hate it if she found out that they had been talking about her in this way. His next idea was to search quietly for the taxi driver who was supposed to have taken her home shortly after midnight, for he had the suspicion that the man had carried more than just Angela in his cab, and that they had not gone to her flat. But again Freddy was uncomfortable at the idea of doing this, for he felt that it was somehow furtive and underhand. In the end, he decided that before he started his investigation he would give Angela the opportunity to tell him about it herself, and then only if she denied everything would he take matters into his own hands.
    So it was that he found himself sitting in the uncomfortable chair opposite Angela, who had reluctantly agreed to allow him to visit her in prison, although she had at first insisted that she did not want to see anyone. The atmosphere was stiff for the first few minutes; she replied shortly to his inquiries after her health, and looked altogether as though she would rather be elsewhere.
    ‘You’re looking a little thin,’ he said at last. ‘Aren’t you eating? I dare say the food isn’t up to much here.’
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied. ‘The foie gras is quite dreadful, and I had to send the smoked salmon back the other day because it was starting to curl at the edges.’
    ‘That’s more like it,’ said Freddy. ‘I knew you were in there somewhere.’
    ‘Somewhere, perhaps,’ said Angela. ‘I’m not certain there’s much of me left.’
    ‘Cheer up, old girl!’ he said. ‘We’ll get you off, you’ll see. I have lots of tricks up my sleeve.’
    ‘I wish I could believe it, Freddy,’ she said, ‘but it all looks rather hopeless from where I’m sitting.’
    ‘Well, yes, everything’s bound to look hopeless when you have to sit on these chairs. Did someone design them with the express purpose of causing numbness to the average human posterior within the space of five minutes or less, do you suppose?’
    She did not laugh, and he regarded her sympathetically.
    ‘Listen, Angela,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you seriously without all these overbearing lawyer chaps present. As a friend, you understand. I want to help you so very much, but it’s difficult when you’re not telling the whole truth to people.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Of course I’m telling the truth.’
    ‘Well, yes, in some respects I expect you are,’ he said. ‘But why are you keeping quiet about this man of yours?’
    He observed her closely as he said it, and had to admit to himself that she carried it off very well, with merely the slightest flicker of the eyelids.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘Which man?’
    ‘Why, the man I saw you with at the White Rabbit Ball. You were dancing and making the most awful sheep’s eyes at one another when you thought nobody was looking.’
    ‘I danced with lots of men that night, Freddy,’ she said with apparent carelessness, although inwardly she was aghast at how easily she had been seen through. ‘And I can assure you I didn’t make sheep’s eyes at any of them.’
    ‘But I saw