I wouldn’t say Curtis doted on him, would you, Vinnie?”
“How would one know? Curtis is quiet.” Lavinia dropped her voice to a whisper. “Quiet as a mummy.”
“Works well, though.”
“Very.”
I wrote in my notebook. “So at present the household consists of yourselves, Mr. Morris Watt, Mrs. Hubbard, Nita, and Curtis?”
“That’s right,” said Lavinia.
“Curtis lives over the garage,” Edith added, “not in the house proper.”
“Are there any firearms about the property at all, in the house or the garage?”
“Oh, no,” said Lavinia.
“Not that I know of,” said Edith.
“Can either of you think of anyone, inside the house or out, who might have killed your father?”
I braced myself for another chorus of “No, not a soul!” But neither woman spoke. Each stole a glance at the other.
“Would you prefer to interview us separately?” Lavinia asked me.
“Not for the present.”
“I certainly have nothing to say I wouldn’t want Edith to hear. I can’t think of anyone.”
“Neither can I, not off the top of my head. Mr. Shenstone, do you know what my father did in the war?”
I shifted in my chair.
“It’s hot in here, isn’t it, Mr. Shenstone?” said Lavinia. “Do take off your jacket. We’re not as formal as you may think.”
I hadn’t yet changed my shirt and left my jacket on. What I was really itching to do was tell them what I knew rather than find out what they did. Tell them why I hadn’t shed any tears yet for Digby Watt and wasn’t about to start.
“What did your father do, Miss Watt?”
“I’ve only the vaguest idea. He was too old to enlist, of course, so he continued to run his businesses, tailoring them to the demands of the war effort.”
“And do you believe that had anything to do with his murder?”
“How would I know? I was only ten in 1914. It’s just that he sometimes spoke of the years before the war with such nostalgia. No, I can’t be more precise: don’t ask me.”
“All right.” I turned to Lavinia. “Mrs. Watt, did he ever speak to you about the war or the years before?”
“Not about his factories or anything like that. But right before our marriage, he did say I had him to thank for Morris’s coming back in one piece. Morris had wanted to get into the fighting, but Father had used his contacts to make sure his requests for a transfer were turned down. I think he didn’t want my thanks so much as he wanted me to know it was no reflection on Morris’s courage that he didn’t see action in France.”
“I had no idea!” Edith exclaimed. “I kept writing him in England, asking when he was going to get into the scrap. How cruel! But I think the girls, even children, were as war-drunk as the men.”
Silence settled on the conservatory, and for the first time I noticed the murmur of the house—a humming pipe, the tap of the housemaid’s shoes crossing a hardwood floor, the distant clink of dishes being taken out or put away—and further in the background, the purr of traffic from Glen Road. Had Morris and Lavinia ever considered moving out of these comfy precincts into a space of their own?
I was also asking myself whether Digby’s words to Lavinia had done Morris’s character any good, or had been intended to. Before, she might have just thought her husband averse to getting killed. Culpably or commendably prudent, but his own man. After, she must realize that whatever Morris’s willingness to serve as Imperial cannon fodder, he hadn’t had the gumption to get out from under Daddy’s thumb and join an outfit beyond the reach of Daddy’s pull. Would the Italians have cared a fig for the wishes of Digby Watt? The Serbians? The Arabs? There were more than enough belligerents to choose from. What Digby had been telling Lavinia, it seemed to me, was that as long as Digby was alive, Digby’s was the word that counted in the Watt family, and Morris would be kept on leading strings.
“How did that news make you feel, Mrs. Watt?” I said at last.
“I thought,” she replied, “how sweet of Father. He looks after us all.”
“I see. What are the provisions of his will?”
“Here’s what he told me,” Edith jumped in, as if grateful to get rolling again. “A pension for Mrs. Hubbard. Lump sum bequests for Nita and Curtis. I was to get a life annuity with the principal to be divided among my children, if any. I don’t know what provision he made for Lavinia and Morris, but I’d be surprised if he hadn’t left generous contributions to the various hospitals and servicemen’s associations he supported.”
“You know much more than I do, Edie,” said Lavinia, her social manner clearly in a struggle with hurt feelings. “Neither Father nor Morris said anything to me.”
“Never mind,” said Edith, still brisk and with a new hardness in her voice. “It would all have had to change anyway when Dad remarried.”
“Did you expect him to?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Edith.
“Marry Olive?” said Lavinia. “I don’t think he would have. She’s a darling girl, but she’s your age, Edie.”
“There’s no law that makes that wrong, and I don’t think he saw it as wrong.”
“She’s young for her age, though.” Lavinia crossed her legs and touched her hair, less to tidy it than to draw attention to its golden perfection. “She leads a very sheltered life, living with her aunt, selling flowers in her aunt’s flower shop. Olive herself must know she hasn’t the poise to carry off marriage to a more seasoned man.”
“She’d be the person to ask what she knows,” Edith replied as from a high and frosty peak.
Lavinia laughed complacently. Olive had been no thorn in her side, I thought, but sure got under missy’s skin.
“And you, Miss Watt? Did you see it as wrong?”
“Wrong, no. It just made me queasy, because I’d imagine myself in Olive’s place. But I wasn’t in Olive’s place. My father had never treated me as anything but a daughter. As I was saying, I thought Dad was unhappy, and the best part of me wanted for him anything that would make him less so, even if that thing were a twenty-two-year-old wife.”
While they were good words, prettily arranged, Edith’s expression remained a degree below freezing, and I guessed her heart did too.
I wrote down Olive’s address. I might, I warned, have more questions later. Meanwhile, I’d like to take a look around the garage and have a word with Curtis.
“I’ll
