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Geraldine sat in her own bed, the stack of old letters beside her. They were in the order
that Anthony had written them, and tied with a pink ribbon. It had been many years since she had last
untied that ribbon. She had thrust this bundle into her valise at the last minute while packing, on the
off chance that something within them might be useful to Trevor in his investigation. Now, having
read each one slowly, her lips moving as she whispered each word aloud, she knew Anthony’s letters
held no clues, at least not of the sort that mattered to Scotland Yard.
But they proved that he had loved her.
And that was, in some ways, the hardest thing to bear.
The people at the Byculla Club tonight had been united in their claim that the Weavers
were thoroughly unlikeable people and Geraldine could certainly see how traits that were tolerable
when they had been young – his tendency toward great speeches, her fluttery insistence that she was
too delicate to survive even a moment of unfiltered reality – could harden into cruelty as they aged.
But still, it made her sad. Sad for Anthony and even for Rose.
No one mourned her. And no one feared for him. No one, that was, except his stepson.
Geraldine knew she and Michael Everlee were an unlikely pair. If they had met in London they
would have likely never shared a civil word between them and she still smarted with rage that Rayley
had been thrown from the club. But, improbable as they were, she also knew that she and Michael
shared a rare objective: They were the only two people in all of Bombay who gave a tinker’s dam
about the fate of Anthony Weaver.
Geraldine carefully sequenced the letters and retied the ribbon. They stood proof that at
one time there had been a different Anthony. A young man with tenderness who had loved her. Of
course, he had loved Rose as well but Geraldine now knew what she couldn’t have known then – that
it is possible for a man to love two women, to care for them and desire them in entirely different
ways. He had not lied to her. He had been genuinely torn.
When I marry you, he had written, in that moment I shall become a different man. A
better man than I could ever be on my own. For I am weak at times. My darling, I hope you never
have cause to know just how very weak a man can be.
***
Trevor alone slept the entirety of the night.
Before leaving the Byculla, he had sent a telegram. Or rather he had given one of the
Indian servants standing about a handful of coins and instructions. Go to the telegraph office and send
this message, these words he had scribbled on a sheet of Club stationery. He told the lad to wait all
the night if he must for a reply. Bring it to me at the Tucker House, do you understand?
And the boy must have understood. The number of coins Trevor had offered must have
bought a kind of loyalty.
For when he awakened at seven the next morning, Trevor found a note slipped under his
door. Scotland Yard had already replied to his inquiry.