Cardington Crescent

5

PITT RETURNED ALONG the hot, dusty street amid the clatter of hooves, the hiss of wheels, and the shouting of a dozen different sorts of vendors of everything from flowers, bootlaces, and matches to the collection of rags and bones. Nine- or ten-year-old boys shouted where they swept a footpath between the horse droppings so gentlemen might pass from one pavement to another without soiling their boots and ladies might keep the hems of their skirts clean.

Constable Stripe was waiting at the station entrance. “Mr. Pitt, sir, we’ve bin looking all over the place for you! I told ’em as you’d bin to find that magsman.”

Pitt caught his alarm. “What is it? Have you turned up something in the Bloomsbury case?”

Stripe’s face was pale. “No, sir. This is much worse, in a manner o’ speaking. I’m that sorry, sir. Truly I am.”

Pitt was assailed by a sudden, terrible coldness—Charlotte!

“What?” he shouted, grasping Stripe so fiercely the constable winced in spite of himself. But he did not look away, nor did anger show for even an instant, which frightened Pitt even more—so much so that his throat dried up and he could make no sound.

“There’s bin a murder at Cardington Crescent, sir,” Stripe said carefully, making no move to shake off Pitt’s viselike fingers. “A Lord Ashworth is dead. And Lady Ves—Ves—Lady Cumming-Gould especially asked if you’d be the one as goes. An’ to tell you as she’d already sent ’er own carriage for Miss Charlotte, sir. An’ I’m awful sorry, Mr. Pitt, sir.”

Relief flooded through Pitt like a hot tide, almost making him sick; then he felt shame for his selfishness, and lastly an overwhelmingly pity for Emily. He looked at Stripe’s earnest face and found it extraordinarily good.

He loosened his fingers. “Thank you, Stripe. Very thoughtful of you to tell me yourself. Lord Ashworth is—was my brother-in-law.” It sounded absurd. Lord Ashworth his brother-in-law! Stripe had astounding good manners not to laugh outright. “My wife’s sister married—”

“Yes, sir,” Stripe agreed hastily. “They did insist as it was you. And there’s an ’ansom waiting.”

“Then we’d better go.” He followed Stripe along the footpath a dozen yards beyond the station doorway, where a hansom cab was drawn in to the curb, horse standing head down, the reins loose. Stripe opened the door and Pitt climbed in, Stripe following immediately behind after directing the driver where to go.

It was not a long journey and Pitt had little time to think. His mind was in turmoil, all rationality drowned in grief for Emily and a surprising sense of loss for himself. He had liked George; there was an openness about him, a generosity of thought, a pleasure in life. Who on earth would want to kill George? A chance attack in the street he could have understood, even a quarrel in some gentleman’s club or at a sporting game which had gotten out of hand. But this was in a town house with his own family!

Why was the cab going so slowly? It was taking forever, and yet when they were there he was not ready.

“Mr. Pitt, sir?” Stripe prompted.

“Yes.” He climbed out and stood on the hot pavement in front of the magnificent facade of Cardington Crescent; the Georgian windows perfectly proportioned, three panes across, four down, the ashlar stone, the simple architraves and the handsome door. It looked like everything that was comfortable and centuries secure. It made it worse: there was nothing left inviolable anymore.

Stripe was standing beside him, waiting for him to move.

“Yes,” he repeated. He payed the cabbie and walked up to the front door, to Stripe’s acute discomfort. Police went to the tradesmen’s entrance. But that was something Pitt had always refused to do, though Stripe did not know that yet. He had only dealt with the criminal world of the tenements and rookeries, rat-infested labyrinths of the slums like St. Giles, a stone’s throw from Bloomsbury, or the petty bourgeoisie, clerks and shopkeepers, artisans grasping after respectability but boasting only one street entrance all the same.

Pitt pulled the bell, and a moment later the butler stood in the doorway, grave and calm. Of course. Vespasia would have told him that Pitt never went to the back. He regarded Pitt’s height, his unruly hair, the bulging pockets, and reached his conclusion immediately.

“Inspector Pitt? Please come in, and if you will wait in the morning room, Mr. March will see you, sir.”

“Thank you. But I will have Constable Stripe go to the servants’ hall and begin inquiries there, if you don’t mind.”

The butler hesitated for a moment, but realized the inevitability of it. “I will accompany him,” he said carefully, making sure they both realized that the servants were his responsibility and he intended to discharge it to the full.

“Of course,” Pitt agreed with a nod.

“Then if you will come this way.” He turned and led Pitt across the fine, rather ornate hallway and into a heavily furnished room; masculine, hide-covered armchairs by a rosewood desk, Japanese lacquer tables in startling reds and blacks, and an array of Indian weapons, relics of some ancestor’s service to queen and Empire, displayed haphazardly on the walls opposite a Chinese silk screen.

Here, rather awkwardly, the butler hesitated, confused as to how he should deal with a policeman in the front of the house, and eventually left him without saying anything further. He must retrieve Stripe from the entrance and conduct him to the servants’ hall, making sure he did not frighten any of the younger girls, who were no more than thirteen or fourteen, and that the staff acquitted themselves honorably and in no way spoke out of turn.

Pitt remained standing. The room was like many he had seen before, typical of its station and period, except that it contained an unusual clash of styles, as if there were at least three distinct personalities whose wills had met in the decisions of taste: at a guess, a robust, opinionated man, a woman of some cultural daring, and a lover of tradition and family heritage.

The door opened again and Eustace March came in. He was a vigorous, florid man in his mid fifties, at this moment torn by profoundly conflicting emotions and forced into a role he was unused to.

“Good afternoon, er—”

“Pitt.”

“Good afternoon, Pitt. Tragedy in the house. Doctor’s a fool. Shouldn’t have sent for you. Entirely domestic matter. Nephew of mine, sort of cousin by marriage to be precise, great-nephew of my mother-in-law—” He caught Pitt’s eye and his face colored. “But I suppose you know that. Anyway, poor man is dead.” He drew in his breath and continued rapidly. “I regret to say it, but he had got himself into a hopeless situation in his marriage—seems he sank into a fit of depression and took his own life. Very dreadful. Family’s a bit eccentric. But you wouldn’t know the rest of them—”

“I knew George,” Pitt said coolly. “I always found him eminently sensible. And Lady Cumming-Gould is the sanest woman I ever met.”

The blood mounted even higher in Eustace’s mottled cheeks. “Possibly!” he snapped. “But then, you and I move in very different circles, Mr. Pitt. What is sane in yours may not be regarded so favorably in mine.”

Pitt could feel an unprofessional anger rising inside him, which he had sworn not to allow. He was used to rudeness; it ought not to matter. And yet his feelings were raw, because it was George who was dead. All the more important that he behave irreproachably, that he not give Eustace March an excuse to have him removed from the case—or worse, permit his own emotions to so cloud his judgment that he fail to discover the truth and disclose it with as much gentleness as possible. Investigation, any investigation, uncovered so much more than the principle crime; there was a multitude of other, smaller sins, painful secrets, silly and shameful things the knowledge of which maimed what used to be love and crippled trust that might otherwise have endured all sorts of wounds.

Eustace was staring at him, waiting for a reaction, his face flushed with impatience.

Pitt sighed. “Can you tell me, sir, what is likely to have caused Lord Ashworth such distress or despair that on waking up this particular morning he immediately took his own life? By the way, how did he do it?”

“Good God, didn’t that idiot Treves tell you?”

“I haven’t seen him yet, sir.”

“Ah, no, of course not. Digitalis—that’s a heart medicine my mother has. And he said some rubbish about foxgloves in the garden. I don’t even know if they’re in flower now. And I don’t suppose he does either. The man’s incompetent!”

“Digitalis comes from the leaves,” Pitt pointed out. “It is frequently prescribed for congestive heart failure and irregularity of heartbeat.”

“Oh—ah!” Eustace sank suddenly into one of the hide-covered chairs. “For heaven’s sake, man, sit down!” he said irritably. “Dreadful business. Most distressing. I hope for the sake of the ladies you will be as discreet as you can. My mother and Lady Cumming-Gould are both considerably advanced in years, and consequently delicate. And of course, Lady Ashworth is distraught. We were all extremely fond of George.”

Pitt stared at him, not knowing how to break through the barricade of pretense. He had had to do it many times before—most people were reluctant to admit the presence of murder—but it was different now when the people were so close to him. Somewhere upstairs in this house Emily was sitting numb with grief.

“What tormented Lord Ashworth so irreparably he took his own life?” he repeated, watching Eustace’s face.

Eustace sat motionless for a long time, light and shadow passing over his features, a monumental struggle waging itself within his mind.

Pitt waited. Truth or lie, it might be more revealing if he allowed it to mature, even if it laid bare only some fear in Eustace himself.

“I’m sorry to have to say this,” Eustace began at last, “but I’m afraid it was Emily’s behavior, and ... and the fact that George had fallen very deeply—and I may say, hopelessly—in love with another woman.” He shook his head to signify his deprecation of such folly. “Emily’s behavior has been ... unfortunate, to say the least of it. But do not let us speak ill of her in her bereavement,” he added, suddenly realizing his charity ought to extend to her also.

Pitt could not imagine George killing himself over any love affair. It was simply not in his nature to be so intense about an emotional involvement. Pitt remembered his courtship of Emily; it had been full of romance and delight. No anguish, no quarrels, no giving way to obsessive or fancied jealousies.

“What happened last night that precipitated such despair?” he pursued, trying to keep the contempt and the disbelief out of his voice.

Eustace had prepared for this. He gave a rather shaky nod and pursed his lips. “I was afraid you would press me about that. I prefer to say nothing. Let it suffice that she showed her favors most flagrantly, where all the household might be aware of her, to a young gentleman guest staying here on my youngest daughter’s account.”

Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “If Emily did it in front of everyone else in the house, it can hardly have been very serious.”

Eustace’s lips tightened and his nostrils flared as he breathed. He kept his patience with difficulty. “It was my mother, and poor George himself, who were witness to it, I grieve to say. You will have to accept my word, Mr.—er, Pitt, that in Society married women do not disappear into the conservatory with gentlemen of doubtful reputation and return some considerable time later with their gowns in disarray and a smirk on their faces.”

For only an instant Pitt thought that that was precisely what they did do. Then anger for Emily swept away anything so trivial.

“Mr. March, if gentlemen were to kill themselves every time a wife had a mild flirtation with someone else agreeable, London would be up to its waist in corpses, and the entire aristocracy would have died out centuries ago. In fact, they would never have made it past the Crusades.”

“I am sure in your station in life, especially in your trade, that you cannot help a certain vulgarity of mind,” Eustace said coldly. “But please restrain yourself from expressing it in my house, particularly in our time of bereavement. There is really nothing for you to do here, beyond satisfying yourself that no one has attacked poor George—which is perfectly obvious to the veriest fool! He took a dose of my mother’s heart medicine in his morning coffee. Possibly he only meant to cause unconsciousness and give us all a fright—bring Emily back to her senses... .” He trailed off, aware of Pitt’s monumental disbelief and floundering for a better solution. He seemed to have forgotten that he had said Jack Radley was here for Tassie, contradicting himself by branding him as of ill reputation. Or perhaps it was all right to marry a girl to such a man, simply not to allow him near your wife. The moral contortions of Society were still unclear to Pitt.

At another time Pitt might almost have been sorry for Eustace. His mental acrobatics were absurd, and yet how often he had seen them before. But this time his patience was worn raw. He stood up. “Thank you, Mr. March. I’ll see the doctor now, and then I’ll go up and see poor George. When I’ve done that, I’ll want to see the rest of the household, if I may.”

“Not necessary at all!” Eustace said quickly, scrambling to his feet. “Only cause quite pointless distress. Emily is a new widow, man! My mother is elderly and has had a severe shock; my daughter is only nineteen, and most naturally delicate in her sensibilities, as a girl should be. And Lady Cumming-Gould is considerably more advanced in years than she realizes.”

Pitt hid a bitter smile. He was quite sure Great-aunt Vespasia knew better than Eustace precisely how old she was, and she was certainly braver.

“Emily is my sister-in-law,” he said quietly. “I should have called upon her whatever the circumstances of George’s death. But first I’ll see the doctor, if you please.”

Eustace left without speaking again. He resented the position he had been placed in; his house had been invaded and he had lost control of events. It was a unique and frightening occurrence—he was taking orders from a policeman, here in his own morning room! Damn Emily! She had brought all this upon them with her vulgar jealousy.

Treves came in so soon he must have been waiting close at hand. He looked tired. Pitt had not met him before, but liked him instantly; there was both humor and pity in the weary lines of his face.

“Inspector Pitt?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Treves.” He held out his hand.

Pitt took it briefly. “Could it have been suicide?”

“Rubbish!” Treves replied dourly. “Men like George Ashworth don’t steal poison and take it in their coffee at seven o’clock on a sunny morning in someone else’s house—and certainly not over a love affair. If he’d ever have done it at all—which I doubt—it would have been in a fit of despair over a gambling debt he couldn’t pay, and he’d have blown his brains out with a gun. Gentlemanly thing to do. And he damn surely wouldn’t poison a nice little spaniel at the same time.”

“Spaniel? Mr. March said nothing about a spaniel.”

“He wouldn’t. He’s still trying to convince himself it’s suicide.”

Pitt sighed. “Then we’d better go up and see the body. The police surgeon will look at it later, but you can probably tell me all I need to know.”

“Enormous dose of digitalis,” Treves answered, walking towards the door. “Coffee would disguise it. I daresay your constable in the kitchen will have found that out. Poor fellow must have died very quickly. I suppose if you have to kill someone, short of a bullet through the head this would be about the most merciful and the most efficient way of doing it. I daresay you’ll find the old lady’s entire supply is gone.”

“She had a lot?” Pitt asked, following him across the hall and up the wide, shallow stairs to the landing and into the dressing room. He noted sadly that George apparently had been sleeping in a separate room from Emily. He knew perfectly well it was the custom among many people of affluence for husband and wife each to have their own bedroom, but he would not have cared for it. To wake in the night and know always that Charlotte was there beside him was one of the sweetest roots deep at the core of his life, an ever waiting retreat from ugliness, a warmth from which to go forth into the coldness of any day, even the most violent, the weariest and the most tragic.

But there was no time now to contemplate the difference in lives and how much or little it might mean. Treves was standing beside the bed and the sheet-covered body. Wordlessly he pulled the cover back, and Pitt stared down at the waxy, pale face. They were George’s features—the straight nose, broad brow—but the dark eyes were closed, and there was a blueness around the sockets. Everything was the right shape, exactly as he remembered him, and yet it did not seem to be George. Death was very real. Looking at him one could not imagine that the soul was present.

“No injury,” he said quietly. George was not really there, this was only a shell, but it seemed callous to speak in a normal voice in its presence.

“None at all,” Treves replied. “There was no struggle. Nothing but a man drinking coffee that had enough digitalis in it to give him a massive heart attack—and an unfortunate little dog getting a treat, and dying as well.”

“Which means it wasn’t suicide.” Pitt sighed. “George would never have killed the dog. It wasn’t even his. Stripe will get the details from the servants, find out where the coffee was, who could have reached it. I expect George was the only person to take coffee at that hour. Most people take tea. I’ll have to see the family.”

“Nasty,” Treves said sympathetically. “Domestic murder is one of the tragedies of our human condition. God knows what we do to each other in what is fondly imagined to be the sanctuary of our homes, and is too often a purgatory.” He opened the door onto the landing again. “The old lady is a selfish and autocratic old besom—don’t let her fool you she is in delicate health. There’s nothing the matter with her except old age.”

“Then why the digitalis?”

Treves shrugged. “She didn’t get it from me. She’s the sort who affects vapors and palpitations when her family thwarts her; it’s about the only hold she has over young Tassie. Without obedience dominion is empty, so she persuaded one of the other doctors in the area to prescribe it for her. She seldom misses an opportunity to tell me how he saved her life—implying I would have let her die.” He smiled grimly.

Pitt remembered other dowagers he had met who ruled their families with relentless threats of imminent collapse. Charlotte’s grandmother was a fearsome old lady who could cast a gloom on almost any family proceedings with a catalogue of the ingratitude she suffered at their hands.

“Perhaps I’d better see her next,” he remarked, offering his hand to the doctor. “Thank you.”

Treves shook it with a firm grip. “Good luck,” he said shortly, and his face conveyed his disbelief in it.

Pitt dispatched a note about digitalis to Stripe in the servants’ hall, and set about the next duty. He asked the footman to take him to Mrs. March.

She was still downstairs in the hot-pink boudoir, and in spite of the extremely pleasant early afternoon there was a fire burning strongly in the grate, making the room stuffy—quite unlike the rest of the house, where the windows were thrown open.

She was lying on the chaise longue, a tray of tea on a rosewood table beside her, also an ornate glass bottle of smelling salts. She clutched a handkerchief to her cheek as if she were about to burst into weeping.

The room was crowded with furniture and drapery, and Pitt found it almost robbed him of breath, closing in on him. But the old woman’s eyes over her fat hand, shining with rings, were as cold as chips of stone.

“I presume you are the policeman,” she said with distaste.

“Yes, ma’am.” She did not offer him a seat, and he did not invite rebuff by taking one unasked.

“I suppose you’ll be poking your nose into everybody’s affairs, and asking a lot of impertinent questions,” she went on, eyeing his wild hair and bulging pockets.

He disliked her immediately, and George’s white face was too recent a vision for his usual self-control.

“I hope also to ask some pertinent ones,” he answered. “I intend to discover who murdered George.” He used the word murder deliberately, turning its harshness on his tongue.

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, you’ll be a fool if you can’t do that! But then I daresay you are a fool.”

He stared back at her without a flicker. “I presume there has been no intruder in the house overnight, ma’am?”

She snorted. “Certainly not!” Her little mouth turned down at the corners in contempt. “But a burglar would hardly use poison, would he.”

“No, ma’am. The only possible conclusion is that it was someone in the house, and it’s extremely unlikely to be a servant. Which leaves the family, or your guests. Will you be kind enough to tell me something about those presently in the house?”

“You don’t need to go through them all.” She sniffed and pulled a face. The room was stifling, the cloudless sun hot on the windows, but she did not seem to notice. “There is only my immediate family: Lord Ashworth, he was a cousin; Lady Ashworth, whom I have heard tell is somehow connected with you.” She let this incredible piece of intelligence fall into the hot air and remained silent for several seconds. Then, as Pitt made no remark, she finished tartly, “And a Mr. Jack Radley, a person of some disappointment—to my son, anyway. Although I could have told him.”

Pitt took the bait. “Told him what, ma’am?”

Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

Pitt felt the sweat trickle down his skin, but it would not be acceptable to take off his jacket in her boudoir.

“Immoral,” the old lady said baldly. “No money, and too handsome by half. Mr. March thought he would be a suitable match for Anastasia. Nonsense! She doesn’t need to marry good blood, she’s got plenty of her own. Not that you’d know anything about that.” She stared up at him, cricking her neck to see him but determined not to let him sit down. He was an inferior, and he must be made to remember it; it was not for the likes of policemen to sit themselves on the good furniture in the front of the house. By such license had begun the whole erosion of every value that now afflicted the nation. If this man had to sit, let him do it in the servants’ hall. “Anyway,” she went on, “a man like Radley doesn’t pick a plain-Jane like Anastasia. All that orange-colored hair and skin full of speckles—doesn’t come from our side of the family! And thin as a washboard. Hardly a woman at all. A man like that is out to marry for money, for something fashionable to be seen with in public. Something handsome to bed. Ha! I shock you!”

Pitt remained totally straight-faced. “Not at all, ma’am. I’m sure you are right. There are many men like that, and many women who are much the same. Except, of course, they also like a title, where it is to be had.”

The old lady glared at him, wishing to snub his insolence, but he had made the point she desired, and at the moment that need was stronger.

“Hum-ha! Well—Mr. Radley and Emily Ashworth are an excellent pair. Came together like two magnets, and poor George was the victim. There—I’ve done your job for you. Now go away. I’m tired and I feel ill. I have had a severe shock today. If you had the slightest idea how to behave you would ...” She trailed off, not sure what he would do.

Pitt bowed. “You are bearing up magnificently, ma’am.”

She glared at him, sure there was sarcasm there but unable to pinpoint it exactly enough to retaliate. His face was almost offensively innocent. Wretched creature.

“Ha,” she said grudgingly. “You may go.”

For the first time he smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. Gracious of you.”

In the large hall he found a footman waiting for him.

“Lady Cumming-Gould is in the breakfast room, sir. She would like to see you,” the footman said anxiously. “This way, sir.”

With a slight nod, Pitt followed him to the door, knocked, and went in. The room was heavily furnished; bright sunlight picked out the massive sideboard and large breakfast table. The windows were open and a chatter of birds drifted in from the garden.

Vespasia was sitting at the foot of the table—Olivia’s place when she had been alive. She looked tired; there was a stoop to her shoulders that he had never seen before, even in the weariest days when she had been fighting to get the child poverty bill through Parliament. The relief in her eyes when she saw him was so intense, it gave him a lurch of pain that he could do nothing to make it easier for her. Indeed, he feared already that he was going to make it worse.

She straightened up with an effort. “Good afternoon, Thomas. I am pleased it was possible for you to take this—case—yourself.”

For once he could think of nothing to say. Grief was too strong for the few words he could find, and yet to speak purely as a policeman would be appalling.

“For heaven’s sake, sit down,” she ordered. “I am in no mood to break my neck looking up at you. I am sure you have already seen Eustace March, and his mother.”

“Yes.” He sat down obediently opposite her across the heavy polished table.

“What did they say?” she asked bluntly. There was no time for gentle skirting round the truth, simply because it was unpleasant.

“Mr. March tried to convince me it was suicide because George had fallen in love with another woman—”

“Rubbish!” Vespasia interrupted tartly. “He was infatuated with Sybilla. He behaved like a fool, but I think by last night he had realized that. Emily handled it perfectly. She had every bit as much sense as I could have hoped.”

Pitt glanced down for a moment, then up again. “Mrs. March said that Emily was having an affair with the other guest, Jack Radley.”

“Spiteful old besom!” Vespasia said in exasperation. “Emily’s husband was behaving like an ass with another woman, and without the slightest discretion, an affliction which Lavinia has had to put up with herself, and failed to resolve. Of course Emily made it appear she was developing an interest in another man. What woman with spirit wouldn’t?”

Pitt did not comment on Lavinia March; the pain of the dilemma was known to both of them. A man could divorce his wife for adultery; a woman had no such privilege. She must learn to live with it the best she could. With this death the fears engendered by suspicion had begun to grow, to warp thought, to seize and enlarge every ugly trait.

“Who is Sybilla?” he asked, because he had to.

“Eustace’s daughter-in-law,” Vespasia answered wearily. “William March is Eustace’s only son—my grandson.” She said it as if the idea surprised her. “Olivia had ten daughters, seven of whom lived. They are all married except Tassie. Eustace wanted to marry her to Jack Radley. That’s why he is here—to be inspected, so to speak.”

“I assume he does not meet with your approval?”

Her finely arched eyebrows rose and there was a gleam of humor in her eyes, too slight to reach her mouth. “Not for Tassie. She doesn’t love him, nor he her. But he’s pleasing enough, as long as one is sensible and doesn’t expect too much. He has one redeeming feature: I cannot imagine he will ever be a bore, and that is more than one can say of most socially acceptable young men.”

“Who else is there in the house?” He dreaded the answer, because if there had been any other outsider he knew Mrs. March would already have told him. No matter how she disapproved of Emily, she would never choose her for a cause of suicide had there been any other answer available. It reflected too badly on the family.

“No one,” Vespasia said very quietly. “Lavinia, Eustace, and Tassie live here; William and Sybilla were visiting for the Season. George and Emily were to be here for a month, and Jack Radley and I are here for three weeks.”

He could think of nothing to say. George’s murderer had to be one of the eight. He could not believe it was Vespasia herself—and please God it was not Emily!

“I had better go and see them. How is Emily?”

For the first time Vespasia could not look at him; she bent her head and hid her face in her hands. He knew she was weeping and he longed to comfort her. They had shared many emotions in the past: anger, pity, hope, defeat. Now they shared grief. But he was still a policeman whose father had been a gamekeeper, and she was the daughter of an earl. He dared not touch her, and the more he cared for her the more deeply it would hurt him if he trespassed and she were to rebuff him.

He stood helpless and awkward, watching an old lady racked with grief and the beginning of terrible fears.

Anyway, what could he say? That he would somehow alter things, hide the truth if it were too ugly? She would not believe him, or want him to do that. She would not expect him to betray himself, nor would she have done so in his place.

Then instinct overrode reason and he reached forward his hand and touched her shoulder gently. She was extraordinarily thin, for all her height when she stood; her bones felt fragile. There was a faint smell of lavender in the air.

Then he turned and went out of the room.

In the hall there was a girl of perhaps twenty, her hair the brilliant color of marmalade, her face pale under its dapple of freckles. She had hardly a shred of the beauty with which Vespasia had dazzled a generation, but she was just as thin, and there was perhaps an echo of the high cheekbones, the hooded eyelids. She was staring at Pitt with a mixture of horror and curiosity.

“Miss March?” he inquired.

“Yes, I’m Tassie March—Anastasia. You must be Emily’s policeman.” It was a statement, and phrased like that it was surprisingly painful.

“May I speak with you, Miss March?”

She gave a little shiver; her revulsion was not for him—her eyes were too direct—but for the situation. There had been a murder in her home, and a policeman must question her.

“Of course.” She turned and led the way through the dining room to the withdrawing room, cool and silver-green, utterly different from the suffocating boudoir. If that was the old lady’s taste, this must have been Olivia’s, and for some reason Eustace had permitted it to remain.

Tassie offered him a seat and sat down herself on one of the green sofas, unconsciously placing her feet together and holding her hands as she had been taught.

“I suppose I should be honest,” she observed, looking at the pale muslin of her dress. “What do you want to know?”

Now that it came to the moment, there was very little to ask her, but if she was like most well-bred young ladies she was confined to the house a great deal of the time with little to do, and she might be extremely observant. He debated whether to treat her delicately, obliquely, or frankly. Then he looked at the steady, slate-blue eyes and thought she was probably more like her mother’s family than her father’s.

“Do you think George was in love with your sister-in-law?” he said without preamble.

Her eyebrows shot up, but she retained her composure with an aplomb worthy of an older woman.

“No. But he thought he was,” she replied. “He would have got over it. I understand that sort of thing happens from time to time. One just has to put up with it, which Emily did superbly. I don’t think I should have been so composed—not if I loved someone. But Emily is terribly sensible, far more than most women, and infinitely more than most men. And George was—” She swallowed, and her eyes filled with tears. “George was very nice, really. I beg your pardon.” She sniffed.

Pitt fished in his breast pocket and brought out his only clean handkerchief. He passed it to her.

She took it and blew her nose fiercely. “Thank you.”

“I know he was,” he agreed, filling the silence before it became an obstacle between them. “What about Mr. Radley?”

She looked up with a watery smile. “I think he’s quite tolerable. In fact, as long as I don’t have to marry him, I daresay I should like him well enough. He makes me laugh—or he did.” Her face fell.

“But you don’t wish to marry him?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Does he wish to marry you?”

“I shouldn’t think so. He doesn’t love me, if that is what you mean. But I will have some money, and I don’t think he has any.”

“How very candid you are.” She was almost worse than Charlotte, and he found himself wishing he could protect her from all the anguish that was bound to come.

“One should not lie to the police in matters of importance,” she said quite sincerely. “I was really very fond of George, and I like Emily, too.”

“Someone in this house murdered him.”

“Yes. Martin told me so—he’s the butler. It seems impossible. I’ve known them all for years—except Mr. Radley, and why on earth should he kill George?”

“Might he have imagined Emily would marry him if George were dead?”

She stared at him. “Not unless he is a lunatic!” Then she turned it over in her mind, realizing the only other possibilities. “But I suppose he could be. You can see very little indeed of some people in their faces, watching them do all the usual things everyone does, eating theirdinner, making silly conversation, laughing a bit, playing games, writing letters. There is a way of doing all these things, and you are taught it as a child, like the steps of a dance. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all. You can be any kind of person underneath it. It’s sort of uniform.”

“How perceptive you are. You are like your grandmother.”

“Grandmother Vespasia?” she asked guardedly.

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” She breathed out in relief. “I am not in the least like the Marches. Have you solved anything?”

“Not so far.”

“Oh. Is that all? I should like to go and see how Emily is.”

“Please do. I shall find your brother, if I can.”

“He’ll be in the conservatory, at the far end. He has a studio there.” She stood up, and courtesy bade him stand also.

“Painting?”

“He’s an artist. He’s very good. He’s had several things in the Royal Academy.” There was pride in her voice.

“Thank you. I shall go and find him.” As soon as she had gone he turned to the row of French doors and the vines and lilies beyond. The conservatory felt humid and full of heavy growth and smelled of lush flowers and hot, perfumed air. The afternoon sun beat on the windows till it was like an equatorial jungle. In the winter a giant furnace maintained the temperature, and a pond the dampness.

William March was precisely where Tassie had said he would be, standing in front of his easel, brush in his hand, the sunlight making a fire of his hair. His thin face was tense, utterly absorbed in the image on his canvas; a country scene full of glancing sunlight and fragile, almost insubstantial trees, as though not only the spring but the garden itself might vanish. Pitt hardly needed his occasional work recovering stolen art to know that it was good.

William did not hear him till he was a yard away. “Good afternoon, Mr. March. Forgive me for interrupting you, but I must ask you certain questions about Lord Ashworth’s death.”

At first William was startled, simply because his concentration had precluded his awareness of anyone else; then he put down the brush and faced Pitt bleakly.

“Of course. What do you want to know?”

Thoughts were teeming in Pitt’s head, but looking at the clever, vulnerable face, the delicate mouth, the quicksilver dreamer’s eyes, he abandoned them as clumsy, even brutal. What was there left to say?

“I am sure you must realize that Lord Ashworth was murdered,” he began tentatively.

“I suppose so,” William agreed with obvious reluctance. “I have tried to think of a way in which it could conceivably be an accident. I failed.”

“You did not consider suicide?” Pitt said curiously, remembering Eustace’s determined attempts.

“George wouldn’t kill himself.” William turned away and looked at the canvas on his easel. “He wasn’t that kind of man... .” His voice trailed off, and his face looked even thinner, pinched with a sorrow that seemed to run right through him.

It was precisely what Pitt knew to be true. There was infinitely less hypocrisy, less self-regard in William than in his father. Pitt found himself liking him.

“Yes, that is what I thought,” he agreed.

For a moment William was silent, then recognition lit his face.

“Of course—I forgot. You’re Emily’s brother-in-law, aren’t you?” he said, so quietly his words were almost lost. “I’m sorry. It’s all very ...” He searched for an expression of what he felt, but it eluded him. “Very hard.”

“I am afraid it won’t get better,” Pitt said honestly.”I’m forced to believe someone in this house killed him.”

“I suppose so. But I can’t tell you who—or why.” William picked up his brush again and began to work, touching a muted raw sienna into the shadows of a tree.

But Pitt was not ready to be dismissed. “What do you know of Mr. Radley?”

“Very little. Father wants to marry him to Tassie because he thinks Jack’s family might get him a peerage. We have a lot of money, you know—from trade. Father wants to become respectable.”

“Indeed.” Pitt was startled by his frankness. There was no attempt to protect his father’s weakness, no family defense. “And might they?”

“I should think so. Tassie’s a good catch. Jack’s not likely to do better—aristocratic heiresses can afford a tide, and the Americans won’t settle for anything less. Or to be accurate, their mothers won’t.” He went on working in the shadows, looking at the Vandyck brown, discounting it, and squeezing out burnt umber.

“What about Emily?” Pitt asked. “Doesn’t she have more money than Miss March?”

William’s hand stopped in midair. “Yes, she will have, now that George is dead.” He winced as he said it. “But Jack has too much experience of women, if even half his reputation is deserved, to believe from a couple of evenings’ flirtation that Emily would consider marrying him—especially with George behaving like such a fool. Emily was only retaliating. You may not be aware of it, Mr. Pitt, but in Society married women have little else to do but gossip, dress up in the latest fashions, and flirt with other men. It is their only source of entertainment. Not even an idiot takes it seriously. My wife is very beautiful, and has flirted as long as I have known her.”

Pitt stared at him but could see no additional pain, no new anger or awareness of fear as he said it. “I see.”

“No, you don’t,” William said dryly. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been bored in your life.”

“No,” Pitt admitted. There had never been time; poverty and ambition do not allow it.

“You are fortunate—at least, in that respect.”

Pitt looked at the canvas again. “Neither have you,” he said with conviction.

For the first time William smiled, a sudden flash; then it was gone again as quickly, replaced by the knowledge of tragedy.

“Thank you, Mr. March.” Pitt stepped back. “I shan’t disturb you any longer, for the moment.”

William did not reply. He was working again.

Downstairs, Stripe was also finding things difficult; he was not any more welcome in the servants’ hall than Pitt had been in the withdrawing room. The cook looked at him with acute disfavor. It was the hour after luncheon, when she should have been able to take a little time off before beginning to think of dinner, and she wished to sit with her feet up and gossip with the housekeeper and the visiting lady’s maids. There was always scandal to exchange, and today especially she was overburdened with the need to express her emotions. She was a large, capable woman with pride in her job, but spending all day on her feet was more than anyone should be asked to bear.

“Hurts me veins something terrible!” she confided to the housekeeper, a rotund woman of her own age. “Wouldn’t tell them flipperty parlormaids that, though! Gets above themselves far too easily as it is. Not the discipline there was in my young days. I know how a house ought to be run.”

“Everything’s going downhill,” the housekeeper agreed. “And now we’ve got the police in the ’ouse. I ask you, whatever next?”

“Notice, that’s what.” The cook shook her head. “’Alf the girls givin’ notice, you mark my words, Mrs. Tobias.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Mardle, you’re right and no mistake,” the housekeeper agreed sagely.

They were in the housekeeper’s sitting room. Stripe was still in the servants’ hall, where they ate and had such companionship as their duties allowed time for. He was uncomfortable, because it was a world he was unused to and he was an intruder. It was immaculately clean; the floor was scrubbed by the thirteen-year-old scullery maid every morning before six A.M. The dressers and cupboards were massed with china, any one service worth a year of his wages. There were jars of pickles and preserves, bins of flour, sugar, oatmeal and other dry stores, and in the scullery he could see piles of vegetables. There was a vast black-leaded cooking range with its bank of ovens, and beside it scuttles of coke and coal. Of course, the boiling coppers, sinks, washboards, and mangles would all be in the laundry room, and the airing racks drawn up to the ceiling by pulleys, full of clean linen.

Now, in this warm, delicious-smelling kitchen, he was standing in the middle of the floor with an array of maids and footmen in front of him; all stiffly to attention, immaculate, men in livery, girls in black stuff dresses and crisp, snowdrift caps and aprons, the parlormaids’ trimmed with lace many middle-class ladies would have been glad to own. Stripe thought by far the handsomest of them was the lady’s maid of the household, Lettie Taylor, but she seemed to regard him with even more disdain than the others. The visiting ladies had naturally brought their own staff, and they were also present, except Digby, Lady Cumming-Gould’s maid. She had been elected to remain with the new widow, perhaps because she was the oldest, and considered the most sensible.

Somewhat uncomfortable under their hostile gaze, Stripe licked his pencil, asked the questions he was obliged to, and noted down their answers in his book. It all told him nothing except that the trays were set the night before and left in the upstairs pantry, where the kettles were brought and the tea made freshly—or in Lord Ashworth’s case, the coffee—each morning. On this particular occasion there had been an unusual turmoil and the pantry had been filled with steam, and apparently unattended, for some minutes. Anyone could, at least in theory, have slipped in and poisoned the coffee.

He asked for a private room and was shown the butler’s pantry, which actually was a sitting room for the butler’s personal use. There he interviewed each member of the staff alone. He asked—with commendable subtlety, he thought—for any information they might have about relationships within the family, comings and goings; and learned precisely nothing that his own guess could not have told him. He began to wonder if they identified with their masters or mistresses so closely that it was their own honor they defended, their own status in the small community that existed in this house.

Finally, on being handed Pitt’s note regarding the digitalis, he asked Lettie to take him upstairs and show him Mrs. March’s room and her medicine cabinet, and any other medicine cabinet in the house.

She put her hands up to tuck her hair in more tidily, then smoothed her apron over her slim hips. To Stripe, blushing a little at the thought and terrified lest it should show in his face, she was the prettiest, most pleasing woman he had ever seen. He found himself hoping this investigation would take a long time—several weeks at the least.

He followed her obediently up the back stairs, watching the tilt of her head and the swish of her skirt and finding he was daydreaming when they came to the pantry. She had spoken to him twice before he pulled his attention to the subject at hand and looked round at the tables where the trays were laid.

“Where was Lord Ashworth’s tray with the coffee?” he asked, clearing his throat painfully.

“Aren’t you listening to me?” she said, shaking her head. “I just told you, it was there.” She pointed to the end of the table nearest the door.

“Was that usual? I mean ...” Her eyes were the color of the sky above the river on a summer day. He coughed hard and began again. “I mean, did you put them in the same places each morning, miss?”

“That one, yes,” she replied, apparently unaware of his gaze. “Because it was coffee, and the others were tea.”

“Tell me again what happens every morning.” He knew what she had already said, but he wanted to listen to her again and he could think of no more relevant questions.

Dutifully she repeated the story, and he noted it down again.

“Thank you, miss,” he said politely, closing his notebook and putting it in his pocket. “Now, would you show me Mrs. March’s medicine cupboard, if you please.”

She looked a little pale, forgetting her general umbrage at having the police in the house at this sudden reminder of death.

“Yes, of course I will.” She led the way through the upstairs baize door onto the main landing and along to old Mrs. March’s room. She knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, opened it and went in.

The room was like no other Stripe had ever imagined, let alone seen. It was as pink and white as an apple blossom. Everywhere he looked there were frills: laces, doilies, ribbons, photographs with satin bindings, a suffocating sea of pillows, pink velvet curtains drawn and swagged to reveal white net ruching beneath.

Stripe was robbed of words; the air seemed motionless and hot, and it clogged his lungs. Awkwardly, in case he left a large footprint in it, he tiptoed across the pink carpet behind Lettie to the ornate cupboard painted pink and white, where she opened a little drawer and looked into it, her face grave.

Stripe stood behind her, smelling a slight flower perfume from her hair, and peeked down at the little space packed with bottles, twists of paper, and cardboard pillboxes.

“Is the digitalis there?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“No, Mr. Stripe,” she said very quietly, her hand trembling above the drawer. “I know what all these are, and the digitalis is gone.”

She was frightened, and he wanted to reassure her, promise he would look after her himself, personally see that no one ever hurt her. But that would offend her so much the very idea was painful to him. She would be outraged by his temerity. Doubtless she already had admirers—that thought, too, was extraordinarily unpleasant. He pulled his wits together.

“Are you sure?” he asked in a businesslike manner. “Could it be in another drawer, or on the bedside table?” He looked round the cloying room. There could be an entire apothecary’s shop hidden in all these billowing frills and folds.

“No,” Lettie said decidedly, her voice high. “I have tidied this room this morning. The digitalis is gone, Mr. Stripe. I—” She shivered.

“Yes?” he said hopefully.

“Nothing.”

“Thank you, miss.” He began back towards the doorway, still careful not to knock anything. “Then I think that’ll be all for the moment. I’d better send a message to Mr. Pitt.”

She took a deep breath. “Mr. Stripe?”

“Yes, miss?” He stopped and turned to face her, aware of the blood burning up his cheeks.

She was trying to hide her fear, but it was there in her eyes, dark and shivery. “Mr. Stripe, is it true Lord Ashworth was murdered?”

“We think so, miss. But don’t you worry, we’ll take good care o’ you. An’ we’ll find whoever did it, be sure.” Now he had said it. He waited for her reaction.

Relief flooded into her face; then she remembered herself, her position, and her loyalties. She drew herself up and lifted her chin very high. “Of course,” she said with dignity. “Thank you, Mr. Stripe. Now if there’s nothing else, I’ll be about my business.”

“Yes, miss,” he said regretfully, and allowed her to guide him downstairs again to resume his own duties in the butler’s pantry.

Pitt saw Sybilla March also, and the moment she walked into the room he understood why George had behaved with such abandon. She was a beautiful woman, vivid and sensuous. There was a warmth about her face, a grace in her movement utterly different from the cool elegance of fashion. And yet, for all the curves of her body, the fragility in the slenderness of her neck, the smallness of her wrists, made her also seem vulnerable and robbed him of the anger he had wanted to feel.

She sat down on the green sofa exactly where Tassie had been an hour earlier. “I don’t know anything, Mr. Pitt,” she said before he had time to ask. Her eyes were shadowed, as if she had been weeping, and there was a tightness about her which he thought was fear. But there had been a murder in the house, and whoever had committed it was still here. Only a fool would not be afraid.

“You may not appreciate the value of what you know, Mrs. March,” he said as he sat down. “I imagine anyone had the opportunity to put the digitalis in Lord Ashworth’s coffee. We shall have to approach it from the point of discovering who might wish to.”

She said nothing. The white hands in her lap were clenched so tightly the knuckles were shining.

He found it unexpectedly difficult to go on. He did not want to be brutal, and yet skirting round the subjects that were painful would be useless, and would only prolong the distress.

“Was Lord Ashworth in love with you?” he said bluntly.

Her head jerked up, eyes wide, as if she had been startled by the question, and yet she must have known it was inevitable. There was a long silence before she replied—so long, Pitt was about to ask again.

“I don’t know,” she said in a husky voice. “What does a man mean when he says ‘I love you’? Perhaps there are as many answers as there are men.”

It was a reply he had not foreseen at, all. He had expected a blushing admission, or a defiant one, or even a denial. But a philosophical answer that was a question itself left him confused.

“Did you love him?” he asked, far more brashly than he had planned.

Her mouth moved in the slightest of smiles, and he suspected there was an infinity of meaning in it he would never grasp. “No. But I liked him very much.”

“Did your husband know the true nature of your regard for Lord Ashworth?” He was floundering now, and he was acutely aware of it.

“Yes,” she admitted. “But William was not jealous, if that is what you imagine. We mix in Society a great deal. George was not the first man to have found me attractive.”

That Pitt was obliged to believe. But whether William was jealous or not was another matter. How far had the affair gone, and did William know its extent? Was he either ignorant of it, or truly a complacent husband? Or was there nothing to mind?

There was certainly no point in asking Sybilla.

“Thank you, Mrs. March,” he said formally.

Now he could no longer put it off. He must go and see Emily, face her grief.

He stood up and excused himself, leaving Sybilla alone in the green withdrawing room.

In the hall he found a footman and requested to be taken to see Emily. The man was reluctant at first, having more respect for grief than the necessities of investigation. But common sense overcame him, and he led the way up the broad stairs to the landing, with its jardinières of ferns, and knocked on Vespasia’s bedroom door.

It was opened by a middle-aged maid with a plain, wise face, at the moment creased with pity. She stared up at Pitt grimly, quite prepared to stand her ground and defy him. She would protect Emily at any cost, and Pitt could see it in the shape of her shoulders and the square planting of her feet.

“I’m Thomas Pitt,” he said loudly enough for Emily, beyond the door, to hear him. “My wife is Lady Ashworth’s sister. She will be here soon, but I must speak to Lady Ashworth first.”

The maid hesitated, looked him up and down with a measured gaze, and made up her mind. “Very well. I suppose you’d best come in.” She stood aside.

Emily was sitting up on the bed, fully dressed in a gown of dark blue—she had nothing black with her. Her hair was loose at the back of her neck and she was almost as pale as the pillows behind her. Her eyes were cavernous with shock.

He sat down on the bed and took her hand, holding it in both of his. It felt limp and small as a child’s. There was no point in saying he was sorry. She must know that, must see it in his face and feel it in his touch.

“Where’s Charlotte?” she asked shakily.

“Coming. Aunt Vespasia sent her carriage; she’ll be here soon. But I have to ask you some questions. I wish I didn’t, but wishing doesn’t change things.”

“I know.” She sniffed, and the tears escaped her will and ran down her cheeks. “Dear heaven, do you think I don’t know!”

Pitt could feel the maid behind his shoulder, alert and defensive, ready to drive him out the moment he threatened Emily, and he loved her for it.

“Emily, George was deliberately killed by someone in this house. You know I have to find out who.”

She stared at him. Perhaps part of her mind had understood that already, or at least rejected all the other possibilities, but she had not actually faced it as bluntly as that. “That means—the family, or Jack Radley!”

“I know. Of course it is conceivable we could turn up a reason among the servants, but I don’t believe it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas! Why on earth would one of Uncle Eustace’s servants murder George? They hardly even knew of him a month ago. Anyway, why would any servant murder anyone in the house? It’s a nice thought, but it’s stupid.”

“Then it is one of the eight of you,” he said, watching her face.

She breathed out slowly. “Eight? Thomas! Not me! You can’t—” She was so white he thought she was going to faint, even lying against the pillows as she was.

He gripped her hand harder. “No, of course I don’t. Nor do I think it was Aunt Vespasia. But I have to find out who did, and that involves finding out the truth about a lot of things.”

She said nothing. Behind him he could hear the maid winding her hands in her apron. Silently he blessed the woman again, and Vespasia for providing her.

“Emily—could Jack Radley have imagined that you might one day marry him, were you free to?”

“No ...” Her voice faded away and her eyes left his, then came back. “Not from anything I said. I—I flirted a little—a very little. That’s all.”

He thought that was less than the truth, but it did not matter now. “Is there anything else?” he persisted.

“No!” Then she realized that he was no longer thinking only of Jack Radley but of anyone. “I don’t know. I can’t think why anyone should want to kill George. Couldn’t it possibly have been an accident, Thomas?”

“No.”

She looked down at her hand, still in his. “Could it have been meant for someone else, and not George?”

“Who? Does anyone else have coffee first thing in the morning?”

Her voice was hardly even a whisper. “No.”

There was no need to pursue the conclusion; she understood as well as he did.

“What about William March, Emily? Could he have been jealous enough to kill George over his attentions to Sybilla?”

“I don’t think so,” she said honestly. “He showed no sign of even having noticed, much less caring. I think all he minds about is his painting. But anyway ...” Her fingers curled round his, responding to his grip. “Thomas, I swear I heard George and Sybilla quarreling last night, and when George came up, before he went to bed, he came to see me and—” She struggled for a moment to keep mastery of herself. “And he let me know that it was over with Sybilla. Not—not directly, of course. That would have been admitting there was something—But we understood one another.”

“He quarreled with Sybilla?”

“Yes.”

There was no point in asking her if the quarrel had been violent enough to prompt murder: she could not answer, nor would it mean anything if she did.

He stood up, letting her hand go gently. “If you think of anything at all, please send for me. I can’t leave it go.”

“I know that. I’ll tell you.”

He smiled at her very slightly, to blunt the edge of what he had said and to try to throw the frailest of lines across the gulf between the policeman and the man.

She swallowed hard, and the corners of her mouth lifted in an answering shadowy smile.

It was an hour later when the bedroom door opened again and Charlotte came in. She said nothing at all, but came and sat on the bed, reached out her hand to Emily, and slipped her arms round her and let her weep as she needed to, holding her close and rocking a little back and forth, murmuring old, meaningless words of comfort from childhood.