by Anne Perry
Outside in the Close the last fog had blown away in the north wind, bitter as the Pole, and the stars were glittering in a sky barely marred by an occasional smear of smoke. Ice crackled underfoot in the frozen puddles and gutters. Pitt stepped out briskly; in a tidier man it could almost have been called a march.
He climbed the immaculate porch steps of number two and pulled the brass bell. When the footman opened the door he knew precisely what he was going to say, and to whom.
“Good evening. May I see Mr. York please? I require his permission to speak to his staff about one of them who may have had knowledge of a crime. It is most urgent.”
“Er, yes sir. I ’spect you may.” The youth looked taken aback. “You’d better come in. Library fire’s lit, sir; you can wait in there.”
It was a few minutes until Piers York came in, his benign, slightly quizzical face marked with an unusual frown. “What is it this time, Pitt? Not the damn silver again, surely?”
“No sir.” He stopped, hoping York would not press the point. But he stood staring at Pitt, his eyebrows raised, his eyes small and gray and intelligent. There was no avoiding an answer.
“Treason and murder, sir.”
“Balderdash!” York said smartly. “I doubt the servants even know what treason is, and they never leave this house except on their half days off, which are only twice a month.” His eyebrows rose even higher. “Or are you suggesting this treason took place here?”
Pitt knew he was on very dangerous ground. All Ballarat’s warnings jangled in his ears.
“No sir, I think an agent of treason may have visited your house, unknown to you. Your maid Dulcie Mabbutt saw her; others may have.”
“Saw her?” York’s eyebrows shot up. “Good God! You mean a woman? Well, Dulcie can’t help you, poor child. She fell out of one of the upstairs windows and died. I’m sorry.” His face was pinched and sad. Pitt found it impossible to believe he was not genuinely grieved. Probably he knew nothing about any of it-Cerise, or Robert’s or Dulcie’s death. He was a banker; he alone of the men in the case had nothing to do with the Foreign Office, and Pitt could not imagine a spy wasting her energies on this wry, rather charming man well into his sixties. And he had too much innate humor to harbor the vanity necessary to be so ridiculous.
“I know Dulcie is dead,” Pitt agreed. “But she may have confided to the other maids. Women do talk to each other.”
“Where and when did Dulcie see this woman of yours?”
“Upstairs on the landing,” Pitt replied. “In the middle of the night.”
“Good heavens! What on earth was Dulcie doing out of her own room in the middle of the night? Are you sure she wasn’t dreaming?”
“This woman’s been seen elsewhere, sir, and Dulcie’s description was very good.”
“Well, go on, man!”
“Tall and slender, with dark hair, very beautiful, and wearing a gown of a startling shade of fuchsia or cerise.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t seen her.”
“May I speak to some of your girls who might have been friendly with Dulcie, and then perhaps to the younger Mrs. York? I believe Dulcie was her maid.”
“I suppose so-if it’s necessary.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He spoke to the upstairs maid, the downstairs maid, the laundry maid, the other lady’s maid, the kitchen maid, the scullery maid, and finally the tweeny, but it seemed Dulcie had been remarkably discreet and had kept total confidence on all that she saw of her mistress’s household. He wished she had been less honorable, and yet there was a kind of bitter satisfaction in it. Virtue of any sort kept its sweetness whatever surrounded it. He saved the questions about Dulcie’s death for Veronica. If she was innocent it was cruel, but he could not afford kindness now.
Her mother-in-law was out, the first stroke of good fortune Pitt had had in some time, and Veronica received him in the boudoir.
“I don’t know how I can help you, Mr. Pitt,” she said gravely. She was dressed in deep forest green, which heightened her slightly ethereal quality. She was pale, her eyes shadowed as if she had slept badly, and she remained standing some distance from him, not facing him but staring at a gold-framed seascape on the wall. “I see no purpose in going over and over the tragedies of the past. Nothing will bring my husband back, and we don’t care about the silver or the book. We would much prefer not to be constantly reminded of it.”
He hated what he was doing, but he knew of no other way. If he had pressed harder and been cleverer, if he had solved it the first time, Dulcie would still be alive.
“I’m here about Dulcie Mabbutt, Mrs. York.”
She turned quickly. “Dulcie?”
“Yes. While she was in this house she saw something of great importance. How did she die, Mrs. York?”
Her gaze did not waver, and she was so pale anyway he could detect no change in her aside from the distress he would have seen in almost anyone. “She leaned too far out of a window and lost her balance,” she replied.
“Did you see it happen?”
“No-it was in the evening, after dark. Perhaps in the daylight-perhaps she would have seen what she was doing and it would not have happened.”
“Why should she lean so far out of a window?”
“I don’t know! Maybe she saw something, someone.”
“In the dark?”
She bit her lip. “Perhaps she dropped something.”
Pitt did not pursue it; the unlikeliness was obvious enough. “Who was in the house that evening, Mrs. York?”
“All the servants, of course; my parents-in-law, and dinner guests-perhaps Dulcie was talking to one of the footmen or coachmen of the guests.”
“Then they would have raised the alarm when she fell.”
“Oh.” She turned away, blushing at her foolishness. “Of course.”
“Who were your guests?” He knew the answer before she spoke.
“Mr. and Mrs. Asherson, Mr. Garrard Danver and Mr. Julian Danver and the Misses Danver, Sir Reginald and Lady Arbuthnott, and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Adair.”
“Did any of the other ladies or you yourself wear a gown of a brilliant cerise or magenta color, ma’am?”
“What?” Her voice was barely a whisper, and this time her face was so ashen the skin looked like wax.
“A brilliant cerise or magenta,” he repeated. “It is a bluish pink, the sort of color cinerarias grow.”
She gulped and her lips formed the word no, but no sound came from her throat.
“Dulcie saw a woman in such a dress, Mrs. York, upstairs in this house-” Before he could finish she gasped and pitched forward onto the floor, hands out to save herself, knocking into the chair as she went.
He dived forward too late to catch her, and half falling over the chair himself, knelt down beside her. She was completely unconscious, her face ivory in the gaslight. He uncrumpled her limbs and picked her up. It was awkward, because she was a deadweight, but she was so slender there was hardly any substance to her. He laid her on the sofa, arranged her skirts to cover all but her feet, then rang the bell, almost yanking the cord from the wall.
As soon as the footman appeared Pitt ordered him to get the lady’s maid with some smelling salts. His voice sounded rough, even frightened. He must steady himself. There was a violence of emotion inside him; he feared he had been too clumsy and had provoked the very scandal Ballarat would pay any price to avoid, anger at the loss of life, pity for it, a sense of betrayal because he had not wanted it to be Veronica. But surely the gay and daring Cerise would not have crumpled into a faint at the first suspicion of the law.
The door opened and the lady’s maid came in, a pretty, slight creature with fair hair and-
“God Almighty!” The breath hissed out between his teeth and Pitt felt the room lurch a little round him also. “Emily!”
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth and she dropped the bottle of salts. “Thomas.”
“All right!” For a moment there wa
s a silence of utter incredulity. Then his fury broke. “Explain yourself!” he ground out between his teeth.
“Don’t be foolish!” she whispered. “Keep your voice down! What happened to Veronica?” She knelt down, picked up the salts, and unstoppered them, waving them gently under Veronica’s nose.
“She fainted, of course!” Pitt snapped back. “I asked her about Cerise. Emily, you’ve got to get out of here. You must be mad! Dulcie was murdered, and you could be next!”
“I know she was-and I’m not leaving.” Her face was determined as she stared at him defiantly.
“You are!” He grasped her arm.
She snatched it away. “No, I’m not! Veronica isn’t Cerise. I know her far better than you do!”
“Emily-” But it was too late; Veronica was beginning to stir. Her eyes opened, dark with horror. Then, as memory came back and she recognized Pitt and Emily, the mask returned.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pitt,” she said very slowly. “I’m afraid I am not very well. I–I haven’t seen the person you spoke of. I cannot help.”
“Then I’ll not disturb you any further. I’ll leave you with your-maid.” Pitt forced himself to be civil, even gentle. “I apologize for having disturbed you.”
Emily rang the bell for the footman, and when he came she gave him his instructions. “John, please show Mr. Pitt to the front door, and then ask Mary to bring Mrs. York a tisane.”
Pitt glared at her and she looked back with her chin high.
“Thank you,” he said, and followed the footman out.
He took a hansom home and strode up his own hallway to the kitchen.
“Charlotte! Charlotte!”
She turned round with innocent surprise at the rage in his voice, then saw his face.
“You knew!” he said furiously. “You knew Emily was in that house as a maid! God Almighty, have you no wits at all, woman?”
It was the wrong approach and he knew it even as he shouted at her, but he was too angry to control himself.
For a moment she glared back at him, then she changed her mind and lowered her eyes meekly. “I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t know until it was too late, I swear, and then there was no point in telling you. You couldn’t have done anything about it.” She looked up with a very small smile. “And she will learn things there that we can’t.”
He gave up, swearing long and savagely under his breath before he ran out of vocabulary he could use in front of Charlotte and accepted the cup of tea she was pouring.
“I don’t give a damn what she learns!” he said fiercely. “Have you thought for one moment in all your idiotic plans about the danger she’s in? For God’s sake, Charlotte, two people have been murdered in that house already! If she were found out, what could you do to help her? Nothing! Nothing at all!” He flung his arm out. “She’s there completely on her own; I can’t get in there. How could you be so bloody stupid?”
“I am not stupid!” she said hotly, indignation bright in her cheeks and eyes. “I didn’t know anything about it-I told you that! I only heard about it afterwards.”
“Don’t equivocate!” he snapped back. “You drew Emily into this; she would never have heard about it if you hadn’t started meddling. Get her out! Sit down now and write to her telling her to go home where she belongs-now!”
Charlotte’s face was set. “There’s no point; she won’t come.”
“Do it!” he roared. “Don’t argue with me, just do it!”
There were tears in her eyes, but no obedience or submissiveness. “She won’t listen to me!” she said furiously. “I know the danger! Do you think I can’t see it? And I know you’re in danger too! I sit at home and wait for you when you’re late, wondering where you are, if you are safe-or lying bleeding in the street somewhere.”
“That’s unfair! And it has nothing to do with Emily,” he answered more levelly. “Get her out, Charlotte.”
“I can’t. She won’t come.”
He said nothing. He was too angry-and too frightened.
7
Emily was appalled when she came into the library in answer to Albert’s summons and saw Pitt standing there. Thank heaven the circumstances had given him little time to express his outrage or to press his demand that she leave. When Veronica returned to consciousness, Pitt had been obliged to remain silent, except for the few remarks to excuse himself, leaving Emily alone with her mistress propped up against the cushions, looking like death warmed over.
Emily felt so intense a pity for her it was like a new wound, but she also knew that she would probably never have a better chance than now, when Veronica was shocked and off balance, to draw some unguarded word from her as to what had frightened her so profoundly.
She bent down beside her and touched her hand. “Ma’am, you do look ill,” she said gently. “Whatever did he say to you? He ought not have been allowed!” She stared so intently at Veronica’s ashen face that some sort of answer was unavoidable.
“I–I think I fainted,” Veronica whispered at last.
Mentally Emily apologized to Pitt for the injustice she was about to do him; then with all the skill she could muster, she let genuine compassion fill her eyes. “Did he threaten you, ma’am? What did he say? He has no right! You should report him: What was it?”
“No,” Veronica said quickly, then bit her lip, struggling with the lie. “No-he-he was really quite civil. I. .” For a moment her eyes met Emily’s and she hesitated on the brink of speech, the temptation to trust so vivid that Emily could trace every thread of it, the wavering, the rival fears.
Emily held her breath.
But the moment passed. Veronica turned away and the tears spilled and ran down her cheeks. She lay back and closed her eyes.
Emily longed to put her arms round her and tell her she understood, she knew what it was like to lose your husband suddenly, violently, in the horror of murder, with the knowledge that someone must hate so much that only death could satisfy them. And she also knew the fear that grew day by day, fear of confusion, of a whole world become incomprehensible and full of secrets, some of them hideous; and the fear that the truth might be worse than you could bear. And there was the fear that with knowledge you, too, might become a victim-and at the back of every other fear, the one that you might be guilty of some stupidity, or some neglect that had contributed to it all, a permanent rising, whispering guilt!
And for Emily, too, there had been the fear that the police would suspect her. Her motive had looked to be so obvious!
Was that what Veronica was afraid of now? Did she feel Pitt treading closer? Was it terror for herself that had made her faint?
Or was she afraid for someone she was protecting- someone like Julian Danver? It was more like Pitt to be oblique, to go for the weakest link in the chain of events: not the murderer himself but the person most likely to yield to pressure.
Or was Veronica afraid, as Emily had been, of the people in her husband’s family who believed she was guilty, or who wanted her to be-not only of errors of judgment, of the occasional selfishness, but literally physically guilty of murder? Was that the passion between Loretta and Veronica-that Loretta believed her daughter-in-law had killed her son? Was taking her revenge in her own way, slowly, day by day, turning the knife, collecting one word after another until she had proof? It was a far more delicate torture than the simple hangman’s noose, and Loretta could administer it herself-and watch.
Or was it Cerise she was afraid of?
Or in spite of the fear now, was she Cerise herself? And was it her paymasters of whom she was terrified, now that the net was closing in?
Whatever the truth, there was no point in pursuing it at present. The moment when she might have spoken was gone, and Emily knew it would be foolish to betray her curiosity. She felt a little sick. She did not want it to be Veronica. She could not help liking her, even feeling a kind of identity. But Emily was angry also, because of her own inability to judge. Her emotions were strong, she wanted to protect t
he victims and attack the offenders, of all sorts, whether guilty of murder, or only of hatred and meanness of soul; but she could not discern who they were.
“Would you like to go upstairs, ma’am?” she said, perhaps less tactfully man she might have. “Before anyone comes and-” She realized how far she was committing herself and stopped.
But Veronica understood. She swung her legs down from the sofa and sat up very slowly, still dizzy.
“Yes-yes, I would rather.” There was no need to add Loretta’s name; all the implications hung in the air between them, perfectly understood, but it would not do to speak them aloud.
Slowly, side by side, they left the library, crossed the hall to the stairs, and went up.
That evening Edith had another one of her “spells,” and Emily was asked to lay out the dinner gowns for both Veronica and Loretta.
“Poor Edith. She should see a doctor,” she said with cloying sweetness. “Shall I ask Mrs. York to call one for her? I’m sure she would; she thinks so highly of Edith.”
Fanny tittered and then stopped abruptly when the housekeeper glared at her.
“There’s no need for you to tell us what to do and what not to, miss!” Mrs. Crawford snapped at Emily. “We’ll call a doctor if it’s necessary! You’re a sight too ready with your advice!”
Emily affected innocence and a slight air of having been hurt.
“I’m sure I was only trying to help, Mrs. Crawford, being that I shall see Mrs. York in the line of duty. To save you going out of your way.”
“I’ll go where I please, miss, and none of your business!”
“The girl was only trying to help,” the butler said reasonably. “And maybe we should get a doctor to Edith. She has more turns than a hurdy-gurdy!”
Libby burst into a fit of giggles and half slid under the table.
“Oh, you are so witty, Mr. Redditch,” Bertha said admiringly.
Nora snorted. She had observed Bertha’s eye for Redditch and, having tried her own hand there and failed, regarded it with scorn. Anyway, she had every intention of doing better than a butler-Bertha could have him and welcome! She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life living in someone else’s house! She was going to have one of her own, with nice linen and crockery, and a maid of all work.