by Anne Perry
“Thomas!” Vespasia’s face swam up at him as he lifted his head; she was leaning forward touched with concern now. “Are you quite well?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “You said ‘Dominic Corde’?”
“You know him.” It was a statement rather than a question. She had lived a long time, known many loves and hurts. Little escaped her understanding.
He knew she would recognize a lie. “Yes. He was married to Charlotte’s sister, before she died.”
“Good gracious.” If she read anything more into it than that, she was far too tactful to say so. “So he is a widower. I don’t recall his mentioning it.”
Pitt did not want to talk about Dominic. He knew it would have to come, but he was not ready yet. “Tell me about the rest of Gadstone Park?” he asked.
She looked a little surprised.
He pulled a small, ironic face. “I can’t imagine Alicia dug him up,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Or Dominic?”
Her body relaxed, altering the line of the high lace neck. “No,” she sighed wearily. “Of course not. They would be the last ones to wish him back. It would appear, unless the whole thing is fortuitous after all, that either one of them murdered Augustus or someone believes they did.”
“Tell me about the other people in the Park,” he repeated.
“The old lady is a fearful creature.” Vespasia seldom minced words. “Sits upstairs in her bedroom all day devouring old love letters, and letters of blood and military vainglory from Waterloo and the Crimea. In her own eyes she is the last of a great generation. She savors over and over again every victory in her life, real or imagined, up to the last minute, so she can wring life dry before it is snatched away from her. She doesn’t like Alicia, thinks she has no courage, no style.” A sudden dry twist lit up her face. “I really don’t know whether she would like her better or worse if she thought her capable of having murdered Augustus!”
Pitt hid a smile by turning it into a grimace. “What about the daughter, Verity?”
“Nice girl. Don’t know where she gets it from; must be her mother’s side. Not especially good-looking, but quite a bit of life to her, underneath the well-drilled manners. Hope they don’t marry her off before she has a little fun.”
“How does she get on with Alicia?”
“Well enough, so far as I know. But you needn’t look at her; she would have no idea where to employ a grave robber, and she could hardly do it herself!”
“But she might prompt someone else,” Pitt pointed out. “Someone in love with her—if she thought her stepmother had murdered her father.
Vespasia snorted. “Don’t believe it. Far too devious. She’s a nice child. If she thought such a thing she would have come out and accused her, not gone around persuading someone to desecrate her father’s grave. And she seems genuinely fond of Alicia, unless she’s a far better actress than I take her for.”
Pitt had to agree. The whole thing was preposterous. Perhaps, after all, it was the work of a lunatic and the fact that it was the same body both times only a grotesque mischance. He said as much to Vespasia.
“I tend to disbelieve in coincidences,” she replied reluctantly, “but I suppose they do occur. The rest of the Park are ordinary enough, in their way. Lord St. Jermyn I cannot fault; neither can I like him, in spite of the fact that it is he who will sponsor our bill through Parliament. Hester is a good woman making the best of an indifferent situation. They have four children, whose names I cannot remember.”
“Major Rodney is a widower. He was not at the interment, so you have not seen him yet. He fought in the Crimea, I believe. No one can recall his wife, who must have died thirty-five years ago. He lives with his maiden sisters, Miss Priscilla and Miss Mary Ann. They talk too much and are always making jam and lavender pillows, but are otherwise perfectly pleasant. There is nothing to say about the Cantlays. I believe they are precisely what they seem to be: civil, generous, and a little bored.
“Carlisle is a dilettante; plays the piano rather well, tried to get into Parliament and failed, a bit too radical. Wants to reform. Good family, old money.”
“The only one of any interest is that appalling American who bought number seven, Virgil Smith. I ask you?” She raised her eyebrows as high as they would go. “Who on earth but an American would call a child Virgil? And with a name like Smith! He’s as plain as a ditch, and with manners to suit. He has not the least idea how to conduct himself, which fork to eat with, or how to address a duchess. He talks to cats and dogs in the streets!”
Pitt had spoken to cats and dogs himself, and he found he was warming to the man immediately. “Did he know Lord Augustus?” he asked.
“Of course not! Do you imagine Lord Augustus kept the company of people like that? He had not the imagination!” Her face softened. “Fortunately, I am old enough for it not to matter anymore what company I am seen to keep, and I rather like him. At least he is not a bore.” She looked at Pitt rather pointedly, and he knew that he himself was included in the same bracket of socially impossible people who redeem themselves by not being bores.
He could learn no more from her at present, so, after thanking her for her frankness, he took his leave. This evening he would have to tell Charlotte that Dominic Corde was involved, and he wanted to prepare himself.
Charlotte had not taken more than a cursory interest in the case of grave robbing. It did not concern anyone she knew, not like the murders at Paragon Walk the previous year. She had plenty to keep her busy in the house, and Jemima was consumed with curiosity every minute she was awake. Charlotte spent half her day in household duties, and the other half deciphering Jemima’s questions and supplying answers to them. Time after time she could, with a flash of instinct, understand what Jemima meant and repeat the words over clearly to be imitated with solemn diligence.
By six o’clock when Pitt came home, cold and wet, she was tired herself and as glad as he to sit down. It was in the comfortable silence after dinner that he told her. He had debated how to phrase it, whether to lead up to it or simply be bold. In the end his own urgency overtook him.
“I went to see Aunt Vespasia today.” He looked at her, then away again, into the fire. “About the grave robbing. She knows everyone in Gadstone Park.”
Charlotte waited for him to continue.
Usually he was good at being evasive, coming to things in his own way, but this was too powerful; it forced itself to be said.
“Dominic is involved!”
“Dominic?” She was incredulous; it was too unbelievable, too unexpected to have sense. “What do you mean?”
“Dominic Corde is involved with the Fitzroy-Hammonds. Lord Augustus died a few weeks ago, and his corpse has been unburied twice and left to be found, once on the box of a hansom cab and once in his own pew in church. Alicia, his wife, now his widow, had an admirer, and has had for some time—Dominic Corde!”
She sat quite still, repeating his words over inside her head, trying to grasp them. She had not even thought of Dominic for months; now all her adolescent dreams flooded back, embarrassing in their gaucheness and their fervor. She felt the color burn up her face and wished Pitt had never known anything about it, that she had been less transparent in her infatuation when he had first met her in Cater Street.
Then she began to realize the enormity of it. He had said Dominic was involved. Did he really imagine Dominic had had something to do with disinterring the body? She could not imagine it—not because of the cruelty or the desecration of it, but because she did not believe Dominic had the heat of emotion or the courage in him to do such a wild thing.
“How involved?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice was unusually sharp. “I should imagine he means to marry her!”
For once he had misunderstood her. “I mean how is he involved with digging up the body?” she corrected. “Surely you don’t think he could have done it? Why should he?”
He hesitated, searching her eyes, trying to gauge what
she was thinking, how much it mattered to her. He had seen the color in her face at the mention of Dominic’s name, and it brought a coldness to him, an uncertainty he had not known for years, not since his father had lost his job and the family had left the great estate where he had been born and grown up.
“I don’t imagine he did,” he answered. “But I have to consider the possibility that Lord Augustus did not die as naturally as was supposed at the time.”
The blood drained out of her face. “You mean murder?” Her tongue was dry. “You think Dominic might have murdered him? Oh, no—I don’t believe it! I know him—he is not—” She could not think of a way to say it without cruelty, and less than justice.
“Not what?” he asked, the edge back in his voice. “Not capable of murder?”
“No,” she said simply. “I don’t think so; not unless he was very frightened, or perhaps in a fit of temper, by accident. But if he did, he would give himself away afterwards. He would never be able to live with it.”
“He has such a delicate conscience?” Pitt said sarcastically.
She was hurt by the hardness in him. She had no idea why it should be. Had he remembered her youthful foolishness and been angered by it, found her silliness annoying, even after all this time? Surely he could not be so unforgiving of what had after all been no more than a girl’s romanticism. She had tortured no one but herself with it. She remembered all that had happened at Cater Street very clearly. Even Sarah had been unaware of her feelings, and Dominic certainly had.
“We all have sides of ourselves we prefer not to acknowledge,” she said quietly. “Sides we reason away with all sorts of arguments why it is wrong for others, but in our case quite justified. Dominic is as good at it as most, perhaps in some things better, but his were only the faults he was brought up to. He learned his values from other people, just as we all do. He could excuse himself easily enough for an affaire with a maid, because that is something most gentlemen accept; but nobody accepts murdering someone in order to marry his widow. There is no way Dominic could excuse that to himself, or to anyone else. After he had done it, he would be terrified. That is what I meant.”
“Oh.” He sat quite still.
For several minutes there was no noise but the crackle of the fire.
“How was Aunt Vespasia?” she asked at length.
“The same as always,” he replied politely. Then he wanted to say more, to establish contact again without exactly apologizing, because that would be to admit to the thoughts he had had. “She asked that you should call upon her sometime. She said that when I saw her at the interment, and I forgot to mention it.”
“Will they inter him again?” she asked. “It seems a bit—ridiculous!”
“I suppose so. But I shan’t let them do it immediately. The body is in police custody now. I want a postmortem.”
“A postmortem! You mean cut him up?”
“If you must put it that way.” Slowly he smiled, and she smiled back. Suddenly the warmth flooded into him again, and he sat grinning idiotically, like a boy.
“The family won’t be pleased,” she pointed out.
“They’ll be furious,” he agreed. “But I mean to—I have no choice now!”
3
IT WAS INEVITABLE the next day that Pitt should call on Alicia. No matter how distasteful it was, he must question her, obliquely, about Lord Augustus, about her relationship with him and with Dominic Corde. Then, of course, he would have to meet Dominic again.
They had not met since Pitt’s wedding to Charlotte nearly four years ago. Then Dominic had been newly a widower, still numb from his fear in the Cater Street murders; and Pitt had been too amazed at his own success in winning Charlotte to be more than dimly aware of anyone else.
Now it would be different. Dominic would be over the shock and would have found a new life for himself away from the Ellisons and memories of Sarah. He was bound to marry again; he could not be more than thirty-two or -three, and eminently eligible. Even if he did not have it in mind himself, Pitt knew enough of society to know that some ambitious mother would grasp him for her unmarried daughter. It would merely be a competition as to who would succeed first.
He did not dislike Dominic for himself, only for his relationship with Charlotte and the dreams she had woven about him, and he felt guilty that he had to be the one to drag him again into the shadow of murder.
If indeed he could not clear up the affair before murder need be put into words?
It was a gray, sullen morning with a sky threatening snow when Pitt pulled the bell of number twelve Gadstone Park and the funereal butler let him in with a sigh of resignation.
“Lady Fitzroy-Hammond is at breakfast,” he said wearily. “If you care to wait in the morning room, I will inform her that you are here.”
“Thank you.” Pitt followed him obediently, passing a small, elderly maid in a neat, white-lace-edged uniform. Her thin face sharpened as she saw him, and her eyes glittered. She turned around and retraced her steps upstairs, whisking across the landing and disappearing as he went into the silent, ice-chill morning room.
Alicia came in about five minutes later, looking pale and a little hurried, as if she had left the breakfast table without finishing her meal.
“Good morning, ma’am.” He remained standing. The room was too cold to conduct any discussion, especially the relaxed, rather rambling exploration he needed now.
She shivered. “What more can there possibly be to speak of? The vicar has assured me he will take care of all the—arrangements.” She hesitated. “I—I am not sure how it should be done—after all—there has already been a funeral—and—” She frowned and shook her head a little. “I don’t know anything more to tell you.”
“Perhaps we could talk somewhere more convenient?” he suggested. He did not wish to say, precisely, somewhere warmer.
She was confused. “Discuss what? I don’t know anything else.”
He spoke as gently as he could. “Desecration of a grave is a crime, ma’am. To disinter the same body twice seems unlikely to be merely an insane coincidence.”
The blood drained out of her face. She stared at him, speechless.
“Could we go to some room where we may speak comfortably?” This time he made it rather more of guidance, as one would instruct a child.
Still without answering, she turned and led him to a smaller, very feminine withdrawing room at the side of the house. A fire was already burning strongly, and there was a radiance of warmth from it. As soon as they were inside she swung round. Her composure was regained.
“What is it you are supposing, Inspector? More than a madman? Something intentional?”
“I’m afraid so,” he replied soberly. “Madness is not usually so—directed.”
“Directed at what?” She closed the door and walked over to sit down on the settee. He sat opposite her, feeling the warmth ease out the muscles knotted with cold.
“That is what I must find out,” he replied, “if I am to make sure it does not happen again. You said before that you knew of no enemy who would have wished your husband such harm or could conceivably have behaved in such a manner—”
“I don’t!”
“Then I am left to consider what other motives there could be,” he said reasonably. She was more intelligent than he had expected, calmer. He began to understand how Dominic might be very genuinely attracted to her; neither money nor position need be involved. He thought of what Vespasia had said about laughter and the dreams of youth, and he was angry at the restrictions, the insensitivities of a social convention that could have married her to a man like Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond and bred into her compliance with such a thing. “Or who else might be the intended victim,” he finished.
“Victim?” she repeated, turning it over in her mind. “Yes, I suppose you are right. In a sense we are all victims of this—the whole family.”
He was not prepared yet to ask her about Dominic. “Tell me something about his mother,” he s
aid instead. “She was in the church, wasn’t she? Does she live here?”
“Yes. But I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“Could she be the one intended to be hurt, do you think?”
There was a small flicker over her face, like recognition, even perhaps a momentary harsh, self-mocking humor. Or perhaps that was something he imagined because it was in his own feelings.
“Are you asking me if she has enemies?” She was looking at him very directly.
“Has she?” It was now no longer a secret between them; he understood, and she had seen it.
“Of course; no one can live to her age without earning enemies,” she agreed. “But by the same token, most of them are dead. All the rivals from her youth, or the days of her social power, they are gone, or too old to care. I imagine most scores have been settled long ago.”
There was too much truth in that to argue. “And the daughter, Miss Verity?” he went on.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head immediately. “She has only been out for a Season. There is no spite in her, and she has done no one harm, even inadvertently.”
He was not quite sure how to say the inevitable. Usually it was hard to frame the words that led to accusation, especially when the person could not see them coming; but he had grown accustomed to it over the years, as one lives with early rheumatism, knowing there will be pain now and again, moving to accommodate it, anticipating when the prick would come, growing used to it. But this time it was harder than usual. At the last moment he became oblique again.
“Could there not be envy?” he asked. “She is a charming girl.”
Alicia smiled, and there was patience in it for his ignorance. “The only people to envy young ladies of society are other young ladies of society. Do you really imagine, Inspector, that one of them hired men to disinter her dead father?”