by Anne Perry
“I see. Thank you.” Pitt was bitterly disappointed, although in all honesty he had to admit that he had not wanted to think Serafina was so far departed from reality as to have taken her own life in a haze of fear and confusion—or even deliberately, as an alternative to the mental disintegration that had already begun. It would’ve been a humiliating end for a brave woman.
But this looked like murder.
Was it a simple domestic tragedy fueled by greed and impatience? Nerissa unwilling to play companion and dreamer-in-waiting another year or two, or even three? Perhaps her lover was losing the will to wait for her, or she was afraid he might soon? Perhaps it was just another wretched story of family misery turning into hatred, for an imprisonment in loveless tedium. How old would Nerissa be? Mid-thirties, perhaps. How many more childbearing years did she have? Desperation was a strong force, all but overwhelming.
Perhaps it had nothing to do with Serafina’s past, or Special Branch. But he must be sure.
“Thank you,” he said.
Thurgood smiled without pleasure. “I’ll send you a written report: amounts, and so on. But there is no doubt as to what it is, and I can’t tell you anything more.”
“No marks on the body?” Pitt asked. “Scratches, bruises? Anything to indicate her being held? Wrists? A cut inside the mouth? Anything at all?”
“Several,” Thurgood said thinly. “She was an old woman and she bruised easily. But if she had been forced to take it against her will I would have expected to find bruises all around her wrists. It takes some strength to hold a person fighting for her life, even an old woman.”
“Would you know if you were drinking laudanum?” Pitt persisted. “What does it taste like?”
“You’d know,” Thurgood assured him. “If she took that much, believe me, either she took it intentionally, or under some kind of duress. The only other alternative, and I’ve been thinking about this, is that she took the normal dose. Then, when she was in a half-asleep state, the rest was given to her. If there were some spilled, it could be mopped up, perhaps with a little water, and there’d be no discernible trace.” He shrugged with an air of hopelessness. “Even if there was, it would prove nothing. She might often spill things. She was old and shaky, sitting up in bed.”
“I see. Thank you.”
PITT ARRIVED BACK AT Dorchester Terrace later that afternoon. Already the light was fading from the sky. The footman admitted him and had him wait in the cold morning room until Nerissa sent for him to come to the withdrawing room. The curtains were drawn closed, as they had been the previous day, but she was rather more composed this time, even if just as tense.
“What is it now, Mr. Pitt? Have you not caused us sufficient distress?” she said coldly. “The doctor tells me that you have obliged him to perform an autopsy on my aunt. I don’t know what purpose you believe that will possibly serve. It is a horrible thing to do, a desecration of her body that I cannot protest against strongly enough—for all the good it will do now.”
“It was necessary to know how she died, Miss Freemarsh,” he replied, watching her face, her anger, the clenched hands by her side. “And I regret to say that it was from an overdose of laudanum.” He stopped, afraid she was going to faint. She swayed and grasped the back of the settee to steady herself.
“An … overdose?” she repeated hoarsely. “I thought … I thought laudanum was safe. How could that happen? It was not even kept in the same room with her. We were so careful. It was in an upstairs cupboard and Tucker has the key. Even if my aunt felt that she was not sleeping well enough, she could not have gotten up to dose herself. That makes no sense!”
“What would make sense, Miss Freemarsh?” Pitt asked more gently.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What do you think happened?”
“I … I don’t know. How could I? She must have …” She sat still, unable to finish.
“What?” He did not allow her to wait. “You have just told me that she could not have gotten up to find the laudanum herself.”
“Then … then someone must have …” Her hand went to her throat. “Someone must have … broken in … or …”
“Is that possible?”
“I would not have thought so.” She was beginning to regain a little of her composure. “But I do not know the facts. If you are quite certain that she died of too much laudanum, then I don’t see what other explanation there can be. I did not give it to her, and I cannot believe that Tucker did. She has been loyal to Aunt Serafina for years.” She was staring at Pitt defiantly now. She lowered her voice just a little. “Aunt Serafina used to speak rather a lot about her past. I always believed she was making up most of it, but perhaps she wasn’t. She was afraid someone would try to hurt her, to keep her from revealing secrets. If the doctor is right—and I have no idea if he is—then that may be the answer.”
Pitt waited, still watching her.
“I don’t know what else you expect me to say.” She shook her head very slightly. “Lady Vespasia came to see her several times. Perhaps she may know who would wish my aunt harm. Aunt Serafina trusted her. She may have confided in her. I really cannot help, and I will not have you distressing the servants. None of us knows anything. I will ask them if they heard noises of any sort in the night. And of course you may ask them if anything was found, but I will not have you frightening them with the idea that we have had a murderer in the house. Do you understand me?” She shook herself a little and glared at him. “I will hold you responsible if you have them walk out in terror and leave me alone here.”
It was not graceful, but it was a reasonable statement. If it was even remotely possible that someone had indeed broken in, then she had a right to be afraid.
“I will check the windows and doors myself, Miss Freemarsh,” he promised. “There is no need for any of your servants to be aware that Mrs. Montserrat’s death was anything but natural, unless you choose to tell them.”
“Thank you.” She gulped. “How am I supposed to explain your presence here?”
“Mrs. Montserrat was a woman of great distinction, to whom the country owes a debt,” he replied. “We are taking care of the arrangements for her funeral, and you will not argue with us over this. It will explain my continued presence perfectly.”
She let out her breath with a sigh. “Yes. Yes, that will do. I am obliged. Now what is it you wish to look at? Will it wait until tomorrow?”
“No, it will not. I’m sure your housekeeping staff is excellent. They may unintentionally remove all trace of anyone having broken in, if indeed such a thing happened.”
“I … see. Then I suppose you had better look. Although it is more than possible that they have removed such a thing already.”
Pitt gave a very tiny smile. “Of course.” But if he waited until the following day, it would allow her time to create such evidence, and he had no intention of permitting that. “Now, if you would be good enough to show me all the windows and doors, I will examine them myself.”
She obeyed without speaking again. They went to every door and window one by one, any place where anyone could possibly have gained entry. As he had expected, he found nothing that proved, or disproved, that someone might have broken in. He examined the key to the cupboard where the laudanum was kept, then the cupboard itself. It was all exactly as he had been told.
He thanked Nerissa and left.
Outside in the lamplit street, wind-whipped and cold, he hailed the first hansom he could find, and gave the driver Narraway’s address. He climbed in and sat sunk in thought as they bowled along, almost oblivious of where he was.
In spite of Vespasia’s fears, he had not expected the doctor’s findings. Suddenly the world that Serafina had apparently hinted at had become real, and he was not prepared for it. When Vespasia had told him everything, it had sounded very much like the ramblings of an old woman who was losing her grip on life and longed to be thought important and interesting for just a little longer. He had to admit he ha
d assumed that Vespasia was seeing in Serafina a ghost of what might happen to herself one day, and was exercising kindness rather than critical judgment.
Now he needed Narraway’s opinion, something to balance the thoughts that teemed in his own mind. Narraway, of all people, would not be swayed by fancy.
It did not occur to him until he was almost at Narraway’s door that at this time in the early evening he might very well not be at home. He felt a sense of desperation rise inside himself and leaned forward, as if traveling faster would somehow solve the problem. He realized the stupidity of it and leaned back again with a sigh.
The hansom pulled up and he asked the driver to wait. There was no purpose in staying here if Narraway was out. He could be gone all evening. He was free to do as he wished—even take a vacation, if he cared to.
But the manservant told him Narraway was at home. As soon as he had paid the hansom, Pitt went in and was shown to the sparse, elegant sitting room with its book-lined walls. The fire sent warmth into every corner, and the heavy velvet curtains were drawn against the night.
Pitt did not bother with niceties. They knew each other too well, and had long ago dispensed with trivia. Now the balance was more even between them. Though Narraway was the elder, the command was Pitt’s.
“Serafina Montserrat is dead,” Pitt said quietly. “She died some time during the night before last.”
“I know,” Narraway replied gravely. “Vespasia told me. What is there about it that concerns you? Is it not better that she went before her mind lost all its grasp, and fear and confusion had taken over? She was once a great woman. The cruelties of old age are … very harsh.” He waited, dark eyes steady on Pitt’s, knowing that there had to be something else. Pitt would not have come simply to share grief. “Did she say anything dangerous before she died?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt answered. “It seems possible, even more so than I thought. She died of an overdose of laudanum.” He saw Narraway flinch but he did not interrupt. “According to the postmortem, it was many times the medically correct amount,” Pitt continued. “Miss Freemarsh said that the bottle was kept locked in a cupboard in the maid’s pantry, and was higher than Mrs. Montserrat could have reached, even had she had the key. I checked and she is right. I questioned the lady’s maid, Tucker, and she agrees. I searched the house, and while it is not impossible that someone broke in, there is nothing that indicates it.”
Narraway bit his lip, his face troubled. “I assume there is no possibility she could have accidentally been given a large dose? Or that she deliberately took it?”
“No, the doctor has assured me that it couldn’t have been done unknowingly. And she didn’t handle the bottle herself, which rules out deliberately too, unless Tucker helped her.”
“A killing performed out of mercy to hasten what was inevitable, but before Serafina betrayed all that she had valued?” Narraway asked. “Not a pleasant thought, but imaginable, in extreme circumstances?” His lips tightened into a bitter line. “I think I would be grateful if someone were to do that for me.”
Pitt considered it. He tried to picture the frail, elderly maid, after a lifetime of service, doing her desperate mistress the last kindness she could, the final act of loyalty to the past. It made perfect sense, and yet, thinking of Tucker’s face, he could not believe it.
“No. After having spoken to Tucker, I don’t believe that she would do such a thing.”
“Not even to save Serafina from having the same thing done to her by somebody else, perhaps more brutally? Not a quiet going to sleep from which she didn’t waken, but perhaps strangling, or suffocating with a quick, hard pillow over the face?” Narraway asked. “This would have been gentle. If not Tucker, perhaps the niece, Miss Freemarsh? She could have done it as easily.”
“I thought of that,” Pitt replied. “But I don’t think the niece has any understanding of what Serafina accomplished in the past, or any profound loyalty to her. The possibility that someone else coerced Tucker into it is more likely, but I don’t believe that either.”
“Reason? Instinct?”
“Instinct,” Pitt replied. “But they could have gotten to the niece. That’s possible. And I think she’s lying about the circumstances of Mrs. Montserrat’s death, at least to some degree. There are two reasons I can see as to why she might lie. One, a certain amount of fairly natural resentment could blossom out of spending one’s youth as a dependent, a companion and housekeeper, while childbearing years slip away.”
Narraway winced. “You make it sound pretty grim.”
“It is pretty grim. But it’s better than not having a roof over your head,” Pitt pointed out. “Which may well have been her only alternative. I’ll have it looked into, just in case it matters.”
“And the other reason?”
“I think she has a lover.”
Narraway smiled. “So her life is not as grim as you painted it, after all?”
“Depends on who he is, and what he’s after,” Pitt responded drily. The thought flickered through his head that Narraway seemed to know comparatively little about women. It was a surprise to perceive how having a wife, and also children, was such a large advantage in that sense.
Narraway was watching him, his face grave, an intense sadness in his eyes.
“Poor Serafina,” he said softly. “Murdered after all.” He rubbed the heel of his hand across his face. “Damn! If someone killed her, it means she knew things that still matter. She had all sorts of connections in the whole Balkan area: Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, and of course most of all in northern Italy. She was part of all the nationalist uprisings from ’48 onward. If there’s something brewing now, she might have known who was involved: connections, old debts.”
Pitt did not have to weigh whether he should tell Narraway about the current assassination threat. It was never a possibility in his mind that Narraway would betray anything.
“We have word that there might be an assassination attempt on Duke Alois Habsburg when he visits here in a couple of weeks,” he said very quietly. He did not yet want to tell Narraway what a bloody and violent plan it was.
“Alois Habsburg?” Narraway was stunned. “For God’s sake, why?” He took a deep breath. “Is he far more important than we ever supposed? What does the Foreign Office say?”
“That I have a severe case of inflated imagination,” Pitt replied. “Due, in all likelihood, to having been promoted beyond my ability.”
Narraway swore, with a vocabulary Pitt had not known he possessed.
“But Evan Blantyre is taking it very seriously, and has already given me a great deal of help,” Pitt added.
“Blantyre? Good. He knows as much about the Austrian Empire as anyone, probably more than the Foreign Secretary. If he thinks it’s serious, then it is. God, what a mess! But I don’t understand: Why Duke Alois?” He bit his lip. “Have you considered the possibility that Special Branch is actually the target, and Duke Alois is incidental?”
“Yes,” Pitt said softly. “He may be simply a convenient pawn, the man in the right place at the right time. Perhaps it doesn’t matter who’s killed, as long as it’s done here.”
“But could he be a troublemaker, like Crown Prince Rudolf?” Narraway asked doubtfully. “Socialist sympathies? Does he write articles for left-leaning papers, with dangerous philosophical ideas, or subversive elements of any sort?”
“No,” Pitt replied. “As far as we can find out, he’s a totally harmless dabbler in science and philosophy. If he hadn’t been distantly royal, and with money, he probably would have been a university professor.”
Narraway frowned. “There’s a hell of a lot we don’t know about this, Pitt, and you need to find out damn quickly. How much help is Blantyre being? And why?”
Pitt smiled bitterly. “I thought of that too, but the answer’s fairly simple. He sees the pivotal position of Austria in Europe, and the increasingly fragile threads that hold the empire together. One really good hole ri
pped in it, such as would be caused by a major scandal—something that, say, forced the Austrians to react violently against one of the smaller member nations like Croatia—and the whole fabric could unravel.”
Narraway looked skeptical. “Croatia has caused trouble for years,” he pointed out. “And Blantyre, of all people, knows that.”
“There is something new in it,” Pitt argued. “Blantyre pointed it out to me. We now have a unified Germany, with the strong, energetic power of Prussia at the head. If Slavic Croatia seems to be the victim of German-speaking Austria’s aggression, Slavic Russia will very naturally come to its aid. Newly unified German-speaking Teutonic Prussia will come to Vienna’s aid, and we will have a European war in the making that we might not be able to stop.”
“God Almighty!” Narraway said in horror as the enormity of it dawned on him. “Then guard Alois with your life, if necessary. Use Blantyre, use everybody. I’ll do all I can, starting with finding out what happened to poor Serafina Montserrat, particularly whether she knew anything about this.” His face was ashen but there was a tension in his body, as if every nerve in him had come alive. His breathing was faster. There was a tiny muscle jumping in his temple, and his slender hands were locked rigidly together as he leaned forward. “We have to succeed.”
“I know,” Pitt agreed quietly.
“And Serafina’s death?” Narraway asked. Then, when Pitt did not answer immediately, he continued. “I have nothing to do, at least nothing that matters. Let me look into that. It may be important, but even if it has nothing to do with politics and is merely some miserable domestic tragedy, she deserves better than having it be ignored.”