by Anne Perry
“Thorne.”
Farnsworth’s eyes widened.
“Jeremiah Thorne? Good heavens. I had my money on Aylmer. I knew it wasn’t Hathaway, in spite of that lunatic scheme to disseminate false information to all the suspects. Nothing ever came of that!”
“Yes it did, indirectly.”
“What do you mean, indirectly? Did it, or didn’t it?”
“Indirectly,” Pitt repeated. “We got the information back from the German Embassy, and it was none of the figures Hathaway had given, which supports what Soames said of Thorne. He was giving misinformation all the time.”
“Possibly, but I shall want proof of that before I believe it. Is he at Bow Street as well?”
“No, he’s probably in Lisbon by now.”
“Lisbon?” A range of emotions fought in Farnsworth’s face. He was furious, contemptuous, and at the same time aware of the embarrassment saved by the fact that Thorne could not now be tried.
“He left last night,” Pitt went on.
“Warned by Soames?”
“No. If anyone, Kreisler …”
Farnsworth swore.
“… but I imagine unintentionally,” Pitt went on. “I think Kreisler was more concerned with finding out who murdered Susannah Chancellor.”
“Or finding out how much you knew about the fact that he killed her,” Farnsworth snapped. “All right, well at least you have cleared up the treason affair-not very satisfactorily, I might add, but this is better than nothing. And I suppose it could have been very ugly if you had arrested Thorne. You are due some credit for it.”
He sighed and walked over to his desk. “Now you had better return to the tragedy of Mrs. Chancellor. The government, not to mention the press, want to see a solution to that.” He looked up. “Have you anything at all? What about the cabdriver? Do you have him yet? Do you know where she was put into the river? Have you found her cloak? Do you even know where she was killed? I suppose it would be by Thorne, because she discovered his secret?”
“He said he knew nothing about it.”
“Said? You just told me he had left for Portugal last night, and you got there this morning!”
“He left me a letter.”
“Where is it? Give it to me!” Farnsworth demanded.
Pitt passed it across and Farnsworth read it carefully.
“Cats!” he said at the end, putting it down on his desk. “I suppose you believe him about Mrs. Chancellor?”
“Yes, I do.”
Farnsworth bit his lip. “Actually, I am inclined to myself. Pursue Kreisler, Pitt. There is a great deal that is not right about that man. He has made enemies. He has an unreliable temper and is acquainted with violence. Seek out his reputation in Africa; nobody knows what he stands for or where his loyalties are. That much I have learned for myself.” He jerked his hand sharply. “Forget the connection with Arthur Desmond. That’s nonsense, always was. I know it is painful for you to accept that he was senile, I can understand that, but it is incontrovertible. I’m sorry. The facts are plain enough. He cadged brandy from everyone he knew, and when he was too fuddled to have any clarity of thought at all, he took an overdose of laudanum, probably by accident, possibly intending to make an honorable end of it before he became even more uncontrolled and finally said something, made some accusation or slander he could not live down.”
Pitt froze. Farnsworth had used the word cadged. How did he know Sir Arthur had not ordered every brandy himself in the usual way? There was one answer to that-because he knew what had happened that afternoon in the Morton Club. He had not been there. It had not come out in testimony at the inquest; in fact the opposite had been said, that Sir Arthur had ordered the drinks himself.
Pitt opened his mouth to ask Farnsworth if he had spoken to Guyler himself, then just in time, with the words on the edge of his tongue, he realized that if he had not, the only way he could have known would be if he were part of the same ring of the Inner Circle which had ordered Sir Arthur’s death.
“Yes?” Farnsworth said impatiently, his blue-gray eyes staring at Pitt. It seemed at a glance as if he spoke in temper, but behind the surface emotion, the exterior that Pitt could see-and had seen so often before he could picture it with his eyes closed, so familiar was it-he saw for a moment that colder, cleverer mind, far more watchful, waiting for Pitt to betray himself.
If Pitt asked the question, Farnsworth would know exactly what he suspected, how far he had moved already. He would know Pitt was looking for the executioner and that he knew Farnsworth was part of that ring.
Pitt veiled his eyes and lied, the fear breaking out in a cold sweat on his skin. Someone could so easily brush against him and push him in front of the oncoming wheels of a carriage, or pass their hand over his mug of cider in a tavern, and he would drink a fatal dose.
“Well?” Farnsworth said with something close to a smile.
Pitt knew if he gave in too easily Farnsworth would see through it and know he had understood. Suddenly he was aware of the possibility that Farnsworth was far cleverer than he had thought. He had never excelled at police procedure; he was too arrogant to take the pains. But he knew how to use the men whose skill it was: Tellman, Pitt, even Micah Drummond in his time. And how many had he inducted into the Circle? Who were they? Probably Pitt would never know; even when it was too late, he might not know who had struck the blow.
He was waiting, the afternoon sunlight shining through the windows on his fair hair.
“Do you really think that it could have been suicide?” Pitt asked as if he were accepting the idea with deep reluctance. “A matter of death rather than dishonor … to himself, I mean?”
“Would you prefer that?” Farnsworth countered.
“Not prefer, I don’t think.” Pitt forced himself to say the words, to act the part, even to believe it himself while he spoke, He was cold inside. “But it is easier to fit into the facts we know.”
“Facts?” Farnsworth was still staring at him.
“Yes …” Pitt swallowed. “Taking a dose of laudanum at all in the afternoon, in your club. One would have to be very fuddled indeed to do it by accident, it’s … it’s bad form. But a suicide would be more understandable. He wouldn’t want to do it at home.” He knew he was rambling, saying too much. He felt a little dizzy; the room seemed enormous. He must be careful. “Where his servants would find him,” he went on. “And perhaps be distressed. A woman servant-maybe that was when the realization came to him of just how ruinous his behavior had been?”
“I should think that it was like that,” Farnsworth agreed. His body relaxed indefinably. Once again he looked irritable and impatient. “Yes, I daresay you have it, Pitt. Well, let go of it, man. Get back to work on the Chancellor case. That is your absolute priority. Do you understand me?”
“Yes sir. Of course I do.” Pitt rose to his feet and found his knees unaccountably weak. He was forced to stand still for several seconds before he could master himself and take his leave, closing the door behind him and starting down the stairs holding on to the banister.
11
Nobby Gunne was deeply distressed by the death of Susannah Chancellor, not only because she had found her a charming and unique person, but also, with an intense sense of guilt, because she was terrified that Peter Kreisler had some involvement in it. In her worst moments she even feared he might have been directly responsible.
She did not see him for at least three days, and that only added to her anxiety and the hideous ideas that danced in her head. His presence might have been reassuring. She might have looked at his face and seen the ultimate sanity in it, and known her fears were ugly and unjust. She would have been able to speak with him and hear his sorrow for Susannah. Perhaps he might even say where he had been that night and prove his innocence.
But all she received from him was a short note saying how grieved he was, and that business to do with it kept him occupied to the exclusion of all else, at least for the present She could not imagine wh
at business he could have as a result of Susannah’s death, but possibly it concerned African finance and the banking which so involved her family.
When she did see him it was because he had called upon her in the afternoon. It was a most unconventional thing to do, but then convention had never bothered either of them. He found her in the garden picking early roses. Most of them were still in bud, but there were one or two open. She had already chosen some leaves from a copper beech tree which were a deep purply red and set off the pink petals in a way no ordinary green leaf could.
He was walking across the lawn, unannounced, a fact over which she would have words with her maid later on. Now all she could think of was her pleasure in seeing him and the brooding anxiety which made her heart beat faster and tightened her throat.
He did not bother with formal greetings, enquiries for health or remarks about delightful weather. He stopped in front of her, his eyes direct and troubled, but his delight in her company undisguised.
For a moment her fears were swallowed up in the inner surge of happiness at the sight of his face and the confidence in him which she had in part forgotten.
“I’m sorry to intrude on you uninvited,” he said, holding out his hands, palms upwards.
She placed her own in his and felt the warmth of his fingers close over hers. For an instant she forgot her fears. They were absurd. He would never have done anything so appalling. If he had been involved at all, then there would be some innocent explanation of it, whether she ever heard it or not.
She did not reply with the cliche she might have said to anyone else.
“How are you?” She searched his face. “You look very tired.”
He let go of her hands and fell into step beside her, walking very slowly along the herbaceous border. “I suppose I am,” he admitted. “I seem to have slept very little in the last few days, since the death of Mrs. Chancellor.”
Although the subject was at the forefront of her thoughts, yet still she was startled to hear him raise it so soon, too soon for her to have prepared what she meant to say, in spite of having turned it over in her mind through every wakeful hour since it had happened.
She looked away from him, as if to some point on the far side of the garden, although nothing was happening more important than a small bird hopping from one twig to another.
“I had not realized you were so fond of her.” She stopped, afraid that she sounded petulant and he would misunderstand. Or was it misunderstanding? Was she not jealous? How absurd, and worse than that, how ugly. “She was indeed extremely charming.” That sounded trite and flat. “And so very alive. I find it painful to acknowledge that she is gone. I should very much have liked to know her better.”
“I liked her,” he replied, staring at the spires of the delphiniums. They were already in bud heavily enough to tell which were the dark blue, which sky blue, and which either white or pink. “There was an honesty in her which is all too rare. But that is not why I lie awake over her death.” He frowned, turning to face her. “Which I thought you knew. You are less direct than goes with your intelligence. I shall have to remember that. It is most feminine. I think I like it.”
Now she was thoroughly confused, and felt the color burning up her cheeks. She avoided his eyes. “I am not at all sure I know what you mean. Why are you so distressed by her death, if it is not offensive to ask? I cannot believe it is pain for Linus Chancellor. I formed the distinct impression you did not care for him at all.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. “At least, I have no objection to the man himself. In fact I admire him intensely. He has energy, intelligence, talent and the will to harness them to a purpose, which is the key to it all. Many men have all the attributes for success except that. Will and discipline can make a man.” He walked another few steps before continuing, his hands thrust into his pockets. “But I disagree passionately with his beliefs and plans for Africa. But you already know that.”
“So why are you so distraught?” she asked.
“Because I quarreled with her the evening before the night she died.”
Nobby was startled. She had not believed him a man to have such a tender, even superstitious conscience. It sat ill with everything else she knew of him. Of course there were incongruities in people’s characters, sudden traits that seemed quite contradictory, but this caught her completely by surprise.
“That’s foolish,” she said with a smile. “I doubt you were so unpleasant as to give you cause to feel guilty, just because it was not resolved. You differed in view about settlement in Zambezia. It was an honest difference. I am sure she would not-”
“For heaven’s sake!” he interrupted with a laugh of derision. “I will stand by what I said to God himself! Certainly to Susannah Chancellor, dead or alive! No-it was a public place, and I am quite certain I was thoroughly observed, and the matter will have been reported to the police. Your diligent friend Pitt will be very aware of it. He has already been to see me. He was polite, of course, but also, underneath the good manners, very suspicious. It would suit a good many people if I were charged with murdering her. It would …” He stopped, seeing the alarm in her face.
He smiled self-mockingly. “Oh come, Nobby. Don’t pretend you don’t know that. The sooner the matter is settled, the greater honor there will be for the police, the press will leave them alone, and no one will need to look too exhaustively into poor Susannah’s life. Although I am sure it was as pure as most people’s; still it is an unpleasant exercise, and bound to offend a few whose lives touched hers, perhaps less than honorably.”
“‘Less than honorably’?” She was surprised, and not sure what he meant.
He smiled ruefully. “Mine to begin with,” he confessed. “The quarrel was innocent enough, not personal, a matter of conviction; but viewed by others who did not know what was said, it might look otherwise. I have no doubt there will be other people who would not care to have every word or gesture examined by the prurient and unkind.” He looked at her with a gentleness touched with humor which set her pulses racing. “Have you not been guilty of foolishness now and then which you would rather remained private? Or a word or an act that was hasty, shabbier than you wished?”
“Yes of course I have.” She did not need to add more; the understanding was complete, without the necessity of words.
They walked a few paces farther and then turned along the path towards the stone wall and the early roses spilling over it. The archway was in dappled sunlight, picking out the flat surfaces of the individual stones, and the tiny plants in the crevices low down where it was moist, ferns and mosses with flowers like pinprick stars. Above them there was a faint rustle in the leaves of the elm trees as a breeze moved, laden with the smell of grass and leaf mold.
She looked at his face and knew he was thinking of the pleasures of being home in England, the timeless grace of old gardens. Africa with its savagery, its gaudy vegetation, so often seared and withered by relentless sun, its teeming wildlife, all seemed unreal in this ancient certainty where the seasons had come and gone with the same nurturing pattern for a hundred generations.
But Susannah’s death would not go away. Law was also a thing more certain here, and Nobby knew Pitt well enough to have no doubt that he would pursue it to the end, no matter what that end might be. He did not bow to coercion, expediency or even emotional pain.
If the truth were unbearably ugly, she did not know if he would make public all the evidence. If the answer proved to be too desperately tragic, if it would ruin others for no good cause, if the motive caught his pity hard enough, he might relent. Although she could not imagine a reason that could ever mitigate the murder of someone like Susannah.
But that argument was pointless. It was not Pitt she was afraid of, or prosecution or justice, it was truth. It would be equally terrible to her if Kreisler were guilty, whether he were charged or not.
But why did she even entertain the thought? It was hideous, terrible! She felt guilty that it even entered h
er mind, let alone that she let it remain there.
As if reading her thoughts, or seeing the confusion in her face, he stopped just beyond the arch in the small shade garden with its primroses and honesty and arching Solomon’s seal.
“What is it, Nobby?”
She was abashed to find an answer that was neither a lie nor too hurtful to both of them.
“Did you learn anything?” She seized upon something useful to ask.
“About Susannah’s death? Not much. It seems to have happened late in the evening and when she was alone in a hansom cab, no one knows where. She had said she was going to visit the Thornes, but never arrived, as far as we know. Unless, of course, the Thornes are lying.”
“Why should the Thornes wish her harm?”
“It probably goes back to the death of Sir Arthur Desmond-at least that is what Pitt has apparently suggested. It makes little sense to me.”
They were standing so still a small, brown bird flew out of one of the trees and stood on the path barely a yard from them, its bright eyes watching curiously.
“Then why?” she said quietly, the fear still large within her. She knew enough of men who traveled the wild places of the earth to understand that they have to have an inner strength in order to survive, a willingness to attack in the need to defend themselves, the resolve to take life if it threatened their own, a single-mindedness that brooked nothing in its way. Gentler people, more circumspect, more civilized at heart, all too often were crushed by the ferocity of an unforgiving land.
He was watching her closely, almost searchingly. Slowly the happiness and the sense of comfort drained out of him, replaced by pain.
“You are not convinced that I did not do it, are you, Nobby?” he said with a catch in his voice. “You think I could have murdered that lovely woman? Just because …” He stopped, the color washing up his face in guilt.