by Anne Perry
“Oh. Yes, I forgot. Well, there must be something you can do!
What do you usually do in cases like this?”
“Ask questions, look at facts, at evidence,” Pitt replied. “But not all murder cases are solved, especially where women of the street are concerned.” He clearly wanted to add “and their customers,” but knew he would never be forgiven for it. It was not worth the few moments’ satisfaction; worse, it would be highly unprofessional. He must rescue himself now, before anyone else spoke. “But people who are lying usually trip themselves up, sooner or later,” he went on a little too quickly. “Crimes like this do not happen without some event first that stirs the murderer beyond his ability to control his obsession.”
“And you’ll look for that?” the Prince said dubiously.
Pitt felt the color hot in his face. Put like that it sounded completely ineffectual. He forced himself to remember the number of cases he had solved that had at one time or another appeared impossible. “And other things, sir.” He forced himself to smile, and it felt like a baring of his teeth. “But I should be grateful for any assistance you could offer, any insight. I appreciate that speed is of the greatest importance, as well as discretion.”
Two spots of dark, angry color appeared on Dunkeld’s sunburned cheeks, but even he dared not contradict Pitt now. The air was electric in the room. One could believe that, beyond the tall windows, a summer storm was about to break.
“Yes,” the Prince agreed unhappily. “Quite. Of course, any help at all. What is it you wish to know?” He did not look to Dunkeld, but Pitt had the impression that he was preventing himself from doing so only with a conscious effort.
Pitt knew he might never have this chance again. “Were there any disagreements at all, either between the guests, or between guests and the women? Candor would be of the greatest service, sir.”
The Prince seemed quite relieved to answer. “Sorokine was in a poor temper,” he replied. “He wasn’t rude, of course, just discourteous in his unwillingness to join in. He seemed preoccupied.”
Pitt forbore from suggesting that possibly he did not enjoy such entertainment and was unable to disguise the fact.
As if reading his thoughts, Dunkeld interrupted. “Before you imagine any finer feelings on his part, Inspector, Sorokine is a man of the world, and quite capable of enjoying himself like a gentleman. I believe he had had some altercation with his wife, and with his brother, Simnel Marquand. He is my son-in-law, but I admit, his temper is uncertain.”
“And the other gentlemen participated more wholeheartedly?”
Pitt asked.
“Certainly,” the Prince answered without hesitation. He smiled for a moment before the memory clouded with the horror of the morning. “Yes,” he repeated.
“You all retired at what hour?” Pitt pressed.
The Prince’s face registered distaste. It was a tactless question, in-delicate. Pitt was aware of it and of the discomfort in the room. But he had no intention of catering to this sudden sensibility. Their delicate feelings were for themselves, as if they had been observed in some bodily function by a prurient stranger. Perhaps that was pretty close to the truth. He waited.
“I did not look at my pocket watch,” the Prince said coldly. “I imagine it must have been something after midnight. Sorokine went earlier.”
“I see. Each of you with a separate woman?”
“Naturally!” the Prince snapped. He seemed about to add something more, then changed his mind. The color was still hot in his face.
“Which of you was with the woman who was killed, sir?” Pitt asked.
“I was,” Dunkeld answered quickly.
Pitt knew it was a lie, both from Dunkeld’s face and from the Prince’s. It was an absurd moment, and equally it was irretrievable.
He saw the Prince’s flash of gratitude and then his mortification in Pitt’s recognition of it, as if he had been caught in an act of cowardice.
“I see,” Pitt said quietly, forcing his expression into blandness, without the amusement and the contempt he felt, although it was difficult. “And how long did she remain with you, Mr. Dunkeld?”
“I didn’t time it!” Dunkeld said with a flare of temper. “And before you ask, I have no idea where she went. Presumably to one of the others, and her death.”
“We know from Edwards, one of the footmen, what time the other two women left,” Pitt pointed out, “and what time the third woman must have died, from the time she was last seen and the state of the body.”
“Then, as you implied before, it must have been Sorokine, Marquand, or Quase,” the Prince said with total despondency. “I suppose you had better find out which one. Thank you, Dunkeld. I appreciate your discretion and your loyalty. You may go. . er, Pitt.”
Pitt bowed his head and went out into the corridor, closely followed by Dunkeld.
As soon as they were beyond possible earshot Dunkeld caught him by the arm and swung him round, almost knocking him against the wall. “You incompetent fool!” he snarled. “That is the future King of England you were talking to as if you were some self-righteous maiden aunt. Who the hell do you think you are to patronize him with your working-class prudery? Do you have any idea what a fool you make of yourself? No one expects you to behave like a gentleman, but at least have the wit to keep your moral judgments to yourself.
Your manners belong in the gutter, where presumably most of your trade is.”
“Yes, it is,” Pitt replied between his teeth. Dunkeld’s face was less than a foot from his, and he could feel the heat of the man’s rage physically and smell his skin. “But I find gutters run in the most unexpected places.” His eyes did not leave Dunkeld’s.
Dunkeld swung his right shoulder back as if to strike him, then seeing Pitt’s unflinching gaze, he changed his mind. Suddenly he smiled, with an ugly curl of the lip. “If I were in your place, I should want to use this opportunity to better myself and earn the gratitude of my future sovereign, so my sons could find a more honorable occupation,” he said between his teeth. “Perhaps they could even escape such employment as the police, clearing up other people’s filth. And my daughters might marry tradesmen rather than their employees.
But obviously you have neither the wit nor the vision for that.”
He let go of Pitt’s arm at last. “You’re a fool. If you really are the best Narraway has, God help the country. Go and get on with your questions. I suppose it would be pointless telling you not to offend anyone?”
“It would be a waste of time giving me orders at all, Mr. Dunkeld,”
Pitt said a little hoarsely. “I answer to Mr. Narraway, not to you.” He walked away, refusing to straighten his jacket from the way that Dunkeld had left it.
But as he went down the corridor he could not stop Dunkeld’s words beating in his mind. Had his sense of disgust sounded self-righteous? Had he shown it where a better man would not have? He did not like Dunkeld, and he had been unsophisticated enough to allow the man to see it, and no doubt the Prince of Wales as well.
And obviously the Prince not only liked and trusted Dunkeld, he seemed to be relying on both his judgment and his loyalty.
Pitt could have shown loyalty as well, and some sympathy for a man who had unwittingly invited into his home-or more accurately his mother’s home-a man who had turned out to be a lunatic. If he had, he would have earned the Prince’s gratitude, and taken the next step up the ladder toward being a gentleman.
Never mind whether he owed that to his children. Every man wants his sons and daughters to have more than he had. Unquestionably he owed it to Charlotte. She had been born into a financially comfortable and socially respected family. Her sister, Emily, had married Lord Ashworth, and on his death inherited his fortune. Her son had all his father’s privileges to inherit. Charlotte had married Pitt, and her son would have the best education Pitt could afford for him, but nothing else.
Dunkeld was right; he could have given Charlotte more than that for her childr
en, even for himself, and had allowed his pride and anger to stop him. He was startled by his own selfishness, and sick that it had taken Dunkeld, of all people, to show it to him.
He was in one of the main corridors now. It was vast compared with his own house. How could he possibly feel so shut in, almost imprisoned, in such a place? He should be proud to be here at all, not longing to escape.
He must learn all he could about the guests, including Dunkeld himself. Narraway was investigating the facts: reputation, financial standing, ambitions, friends, and enemies. Pitt must explore their natures, their angers and fears, their knowledge of one another. One of them had slashed a woman to death. Underneath the courteous, intelligent exterior there had to be a madman driven by a hatred so bestial he could not control it even within the Palace walls.
Pitt spoke to Hamilton Quase first. He was obliged to draw him from a conversation with Marquand, but he could not find Julius Sorokine, and he was not going to address Dunkeld again so soon.
He had something of a plan. It was not enough to give him confidence, merely a place to begin. He sat in a large armchair in the room Tyndale had given him. He was facing Hamilton Quase in one of the other chairs. Quase crossed his legs elegantly and waited. He looked tired, his eyes bloodshot and his skin, beneath the darkening of sun and wind, was mottled by too much drink. He kept his hands still in his lap, but Pitt thought that were he to hold them more loosely, they might tremble.
“Will you describe the party to me, Mr. Quase?” Pitt began bluntly. “From the beginning. Who arranged it? Whose idea was it?”
Quase looked slightly surprised. “You don’t think the murder of that unfortunate woman was planned, surely? Why on earth would anyone do something so. . so stupid? And dangerous.” He had a good voice, stronger than one might have expected from his slightly unsteady air.
“What do you think?” Pitt returned.
Quase’s eyebrows rose even higher. “I’ve no idea who did it, if that’s what you are asking.”
Pitt smiled very slightly. “If you did know, why would you not have told me?”
Quase smiled back with a sudden flash of humor. “Is there some kind of penalty for the first one of us to answer a question? Do we lose?”
“Lose what?”
“The struggle, the battle of wits,” Quase replied.
“Then I have won,” Pitt told him.
“Oh. . yes.” Quase smiled back. “I answered you. Does it feel like a victory?”
“Not at all. Why would we be battling? Are we not on the same side?”
“That depends upon how far we go,” Quase answered. “I don’t know who killed the woman, or why. I suppose I wish you to find out, but there are answers that I would not like.”
“There will probably be answers that no one likes,” Pitt agreed.
“Murder affects far more than the murderer and the victim.” He leaned back a little, as if relaxing in his chair. “We all have loves and hates, and secrets. That doesn’t affect the questions I have to ask, and go on asking until I know who killed her, and can prove it.”
Quase looked at him with mild amusement. There was something else in his eyes, which Pitt found too complicated to read, but it was a kind of unhappiness, as if an old wound were aching again. “Then you had better begin,” he said quietly. “I warn you, I have absolutely no idea who killed her, and still less why. She seemed a perfectly harmless sort of tart.”
“Did she?” Pitt was feeling his way carefully. It was an odd investigation. The victim was someone who was a stranger to all of those who could possibly be guilty of killing her. No one admitted to ever having seen her before. “What was she like?” he asked. “For that matter, what was her name?”
Quase frowned, but there was a crooked smile on his lips. “Sadie, I think. I didn’t actually. . er. . speak to her, if you like? She was not here for my amusement, except most indirectly.”
“Whose?”
Again Quase was slightly surprised. “His Royal Highness’s, of course.”
“Why was she especially for him?”
“Actually, she seemed intelligent,” Quase said frankly. “She had quite a ready wit. Not cruel at all, just very quick. She could read and write, and she had a considerable knowledge of men and of human nature. I mean emotional as well as the more obvious aspects.”
“A courtesan rather than a whore?” Pitt asked. He should have expected that.
“Elegantly put,” Quase agreed. “Yes. She wasn’t actually particularly pretty. I’ve certainly seen many prettier. Good skin and eyes, but otherwise very ordinary. It was her personality, her laugh, her suppleness of mind as well as body. And she sang very well. She really was entertaining.” A sadness passed over his face, and for a moment it was as if his attention was far away.
Pitt winced, wondering how much of what he was saying was the truth and what the omissions were. Perhaps it was the things he was not telling that would have been the most revealing.
“Poor creature,” Quase said quietly. “She was so alive.”
Pitt breathed in and out slowly, suddenly struck by the belief that Quase was speaking not of this woman, but of some other. He dismissed it as fantasy. He must be more tired than he thought. It was getting toward late afternoon and he would not go home tonight; perhaps not tomorrow either. “You observed her very closely,” he said at last.
“What?” Quase looked up.
“You observed her very closely,” Pitt repeated. “She must have been in the room for some time, and spoken quite a lot.”
“No. Just an impression.”
Quase was lying.
“You had seen her before?” Pitt asked. “Perhaps purchased her services on some other occasion? Please don’t deny it if it is true. It will not be too difficult to find out, and then a great deal of other information would emerge as well.” The threat was veiled but perfectly clear.
Quase smiled broadly, but his eyes were pinched with hurt. “A waste of your efforts, Mr. Pitt. I have many vices. I am a moral coward at times. I debase myself to serve men who have higher office than I and lower morality, and I know it. Certainly I drink too much. But I do not frequent the whorehouses of London, or of anywhere else. As you may have noticed, I have a very beautiful wife.” He drew in his breath and let it out with a sigh of pain. “And unlike some men, I find that quite sufficient.”
Pitt believed him. Some sense of delicacy prevented him from pursuing the subject. “I understand Mr. Sorokine went to bed early also. Is that correct?” he asked instead.
A flash of appreciation lit Quase’s eyes and then vanished. “Yes.
And alone, if that is what you are asking. Whether he remained alone or not I have no idea.”
“So there were three women for Mr. Marquand, Mr. Dunkeld, and His Royal Highness,” Pitt concluded.
“It would appear so,” Quase agreed. “I stayed up until they retired, which was around midnight. What happened after that I have no idea. As far as I am concerned the women earned their fee by being extremely entertaining company and making a somewhat plodding evening pass with pleasure.”
“A plodding evening?” Pitt raised his eyebrows.
“His Royal Highness, when sober, can be heavy going,” Quase told him with a flicker of a smile. “And when drunk, even heavier. A bit like plowing a field after a week’s rain. Dunkeld is a bully, as you may have observed. Marquand is good enough, I suppose, although I find his rivalry with Sorokine rather a bore. They are half-brothers-
I assume you knew that. Sorokine himself can be rather a bore because he is absorbed in his own problems, which he wears heavily.
And before you ask me, I don’t know, but I assume they are largely to do with his wife, whose behavior with Marquand is outrageous.”
“And would not tell me if you did,” Pitt added.
“Precisely,” Quase agreed.
“So it was an enjoyable evening? No quarrels? No tension as to who should have which woman?”
Quase lau
ghed outright. “Between whom, for God’s sake? His Royal Highness took what he wished, Dunkeld would choose between the other two, and Marquand would have what was left. If you really need me to tell you that, then you haven’t the wits to find out what the menu was, let alone who killed that poor creature!”
“It is not only what I learn, Mr. Quase, it is who tells me, and how,” Pitt retorted, then immediately wished he had not. He had defended himself, and thus betrayed his need to do so. Too late to pull it back. “Thank you. Would you ask Mr. Marquand to come, please?”
Five minutes later Simnel Marquand came in and closed the door behind him. “I really can’t help you,” he said before he had even crossed the floor. He sat down, less gracefully and less comfortably than Hamilton Quase. He was a good-looking man with an intelligent and sensual face. He dressed well, but without that effortless elegance of a man who, once having understood fashion, can follow it or ignore it as he pleases.
“I did not see the poor woman after I went to bed,” he explained.
“And I have no idea what happened to her. I didn’t see anyone around in the corridor, and I understand you have already accounted for the servants. It seems inexplicable to me.” He spoke as if that were the end of the matter.
“It seems so,” Pitt agreed. “And yet it must be simply that we have not found the explanation. The facts are inescapable. Three women came for the evening, two left, and the third was found dead in the linen cupboard. The servants are accounted for and the only other person to come beyond the kitchen and be alone even for a few moments was the carter who helped the footman carry Mr. Dunkeld’s box up the stairs. He was alone for only a matter of minutes, and was not upstairs in the bedroom corridor. Also, he had not a spot of blood on him when he left. If you had seen the poor woman’s body, you would know that could not be the case with whoever killed her.”
Marquand was pale, his body unnaturally still. It obviously disturbed him that Pitt was so graphic. He had strong hands, slender but with square tips to the fingers. Just now they were clenched with an effort to stop them trembling.