Buckingham Palace Gardens tp-25

by Anne Perry

  Elsa looked at Pitt, met his eyes for a moment, then turned and obediently followed Cahoon out into the corridor. She did not know whether she dared to hope, or not.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Pitt went back to his bedroom and lay on the bed, but he did not sleep again. He believed Elsa about the Limoges dish, because Cahoon did not deny it. Certainly she was desperate to save Julius Sorokine because she was in love with him, but even so he did not think she was lying. Were she to do that, she would have done it sooner, and to more effect. She would probably have said that he had been with her at the time of the death of one of the women, or even both.

  Would Sorokine have agreed to that, even if it were a lie, in order to save himself? Many men would, regardless of the cost to Elsa’s reputation, and possibly her marriage. Pitt did not think Cahoon Dunkeld would be loath to divorce her for adultery, especially one so publicly acknowledged.

  If Dunkeld had brought a Limoges dish identical to the one broken, that was surely too extraordinary to be a coincidence.

  Was there something in this whole terrible affair that was premeditated? The murder of Sadie? But none of the women had been here before. And surely they couldn’t predict which ones would come. Killing her in such a way was the impulse of a madman. Even were it in some way thought of in advance, how would anyone know she would be in the Queen’s bedroom, or that that particular dish would be broken? It was not possible. That was why Dunkeld had not taken more care to keep his bringing the dish secret, perhaps unpacked it himself. It was coincidence, something that made sense only afterward. But how?

  And the port bottles, at some time filled with blood-there was no proof whether they had come full or been emptied out then refilled, possibly from the kitchen. But if the latter, by whom, and when? How could anyone obtain the blood, and fill the bottles un-seen? There was always kitchen staff around. Nevertheless, it must have been the case: a fine example of opportunism.

  Bringing them full of blood spoke of detailed and very careful planning for a very precise need.

  Was it even imaginable that in some way the murder was foreseen? By whom? Obviously Cahoon Dunkeld. A man does not plan to be insane at a specific time, in a specific way.

  But a man might know that someone else is insane and that certain very particular events will fire a breakdown of his usual control.

  If a man is terrified of spiders, or thrown into a rage by being laughed at, then his behavior is foreseeable.

  A man who commits grotesque, uncontrollable murders is triggered into such action by a certain series of events happening in order. The pressure becomes cumulative, and he cannot bear it. Did Cahoon Dunkeld understand such a weakness in someone, and deliberately design the events that would make it explode? Could any man be so evil? Of course. There was no evil imaginable that someone would not commit. But would Dunkeld be so reckless, here in the Palace? The dangers were enormous. But then so was the prize-if it were the African railway that was at stake.

  The sunlight came through a crack in the curtains and fell in a bright bar across the floor. Pitt stared at it, bewildered. How could a murder help Cahoon in that project? It looked far more likely to ruin it.

  Perhaps it was not the railway that was the prize at all, but something else. Maybe it had to do with Julius Sorokine’s love for Elsa. Did Dunkeld care enough to punish Sorokine for. . what? Pitt doubted they had ever acted on their feelings. And Dunkeld did not love her, of that he had no doubt at all.

  Perhaps it was to free Minnie, and what happened to Julius or to Elsa was immaterial. That was easier to believe.

  Then who had killed Minnie? Surely that was never part o Dunkeld’s plan. Had Julius Sorokine been a far wilder and more dangerous weapon than he had foreseen? What a vile irony!

  And why the Queen’s bedroom? That must have been planned, because that was where the Limoges dish was. Had he always intended to move the body and place it in the linen cupboard, or was that improvisation? Why? Pitt’s mind was racing. If Sadie had been killed in the Queen’s bedroom, by the time she was moved to the cupboard, she would have stopped bleeding profusely. So the extra blood was to fling around so it looked as if she had been butchered there.

  Then it was meant from the beginning, all of it. But again, why?

  And why was she naked? Minnie had been fully clothed. Was the answer that Sadie had been murdered in madness, but Minnie had been killed because in her driving curiosity she had come far too close to the truth?

  Again, an obscene irony. Dunkeld had provoked a terrible murder born of madness, in order to destroy his son-in-law and free his daughter from the marriage. Then her intelligence had made her such a danger that in hideous sanity Sorokine had aped his own lunacy and killed her to protect himself. No wonder Dunkeld now looked like a man haunted by far more than grief.

  How could Pitt prove that? How much did it matter? If Sorokine were guilty of the murders, then he had to be put into an imprison-ment of some sort. That was just. Dunkeld was a man even more evil, in that he had deliberately hired a prostitute with the intention of provoking Sorokine into murdering her, but his plan had exploded in his face, destroying his only daughter for whose freedom the whole tragedy was devised. Surely to live the rest of his life knowing that it was he who had caused her death was a more exquisite punishment than the law could ever devise?

  And what would happen to Elsa? She would eventually either sink into madness, clinging to the delusion that Sorokine had been innocent. Or she would eventually realize he was guilty: a divided man, half of him charming, cultured, someone she could love; the other devoid not only of sanity but of the basic elements of compassion and decency that make one human.

  Pitt could not imagine that Dunkeld would afford her any kindness. Her punishment for falling in love with someone else, the man who had also failed to love Minnie, would be continuous cruelty. He would exercise it both privately and publicly.

  Pitt needed to prove all of it. Justice required it, whether the Prince of Wales liked it or not and, in turn, punished Pitt.

  He must have drifted to sleep because he awoke with a jolt to hear a knock on the door. He sat up slowly, struggling to remember where he was, fully clothed on the big bed. The feeling of claustro-phobia was tight in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Before he could answer coherently the door opened and Gracie came in, carrying a tray of tea. He could see the steam rising gently from the spout of the small pot.

  “Yer bin up all night?” she said with intense concern.

  “No,” he assured her, swinging his legs down and standing. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The stubble was rough on his cheeks and his head ached with a dull, persistent throb. “No,” he added.

  “Elsa Dunkeld woke me at about three, or four. She said Dunkeld brought a Limoges plate in his luggage, exactly like the one that was broken. I mean identical to it. I presume that was the one I saw in the Queen’s room. And also a crate of port as a gift for the Prince of Wales.”

  Gracie poured the tea and handed him the cup. “It’s ’ot,” she warned him. “Why’d she tell yer that? ’Ow’d she know the port bottles mattered, if she don’t know about the blood?”

  “She didn’t, I asked her,” he explained. “She knew about the Limoges dish because she saw it in Cahoon’s cases, and everyone knows we’ve been looking for one by now. Thank you.” He took the tea. She was right, it was very hot. He wished it were a little cooler; he was thirsty for it. The fragrance of it was soothing even as steam. Drinking it would make him feel human again.

  “Then Dunkeld done it,” she said with satisfaction.

  “He didn’t do the one in Africa,” he answered, wishing it were not so. “I think he provoked Sorokine into it. He knew he was mad, and what it was that made him lose control and kill. He deliberately created the circumstances, then altered the evidence so we. .” He stopped. He could not think of a reason.

  “Wot?” she asked. “Why din’t ’e just let us catch Mr. Sorokine?”


  “Because he didn’t want a scandal in the Palace,” Pitt answered.

  “He still needs the Prince’s backing for the railway. He’s taking a hell of a chance.”

  She squinted at him, thinking hard. “If ’e wanted ter get rid o’ Mr.

  Sorokine, why din’t ’e ’ave this murder ’appen somewhere else, anytime?”

  “I suppose because somewhere else Sorokine might have got away with it.” He was thinking as he spoke. “The police would have assumed it was someone extremely violent or degraded. Here we know it could only have been one of three men. There was no possibility of anyone having broken in from the outside.”

  She nodded. “Wot are we gonna do, then?”

  He smiled at her automatic inclusion of herself. Her loyalty was absolute, it always had been.

  “Find out what causes Sorokine to lose control,” he replied, taking the first sip of tea and swallowing it jerkily because it was still too hot. “And then prove that Dunkeld knew it, and deliberately created a situation in which Sorokine would snap.”

  “Then you can ’ang ’im?” she said hopefully.

  “Sorokine or Dunkeld?”

  “Dunkeld, o’ course! ’E’s the wickeder!” She had no doubt whatever.

  “Something like that,” he agreed, sipping the tea again, and smiling at her.

  Pitt went to see Cahoon Dunkeld after breakfast. He had spent the intervening time shaving and making himself look as fresh and confident as he could. Then he remarshaled his evidence and the conclusions it had taken him to. When eventually he spoke to Dunkeld alone, it was in one of the beautiful galleries lined with pictures.

  “What is it now?” Dunkeld said impatiently, facing Pitt squarely, his weight even on both feet.

  Pitt put his hands in his pockets and stood casually, as if he intended to remain some time. “I believe you are an excellent judge of character, Mr. Dunkeld. You know a man’s strengths and weaknesses.”

  Dunkeld smiled sourly. “If you have only just come to that conclusion, then you are slower than a man in your job should be. Is it a job, or profession, by the way?”

  “It depends upon how well you do it,” Pitt replied. “At Mr. Narraway’s level, it is a profession.”

  “I am not so far impressed with Mr. Narraway’s judgment of a man’s strengths and weaknesses,” Dunkeld said pointedly, his eyes looking Pitt up and down with distaste.

  Pitt smiled. “How long have you known that Sorokine was insane? Since he killed the woman in Africa, for example?”

  “I didn’t think he would do it again.” Dunkeld was clearly annoyed by the tone of the question.

  “No, I assumed that, or you would hardly have allowed him to marry your daughter,” Pitt agreed.

  “Obviously!” Dunkeld snapped, shifting the balance of his weight slightly. “Have you a purpose to this, Inspector?”

  “Yes. I was wondering at exactly what juncture you thought he was mad.”

  Suddenly Dunkeld was guarded. He sensed danger, although he could not place it. “Does it matter? Sorokine is guilty. The details will probably always be obscure. Your job is to tidy it up in the best, most just, and most discreet way that you can.”

  “How did you know it was Sorokine?” Pitt pursued. “Given that you are a good judge of character, what did you see that I missed?”

  Dunkeld smiled. “Are you trying to flatter me, Inspector? Clumsy, and you have based it upon a wrong assumption. I do not care what you think.”

  “I am trying to learn,” Pitt said as innocently as he could.

  Dunkeld angered him more than anyone else he could remember.

  Even understanding his weaknesses, his driving need to belong to a class in which he was not born, his general need for admiration, even the bitter loss of his daughter, Pitt still could not like him. “People who kill compulsively,” Pitt went on, “insanely, are triggered into the act by some event, or accumulation of events, which breaks their normal control, so most of the time they appear as sane as anyone else.

  But I imagine you have realized that.”

  “I have,” Dunkeld agreed. He could hardly deny it. “You seem to be stating the obvious-again.”

  “What was it that triggered Sorokine?”

  Dunkeld blinked.

  “Don’t you know?” Pitt invested his voice with surprise. “What was the woman like, the one he killed in Africa?”

  Dunkeld thought for a moment. “Another whore, I believe,” he said casually. “Not young, into her late twenties, not particularly handsome, but with a fine figure. A certain degree of intelligence, I heard, and a quick tongue. A woman who could entertain as well as merely. .” He did not bother to finish.

  “Like Sadie,” Pitt concluded.

  Dunkeld’s contempt was too great for him to conceal. “You seem to have arrived at an understanding at last,” he observed sarcastically.

  Pitt gave a very slight shrug. “Did you realize this before, or after, you hired Sadie to come here and entertain the gentlemen of the party?”

  Dunkeld’s temper flared, his eyes bright and hot. “Are you suggesting I knew, and allowed it to happen?”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Pitt inquired, meeting Dunkeld’s glare. “Unless it was deliberately to get rid of a son-in-law you dislike, and allow your daughter her freedom.”

  Dunkeld drew in a deep breath, shifting his weight again. “And you think I would allow a woman to be killed for that?”

  Pitt remained motionless. “Do you believe he would have gone on killing, every time the same set of circumstances arose?” he inquired with no edge to his voice.

  Dunkeld considered his answer before he gave it. “Do such men usually stop, if no one prevents them?” he countered.

  “Not in my experience,” Pitt replied.

  “Then to ensure he was caught, it is desperate perhaps, but better than allowing him to continue,” Dunkeld reasoned. “You did not catch him.”

  “I was not in Africa.”

  “Your arrogance is amazing!” Dunkeld almost laughed. “And do you suppose if you had been, that you would have done any better?

  For God’s sake, man, enclosed in the Palace, with only three of us to choose from, you still couldn’t do it!”

  “Is the Limoges china part of his. . obsession?” Pitt asked.

  “I’ve already told you, that was a favor to His Royal Highness, and has nothing to do with Sorokine,” Dunkeld said huskily. “Now you will have to deduce the rest for yourself, or remain in ignorance. I have a vast amount of arrangements to make. In spite of my daughter’s death, the railway will still proceed, and now I must make up for Sorokine’s loss, and find someone to take his place. I imagine I shall not see you again. Good day.” And without waiting for Pitt to reply, he turned and strode away.

  Narraway arrived a little before ten, looking tired and unhappy. His face was deeply lined, accentuating the immaculacy of his clothing. He told Pitt immediately what he had learned, sum-marizing the murder in Cape Town by likening it to the death of Sadie. There was no more information of significance about Julius Sorokine.

  They were alone in Pitt’s room. The sun was bright beyond the window, the air enclosed and stale. Narraway sat opposite Pitt, his legs crossed.

  Pitt heard nothing that surprised him, but he realized he had been hoping there would be. It was unprofessional to dislike a man deeply enough to wish him guilty of such a crime. Likewise, he felt guilty that he liked Julius-or perhaps it was Elsa he liked, because she was vulnerable, and trying so hard to find her courage. There was something about her that reminded him of Charlotte. It was possibly no more than a way of turning her head, a certain squareness of her shoulders, but it was enough to waken a response in him and make him want to protect her. Disillusionment was one of the deepest of human wounds.

  “The similarity is too close to be coincidence,” Narraway said finally. “Whoever killed the woman in Cape Town also killed Sadie, and Minnie Sorokine as well. Presumably in her case it was
because she knew who he was, and threatened him. He will have mimicked his usual style either from compulsion, or to make it obvious it was the same hand who did it.”

  “Compulsion,” Pitt replied. “It doesn’t matter whether it was the same hand or not; in neither case would it protect him. And although she was a lady, there was apparently a good deal of the whore in her, at least outwardly.”

  Narraway looked at him sharply. “Are you saying she worked out that the Limoges dish was broken, and that it mattered?”

  “And that it was replaced.” Pitt told him about Elsa’s visit to him, and her story of having seen an exact duplicate in Dunkeld’s cases.

  “And do you believe her?” Narraway asked with slight skepticism.

  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Don’t you think, setting personalities and dislikes apart, that the shards were probably something else, and that the dish in the Queen’s room was never broken in the first place? Elsa Dunkeld probably has far more grounds for hating her husband than you do.”

  “If it was irrelevant, then why did the Prince of Wales lie about it?” Pitt retorted. “Tyndale refused to discuss it, and now Dunkeld says he brought one, but as a personal favor to the Prince, and his honor prevents him explaining to us why.”

  Narraway pulled a very slight face of distaste. “Because it is something foolish and rather grubby, and they find it embarrassing,” he said regretfully.

  Pitt was unsatisfied. “I want to go through it one more time, step by step.”

  “If you wish,” Narraway conceded. “But only once. Then we must act.”

  After Gracie had left Pitt with his tea, she returned temporarily to her regular duties. As soon as breakfast was finished, she and Ada began the tidying up and changing the linen. She wanted to investigate the one thing that continued to arouse her curiosity. She had cleaned Cahoon Dunkeld’s bedroom and dressing room every morning since she had been here.

  Where were the books that were supposed to have come in the box in the middle of the night? There were no more than half a dozen in Mr. Dunkeld’s quarters, nor were there many more in the other rooms.