“I think perhaps I don’t understand it.” She found the tactful answer with some triumph.
“Neither do I,” Charlotte said agreeably. “I don’t care to have to understand music unless I like the sound of it.”
Fanny relaxed. “You don’t like it either,” she observed with relief. “Actually, I think it’s awful. I can’t imagine why Mama invited him. I suppose he’s ‘the thing’ this month or something. And he looks so dreadfully serious about it I can’t help thinking he doesn’t like it much himself. Maybe this isn’t the way he means it to sound, do you suppose?”
“Perhaps he’s worried he won’t be paid,” Charlotte answered. “I wouldn’t pay him.”
Seeing her smile, Fanny burst into laughter, then realized it was completely improper, and hid her mouth with her hands. She regarded Charlotte with new interest.
“You are so pretty you don’t look as if you’d say dreadful things,” she observed frankly, then realized that she had added to her social mistake even further, and blushed.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said sincerely. “I’m so glad you think I look nice.” She lowered her voice in conspiracy. “Actually, I borrowed my dress from my sister, and I think now she wishes she’d worn it herself. But please don’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, I shan’t!” Fanny promised instantly. “It’s beautiful.”
“Have you got any sisters?”
Fanny shook her head. “No, only a brother, so I can’t really borrow anything much. It must be nice to have a sister.”
“Yes, it is—most of the time. Although I think I might have liked a brother, too. I have some cousins, only I hardly ever see them.”
“So have I—but they’re mostly boys as well. At least the ones I see are. They’re second cousins really, but it’s much the same.” Her face became sober. “One of them just died. It was all rather horrible. He got killed. I don’t really understand what happened, and nobody will tell me. I think it must be something disgusting, or they’d say—don’t you think?”
Her words were quite casual, but Charlotte saw behind the puzzled, rather offhand look the need to be reassured. And reality would be better than the monsters created by silence.
Apart from her own need to press for information, Charlotte did not want to insult the child with comfortable lies.
“Yes,” she said honestly. “I should think there’s probably something that hurts, so people would rather not talk about it.”
Fanny looked at her for several moments before speaking again, measuring her up.
“He was murdered,” she said at last.
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” Charlotte answered with perfect composure. “That’s very sad. How did it happen?”
“Our tutor, Mr. Jerome—everyone says he killed him.”
“Your tutor? How appalling. Did they have a fight? Do you suppose it was an accident? Perhaps he did not mean to be so violent?”
“Oh, no!” Fanny shook her head. “It wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t a fight—Arthur was drowned in the bath.” She screwed up her face in bewilderment. “I simply don’t understand it. Titus—that’s my brother—had to give evidence in court. They wouldn’t let me go, of course. They don’t let me do anything really interesting! Sometimes it’s awful being a girl.” She sighed. “But I’ve thought a lot—and I can’t imagine what he knows that would be any good!”
“Well, men do tend to be a bit pompous,” Charlotte offered.
“Mr. Jerome was,” Fanny said. “Oh, he was very stuffy, too. He had an expression as if he was eating rice pudding all the time! But he was an awfully good teacher. I hate rice pudding—it always has lumps in it and it tastes of nothing, but we have to have it every Thursday. He used to teach the Latin. I don’t think he liked any of us very much, but he never lost his temper. I think he was sort of proud of that. He was terribly—I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He never had any fun.”
“But he hated your cousin Arthur?”
“I never thought he liked him a lot.” Fanny considered it carefully. “But I never thought he hated him either.”
Charlotte felt a quickening of excitement.
“What was he like, your cousin Arthur?”
Fanny wrinkled up her nose and hesitated.
“You didn’t like him?” Charlotte helped.
Fanny’s face ironed out, the tension relieved. Charlotte guessed it was the first time the decencies of mourning had allowed her to speak the truth about Arthur.
“Not very much,” she admitted.
“Why not?” Charlotte pressed, trying to hide at least some of her interest.
“He was awfully conceited. He was very good-looking, you know.” Fanny shrugged again. “Some boys are very vain—just as vain as any girl. And he behaved as if he was superior, but I suppose that’s just because he was older.” She took a deep breath. “I say, isn’t that piano dreadful? It sounds like a maid dropping a whole load of knives and forks.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. Just as they were really touching Arthur, the boy behind all the trappings of grief, Fanny had changed the subject.
“He was very clever,” Fanny went on. “Or perhaps I mean cunning. But that isn’t a reason to kill him, is it?”
“No,” Charlotte said slowly. “Not by itself. Why did they say the tutor killed him?”
Fanny scowled. “Now that’s what I don’t understand. I did ask Titus, and he told me it was men’s business, and not proper for me to know. It makes me sick! Boys really are so pompous sometimes! I’ll bet it’s nothing I don’t know anyhow. Always pretending they know secrets that they don’t.” She snorted. “That’s boys all the time!”
“Don’t you think this time it might be true?” Charlotte suggested.
Fanny looked at her with the scorn she felt for boys.
“No—Titus doesn’t know what he’s talking about really. I know him very well, you know. I can see right through him. He’s just being important to please Papa. I think it’s all very silly.”
“You mustn’t monopolize our guests, Fanny.” It was a man’s voice, and familiar. With a light flutter of nervousness, Charlotte turned around to face Esmond Vanderley. Dear heaven—did he remember her from that awful evening? Perhaps not; the clothes, the whole atmosphere, were so utterly different. She met his eyes, and the hope died instantly.
He smiled back at her with a sharp glint of humor, so close to laughter it dazzled.
“I apologize for Fanny. I think the music bores her.”
“Well, I find it a great deal less pleasing than Fanny’s company,” she replied a little more tartly than she intended. What was he thinking of her? He had given evidence about Jerome’s character, and he had known Arthur well. If he had the charity to ignore their first meeting, she was extremely grateful, but she could not afford to retire from the battle all the same. This could be her only opportunity.
She smiled back at him, trying to take some of the sting out of her words. “Fanny was merely being an excellent hostess and relieving my solitude, since I know so few people here.”
“Then I apologize to Fanny,” he said pleasantly; apparently he had taken no offense.
Charlotte searched her mind for some way to keep alive the subject of Arthur without being too offensively curious.
“She was telling me about her family. You see, I had two sisters, while she has only a brother and male cousins. We were comparing differences.”
“You had two sisters?” Fanny seized on it as Charlotte had hoped she would. She was ashamed to use tragedy in such a way, but there was no time to be delicate.
“Yes.” She lowered her voice and did not have to strain to include the emotion. “My elder sister was killed. She was attacked in the street.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Fanny was shocked, her face full of sympathy. “That’s absolutely the most awful thing I’ve heard for ages. That’s worse than Arthur—because I didn’t even love Arthur.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte touched her ge
ntly on the arm. “But I don’t think you can say one person’s loss is greater than another’s—we really can’t tell. But yes, I did love her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Vanderley said quietly. “It must have been very distressing. Death is bad enough, without all the police investigation that follows. I’m afraid we’ve just suffered all that. But thank heaven it’s over now.”
Charlotte did not want to let the chance slip through her fingers. But how could she possibly pursue the less pleasant truths about Arthur in front of Fanny? And the whole subject was in appalling taste—she knew that before she even approached it.
“That must be a great relief to you all,” she said politely. It was a sliding away; she was beginning to talk inanities. Where were Emily and Aunt Vespasia? Why couldn’t they come to the rescue—either take Fanny away or else pursue the real nature of Arthur with Esmond Vanderley themselves? “Of course one never gets over the loss,” she added hastily.
“I suppose not,” Vanderley answered civilly. “I saw Arthur quite often. One does in a family, of course. But, as I said before, I was not especially fond of him.”
Suddenly, Charlotte had an idea. She turned to Fanny.
“Fanny, I’m terribly thirsty, but I don’t wish to be drawn into conversation with the lady by the table. Would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of punch?”
“Of course,” Fanny said immediately. “Some of those people are awful, aren’t they? There’s one over there in the blue shiny gown who talks of nothing but her ailments, and it’s not as if they were even interesting, like rare diseases—just vapors, like anyone else.” And she left on her errand.
Charlotte faced Vanderley. Fanny would only be gone a few minutes, although with luck, since she was a child, she would be served last.
“How refreshingly honest you are,” Charlotte said, trying to be as charming as she could but feeling self-conscious and rather ridiculous. “So many people pretend to have loved the dead and seen only virtue in them whatever they actually felt when they were alive.”
He smiled with a slight twist. “Thank you. I admit it is a relief to confess that I saw in poor Arthur plenty that I did not care for.”
“At least they have caught the man who killed him,” she went on. “I suppose there is no question about it—he is definitely guilty? I mean the police are perfectly satisfied and that is an end to it? Now you will be left alone.”
“No question at all.” Then a thought seemed to flash into his mind. He hesitated, looked at her face, then took a deep breath. “At least I don’t imagine so. There was a peculiarly persistent policeman who made the inquiries, but I cannot see what else he could want to find now.”
Charlotte assumed a look of amazement. Heaven help her if he realized who she was.
“You mean he doesn’t believe he has the entire truth? How dreadful! How perfectly appalling for you! If it wasn’t the man they have, who can it have been?”
“God knows!” Vanderley looked pale. “Quite frankly, Arthur could be a beastly little animal! They say the tutor was his lover, you know. Sorry if I shock you.” It was an afterthought; he had suddenly remembered she was a woman who might possibly not even know of such things. “They say he seduced the boy into unnatural practices. Possibly, but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if Arthur was the one who did the seducing, and the poor than was drawn into it, flattered, and then ignored. Or maybe Arthur did that to someone else, and it was an old lover who killed him in a fit of jealousy. Now there’s a thought! He might even have been a thoroughgoing little whore! Sorry—I am shocking you, Mrs.—I was so taken with your gown the other evening, I cannot now recall your name!”
“Oh!” Charlotte’s mind raced for an answer. “I am Lady Ashworth’s sister.” That at least would make it seem unlikely she had any connection with the police. Again she felt her face scald with embarrassment.
“Then I apologize for such a—a violent and rather obscene discussion, Lady Ashworth’s sister!” A smile of genuine amusement flickered over his face. “But you invited it, and if your own sister was murdered you are already acquainted with the less pleasant side of investigations.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Charlotte said, still blushing. He was fair; she had invited it. “I’m not shocked,” she said quickly. “But it is a very unpleasant thought that your nephew was such a—a warped person as you suggest.”
“Arthur? Yes, isn’t it. It’s a pity someone has to hang for him, even a particularly unlovable Latin master with a temperament like vinegar. Poor wretch—still, I daresay if he weren’t convicted, he’d have gone on and seduced other boys. Apparently, he interfered with Arthur’s younger brother, too—and Titus Swynford. Shouldn’t have done that. If Arthur dumped him, he should have found someone else already so inclined—stuck to the willing, not have gone scaring the sense out of some child like Titus. He’s a nice boy, Titus. A bit like Fanny, only not so clever, thank heaven. Clever girls Fanny’s age terrify me. They notice everything and then remark it with piercing clarity, at the most unfortunate times. Comes of having too little to do.”
At that point Fanny returned, proudly carrying Charlotte’s punch, and Vanderley excused himself and wandered away, leaving Charlotte puzzled and vaguely excited. He had sowed seeds of ideas she had hardly even thought of, and, she believed, neither had Pitt.
9
PITT WAS QUITE unaware of Charlotte’s enterprise. He was so preoccupied with his own doubts about the proof of Jerome’s guilt that he accepted at face value her having gone calling with Great-Aunt Vespasia, something that at another time he would have regarded with sensible suspicion. Charlotte had respect and considerable affection for Aunt Vespasia, but she would not have gone calling with her for purely social reasons. It was a circle in which Charlotte had neither place nor interest.
Concern about Jerome tantalized Pitt’s thoughts and made concentration on anything else almost impossible. He performed his other investigations mechanically, so much so that a junior sergeant had to point out to him his oversights, at which Pitt lost his temper, principally because he knew he was at fault, and then had to apologize to the man. To his credit, the man accepted it with grace; he recognized worry when he saw it, and appreciated a senior who could unbend enough to admit fault.
But Pitt knew it for a warning. He must do something more about Jerome or his conscience would intrude further and further until it upset all decent thought and he made some mistake that could not be undone.
Like hanging: that, too, could not be undone. A man imprisoned wrongfully could be released, could begin to rebuild his life. But a man hanged was gone forever.
It was morning. Pitt was sitting at his desk sorting through a pile of reports. He had looked at every sheet and read the words with his eyes, but not a single fraction of their meaning penetrated his brain.
Gillivray was sitting opposite, waiting, staring.
Pitt picked the reports up again and began again at the beginning. Then he looked up. “Gillivray?”
“Yes, sir?”
“How did you find Abigail Winters?”
“Abigail Winters?” Gillivray frowned.
“That’s what I said. How did you find her?”
“Process of elimination, sir,” Gillivray replied a little irritably. “I investigated lots of prostitutes. I was prepared to go through them all, if necessary. She was about twenty-fifth, or something like that. Why? I can’t see that it matters now.”
“Did anyone suggest her to you?”
“Of course they did! How else do you think I find any prostitutes? I don’t know them for myself. I got her name from some of the contacts I got the other names from. I didn’t get hers from anyone special, if that’s what you mean. Look, sir.” He leaned forward over the desk. It was a mannerism that Pitt found particularly irritating. It smacked of familiarity, as if they were professional equals. “Look, sir,” Gillivray said again. “We’ve done our job on the Waybourne case. Jerome has been found guilty by the courts. He was
tried fairly, on the testimony of witnesses. And even if you don’t have any time for Abigail Winters or her kind—or, God knows, Albie Frobisher either—you’ve got to admit young Titus Swynford and Godfrey Waybourne are honest and decent youths, and had no possible connection with the prostitutes. To suggest they did is just running into the absurd. The prosecution has to prove guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt at all! And with respect, Mr. Pitt, the doubts you are entertaining now are not reasonable. They are farfetched and ridiculous! The only thing lacking was an eyewitness, and nobody commits a clever and premeditated murder in front of witnesses. Hot-blooded killings, yes—out of fear maybe, or temper, or even jealousy. But this was planned and executed with care! Now leave it alone, sir! It’s finished. You’ll only get yourself into trouble.”
Pitt looked at his earnest face above the white collar. He wanted to hate him, and yet he was obliged to admit the advice was fair. If their roles had been reversed, it was just what he would have said. The case was over. It was bending reason to suppose that the truth was other than the obvious. In most crimes there were far more victims than just the immediate person robbed or violated; this time it was Eugenie Jerome—perhaps obscurely even Jerome himself. To expect to be able to tidy up all the injustices was to be childishly simplistic.
“Mr. Pitt?” Gillivray was looking anxious.
“Yes,” Pitt said sharply. “Yes, you are quite right. To suppose that all the people, quite independently of each other, were telling the same lie to incriminate Jerome is quite ridiculous. And to imagine they had anything in common is even more so.
“Exactly,” Gillivray agreed, relaxing a little. “The two prostitutes might, although it is unlikely they even knew each other—there is nothing to indicate they did. But to suppose they had anything in common with a child like Titus Swynford is twisting reason beyond any sense at all.”
Pitt had no argument. He had talked to Titus and he could not imagine him even knowing of the existence of such people as Albie Frobisher, much less having met him and conspired with him. If Titus needed an ally to defend him, he would have chosen someone of his own class, someone he already knew. And frankly, he found it hard to believe Titus had anything for which he needed defense.
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