by Anne Perry
Pitt felt the warmth he saw in Stoker’s eyes flood through him as well. He had not realized how deep the fear had been, how much pain he’d felt, until it stopped. He felt light-headed, euphoric.
Stoker was staring at him, his smile spread wide. “Like to go to the pub, sir? Pint of cider?”
It would be churlish not to. And besides that, yes, he would like it. He would like to spend a little time celebrating with someone who knew the reason and was celebrating as well. He stood up. “Yes, I would. First round is on me.”
PITT WAS HAVING BREAKFAST a little later than usual the next morning, having slept well for the first time in over a week. He had just helped himself to a second cup of tea when the front doorbell rang. The bell itself was in the kitchen, so that a servant would be unlikely to miss it. He glanced at Charlotte, but both of them left it for Minnie Maude to answer. She came back, closely followed by a white-faced Stoker.
“Sorry, sir,” Minnie Maude said quietly. “But Mr. Stoker says it can’t wait.”
Pitt nodded to her, then turned to Stoker. “What is it?” he asked.
Stoker never dragged things out for effect.
“Mrs. Kendrick, sir. I’m afraid her body was discovered this morning. She must’ve got up in the night and…” He glanced at Charlotte, questioning whether he should say this in front of her.
Pitt hesitated only a moment. “What, Stoker? I imagine we’ll all know, sooner or later.”
Stoker’s voice dropped a tone. “She hanged herself, sir. At least that’s what the local police say. She left a bit of a note. Not much, just—‘I deserve this.’ When they questioned Mr. Kendrick about it, he was very upset, naturally, but he told them that when he thought about it, it wasn’t so surprising. He blamed himself that he didn’t see it coming and stop it. Least that’s what they said. Lucky it was a pretty smart sort of man they had in charge. He told them to keep everything as it was, and sent a message to us. I came straight to tell you. The hansom is waiting, in case you want to go there…”
“I do.” Pitt rose to his feet. “My coat’s in the hall. We need to get there immediately.” He gave Charlotte a wordless glance, saw the horror in her eyes, and wished he had the time to talk with her, but there was nothing that would make this better. He smiled bleakly, then followed Stoker along the hall to the door, grabbing his coat and hat as he passed.
It was a silent ride, made as swiftly as possible. Perhaps Stoker’s mind was racing as fast as Pitt’s, trying to fit this new, tragic fact into the picture to make sense of it. They arrived at the Kendricks’ house fifteen minutes later and noted that the mortuary wagon was waiting across the street. There was a constable on duty close to the front door.
Pitt showed his identification and a few moments later he and Stoker were in the large, handsome hallway, facing Inspector Wadham, a fierce man of perhaps forty-five, who looked deeply unhappy.
“Sorry to get you out on this, Commander,” he said. “It may be no more than an ordinary suicide, but considering Mr. Kendrick is such a close friend of His Royal Highness, and that business with Sir John dying like that, I thought you should see it.”
“Thank you,” Pitt replied with sincerity. “Another man might not have seen the relevance. It may not be connected, but I’m afraid it is far more likely that it is…somehow. I see you’ve called the mortuary van. Have you taken her down?”
“No. I’m sorry, it seems indecent, but I thought you should see her as she was. I think the husband was too shocked to do it himself. Either that, or he had enough sense to leave her so we would find her exactly as he did. The police surgeon verified that she’s been dead at least several hours, but I told him to wait to move her until you got here. Know you used to be regular police before you moved over. He is waiting for us in the back-kitchen storeroom, where she is.”
Pitt was startled. “Back-kitchen storeroom?”
“Yes, sir. Only place with big hooks in the ceiling. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty ugly. Husband is waiting in the morning room. Got one of my men with him. Doctor’s waiting, sir.” He turned and led the way across the hall and through into the back of the house, Pitt and Stoker following directly behind.
There was another constable in the passage outside the closed back-kitchen door. A third stood close by. Judging from his demeanor and a large leather Gladstone bag beside him, he was the police surgeon.
“Dr. Carsbrook, this is Commander Pitt, Special Branch,” Wadham said briskly. “What can you tell us?”
Carsbrook looked at Pitt and clearly changed his mind about what he had been going to say, and possibly the manner in which he would have said it.
“She’s still hanging there. From the body temperature and lividity I’d say she did this about midnight. That’s as much as I can tell. I ought to know more after I get her to the mortuary and take a more thorough look.”
“Are you sure she did this herself?” Pitt asked.
Carsbrook’s eyebrows shot up. “Good God, what are you suggesting? A woman doesn’t get up in the middle of the night, go down to the back kitchen, stand on a stool with a rope around the ceiling meat hook, and then kick the stool away by accident!”
“That is not the only alternative,” Pitt told him wearily. “In view of another recent death that appeared to be accidental, I need to be sure.”
Carsbrook stood very still. “The husband? Or are you suggesting one of the staff? There have been no break-ins, nothing stolen. The police have already established that. Or did they not tell you?”
“I am the head of Special Branch, Doctor, not the local burglary squad,” Pitt said sharply. “I need to know, from the facts of the body, the nature of the death, whether you are certain she did this to herself.”
“Then you’d better look at it and let me get the poor woman down,” Carsbrook replied equally tartly.
Pitt walked round him and opened the door. The room was like any other back kitchen in a large house. It was designed mostly for storage, especially of things too big to put in the kitchen or larder: whole flitches of bacon or sides of beef, large sacks of grain or potatoes.
Delia Kendrick was hanging from the largest of the iron meat hooks, set deeply into the lowest crossbeam, about eight feet above the floor. The noose around her neck was made of knotted garden twine, thick enough to take her weight. It was tied in a slipknot such as an executioner would use. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers and her long black hair was loose, half covering her face. An old three-legged milking stool lay on its side a couple of feet away.
Pitt would have liked to have left her the decency of hiding her face from these strangers, but he could not. He walked over and touched her hand. It was cold, and he noticed that there were little bits of skin, just shreds, under the fingernails, but none of the nails was broken. He looked at the other hand, and none of those was either. He looked closely at her face, congested and blue. Her mouth was open, eyes bulging and dotted with the tiny red spots of minute blood vessels that burst when a person struggles desperately to breathe, and cannot.
It could have happened as the doctor assumed.
He turned and spoke to Carsbrook. “Take her down. I would like to see her neck when you get that rope off. And remove it carefully, please.”
Carsbrook came forward and, with Pitt’s help to lift her a little, climbed up on the seat of a kitchen chair, brought for the purpose, and lifted her down. With Wadham’s help, they laid her on the stone floor. Very carefully Carsbrook eased the noose off and laid it beside his bag. He could do so without having to cut it.
Pitt looked at the skin of her neck. It was horribly bruised, but even the most minute examination could not find any torn skin. There was no tearing, no battle. Death had come quickly.
“What are you looking for?” Carsbrook asked.
“There’s skin under the nails of her right hand,” Pitt replied. Carsbrook frowned at him, looked at her neck again, then pursed his lips. “It must have come from some other place.” As he spoke h
e pushed up the sleeves of her nightgown, but both arms were unmarked.
“If you find anything on the body, let me know,” Pitt said. “In fact, let me know even if you don’t.”
“What are you thinking?” Carsbrook demanded. “What are you going to say to the newspapers? I know suicide is a crime, but in God’s name, what is the purpose in telling every prying Tom, Dick, or Harry that the woman was…out of her mind with…I don’t know. Grief? Fear? We don’t need to know every damn thing about one another. Give her some peace.” There was deep anger in his voice, his face, even the stiffness of his hands. Or perhaps it was just pity, deeper than he could deal with, that he dare not express.
“I need to know if she did this to herself, and if she did then I agree with you entirely,” Pitt said more gently. “And I shall issue no statement at all, and answer no one’s questions. But if someone else did this to her, then I won’t rest until I find out who it was, and see they answer for it.”
Carsbrook turned to look at him steadily. “Frankly, I don’t know what you’re doing here at all!”
“Fortunately, you don’t have to,” Pitt told him. “It’s not my concern if she did this to herself, and it’s not your concern if she didn’t.”
“Does this not tell you, man? It’s clear enough, look!” Carsbrook picked up a paper from the floor and held it out.
“Yes, I see.” Pitt took it from him. “It says ‘I deserve this.’ It is not addressed to anyone, nor is it signed. I expect it will be her handwriting, but it could refer to anything.”
“Damn it, man!” Carsbrook’s voice shook. “It’s on the floor beside the corpse. What else could it refer to? It’s hardly going to be that she deserves a new dress, or a piece of chocolate cake.”
“Where is the pencil with which she wrote it?” Pitt asked. “Or the rest of the sheet of paper?”
Carsbrook looked confused. “Well, obviously she wrote it somewhere else and…brought it with her.”
Pitt looked at Wadham. “Please be very sure indeed that you make a point of finding the rest of the paper; the pencil will probably be somewhere near it.”
Wadham nodded. He understood exactly what Pitt was thinking—the note could have been written anywhere, at any time.
“The husband is in the morning room, Commander,” he said.
“I’d better go up and speak to him. Stoker, come with me. Thank you, Doctor.” Pitt walked out of the back kitchen and followed Wadham up the steps and through the passage, past the kitchen and into the hall again. Wadham knocked on the morning-room door and opened it.
Kendrick was standing in front of the fireplace and the embroidered screen that hid the hearth at this time of the year. He turned to face the door when it opened. From the look of shock on his face, he had not expected Pitt. Perhaps he had thought Wadham would take Delia’s death no further.
Wadham spoke first. “Commander Pitt from Special Branch is going to handle the matter from now on, sir, so I will go and see to the other arrangements.” That was a discreet way of saying the removal of the body, and perhaps the clearing up of the scene so the domestic staff could resume their duties, if they were in a fit state of self-possession to do anything.
As Wadham closed the door, leaving them alone, Kendrick stared at Pitt, horror marked deep in every aspect of him, from the pallor of his face to the rigidity of his body. His hands were so stiff, it looked as if movement might break them.
“Must you?” Kendrick said hoarsely.
“Yes, Mr. Kendrick,” Pitt replied. “If I could avoid it and leave you to your grief I would do so. I will be as brief as I can. Would you please tell me all you are able to about this?”
“I suppose it isn’t obvious to you, or if it is, you still have to go over it like some…I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have seen it earlier, and I didn’t. This is a total shock to me.” Kendrick stared ahead of him, not at Pitt but at something within his own vision.
Pitt waited patiently for him to go on.
“Delia was always…a woman of deep feelings…and attractive to many men because of it. I knew all about her affair with the Prince of Wales, of course. It was before I met her, and while I was not pleased, it did not disturb me. It was Darnley she betrayed, not me. And I have many reasons to believe he was very far from faithful to her.” Now he was watching Pitt, trying to judge his reaction.
“It all ended before she and I met, years before. She was a widow when I returned to London from various travels. All was well with us for many years. I treated her daughter, Alice, as if she were my own. She is a very sweet girl. I was pleased for her when Delia arranged a fortunate marriage with a Scotsman of good nature and background, who could look after Alice and offer her a life away from London.”
Pitt wondered what else he was going to say about Alice, or about Darnley, but he did not want to prompt him.
“She is very pleasing to look at,” Kendrick went on. “Fair-haired, and with the most beautiful complexion. She resembles Delia’s father, but not either Delia or Darnley. Unfortunately she also resembles the Prince of Wales, and Delia’s courage and distinction have always attracted a degree of malicious gossip. Marrying Alice to a Scot and so getting her out of sight was a way of lessening it, in fact almost stopping it. Delia told me that your predecessor, now Lord Narraway, was of some assistance in the arrangements. I have no idea what his interest was in the matter.”
Pitt guessed it went back to Darnley’s service twenty years earlier, but he did not say so. He would allow Kendrick to get to his point by his own route, and in his own way.
“The gossip ceased,” Kendrick went on. “But not the blackmail.”
“Blackmail?” Pitt was startled.
Kendrick gritted his teeth. “Not merely for money, for…other things as well. Money I would have paid…Delia would have. But when she told him that it was over, I did not at first understand.” He was staring directly at Pitt now, watching him. He drew in his breath and held it for a moment before letting it out in a sigh, as if he had faced an immense obstacle and yielded to it.
“Halberd was not the man you thought, and what is uglier and far more dangerous, he was very far from the man the Queen believed him to be,” Kendrick went on. “I think the prince knew that, but he would not grieve his mother by telling her. He hoped she would never have to know.” He stopped, still searching Pitt’s face, his eyes trying to judge whether he understood.
Pitt understood very well what he was implying, but he needed Kendrick to say it outright.
“Don’t you understand, damn it?” As Kendrick lost his temper, his voice became shrill, his face flooded with color. “Don’t stand there blinking like a damn owl!”
“I do understand, sir,” Pitt replied. “But in case I am mistaken, I need you to be more specific.”
“He wanted favors that were—repellent! When she could no longer bear it…she…killed him!” Kendrick looked desperate. “Does this have to come out? The Queen would be devastated. If it is in all the newspapers—and it would be—no one could keep it from her. She is old, but she is far wiser than many would imagine. Halberd had no family, but there are many who trusted him. Can’t we bury it all? Who else, in God’s name, has a right to know?”
Pitt was more shaken than he had expected to be. Nothing he had learned about Halberd indicated anything of that nature, but he had been a policeman long enough to know with a bitter certainty that the deepest vices are not just hard to recognize, they can be completely invisible. Victoria would not even have imagined them, let alone believed them of someone she had both liked and trusted.
But had they been true, or were they Kendrick’s creation, in order to justify Delia’s actions?
He must respond now. Kendrick was staring at him, waiting.
“No one,” he said. “You’re quite right, it is far better that we give nothing to the newspapers beyond the fact of her death. For legal reasons alone, it would be unwise to say anything about Halberd. It would only cause speculation
of the most unpleasant sort.” He watched Kendrick’s face and saw the relief in it, even possibly a gleam of satisfaction, carefully guarded.
Was this the end of the question of Halberd’s death? It made sense of both motive and the action itself, the place and the time of it.
“I assume Mrs. Kendrick was not at home, in your company, at the time you told the police she was, the night of Halberd’s death?” Pitt asked. He forced himself to sound courteous, even sympathetic.
Kendrick hesitated. Apparently the question caught him off guard.
“Er…yes. I’m sorry. I was aware that she was out of the house late in the evening, but I truly believed it was an…innocent matter, at least innocent of having killed Halberd. Believe me, I had no idea of his…bestiality. She was obviously ashamed to tell me. If I had known I would have found a way to stop it. I don’t care how powerful he was, or how well the Queen thought of him. She is old and very frail. Edward will be king within a year or two.” His face was pale and haggard with strain, his voice catching in his throat.
Pitt nodded very slightly. It was not something with which he could argue, and he found himself surprisingly sad. It would be the end of a century, and of an age. Whatever the new century brought, there was a familiarity, even a love, of the old that would leave a kind of grief at its close.
“I apologize for misleading you,” Kendrick went on more calmly. “I believed I was protecting my wife from unkind gossip, not from…from the charge of having killed a man, even if she was driven to it by his…brutality.”
Pitt was not certain if he believed Kendrick, but he must behave as if he did. He asked the question that would have come to his mind if he believed him.
“Why did you submit to this treatment from him at all? You could have ruined him, and surely you would have, had you known he had such things in mind? The Queen would’ve been appalled, but you could have handled it so that Halberd would simply retire to the country, claim ill health, and whatever other excuse he liked.”
