Murder on the Serpentine

by Anne Perry

  Kendrick smiled bitterly. For a moment he turned away. Was it to give himself time to think? Was he really so shaken he had not prepared this beforehand—at the very least, before Pitt came? Was it even conceivable that he was telling the truth?

  Kendrick looked desperately uncomfortable, shifting his weight a fraction from one foot to the other.

  “I…I knew she had a relationship with him, but I thought it was no more than a flirtation. He was aware of her…intimacy with the Prince of Wales, before her daughter was born, and before Darnley…died.” His hesitation implied meaning. “Halberd used his knowledge to make it more than that. She only told me that in the letter she left me.” Now his eyes were hot and defiant. He stared straight at Pitt. “I burned it. I have no intention of telling you what it said. You, or anyone else. They are both dead now. Nothing you say or do can bring them back. For God’s sake, if you have any decency at all, let them rest in peace. They have both paid the ultimate price.”

  Pitt was taken aback, not yet completely believing. For now, he would appear to accept, but he would investigate. He must. He wished desperately that Narraway were in London. He knew them all so much better than Pitt did. He had been in the same social circles and known Delia at the time of her affair with the prince, and he had known Roland Darnley. He was born and bred in the same stratum of society and understood such people. Pitt was feeling so very like a blind man, not even recognizing what he saw.

  Kendrick was waiting for his answer.

  “I will do all I can to make that possible,” Pitt said. Immediately he saw Kendrick relax. The man might not have meant to show it, but the language of the body, unintentional, was almost universal. Pitt understood that very well. Kendrick had been worried, even afraid. Pitt would not forget that.

  He excused himself and went back to find the police surgeon. He had more to ask him. And he would ask Stoker to check in intense detail if Delia could have killed Halberd. He should look again, harder, for witnesses who might have seen a woman answering Delia’s description anywhere even remotely near the Serpentine at the right time.

  —

  CHARLOTTE HAD BEEN PRESENT when Stoker had told Pitt of Delia Kendrick’s death, but she wanted to learn more. She could see that he was moved by it, shocked because he had not foreseen even its possibility and grieved at the manner of it. There was pity in his eyes and in his voice. Even his choice of words showed distress more than merely discretion. But what Charlotte herself felt was guilt. She remembered the face of the maid, Elsie Dimmock, and the fierce compassion she had felt for a woman she had known since she was a child. Closeness does sometimes breed mercy, but there was more than simply long familiarity in her manner. She had seen both courage and pain in Delia, and she was moved by it. Delia had lost a husband, and—cutting far more deeply than that—she had lost a child. She had known both wealth and hardship. Certainly she had known loneliness. Perhaps in striving to be a prince’s mistress, defeat is inevitable. But whatever the cause, rejection is a defeat, and a very public one. It was not as if she had chosen to step aside; she had been pushed, and when she was at her most vulnerable—widowed, grieving for the death of a child.

  Charlotte felt a rush of gratitude for Narraway’s discreet help to Delia, made as if it was a debt he owed, not a charity. It was a grace she would not necessarily have expected from him, and given entirely in secret.

  What troubled her the most was a persistent fear that she and Emily might have contributed to Delia’s despair, and thus to her taking her own life. Everything they knew of her, though, said that she was not a cowardly woman, the last person to give up on life.

  What had happened that she felt was beyond her strength to fight?

  Charlotte said nothing to Pitt, except to sympathize with his weariness and give him something simple to eat. He was not hungry, but he did not refuse freshly toasted crumpets with butter and blackcurrant jam and a cup of hot tea. They both went to bed as early as possible. She listened, held him in her arms, gently, and then after he had fallen asleep, lay awake herself and worried about what she could do, at least to vindicate Delia’s reputation. What could be saved from this wreckage? Anything good? Anything to ease the news for her daughter far away in Scotland? Anything that would alleviate Charlotte’s own sense of guilt? She was certain that Emily would feel the same.

  —

  WHEN PITT HAD LEFT in the morning, Charlotte picked up the telephone to speak with Emily, telling her that she would leave immediately and be at Emily’s house within half an hour. They must talk, and plan. She was relieved to hear in Emily’s voice a trace of the same consciousness of the part they could have played in this, and the acute sense of having been too quick to meddle, too superficial even to weigh the possibilities of doing such harm.

  She walked to the end of the street and found a hansom. In just over half an hour she was sitting in Emily’s boudoir with a pot of fresh, hot tea.

  “Did Thomas tell you what happened?” Emily asked. She looked distressed and very earnest. “Could it have been an accident?” Her voice lifted in hope.

  Charlotte had not told her any details. They were not of the sort one relays over the telephone.

  “No.” She shook her head minutely. Emily looked ready to argue. Charlotte hesitated only a moment. “There is no way one can create a noose, put it over a hook in the back-kitchen ceiling, and hang oneself by accident.” She ignored Emily’s horror. “There are only two possibilities. Either she deliberately and hideously took her own life—executed herself, if you wish to put it so—or someone else very carefully murdered her.”

  “Oh…”

  “I’m not sure which is worse,” Charlotte said after a moment. “I wish I could think it was murder, because that might mean we had no part in it, but if it was, then how could it have been anyone except her husband?”

  Emily’s face was tight, her eyes bleak. “Why would she kill herself? I know people are talking about her, but they’re always talking about someone, and she has certainly experienced it before. Did she really have something to do with Halberd’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. “Thomas didn’t say very much, and I don’t know whether he believes she killed herself. Honestly…I didn’t ask him because I was afraid of the answer. What if she did?”

  Emily looked miserable, but she did not evade the answer. “Could it be anything we said or did, do you think?”

  “We stirred up the questions as to who killed Halberd, rather than letting anyone go on thinking it was a stupid accident,” Charlotte said.

  “Did anyone really think that?” Emily’s eyebrows were raised. “What did people think he was doing there?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether we meant to stir things up or not, or even whether we really did,” Charlotte said very quietly. “We didn’t care enough to think hard about what we said, or what meaning people took from it. Thoughtlessness is not an excuse. We aren’t children, and we both knew what it’s like to be the victim of other people’s gossip.”

  “You haven’t—” Emily began.

  “I’ve seen it!” Charlotte said more sharply than she intended to. It was herself she was angry with, and she would not have excuses made for either of them. They had taken it too lightly, enjoying the involvement, the exercise of imagination, the swirl and color of being in society again. She was not going to excuse herself from blame. Delia Kendrick was dead, and people were assuming it was by her own hand, because she was guilty of having murdered John Halberd. “We have to find out if this is true,” she said. “Even if she did kill Halberd, and then herself, what we did is still wrong, because we didn’t care enough to think first. And if she didn’t kill him, then we must prove her innocence.”

  “You’re angry because you didn’t like her, and now you owe her a debt,” Emily pointed out. She bit her lip. “So do I.”

  “Then we had better think hard, and plan.” Charlotte finished her tea and poured some more. “Where do we begin?”


  —

  IT WAS LATER THAT day that Pitt was contacted by Dr. Carsbrook. It was just a brief note, delivered by messenger.

  Pitt tore it open while the boy waited.

  I examined the body in detail, specifically looking for scratches that could account for the shreds of skin under Mrs. Kendrick’s nails. I found nothing at all, not the slightest abrasion.

  I can only conclude that it is not her own skin.

  I have made a report to that effect. She fought for her life.

  I am obliged to you for that knowledge.

  Richard Carsbrook

  “Thank you,” Pitt said to the messenger. “There is no reply, except that I appreciate it.” He gave the young man sixpence from his pocket, a generous tip.

  It was half an hour later that he was sent for by the Prince of Wales. This time a footman had come, and sat in one of the offices until Pitt was free to accompany him. It was after five and the traffic was heavy. Nevertheless, before six Pitt was ushered into the room where the prince was waiting for him comfortably.

  The prince was standing, as if too restless to sit. This mild summer evening he looked very gray, and all the lines of his face dragged downward.

  “Ah, Pitt! Thank you for coming,” he said as Pitt entered the room and heard the footman close the door almost silently behind him, just a soft snick as a latch caught.

  Pitt had not expected to be thanked. In fact he had imagined the prince would show anger rather than what looked more like grief.

  “It is a very sad occasion, Your Royal Highness,” he replied gravely.

  “I heard only the barest news,” the prince said, brushing aside the formality. “Tell me what happened.”

  Pitt had thought on the journey here how much he should tell the prince, depending upon what he asked. If he had actually cared for Delia Kendrick, then he deserved as much truth as he wished to know. If he had merely used her for her wit, intelligence, and willingness to please him, then Pitt would tell him as little as possible, without appearing to concede anything of importance to a onetime friend.

  Pitt looked at the prince’s face, recalling what he had learned of him in the last few weeks. If it was not real grief he saw, then the man was superbly gifted at affecting it.

  “I am not yet certain, sir,” he said quietly. “Appearances suggest that she took her own life. There was a note that could be interpreted as a confession to her having been the one who killed Sir John Halberd…” He decided not to mention Carsbrook’s message about the skin. It was an intimate detail that would distress, and he did not yet know where it would lead.

  “Suggest?” The prince’s voice was thick with emotion. “What the devil do you mean? Be plain with me, man! And how and why on earth could she have killed Halberd? That’s preposterous! Who suggested anything so absurd? Halberd was a tall man, and fit. Very fit. How could Mrs. Kendrick have had the strength to kill him? The whole idea is ridiculous.” It wasn’t merely denial in his voice; it was genuine disbelief.

  Pitt must choose his words carefully, not just because this was his future sovereign he was speaking to but, more important to him, because the prince was a man who clearly felt a real sense of bereavement, possibly even of guilt for a breach it was now too late to mend, whether he had ever intended to or not.

  “She chose a particularly grim way of ending her life, sir, and the note she left said clearly that she felt she deserved it. But that is not yet proof. I find it hard to believe. Her reason for it is extreme, and I have only Mr. Kendrick’s word for it…”

  The prince’s fair brows rose high. “Do you doubt it?”

  Pitt looked at the prince’s face, and it appeared as if he was struggling to find any answer other than the one Pitt had implied. It was not defense of Kendrick he seemed to want so much as simply a denial of the whole, tragic issue.

  “I question everything until it is proved, sir. That is part of my job. And when someone unexpectedly takes their own life, or appears to have, I need proof before I accept it. Mrs. Kendrick seems to have been a woman of great courage. She had already survived the death of her infant son, then of her first husband, who apparently did not treat her well, then the financial hardship that was imposed on her, albeit temporarily.” He did not mention her affair with the prince himself, or that she seemed to have cared for him more than he cared for her, but he saw a shadow in the prince’s face and thought that perhaps he knew it, if not at the time, then now.

  “Why on earth would she kill Halberd, even if she had the strength?” the prince demanded. He was angry because he was hurt and, Pitt was increasingly convinced, also feeling guilty for what was now irreparable.

  Pitt answered the latter question first. “If Halberd was not expecting an attack he would be unprepared. Whoever killed him took one of the oars and struck him with it, across the head, extremely hard. But with so long an instrument, a full shoulder swing would have great momentum. He was knocked unconscious and left to drown. A determined woman could have done it without great difficulty, especially one from whom he was not expecting any trouble.”

  The prince flinched at the picture painted by Pitt’s words. “I see. But why? Why on earth would Delia wish to attack Halberd at all, let alone kill him? Could it not have been an accident? And she had no idea that she had knocked him senseless and he would drown?”

  “If the quarrel had been very fierce, and she was afraid of him, that is possible,” Pitt asserted, but dubiously. “It still leaves the question as to why she was there at all.”

  “Yes…Why was she? And why would she be afraid of him?”

  “Kendrick said she had an affair with Halberd, and then because of it, he blackmailed her into obscene practices, which she finally could bear no longer, and that was why she killed him…deliberately.”

  The last shred of color drained from the prince’s face.

  “That’s…vile! I don’t believe it, sir. I don’t. It is totally…obscene!”

  “I agree,” Pitt said softly. “That is why I need proof, far more than one man’s word, before I accept it as true.”

  The prince looked puzzled—when he spoke it was a genuine question, not a challenge. “What can you find? What would prove it? You said she left a note?”

  “Only a few words, sir. Just that she deserved it. That could have meant anything.”

  “Sounds pretty clear…”

  “That at some time, she felt she deserved something,” Pitt said slowly, watching the prince’s face to see if he followed the meaning. “We could think she was referring to her death.”

  “How did she…die?”

  Pitt hesitated.

  “How did she die?” the prince repeated more sharply. “For God’s sake, man, tell—”

  “She hanged herself, sir. In the back kitchen, from a hook in one of the beams.”

  The prince stared at him, too appalled to find words.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I would rather not have had to tell you that.” Pitt meant it. For these few moments they were simply two men grieving over the death of a woman they had both known, even if to a very different degree.

  The prince nodded. “I forced you to. Poor Delia—” He stopped abruptly, choked with grief. Pitt saw in his face so many conflicting emotions. He imagined that other memories were running through his mind, other regrets, and perhaps a sense of his own mortality, and surely that of his mother and all that that would mean for him and the world.

  The prince stared at Pitt. Was he wondering now what kind of a man Kendrick really was? That would cause grief as well, and a sense of betrayal. The prince might be used to them, but that did not lessen the hurt; in fact, perhaps it made it deeper.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Pitt meant it.

  The prince nodded, and for a few moments he remained silent.

  Protocol forbade Pitt from interrupting.

  “Er…thank you, Pitt,” the prince said at last. “Please keep me aware of what you discover. I imagine Mrs. Kendrick will be bu
ried as quietly as possible. I could send flowers, but I cannot go myself.”

  “Of course not,” Pitt agreed. “But flowers would be excellent, something very simple. She will know, and no one else will.”

  “Will she?” It was a sincere question, full of both hope and fear. To sit in church, and to obey the rules, or most of them, was one thing. To believe, in the face of actual death, was another. It was beyond knowledge, a leap of faith when one was weakest.

  “Yes, sir,” Pitt said without hesitation. Since the Angel Court affair he had given spiritual matters much quiet thought. Whatever conclusion he came to, this was not the time to acknowledge any doubts at all.

  The prince gave a half smile. “Thank you, Pitt. I’m obliged you came.”

  It was permission to leave. Pitt bowed and obeyed. The footman who had come for him was waiting outside the door.

  CHARLOTTE WAS DEEPLY TROUBLED, not only by Delia’s death but by the manner of it. Had she really believed herself deserving of such an appalling end? Even if she had killed Halberd, surely there were some mitigating circumstances, some pain so deep that to her what she had done was justified? Anger, rejection after hope? Or fear? What danger would Halberd have been to her? Apparently he knew an inordinate amount about a lot of people. Pitt had said that much. Was Halberd blackmailing her? Hardly over her affair with the Prince of Wales. That was common knowledge, and always had been. No doubt those who were interested in such things could have named every woman in whom the prince had shown an interest over the last forty years.

  Was there something else Elsie Dimmock would have told them, but had not?

  Charlotte sat opposite Emily in her boudoir, the sun streaming in through the windows, which were open onto the garden. Birds chattered pleasantly outside and somewhere in the distance a dog barked.

  “Why?” Emily said bleakly. “If she did it herself at all.”

  “Why now is the question we need to answer,” Charlotte replied. “Whether she did it to herself, or someone did it to her, there was a reason it happened. It was something new, or something old that got horribly worse. Either way there will have been a change.”