Bedford Square - Anne Perry [121]
“We’ll ask him. Thank you. Now I’ll go to the study, if you will let me in.”
“Yes sir, of course.” And with slightly shaky steps, Woods led the way across the hall and down a fairly long passage to an oak door which he opened with the key. He remained outside while Pitt went in.
Leo Cadell was slumped forward over the desk, his hands on top of it a trifle awkwardly, his head on one side. Blood from a wound to his right temple spilled out over the wooden surface of the writing top. A dueling pistol lay touching his right hand, two inches from a quill pen, the ink dried. There was also a cushion on the floor near the chair. Pitt bent and picked it up, putting it to his nose and sniffing. The smells of gunpowder and charring were plain. That explained why nobody had heard the sharp report of the shot.
It did not explain why Cadell had not locked the door from the inside, so people would know there was something wrong, and it would not be a young maid, or even his wife, who would be the first to find him.
But then a man capable of the kind of blackmail which had been practiced was hardly likely at this point to consider the feelings of a maid or of anyone else. How easy it is to be totally and disastrously mistaken in one’s judgment of people. Pitt still found it hard to accept, and Vespasia possibly never would. Apparently, even as wise and shrewd as she was, she could be utterly wrong.
He looked at the papers on the top of the desk. Half a dozen in a neat pile were letters and minutes from the Foreign Office; one, alone, to the left of the pile, was composed of pieces clipped from newspapers … probably the Times again, and pasted onto plain white paper. He read it.
I know the police are close behind me now. I cannot succeed, and I will not wait for them to arrest me. I could not face that.
This is a quick, clean end, and I shall not be aware of what happens after I am gone, except that the case is ended. It is all over.
Leo Cadell
It was terse; no regrets, no apologies. Perhaps there was another letter somewhere to Theodosia. Pitt could not believe she had known his guilt.
He looked closely at it again. It appeared exactly the same as the others he had seen. The spacing was a trifle different, less precise, but then in the circumstances that was unsurprising.
There were scissors along with a paper knife, a stick of sealing wax, a small ball of string and two pencils in a holder on the desk. He could not see any glue or paste. Perhaps it had been used up and the container thrown away.
Where was the newspaper from which the words and letters had been cut? It was not on the desk or on the floor. He looked in the wastepaper basket. It was there, folded neatly. He took it out. Yesterday’s copy of the Times. It was easy to see where the pieces had been cut.
He let it fall again. There seemed little more to say. Cadell was right; as far as the police were concerned, the case was complete. For the victims, most of all for Theodosia, it never would be.
The sharp morning sunlight fell through the clear glass of the French doors into the garden. The maid had been too distraught to think of closing the curtains. There was no one in sight. He moved across and did it now, closing the latch on the door and then drawing the heavy velvet across.
He went out and locked the hall door behind him. He must speak with Theodosia. Speaking to the family of the victim, and the ultimate arrest of someone, the shock and anguish of their family, were the two worst times in any investigation. In this one they were bound together in one occasion, and the grief in one person.
She was sitting in the withdrawing room, gray-faced, her body stiff, her hands clenched together in her lap so hard her knuckles shone where the skin was stretched tight. She stared at him wordlessly out of eyes almost black. She was alone, no maid or footman with her.
He came in quietly and sat down opposite her. Not only had she lost her husband, a man Vespasia said she truly loved, and her future was gone, but—immeasurably more painful