Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [94]
‘No,’ Narraway corrected him. ‘She came after me. She was not here when I arrived. I went in and O’Neil and I quarrelled. He attacked me, and I had no choice but to defend myself.’
‘You came deliberately to kill him,’ Talulla accused him. ‘He showed you for the liar and the cheat you are. He got you dismissed from your position and you wanted your revenge. You came here and shot him.’ She looked at Charlotte. ‘Can you deny that?’
‘Yes, I can,’ Charlotte responded heatedly. ‘I did arrive after Mr Narraway was already here, but only seconds behind him. He had not gone further than the hallway. The sitting-room door was closed. We discovered Mr O’Neil’s body at the same moment.’
‘Liar!’ Talulla shouted. ‘You’re his mistress. You’d say anything.’
Charlotte gasped.
A look at once of humour and pain flickered in Narraway’s eyes. He turned to the policeman. ‘That is not true. Please allow her to go. If you can find the cabby who brought her, he will affirm that Mrs Pitt arrived after I did, and he must have seen her come into the house. O’Neil was shot, as you observe. Ask the driver if he heard the shot.’
The policeman nodded. ‘You’re right, sir. Don’t take the lady down with you.’ He turned to Talulla. ‘And if you’d go back home, ma’am, I’ll take care o’ this. An’ you, ma’am,’ he looked at Charlotte, ‘you’d better go an’ find a cab back to your lodgings. But don’t leave Dublin, if you please. We’ll be wishing to talk to you. Where are you staying?’
‘Number seven, Molesworth Street.’
‘Thank you, ma’am. That’ll be all. Now don’t stop me doing my duty, or it’ll be the worse for you.’
Charlotte could do nothing but watch helplessly as another policeman arrived. Narraway was manacled and led away, to Talulla’s intense delight.
Charlotte walked back down the pathway and along the road, dazed and alone.
Chapter Eight
Pitt ceased to struggle. At first, in the heat of the moment, there was no point. He was in the grasp of two burly constables, both convinced they had apprehended a violent lunatic who had just hurled two men, possibly strangers to him, off a fast-moving train.
The irate and terrified passengers who had witnessed half the events had seen Pitt on the platform with the first man who had gone over, and then alone with Gower just before he had been pitched over as well.
‘I know what I saw!’ one of them stated. He stood as far away from Pitt as he could, his face a mask of horror in the railway platform gaslight. ‘He threw them both over. You want to watch yourselves or he’ll have you too! He’s insane! He has to be. Threw them over, one after the other.’
‘We were fighting!’ Pitt protested. ‘He attacked me, but I won!’
‘Which one of them would that be, sir?’ one of the constables asked him. ‘The first one, or the second one?’
‘The second one,’ Pitt answered, but he heard the note of desperation in his own voice. It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
‘Maybe he didn’t like it that you’d thrown the first man off the train,’ the constable said reasonably. ‘’E was tryin’ to arrest you. Good citizen doin’ ’is duty.’
‘He attacked me the first time,’ Pitt tried to explain. ‘The other man was trying to rescue me, and he lost the fight!’
‘But when this second man attacked you, you won, right?’ the constable said with open disbelief.
‘Obviously, since I’m here,’ Pitt snapped. ‘If you undo the manacles, I’ll show you my warrant card. I’m a member of Special Branch.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the constable said sarcastically. ‘They always go around throwin’ people off trains. Very special, they are.’
Pitt barely controlled his temper. ‘Look in my pocket, inside my coat, up at the top,’ he said between his teeth. ‘You’ll find my card.’
The constables looked at each other. ‘Yeah? An’ why would you be pitchin’ people off trains, sir?’
‘Because the man attacked me,’ Pitt said again. ‘He is a dangerous man planning violence here.’ He knew as he said it how absurd that sounded, considering that Gower was dead on the track, and Pitt was standing here alive and unhurt, apart from a few bruises, which were on his