Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [38]
“Yes, sir. But do you—do you think I could have saved Arthur if I’d known?”
Pitt hesitated. Titus did not deserve a lie.
“Perhaps—but quite possibly not. Maybe no one would have believed you anyway. Don’t forget, Arthur could have spoken himself—if he’d wished to!”
Titus’s face showed incomprehension.
“Why didn’t he, sir? Didn’t he understand? But that doesn’t make any sense!”
“No—it doesn’t, does it?” Pitt agreed. “I’d like to know the answer to that myself.”
“No doubt frightened.” Swynford spoke for the first time since Pitt had begun questioning Titus. “Poor boy probably felt guilty—too ashamed to tell his father. I daresay that wretched man threatened him. He would, don’t you think, Inspector? Just thank God it’s all over now. He can do no more harm.”
It was far from the truth, but this time Pitt did not argue. He could only guess what the trial would bring. There was no need to distress them now, no need to tell them the sad and ugly things that would be exposed. Titus, at least, need never know.
“Thank you.” Pitt stood up, and his coat fell in creases where he had been sitting on it. “Thank you, Titus. Thank you, Mr. Swynford. I don’t think we shall have to trouble you again until the trial.”
Swynford took a deep breath, but he knew better than to waste energy arguing now. He inclined his head in acknowledgment and pulled the bell for the footman to show Pitt out.
The door opened and a girl of about fourteen ran in, saw Pitt, and stopped with an instant of embarrassment. She then immediately composed herself, stood quite upright, and looked at him with level gray eyes—a little coolly, as if it were he who had committed the social gaffe, and not she.
“I beg your pardon, Papa,” she said, with a little hitch of her shoulders under her lace-edged pinafore. “I didn’t know you had a visitor.” She had sized up Pitt already and knew he was not “company.” Her father’s social equals did not wear mufflers; they wore silk scarves, and they left them with whoever opened the door, along with their hats and sticks.
“Hello, Fanny,” Swynford replied with a slight smile. “Have you come down to inspect the policeman?”
“Certainly not!” She lifted her chin and returned her gaze to Pitt, regarding him from head to toe. “I came to say that Uncle Esmond is here, and he promised me that when I am old enough to ‘come out’ he will give me a necklace with pearls in it for my seventeenth birthday, so I may wear it when I am presented at court. Do you suppose it will be to the Queen herself, or only the Princess of Wales? Do you imagine the Queen will still be alive then? She’s fearfully old already, you know!”
“I have no idea,” Swynford answered with raised eyebrows, meeting Pitt’s glance with amusement. “Perhaps you could begin with the Princess of Wales, and progress from there—if the Queen survives long enough for you, that is?”
“You’re laughing at me!” she said with a note of warning. “Uncle Esmond dined with the Prince of Wales last week—he just said so!”
“Then I’ve no doubt it’s true.”
“Of course it’s true!” Esmond Vanderley appeared in the doorway behind Fanny. “I would never dare lie to anyone as perceptive or as unversed in the social arts as Fanny. My dear child.” He put his arm on Fanny’s shoulder. “You really must learn to be less direct, or you will be a social disaster. Never let people know that you know they have lied! That is a cardinal rule. Well-bred people never lie—they occasionally misremember, and only the ill-mannered are gross enough to remark it. Isn’t that so, Mortimer?”
“My dear fellow, you are the expert in society—how could I dispute what you say? If you wish to succeed, Fanny, listen to your mother’s cousin Esmond.” His words were perhaps a little tart, but, looking at his face, Pitt could see only goodwill. He also noted the relationship with a lift of interest: so Swynford, Vanderley, and the Waybournes were cousins.
Vanderley looked