Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [107]
She looked away from him, across the ordered clumps of flowers and the perfectly cut lawn, which was smooth as a table of green velvet. There was a gentle buzzing of bees, and now and again a waft of perfume in the sun. “We are not very civilized, are we?” she observed. “The veneer is no thicker than a coat of paint. You would be amazed what hideousness lies underneath such a commonplace thing.”
“It seems Mrs. Sorokine saw through the paint very clearly,” he replied. She had given him the perfect opening.
Her shoulders tightened. There was a small pulse beating in her throat. “You think that is why she was killed? She saw something in one of us that whoever it was could not live with? Or could not let her live with?”
“Yes. Don’t you?” he asked.
“I suppose it is the only answer that makes sense.”
Was she assuming he meant the murder of the prostitute and therefore did not say so, or was she afraid it was other things, a different secret?
“Was she always curious about people’s actions and reasons?” he pressed. “The day before yesterday she was asking a great many questions, particularly of the servants.”
She frowned. “Was she? I didn’t know. I hardly saw her. She certainly made a lot of oblique remarks at dinner, as if she were determined to provoke someone. I thought then it was Cahoon, but obviously it was Julius.”
“Did she speak to you before dinner, Mrs. Quase? Or to anyone else, do you know?”
She considered for several moments before replying. A butterfly drifted across the flower heads and settled in the heart of one. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
“She asked my husband if he had given the Prince of Wales any wine, as a gift,” she replied. “Then she asked Mrs. Marquand the same thing.”
“And had either of you, so far as you know?”
“No. I assume it was Cahoon. If it had been Julius, she would either have known the answer already, or have asked him.”
So Minnie had known about the wine bottles, or else guessed their use!
“Thank you, Mrs. Quase.”
She looked at him curiously. “What has wine to do with it? There is any amount of the best wine in the world in the cellars here.”
“I think it was the bottles she was interested in, not the wine. Did she mention broken china to you?”
“No. Why?” She shivered. “Why does it matter now, Inspector? Isn’t it all over? Poor Minnie asked too many questions, and found out something she would have been happier not to know. I know that is foolish. One can protect people one loves from some things, small mistakes, but not murder. I suppose he is mad.” She looked away from Pitt, over the flowers. “I knew Julius before he met Minnie, you know. I could have married him, but my father was against it. Perhaps he was wiser than I.” There was pain in her voice, surprisingly harsh.
“Was that in Africa?” he asked.
She stiffened, almost imperceptibly. Her voice was husky, so quiet he barely heard her. “Yes.”
He remembered that her brother had died there. Was that the tragedy that touched her now? “And you met Mr. Quase, and married him instead,” he said. “Do you believe your father had some knowledge of Mr. Sorokine’s nature that decided him against your marriage?”
“He didn’t say so. It…it was a difficult time for us. My brother died in terrible circumstances…in the river.” She struggled to keep control of her voice as she turned away from him. “Hamilton was marvelous. He helped us both. He dealt with the arrangements, saw to everything for us. I grew to appreciate his strength and his kindness, and his extraordinary loyalty. After that…Julius seemed…shallow. I realized how right my father’s judgment was.” She stood motionless, her back and shoulders rigid. “Poor Minnie, so strong, so sure of herself, so…so full of passion and spirit…and in the end so foolish.”
Everything she