Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [119]
His mind was racing—on fire.
Who had? Certainly not the Prince. He had still been slow-moving with the remnants of a drunken hangover when Pitt had seen him the morning after. The answer was obvious: Cahoon Dunkeld. The Prince had woken to a horror almost beyond belief: Not only was there a dead woman beside him, but he was in his mother’s bed. He must have been hysterical. He had sent for Dunkeld, who had come instantly and done all he could to contain the situation, disguise it, and even find someone to blame—his son-in-law, Julius Sorokine, whom he hated anyway: for not loving Minnie, and perhaps for taking Elsa’s love, real or imagined.
And of course the Prince’s debt to Dunkeld could never be paid. Even all the support he could give for the Cape-to-Cairo railway would be a small thing in comparison with what Dunkeld had done for him. It was the most brilliant piece of opportunism Pitt had ever seen. He despised Dunkeld’s morality, and at the same time admired his nerve and his invention.
Did Minnie Sorokine have any idea how her father had used the crime?
And if the Prince of Wales was guilty, what could be done about it? Even as the question formed in Pitt’s mind, he knew the answer. The Prince would be put away quietly. They would claim some illness for him—perhaps typhoid, like his father! There would be no scandal. As with Julius Sorokine, he would simply disappear. There would be a tragic notice of his death. No one would ever know the full truth.
He thanked the Princess and walked out of the room, his mouth dry, his legs trembling, hands slick with sweat and yet cold.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
SIMNEL MARQUAND LOOKED exhausted, as if there were nothing of life or passion left inside him. He was in the yellow sitting room with Elsa. They stood side by side, staring through the high windows at the formal gardens in their bright, rigid beauty.
“God knows!” he said bitterly. “Personally I think the man is totally incompetent. If he were worth anything, Minnie would still be alive.” The pain in his voice was lacerating.
Elsa avoided looking at him. To do so would be intrusive, like watching someone whose bodily functions were out of control. And yet she was angry with him for blaming Pitt. “What would you have done?” she asked him, her voice almost level in spite of the pitch of her own emotions.
“I wouldn’t have spent my time infuriating the Prince of Wales, and the entire staff, about some damn plate!” He almost choked on the words. “The man’s a buffoon!”
It was really Julius she was trying to defend, but she spoke as if it were Pitt. “What could he have read from the evidence? There was nothing to prove who killed the woman, or even why anyone should want to.”
“Minnie worked it out!” he shouted in accusation. “She deduced it from the evidence.”
“What evidence?” Now she swung round to face him, as hurt and desperate as he was. The only difference between them was that Minnie, whom he had loved, was dead, and Julius was still alive, at least for a short while longer.
He did not answer. There were shadows around his eyes and the skin there was puffy, as if he were ill. She knew he had been obsessed with Minnie, beyond his ability to control it. She had seen men be like that over gambling, growing to hate it and yet unable to stop until they had lost everything.
Would she lose everything when they took Julius away and shut him up for the rest of his life? Was he really the man she thought she knew and loved, or a creature that existed only in her own hungers?
It was absurd, she and Simnel standing together in this beautiful room, total strangers at heart, attacking each other, while suffering the same pain.
“If you knew he was going to kill Minnie, why didn’t you do something yourself?” she asked. It was a cruel question, but he deserved it for accepting so quickly and so blindly that Julius was guilty. Julius was his brother! He should have had some loyalty, whether they were rivals or not. Minnie had destroyed his judgment, the things in him that were best.