Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [122]
Cahoon sat very still. His knuckles were white where his hand gripped the stem of his wineglass. “I imagine it is true,” he said, clearing his throat to try to release the tension half strangling his voice. “He is following the trail of detection that Minnie followed, only, God damn him to hell, he is too late to save her.”
“Detection?” Simnel said sharply.
“Don’t be so stupid!” Cahoon said savagely. “If Minnie hadn’t discovered the truth about that woman’s death, Julius wouldn’t have killed her too! Even that buffoon Pitt can work that out!”
“What detection?” The words were out of Elsa’s mouth before she thought of the consequences, then it was too late.
Cahoon turned in his seat to stare at her. He seemed to be considering an angry or dismissive answer, then changed his mind. “It had to do with monogrammed sheets, broken china, and a great deal of blood.”
Everyone around the table froze, food halfway to their mouths, glasses in midair. Liliane let out a little gasp, and choked it off. Hamilton put down his fork slowly.
Elsa waited. She knew from Cahoon’s face that he was going to tell them.
“It seems there was a piece of china broken,” Cahoon began. “Limoges porcelain, to be exact. Quite distinctive. The servants swept up the pieces and removed them…”
“From where?” Hamilton asked. “Not the linen cupboard!”
Elsa could feel high, hysterical laughter welling up inside her and put her hand over her mouth to stifle it.
Simnel leaned forward. “Are you saying it was from Julius’s room, and Minnie knew that? Why would the servants clear it up, anyway?”
A muscle ticked dangerously in Cahoon’s jaw. “No, of course not Julius’s room. It seems that the wretched woman either was killed in the Queen’s bedroom, or else it—”
“What?” Simnel exploded.
Liliane dropped her fork with a clatter.
Olga gave a cry that was instantly swallowed back, and the emotion behind it could have been anything.
“Her Majesty is at Osborne,” Cahoon pointed out. “It would be easy enough for Julius to have taken the wretched woman there—”
“But why?” Hamilton insisted. “It makes no sense!”
“A gentleman guest in Buckingham Palace rapes and guts a whore, and you’re looking for sense!” Cahoon shouted at him, his rage and pain at last breaking loose. “The drink has rotted your brain, Quase. I’m talking about what Minnie found out, not trying to explain it!”
Elsa could not bear it. She refused to believe Julius was the man Cahoon was painting him to be. “If Minnie told you all this, why didn’t you protect her yourself?” she accused him. “You blame Pitt for not arresting Julius sooner, but you didn’t tell him this, did you?”
Cahoon ignored her, but she knew from the tide of blood up his neck that he had heard. “Minnie realized the woman could not have been killed in the cupboard,” he said steadily. “And that the broken porcelain was the key.”
“Did she tell you?” Hamilton insisted.
“No, of course she didn’t!” Cahoon snapped. “I deduced it!”
“Too late to help her,” Elsa pointed out.
“Obviously!” he snarled at her. “That is an idiotic remark, and vicious, Elsa, very vicious.”
She was too angry, too desperate to care anymore if he humiliated her in front of the others. “But true. You knew Minnie, saw her and spoke to her every day, and you knew Julius,” she told him. “If you didn’t work it out until it was too late, aren’t you a hypocrite to blame the policeman because he didn’t either?”
The blood darkened his face. She was perfectly certain that if they had been alone together in that instant he would have struck her. She hated him for Minnie, for Julius, and because of her own guilt over not caring for Minnie. She had not protected her, nor had she been someone in whom Minnie could have confided the terrible things she had discovered. She could not defend herself; she could only attack.
“How does that prove it was Julius?” she asked. “Anyone could have gone along to the Queen’s room, if they knew the way. How did Julius know where it