Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [133]
“Yer bin up all night?” she said with intense concern.
“No,” he assured her, swinging his legs down and standing. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The stubble was rough on his cheeks and his head ached with a dull, persistent throb. “No,” he added.
“Elsa Dunkeld woke me at about three, or four. She said Dunkeld brought a Limoges plate in his luggage, exactly like the one that was broken. I mean identical to it. I presume that was the one I saw in the Queen’s room. And also a crate of port as a gift for the Prince of Wales.”
Gracie poured the tea and handed him the cup. “It’s ’ot,” she warned him. “Why’d she tell yer that? ’Ow’d she know the port bottles mattered, if she don’t know about the blood?”
“She didn’t, I asked her,” he explained. “She knew about the Limoges dish because she saw it in Cahoon’s cases, and everyone knows we’ve been looking for one by now. Thank you.” He took the tea. She was right, it was very hot. He wished it were a little cooler; he was thirsty for it. The fragrance of it was soothing even as steam. Drinking it would make him feel human again.
“Then Dunkeld done it,” she said with satisfaction.
“He didn’t do the one in Africa,” he answered, wishing it were not so. “I think he provoked Sorokine into it. He knew he was mad, and what it was that made him lose control and kill. He deliberately created the circumstances, then altered the evidence so we…” He stopped. He could not think of a reason.
“Wot?” she asked. “Why din’t ’e just let us catch Mr. Sorokine?”
“Because he didn’t want a scandal in the Palace,” Pitt answered. “He still needs the Prince’s backing for the railway. He’s taking a hell of a chance.”
She squinted at him, thinking hard. “If ’e wanted ter get rid o’ Mr. Sorokine, why din’t ’e ’ave this murder ’appen somewhere else, anytime?”
“I suppose because somewhere else Sorokine might have got away with it.” He was thinking as he spoke. “The police would have assumed it was someone extremely violent or degraded. Here we know it could only have been one of three men. There was no possibility of anyone having broken in from the outside.”
She nodded. “Wot are we gonna do, then?”
He smiled at her automatic inclusion of herself. Her loyalty was absolute, it always had been.
“Find out what causes Sorokine to lose control,” he replied, taking the first sip of tea and swallowing it jerkily because it was still too hot. “And then prove that Dunkeld knew it, and deliberately created a situation in which Sorokine would snap.”
“Then you can ’ang ’im?” she said hopefully.
“Sorokine or Dunkeld?”
“Dunkeld, o’ course! ’E’s the wickeder!” She had no doubt whatever.
“Something like that,” he agreed, sipping the tea again, and smiling at her.
PITT WENT TO see Cahoon Dunkeld after breakfast. He had spent the intervening time shaving and making himself look as fresh and confident as he could. Then he remarshaled his evidence and the conclusions it had taken him to. When eventually he spoke to Dunkeld alone, it was in one of the beautiful galleries lined with pictures.
“What is it now?” Dunkeld said impatiently, facing Pitt squarely, his weight even on both feet.
Pitt put his hands in his pockets and stood casually, as if he intended to remain some time. “I believe you are an excellent judge of character, Mr. Dunkeld. You know a man’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Dunkeld smiled sourly. “If you have only just come to that conclusion, then you are slower than a man in your job should be. Is it a job, or profession, by the way?”
“It depends upon how well you do it,” Pitt replied. “At Mr. Narraway’s level, it is a profession.”
“I am not so far impressed with Mr. Narraway’s judgment of a man’s strengths and weaknesses,” Dunkeld said pointedly, his eyes looking Pitt up and down with distaste.
Pitt smiled. “How long have you known that Sorokine was insane? Since he killed the woman in Africa, for example?