Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [42]
“There will probably be answers that no one likes,” Pitt agreed.
“Murder affects far more than the murderer and the victim.” He leaned back a little, as if relaxing in his chair. “We all have loves and hates, and secrets. That doesn’t affect the questions I have to ask, and go on asking until I know who killed her, and can prove it.”
Quase looked at him with mild amusement. There was something else in his eyes, which Pitt found too complicated to read, but it was a kind of unhappiness, as if an old wound were aching again. “Then you had better begin,” he said quietly. “I warn you, I have absolutely no idea who killed her, and still less why. She seemed a perfectly harmless sort of tart.”
“Did she?” Pitt was feeling his way carefully. It was an odd investigation. The victim was someone who was a stranger to all of those who could possibly be guilty of killing her. No one admitted to ever having seen her before. “What was she like?” he asked. “For that matter, what was her name?”
Quase frowned, but there was a crooked smile on his lips. “Sadie, I think. I didn’t actually…er…speak to her, if you like? She was not here for my amusement, except most indirectly.”
“Whose?”
Again Quase was slightly surprised. “His Royal Highness’s, of course.”
“Why was she especially for him?”
“Actually, she seemed intelligent,” Quase said frankly. “She had quite a ready wit. Not cruel at all, just very quick. She could read and write, and she had a considerable knowledge of men and of human nature. I mean emotional as well as the more obvious aspects.”
“A courtesan rather than a whore?” Pitt asked. He should have expected that.
“Elegantly put,” Quase agreed. “Yes. She wasn’t actually particularly pretty. I’ve certainly seen many prettier. Good skin and eyes, but otherwise very ordinary. It was her personality, her laugh, her suppleness of mind as well as body. And she sang very well. She really was entertaining.” A sadness passed over his face, and for a moment it was as if his attention was far away.
Pitt winced, wondering how much of what he was saying was the truth and what the omissions were. Perhaps it was the things he was not telling that would have been the most revealing.
“Poor creature,” Quase said quietly. “She was so alive.”
Pitt breathed in and out slowly, suddenly struck by the belief that Quase was speaking not of this woman, but of some other. He dismissed it as fantasy. He must be more tired than he thought. It was getting toward late afternoon and he would not go home tonight; perhaps not tomorrow either. “You observed her very closely,” he said at last.
“What?” Quase looked up.
“You observed her very closely,” Pitt repeated. “She must have been in the room for some time, and spoken quite a lot.”
“No. Just an impression.”
Quase was lying.
“You had seen her before?” Pitt asked. “Perhaps purchased her services on some other occasion? Please don’t deny it if it is true. It will not be too difficult to find out, and then a great deal of other information would emerge as well.” The threat was veiled but perfectly clear.
Quase smiled broadly, but his eyes were pinched with hurt. “A waste of your efforts, Mr. Pitt. I have many vices. I am a moral coward at times. I debase myself to serve men who have higher office than I and lower morality, and I know it. Certainly I drink too much. But I do not frequent the whorehouses of London, or of anywhere else. As you may have noticed, I have a very beautiful wife.” He drew in his breath and let it out with a sigh of pain. “And unlike some men, I find that quite sufficient.”
Pitt believed him. Some sense of delicacy prevented him from pursuing the subject. “I understand Mr. Sorokine went to bed early also. Is that correct?” he asked instead.
A flash of appreciation lit Quase’s eyes and then vanished. “Yes. And alone, if that is what you are asking. Whether he remained alone or not I have no idea.”
“So there were three women for Mr. Marquand, Mr. Dunkeld, and His Royal Highness,