Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [44]
“Then explain it to me,” he invited.
Marquand’s eyes opened wide. “For God’s sake, man, are you envious?” he said in amazement. “I can assure you, you could have had as much fun at a singsong at your local public house! More at a good evening in the music halls, pleasures which are not open to His Royal Highness, for obvious reasons. The ladies retired, not that they wouldn’t have stayed, if society permitted such liberty. We drank, probably too much, sang a few songs, told some very bawdy jokes, and laughed too loudly.”
Pitt imagined it. “Are you telling me that you all went to bed separately?” he inquired, not bothering to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
“No, of course not,” Marquand snapped. “The Prince took the woman who was later found dead. Sarah, or Sally, or whatever her name was…”
“Sadie,” Pitt supplied.
“All right, Sadie. I took Molly and Dunkeld took Bella. I never saw the others again. Are you sure that one of the other women could not have killed Sadie? In a jealous rage, or some other kind of quarrel, possibly over money? That seems quite likely.”
Pitt decided to play the game. “Is that what you think could have happened?” he asked.
Marquand stared at him. “Why not? It makes more sense than any of us having killed her! Do you think one of us took leave of our senses—for half an hour, hacked the poor creature to bits—then returned to bed, and woke up in the morning back in perfect control, ate breakfast, and resumed discussions on the Cape-to-Cairo railway?” He did not bother to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“I would certainly prefer it to be one of the other women,” Pitt conceded. “Let us say, for the sake of the story, that it was Bella. She left Mr. Dunkeld’s bed, crept along the passage awakening no one, happened to run into Sadie, who had chanced to have left the Prince’s bed, stark naked. They found the linen cupboard and decided to go into it, perhaps for privacy. Then they had a furious quarrel, which fortunately no one else heard, and Bella, who happened to have had the forethought to take with her one of the knives from the butler’s pantry, cut Sadie’s throat and disemboweled her. Fortunately she kept from getting any blood on her dress or her hands or arms. Then she quietly left again, with Molly, whom she had found, and was conducted out of the Palace and went home. Something like that?”
Marquand’s face was scarlet, his eyes blazing. Twice he started to speak, then realized that what he was going to say was absurd, and stopped again.
“Perhaps you would tell me a little more of the temper, the mood of the evening, Mr. Marquand?” Pitt asked, aware that his tone was now supremely condescending. “Was there any ill-feeling between any of the men, or they and one of the women?”
Marquand was about to deny it, then changed his mind. “You place me in an invidious position,” he complained. “It would be preposterous to imagine that the Prince of Wales could do such a thing. I know that I did not, but I cannot prove it. Dunkeld was presumably with the other woman, Bella, except when he went to unpack his damned box of books, and it seems he can prove it.” The inflection in his voice changed slightly, a razor edge of strain. “My brother, Julius, retired early and alone. He did not wish to stay with us, and did not give his reasons. The Prince of Wales was not pleased, but it fell something short of actual unpleasantness.”
“Mrs. Sorokine is very handsome,” Pitt remarked as casually as he could. “Probably he preferred her company to that of a street woman.”
The tide of color washed up Marquand’s face again. “You are extremely offensive, sir! I can only assume in your excuse that you know no better!”
“How would you prefer me to phrase it, sir?” Pitt asked.
“Julius went to bed in a self-righteous temper,” Marquand said harshly, hatred flaring momentarily in his eyes. “His wife did not see him until luncheon the following day.”
Pitt was disconcerted by the