Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [83]
With difficulty, Gracie refrained from reaching out and tripping her. At the moment her mind was busy trying to understand the chaotic emotions she had seen at the dinner table and attempting to decode what Mrs. Sorokine had really meant when she was talking to her father. Gracie was quite certain it had to do with the questions she had been asking all day. She had deduced something, and she was trying to tell them all, perhaps to frighten someone into an action that would betray him.
It was a dangerous thing to do, but there seemed to be something in Mrs. Sorokine that was starved for excitement, however dangerous, or even morally wrong.
Or else maybe it wasn’t excitement, but fear, hidden as well as she was able to, because the man who had done this was someone she loved. Was that why she could not look at her husband?
Perhaps she was brave, and very honest, even at such a cost.
Gracie fetched, carried, and cleaned, still thinking of it. It all made Ada pretty unimportant: just irritating and rather grubby, like the flies that buzzed around the bottles once full of blood.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
PITT HAD A restless night. He disliked being away from home. He missed Charlotte acutely. Since joining Special Branch, he could no longer tell her the details of his cases, which meant she was unable to help in the practical ways she used to when he dealt with simple murders. All the same, her presence, her belief in him, made him calmer and stronger.
The pieces of information Gracie had brought him were extraordinary. They must mean something, and yet he could make no sense of them. He had asked the cook about the port bottles, and she had confirmed that Mr. Dunkeld had brought them as a gift for the Prince. They had contained port of a quality far superior to any that would ever be used in cooking. They had been served at table for the gentlemen. He did not mention the blood. Whatever warnings he gave, she would be bound to tell someone—probably everyone.
He had made inquiries about the broken china, but received no reply. They all disclaimed any knowledge. Similarly, everyone said the Queen’s sheets must have been put in the linen cupboard by mistake, and no one seemed to understand that they had been slept on. They simply denied the possibility.
When he finally drifted off to sleep, it was into a tangle of dreams. The glory of Buckingham Palace was mixed with the stink and terror of the back alleys of Whitechapel, where those other fearful corpses of women had been found.
He woke with a start, his heart pounding, and sat upright in bed, for a moment at a loss as to where he was. There was a wild banging on his door. Before he could answer, it swung open and Cahoon Dunkeld staggered in, his face ashen gray in the light from the corridor.
Pitt scrambled out of bed and instinctively went to him. The man looked as if he were about to collapse. Pitt grasped him by the shoulders and eased him into the single chair.
Cahoon drooped his shoulders forward and buried his head in his hands. Whatever had happened, he seemed shattered by it.
Pitt lit the gaslamp and turned it up, and then waited until Cahoon regained control of himself.
When at last he sat up, his face was blotched where his fingers had pressed against it and his eyes had a fevered look. He was so fraught with emotion his body was rigid and he could not keep his arms still, as though he were desperate to do something physical but had no idea what or how.
He rubbed his hand over his brow and up over his head. His knuckles were bruised; one was torn open.
“It’s Minnie,” he said hoarsely. “She was behaving erratically all day, but I thought she was just seeking attention, as she does. She…she needs to be admired, to draw people’s eyes, occupy their thoughts. Her husband is…” His jaw clenched and for several moments he was unable to continue.
Pitt thought of completing the sentence for him, to prompt him to go on, but decided the issue was too grave to misdirect. He waited, motionless.
Cahoon took a shuddering breath. “At dinner she kept raising