Callander Square - Anne Perry [114]
“All right!” Reggie’s voice rose sharply. “All right! I didn’t speak to anyone but Campbell. Carlton is as stuffy as hell, and Balantyne is hardly any better, there’s no man in the Doran house, and Housman, the old buzzard at the other end, never speaks to anybody. Campbell’s a pretty useful fellow, and not too self-righteous or scared of his own shadow to do anything. I told him. And he stopped it, too!”
“Indeed,” Pitt invested it with more meaning than Reggie understood. “Thank you, sir. That may be most helpful.”
“I’m damned if I can see how!”
“If it does turn out so, you will know eventually; and if not, it hardly matters,” Pitt replied. “Thank you sir. Good morning.”
“Morning,” Reggie answered with a frown. “Silly ass,” he muttered to himself. “Footman will show you out.”
Pitt still did not know what he was looking for, but at long last he thought he at least knew where to look.
He knocked at the Campbells’ door and asked permission to speak to Mr. Campbell. He was admitted and shown into the morning room where Mariah was writing letters.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said, hiding his surprise.
“Good morning, Mr. Pitt. My husband is engaged at the moment, but he should be able to see you in a short while, if you do not mind waiting.”
“Not at all, thank you.”
“Would you care for some refreshment?”
“No, thank you. Please do not let me disturb you.”
“Did you come to see my husband about the murder of Dr. Bolsover?”
“In part.”
Her face was very pale. Perhaps she was not well this morning, or was the strain of comforting Sophie beginning to tell on her?
“Why should my husband know anything about it?” she asked.
There was nothing to be gained by avoiding the truth. She might even inadvertently help him. Possibly she had learned something from Sophie, without knowing its meaning.
“He was the only person in whom Mr. Southeron confided that Dr. Bolsover was blackmailing him,” he replied.
“Reggie told Garson?” she said slowly. She looked very white. Pitt was afraid she might faint. Was she indeed ill, or did she know something of her husband that he had not even guessed at?
The answer came instantly.
Helena!
An older man, successful, sure of himself, with dignity, power, not free to marry her—was he the lover? His mind raced over a whole new spectrum of possibilities. But why murder? Was she about to betray him, charge him openly with being the father of her child? Had he panicked and killed her in that deserted garden?
Mariah was watching him. Her face was quite still, eyes clear. She looked like a woman facing execution; but a woman not afraid of death.
“Yes,” he replied to her question that seemed hours ago.
“I see,” she stood up and gathered her skirts. “Thank you for telling me, Mr. Pitt. I have something to do upstairs. Will you excuse me? My husband will be with you shortly.” And without waiting for his reply she walked slowly out of the room, back very straight, head high.
It was another ten minutes before Garson Campbell came in. Pitt had supposed him to be only in another room of the house, but he stamped his feet when he walked, as if he had been out in the cold. Yet he did not rub his hands.
“Well, what is it, Pitt?” he asked, looking him up and down with distaste. “I don’t know anything more about Freddie Bolsover that I did before.” He stood in front of the fire, feet spread wide apart, rocking a little backward and forward.
Something stirred at the back of Pitt’s mind, a man he had seen a long time ago and in some different place, a man who walked stamping his feet, even in the summer, a sick man. The picture of the little bodies in the gardens came back, the swollen head of the deeper one. He remembered Helena’s child.