Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [36]
Pitt remembered other dowagers he had met who ruled their families with relentless threats of imminent collapse. Charlotte’s grandmother was a fearsome old lady who could cast a gloom on almost any family proceedings with a catalogue of the ingratitude she suffered at their hands.
“Perhaps I’d better see her next,” he remarked, offering his hand to the doctor. “Thank you.”
Treves shook it with a firm grip. “Good luck,” he said shortly, and his face conveyed his disbelief in it.
Pitt dispatched a note about digitalis to Stripe in the servants’ hall, and set about the next duty. He asked the footman to take him to Mrs. March.
She was still downstairs in the hot-pink boudoir, and in spite of the extremely pleasant early afternoon there was a fire burning strongly in the grate, making the room stuffy—quite unlike the rest of the house, where the windows were thrown open.
She was lying on the chaise longue, a tray of tea on a rosewood table beside her, also an ornate glass bottle of smelling salts. She clutched a handkerchief to her cheek as if she were about to burst into weeping.
The room was crowded with furniture and drapery, and Pitt found it almost robbed him of breath, closing in on him. But the old woman’s eyes over her fat hand, shining with rings, were as cold as chips of stone.
“I presume you are the policeman,” she said with distaste.
“Yes, ma’am.” She did not offer him a seat, and he did not invite rebuff by taking one unasked.
“I suppose you’ll be poking your nose into everybody’s affairs, and asking a lot of impertinent questions,” she went on, eyeing his wild hair and bulging pockets.
He disliked her immediately, and George’s white face was too recent a vision for his usual self-control.
“I hope also to ask some pertinent ones,” he answered. “I intend to discover who murdered George.” He used the word murder deliberately, turning its harshness on his tongue.
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, you’ll be a fool if you can’t do that! But then I daresay you are a fool.”
He stared back at her without a flicker. “I presume there has been no intruder in the house overnight, ma’am?”
She snorted. “Certainly not!” Her little mouth turned down at the corners in contempt. “But a burglar would hardly use poison, would he.”
“No, ma’am. The only possible conclusion is that it was someone in the house, and it’s extremely unlikely to be a servant. Which leaves the family, or your guests. Will you be kind enough to tell me something about those presently in the house?”
“You don’t need to go through them all.” She sniffed and pulled a face. The room was stifling, the cloudless sun hot on the windows, but she did not seem to notice. “There is only my immediate family: Lord Ashworth, he was a cousin; Lady Ashworth, whom I have heard tell is somehow connected with you.” She let this incredible piece of intelligence fall into the hot air and remained silent for several seconds. Then, as Pitt made no remark, she finished tartly, “And a Mr. Jack Radley, a person of some disappointment—to my son, anyway. Although I could have told him.”
Pitt took the bait. “Told him what, ma’am?”
Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
Pitt felt the sweat trickle down his skin, but it would not be acceptable to take off his jacket in her boudoir.
“Immoral,” the old lady said baldly. “No money, and too handsome by half. Mr. March thought he would be a suitable match for Anastasia. Nonsense! She doesn’t need to marry good blood, she’s got plenty of her own. Not that you’d know anything about that.” She stared up at him, cricking her neck to see him but determined not to let him sit down. He was an inferior, and he must be made to remember it; it was not for the likes of policemen to sit themselves on the good furniture in the front of the house. By such license had begun the whole erosion of every value that now afflicted the nation. If this man had to sit, let him do it in the servants’ hall. “Anyway,” she