Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [71]
She stared at him fiercely. “But this isn’t hopeless here! Whoever killed George is one of us in this house right now. It’s Jack Radley, or one of the Marches.” She frowned, fighting with herself for a moment and then coming to some decision. “Thomas, I have something very—very ugly to tell you.” And without stopping to watch his face or allow interruption, she recounted exactly what she had seen at the head of the stairs in the middle of the night.
He was confused. Had she been dreaming? She had certainly had enough cause for nightmare in the last few days. Even if she had been awake and really gone to the landing, might not the abrupt arousal from sleep, the flickering of the dim gas night-light, have misled her vision, caused her to imagine blood where there were only shadows?
Now she was staring at him, waiting, looking in his face for an answering horror.
He tried to mask doubt with amazement. “Nobody’s been stabbed,” he said aloud.
“I know that!” Now she was angry, because she was frightened, and she knew he disbelieved her. “But why does anyone creep up the stairs in the small hours reeking of blood? If it was innocent, why has nothing been said? She was perfectly normal this morning. And she wasn’t distressed, Thomas! I swear she was happy!”
“Say nothing,” he warned. “We won’t learn anything by attacking openly. If you are right, then there is something very evil indeed in this house—in this family. For God’s sake, Charlotte, be careful.” He took her by the shoulders. “Perhaps Emily’d better go home, and you go with her.”
“No!” She resisted him, pulling away, her head coming up. “If we don’t find out who it is, and prove it, Emily could be hanged, or at best have the doubt stain her all her life, have people remember and whisper to each other that she might have killed her husband. And even if that were bearable for Emily, it’s not for Edward!”
“I’ll find out without you,” he began grimly, but her face was tight and her eyes hot.
“Maybe. But I can watch and listen in a way you never can, not in this house. Emily is my sister, and I’m going to stay. It would be wrong to run away, and you wouldn’t argue with me about that. And you wouldn’t run.”
He weighed it for a moment. What would happen if he tried to order her home? She would not go; her loyalty to Emily at this moment was greater, rightly so. All his emotion strained backwards, wanting, demanding that she run from the danger; his reason knew it was cowardice, fear for his own pain should anything happen to her. But if he failed to solve this crime, if Emily were hanged, then he would have lost all in his relationship with Charlotte that gave it fire and value.
“All right,” he said at last. “But for the love of heaven, be careful! Someone in this house is murderous—maybe more than one!”
“I know,” she said very quietly. “I know, Thomas.”
Later in the afternoon, Eustace sent for Pitt to come to him in the morning room. He was standing, hands in his pockets, in front of the unlit fireplace, still in the clothes he had worn at the funeral.
“Well, Mr. Pitt?” he began as soon as the door was closed. “How are you proceeding? Have you learned anything of value?”
Pitt was unprepared to commit himself, least of all to say anything about Charlotte’s story of Tassie on the stairs.
“A great deal,” he replied levelly. “But I am not yet sure as to its value.”
“No arrest?” Eustace persisted, his face brightening and his broad shoulders relaxing, making the well-cut jacket sit more evenly without the tensions in the weave. “You don’t surprise me. Domestic tragedy. Told you so in the first place. I daresay a nursing home can be found. There will be no shortage of means, and she can be made very comfortable. Best for all of us. Nothing proved. Not possible. No blame attached to you, my dear fellow. Invidious position for you.”
So he was already preparing to have the case closed and all investigation effectively prevented. It would be so easy for the Marches to protect themselves by blaming Emily. They had barely waited till the body was in the ground before