Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [85]
Was it something to do with Eustace and Tassie? Or Eustace alone? Or was it Jack Radley after all?
The door opened and Charlotte came back, her face tight and pale in the softening dawn light coming through the windows. Her hands were shaking.
“She’s dead,” she said with a gulp. “Stay here and lock the door behind me. I’m going to tell Aunt Vespasia.”
“Wait!” Emily stood up, and lost her balance; her legs were weak as if her knees would not lock. “I’m coming. I’d rather come with you—anyway, you shouldn’t go alone.” She tried again, and this time her body obeyed her, and wordlessly she and Charlotte crept shoulder to shoulder along the landing, feet soundless on the carpet. The jardinière with its splayed ferns seemed like half a tree, casting octopus shadows on the wallpaper.
They knocked at Vespasia’s door and waited. There was no answer. Charlotte knocked again, then turned the handle experimentally. It was not locked. She opened it and they both slipped in, closing it behind them with a tiny click.
“Aunt Vespasia!” Charlotte said distinctly. The room was darker than Emily’s, having heavier curtains, and in the gloom they could see the big bed and Vespasia’s head on the pillow, her pale silver hair in a coil over her shoulder. She looked very frail, very old.
“Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said again.
Vespasia opened her eyes.
Charlotte moved forward into the shrouded light from the window.
“Charlotte?” Vespasia sat up a little. “What is it? Is that Emily with you?” A note of alarm sharpened her voice. “What has happened?”
“Emily remembered something she saw, an expression on Sybilla’s face the other night at dinner,” Charlotte began. “She thought if she understood it, it might explain things. She went to ask Sybilla.”
“At dawn?” Now Vespasia was sitting upright. “And did it—explain things? Have you learned something? What did Sybilla say?”
Charlotte shut her eyes and clenched her hands hard. “Nothing. She’s dead. She was strangled with her own hair round the bedpost. I don’t know whether she could have done it herself or not. We’ll have to call Thomas.”
Vespasia was silent for so long Charlotte began to be afraid; then at last she reached up and pulled the bellpull three times. “Pass me my shawl, will you?” she asked. When Charlotte did so, she climbed stiffly out of bed, leaning on Charlotte’s outstretched arm for support. “We had better lock the door. We don’t want anyone else going in. And I suppose we must tell Eustace.” She took a long, deep breath. “And William. I imagine at this time in the morning Thomas will be at home? Good. Then you had better write him a note and send a footman to bring him and his constable.”
There was a sharp rap on the door, startling them, and before anyone answered it it opened and Digby came in looking disheveled and frightened. As soon as she saw Vespasia herself was all right the fear vanished and was replaced by concern. She pushed the straggling hair out of her eyes and prepared to be cross.
“Yes, m’lady?” she said cautiously.
“Tea, please, Digby.” Vespasia replied, struggling to maintain dignity. “I would like a dish of tea. Bring enough here for all of us—you had better have some yourself. And as soon as you have put the kettle on, waken one of the footmen and tell him to get up.”
Digby stared at her, round-eyed, grim-faced.
Vespasia gave her the explanation she was waiting for. “Young Mrs. March is dead. Perhaps you’d better get two footmen—one for the doctor.”
“We can telephone the doctor, m’lady,” Digby answered.
“Oh, yes, I forgot. I am not yet used to who has these contraptions and who has not. I presume Treves has one.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“Then get one footman to send for Mr. Pitt. I’m sure he hasn’t got a telephone. And bring the tea.”
The next few hours moved like a feverish dream, a mixture of the grotesque and the almost offensively commonplace. How could the breakfast room look precisely the same, the sideboard laden with food, the windows thrown open? Pitt was upstairs with Treves,