Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [75]
Occasionally, in spite of himself, ugly thoughts crossed Pitt’s mind of intimacies between man and child, of cases he had known in the past. But he could discover no instance where any child, boy or girl, had been tutored alone.
Ernest Pomeroy emerged as an admirable man, even if there was too little humor or imagination to make him likable. But then it is hard to catch the essence of a man when all you know is his dead face, and the memories of stunned and obedient children who had been grimly forewarned of the consequences of speaking ill of the deceased—and of the general disgrace of having anything to do with the police for any reason. The majesty of the law was better observed from afar. Respectable people did not become involved with the less savory minions who served to enforce its rule.
Pitt also, of course, asked Mrs. Pomeroy if he might look through the dead man’s personal effects to see if there were any letters or records that might suggest enmity, threat, or any motive at all to harm him. She hesitated and stared at him out of eyes that still looked frozen in shock. It was an intrusion, and he felt no surprise that she should resent his request. But it seemed that she realized the necessity and that to refuse would be pointless. And of course if she had any guilt or complicity in the murder, she would have had more than enough time to destroy anything she wished before he had first come with the news.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, if you wish. I do not believe he had much correspondence. I recall very few letters. But if you feel it would be useful you may have them.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” She made him feel peculiarly awkward because her grief was so inaccessible. If she had wept, there was no sign of it in her face; her eyes were smooth, the lids pale and unswollen. And yet she did not move with the stilted, sleepwalking gait of those who are so profoundly shocked that emotion is still petrified inside them—before the shell cracks and the pain bursts free.
Had she loved Pomeroy? More probably it had been one of the many marriages arranged by parents and suitor. Pomeroy was considerably older; he might have been her father’s choice rather than her own.
Yet even in this state of limbo between the news of death and the beginning of acceptance of life as it must become, Pitt could see that she was a woman of grace and delicacy. Her clothes were very feminine, her hair soft. Her bones were just a little too fine to appeal to him. But to many men she must have been beautiful. Surely Pomeroy was not the best she could have done for herself?
Had she loved him or was it perhaps a debt of honor? Did her parents know Pomeroy, and owe him something?
He searched through all of Pomeroy’s rooms and read every letter and receipt. As Adela Pomeroy had said, his affairs were meticulously kept. From the accounts, the age and quality of the furnishings, the number of house servants, and the stock in the kitchen and pantry, it appeared they lived frugally. There was no sign of extravagance—except the vase of colored silk flowers in the withdrawing room and Adela’s gowns.
Had he bought them as gifts for her, an indulgent expression of his love? He could not imagine it of a man with the face he had seen in the Devil’s Acre. But by then he had already been robbed of that quickening that inhabits the flesh, of the capability for passion and pain, moments of tenderness, dreams or illusions.
Even in life we mask our vulnerability. What right had Pitt, or anyone else, to know what this man had felt for his wife? What vain or hopeless ideas still haunted him?
Or was her indifference apparent now because there had long ago ceased to be