Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [92]
“Morning, Pitt,” he said solemnly. “Any news?”
Pitt changed his mind, not about what he would say but rather how he would say it.
“No sir. I am pursuing Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce to learn all I can about their relationship, but I still haven’t found anything that would seem to be adequate motive to have killed Stafford.”
“Love,” Drummond said sharply. “You don’t need to look any farther than that. Or if you wish to be more accurate, amorous obsession. For God’s sake, Pitt, more crimes have been committed from lust than anything else except possibly money. What on earth is your problem with seeing that?”
“Society is full of similar affairs and obsessive lusts,” Pitt replied, determined not to give ground. “Very few of them end in murder, and those that do are usually where someone has been deceived and found it out suddenly, and then killed the offenders in the heat of the emotion.”
“Why do you keep on arguing the point?” Drummond screwed up his face, staring at Pitt. “Of course that is the cause of many of them. But it is also not unknown for two lovers to kill the husband or wife who stands in the way of their union. Why do you not believe that that is what happened here?” He moved around from the fire as he became too hot. He sat in one of the armchairs and waved at Pitt to sit in the other.
“It may have,” Pitt said grudgingly. “But it seems so … hysterical. Stafford wasn’t standing in their way. He was apparently close to complacent about the affair.”
“He knew about it?” Drummond said sharply. “Are you sure?”
Pitt drew in his breath. He wanted to say “of course,” but if he overstated his case he would only have to withdraw later, and then Drummond would wonder what else he had exaggerated. “Livesey’s wife said he was uninterested, and Judge Oswyn’s wife said she was sure Stafford knew, in essence, but he preferred not to know the details. As long as Juniper Stafford was discreet, and caused no public embarrassment, he was prepared to tolerate it. He was most certainly not passionately jealous. She was emphatic about that.” He was about to add that Stafford had been close to sixty, then he realized that Drummond was probably over fifty himself, and the remark would be tactless.
“Yes?” Drummond asked, sensing that Pitt had withheld something.
“Nothing.” Pitt shrugged. “Simply that apparently Stafford was not an emotional man. It was a civil relationship, amiable, but not close, and now somewhat staled by habit. Anyway, it was not Stafford who killed either his wife or her lover. Stafford was the victim. They had no need to kill him—he did not endanger their affaire.”
“Perhaps they wanted to marry?” Drummond said with something of an edge to his voice. “Perhaps an affair was not enough for them? Maybe a stolen moment here and there was far too little for the emotion and the need they felt for each other? Would it be enough for you, Pitt, if you loved a woman intensely?”
Pitt tried to imagine himself in such a situation. He would hate the deceit, the knowledge through everything that any time together would always be bounded by partings, uncertainty, and the need to lie.
“No,” he admitted. “I would always want more.”
“And resent the husband?” Drummond went on.
“Yes.” Pitt admitted that too.
“Then you can understand why a man as in love as Adolphus Pryce might eventually descend to murder.” Drummond’s face puckered with distaste. “It is an abysmal thing to have to uncover, and I am not surprised you are looking for some other answer, but you cannot evade the truth, or your duty towards it. It is not like you to try.”
Pitt opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it again without speaking.
Drummond rose to his feet and went over towards the window. He looked down at the street, the drays clattering by, a coster shouting at a barrow boy who was stuck in his path. It was raining steadily.
“I understand your getting tired of it,” he