Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [142]
“Then he didn’t see,” Tellman said decisively. “He was going somewhere, leading the way. Orlando was following. He hit Cathcart from behind . . . we know that anyway.”
Pitt went through the motion of raising his arm as if to strike Tellman. Tellman crumpled to his knees, rather carefully, to avoid banging himself on the now-bare wooden floor. He lay down, more or less as Cathcart might have fallen.
“Now what?” he asked.
Pitt had been considering that. They had little idea how long Orlando had been there, but knowing what he had done, he had had no time to hesitate for more than a few minutes.
“If you think you’re going to put me in any dress . . .” Tellman began.
“Be quiet!” Pitt snapped.
“I . . .” Tellman started to get up.
“Lie down!” Pitt ordered. “Privilege of rank,” he added ironically. “Would you rather change places?”
Tellman lay down again.
“Where were the green dress and the chains kept?” Pitt said thoughtfully. “Certainly not down here!”
“Up in the studio, most likely,” Tellman replied, his face to the floor. “With all the other stuff he used in his pictures. What I want to know is, how did Orlando know that the punt was here and not somewhere else? It could have been anywhere, any lake or river. Could have been miles away—in another county, for that matter.”
Pitt did not answer. His mind was beginning to reach for a new, extraordinary thought.
“Do you suppose he went upstairs first?” Tellman went on. “Maybe saw the chains and the dress in the studio?” He did not say it as if he believed that himself.
“And then came down, and Cathcart was going up again, ahead of him, and Orlando killed him?” Pitt said almost absentmindedly.
Tellman rolled over and sat up, scowling. “Then what do you think?”
“I think he certainly didn’t wander down the garden, in the dark, to see if there was a boat moored in the river,” Pitt replied. “I think he had been here before, often enough to know that these things existed, and exactly where to find them . . .”
“But he hadn’t,” Tellman said decisively. “He had to ask where it was . . . from the pub landlord. We know that.”
“Or there was someone else here as well,” Pitt answered. “Someone who did know . . . someone who finished the job that Orlando only started.”
“But he came alone!” Tellman climbed to his feet. “You think there was someone else here the same night . . . also bent on murdering Cathcart?” His tone of voice conveyed what he thought of that possibility.
“I don’t know what I think,” Pitt confessed. “But I don’t think Orlando Antrim murdered Cathcart in a passion of fury over the way Cathcart used Cecily, then set about searching the house to see if he could find the clothes and the chains, and the boat, to make it a mockery of the photograph. For one thing, there was no sign of a struggle when Mrs. Geddes came in in the morning, which means that if he searched, he put everything back where he found it . . . exactly. Does that sound like a man in a murderous rage to you?”
“No. But Cathcart’s dead,” Tellman said reasonably. “And someone put him in that dress and chained him in the punt, then scattered all the flowers . . . and I’d swear anything you like it was someone who hated him . . . and hated him because of Cecily Antrim.”
Pitt said nothing. He had no argument.
“And we know Orlando was here, and he bought the pin,” Tellman went on.
“We’d better go and look for it,” Pitt said miserably. “Before it gets dark. We’ve only got just over an hour.”
Together they trudged down the path towards the river, watched from the side door by Mrs. Geddes.
They were sodden wet, covered in mud, and it was beginning to grow dusk when Tellman slipped on it at the edge of the bank, swore, and pulled it out, washing it in river water and holding it up in angry triumph. “So he didn’t throw it after all,” he said with surprise. “Maybe he meant to and dropped it.”
They were obliged to get the ironmonger from his dinner to identify it. He came to the door with his napkin tucked into the tip of his waistcoat and a considerable reluctance in his manner. He eyed the rolling