Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [143]
“Yes, that’s one o’ mine. Put my mark on ’em, in blue, I do. See?” He pointed to a tiny blue device on the end of the pin near the handle. “Is that the one what . . .” He would not say it.
“Yes, it is. You sold it to a tall, young man on the afternoon of Cathcart’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“ ’Course I am. Wouldn’t say so if I weren’t. My books’ll show it.”
“Thank you. Sorry to have disturbed your supper.”
“Now what?” Tellman asked when they were outside in the dark again. “Is it enough to arrest him?” He sounded tired and doubtful.
Pitt was doubtful himself. He had no uncertainty that Orlando Antrim had seen the photograph of his mother and reacted with extreme distress. He had searched for the photographs and gone to the house and found Cathcart. He had purchased the rolling pin. But the dressing of the corpse in green velvet, and chaining him on the punt with the flowers strewn around, did not follow so easily.
Could there have been two people there other than Cathcart? If so, then who? He knew coincidences happened, but he did not like them. Most things had a cause, a line of circumstances connected to each other in a way which could be understood, if you knew them all and considered them long enough.
“Can we arrest him?” Tellman pressed.
“I don’t know.” Pitt shook himself a little.
“Well, it had to be him,” Tellman said pointedly. “He was here, we know that. He had plenty of reason to kill Cathcart. He bought the weapon and we’ve got it. What else is there—apart from working out how he knew where to find the dress and the chains?”
“And the boat,” Pitt added.
“Well, somebody did.” Tellman was exasperated. “You can’t argue with that! If it wasn’t him, who could it have been? And why? Why would anybody else do all that with the boat and the flowers? Wouldn’t they want to get away as quickly as possible? Just leave him where he was. Why dress up a dead man . . . that somebody else killed . . . and risk getting caught?”
“Not a lot of risk,” Pitt argued. “Bottom of a garden by the river in the middle of a foggy night. Still, he must have cared passionately about something to have bothered.”
They crossed the road, still walking slowly, heading back towards the bridge.
“Maybe it was someone he blackmailed, after all?” Tellman suggested. “Or more like, someone who hated that kind of picture and the way it makes people think.”
Pitt thought of Ralph Marchand. It was believable, very easily, but another idea was also forming in his mind, uncertain, perhaps foolish, but becoming clearer with each step.
As soon as he saw a hansom he hailed it, and to Tellman’s sharp stare of astonishment, he gave not the address of the theatre but that of the medical examiner.
“What do you want with him?” Tellman said incredulously. “We know how he died!”
Pitt did not answer.
When they arrived, he told the cab to wait and ran up the steps of the building and in through the door. To his intense relief he found the surgeon still there. He knew the one question he wanted to ask.
“Was there any water in Cathcart’s lungs?” he demanded.
The surgeon looked startled. “Yes, there was a bit. I was going to tell you next time you were by.” His eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t make any difference to your case.”
“But did he actually die of the blow to his head or of drowning?” Pitt insisted, fidgeting with impatience.
Tellman watched with what might have been a dawning comprehension. His eyes were steady, and he stood motionless in the cold room, his nostrils slightly flared with distaste at the pervasive odor, real or imagined.
The surgeon stared at Pitt, shifting his weight. “Clinically, I suppose the drowning got to him before the wound, but it’s academic, Pitt. He would have died of the blow anyway . . . or exposure, in his injured state, sodden wet and left out in the river like that. It’s murder any way you look at it at all. What’s your point?”
“I’m not sure,” Pitt said honestly. “Thank you. Come on, Tellman.” He turned on his heel.
“Theatre now?” Tellman asked, racing to catch up with him as he strode down