Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [122]
“I don’t know.” Pitt pulled his mouth into a grimace that had been intended as a wry smile but died before humor touched it. “There are several possibilities.” He took the wild risk of being honest. It crossed his mind to wonder what good an attempt at deception would do anyway. Shaw was neither gullible nor innocent enough to be taken in. “Possibly the first fire was meant for Mrs. Shaw, and the second was because either you or Lindsay had discovered who it was—or they feared you had—”
“I certainly haven’t!” Shaw interrupted. “If I had I’d have told you. For heaven’s sake, man, what do you—Oh!” His whole body sagged in the chair. “Of course—you have to suspect me. You’d be incompetent not to.” He said it as if he could not believe it himself, as if he were repeating a rather bad joke. “But why should I kill poor Amos? He was about the best friend I had.” Suddenly his voice faltered and he looked away to hide the emotion that filled his face. If he was acting, he was superb. But Pitt had known men before who killed someone they loved to save their own lives. He could not afford to spare Shaw the only answer that made sense.
“Because during the time you stayed with him you said or did something that betrayed yourself to him,” he replied. “And when you knew that he understood, you had to kill him because you could not trust him to keep silent—not forever, when it meant the noose for you.”
Shaw opened his mouth to protest, then the color drained from his skin as he realized how terribly rational it was. He could not sweep it away as preposterous, and the words fled before he began.
“Or the other possibilities,” Pitt continued, “are that you said something which led him to learn, or deduce, who it was—without his mentioning it to you. That person became aware that Lindsay knew—perhaps he made further inquiries, or even faced them with it—and to preserve themselves, they killed him.”
“What? For heaven’s sake.” Shaw sat upright, staring at Pitt. “If I had said anything at all that threw any light on it, he would have said so to me at the time, and then we should have reported it to you.”
“Would you.” Pitt said it with such heavy doubt that it was not a question. “Even if it concerned one of your patients? Or someone you had thought to be a close friend—or even family?” He did not need to add that Shaw was related in one degree or another to all the Worlinghams.
Shaw shifted his position in the chair, his strong, neat hands lying on the arms. Neither of them spoke, but remained staring at each other. Past conversations were recalled like living entities between them: Pitt’s struggle to get Shaw to reveal any medical knowledge that might point to motive; Shaw’s steady and unswerving refusal.
Finally Shaw spoke slowly, his voice soft and very carefully controlled.
“Do you think I could have told Amos anything I would not tell you?”
“I doubt you would tell him anything you considered a confidence,” Pitt answered frankly. “But you could have spoken to him far more than to me, you were a guest in his house, and you were friends.” He saw the pain flash across Shaw’s face again and found it hard to imagine it was not real. But emotions are very complex, and sometimes survival can cut across others that are very deep, the wrenching of which never ceases to hurt. “In ordinary speech, a word dropped in passing in the course of your day, an expression of success over a patient recovered, or relapsed, and then at another time mention of where you had been—any number of things, which added together gave him some insight. Perhaps it was not total, merely something he wanted to pursue—and in doing so forewarned the murderer that he knew.”
Shaw shivered and a spasm of distaste crossed his features.
“I think I liked Amos Lindsay as much as any man alive,” he said very quietly. “If I knew who had burned him to death, I should expose them to every punishment the law allows.” He looked away, as if to conceal the tenderness