Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [153]
Charlotte carefully avoided Emily’s eyes. The same ugly thought had occurred to both of them, and they had both pushed it aside, but it would not disappear.
“We must apply logic,” Emily continued, looking at Tallulah. “Why would you kill anyone?”
Tallulah was startled. “What?”
“Why would you kill anyone?” Emily repeated. “If you were on the streets living from day to day. Make that leap in imagination. What would drive you to do something so extreme, so messy and so dangerous, as to kill someone?”
“If I killed anyone, it would be on the spur of temper,” Tallulah said thoughtfully. “I couldn’t imagine planning it … unless it were someone I was afraid of, and I wasn’t strong enough to do it otherwise. But that doesn’t apply here, does it?”
“So you might if you were afraid of someone,” Emily clarified. “Why else? What would make you lose your temper enough to kill anyone?”
“Maybe if they mocked me?” Tallulah said slowly. “I might hit them, and perhaps it would be too hard. No one likes being made fun of, not if it is something they are very sensitive about.”
“Enough to kill?” Emily pressed.
Tallulah bit her lip. “Not really … perhaps, if I had a very short temper indeed. I’ve seen some men get very angry if their honor is questioned, or perhaps their wife or mother insulted.”
“Enough to lash out, yes,” Charlotte agreed. “But enough to break someone’s fingers and toes first, and then strangle her?”
Tallulah stared at her, the blood draining out of her face, leaving it chalk-white. She moved her mouth as if to speak but made no sound.
With a violent jolt of guilt, and anger with herself, she realized that of course Tallulah would not read newspapers. No one would have told her how the women died. She might have assumed it was just strangling, something quick, a few moments’ struggle for breath and then oblivion. And now she was, in a sentence, hurled into the reality.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said quietly. “I forgot you didn’t know that. I shouldn’t have said it.”
Tallulah swallowed hard. “Why not?” Her voice cracked. “Why should you shelter me from the truth? That is the truth, is it? They were … tortured?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why on earth would anyone do such a thing? Was it … both of them?” Her eyes implored Charlotte to say it was not.
“Yes. I am afraid it was.”
“That’s horrible!” Tallulah shivered and seemed to shrink into herself, as if the bright, warm room with its charming florals and dainty chairs were cold, in spite of the sunlight through the windows and the low fire in the grate.
“There were other things as well”—Emily glanced at Charlotte warningly—”which seem to suggest it was the sort of crime that has to do with …” She hesitated, seeking a way to describe what she meant without further distressing Tallulah, who was not a married woman and was assumed to be still ignorant of many aspects of life. “Relations between men and women,” she finished.
“What … things?” Tallulah asked, her voice husky.
Emily looked unhappy. “Silly things. People sometimes have … odd fancies. Some people …” She stopped and looked at Charlotte.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “All sorts of relationships are odd,” she said quietly. “Sometimes people like to say hurtful things to each other, or establish a dominance. You must have seen it? Well, between a man and woman these things are sometimes sharper, and take a physical form. Of course, most people are not like that. But it looks as if whoever did this … was …”
“I see.” Tallulah made a brave effort to look unshaken. “So that means it was someone with a very strong cruel streak, and a man who had a … a physical relationship with her.” She laughed a little jerkily. “Although since that was her trade, it is hardly surprising. But why should he actually kill her?”
“I don’t know,” Emily replied. “Could she have threatened him in any way?”
“How?” Tallulah was confused. “She was far weaker than he. She must have been.”
“Blackmail?” Emily suggested.