Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [63]
Alicia was too angry to be polite any more. “Last week you were saying he killed Augustus himself!” she snapped. “If he did it, how could he be thinking I did? Or do you imagine we both did it quite independently? If that is the case, then you should be delighted to see us marry—we deserve each other!”
The old lady glared at her, pretending to have her mouth too full to speak, while she thought of a suitable reply.
“Perhaps he thinks you did it?” Alicia went on, gathering impetus with the idea. “After all, the digitalis is yours, not mine! Maybe he is afraid to come and live here in the same house with you?”
“And why should I poison my own son, pray?” The old lady swallowed her mouthful and immediately put in more. “I don’t want to marry some handsome young philanderer!”
“It’s as well,” Alicia snapped. “Since you don’t have the least opportunity.” She was appalled at herself, but years of good behavior had finally snapped, and it was a marvelous feeling, exhilarating, like riding too fast on a good horse.
“Neither do you, my girl!” The old lady’s face was scarlet. “And you’re a fool if you imagine you have. You’ve poisoned your husband for nothing!”
“If you think me a poisoner”—Alicia looked straight into her old eyes—“I am surprised you dine so voraciously at the same table with me and yet pursue my enmity so hard. Are you not afraid for yourself?”
The old lady choked, and her face went livid white. Her hand flew to her throat.
Alicia laughed with real and bitter humor. “If I were going to poison anyone, it would have been you in the beginning, not Augustus; but I am not, which you know as well as I do, or you would have thought of it long ago. You would have had Nisbett tasting everything before you put it in your mouth! Not that I wouldn’t cheerfully have poisoned Nisbett, too!”
The old lady coughed and went into a spasm.
Alicia ignored her. “If you have had sufficient of that fish,” she said coldly, “I’ll have Byrne bring in the meat!”
Pitt knew nothing about the soirée. He was determined to find the identity of the corpse from the cab, and as soon as he received the result of the postmortem he snatched it from the delivery boy and tore it open. He had worn himself out speculating what it might be, something exotic and individual, damning to someone, to account for the extraordinary circumstances. If it were not connected to some crime or scandal, why should anyone perform the grisly and dangerous job of disinterring him and leaving him on the box of a hansom cab? Naturally, they had traced the cab, only to find it had been removed while its owner had been refreshing himself a little too liberally at a local tavern. Not an entirely uncommon occurrence and, on a January night, one for which Pitt had considerable sympathy. Only policemen, cabbies, and lunatics frequented the streets all night long in such weather.
He read the piece of paper from the envelope. It was as ordinary as possible—a stroke. It was a common and utterly natural way to die. There were no marks of violence on the body; in fact, nothing to comment on at all. He had been a man of late middle years, in generally good health, well nourished and well cared for, clean, a little inclined to overweight. In fact, as the morgue attendant had said, precisely what one might expect a dead lord to look like.
Pitt thanked the boy and dismissed him; then put the paper into the drawer of his desk, jammed his hat on his head, tied his muffler up to his ears, and, taking his coat off the stand, went out the door.
There was no open grave. That was perhaps the most sinister part about it; he had three graves and four bodies: Lord Augustus, William Wilberforce Porteous, Horrie Snipe—and this unknown man from the cab. Where was his grave, and why had the grave robber chosen to fill it in again so carefully that it remained hidden?
The other graves had all been within a fairly small perimeter. He would begin looking in the same area. Obviously he could not search all the recent