Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [82]
The major’s body went slack, and he sat like a well-trained child at table, eyes forward, hands still, but no substance inside him. For a long time he was silent, and Pitt hated the necessity for digging out of him whatever wretched secret it was that Jones had blackmailed him with. But there was no alternative. There was no time of the crime to use to eliminate people, no weapon but hands, the strength of which would almost certainly rule out a woman, certainly any society woman. Possibly a servant used to manual work, wringing heavy, wet laundry, might have had the power? At the moment he could think of no avenue except to learn all the truth he could.
The major was a small man, inarticulate, rigidly stiff within himself both bodily and emotionally, but he had been a soldier; he had seen death before and been taught how to kill, had learned to become familiar with the idea and to accept it as part of himself, to know that at times it could be his duty. Was his secret of sufficient importance to him that he would have strangled Godolphin Jones and then buried him in Albert Wilson’s grave?
“Why did you pay so much for those two pictures, Major Rodney?” Pitt pressed again.
The major focused his eyes and looked at him with dislike.
“Because that was the man’s price,” he said coldly. “I am no expert in art. That was what everyone else paid him. If it was excessive, then I was misled. So were we all! The man was a charlatan, if what you say is true. But you will forgive me if I do not accept your opinion as final?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and from the weight of his tone, Pitt guessed it an unfamiliar sentiment.
Major Rodney stood up. “And now, sir, I have said all I have to say to you. I wish you good day.”
There was no point in struggling, and Pitt knew it. He would have to find out the secret some other way and return when he had more ammunition. Perhaps it was only some foolishness, something Jones had discovered from another patron, possibly an indiscretion with a woman, and Rodney’s sense of honor forbade him from saying so. Or maybe it was a genuine matter of shame to him, an incident of cowardice in the Crimea, or some other barrack-room weakness, a gambling debt welched on, or a drunken escapade.
For now he would have to leave it.
In the early afternoon he called on St. Jermyn and found that he was out, at the House of Lords. He was obliged to return in the evening, cold and tired and well past the best of his temper.
His lordship was also irritated at not being able to relax and forget the business of the day over a glass of something from the pick of his cellars before considering dinner. He was civil to Pitt with something of an effort.
“I have already told you everything I know about the man,” he said tartly, moving over to the fire. “He was a fashionable artist. I commissioned a picture from him to please my wife. I expect I have met him socially on one or two occasions; after all, he lived here in the Park, but I meet hundreds of people. I recall he was a trifle odd-looking; rather too much hair.” He gave Pitt a sour look, his eye going to Pitt’s own scruffy head. “But then, one expects artists to be a little affected,” he continued. “It was not enough to be offensive, just rather obvious. I’m sorry the fellow is dead, but I dare say he mixed with a few less salubrious people. Possibly he became over-familiar with one of his models. As well as society, artists frequently paint women of far lower classes who happen to have the coloring or the features they want. I imagine you know that as well as I do. I should look for a jealous lover or husband, if I were you.”
“We haven’t been able to trace any pictures of women other than society portraits,” Pitt replied. “He doesn’t seem to have been prolific at all; in fact, rather reserved, but anything he did do, he sold at greatly inflated prices.”
“So you implied before,” St. Jermyn said drily. “I don’t have any comment on that. I would have