Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [83]
“You paid a considerable amount for the portrait of Lady St. Jermyn,” Pitt tried again.
St. Jermyn’s eyebrows rose. “You also remarked on that the last time you were here. She seemed to like the picture, which was all that concerned me. If I did pay too much, then I was duped. I’m really not very concerned about it. I don’t see why you should be.”
Pitt had already racked his brain to think of some reason, any at all, why Jones should have been able to put pressure on St. Jermyn to buy a picture he did not like, or at a price he thought unfair, but he had come up with nothing. To press Lady Cantlay in return for discretion would be easy, and recalling the stiff, nervous figure of the major, that was certainly believable, although he did not yet know the reason. A middle-aged, socially inarticulate man living with two maiden sisters—the probability was obvious—another indiscretion. Pride would force the major to pay for silence.
But St. Jermyn was a totally different man. There was no fear in him. He would cover his indiscretions, if there were any and he cared about them, which again was doubtful. And there was no other crime that Pitt knew of. Lord Augustus had died normally, or if he had not it was unprovable, and of no interest he knew of to St. Jermyn either way. All the others—Arthur Wilson, Porteous, and Horrie Snipe—had also died naturally and again, as far as Pitt knew, had no connection with St. Jermyn.
“If it was a jealous lover or husband,” Pitt said slowly, “why was he found in another man’s grave?”
“To hide him, I presume!” St. Jermyn said impatiently “I would have thought that was obvious. A fresh-dug grave anywhere in London except in a graveyard would excite attention pretty quickly. You can’t go digging up parks, and if you put it in your own garden it would be damning if it were found. In someone else’s freshly turned grave, it would invite no remark at all.”
“But why put the corpse of Albert Wilson on a cab box?”
“I really don’t know, Inspector! It is your job to find that out, not mine! Possibly there was no reason at all. It sounds the bizarre kind of thing an artist might do. More likely the grave was already robbed, and he merely took an excellent opportunity when it was presented to him.”
Pitt had already thought of that for himself, but he was still hoping for a new thread, some error of control, a slip of the tongue that would give him another line to follow.
“Did Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond know Mr. Jones?” he asked as innocently as he could.
St. Jermyn looked at him coldly. “Not so far as I am aware. And if you are suggesting he might have had some sort of affaire with one of Jones’s models, I think it highly unlikely.”
Pitt had to admit to himself it would also be too much of a coincidence if Augustus had first killed Jones and taken advantage of the grave robber’s activities to hide him, and then immediately afterwards died himself and become a victim of the same robber. He looked across at St. Jermyn and fancied he saw a perception of the unlikelihood in his face also, and a barely concealed and rapidly growing impatience.
Pitt tried to think of something else to ask, anything that might draw more information, but St. Jermyn was not a man who could be manipulated, and Pitt gave in, at least for the time being.
“Thank you, my lord,” he said stiffly. “I appreciate your time.”
“A matter of duty,” St. Jermyn acknowledged drily. “The footman will see you out.”
There was nothing to do but accept it with as much grace as possible, and he left the bright room and accompanied the liveried footman to the step and out into the thick, obliterating fog.
Dominic had seldom been so enveloped and excited by anything as he was by St. Jermyn’s bill. Now that he had ceased to fight it in his mind and given himself over to it, he found more and more