Rutland Place - Anne Perry [26]
“She was here only fifteen or twenty minutes before the maid found her like this?” he asked.
“So she says.”
“So whatever it was, it acted quickly.” He turned and looked around; there was no glass or cup to be seen. “What did she eat or drink?” He frowned. “It doesn’t seem to be here now. Did the maid remove anything?”
“Asked her.” Mulgrew shook his head. “She says not. Doesn’t seem like a flighty girl. Don’t see why she should lie. Too shocked when she found her mistress dead to think of tidying up, I would imagine.”
“So she didn’t take it here,” Pitt concluded. “Pity. That would have made it easier. Well, you’ll have to do a postmortem and tell me what it was, and if possible how much, and when.”
“Naturally.”
Pitt looked at the body once more. There was nothing else to learn from it. There were no signs of force, but then since she had been alone he would not have expected any. She had taken the poison willingly; whether or not she had known what it was remained to be discovered.
“Let’s go back to the morning room,” he suggested. “I can’t see anything here to help us.”
Gratefully, they returned to the fire. The house was not cold, but there was a chill in the mind that communicated itself to the flesh.
“What sort of woman was she?” Pitt asked when the door was closed. “And don’t hide behind professional confidences. I want to know if this was suicide, accident, or murder, and the sooner I do, with the fewest questions of the family, the easier it will be for them. And they’ll have enough to bear.”
Mulgrew pulled an unhappy face and blew his nose on Pitt’s handkerchief.
“I can’t imagine an accident,” he said, staring at the floor. “Not a silly woman—very capable, in her own way, very quick, noticed things. Least absentminded woman I ever knew.”
Pitt did not like the sort of question he had to ask, but there was no way to avoid it, or to make it sound any better.
“Do you know of any reason why she might have taken her own life?”
“No, or I’d have said so.”
“She looks as if she was an attractive woman, feminine, delicate. Could she have had a lover?”
“I daresay, if she’d wanted one. But if you mean do I know of one, no, I don’t. Never heard any gossip about her whatsoever— even in confidence.” He gave Pitt a very direct look.
“What about her husband?” Pitt pressed. “Could he have had a woman, a mistress? Could she have been driven to suicide over that?”
“Alston?” Mulgrew’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the idea. Obviously it was one he had never considered before. “I should think it highly unlikely. Bloodless sort of creature. Still—you never know—the flesh is full of surprises! Nothing odder about the human animal than his predilections in that area. I’m fifty-two years old, and I’ve been a doctor for twenty-seven of them. Nothing ought to surprise me—but it does!”
Other, uglier thoughts occurred to Pitt, thoughts about other men—boys, even children. Knowledge of such a thing might drive a wife to feel her life was insupportable. But that was only a wild speculation.
Then again there were other thoughts, perhaps more likely, things that Charlotte had spoken about: thefts, a sense of being watched. Could this woman have been the thief and then, when she realized the watcher knew about it, have killed herself in the face of the overwhelming shame? Society was cruel; it seldom forgave, and it never, ever forgot.
Pitt was touched by a breath of misery as cold as January sleet.
Poor woman.
If he discovered that to be the truth, he would find some way to avoid saying so.
“Don’t lay too much on what I say, Inspector.” Mulgrew was looking at him soberly. “I don’t mean anything by it—just generalizing.”
Pitt blinked. “That’s all I took it for,” he said carefully. “Just that nothing is certain when we come to such things.”
There was a commotion out in the hall, a rising and falling of voices, and then the door burst open.
They all turned simultaneously, knowing what it was and dreading it. Only Harris stood straight up, because he knew he would not have to