Seven Dials - Anne Perry [15]
“Yes.” Ryerson’s eyes were troubled by the memory. “But I was standing in the kitchen, just up the step, when I heard a noise in the garden, and I went out again. Almost immediately I ran into Miss Zakhari, who was in a state of extreme distress.” He breathed in and out slowly. “She told me a man had been shot and was lying dead in the garden. I asked her who he was and if she knew what had happened. She told me he was a Lieutenant Lovat whom she had known briefly in Alexandria several years ago. He had admired her then . . .” He hesitated briefly over the choice of words, then went on, trusting Pitt to put his own interpretation on it. “And now wished to rekindle the friendship. She had refused, but he was reluctant to accept that answer.”
“I see. What did you do?” Pitt kept his voice neutral.
“I asked her to show me, and followed her to where he was lying on the ground, half under the laurel bushes. I had thought perhaps he was not actually dead. I hoped she had found him knocked senseless, and perhaps leaped to a hasty conclusion. However, when I knelt down to look at him, it was quite apparent that she was correct. He had been shot at fairly close range, through the chest, and was unquestionably dead.”
“Did you see the gun?”
Ryerson’s eyes did not waver, but it obviously cost him an effort.
“Yes. It was lying on the ground beside him. It was Ayesha’s gun. I knew it immediately, because I had seen it before. I knew she owned it, for protection.”
“Against whom?”
“I don’t know. I had asked her, but she would not tell me.”
“Could it have been this Lieutenant Lovat?” Pitt suggested. “Had he threatened her?”
Ryerson’s face was tight, his eyes miserable. He hesitated before answering. “I believe not,” he said at last.
“Did you ask her what had happened?”
“Of course! She said she did not know. She had heard the shot, and realized it was very close by. She had been in her upstairs sitting room, waiting for me, awake and fully dressed. She went downstairs to see what had happened, if anyone were hurt, and found Lovat lying on the ground and the gun beside him.”
It was a strange story, and one Pitt found almost impossible to believe, and yet as he looked at Ryerson, he was sure that either he himself believed it or he was the most superb actor Pitt had ever seen. He was clear, calm and without any histrionics. There was a candor to him that, if it was art, then it was also genius. It confused Pitt, and he felt wrong-footed, off balance because of it.
“So you saw the dead man,” he said. “And you knew from Miss Zakhari who he was. Did she have any idea what he was doing there or who had shot him?”
“No,” Ryerson answered immediately. “She assumed he had come to see her, but that much was obvious. There could be no other reason for his being there at that hour. I asked her if she knew what had happened, and she said she did not.” There was finality in his voice, and belief that defied sense.
“She had not invited him there, or given him reason to believe he would be welcome?” Pitt pressed, uncertain what tone to adopt. It annoyed him to be deferential, the situation was absurd, and yet his instinct was to believe him, even to feel some sympathy.
Ryerson’s lips tightened. “She would hardly invite him at the same time she was expecting me, Mr. Pitt. She is a woman of high intelligence.”
There was no time to afford niceties. “Women have been known to contrive that lovers should be made jealous, Mr. Ryerson,” Pitt responded, and saw Ryerson wince. “It is a very old strategy, and can work well,” he continued. “She would naturally deny it to you.”
“Possibly,” Ryerson said dryly, but there was no anger in his voice, rather a kind of patience. “But if you knew her you would not bother with such a suggestion. It is absurd, not only because of her character, but were she to have done such a thing, why in heaven’s name would she then shoot him?”
Pitt had to agree that there was no sense in it, even allowing for temper, passion, or accident. If Ayesha Zakhari was convincing enough to have