Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [77]
“Good heavens! What on earth was Dulcie doing out of her own room in the middle of the night? Are you sure she wasn’t dreaming?”
“This woman’s been seen elsewhere, sir, and Dulcie’s description was very good.”
“Well, go on, man!”
“Tall and slender, with dark hair, very beautiful, and wearing a gown of a startling shade of fuchsia or cerise.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t seen her.”
“May I speak to some of your girls who might have been friendly with Dulcie, and then perhaps to the younger Mrs. York? I believe Dulcie was her maid.”
“I suppose so—if it’s necessary.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He spoke to the upstairs maid, the downstairs maid, the laundry maid, the other lady’s maid, the kitchen maid, the scullery maid, and finally the tweeny, but it seemed Dulcie had been remarkably discreet and had kept total confidence on all that she saw of her mistress’s household. He wished she had been less honorable, and yet there was a kind of bitter satisfaction in it. Virtue of any sort kept its sweetness whatever surrounded it. He saved the questions about Dulcie’s death for Veronica. If she was innocent it was cruel, but he could not afford kindness now.
Her mother-in-law was out, the first stroke of good fortune Pitt had had in some time, and Veronica received him in the boudoir.
“I don’t know how I can help you, Mr. Pitt,” she said gravely. She was dressed in deep forest green, which heightened her slightly ethereal quality. She was pale, her eyes shadowed as if she had slept badly, and she remained standing some distance from him, not facing him but staring at a gold-framed seascape on the wall. “I see no purpose in going over and over the tragedies of the past. Nothing will bring my husband back, and we don’t care about the silver or the book. We would much prefer not to be constantly reminded of it.”
He hated what he was doing, but he knew of no other way. If he had pressed harder and been cleverer, if he had solved it the first time, Dulcie would still be alive.
“I’m here about Dulcie Mabbutt, Mrs. York.”
She turned quickly. “Dulcie?”
“Yes. While she was in this house she saw something of great importance. How did she die, Mrs. York?”
Her gaze did not waver, and she was so pale anyway he could detect no change in her aside from the distress he would have seen in almost anyone. “She leaned too far out of a window and lost her balance,” she replied.
“Did you see it happen?”
“No—it was in the evening, after dark. Perhaps in the daylight—perhaps she would have seen what she was doing and it would not have happened.”
“Why should she lean so far out of a window?”
“I don’t know! Maybe she saw something, someone.”
“In the dark?”
She bit her lip. “Perhaps she dropped something.”
Pitt did not pursue it; the unlikeliness was obvious enough. “Who was in the house that evening, Mrs. York?”
“All the servants, of course; my parents-in-law, and dinner guests—perhaps Dulcie was talking to one of the footmen or coachmen of the guests.”
“Then they would have raised the alarm when she fell.”
“Oh.” She turned away, blushing at her foolishness. “Of course.”
“Who were your guests?” He knew the answer before she spoke.
“Mr. and Mrs. Asherson, Mr. Garrard Danver and Mr. Julian Danver and the Misses Danver, Sir Reginald and Lady Arbuthnott, and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Adair.”
“Did any of the other ladies or you yourself wear a gown of a brilliant cerise or magenta color, ma’am?”
“What?” Her voice was barely a whisper, and this time her face was so ashen the skin looked like wax.
“A brilliant cerise or magenta,” he repeated. “It is a bluish pink, the sort of color cinerarias grow.”
She gulped and her lips formed the word no, but no sound came from her throat.
“Dulcie saw a woman in such a dress, Mrs. York, upstairs in this house—” Before he could finish she gasped and pitched forward onto the floor, hands out to save herself, knocking into the chair as she went.
He dived forward too late to catch her, and half falling over the chair himself, knelt down beside her. She was completely unconscious,