Southampton Row - Anne Perry [141]
She felt both herself, and shame because Reginald was her husband. However far apart they were in thought or care, they were still tied together by the years they had been married. Perhaps she could have helped him if she had loved him enough? Perhaps the depth of the love she longed for had nothing to do with it; common humanity for a fellow being should have reached across the gulf and offered something!
It was too late now.
“Of course when she knew who he was, that gave her the means to blackmail him.” Her voice was now little more than a whisper. She felt the color hot in her cheeks. “‘Church of England Bishop goes to spirit medium to seek proof of life after death!’ He’d be a laughingstock. It would ruin him.” As she said it she realized just how much that was true. Would he have killed to prevent it? She had started out quite sure that that was impossible—but was it? If his reputation were gone, what had he left? How far had his illness, and the fear of death, unbalanced his mind? Fear can warp almost anything, only love was strong enough to overcome it . . . and did Reginald really love anything well enough for that?
“I’m so sorry,” Cornwallis said with a break in his voice. “I . . . I wish I could . . .” He stopped, staring at her helplessly, not knowing what to do with his hands.
“Aren’t you going to . . . to do something?” she asked. “If he finds the evidence he’ll destroy it. That’s what he’s gone for.”
He shook his head. “There isn’t any,” he answered quietly. “We put it in the paper to try to make Cartouche show himself.”
“Oh . . .” She was stunned. Reginald had betrayed himself unnecessarily. He would be caught. The police would be waiting for him. But that was what she had come here for, it had to be. She could never have imagined Cornwallis would simply listen and not act, and yet now that it was going to happen, she realized the enormity of it. It would be the end of her husband’s career, a complete disgrace. He would not ever be able to retire behind excuses of ill health, because the police would be involved. He might even be charged with something—obstruction, or concealing evidence. She refused to think, even in the very back of her mind, of a charge of murder.
Suddenly, Cornwallis was standing in front of her, his hands holding her arms, steadying her as if she had swayed and were about to fall over.
“Please . . .” he said urgently. “Please . . . sit down. Let me send for tea . . . or something. Brandy?” He slid his arm around her and led her to the chair, still holding her as she sank down into it.
“The drawing,” she said, gulping a little. “It wasn’t an f, it was a bishop’s crozier, under a hill. It’s very clear when you think about it. I don’t want brandy, thank you. Tea would be quite all right.”
Pitt knew that if he went to Southampton Row alone he could not prove anything satisfactorily, either about the identity of Cartouche or about his involvement in the death of Maude Lamont. Tellman was in Devon, and Pitt did not trust anyone from Bow Street, even supposing Wetron would give him somebody, which was unlikely without an explanation. And of course he could not explain, not knowing Wetron’s own involvement in any of it.
Therefore he went straight to Narraway, and it was Narraway himself who came with Pitt to Southampton Row in the bright, early sunlight of the July morning. They traveled in mere silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts.
Pitt could not rid his mind of his memory of Francis Wray. He hardly dared allow himself to hope that an autopsy would somehow show that Wray had not taken his own life, even if only to Pitt. Whether they could ever prove it to the rest of the world was another matter.
He repeated in his mind all that he thought he had asked of the people in the village. Were the questions so open, so accusatory, that anyone would have supposed from them that Wray was suspected of being involved in Maude Lamont’s death? And if he went to see her with the intent of exposing her manifestations as fraud,