Southampton Row - Anne Perry [148]
“Will they ever know the real reason he went there?” she asked, opening her eyes and looking at him.
“I know of no reason why they should,” he replied. “It was the housekeeper who killed Maude Lamont. It seems her sister had had a tragic experience with a medium years ago, and took her own life as a result. Lena never got over it. She believed in Maude Lamont until just recently. At least that is what Pitt explained to me.” He dropped to his knees in front of her, taking her stiff hands in his. “Isadora.”
It was the first time he had used her name.
Suddenly she wanted to weep. It was shock, the warmth of him close to her. She felt the tears flood her eyes and spill over.
For a moment he was at a loss, then he leaned forward and put his arms around her, holding her and allowing her to weep as long as she needed to, safe, very close, his cheek against her hair. And she stayed there long after the shock had worn itself out, because she did not wish to move, and she knew in her heart that he did not, either.
Pitt met Narraway again at the railway station, waiting for the train to Teddington. Narraway had a tight, hard smile on his face, still savoring the satisfaction of telling Wetron the conclusion of the case and handing it to him.
“Cornwallis will tell Mrs. Underhill,” Pitt said briefly. His mind was leaping ahead to the coroner, and the thin thread of hope that in examining Wray’s body he would find something that would show any truth better than the one Pitt feared.
There was little to say on the train journey. Both men had been bruised physically and emotionally by the tragedy of the morning. Pitt at least felt a mixture of compassion and revulsion for the Bishop. Fear was too familiar not to understand it, whether it was of physical pain and then extinction, or of emotional humiliation. But there had been too little in the man to admire. It was a pity without respect.
Lena Forrest was different. He could not approve what she had done. She had murdered Maude Lamont in revenge and outrage, not to save her own life, or anyone else’s, at least not directly. She may have believed it so in her own imagination. They would never know.
But she had planned it with great care and ingenuity, and after carrying it out, had been perfectly willing to allow the police to suspect others.
Still, he felt sorry for the pain she must have endured over the years since her sister’s death. And they had suspected others of having killed Maude Lamont only because there were those she had given real cause to hate and fear her. She was a woman prepared to act with extraordinary cruelty and to manipulate the tragedies of the most vulnerable for her own personal gain.
He would have guessed Cornwallis might have felt similarly. Of Narraway’s thoughts he had no idea at all, and no intention of asking. If after this he was still able to work in London at all, it would be for Narraway. He could not afford anger or contempt for him.
They sat in silence all the way to Teddington, and to Kingston beyond. The noise of the train was sufficient to make conversation difficult, and neither had any desire to discuss either what had passed or what might be to come.
At Kingston they took a hansom from the station to the mortuary where the autopsy had been conducted. Narraway’s position was sufficient to command an almost immediate attention from a highly irritated doctor. He was a large man with a snub nose and receding hair. In his youth he had been handsome, but now his features had coarsened. He regarded the two bruised, filthy men with extreme distaste.
Narraway retained his look with a level stare.
“I can’t imagine what Special Branch wants with the death of an unfortunate