Southampton Row - Anne Perry [52]
She took a very long, slow breath and let it out in a barely audible sigh. “Did someone break in?” She hesitated a second. “Perhaps she forgot to lock the side door to Cosmo Place? The last person to arrive came in that way, not through the front door.”
“She was not robbed,” Pitt replied. “No one had broken anything.” He was watching her intently. His eyes never moved from hers. “And the manner in which she was killed seemed to be peculiarly personal.”
She brushed past him and sank into one of the dark red chairs, her skirts billowing around her in a soft swish of silk on silk. She was so white Tellman thought that she had at last realized the meaning of what Pitt had told her.
Did it startle her? Or was it that she already knew, and this was remembrance, and the moment of grasping the fact that others knew also, specifically the police?
Or could it be that the knowledge that it had been personal betrayed to her who was responsible?
“I don’t think I wish to know about it, Mr. Pitt,” she said quickly. She seemed to be completely in command of herself again. “I can tell you only what I observed. It appeared to me a perfectly ordinary evening. There were no quarrels, no ill feeling of any kind that I saw, and I believe I would have seen it had it been there. In spite of what you say, I can’t believe it was one of us. It was certainly not I . . .” Now her voice cracked a little. “I . . . I was most indebted to her skill. And I . . . liked her.” She seemed about to add something, then changed her mind and stared at Pitt, waiting for him to continue.
He did not wait any longer to be invited, but sat down opposite her, leaving Tellman free to do the same. “Can you describe the evening for me, Mrs. Serracold?”
“I suppose so. I arrived a short while before ten. The soldier was already in the room. I know nothing about him, you understand, but he is most concerned about battles. All his questions are about Africa and war, so I assume he is a soldier, or was.” Her face registered momentary pity. “I formed the opinion that he had lost someone he loved.”
“And the third person?” Pitt prompted.
“Oh.” She shrugged. “The grave robber? He came last.”
Pitt looked startled. “I beg your pardon?”
She pulled a little face, an expression of dislike. “I call him that in my mind because I think he is a skeptic, trying to take from us the belief in a resurrection of the spirit. His questions were . . . academic, in a cruel way, as if he were probing a wound. . . .” She searched Pitt’s eyes, trying to gauge with what exactness he understood, if he were capable of grasping at least an idea of what she was describing, or if she were laying herself open to unnecessary embarrassment.
Tellman felt a sudden stab of knowledge, as if he saw her in an ordinary dress such as his mother or Gracie would wear, the rustling silks obscured by a clearer sight. She needed to believe in Maude Lamont’s powers. There was something she was seeking that had driven her there, compelled her, and now that Maude was dead, she was lost. Behind those bright, pale eyes there was desperation.
Then she spoke again, and shattered the moment. He heard her perfect diction and the brittleness of it, and they were a world apart once more.
“Or perhaps it was my imagination,” she said with a smile. “I really hardly saw his face. He might have been afraid of the truth, mightn’t he?” Her lips curved as if it were only the inappropriateness of the situation which kept her from actually laughing. “He came and went through the garden door. Perhaps he is a highly important personage who committed a terrible crime and wants to know if the dead will betray him?” Her voice lifted at the fancy. “There’s an idea for you, Mr. Pitt.” She looked at Pitt steadily, ignoring Tellman, her face calm, vivid, almost challenging.
“It had occurred to me, Mrs. Serracold,” Pitt replied, his own face expressionless. “But I am interested that it also came to your mind. Was Maude Lamont a person who was likely to have used such knowledge?”
Her eyelids flickered. The muscles