The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [40]
“I’m not really sure. He was very impertinent.” Then she wished she had not said it. Perhaps he had been, but she had also been rude, and it was less forgivable in herself. “It may be his way of . . . of surprising people into frankness.”
“A little redundant with you, I would have thought?” he grinned.
Her heart turned over. Habit, familiarity all vanished and it was as if she had just met him again, enchanted. He was everything that was laughing, masculine, romantic. Why, oh why could she not have been Sarah?
She looked down at the roses in case he read it all in her eyes. She knew it must be naked there. For once she could think of nothing to say.
“Did he go on about Maddock?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He snapped off another dead head and dropped it into the basket.
“Does he honestly think the poor devil was so besotted by Lily that when she chose Brody instead he followed after her and killed her in the street?”
“No, of course not! He wouldn’t be so stupid,” she said quickly.
“Is it so stupid, Charlotte? Passion can be very strong. If she laughed at him, mocked him—”
“Maddock! Dominic?” she faced him without thinking. “You don’t think he did, do you?”
His dark eyes were puzzled.
“I find it hard to believe, but then I find it hard to believe anyone would strangle a woman with a wire like that. But someone did. We only know one side of Maddock. We always see him very stiff and correct: ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, ma’am.’ We don’t ever think what he feels or thinks underneath.”
“You do think so!” she accused.
“I don’t know. But we have to consider it.”
“We don’t! Pitt might have to, but we know better.”
“No we don’t, Charlotte. We don’t know anything at all. And Pitt must be good at his job, or he wouldn’t be an inspector.”
“He’s not infallible. And anyway, he said he didn’t think that Maddock was involved; he just had to exhaust all the possibilities.”
“Did he say that?”
“Yes.”
“Then if he doesn’t think it’s Maddock, why does he keep coming here?”
“I suppose because Lily worked here.”
“What about the others, Chloe and the Hiltons’ maid?”
“Well, I suppose he goes there, too. I didn’t ask him.”
He stared at the grass, frowning.
She longed to say something wise, something he would remember, but nothing came to her but a storm of feelings.
He took off the last rose and picked up the basket.
“Well, I suppose he’ll either arrest someone, or declare it an unsolved crime,” he said drily. “Not a very comforting thought. I think I’d rather anything than that.” And he walked back into the house.
She followed after him slowly. Papa and Sarah and Emily were all in the withdrawing room, and as she came in after Dominic, Mama also entered from the other door. She saw the basket of flower heads.
“Ah, good. Thank you, Dominic.” She took them as he held them out.
Edward looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
“What did that policeman ask you this morning, Charlotte?” he asked.
“Very little,” she replied. Actually all she could clearly remember was how rude she had been, and the relief that he did not seriously suspect Maddock.
“You were in there long enough,” Emily observed. “If he was not asking you questions, what on earth were you doing?”
“Emily, don’t be foolish!” Edward said tersely. “And your comments are in poor taste. Charlotte, please answer me a little more fully. We are concerned.”
“Really, Papa, he seemed only to be going over the same things again, about Maddock, what time he went out, what Mrs. Dunphy said. But he did admit that he did not believe Maddock guilty himself, only that he had to pursue every possibility.”
“Oh.”
She had expected relief, even joy; she could not understand the silence that greeted her.
“Papa?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Are you not relieved? The police do not suspect Maddock. Inspector Pitt said as much.”
“Then whom do they suspect?” Sarah asked. “Or didn’t they tell you that?”
“Of course they didn’t!” Edward frowned. “I’m surprised they told her so much. Are you sure