The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [87]
She was confused.
“No? What about him? Did you discover something?” Again she was afraid, thinking of Emily. Was it Ashworth after all? That would at least mean he would not be able to hurt Emily any more, humiliate her by leaving her for someone else. The thought was touched with deep regret, which was ridiculous. It was only a very small part of her that had liked him.
Pitt was watching her. “You like him,” he observed with a smile. His eyes were gentle.
“I dislike him intensely,” she said with considerable sharpness.
“Why? Because you are afraid for Emily? Afraid he would kill her, or afraid he will eventually get bored with her and move on to someone else, perhaps someone with money, or a title?”
She resented his accuracy, his intrusion. Emily’s humiliation and hurt were none of his business.
“Afraid he might kill her, of course! What is it you came to tell me, Mr. Pitt?”
He ignored her terseness, still smiling. “That he probably did not even know the Hiltons’ maid, and he certainly did not kill Lily Mitchell. His actions are very fully accounted for all that day and night.”
She was pleased, very pleased, which made no sense. It meant Ashworth would remain free to humiliate Emily, and she cared very much that that should not happen.
“So you have eliminated one more person,” she said, looking for words, anything to say to him to banish the silence and avoid his eyes watching her, smiling, seeing every expression, every thought in her face.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Not a very satisfactory method of detection.”
“Is that all you can do?” She meant it as a genuine question, not a criticism.
He smiled a little wryly, a self-deprecating gesture. “Not quite. I’m trying to build up in my mind a picture of the kind of person we’re looking for, of the sort of man driven to do such things.”
Involuntarily she voiced the same thought that had so horrified Dominic. “Do you think perhaps he’s a man—who—doesn’t know himself what he’s done, doesn’t know why, doesn’t even remember afterwards? Then he would be just as ignorant and as afraid as the rest of us?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
It was no comfort. She wished he had said no. It brought the person, the hangman, closer; it removed the gulf between them. He could be any one of them. Only God could know how he would feel when he discovered himself!
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” he said quietly. “It frightens me, too. He must be found, but I am not looking forward to doing it.”
She could think of nothing to say. Her mind’s eye could see only Dominic’s black tie, big enough to strangle the world. She wished Pitt would go away, before the very dominance of it in her mind made her tongue slip.
“I saw your brother-in-law the other day,” he went on.
She felt herself tighten. Fortunately she had her back to him and he could not see the spasm in her throat, the terror. She tried to speak, to sound casual, but nothing came. Was that what he had really come for, because he knew or guessed already?
“In a coffeeshop,” he continued.
“Indeed?” she managed to speak at last.
He did not reply. She knew he was looking at her. She could not bear the silence. “I cannot imagine you had a great deal to discuss.”
“The hangman, of course, but not much else, except a few other crimes. He seemed to feel this was the most important.”
“Isn’t it?” She turned back to look at him, to judge from his face what he meant.
“Yes, of course it is, but there are many others. My sergeant lost his arm a week ago.”
“Lost his arm!” she was horrified. “How? What happened?” She remembered the little man vividly. How could he have had such an appalling accident?
“Gangrene,” he said simply, but she saw the anger in his eyes. For a moment she actually forgot about Dominic. “He got an iron spike through it,” he went on, “when we went into the rookeries after a forger.” He told her what had happened.
“That’s horrible,” she said fiercely. “Does that sort of thing happen to—to many of you?”
She