The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [104]
“Deep? What do you mean deep?”
“Thought a lot more than he said, if you know what I mean. Couldn’t abide his brother-in-law. Gave me some good financial advice, though! Put me onto an excellent man in the city, feller by the name of Carvell. Bought me some very good shares. Done well.”
“Very useful, that—what.”
“What?”
“Useful. Very useful to have a good financial adviser.”
“Oh, yes. Talking about finance, what do you think of …”
Emily moved away, her mind whirling with snatches of words, half ideas, thoughts to report to Charlotte.
7
“YES OF COURSE I’ve been reading the newspapers every day,” Micah Drummond said grimly. He was standing by the window in the library of the small house he had bought about six months ago, immediately prior to his marriage, not finding his apartment adequate for his new status. The home he had shared with his first wife, and where his daughters had grown up, he had sold on becoming a widower. His daughters were by then married, and he felt haunted by memories and uncharacteristically lonely.
Now everything was different. He had resigned his position in order to marry Eleanor Byam, a woman touched by tragedy, and unwittingly by scandal. He had loved her deeply enough to consider his resulting retirement from office a trifling price to pay for the constant pleasure of her companionship.
He looked at Pitt with a frown of concern in his long, sensitive face with its grave eyes and ascetic mouth.
“I wish I could think of something helpful to say, but with every new event I become more confused.” He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “Have you found any connection between Winthrop, Arledge and the poor bus conductor?”
“No. It’s possible Winthrop and Arledge knew each other, or more exactly that Winthrop’s brother-in-law, Mitchell, knew both of them,” Pitt replied, sitting comfortably in the large green chair. “But the bus conductor is a complete mystery. Men like Winthrop don’t take omnibuses. Arledge might have, but I think it’s unlikely.”
Drummond was standing with his back to the fireplace. He looked at Pitt anxiously. “Why? What makes you think Arledge might have used an omnibus? Why would a man of his standing do such a thing?”
“Only a remote possibility,” Pitt replied. “He had a—a lover.”
“A what?” The ghost of a smile touched Drummond’s lips. “You mean a mistress?”
“No.” Pitt sighed. “I don’t. I mean what I said. Not a liaison he could afford to have known. He might have used an omnibus …”
“But you don’t believe it,” Drummond finished for him. “A quarrel?” He searched Pitt’s face curiously, his brows puckered. “You are not satisfied with that?”
Pitt had thought about it deeply, and the easy answer troubled him.
“I might have been, if I had not met the man,” he said slowly. “But he was desolated. Oh I know that doesn’t preclude his having done it himself—people have killed those they loved before and then been destroyed by grief and remorse afterwards. I just don’t believe he is one of those.”
Drummond bit his lip. “I shall be surprised if Farnsworth sees it that way.”
“Oh, he doesn’t,” Pitt agreed with a harsh little laugh. “But so far there is no evidence whatever to connect Carvell with either Winthrop or Yeats, so I can refuse to act for the time being.”
Drummond looked at him closely and Pitt felt increasingly uncomfortable.
“So far there is no real connection between any of them,” Pitt continued. “Only a very tenuous business matter. I cannot believe all this is over money.”
“Nor I,” Drummond admitted. “There is a passion in it, an insanity that springs from something which, thank God, is far less ordinary than greed. But I cannot imagine what.” He hesitated, looking at Pitt.
“Yes?” Pitt prompted.
“Perhaps it is—bizarre …” Drummond said reluctantly, then stopped again.
Pitt did not interrupt again, knowing he would continue. He could see the struggle