The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [115]
“I would save your pity until the end,” Charlotte warned.
Emily looked at her. “Are you afraid?”
“Only a little. I wish I thought they were protecting the police for some honorable reason, but I think it is because someone higher in the Circle than Uttley is on the force—maybe the assistant commissioner, but it could be anyone.”
Emily sighed. “And I suppose Thomas is no nearer to finding the Hyde Park Headsman?”
“Not so far as I know.”
“And we are not doing very much, are we?” Emily said critically. “I wish I could think of something!”
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Charlotte was growing more despondent. “It isn’t as if we had the faintest idea who it could be. It isn’t really—” She stopped.
“Very interesting,” Emily finished for her. “Because we don’t know the people. Madness is frightening, and sad, but really not …”
“Interesting.” Charlotte smiled bleakly.
Pitt redoubled his efforts to find some link, however tenuous, between Winthrop and Aidan Arledge. In this endeavor he went again to see Arledge’s widow. She received him with the same charming courtesy as previously, but he was saddened to find her looking weary and anxious. In spite of the shock she must have been suffering when they first met, there had been a bloom in her face. It was gone now, as if the long days and nights had drained her. She was still dressed carefully, her sweeping, feminine black relieved by delicate touches of lace and the same beautiful mourning brooch and ring.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a wan smile. “Have you come to report some further discovery?” She said it without hope in her voice, but her eyes, hollowed with shock, searched his face.
“Nothing that we yet know the meaning of,” he answered. Her distress hurt him far more than Farnsworth’s abuse or the criticism written with such a free hand in the newspapers.
“Nothing at all?” she pressed. “You have no idea who is doing these terrible things?” They were in the withdrawing room, which was still warm and restful, a large bowl of flowers on the table by the far wall.
“We have still found no link to connect your husband with Captain Winthrop,” he replied. “And even less with the bus conductor.”
“Please sit down, Superintendent.” She indicated the chair nearest to him, and sat in another opposite, folding her hands in her lap. It was a graceful pose and she looked almost at ease, but her back was perfectly straight, as she had probably been taught to sit since nursery days. Charlotte had told him how good governesses would pass by and poke a ruler, or some other such sharp, hard instrument, at the bent backs of their less diligent girls.
Pitt accepted and crossed his legs comfortably. In spite of the circumstances, and the errand on which he had come, there was something about her presence which was extraordinarily agreeable, at once sharpening perception and yet leaving him with a sense of well-being. The thoughts and confidences shared last time were like a warm memory between them.
“Is there something else I can tell you?” she inquired, watching his face. “I have been searching my mind for anything at all. You see, the trouble is there is so much of Aidan’s life in which I had no part.” She smiled, and then bit her lip suddenly. “Oh dear. Far more than I meant, even when I said that. What I was thinking of was his music. I am very fond of music, but I could not possibly go every evening there was a concert, and it would have been out of the question to attend all the meetings and rehearsals.” She searched his eyes to see if he understood, and did not find her culpable for such an admission.
“No woman goes to his art or profession with her husband, Mrs. Arledge,” Pitt assured her. “Many