The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [157]
Pitt looked at him and saw the blood on his own shirtfront, at the right height to have matched Corena’s wound It could have been true.
“I see,” Narraway said grimly. “So you are saying it was self-defense?”
Voisey’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course I am! Good God—do you think I would have shot the man on purpose?” The amazement and incredulity were so intense in his whole being that in spite of his own feelings, Pitt could not help but believe him.
Narraway turned on his heel and strode out, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.
Pitt looked at Voisey once more, then followed after Narraway.
In the hall, Narraway stopped. As soon as Pitt caught up with him he spoke very quietly.
“You know Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, don’t you?” It was barely a question. He did not even wait for an answer. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Corena was the greatest love of her life. Don’t ask me how I know; I do, that is enough. You should be the one to tell her this. Don’t let her read it in the newspapers or hear it from someone who doesn’t know what it means to her.”
Pitt felt as if he had been hit so hard the breath had been forced out of him, and he could not fill his lungs again. Instead there was an ache inside him almost enough to make him cry out.
Vespasia!
“Please do it,” Narraway said urgently. “It shouldn’t be a stranger.” He did not beg, but it was there in his eyes.
There was only one possible answer. Pitt nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and went back to the front door and out to the quiet street.
He took the first hansom and gave Vespasia’s address. He rode through the darkness without thinking. There was no point in rehearsing how he would say such a thing. There was no way.
The cab pulled up and he alighted. He rang the doorbell and to his surprise it was answered within moments.
“Good evening, sir,” the butler said quietly. “Her Ladyship is still up. Would you care to come in, and I shall tell her you are here.”
“Thank you …” Pitt was confused, walking in a nightmare. He followed the butler into the yellow room and stood waiting.
He had no idea whether it was two or three minutes, or ten, before the door opened and Vespasia came in. She was wearing a long silk robe of almost white, her hair still coiled loosely on her head. She looked fragile, old, and almost ethereally beautiful. It was impossible not to think of her as a passionate woman who had loved unforgettably one Roman summer half a century ago.
Pitt found the tears choking his throat and stinging his eyes.
“It’s all right, Thomas,” she said so quietly he barely heard her. “I know he’s dead. He wrote to me, telling me what he would do. It was he who killed James Sissons, believing it was what Sissons himself had intended, but at the last moment lost his nerve to be a hero after all.” She stopped for a moment, struggling to keep her composure. “You are free to use this, to see that Isaac Karansky is not blamed for a crime he did not commit—and perhaps that Charles Voisey is, although I am not certain how you can accomplish that.”
Pitt loathed telling her, but it was not a lie that could live.
“Voisey says he shot him in self-defense. I don’t know that we can prove otherwise.”
Vespasia almost smiled. “I’m sure he did,” she agreed. “Charles Voisey is the leader of the Inner Circle. If they had succeeded in their conspiracy to cause revolution, he would have become the first president of Britain.”
For an instant, the beat of a heart, Pitt was astonished. Then the beat passed,