Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [119]
“Yes, of course.” He would not have done anything else regardless of what Farnsworth had said, and perhaps Farnsworth knew that.
Further discussion was preempted by a sharp knock on the door, and a constable poked his head around the moment Farnsworth answered.
“Yes?” Farnsworth said abruptly.
The constable looked embarrassed. “There’s a lady to see Mr. Pitt, sir.”
“Well tell her to wait!” Farnsworth snapped. “Pitt is busy.”
“No, sir. I—I mean a real lady.” The constable did not move. “I daren’t tell ’er that, sir. You haven’t seen ’er.”
“For heaven’s sake, man! Are you scared of a woman just because she thinks she’s important?” Farnsworth barked. “Go and do as you’re told!”
“But, sir, I …” He got no further. An imperious voice behind him interrupted his embarrassment.
“Thank you, Constable. If this is Mr. Pitt’s office, I shall tell him myself that I am here.” And the moment after the door swung wide and Vespasia fixed Farnsworth with a glittering eye. She looked magnificent in ecru lace and silk, and pearls worth a fortune across her bosom. “I don’t believe I have your acquaintance, sir,” she said coolly. “I am Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould.”
Farnsworth took a deep breath and gulped, swallowed the wrong way and relapsed into a fit of coughing.
Vespasia waited.
“Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth,” Pitt said for him, hiding both his astonishment and his amusement with some difficulty.
“How do you do, Mr. Farnsworth.” Vespasia swept past him into the office and sat down on the chair in front of Pitt’s desk, resting her parasol, point down, on the carpet and waiting until Farnsworth should have recovered himself, or taken his leave, or preferably both.
“Have you come to see me, Aunt Vespasia?” Pitt asked her.
She looked at him coldly. “Of course I have. Why on earth else should I come to this unfortunate place? I do not frequent police stations for my amusement, Thomas.”
Farnsworth was still in considerable difficulty, gasping for breath, tears running down his cheeks.
“How may I be of service?” Pitt asked Vespasia as he took his place behind his desk, Micah Drummond’s very beautiful oak desk with the green leather inlay. Pitt was very proud to have inherited it.
“You may not,” she replied, a slight melting in her silver eyes. “I have come in order to help you, or at least to give you further information, whether it helps or not.”
Farnsworth was still unable to stop coughing. He stood with his handkerchief to his scarlet face.
“In relation to what?” Pitt enquired.
“For heaven’s sake, assist that man before he chokes himself!” she ordered. “Haven’t you brandy, or at least water to offer him?”
“There’s a bottle of cider in the corner cupboard,” Pitt suggested.
Farnsworth grimaced. Micah Drummond would have kept brandy. Pitt could not afford it, and had no taste for it anyway.
“If … you will … excuse me …” Farnsworth managed to get out between gasps.
“I will.” Vespasia inclined her head sympathetically, and as soon as Farnsworth was gone, she looked back at Pitt. “Regarding the murder of Susannah Chancellor. Can anything else be on your mind this morning?”
“No. I had not realized you would have heard of it already.”
She did not bother to reply to that. “I saw her the evening before last,” she said gravely. “I did not overhear her conversation, but I observed it, and I could not help but see that it aroused the profoundest emotions.”
“With whom?”
She looked at him as if she knew exactly what he feared. There was profound sorrow in her face.
“Peter Kreisler,” she replied.
“Where was this?”
“At Lady Rattray’s house in Eaton Square. She was holding a musical evening. There were fifty or sixty people there, no more.”
“And you saw Kreisler and Mrs. Chancellor?” he prompted, a sinking feeling of disappointment inside him. “Can you describe the encounter for me, as precisely as possible?”
A flicker of disapproval crossed her face and disappeared. “I do understand