Anne Perry - The Angel Court Affair

“Was the front door locked and bolted this morning?” he asked Brundage levelly.

“Yes, sir,” Brundage replied. “So was the back door into the delivery area. I can’t find anything to indicate a jimmied window, but there is an open one on the second floor. It’s right near the bathroom downpipe, but I can’t see three women dressed in long skirts climbing down the wall in the middle of the night or the small hours of the morning.”

Pitt could in fact imagine Sofia Delacruz doing it, if the cause was important enough to her, but he did not say so.

Smith glared at Brundage. “Someone could have climbed up it,” he pointed out angrily. “They could have broken in and taken Sofia and-”

“The two other women also?” Pitt raised his eyebrows. “Only with help. And it’d be almost impossible to do silently. I cannot imagine Sofia Delacruz going unwillingly and without a fight. Can you?”

Smith glared at him. “Are you suggesting she went willingly?” he said between his teeth, anger staining his cheeks pink.

“Is it possible?” Pitt responded. “You know her better than most people do. You have supported her for over five years. You have stated publicly, many times, that you believe her philosophy.” He smiled very slightly. “You certainly appear to admire her.”

“Of course I do,” Smith said instantly, then stiffened as if he regretted committing himself so far, and without equivocation. He moved his feet uncomfortably on the wide oak floorboards. “We have our differences though,” he went on, aware of now being intensely awkward. “On minor points only.”

Pitt purposely allowed the silence to grow heavy. Footsteps echoed across the yard, uneven on the cobbles, and somewhere in the kitchen a saucepan was dropped.

“She was in danger!” Smith finally said angrily. “That’s why your people were supposed to guard her! Where were your men when she was taken? Why aren’t you asking them these questions? Where were you yourself?”

“Asleep, as I imagine you were,” Pitt said softly. “I am not attacking you, Mr. Smith. I am trying to rule out impossibilities, so that we can concentrate on what is possible. A window three stories up is open, but all the doors to the outside were locked and bolted. It seems hard to think of a way in which Señora Delacruz and both the other women were taken by force without a sound being heard. There has been nothing broken, nothing stolen and no indications that anyone was hurt.”

Ramon spoke for the first time, his face flushed with anger. “If you are saying that the señora went willingly and has left us, then you are a fool! You know nothing of my people.” His accent was very slight but his voice was husky with anger. “You spoke with her, I know that. Do you see that woman stealing out in the night like an eloping maid? Why? What for? Her faith is her life…”

“There are different kinds of faith, Mr. Aguilar,” Pitt said very gently. The man’s distress was clear in his pale face and clenched body. “What about coercion or trickery?” he suggested. “Or a message from her family that someone was ill, perhaps dying, and time was short.”

Ramon hesitated. “I suppose it is possible,” he said with a flicker of hope. “But why did she not leave a message? And why take both Cleo and Elfrida?”

Smith’s mouth was drawn in a tight, thin line. “If she had gone to see her cousin, Barton Hall, then she would certainly have told us,” he answered for Ramon. “The situation between them is…unpleasant. He has no understanding of her mission. She did say she wished to see him, but I have no idea why. And I am certain that she has not done so yet.”

Ramon gave him a withering look. “Her business is private. She certainly would have gone alone, but not in the night, and not without telling anyone.”

“An emergency?” Pitt was still looking for an answer that displayed thoughtlessness possibly, but not danger.

“What emergency?” Smith said bitterly. “They were not close. Her family treated her very badly. Without understanding. They are steeped in their own past, their own knowledge, their own importance! Rigid…” He stopped and flushed very slightly, aware that both Pitt and Ramon were staring at him. He cleared his throat. “I apologize. I have never met Barton Hall. I know only what she told me, and what I read between the lines of her words.”

Ramon was irritated. “I do not believe she spoke ill of him, whatever she thought.” He turned to Pitt. There was anger and warning in his eyes.

Ramon’s blind defense of Sofia was possibly hampering the investigation, but nevertheless Pitt admired it, which was unreasonable in itself. If any woman looked capable of defending herself, and was willing to do so, it was Sofia Delacruz.

“You wouldn’t,” Smith said with an edge of contempt. “Your views of her are tinged with affection, even though at the moment only the truth is of any help to us.” He turned from Ramon back to Pitt. “Their differences are an old wound to Barton Hall’s family pride. To his standing in the world, if you like.”

“He has no standing in the world,” Ramon snapped back. “He is a banker and a layman in the Church of England. He is important in his community, that’s all. When he retires someone else will take his place, and he will sink into obscurity. The señora will be remembered forever. The world will be changed because of her.” His dark face with its gentle lines was filled with a passionate enthusiasm that made him momentarily beautiful.

Pitt was momentarily shaken by the man’s conviction. Then common sense returned like a cold wind erasing words written in sand. Sofia had gone away, unaccountably. Judging from his face, Smith’s feelings were very mixed, but he seemed more angry than concerned. Was that because he knew perfectly well where she was? Or was he unable to contemplate something serious having happened to her?

Ramon’s expression was different. He looked fearful of the worst, as if in his vision she was important enough that all the power of evil, human or otherwise, would quite naturally gather against her. It was there in the panic to his voice, the intensity of his speech.

Pitt clung to the details of fact and reason.

“The two women who went with her,” he said, returning to the issue, “Cleo Robles and Elfrida Fonsecca-tell me something of them. I remember seeing them at the meeting. They seemed to be close to her, but why would she take both of them with her?”

Smith and Ramon began speaking at the same time, and then both stopped. It was Smith who began again, asserting his seniority.

“Cleo Robles is very young, twenty-three. She is well meaning, full of enthusiasm, but she has much yet to learn of the way to teach people.”

“There are as many ways as there are people to teach,” Ramon interrupted. “And often enough it takes more than one person to do it.”

“He was asking about Cleo, not about teaching,” Smith corrected him. He turned back to Pitt and, with an effort, resumed his formal voice. “She is like a child, eager and friendly. If you imagine she has guile in her, then you know nothing of people.”

Pitt was used to being in the center of a disagreement. “She has no guile. Does that mean that she is also gullible?” he asked, looking from one to the other of them.

“Yes,” Smith said without hesitation. His eyes darted at Ramon, then back again to Pitt.

“No,” Ramon contradicted him in the same breath. “Not…gullible. Perhaps innocent. She has dreams…”

“Gullible,” Smith repeated, looking away from him. “But she is loyal. Ramon is right: she has dreams of saving the world, and she believes that Sofia can do it.” This time his voice did not give away his own feelings, only that he was struggling to hide them.