Anne Perry - Buckingham Palace Gardens

I am afraid that leaves no possibility other than that it was one of the guests.”

She had thought herself already stunned. This was beyond belief.

“You mean one of us?” Her voice was high-pitched; she refused to accept the thought. “That’s absurd!” Even as the words spilled out, she knew it was not absurd. All kinds of people have passions that lie beneath the disciplined surface, until some fear or hunger makes them momentarily ungovernable. Usually it is violent words that break through, or something beautiful or precious is smashed to pieces in rage. What prevents it from being a human being? The conventions of society and the fear of punishment. All human life must be regarded as sacred, or one’s own may be endangered as well. But do women who sell their bodies for others to use count as human life in the same way? If they did, could one buy them in the first place?

He was watching her.

“I have no knowledge that could be helpful, Mr. Pitt,” she said as steadily as she could. “As you must already know, the gentlemen remained at the party, and we retired early. I did not see anyone again until my maid woke me this morning and told me there had been a tragedy, and we were requested to remain in our bedrooms.”

“Do you know at what time your husband retired?” he asked.

He must be aware that they had separate rooms. This was a perfectly usual thing for the wealthy, but not, she imagined, for the class to which he belonged.

“No, I don’t,” she answered. “Perhaps if you ask the other gentlemen, they will be able to tell you.” Not counting the Prince of Wales-and that he should be guilty was unthinkable-there were only four of them: Cahoon, Julius, Hamilton, and Simnel. What this policeman was saying seemed inescapable, and yet it was also ridiculous. He did not know them, or he would not even imagine it.

But how well did she know them? She had been married to Cahoon for over seven years, lived in his house, sometimes intimately, at other times as strangers, misreading each other, saying the same words and meaning different things. She knew his mind. He was lucidly clear. But she had never known his heart.

Hamilton Quase was charming when he wished to be, but Liliane was obviously afraid for him. She leaped to defend him as if he were uniquely vulnerable. Memories flashed into Elsa’s mind of looks between Liliane and Julius, a sudden pallor on Hamilton’s face, and a smile on Cahoon’s, then a thinning of the lips, an unnatural change of subject.

“I would help you if I could, Mr. Pitt,” she said, struggling to sound resolute and in control. “This is an appalling thing to have happened, for all of us, but of course mostly for the poor woman. I retired a little after nine. I have no knowledge of what happened after that. You will have to ask my husband, and the other gentlemen.”

“I have done, Mrs. Dunkeld,” Pitt replied. “Each says that after the. . entertainment. . was finished, he retired alone. Except Mr.

Sorokine. He says he left them early, and they all confirm that he did, as do the servants. Unfortunately, since he did not share a room with Mrs. Sorokine, or see her again until morning, that is of little value to us in excluding him.”

She felt her face burn. “I see. So you know nothing, except that it was one of us?”

“Yes. I am afraid that is exactly what I mean.”

She could think of no reply, not even any protest or question.

The silence lay in the room like a covering for the dead.

On the day the murder was discovered at the Palace, Gracie Phipps had been the all-purpose maid at the Pitts’ home for nearly eight years. She was twenty-one now and engaged to marry Police Sergeant Samuel Tellman. Gracie was intensely proud of working for such a remarkable man as Pitt. She had no doubt whatever that he was the best detective in England.

When she began in his service, she had been four feet ten inches tall and could neither read nor write. She had not considered the possibility of ever doing either. However, Charlotte Pitt had offered to teach her. Now Gracie could not only read newspapers but even books and, more than that, she enjoyed it. She had also grown a whole inch and a half.

She was reading in her bedroom with the attic windows open to the rustling of leaves and the distant sounds of traffic, when there was a knock on the door. She was startled. It was dark outside and must be late. She had lost count of time in the adventure on the pages.

She stood up quickly and went to answer the knock.

Charlotte was on the landing, still fully dressed but with her hair rather less than tidily pinned, as if she had put it back up again in haste.

“Yes, ma’am?” Gracie said with a flutter of alarm. “Is something wrong?” Her mind went instantly to Pitt, having been called out in an emergency early that morning. There had been no message from him since. “Is Mr. Pitt all right?”

“Yes, perfectly, I believe,” Charlotte said with an oddly rueful smile. “Mr. Narraway, from Special Branch, would like to see you. He has something to ask you.” Her expression softened. “Please feel perfectly at liberty to answer him as you wish to. Whatever you say will be acceptable to me, and I shall see that your decision is respected.”

“Wot. . wot’s ’e gonna say?” Gracie asked with panic rising inside her. She knew Narraway was Pitt’s superior. He was a strange man, quietly spoken and elegant in a lean, very dark sort of way. But Gracie had seen hard men in the East End of London where she had grown up, men who carried knives and knew how to use them, whom she would not have backed in a fight against Mr. Narraway. There was something in him only a fool would challenge. Except when he looked at Mrs. Pitt. Then he was just as human and easily hurt as anyone else. Gracie thought she might be the only one who could see that. It was odd what people missed sometimes. “Wot does ’e want wi’

me?” she said again.

“Come down and you’ll find out,” Charlotte told her. “I’m not carrying a message down to the head of Special Branch to say you won’t see him!”

Gracie thought about her hair, which was straight as rain, screwed up in a knot at the back of her head, and her dark blue dress, which was more than a little crumpled. She would be putting a clean one on tomorrow anyway, so she had not bothered about sitting on it.

“Just as you are.” Charlotte must have read her thoughts. “He will mind a few wrinkles far less than he will mind waiting.”

That was alarming. Gracie smoothed her skirt once, ineffectively; her hands were shaking. Then she followed Charlotte down to the landing, past the bedroom doors of Jemima and Daniel, the two Pitt children, then on down the next flight to the hall.

Narraway was waiting in the front parlor. He looked extremely tired. His face was lined and his thick, dark hair with its sprinkling of gray was definitely less neat than usual. He was apparently too restless to sit down.

Gracie stood to attention. “Yes, sir?”

Charlotte closed the door and Gracie hoped to heaven she had remained inside, but she dared not look round to find out.

“Miss Phipps,” Narraway began, “what I am about to tell you, you will keep with the same absolute discretion you do all things you learn in this house. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir! I know what discretion is,” Gracie said indignantly. “I don’t talk about things to no one wot in’t their business.”

“Good. Mr. Pitt was called this morning because there has been a murder at Buckingham Palace, where the Queen lives. Although she is not there at the moment, fortunately. However, the Prince of Wales is.”

Gracie stared at him speechlessly.