Anne Perry - Rutland Place

"And does he-" Pitt did not know how to phrase acceptably what he wanted to say.

She smiled at him, making him feel suddenly clumsy and very young.

"Not so far as I know," she answered. "And I believe if he did, I should have heard. Society is very small, you know, especially in Rutland Place."

"I see." He felt his face grow warm. "So Mrs. Spencer-Brown might have been suffering an unrequited affection?"

"Possibly."

"What do you know about Mr. Spencer-Brown?" he asked, moving on to the other major avenue for exploration. "Is he the sort of man who might have become involved with other women and caused Mrs. Spencer-Brown sufficient grief, if she discov shy;ered it, to take her own life?''

"Alston? Good gracious, no! I should find that almost impossi shy;ble to believe. Of course he's pleasant enough, in his own way, but certainly not possessed of any passion to spare." She smiled bleakly. "Poor man. I imagine he is very upset by her death-by the manner of it as much as the event. Do clear it up as soon as you can, Thomas. Suspicion and speculation hurt more deeply than I think sometimes you know."

He did not argue. Who could say how much anyone under shy;stood the endless ripples of one pain growing out of another?

"I will," he promised. "Can you tell me anything else?" He knew he ought to ask her about being watched, and whether the watcher, whoever it was, could have known about Mina and Tormod Lagarde, if there was anything to know; or if Mina was the thief. Or the other great possibility: if Mina knew who was the thief, and had been killed for it.

Or yet another thought: that Mina was the thief, and in her idle pickings had taken something so potentially dangerous for the owner that she had been killed in order to redeem it silently. Something like a locket with a telltale picture in it, or more damning than that! What else might she have stolen? Had she understood it, and tried her hand at blackmail-not necessarily for money, perhaps, but for the sheer power of it?

He looked at Caroline's smooth face with its peachbloom cheeks, the high bones and slender throat that reminded him of Charlotte, the long, delicate hands so like hers. He could not bring himself to ask.

"No," she said candidly, unaware of the battle in him. "I'm afraid I can't, at the moment."

Again he let the opportunity go.

"If you recall anything, send a message and I'll come straightaway." He stood up. "As you say, the sooner we know the truth the less painful it will be for everyone." He walked over to the door and turned. "I don't suppose you know where Mrs. Spencer-Brown went early this afternoon? She called upon someone close by, because she walked."

Caroline's face tightened a little and she drew in her breath, knowing the meaning.

"Oh, didn't you know? She went to the Lagardes'. I was at the Charringtons' a little later and someone mentioned it-I don't remember who now."

"Thank you," he said gently. "Perhaps that explains what happened. Poor woman. And poor man. Please don't speak of it to anyone else. It would be a decency to let it pass unknown-if possible."

"Of course." She took a step toward him. "Thank you, Thomas."

Charlotte was not nearly so gentle with Caroline as Pitt had been, largely because she was afraid, and the feeling was so raw and urgent inside her it overruled the caution with which her mind would otherwise have softened her words. Old memories came flooding back as if the shock and the disillusion had come yesterday. The need to protect was stronger now, though, be shy;cause she could see everything so much more sharply, and this time she was on the outside, not numbed by her own emotions as she had been then.

"Mama, I think we cannot reasonably place any hope in the idea that Mina took poison by accident," she said frankly as she sat in Caroline's withdrawing room the following day. She had called as soon as she could after hearing the news from Pitt. Gossip would fly very quickly; mistakes might be made at a single encounter.

"It would be very tragic to think the poor woman was wretched enough to take her own life," she went on, "and even worse to believe someone else hated her enough to commit murder, but closing our eyes to it will not remove the truth."

"I have already told Thomas the very little I know," Caroline said unhappily. "I even made some rather wild guesses that I wish now I had not. I have probably been extremely unjust."

"And rather less than honest," Charlotte added harshly. "You told him nothing about Monsieur Alaric's picture being in your stolen locket."

Caroline froze, her fingers locked as if she had a sudden spasm; only her eyes were hot, scalding Charlotte with contempt.

"And did you?" Caroline said slowly.

Charlotte saw the anger in her, but she was too concerned with the danger to spare time for hurt.

"Of course not!" She dismissed the question without bother shy;ing to defend herself. "But that does not alter the fact that if you lost such a thing, maybe someone else did too!"

"And if they did, what has that to do with Mina's death?" Caroline was still stiff with chill.

"Oh, don't be so silly!" Charlotte exploded with exasperation. Why was Caroline being so obtuse? "If Mina were the thief, then she might have been murdered to recover the stolen article, whatever it is! And if she were the victim, maybe it was some shy;thing that mattered to her so much, was so dangerous for her, that she would rather die than face having it known!"

There was silence. A pan was dropped in the scullery, and the dim echo of it penetrated the room. Very slowly the hard anger died out of Caroline's face as she understood. Charlotte watched her without speaking.

"What could there be that was worse than death?" Caroline said at last.

"That is what we need to find out." Charlotte finally relaxed her body enough to sit properly in her chair and lean against the back. "Thomas can find facts, but it may take you or me to understand them. After all, you cannot expect the police to know the feelings of someone like Mina. Something that would seem trivial to them might have been overwhelming to her."

It was not necessary to explain all the differences of class, sex, and the whole framework of customs and values that lay between Pitt and Mina. Both Charlotte and Caroline understood that all the sensitivity or imagination he was capable of would not guide him to see with Mina's eyes or recognize what it was that had accomplished her death.

"I wish I didn't have to know," Caroline said wearily, look shy;ing away from Charlotte. "I would so much rather bury her in peace. I have no curiosity. I can abide a mystery perfectly well. I have learned that one is not very often happier for having found all the answers."

Charlotte knew that at least half her mother's feeling sprang from a desire for privacy herself, the need to keep her own secrets. So much of the pleasure of a flirtation was that other people should see your conquest, and this realization added to her fear. Caroline must be very enchanted with Paul Alaric if she was content for the relationship to be unobserved. That meant it was far more than a game; there was something in it that Caroline wanted very much, something more than admiration alone.

"You cannot afford not to know!" Charlotte said sharply, wanting to shock her mother into fear acute enough to bring her to some sense. "If Mina were the thief, then she may still have your locket! When her possessions are sorted out, Alstoq will find it-or Thomas will!"

This had all the jarring effect she intended. Caroline's face tightened into a mask. She swallowed with difficulty.

"If, Thomas finds it-" she began; and then the enormity of it hit her. "Oh, dear heaven! He might think I killed Mina! Charlotte-he couldn't think that-could he?"