Anne Perry - Rutland Place

She turned. For the first time there was expression in Eloise's face, even her eyes.

"Thank you. You have been kind. I may not appear as if I value it, but I do. You are right. Perhaps I shall drink something, and sleep for a while. I feel very tired."

Charlotte felt a surge of relief, as if hard knots inside her had slipped loose.

"I'll tell your maid to see that no one else is admitted for today."

"Thank you."

After delivering the directions to the maid and the footman, Charlotte went into the withdrawing room where Inigo Charrington stood by the mantelshelf, his face creased with anxiety, his coat still over his arm as if he were unsure whether to stay or go.

"Is she all right?" he said without any pretense at formality.

"No," Charlotte replied with equal honesty. "No, she isn't, but I don't know of anything else we can do to help."

"Should you have left her?" Inigo's face creased. "The last thing I want is for my calling to cause further distress."

"I sent the maid for a dish of tisane. Then I think she will rest for a time. Sleep will not alter the facts; she will still have to face them when she awakes, but she may have a little more strength for it."

"It's absolutely bloody!" he said with sudden anger. "First poor Mina, and now this!"

Charlotte was appalled to hear herself reply, "And your own sister-"

"What?" His quicksilver face was blank, almost comically empty.

This time embarrassment made her hold her tongue.

"Oh." Then he realized what she had said. "Oh yes. You mean Ottilie."

She wanted to apologize, to undo her intrusion, but she knew how close it could lie to Mina's death, and murder. And she had learned only too dreadfully how one murder could beget another- and another. Mina was not necessarily the last victim.

"I believe her death was very sudden-I mean, quite unexpected. It must have been a devastating shock." She had meant to be subtle, and ended by sounding crass.

"Unexpected?" Again he repeated her words. "Mrs. Pitt! Of course, how stupid of me. The policeman! But why the interest in Ottilie? She was eccentric, to put it at its mildest, but she certainly never harmed anyone-least of all Mina."

"That is the third time someone has said that she was eccentric," Charlotte said thoughtfully. "Was she really so very unusual?"

"Oh yes." He smiled at memory. "She did some appalling things. Once she got up on the dining table at dinner and sang a bawdy song. I thought Papa would die of it. Thank God no one else was there but the family, and one or two of my friends." His eyes were alight, gleaming with the memory, laughter and softness in them.

"Embarrassing, if it were to be repeated." Charlotte was confused by him; surely no man could act affection so perfectly and be lying? "One cannot afford a great deal of that if one is to remain in Society."

His face was bright, with mockery in it, but no malice, as if he himself were part of the joke.

"You know, Mrs. Pitt, I have the strongest feeling that in spite of your afternoon-tea behavior, you are a good deal more your husband's wife than your mother's daughter! You think we quietly suppressed Ottilie somewhere, don't you? Perhaps impris shy;oned her in our country house, locked in a disused wing, with!an old family retainer to guard her?"

Charlotte felt the crimson heat flood up her face. She was blundering, and yet she must not stop; there would not be another chance.

"Actually, I thought you might have murdered her," she said tartly, furious with herself for her clumsiness. "And perhaps Mina knew it? She was a Peeping Tom, you know. And maybe a thief as well!"

His eyes opened wide in surprise.

"A Peeping Tom, yes, but a thief? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Several things have gone missing in Rutland Place recently." She could still feel the scarlet under her skin. "None of them arc very valuable of themselves, but at least one holds a secret which would be most embarrassing if it were to become known. Per shy;haps Mina was the thief, and she was killed to retrieve whatever it was?"

"No," he said with conviction. "Whatever she was killed for, it had nothing to do with the thefts. Anyhow, most of the things have been returned. They always are."

She stared at him. "Returned? How do you know?"

He took a long, slow breath. "I do. Just accept that. I have seen the things. Ask the people who lost them, they'll tell you."

"My mother lost something. She did not say she has it back."

"Presumably it was the article containing the embarrassing secret you spoke of, since you are aware of it. Maybe she was afraid you would think she stole it back. You have a highly suspicious mind, Mrs. Pitt!"

"I would hardly suspect my own mother of-" She stopped.

"Killing Mina?" he finished for her. "Perhaps not-but would the police be so well-disposed?"

"Where did Ottilie die? It was not at your country house, as you said."

"Oh." For several minutes he remained silent, standing with one foot on the hearth, and she waited. "Tell you what," he said at last. "Come with me and I'll show you!"

She exploded in frustration. "Don't be ridiculous! If it is something so secret-"

"Bring your own carriage," he interrupted. "And your own footman if you like."

"Policemen do not have carriages!" she snapped. "Or footmen!".

"No, I suppose they don't. Sorry. Bring your mother's. I'll prove to you we didn't murder Ottilie."

Her mind raced to find a way of accepting that was not wildly foolish. If he or his family had killed Ottilie, and then Mina, they would not balk at killing her just as easily. Yet perhaps she was being offered the solution. And if the stolen articles had really been returned, how did Inigo Charrington know it? Why had Caroline not told her? Anyway, why would a thief take them and then return them? It made no sense-unless it was involved with the murder? Had Mina been the thief, and had the murderer retrieved all the stolen things to mask the recovery of the one thing that would have damned him?

Suddenly the solution came to her. Emily would never permit such an opportunity to escape, and she could provide the means for Charlotte to accept.

"I shall take my sister's carriage," she replied with an assur shy;ance she hoped she could justify. "And naturally I shall tell her for what purpose, and who is to accompany me."

"Excellent! Have you considered joining the police force yourself?"

"Don't be impertinent!" she said acidly, but inside excite shy;ment was boiling up.

He smiled. "I think you would enjoy it enormously. Actually, 1 think I might myself. I shall collect you at six o'clock. What you are wearing will be adequate, if you take off that thing from the neck."

"At six o'clock?" She was startled. "Why not now?"

"Because it is barely half past three, and far too early."

She did not understand, but at least by six o'clock she would have had opportunity to make some arrangement with Emily, both to borrow the carriage and to be perfectly sure that Inigo Charrington did not imagine he could harm her in any way and remain at liberty himself.

When she arrived at her mother's house and explained the matter to her sister-out of Caroline's hearing, of course- Emily was aghast. Her immediate reaction was that Inigo had undoubtedly murdered his sister and now intended to do away with Charlotte as well.

"He would hardly be so foolish," Charlotte replied, trying to weight her voice with conviction. "After all, if anything were to happen to me when you all know I am in his company, then he would damn himself completely. I believe he really is going to tell me how Ottilie died and show me some proof of it. I certainly will not believe it without proof!"

"Then I shall come with you," Emily said instantly.

It was only with difficulty that Charlotte succeeded in persuad shy;ing her that her presence might risk the whole venture. If the nature of Ottilie's death had been such that the family was prepared to have it known, then Pitt would have discovered it in his own attempts. She could think of no satisfactory reason why Inigo was now willing to tell her, except that perhaps fear of the still greater danger of being suspected of murder hung over them. But if it were a matter of desperate embarrassment, even of humiliation, then the fewer people who were aware of it the easier for the family. And also since Charlotte was not of their own social circle, perhaps they would not suffer so acutely for her knowing the truth.