Rutland Place (28 page)

For several minutes he was silent, and she began to grow uncomfortable as she became aware of his eyes on her. She was very sensitive to being alone in the room with him. Visiting him by herself in his home was a ridiculous thing to have done, and she should have insisted that Emily come with her. Someone was bound to have seen her; there was always a servant about. There would be talk! She had no reputation to lose—Paragon Walk did not care about her—but what about Emily? Someone might have recognized Charlotte from the time when she had stayed with Emily during the murders here.

And what of Paul Alaric himself?

She blushed with discomfort at her own thoughtlessness—and yet she had not wished Emily to accompany her!

Very slowly she raised her eyes to meet his and was startled by the perception in them, a closeness as if he and she had touched, as if her skin had felt a sudden warmth, a tingling.

She must leave. She had said what she came for. Emily’s carriage was at the door and would take her back to Rutland Place. She could join Emily at Theodora von Schenck’s house.

Thought of Theodora reminded her of the other purpose of her visit. She must force herself to ask him now; the idea of returning was unthinkable.

The maid brought the tea and retired. She took a sip of it gratefully; her mouth was dry and her throat tight.

“Emily has called to see Madame von Schenck,” she remarked as conversationally as she was able. “I believe you know her quite well.”

He was surprised, and his dark eyes widened. “Moderately. The acquaintance is more a business one than social, although I find her very congenial.”

Now it was she who was startled. She had hardly expected him to be so frank.

“Business? What sort of business do you mean?” Then, realizing how blunt that sounded, she went on: “I did not know Madame von Schenck had business. Or did you perhaps know her husband?” She stammered, “I—I mean—”

“No.” He smiled faintly at her embarrassment, but there was no unkindness in it. “I did not, although I believe he was a most charming man. So much so that she has never desired to remarry.”

Charlotte pretended that she found such a thing hard to understand, although in truth the thought of remarrying, should anything happen to Pitt, was quite absurd to her.

“Not even for the security of having a husband?” She tried to sound sincere. “After all, she has two children to support.”

“And an excellent business head.” He was quite openly amused now. “Not in the least a fashionable thing to have, which I imagine is why she is discreet about it. Especially since her particular interest lies in the area of bathroom furniture!” His smile broadened. “Not exactly what the ladies of Rutland Place would find suitable—the design of baths and other such hardware. And she is most imaginative in selling and precise in her finances. I think she has begun to make a considerable profit.”

She knew there was a silly smile on her face. It was all so ridiculously harmless, even funny, that she wanted to laugh. She gathered herself and was ready to rise, but before she could frame the words to excuse herself, the maid opened the door again to bring in a choice of cakes and was followed immediately by Caroline.

Charlotte froze, halfway to her feet, the smile dead on her lips.

For an instant Caroline did not see her; her face was turned to Alaric, soft with excitement and pleasure.

Then she saw Charlotte, and every vestige of color bleached out of her skin. She looked at her as she might have at some horned thing risen out of the ground.

There was absolute silence in the room. The maid was too frightened to let go of the trolley.

With a tremendous effort Caroline took a deep breath, and then another.

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Alaric,” she said in a shaking voice. “I appear to have interrupted you. Do excuse me.” She stepped backward past the maid and out the door.

Charlotte glanced for a moment at Paul Alaric and saw his face as white and appalled as she knew hers must be, mirroring the same realization and guilt that she felt. Then she ran across the room, pushed the maid aside, and swung the door open.

“Mama!”

Caroline was in the hallway and could not have failed to hear her, but she did not turn her head.

“Mama!”

The footman opened the front door and Caroline walked out into the sun. Charlotte went after her. Snatching her cloak from the footman as she passed, she clattered down the steps and out onto the street.

She caught up with Caroline and took her arm. It was stiff, and Caroline shook her off sharply. She kept her face straight ahead.

“How could you?” she said very quietly. “My own daughter! Is your vanity so much that you would do this to me?”

Charlotte reached for her arm again.

“Don’t speak to me.” Caroline jerked away roughly. “Don’t speak to me, please. Not ever again. I don’t wish to know you.”

“You’re being stupid!” Charlotte said as fiercely as she could without raising her voice for the whole street to hear. “I went there to find out if he knew how Theodora von Schenck got her money!”

“Don’t lie to me, Charlotte. I’m perfectly capable of seeing for myself what is going on!”

“Are you?” Charlotte demanded, angry with her mother not for misjudging her but for being so vulnerable, for allowing herself to be swept away by a dream till the awakening threatened everything that really mattered. “Are you, Mama? I think if you could see anything at all, you would know as well as I do that he doesn’t love you in the least.” She saw the tears in Caroline’s eyes, but she had to go on. “It isn’t anything to do with me, or any other woman! He is simply unaware that your feeling for him is anything more than pleasant—a little relief from boredom—a courtesy! You have built up a whole romantic vision around him that has nothing to do with the kind of person he is underneath. You don’t even know him really! All you see is what you want to!” She held on to Caroline’s arm, this time too hard for her to snatch it away.

“I know exactly how you feel!” she went on, keeping up with her. “I did the same with Dominic. I pinned all my romantic ideals onto him, put them over him like a suit of armor, till I had no idea what he was like underneath them. It isn’t fair! We haven’t the right to dress anyone else in our dreams and expect them to wear them for us! That isn’t love! It’s infatuation, and it’s childish—and dangerous! Just think how unbearably lonely it must be! Would you like to live with someone who didn’t even look at or listen to you, but only used you as a figure of fantasy? Someone to pretend about, someone to make responsible for all your emotions so that they are to blame if you are happy or unhappy? You have no right to do that to anyone else.”

Caroline stopped and stared at her, tears running down her face.

“Those are terrible things to say, Charlotte,” she whispered, her voice difficult and hoarse. “Terrible.”

“No, they aren’t.” Charlotte shook her head hard. “It is just the truth, and when you’ve looked at it a bit longer you’ll find you like it!” Please God that could be true!

“Like it! You tell me I have made a ridiculous fool of myself over a man who doesn’t care for me at all, and that even the feeling I had was an illusion, and selfish, nothing to do with love—and I shall come to like that!”

Charlotte threw her arms around her because she wanted to be close to her, share in her pain and comfort her. Besides, looking at her face right now would be an intrusion into privacy too deep to allow forgetting afterward.

“Maybe ‘like it’ was a silly phrase, but when you see it is true, you will find the lies something you don’t even want to remember. But believe me, everyone who was ever capable of passion has made a fool of themselves at least once. We all fall in love with a vision sometime. The thing is to be able to wake up and still love.”

For a long time neither of them said anything more, but stood in the footpath with their arms around each other. Then very slowly Caroline began to relax, her body lost its stiffness, and the pain changed from anger to simple weeping.

“I’m so ashamed of myself,” she said softly. “So terribly ashamed!”

Charlotte’s arms tightened. There was not anything else to say. Time would ease it away, but words could not.

In the distance there was the sound of hooves, someone else making an early visit.

Caroline straightened up and sniffed hard. For a moment her hand lingered on Charlotte’s; then she withdrew it and fished in her reticule for a handkerchief.

“I don’t think I shall make any more calls this afternoon,” she said calmly. “Perhaps you would like to come home for tea?”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said. They began to walk again, slowly. “You know, Mina was quite wrong about Theodora. Her money doesn’t come from a brothel at all, or blackmail—she has a business for selling bathroom furniture!”

Caroline was stunned. Her eyebrows shot up.

“You mean—”

“Yes, water closets!”

“Oh, Charlotte!”

T
WO DAYS LATER
P
ITT
was still as confused as ever about who had killed Mina Spencer-Brown. He had a wealth of facts, but no conclusions that were subject to proof—and, worse than that, none that satisfied his own mind.

He stood still on the pavement of Rutland Place in the sun. It was warm there, sheltered from the east wind by the high houses, and he stopped to collect his thoughts before going on to Alston for yet more questioning.

He had been talking to Ambrosine Charrington, and the interview had left him less sure than he had been before he went. It was always possible that Mina had observed Ambrosine in the act of stealing and Ambrosine had been unable to deny it. If that had been so, Mina might have threatened her with exposure.

But would Ambrosine have minded? From what Charlotte had told him, that was far from the case! She might even have been perversely pleased by the disgrace. Ottilie had said it was her motive for doing it in the first place, a desire to shock and distress her husband, to break out of the mold into which he had cast her. Of course she might well not see it so lucidly herself. But he found it impossible to believe she would commit murder to protect a secret she half wanted known.

Did she hate Lovell enough to have allowed Mina to blackmail him? In theory it was possible. It had an irony that would appeal to Ambrosine.

And yet he felt that he would have had some sense of the anger and the tension in Lovell, and of the bitter taste of satisfaction in Ambrosine herself. And he had not. To him she seemed just as elegantly imprisoned as before, and Lovell just as undisturbed in his massive, impregnable security.

Mention of Ottilie had shaken Lovell’s composure most markedly, and he had become white-lipped, sweat-browed. He had tried intensely to hide the whole affair. Yet Ambrosine left Pitt entirely comfortable!

Perhaps it was Alston Spencer-Brown after all? Maybe Mina’s long-standing involvement with Tormod Lagarde had finally proved too much for him, and when Alston had learned that she was still enamored, he had procured more belladonna from some other doctor, in the city, poured it into the cordial, and left it to do its work.

All Pitt’s investigations had pointed to the conclusion that Mina’s infatuation with Tormod had been discreet but very real. Many a husband had killed for less, and Alston’s ordinary exterior could hide a violent possessiveness, a sense of outrage where murder might seem to him no more than justice.

Pitt was driven back to the facts. The cordial wine was homemade, a mixture of elderberry and currants. People in Rutland Place did not make their own wines! Of course, it was impossible to tell who might have been given some, and if they had used it to mask poison, they would hardly own to its possession now.

The belladonna could have been distilled by anyone, or even crushed from the deadly nightshade plant itself, which, while less common than the brightly flowered woody nightshade, was far more lethal. It did not need the fruit that ripened in the autumn; even the leaves were sufficient. And they might be found in hedgerows or woodlands in any wild area in the southeast of the country.

It was perhaps a little early for a biennial plant, but in a sheltered place—or even blown and taken root in a conservatory or hothouse? A few shoots above the ground would be enough.

The facts proved nothing. Anyone could have given her the bottle, at almost any time. Mina’s servants had not seen it before, or any like it, but then one does not always tell servants of cordial wine. It is not drunk at table. Anyone could have picked the nightshade and crushed the leaves. It required no skill, no special knowledge. It was well-known lore that the plant killed; every child was warned. Even its name told as much.

He was driven back again to motive, although you could not damn anyone on motive alone. One man will kill for sixpence, or because he feels he has been insulted. Another will lose reputation, fortune, and love—anything rather than commit murder.

He was still standing in the sun when a hansom cab swung around the far corner and clattered down the Place, jolting to a stop in front of the Lagardes’ entrance.

Pitt was close enough to see Dr. Mulgrew practically fall out, clutching his bag, and scramble up the steps. The door opened before he got to it, and Mulgrew disappeared inside.

Pitt hesitated. Natural instinct prompted him to wait there a while and see what should happen next. But then, since there was a man in desperate injury in the house, an emergency call for the doctor was not surprising and probably had nothing whatsoever to do with Mina’s death. If Pitt were honest, he would admit that he was using the doctor’s arrival as an excuse to put off the next round of questions.

When Pitt got to the Spencer-Browns’ Alston was out, which in a way was a relief, although it only postponed what would have to be done another time. He contented himself with talking to the servants again, going over endless recollections, impressions, opinions.

He was still there, sitting in the kitchen accepting with considerable pleasure the cook’s offer of luncheon with the rest of the servants, when the scullery door burst open, a maid ran in, and the smells of stew and puddings were dissipated by the scents of sharp wind and earthy vegetables.