small thefts in the neighborhood, and that you have had the unpleasant sensa shy;tion of being watched.'
'Did she?' Caroline's body stiffened, and she sat upright. 'I would prefer she had kept my confidence, but I suppose that is academic now. Yes, several people have missed small articles, and if you want to chastise me about not having called the police-''
'Not at all,' he said, more sharply than he intended. He resented the criticism of Charlotte. 'But now that there is death involved, I would like to ask your opinion as to whether you believe it possible Mrs. Spencer-Brown could have been the thief?'
'Mina?' Caroline opened her eyes in surprise at the thought.
'It might be a reason why she should have killed herself,' he reasoned. 'If she realized it was a compulsion she could not control.'
Caroline frowned.
'I don't know what you mean-'could not control'? Stealing is never right. I can understand people who steal because they are in desperate poverty, but Mina had everything she needed. And anyway none of the things that are missing are of any great value, just little things, silly things like a handkerchief, a buttonhook, a snuffbox-why on earth should Mina take those?'
'People sometimes take things because they cannot help it.' He knew even as he said it that explanation was useless. Her values had been learned in the nursery where good and evil are absolute, and although life had taught her complexity in human relationships, the right to property was one of the cornerstones of Society and order, the framework for all morality, and its pre shy;cepts had never been questioned. Compulsions belonged to fear and hunger, were even accepted, if deplored, where certain appetites of the flesh were concerned, at least in men-not in women, of course. But compulsions of loneliness or inadequacy, frustration, or other gray pains without names were beyond consideration, outside the arc of thought.
'I still don't know what you mean,' she said quietly. 'Perhaps Mina knew who it was who had been taking things. She did give certain hints from time to time that she was aware of rather more than she felt she ought to say. But surely no one would murder just to hide a few wretched little thefts? I mean, one would certainly dismiss a servant who had stolen, but one might not prosecute because of the embarrassment-not only to oneself but to one's friends. No one wishes to have to make statements and answer questions. But where murder is concerned one has no choice-the person is hanged. The police see to it.'
'If we catch them-yes.' Pitt did not want to go into the morality of the penal system now. There was no possibility of their agreeing on it. They would not even be talking of the same things; their visions would be of worlds that did not meet at the fringes of the imagination. She had never seen a treadmill or a quarry, never smelled bodies crawling with lice, or sick with jail fever, or seen fingers worked to blood picking oakum-let alone the death cell and the rope.
She sank deeper into the sofa, shivering, thinking of past terrors and Sarah's death.
'I'm sorry,' he said quickly, realizing where her memories were. 'There is no reason yet to suppose it was murder. We must look first for reasons why she might have taken her own life. It is a delicate question to ask, but suicide is not a respecter of feelings. Do you have any idea if she had a romantic involvement of any nature that could have driven her to such despair?' At the back of his mind was beating Charlotte's conviction of the depth of Caroline's own affairs, and he felt it so loudly he almost expected Caroline to answer these thoughts instead of the rather prim words he actually spoke. He felt guilty, as if he had peeped in through someone's dressing-room window.
If Caroline was surprised, she did not show it. Perhaps she had had sufficient warning to expect such a question.
'If she had,' she replied, 'I certainly have heard no word of it. She must have-been extraordinarily discreet! Unless-;'
'What?'
'Unless it was Tormod,' she said thoughtfully. 'Please, Thomas, you must realize I am giving voice to things that are merely the faintest of ideas, just possibilities-no more.'
'I understand that. Who is Tormod?'
'Tormod Lagarde. He lives at number three. She had known him for some years, and was certainly very fond of him.'
'Is he married?'
'Oh no. He lives with his younger sister. They are orphans.'
'What sort of a person is he?'
She considered for a moment before replying, weighing the kind of facts he would want to know.
'He is very handsome,' she said deliberately. 'In a romantic way. There is something about him mat seems to be unattainable- lonely. He is just the sort of man women do fall in love with, because one can never get close enough to him to spoil the illusion. He remains forever just beyond one's reach. Amaryllis Denbigh is in love with him now, and there have been others in the past.'
'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.'
