Reggie went pasty white. For a moment it occurred to Pitt that he might have a fit.
“One of your parlormaids died, didn’t she?” Pitt asked slowly, making each word weigh heavily.
Reggie gagged for breath.
“You didn’t murder her, did you, Mr. Southeron?” Pitt asked.
“God! Oh God! No, I didn’t. She died. Freddie was with her. We called him in. Had to. That’s how he knew.”
“What did she die of?”
“I–I don’t know!”
“Do I have to ask the female staff?” Pitt said softly.
“No!” There was a moment’s silence. “No,” Reggie said more quietly. “She had an abortion. It went wrong. That’s why she died. I didn’t know anything about it. I couldn’t have saved her. You’ve got to believe that.”
“But it was your child?”
“How do I know?”
Pitt permitted his disgust to show at last.
“You mean you were sharing her with someone else? The footman, perhaps, or the bootboy?” he said harshly.
“How dare you! I’ll have you remember your place!”
“Your place, at the moment, Mr. Southeron,” Pitt snapped back, “is extremely unpleasant! A parlormaid carrying your child dies in your house from a badly done abortion. You are being blackmailed by your doctor over the affair. Now your doctor is murdered outside your house. What strikes you as the obvious conclusion to draw from that?”
“I–I told you,” Reggie fumbled his words and gasped, “the governess! She was with him in it! He must have been sleeping with her, told her! She was the one who came to me for the money! She must have quarreled with him-a case of thieves falling out! That’s the obvious answer! Who are you going to believe? Me, who hasn’t done anything wrong, or a servant girl who lies and blackmails, and finally kills her lover and accomplice? I ask you!”
Pitt sighed and stood up.
“I shan’t believe anyone, Mr. Southeron, until I have more evidence. But I shall remember what you have said, every word of it. Thank you for your time. Good morning, sir.”
As soon as he had gone Reggie collapsed. It was appalling! God alone knew where the end of it lay. Scandal! Ruin! He felt ill. The room swam around him and darkened into visions of penury-vague, because he had never actually known it-but none the less frightful for that.
He was still sitting slumped over the table when Adelina came in.
“You look ill,” she observed. “Have you eaten too much?”
Her cold unconcern was the last cut to a sore, wounded man.
“Yes, I am ill!” he said angrily. “The police have just been here. Freddie Bolsover has been murdered.” He watched her face, satisfied to see the shock in it.
“Murdered!” she sat down sharply. “How dreadful. Whatever for? Was he robbed?”
“I’ve no idea!” he snapped. “He was just murdered!”
“Poor Sophie,” Adelina stared down the table past Reggie into the distance. “She’ll be quite utterly lost.”
“Never mind about Sophie! What about us? He was murdered, Adelina, don’t you understand that? That means someone murdered him, crept out there in the dark and stuck a knife into him, or hit him over the head, or whatever.”
“Very unpleasant,” she agreed. “People can be very wicked.”
“Is that all you can say?” His voice was rising to a shout, out of control. “God damn it, woman, that bounder from the police all but accused me of it!”
She did not seem impressed, far less frightened.
“Why should they do that? You could have no reason for killing Freddie. He was a friend.”
“He was a blackmailer!”
“Freddie? Nonsense. Who on earth would he blackmail?”
“He’s a doctor, you stupid woman! He could blackmail any of his patients!”
Still she was not apparently moved.
“Doctors are not allowed to tell the things about their patients that are confidential. If they did, they would get no more patients. Freddie would never do that. It would be foolish. And don’t call me stupid, Reggie. It’s very rude, and there’s no need for rudeness. I’m sorry Freddie is dead, but becoming hysterical won’t help.”
“I don’t understand you!” he was angry, frightened, and now utterly bewildered. “You were weeping all over the place about Helena, and here is Freddie dead and you don’t seem to care at all!”
“That was different. Helena was carrying a child.” Her voice dropped at the memory of it. “That child died before it was ever born. If you were a woman, you would understand that. I look at my own children, and of course I weep. Children are all a woman really has.” She looked at him with a sudden harshness. “We carry them, and bear them, bring them into the world, love them, listen to them, advise them, and see that they are married well. All you do is pay the bills, and boast about them if they do something well. I’m sorry Freddie is dead, but I really can’t weep about it. I shall be sorry for Sophie of course, because she has no children. And how do you know Freddie was a blackmailer?”
“What?”
“You said Freddie was a blackmailer. How do you know that?”
“Oh,” he scrambled for an answer, “someone told me. Confidence, you know, can’t tell you about it.”
“Don’t be fatuous, Reggie. People don’t tell you about things like that. He must have been blackmailing you. Was he?”
“Of course not! There’s nothing to blackmail me about!”
“Then why do the police think you killed him? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know!” he yelled. “I didn’t damn well ask!”
“I thought it might have been about Dolly.”
He froze. She looked like a stranger sitting at the head of the table, monstrous and unknown, inscrutable. She was saying something appalling, and there was no expression on her face except a mild curiosity.
“D-Dolly?” he stuttered.
“I could have forgiven you for sleeping with her, as long as you were discreet,” she said, looking directly at him. It seemed as if it was the first time she had ever really looked at him. “But not for killing her child, Reggie; never for that.”
“I didn’t kill the child!” He was becoming hysterical. He could hear it himself but could do nothing to stop it. “It was an abortion. It went wrong! I didn’t do it!”
“Don’t lie, Reggie. Of course you did it. You allowed her to seek an abortion in the back streets instead of sending her away to the country to bear the child. She could have stayed there, or you could have had the child adopted. You didn’t. I shall not forgive you for that, Reggie; not ever.” She stood up again and turned away. “I trust you did not have anything to do with Freddie’s death. It would have been extremely stupid of you.”
“Stupid! Is that all you can say? Stupid! Do you actually imagine I could have anything to do with killing Freddie?”
“No. I think it would be most unlike you to have done anything so decisive. But I am glad to hear you say it. I hope you are telling the truth.”
“Do you doubt me?”
“I don’t think I care very much, except for the scandal. If you manage to keep the police out of it, that is all I ask.”
He stared at her helplessly. Suddenly he was cold, as if a longworn skin had been ripped from him and left him naked. He watched her go out of the room and felt like a child in the dark.
Having told the police that Jemima was the one who had blackmailed him, and therefore having been unable to go back on it, it seemed the obvious, ideal solution to blame her for Freddie’s murder also. Now he must make it stick. He must behave as if he believed it to be the truth. It was inconceivable that a man, knowing such a thing, would keep in his house, tutoring his children, a woman who was a blackmailer and a murderess. The only possible course was to dismiss her immediately.
It was unfortunate, of course. In the circumstances, there would be no one who would take her in, but what
