“Mrs. Pitt, how long do you propose to remain under the bed? I invited you to my house in order to be of comfort to your sister in her bereavement, but you force me to think you are as mentally infirm as she is!” He held out his hand, strong and square; even now she noticed how clean it was, how perfectly manicured the nails. “And give me the book,” he added with only the slightest stammer. “I will pretend I do not know you took it. It will be for the best, but I believe you should return to your own house at once. You are obviously unsuited to remain in a household such as ours.”
She did not move. If she gave him the book he would destroy it, and there would be nothing left except her word, which no one would have believed against his even before this.
“Come!” he said angrily. “You are being foolish! Get out of there!”
She reached up slowly to her neck and undid the top three buttons of her dress.
He stared at her in horrified fascination, and in spite of himself his eyes went to her bosom, always one of her handsomest assets.
“Mrs. Pitt!” he said hoarsely.
Very carefully she pushed the little white book down the front of her dress and fastened it up again. It felt uncomfortable, and no doubt looked ridiculous, but he would have to tear her bodice to take it from her, and that would be very hard indeed for him to explain.
Still looking at him, his eyes now hot and furious-perhaps he was as frightened as she was-she scrambled very awkwardly out from under the bed and stood up, rumpled and stiff, her legs shaking.
“That book does not belong to you, Mrs. Pitt,” he said grimly. “Give it to me!”
“It doesn’t belong to you either,” she answered with as much courage as she could. He was very strong, thick-chested, broad-hipped, and he stood between her and the door. “I shall give it to the police.”
“No, you won’t.” He reached out and took her arm. His fingers closed right around her, immovably.
Her breath almost choked her. “Are you going to tear my dress off to get it, Mr. March?” She tried to make her voice light, and failed. “That will be extremely awkward for you to explain, and I shall scream-and you won’t pass this off as a nightmare!”
“And how will you account for being here in Sybilla’s room?” he asked. But he was afraid, and she smelled it in the air, felt it in the bruising pressure of his fingers.
“How will you?”
His mouth flickered in the sickest of smiles. “I shall say I heard a sound in here and came in, and I found you going through Sybilla’s jewel case-the reason for that will be painfully obvious.”
“Then I shall say the same!” she countered. “Only it was not the jewel case, it was the vanity case under the bed. And I shall say you found the diary, and then everyone will read what is in it!”
His hand weakened. She saw the fear deepen in his face and sweat break out through the skin of his upper lip and above his eyebrows.
“Let me go, Mr. March, or I shall call out. There must be maids around, and Aunt Vespasia is in her room across the landing.”
Slowly, an inch at a time, he took his hand away, and she waited till it was fully gone, just in case he changed his mind, before she turned and walked, legs wobbling, to the door and out onto the landing. She felt light-headed and a little sick with relief. She must find Thomas immediately.
10
Charlotte found Pitt in the butler’s pantry and threw the door open, interrupting Constable Stripe in midsentence, and barely hesitating to apologize.
“Thomas! I’ve discovered the answer, or at least one of the answers-excuse me, Constable-in Sybilla’s diary, something I never even thought of.” She stopped abruptly. Now that they were both staring at her she felt vulnerable for the secret she had discovered. Not for Eustace-she would happily have seen him humiliated. But for Sybilla she felt unexplainably naked.
“What have you found?” Pitt asked anxiously, his eyes wide, seeing the fear and the flush in her face more than hearing her words. There was no triumph in her.
She glanced at Stripe-only for a moment, but he saw it, and instantly she was sorry. She swung round to turn her back to him, unbuttoned her dress just enough to pull out the diary, and handed it to Pitt.
“Christmas Eve,” she said very quietly. “Read the entry for Christmas Eve, last year, and then the very last one.”
He took the book and opened it, riffling through the pages till he came to December, then turned them one by one. Finally he stopped altogether, and she watched his face as he read it, the mixture of anger and disgust slowly blurring and becoming inextricably confounded with pity. He read the end.
“And he killed George over her.” He looked up at Charlotte, and passed the book without explanation to Stripe. “I suppose poor Sybilla knew, or guessed.”
“I wonder why he didn’t look for the book when he killed her,” she said with quiet unhappiness.
“Maybe he heard something,” Pitt replied. “Someone else awake-even Emily coming. And he dared not wait.”
Charlotte shuddered. “Are you going to arrest him?”
He hesitated, weighing the question, looking at Stripe, whose face was red and unhappy.
“No,” he answered flatly. “Not yet. This isn’t proof. He could deny it all, say it was Sybilla’s imagination. Without any other evidence, it’s only her word against his. To make it known now would hurt William, perhaps even cause more violence and more tragedy.” His mouth moved in the faintest of smiles. “Let Eustace wait and worry for a while. Let’s see what he does.” He looked at Charlotte. “You said there was another book, with addresses?”
“Yes.”
“Then we had better get that as well. It may mean nothing, but we’ll check through them all, see who they are.”
Charlotte went obediently back to the door. Pitt hesitated, looking at Stripe with a half smile. “Sorry, Stripe, but I shall need you for this, and it may take some time.”
For a moment Stripe did not understand the reason for the apology; then his face fell and the pink crept up his cheeks.
“Yes, sir. Er …” His head came up. “Would there be time, sir …?”
“Of course there would,” Pitt agreed. “But don’t waste words. Be back here in fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, sir!” Stripe waited only until Charlotte and Pitt were round the corner in the corridor before he shot out, stopped the first maid he saw, which chanced to be the parlormaid, and asked her where Miss Taylor was at that moment.
He looked so urgent and impressive in his uniform that she responded immediately, without her usual prevarication towards strangers in the house-especially of the lower orders, such as police, chimney sweeps, and the like.
“In the stillroom, sir.”
“Thank you!” He turned on his heel and made his way, past the other small rooms for numerous household duties, to the stillroom, which had originally been used for the making of cordials and perfumes but was now largely for tea, coffee, and the storing of sweetmeats.
Lettie was putting a large fruitcake into a tin and she turned at the rather heavy sound of his feet. She was even prettier than last time he saw her. He had not noticed before how her hair swept off her brow, or how delicate her ears were.
“Good morning, Mr. Stripe,” she said with a little sniff. “If you’ve come to look at this coffee, you’re welcome, I’m sure, but there’s no point. It’s all new in-”
Stripe brought his mind to attention. “No, I didn’t,” he said more firmly than he would have believed. “We’ve got some new evidence.”
She was interested in spite of herself, and frightened. She liked to tell herself she was independent, but in truth she had a strong loyalty to the household, especially Tassie, and she would have gone to great lengths to prevent any of them being hurt, especially by outsiders. She stood still, staring up at Stripe, her mind racing over
