all. But at thirty-five they have probably had the experience several times before and do not mistake it for the end of the world when it goes amiss.”
“Then why do you think Mrs. Spencer-Brown killed herself, Mrs. Charrington?” He surprised himself by being so candid.
“I? You really wish for my opinion, Inspector?”
“I do.”
“I am disinclined to believe that she did. Mina was far too practical not to find some way out of whatever misfortune she had got herself into. She was not an emotional woman, and I never knew anyone less hysterical.”
“An accident?”
“Not of her making. I should think an idiotic maid moved bottles or boxes, or mixed two things together to save room and created a poison by mistake. I daresay you will never find out, unless your policeman removed all the containers in the house before the servants had any opportunity to destroy or empty them. If I were you, I shouldn’t worry myself—there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it, either to undo it or to prevent it happening again somewhere else, to somebody else.”
“A domestic accident?”
“I would think so. If you had ever been responsible for the running of a large house, Inspector, you would know what extraordinary things can happen. If you were aware what some cooks do, and what other strange bodies find their way into the larder, I daresay you would never eat again!”
He stood up, concealing an unseemly impulse to laugh that welled up inside him. There was something in her he liked enormously.
“Thank you, ma’am. If that is indeed what happened, then I expect you are right—I shall never know.”
She rang the bell for the butler to show Pitt out.
“It is one of the marks of wisdom to learn to leave alone that which you cannot help,” she said gently. “You will do more harm than good threshing all the fine chaff to discover a grain of truth. A lot of people will be frightened, perhaps made unemployable in the future, and you will still not have helped anyone.”
He called on Theodora von Schenck and found her an utterly different kind of woman: handsome in her own way, but entirely lacking the aristocratic beauty of Ambrosine or the ethereal delicacy of Eloise. But more surprising than her appearance was the fact that, like Charlotte, she was busy with quite ordinary household chores. When Pitt arrived, she was counting linen and sorting into a pile the things that required mending or replacement. In fact, she did not seem to be ashamed that she had put some aside to be cut down into smaller articles, such as pillowcases from worn sheets, and linen cloths for drying and polishing from those pieces that were smaller or more worn.
However, for all her frankness, she was unable to offer him any assistance about the reasons for Mina’s death. She found the idea of suicide pitiful, expressing her sorrow that anyone should reach such depths of despair, but she did not deny that sometimes it did happen. On the other hand, since she had not known Mina well, she was aware of nothing at all to bring her to such a state. Theodora herself was a widow with two children, which reduced her social connections considerably, and she preferred to devote her time to her home and children rather than making social calls or attending soirees and such functions; therefore she heard little gossip.
Pitt left no wiser, and certainly no happier. If he could feel certain that there was some unresolved tragedy, as Tormod Lagarde had seemed convinced, then he would be satisfied to leave it decently alone. On the other hand, Ambrosine Charrington had been sure that such a thing was utterly out of character. If it had been some preposterous accident, should he persist until he had done all he could to discover precisely what? Did he owe it to Mina herself? To be buried in a suicide’s grave was a disgrace, a stigma not easy to bear for her survivors. And did he perhaps owe it to Alston Spencer-Brown to show him that his wife had not been so unhappy as to prefer death to life? Might not Spencer-Brown go on torturing himself with hurt and confusion in the belief that she had loved someone else and found life insupportable without him? And other people—would they believe something secret and perhaps obscure about Alston that had driven his wife to such an end?
Was it possible that no matter how ugly, or how expensive, the facts were better? The truth deals only one wound, but suspicions a thousand.
Because Theodora had mentioned that Amaryllis and she were sisters, Amaryllis Denbigh was a complete surprise to Pitt. Without giving it conscious thought, he had been expecting someone similar, and it was a faintly unpleasant readjustment to meet a woman younger, not only in years but jarringly so in fashion, manner, and deportment.
She met him with cool civility, but the spark of interest was in her eyes and in the suppressed tightness of her body. He never for a moment feared that she might decline to talk. There was something hungry in her, something seeking, and yet at the same time contemptuous of him. She had not forgotten that he was a policeman.
“Of course I understand your situation, Inspector—Pitt?” She sat down and arranged her skirts with white fingers that stroked the silk delicately; he could almost feel its rippling softness himself, as if it slid cool beneath his own skin.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He eased himself into the chair across the small table from her.
“You are obliged to satisfy yourself that there has been no wrong done,” she reasoned. “And naturally that requires you to discover the truth. I wish I could be of more assistance to you.” Her eyes did not leave his face, and he had the feeling she knew every line of it, every shade. “But I fear I know very little.” She smiled coolly. “I have only impressions, and it would be less than fair to represent them as facts.”
“I sympathize.” He found the words hard to say, for no reason that he could frame. He made an effort to concentrate his mind upon Mina, and his reason for being here. “Yet if anyone had known facts, surely they would have prevented the tragedy? It is precisely because there are only impressions and understandings that have come with the wisdom of hindsight that these things occur so startlingly, and we are left with mysteries and perhaps unjust beliefs.” He hoped he was not being sententious, but he was trying to follow her own line of reasoning and convince her to speak. He believed he could judge what to trust and what to discard as malicious or unrelated.
“I had not thought of it like that.” Her eyes were round and blue and very direct. She must have looked much like this in feature and expression when she was still in pigtails and dresses to her knees: the same frankness, the same slightly bold interest, the same softness of cheek and throat. “Of course you are quite right!”
“Then perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me of your impressions?” he invited, disliking himself for it even
