open for them to leave, although they showed no sign of wishing to.
'I am afraid I shall have to ask them some questions.' Pitt closed the door firmly and stood in front of it, blocking the way. 'They were in the house when it happened. It is a very serious matter, sir.''
'Dammit, it was an accident!' Swynford said loudly. 'The poor man is dead!''
'An accident,' Pitt repeated. 'You were not with him when the gun went off?'
'No, I wasn't! What are you accusing me of?' He took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry. I am extremely distressed. I was fond of the man. He was part of my family.'
'Of course, sir,' Pitt said with less sympathy than he had intended. 'It is a most distressing business. Where were you, sir?'
'Where was I?' Swynford looked momentarily confused.
'A shot like that must have been heard all over the house. Where were you when it went off?' Pitt repeated.
'I-ah.' Swynford thought for a moment. 'I was on the stairs, I think.'
'Going up or coming down, sir?'
'What in God's name does it matter!' Swynford exploded. 'The man is dead! Are you totally insensitive to tragedy? A moron who comes in here in the midst of grief and starts asking questions-idiotic questions as to whether I was going upstairs or downstairs at the instant?'
Pitt's idea was growing stronger, clearer.
' 'You had been with him in the study, and had left to go upstairs for some purpose-perhaps to the bathroom?' Pitt ignored the insult.
'Probably. Why?'
- 'So Mr. Vanderley was alone with a loaded gun, in t(ie study?'
'He was alone with several guns. I keep my collection in 272
there. None of them was loaded! Do you think I keep loaded guns around the house? I am not a fool!'
'Then he must have loaded the gun the moment you left the room?'
'I suppose he must! What of it?' Swynford's face was flushed now. 'Can you not let my family leave? The discussion is painful-and, as far as I can see, totally pointless.'
Pitt turned to Callantha, still standing close to her children.
'Did you hear the shot, ma'am?'
'Yes, Inspector,' she said levelly. She was ashen white, but there was a curious composure about her, as if a crisis had come and she had met it and found herself equal to it.
'I'm sorry.' He was apologizing not for the question about the shot but for what he was about to do. Word had come back that Pitt was coming closer in his pursuit; that he knew. But it was not Esmond Vanderley who had panicked-it was Mortimer Swynford. It was Swynford who had been the architect of Jerome's conviction-and he and Wayboume were all too willing to believe in it, until the appalling truth was uncovered. If the conviction was overturned, even questioned by society, and the truth came out about Vanderley and his nature, not only Vanderley would be ruined but all his family as well. The business would disappear; there would be no more parties, no more easy friendships, dining in fashionable clubs-everything Swynford valued would fray away like rotten fabric and leave nothing behind. In the quiet study, Swynford had taken the only way out. He had shot his cousin.
And again Pitt could certainly never prove it.
He turned to Swynford and spoke very slowly, very clearly, so that not only he would understand, but Callantha and his children also.
'I know what happened, Mr. Swynford. I know exactly what happened, although I cannot prove it now, and perhaps I never could. The boy prostitute Albie Frobisher, who gave evidence at Jerome's trial, has also been murdered-you knew that, of course. You threw my wife out of your house for discussing it! I have been investigating that crime
