'I'll do my best, Mrs. Jerome,' he said. 'I can only find out the truth-I can't alter it.' How abrasively cruel that sounded, and how sanctimonious!
'Oh, thank you,' she said between sobs and gasps for
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breath. 'I was sure you would-but I am so grateful.' She clung to Charlotte's hands like a child. 'So very grateful.'
The more Pitt thought about it, the less did he find it within what he had observed of Jerome's character that he should be so impulsive and so inept as to pursue Godfrey while simultaneously conducting an affair with his elder brother. If the man was so driven by his appetite that he had lost all ordinary sense, surely others would have noticed it-many others?
He spent a miserable evening, refusing to talk about it with Charlotte. The next day, he sent Gillivray on what he sincerely believed would be a fool's errand, searching for a room rented by Jerome or Arthur Way bourne. Jji the meantime, he took himself back to the Waybournes' house to interview Godfrey again.
He was received with extreme disfavor.
'We have already been through this exceedingly painful matter in every detail!' Waybourne said sharply. 'I refuse to discuss it any further! Hasn't there been enough-enough obscenity?'
'It would be an obscenity, Sir Anstey, if a man were hanged for a crime we believe he committed but are too afraid of our own distaste to make sure!' Pitt replied very quietly. 'It's a crime of irresponsibility I am not prepared to commit. Are you?'
'You are damned impertinent, sir!' Wayboume snapped. 'It is not my duty to see that justice is done. That is what people like you are paid for! You attend to your job, and remember who you are in my house.'
'Yes, sir,' Pitt said stiffly. 'Now may I see Master Godfrey, please?'
Wayboume hesitated, his eyes hot, pink-rimmed, looking Pitt up and down. For several moments both men were silent.
'If you must,' he said at last. 'But I shall remain here, I warn you.'
'I must,' Pitt insisted.
They stood in mutual discomfort, avoiding each other's eyes, while Godfrey was sent for. Pitt was aware that his anger was born of confusion within himself, of a growing fear that he
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would never prove Jerome's guilt and thereby wipe away the memory of Eugenie's face, a face that reflected her conviction of the world as she knew it, and of the man whose life she shared in that world.
Wayboume's hostility was even easier to read. His family had already been mutilated-he was now defending it against any unnecessary turning of the knife in the wounds. Had it been his family, Pitt would have done the same.
Godfrey came in. Then, when he saw Pitt, his face colored and his body suddenly became awkward.
Pitt felt a stab of guilt.
'Yes, sir?' Godfrey stood with his back to his father, close, as if he were a wall, something against which he could retreat.
Pitt ignored the fact that he had not been invited, and sat down in the leather-covered armchair. His position made him look up slightly at the boy, instead of obliging Godfrey to crane up at him.
'Godfrey, we don't know Mr. Jerome-very well,' he began, in what he hoped was a conversational tone. 'It is important that we learn everything we can. He was your tutor for nearly four years. You must know him well.'
'Yes, sir-but I never knew he was doing anything wrong.' The boy's clear eyes were defiant. His narrow shoulders were high and Pitt could imagine the muscles hunched underneath the flannel of his jacket.
'Of course not,' Waybourne said quickly, putting his hand on the boy's arm. 'No one imagines you
