Zakhari told you that she had heard the shots… Did she say how many?”
“A single shot,” Ryerson corrected him.
Pitt nodded. “You went to see, and found Lovat dead on the ground near the laurel bushes. What then?”
“I asked her if she had any idea what had happened,” Ryerson replied. “She told me she had no idea at all, but that Lovat had sent her letters, pressing her to rekindle an old love affair, and she had refused, fairly bluntly. He was not willing to accept that, which was presumably why he had come.”
“At three in the morning?” Pitt said with disbelief. He did not add reasons for the absurdity of that.
For the first time Ryerson showed some trace of anger. “I have no idea, Mr. Pitt! I agree it is ludicrous-but he was unarguably there! And since he is dead, and no one we know spoke to him, I cannot think of any way to learn what he hoped to achieve.”
Pitt had a sudden awareness of the power of the man, the inner intellectual strength and the will which had taken him to the peak of his profession and kept him there for nearly two decades. His vulnerability with regard to Ayesha Zakhari, and the fact that he was involved, in whatever way, with a murder and therefore in personal danger, had made him temporarily forget it. When Pitt spoke again it was with a new respect, even though it was unintentional. “What did you do then, sir?”
Ryerson colored. “I said that we must move the body. That was when I knew that it was her gun.”
“It was your idea to move Mr. Lovat’s body?”
Ryerson’s face set a fraction harder, altering the planes of his cheek and jaw. “Yes, it was.”
Pitt wondered if he was trying to protect the woman, but he had no doubt whatever that if it was a lie, it was one Ryerson was not going to retract. He had committed himself, and it was not in his nature to go back, whether it was pride or honor that held him, or simply the truth.
“I see. Did you fetch the wheelbarrow or did she?”
Ryerson hesitated. “She did. She knew where it was.”
“And she brought it back to where the body was?”
“Yes, and the gun. I helped her lift him in. He was heavy, and extremely awkward. His body was limp. He kept sliding out of our grasp.”
“Did you take the head or the feet?” Pitt already knew the answer, but he was interested to see if Ryerson would tell the exact truth.
“The head, of course,” Ryerson said a trifle tartly. “It was heavier, and the wounds were in his chest, so that was where he bled. Surely you know that?”
Pitt was annoyed to find himself embarrassed, and wished he had not asked the question. “You put him in the barrow, then what did you intend to do with him?” he continued.
“Take him to Hyde Park,” Ryerson answered. “It’s less than a hundred yards away.”
“In the barrow?” Pitt said in surprise.
Temper flashed across Ryerson’s face. “No, of course not! We could hardly wheel a corpse around the streets in a garden barrow, even at three in the morning! I had gone to harness up the gig and Ayesha was going to bring him to the mews. That was when the police arrived. As soon as I heard the voices I came back. Lovat’s blood didn’t show on my dark suit; the constable assumed I had only just come. Ayesha immediately confirmed him in that assumption, to protect me. I was about to argue, then I saw the sense in remaining free to do whatever I could to help her.”
Again, Pitt was surprised. From any other man he would have doubted that, but from Ryerson he accepted it. He had not once attempted to cover over either his presence or his involvement, and he had to know that attempting to move a body from the scene of a crime was itself an offense.
“And what are you doing to help her?” Pitt asked unblinkingly.
Suddenly desperation filled Ryerson’s eyes and terror flooded up inside him for a moment beyond control. “Trying to think what the devil really happened!” he said hoarsely. “Who did kill him, and why? Why at Eden Lodge, and why in the middle of the night?” He spread his hands slightly, strong but finely sculpted for so large a man. “What was he doing there at all? Did someone follow him? Did someone meet him there? For what? That makes no sense either. You don’t arrange a quarrel in someone else’s back garden in the middle of the night!” He was staring at Pitt, willing him to believe. “Ayesha wouldn’t have opened the door to him. Was he planning to break in? Or create a scene and waken the neighbors?” His face was now ashen pale. “I know she would not have killed him, but for the life of me I can’t imagine any credible answer as to what did happen.” He did not even pretend to mask his feelings.
Narraway had told Pitt to keep Ryerson out of it if it were humanly possible. Given Ryerson’s emotions, perhaps the only way to do that would be to learn the truth, in the hope that it proved Ayesha Zakhari less guilty than she looked now.
“I’ll try to find the answers,” Pitt said aloud. “But it will require a certain cooperation from you, sir.”
“As far as I am able,” Ryerson replied. He was not so desperate he would play into anyone’s hands with an open promise. Pitt found that faintly comforting. At least the man had some balance and judgment left. “But I will not see her blamed for my acts, nor will I swear falsely to protect my reputation. It would serve me ill anyway, and Mr. Gladstone knows it. A man who would lie to serve his own ends will eventually lie for anything.”
“Yes, sir,” Pitt agreed. “I had no intention of asking you to lie, rather that you tell me all the truth you know, and keep silent as to your being at Eden Lodge unless it is inescapable that you answer the police. But I think they will refrain from asking you for as long as they can.”
Ryerson’s smile was bittersweet. “I imagine they will,” he agreed. “What will Victor Narraway ask you to do, Mr. Pitt?” There was a change in his expression so minute Pitt could not have described it, but he knew without question it reflected a darkness inside.
“Find the truth,” he answered with a slight grimace, knowing both that he had set himself a huge task, perhaps an impossible one, and that even if he succeeded the truth he found would very probably be one he would hate-and might not be able to conceal without even worse pain.
Ryerson did not answer him, but rose to his feet to show him to the front door himself, ignoring the services of the waiting footman.
IT TOOK PITT the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon to find the police surgeon and obtain his attention. He was a large man with heavy shoulders and quivering chins that settled into his neck without noticeable distinction. He had an apron tied around his vast girth, and his hands were scrubbed pink, presumably to get rid of the evidence of his day’s work, if not the smell of carbolic and vinegar. He greeted Pitt with indignant good humor.
“Thought I’d got rid of you when you left Bow Street,” he observed in a remarkably attractive voice. It was the only physically pleasing quality about him, apart from his hair, which was thick and curling and so clean as to shine in the gaslight from the lamps above him as they stood in his office. His eyebrows rose. “What do you want now? I don’t know any bombers or anarchists. My ignorance of such things is precious to me, and I intend to keep it until I die peacefully of old age, sitting in the sun on some park bench. I can’t help you-but I suppose I can try, if you insist.”
“Lieutenant Edwin Lovat,” Pitt replied. He liked McDade and he had nothing pleasanter or more useful to do than extract information from him a piece at a time.
“Dead,” McDade said simply. “Shot through the chest-heart, actually. Small handgun, close range. Very neat.”
“Great skill required?” Pitt asked.
“Only for a blind man with a moving target!” McDade looked at Pitt sideways. “Haven’t seen the body, have you.” That was a statement, not a question.
“Not yet,” Pitt agreed. “Should I?”
McDade shrugged his massive shoulders, setting his chins quivering. “Not unless you need to know what he looked like, which is much the same as any other well-built young English soldier with a comfortable style of living, plenty of good food, and not much exercise lately. He’d have run to fat in another ten years, when the muscle went soft.” His expression became rueful. “Handsome, I should think, when he was alive. Good features, good head of hair, all his teeth, which in his early forties isn’t bad. Mind, it’s intelligence and humor that make you like a man, and it’s hard to tell that when you’ve only seen him dead.” He looked away from Pitt as he spoke those words, and there was the very faintest shred of self-consciousness in him. Was he excusing his own massive size, defending himself
