She looked away and her face was filled with pity.
“Poor soul,” she said softly. “I know death can come at any age, but one does not look to be widowed when not yet forty. I believe that is her age. I am afraid I do not read newspapers myself—my husband did not care that I should—but one hears talk, even among servants.”
“Yes, I would judge Mrs. Winthrop to be of that age. I believe she has two daughters very recently married. Mrs. Winthrop is still young.”
“I’m so sorry.” The hands in her lap tightened a little.
Pitt would have given a great deal to be able to avoid doing anything but asking her a few obvious questions and offering her what little sympathy he could. He admired her composure, her lack of bitterness, anger or self-pity, any of which would have been so easy to understand.
But duty compelled him to pursue the more personal lines of inquiry, and as soon as possible. It was an intrusion which he felt even more acutely than usual.
“Mrs. Arledge, we need to look closely at your husband’s effects to see if we can find anything which will provide a connection between him and Captain Winthrop. I realize it is not pleasant for you, and I am deeply sorry, but it is unavoidable. I really have no alternative.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “I understand. Please do not feel that you have to apologize, Superintendent.” She frowned, her blue eyes clouded. “Was it not some madman who chose his victims at random? Surely such a person has no reason in his mind?”
“We don’t know yet, Mrs. Arledge. At this point we must examine every possibility.”
“I see.” She looked away across the room at a vase of narcissi whose sharp, sweet perfume was noticeable even from where they sat. “Yes, of course you must. What would you like to see first? Your man, I forgot his name, has already looked, but perhaps he missed something.”
“Inspector Tellman,” Pitt supplied.
“Yes—yes I do recall now that you repeat it,” she said briefly. “He did not take very long. I rather gathered from what he said that it was”—she swallowed—“a maniac, and he expected no sense.”
“I should like to see his papers.” Pitt rose to his feet. He felt like apologizing again, but it would only make the intrusion the more apparent. Her graciousness, her quiet courage, awoke in him both a deeper respect for her and an instinctive liking, and made his official task the more unpleasant. “Does he have a study?” he asked as she rose also, moving with remarkable grace and balance, as if in her youth she might have been a dancer. “And after that, perhaps his dressing room …”
“Of course. If you would come this way I shall show you myself.” She led him out of the withdrawing room, across the parquet-floored hall and into a large, airy study with surprisingly few books, no more than fifty or sixty, and none of the heavy ornamentation he had found in so many rooms which were ostensibly studies, but actually places in which to receive visitors and to impress them with one’s wealth and taste. It gave the immediate impression of actually being a place of work.
“Here you are, Superintendent,” she invited. “Please look at anything you feel may be helpful.”
He thanked her as she excused herself, and felt even more intrusive. It was perfectly customary to examine the effects of a murdered person, and yet if he were the victim of a lunatic, merely the place and the time choosing him rather than any other, this was a pointless affront. Still, now he was here he must do it. The only thing that justified it in his mind was the finding of Winthrop in the boat. Surely he would never have got in there willingly with a stranger accosting him in the dark? And from the evidence of his shoes, he had walked there. And there had been no struggle.
And Arledge had not struggled either. He must have been attacked from behind, and without warning, or he too knew his assailant.
He began with the contents of the desk and read through them systematically. It was surprisingly interesting. Arledge had been a man of humor and sophisticated tastes, but without pomposity. Certain letters showed him also to have been generous both with his means and with his praise for others in his field. The more Pitt read, the more he felt the loss of a man he would have both liked and respected, a feeling very different from that woken in him by what he knew of the late Captain Winthrop.
What could these two possibly have had in common?
There were many books on music, piles of rough notes for composition, at least fifty scores from works varying from the operas of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan to piano concert! by Bach and the later chamber music of Beethoven. Nothing whatever suggested an acquaintance with Oakley Winthrop or any of his family.
After the study, he was shown by the maid to Aidan Arledge’s dressing room, and after asking if there was anything else he wanted, she left him to search.
On the tallboy he found a silver-backed hairbrush, shaving equipment and personal toiletries. In the top drawer there were a handful of collar studs, shirt studs, cuff links and a bloodstone ring. It was a very small collection for a man who made frequent public appearances in evening dress. It was modest in the extreme.
He turned away and looked in the wardrobe. There were rows of suits, and in the drawers at least twenty shirts, most of them for ordinary daytime wear. He continued to look at the rest of the room. There were a few mementos, a photograph of Dulcie in a silver frame. She was dressed in riding habit, not found as one might wear in Rotten Row, but with the timeless elegance of a countrywoman who rode to hounds. She was smiling out at the camera, confident and happy. There was a pleasing blur of trees behind her. In a chest of drawers there were personal linen, handkerchiefs, and socks, the items one might expect.
He had not found a diary either in the study or here. The pair to the silver-backed brush was absent. There were no evening studs for the shirts.
He reviewed everything carefully, closed the drawers, and went down the stairs to knock on the withdrawing room door.
“Come in, Superintendent,” she invited.
“Did your husband have dressing rooms at the conceit hall, Mrs. Arledge?” he asked, closing the doors behind him. He loathed this. Already there was a dark premonition in his mind and he was angry and hurt on her behalf.
