“I am afraid so.” As he spoke, Pitt was reaching for the bathroom door to close it.
“I see.” Padraig turned to Eudora, a great gentleness in him. He put his arm around her shoulders, and the very tenderness of it alarmed her.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Padraig?” She pulled away, turning to face him.
“Ainsley,” he answered, looking at her very directly. “There’s nothing you can do. Come away. I’ll take you back to your room and sit with you.”
“Ainsley?” For a moment it was as if she had not understood.
“Yes. He’s dead, sweetheart. You must be strong.”
Carson O’Day was coming along the passage from behind them, Iona from the other direction, wearing a beautiful midnight-blue robe. It billowed out behind her with her movement, like clouds of night.
Fergal looked startled, perhaps by Padraig’s choice of words.
“Mr. Doyle …” Pitt began.
Padraig misunderstood him. “She’s my sister,” he explained.
“I was going to ask you to help Mrs. Greville to her room”—Pitt shook his head a little—“and ask Mrs. Radley’s maid to go to her. I don’t think her own maid is in any state to help. And would you ask someone, Tellman, to come up here, please?” He looked around. Emily had arrived, her face harassed as she envisioned some new social breach. Jack was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had risen early again.
Emily looked at Pitt, and knew that this time it was no simple love affair. She took a deep breath and deliberately steadied herself.
“I’m sorry, but Ainsley Greville is dead,” Pitt said to everyone. “There is nothing that can be done to help him. It would be best if you all returned to your rooms and dressed as usual. We cannot be certain yet exactly what happened or what steps we should take next. Have someone find Mr. Radley and inform him.”
Padraig had already gone with Eudora.
“I’ll do that,” O’Day offered. He looked pale but in command of himself. “It’s a tragedy that it should happen now. He was a brilliant man. Our best hope for conciliation.” With a sigh he swiveled and went downstairs, tying his robe around his waist, his slippers soundless on the wooden stairs.
Piers came forward. “Can I help?” he offered, his voice husky but almost steady. His eyes were very wide and he shook a little, as if he had not yet fully understood. “I’ve almost completed my medical studies. It would be a lot quicker and more discreet than sending for someone from the village.” He gave a little cough. “Then I would like to go and be with my mother. Padraig’s marvelous, but I think I should … and Justine. She will feel dreadful when she hears. Perhaps I should be the one to tell her—”
“Later,” Pitt cut across him. “Now we need a doctor to look at your father.”
Piers was jolted. “Yes,” he agreed, his face tightening. “Yes, of course.”
Pitt pushed the door open and stepped back for Piers to follow him in. On the landing, people were moving away. Tellman should be there soon.
As soon as Piers was in, Pitt closed the door and watched as the young man walked over to the bath, which was full almost to the brim, and to the naked corpse of his father. He stood close behind him, in case the sight should cause him to feel faint. The strongest will is not always proof against sheer physical shock. However many bodies he had seen in the course of his studies, there would be no other like this.
Piers did sway for a moment or two, but he leaned forward and put his outstretched hands on the bath to steady himself. Slowly he knelt down and touched the dead face, then the arms and hands.
Pitt watched. He had never got used to it either, even when it seemed peaceful like this. He had known Ainsley Greville when he was alive, only hours before. He had been a man of unusual vigor and intelligence, a man of powerful personality. This shell lying half below the bathwater was so familiarly him, and yet not him at all. In a sense it was already no one. The will and intellect were somewhere else.
Pitt looked down at Piers’s hands. They were strong and slender. They could become a surgeon’s hands. They moved quite professionally, instinctively now, testing movement, temperature, exploring for injury without disturbing the body. How much effort did it cost him to be so composed? Whether he had loved him deeply or not, whether they had been close, the man was still his father, a unique relationship.
Pitt stared at the scene to mark in his memory every line, every aspect and detail of what he saw. There was no discoloration in the water.
Where the devil was Tellman?
“He’s been dead since last night,” Piers said, rising to his feet. “I suppose that’s really rather obvious. The bathwater is cold. I assume it must have been hot when he got into it. It will have delayed the onset of rigor, but I don’t suppose that is of any importance.” He straightened up and took a step backward. His face was very white and he seemed to be finding it difficult to catch his breath. “It is easy enough to see what must have happened. There is a very bad blow at the back of his head. I can feel the depression in the skull. He must have slipped when he was climbing in the bath, or maybe trying to get out.” His eyes deliberately avoided the bath. “Soap perhaps. I don’t see a tablet, but there is some dissolved in the water. Maybe you don’t need much? He struck his head and lost consciousness. People do drown in baths. It happens too often.”
“Thank you.” Pitt watched him closely. That calm might hide emotion almost beyond bearing, might give way to shock at any moment.
“You’ll have to get someone else for the certificate, of course,” Piers hurried on. “They wouldn’t accept it from me, even if I were not his … his son.” He swallowed. “I’m … I’m not qualified yet.”
“I understand.” Pitt was about to add more when there was a sharp rap on the door. He opened it and Tellman came in, looked hastily at Piers, then at the body in the bath. He turned back to Pitt.
“May I go to Justine?” Piers asked, frowning slightly at Tellman. He did not understand the intrusion of a manservant.
