some ambitious mother would grasp him for her unmarried daughter. It would merely be a competition as to who would succeed first.
He did not dislike Dominic for himself, only for his relationship with Charlotte and the dreams she had woven about him, and he felt guilty that he had to be the one to drag him again into the shadow of murder.
If indeed he could not clear up the affair before murder need be put into words?
It was a gray, sullen morning with a sky threatening snow when Pitt pulled the bell of number twelve Gadstone Park and the funereal butler let him in with a sigh of resignation.
“Lady Fitzroy-Hammond is at breakfast,” he said wearily. “If you care to wait in the morning room, I will inform her that you are here.”
“Thank you.” Pitt followed him obediently, passing a small, elderly maid in a neat, white-lace-edged uniform. Her thin face sharpened as she saw him, and her eyes glittered. She turned around and retraced her steps upstairs, whisking across the landing and disappearing as he went into the silent, ice-chill morning room.
Alicia came in about five minutes later, looking pale and a little hurried, as if she had left the breakfast table without finishing her meal.
“Good morning, ma’am.” He remained standing. The room was too cold to conduct any discussion, especially the relaxed, rather rambling exploration he needed now.
She shivered. “What more can there possibly be to speak of? The vicar has assured me he will take care of all the-arrangements.” She hesitated. “I–I am not sure how it should be done-after all-there has already been a funeral-and-” She frowned and shook her head a little. “I don’t know anything more to tell you.”
“Perhaps we could talk somewhere more convenient?” he suggested. He did not wish to say, precisely, somewhere warmer.
She was confused. “Discuss what? I don’t know anything else.”
He spoke as gently as he could. “Desecration of a grave is a crime, ma’am. To disinter the same body twice seems unlikely to be merely an insane coincidence.”
The blood drained out of her face. She stared at him, speechless.
“Could we go to some room where we may speak comfortably?” This time he made it rather more of guidance, as one would instruct a child.
Still without answering, she turned and led him to a smaller, very feminine withdrawing room at the side of the house. A fire was already burning strongly, and there was a radiance of warmth from it. As soon as they were inside she swung round. Her composure was regained.
“What is it you are supposing, Inspector? More than a madman? Something intentional?”
“I’m afraid so,” he replied soberly. “Madness is not usually so-directed.”
“Directed at what?” She closed the door and walked over to sit down on the settee. He sat opposite her, feeling the warmth ease out the muscles knotted with cold.
“That is what I must find out,” he replied, “if I am to make sure it does not happen again. You said before that you knew of no enemy who would have wished your husband such harm or could conceivably have behaved in such a manner-”
“I don’t!”
“Then I am left to consider what other motives there could be,” he said reasonably. She was more intelligent than he had expected, calmer. He began to understand how Dominic might be very genuinely attracted to her; neither money nor position need be involved. He thought of what Vespasia had said about laughter and the dreams of youth, and he was angry at the restrictions, the insensitivities of a social convention that could have married her to a man like Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond and bred into her compliance with such a thing. “Or who else might be the intended victim,” he finished.
“Victim?” she repeated, turning it over in her mind. “Yes, I suppose you are right. In a sense we are all victims of this-the whole family.”
He was not prepared yet to ask her about Dominic. “Tell me something about his mother,” he said instead. “She was in the church, wasn’t she? Does she live here?”
“Yes. But I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“Could she be the one intended to be hurt, do you think?”
There was a small flicker over her face, like recognition, even perhaps a momentary harsh, self-mocking humor. Or perhaps that was something he imagined because it was in his own feelings.
“Are you asking me if she has enemies?” She was looking at him very directly.
“Has she?” It was now no longer a secret between them; he understood, and she had seen it.
“Of course; no one can live to her age without earning enemies,” she agreed. “But by the same token, most of them are dead. All the rivals from her youth, or the days of her social power, they are gone, or too old to care. I imagine most scores have been settled long ago.”
There was too much truth in that to argue. “And the daughter, Miss Verity?” he went on.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head immediately. “She has only been out for a Season. There is no spite in her, and she has done no one harm, even inadvertently.”
He was not quite sure how to say the inevitable. Usually it was hard to frame the words that led to accusation, especially when the person could not see them coming; but he had grown accustomed to it over the years, as one lives with early rheumatism, knowing there will be pain now and again, moving to accommodate it, anticipating when the prick would come, growing used to it. But this time it was harder than usual. At the last moment he became oblique again.
“Could there not be envy?” he asked. “She is a charming girl.”
Alicia smiled, and there was patience in it for his ignorance. “The only people to envy young ladies of society are other young ladies of society. Do you really imagine, Inspector, that one of them hired men to disinter her dead father?”
He felt foolish. “No, of course not.” This time he abandoned tact; he was being clumsier with it than without. “Then if it is not the dowager Lady Fitzroy-Hammond, and it is not Miss Verity, could it be you?”
She swallowed and waited a second before replying. Her fingers were stiff on the carved wooden arm of the settee, grasping onto the fringe.
“I had not thought anyone hated me so much,” she said gently.
He plunged in. He could not afford to let pity hold his tongue. She would not be the first murderess to be the supreme actor.
“There has been more than one crime committed from jealousy.”
She sat perfectly still. For a while he thought she was not going to answer.
“Do you mean murder, Inspector Pitt?” she said at last. “It is horrible, sick and nightmarish, but it is not murder. Augustus died of heart failure. He had been ill for over a week. Ask Dr. McDuff.”
“Perhaps someone wishes us to think it was murder?” Pitt kept his voice calm, almost unemotional, as if he were examining an academic problem, not talking of lives.
Suddenly she perceived what he was thinking. “You mean they are-digging Augustus up to make the police take notice? Do you think someone could hate one of us so much?”
“Is it not possible?”
She turned a little to look into the fire. “Yes-I suppose it is; it would be foolish to say it couldn’t be. But it is a very frightening thought. I don’t know who-or why.”
“I’m told you are acquainted with a Mr. Dominic Corde.” Now it was said. He watched the color rise up her cheeks. He had expected to dislike her for it, to disapprove; after all, she was newly widowed. Yet he did not. He found himself sorry for her embarrassment, even for the fact that she was probably in that uncertain stage of love when you can no longer deny your own feelings and are not yet sure of the other’s.
She still looked away from him. “Yes, I am.” She picked at the fringe of the settee. Her hands were very smooth, used to embroidery and arranging flowers. She was impelled to say more, not simply to leave the subject. “Why do you ask?”
Now he was more delicate. “Do you think someone else might be jealous of your friendship? I have met Mr. Corde; he is a most charming man, and eligible for marriage.”
The color deepened in her face, and, perhaps feeling its heat, her embarrassment became more painful.
“That may be, Mr. Pitt.” Her eyes came up sharply. He had not noticed before, but they were golden hazel. “But I am newly a widow-” She stopped. Possibly she realized how pompous it sounded. She began again. “I cannot
