impossible, Superintendent. That is something you learn as you get older. Associations are not always what you suppose, and even when you love one person, you may not necessarily behave in a manner other people would understand.”
“Are you speaking in generalities, or do you have Mrs. Chancellor in mind?” Pitt asked quietly.
“I don’t really know. But Linus is not an easy man. He is witty, charming, handsome, ambitious, and certainly extremely talented. But I have always wondered if he was capable of loving her as much as she loved him. Not that many marriages are composed of two people who love each other equally, except in fairy stories.” She kept her back to him and her voice suggested she was indifferent whether he understood her or not. “Not everyone is able to give so much. There is usually one party who has to compromise, to accept what is given and not be bitter or lonely for the rest. That is especially true for women who are married to powerful and ambitious men. Susannah was clever enough to know that, and I think wise enough not to fight against it and lose what there was for her … which I believe was much.”
“But you do not think it impossible she may have found some friendship or admiration elsewhere?”
“Not impossible, Superintendent, but unlikely.” She turned back to face him. “I liked Susannah very much, Mr. Pitt. She was a woman of intelligence, courage, and great integrity. She loved her husband, but she was well able to speak and act for herself. She was not … dominated. She had spirit, passion and laughter….” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and they spilled down her cheeks. She stood quite still and wept without screwing up her face, simply lost in a deep and consuming grief.
“I am so sorry,” Pitt said quietly, and went to the door. He found Jeremiah Thorne in the hall outside, looking surprised and a little anxious.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Mrs. Chancellor has been murdered,” Pitt replied without preamble. “I had reason to believe your wife might also have been harmed. I am delighted that she is not, but she is distressed and in need of comfort. Mr. Chancellor will not be in to the Colonial Office today.”
Thorne stared at him for a moment, barely comprehending what he had heard.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt said again.
“Susannah?” Thorne looked stricken; there was no mistaking the reality of his emotion. “Are you sure? I’m sorry, that’s an absurd question. Of course you are, or you would hardly have come here. But how? Why? What happened? Why in God’s name did you think Christabel was involved?” He searched Pitt’s face as if he might have seen some answer in it more immediate than words.
“Mr. Chancellor had been under the impression that his wife was intending to visit Mrs. Thorne yesterday evening,” Pitt replied. “But apparently she did not reach here.”
“No! No … she was not expected.”
“So Mrs. Thorne told me.”
“Dear God, this is dreadful! Poor Susannah. She was one of the loveliest women I ever knew-lovely in the truest sense, Pitt. I am not thinking of her face, but of the spirit that lit her inside, the passion and the courage … the heart. Forgive me. Come back and ask anything you like later on, but now I must go to my wife. She was deeply fond of Susannah….” And without adding anything further he turned and went towards the library, leaving Pitt to find his own way out.
It was far too soon to expect any information from the medical examiner. The body would barely have reached him. The physical evidence was slight. As the boatman had said, she could have been put into the water upstream after the tide had turned at about two-thirty and drifted down, or downstream on the flood tide, and have been carried up, and thus left when the ebb began. Or as likely as either of those, she could have gone in roughly where she was found. Below the Tower were only Wapping, Rotherhithe, Limehouse, the Surrey Docks, and the Isle of Dogs. Deptford and Greenwich were too far for the brief time before the change from flow to ebb. What on earth would Susannah Chancellor have been doing in any of those places?
Above were much more likely sites: London Bridge, Blackfriars, Waterloo; even Westminster was not so far. He was talking about miles. Although she was probably put in either from a bridge or from the north bank to have washed up on the north side as she was.
To have gone in where she was found, at the Tower of London, seemed impossible. What could she have been doing there? Nor could she have been in the immediate area. There was only Customs House Quay on one side and St. Catherine’s Docks on the other.
The best thing would be to find out what time she left her home in Berkeley Square, and how. No one had mentioned if she took one of her own carriages; presumably they had at least one. Where had the coachman left her? Was it conceivable she had been killed by one of her own servants? He could not imagine it, but it had better be eliminated all the same.
He was already retracing his steps to Berkeley Square and it took him only another few minutes to reach number seventeen again. This time he went down to the areaway steps rather than disturb them at the front door.
It was opened by the bootboy looking white-faced and frightened.
“We ain’t buyin’ nuffink today,” he said flatly. “Come back another time.” He made as if to close the door.
“I am the police,” Pitt told him quietly. “I need to come in. You know what has happened. I have to find out who did it, so I must discover all you know.”
“I don’t know nuffink!”
“Don’t you know what time Mrs. Chancellor went out?”
“Who is it, Tommy?” a man’s voice called from somewhere behind him.
“It’s the rozzers, George.”
The door opened wider and a servant with his right arm in a sling faced Pitt suspiciously.
Pitt handed him his card.
“You’d better come in,” the man said reluctantly. “I don’t know what we can tell you.”
The bootboy stood aside to allow Pitt in. The scullery was full of vegetables, pots and pans, and a small maid with red eyes and her apron bunched up in one hand.
“Mr. Richards is busy,” the man went on, leading Pitt through the kitchen and into the butler’s pantry. “And the footmen are in the hall. The maids are all too upset to answer the door.”
Pitt had assumed he was a footman, but apparently he was mistaken.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Coachman, George Bragg.”
Pitt looked at the arm. “When did you do that?”
“Last night” He smiled bitterly. “It’s only a scald. It’ll mend.”
“Then you did not drive Mrs. Chancellor when she went out?”
“No sir. She took a hansom. Mr. Chancellor went with her to get one. She was going to be some time, and Mr. Chancellor himself was planning to go out later, in the carriage.”
“They keep only one carriage?” Pitt was surprised. Carriages, horses and general harness and livery were marks of social standing. Most people kept as many and of as high a quality as they could, often running into debt to maintain them.
“Oh no sir,” Bragg said hastily. “But Mrs. Chancellor hadn’t been planning to go out, and so we hadn’t got the big carriage harnessed up, and Mr. Chancellor was going to use the brougham himself, later. She was going only less than a mile away. I daresay she’d have walked it in daylight.”
“So it was after dark when she left?”
“Oh yes sir. About half past nine, I would say. And looked like it could come on to rain. But Lily saw her go. She would tell you more exact. That is if she can pull herself together long enough. She was very fond of Mrs. Chancellor, and she’s in a terrible state.”
“If you can find her, please,” Pitt requested.
George left Pitt alone to do as he asked, and was gone nearly a quarter of an hour before he returned with a red-faced, puffy-eyed girl of about eighteen, who was obviously extremely distressed.
“Good morning, Lily,” Pitt said quietly. “Please sit down.”
Lily was so unused to being asked to sit in the presence of superiors, she did not comprehend the order.
“Sit down, Lily.” George pushed her with a gentle hand into the chair.
