“When did it turn?”
“About half past two.”
“What a damnable thing! I suppose you have no idea as to motive? Was she robbed … or …” His face crumpled and he refused to put words to the second thought.
Pitt had not even entertained that idea. His mind had been too full of treason, and knowledge of the murder of Arthur Desmond.
“I don’t know, sir,” he confessed. “The medical examiner will tell us that. I haven’t a report from him yet. It is a little early.”
“Robbery?” Farnsworth looked hopeful.
“I don’t know that either. There was a locket ’round her neck when she was found. That was how they knew who she was. I didn’t ask Chancellor if she were wearing anything else of value.”
Farnsworth frowned. “No, perhaps not. Poor man. He must be devastated. This is terrible, Pitt! For every reason, we must clear this up as soon as possible.” He came forward from the window. “You’d better leave the Colonial Office business to Tellman. You concentrate on this. It’s dreadful … quite dreadful. I can’t remember a case so … so shocking since …” He stopped.
Pitt would have said, The autumn of ’eighty-eight, and the Whitechapel murders, but there was no point. One did not compare horrors one with another.
“Unless they are connected,” he said instead.
Farnsworth’s head jerked up. “What?”
“Unless Mrs. Chancellor’s death and the Colonial Office treason are connected,” he elaborated.
Farnsworth looked at him as if he had spoken blasphemy.
“It is not impossible,” Pitt said quietly, meeting his eyes. “She may quite accidentally have discovered something, without any guilt on her part.”
Farnsworth relaxed.
“Or she may very possibly be involved,” Pitt added.
“I hope you have sufficient intelligence not to say that anywhere but here?” Farnsworth said slowly. “Not even hint that you have thought it?”
“Of course I have.”
“I trust you to deal with this, Pitt.” It was something of a question, and Farnsworth stared at him with entreaty in his face. “I don’t always approve of your methods, or your judgments, but you’ve solved some of the worst cases in London, at one time or another. Do everything you can with this. Think of nothing else until it is finished … do you understand?”
“Yes, of course.” He would not have done anything else regardless of what Farnsworth had said, and perhaps Farnsworth knew that.
Further discussion was preempted by a sharp knock on the door, and a constable poked his head around the moment Farnsworth answered.
“Yes?” Farnsworth said abruptly.
The constable looked embarrassed. “There’s a lady to see Mr. Pitt, sir.”
“Well tell her to wait!” Farnsworth snapped. “Pitt is busy.”
“No, sir. I–I mean a real lady.” The constable did not move. “I daren’t tell ’er that, sir. You haven’t seen ’er.”
“For heaven’s sake, man! Are you scared of a woman just because she thinks she’s important?” Farnsworth barked. “Go and do as you’re told!”
“But, sir, I …” He got no further. An imperious voice behind him interrupted his embarrassment.
“Thank you, Constable. If this is Mr. Pitt’s office, I shall tell him myself that I am here.” And the moment after the door swung wide and Vespasia fixed Farnsworth with a glittering eye. She looked magnificent in ecru lace and silk, and pearls worth a fortune across her bosom. “I don’t believe I have your acquaintance, sir,” she said coolly. “I am Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould.”
Farnsworth took a deep breath and gulped, swallowed the wrong way and relapsed into a fit of coughing.
Vespasia waited.
“Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth,” Pitt said for him, hiding both his astonishment and his amusement with some difficulty.
“How do you do, Mr. Farnsworth.” Vespasia swept past him into the office and sat down on the chair in front of Pitt’s desk, resting her parasol, point down, on the carpet and waiting until Farnsworth should have recovered himself, or taken his leave, or preferably both.
“Have you come to see me, Aunt Vespasia?” Pitt asked her.
She looked at him coldly. “Of course I have. Why on earth else should I come to this unfortunate place? I do not frequent police stations for my amusement, Thomas.”
Farnsworth was still in considerable difficulty, gasping for breath, tears running down his cheeks.
“How may I be of service?” Pitt asked Vespasia as he took his place behind his desk, Micah Drummond’s very beautiful oak desk with the green leather inlay. Pitt was very proud to have inherited it.
“You may not,” she replied, a slight melting in her silver eyes. “I have come in order to help you, or at least to give you further information, whether it helps or not.”
Farnsworth was still unable to stop coughing. He stood with his handkerchief to his scarlet face.
“In relation to what?” Pitt enquired.
“For heaven’s sake, assist that man before he chokes himself!” she ordered. “Haven’t you brandy, or at least water to offer him?”
“There’s a bottle of cider in the corner cupboard,” Pitt suggested.
Farnsworth grimaced. Micah Drummond would have kept brandy. Pitt could not afford it, and had no taste for it anyway.
“If … you will … excuse me …” Farnsworth managed to get out between gasps.
“I will.” Vespasia inclined her head sympathetically, and as soon as Farnsworth was gone, she looked back at Pitt. “Regarding the murder of Susannah Chancellor. Can anything else be on your mind this morning?”
“No. I had not realized you would have heard of it already.”
She did not bother to reply to that. “I saw her the evening before last,” she said gravely. “I did not overhear her conversation, but I observed it, and I could not help but see that it aroused the profoundest emotions.”
“With whom?”
She looked at him as if she knew exactly what he feared. There was profound sorrow in her face.
“Peter Kreisler,” she replied.
“Where was this?”
“At Lady Rattray’s house in Eaton Square. She was holding a musical evening. There were fifty or sixty people there, no more.”
“And you saw Kreisler and Mrs. Chancellor?” he prompted, a sinking feeling of disappointment inside him. “Can you describe the encounter for me, as precisely as possible?”
A flicker of disapproval crossed her face and disappeared. “I do understand the importance of the issue, Thomas. I am not inclined to embroider it. I was some ten or twelve feet away, half listening to an extremely tedious acquaintance talking about her health. Such a tasteless thing to do. No one wishes to know the details of somebody else’s ailments. I observed Mrs. Chancellor first. She was talking very earnestly to someone whose face was mostly hidden behind a very luxuriant potted palm. The wretched place was like a jungle. I was forever expecting insects to drop out of the trees down my neck. I did not envy the young women with deep decolletages!” She shrugged very slightly.
Pitt could picture it, but it was not the time to comment.
“Her face wore an expression of deep concern, almost anguish,” Vespasia continued. “I could see that she was on the verge of a quarrel. I moved so as to learn who her companion was. He seemed to be pleading with her, but at the same time adamant that he would not change his own mind. The course of the argument altered, and it seemed she was the one entreating. There was an appearance of something close to desperation in her. But judging from her face, he could not be moved. After the course of some fifteen minutes or so, they parted. He looked well pleased with himself, as if he found the outcome quite acceptable. She was distraught.”
