went.”
“And one of those two couldn’t have done it?” the Prince said hopefully.
“No, sir. One of them was Mr. Dunkeld, and the other was his manservant.”
The Prince swiveled to stare balefully at Dunkeld. “You didn’t say so!” he accused him.
Dunkeld stood his ground, the anger momentarily vanished. “I did not realize it was the relevant time, sir. I assume Mr. Pitt has worked that out somehow?”
The Prince turned to Pitt, his eyes cold.
“Yes, sir,” Pitt answered. “The woman was last seen alive sometime between midnight and one o’clock, and from the rigidity of the body when we found it, she must have died before half-past two in the morning, when Mr. Dunkeld’s manservant left the landing and could no longer observe the bottom of the staircase up to the servants’
sleeping quarters.”
Dunkeld shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tense and impatient.
Pitt ignored him. “I learned of an old man who came into the Palace with the delivery of a box for Mr. Dunkeld,” he went on. “But he was observed for all except a few minutes, which would not have been long enough to commit this crime.”
The Prince’s rather protruding eyes widened. “Wouldn’t it? Are you certain?”
“Yes, sir. Also his hands and clothes were clean of any blood.”
The Prince paled visibly. Perhaps Dunkeld had given him some idea of how much blood there had been. Now he turned to Dunkeld again. Pitt would like to have asked to leave, but he did not dare to.
He was ashamed of himself for yielding to the pressure. This was his profession, and Dunkeld was no one of importance to Special Branch.
He held no office in the Palace, only the power of his personality and the need the Prince seemed to feel for his presence. What was the Prince afraid of? Scandal? Another crime? Or that something hideous would be exposed? Did he know who it was, and dared not say?
Pitt felt a loathing for his own helplessness.
“Sir,” he said firmly. “We are left with the only conclusion possible, which is that one of the gentleman guests here killed this unfortunate woman.”
“Oh, no!” the Prince said immediately, shaking his head several times. “You must be mistaken. There is some alternative you have not investigated. Dunkeld, explain it to him!” He shrugged, as if Pitt were a problem Dunkeld should deal with.
Pitt clenched his fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. This time he must not allow Dunkeld to dominate him. He drew in his breath to speak, but Dunkeld cut in before him.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dunkeld said very softly to the Prince. “But he is right. It pains me very deeply to say so, but it can only have been one of us. That is what is so very terrible about this situation.” His face was tense. His eyes seemed almost black in the shadows of the room in spite of the fact that the sky was vivid blue beyond the velvet- curtained window.
The Prince stood frozen, his eyes wide, his hands half raised helplessly. “But we trusted these men!” he said with dismay. “They are outstanding, all of them! We need them for the railway!” He turned again to Dunkeld, as if he might offer some explanation that would make the situation different.
“I don’t know, sir,” Dunkeld said unhappily. “I could have sworn for all of them myself.”
“You did!” the Prince said with sudden petulance.
Dunkeld’s face tightened. “I did for their intelligence and their skills, sir. And for their reputations.”
The Prince’s expression tightened in irritation. “Yes. Yes. I’m sorry. Of course you did. I wish we could have had Watson Forbes. He would have been the perfect man. Do you think we could still persuade him? If. . if the worst happens and we find”-he took an awkward, suddenly indrawn breath-“if we lose someone?”
Dunkeld bit his lower lip. “I doubt it, sir. But of course I will try.
Forbes told me unequivocally that he has retired from his African interests.”
“If I asked him personally?” the Prince asked, staring at Dunkeld.
“Of course I am sure he would do anything within his power to please you, sir. We all would,” Dunkeld replied, but there was no warmth in his voice. He made the remark merely to placate, and Pitt could see that, even if the Prince could not. He looked temporarily mollified. “But I fear the reason he has forsaken all his African interests stems back to the death of his son,” Dunkeld went on as though an explanation was necessary.
The Prince was puzzled. “Death of his son? What happened?
Surely that is not sufficient to make a man of his skill and resource abandon the work of his life?”
“It was his only son,” Dunkeld’s voice dropped even further, “and he died in dreadful circumstances nine years ago. Poor Forbes was very shaken by it. I heard tell that it was he who found the young man, or what was left of him.” There was a look of distaste on his face and his mouth turned down at the corners. “It was crocodiles, or something equally nightmarish. I wasn’t in Africa myself at the time.
My son-in-law, Julius Sorokine, was there. And I believe Quase and Marquand were too. And Forbes’s daughter, Liliane. It was before she was married.” His mouth tightened. “You can hardly blame Forbes if he has settled his affairs there and does not wish to return, particularly with the very people he must associate with the bitterest tragedy in his life.” His voice quite gently insisted that the Prince observe the decencies of such a loss.
His Royal Highness appeared resigned. He would not abide being thwarted by people, but circumstances, he knew, he could not fight.
The rituals of death had to be observed. He had survived his mother’s mourning for three decades and never even penetrated the shell of it.
He looked back at Pitt as if he had suddenly remembered his presence. “This is a very unhappy situation,” he said, as though Pitt might not have understood what they had said. “I would be obliged if you could be as tactful as possible, but we have to know who is responsible. It cannot be left.”
Pitt had no intention whatever either of abandoning it or of conceding defeat. The Prince’s manner was patronizing, and it pained Pitt like a blister, but there was nothing he could do to retaliate. He thought of the night’s indulgence and the appetites that had precipi-tated it. Both men here had been perfectly happy to buy the use of the woman’s body for the evening, under the same roof as their sleeping wives. The callousness of it revolted him. And now it was the fear of scandal and the inconvenience that moved them to concern. The Prince at least had possibly even been intimate with the woman, ca-ressed her body, used her, and the next morning she had been found hacked to death. They were annoyed because a man bereaved of his only son had withdrawn from business in Africa and did not wish to assist in building their railway.
The magnitude of it, the power of those mere individuals, the sheer arrogance stunned him. And it frightened him that men so childlike should have such power.
“It will not be left, sir,” he said stiffly. “It was a hideous crime. The woman’s throat was cut, her abdomen torn open, and her entrails left hanging.” He saw the Prince shudder, and he felt some satisfaction as the color drained from his skin, leaving him pasty and with a film of sweat on his brow.
Dunkeld sighed to indicate he found Pitt crude and more than a little tedious, but that he had not expected better.
“Really!” he said wearily, turning to the Prince. “I apologize, sir.
Pitt is. . doing his best.” Quite obviously he had been thinking that he was of an inferior social class, roughly the same as the dead woman.
Only the implication was that while she had quite openly been a whore, and fun in her own way, Pitt was a prude and utterly boring.
Pitt’s temper soared. It was only the look of slight amusement on Dunkeld’s face when it was toward Pitt and averted from the Prince that held him in check from lashing back.
“Mr. Dunkeld is quite right, sir,” he said instead. “But it is an extremely delicate matter. Naturally all the gentlemen say they were in bed, but considering the manner of the evening’s entertainment, their wives cannot corroborate that.”
“Menservants?” the Prince asked with a moment of hope.
“All the gentlemen dismissed them, sir, except Mr. Dunkeld.”
“Oh. Yes, I forgot. Well, there must be something you can do!
