before he had even crossed the floor. He sat down, less gracefully and less comfortably than Hamilton Quase. He was a good-looking man with an intelligent and sensual face. He dressed well, but without that effortless elegance of a man who, once having understood fashion, can follow it or ignore it as he pleases.
“I did not see the poor woman after I went to bed,” he explained.
“And I have no idea what happened to her. I didn’t see anyone around in the corridor, and I understand you have already accounted for the servants. It seems inexplicable to me.” He spoke as if that were the end of the matter.
“It seems so,” Pitt agreed. “And yet it must be simply that we have not found the explanation. The facts are inescapable. Three women came for the evening, two left, and the third was found dead in the linen cupboard. The servants are accounted for and the only other person to come beyond the kitchen and be alone even for a few moments was the carter who helped the footman carry Mr. Dunkeld’s box up the stairs. He was alone for only a matter of minutes, and was not upstairs in the bedroom corridor. Also, he had not a spot of blood on him when he left. If you had seen the poor woman’s body, you would know that could not be the case with whoever killed her.”
Marquand was pale, his body unnaturally still. It obviously disturbed him that Pitt was so graphic. He had strong hands, slender but with square tips to the fingers. Just now they were clenched with an effort to stop them trembling.
“I did not kill her, and I have no idea who did,” he repeated.
Pitt smiled. “I had not been hopeful that you could tell me, Mr.
Marquand. But you could describe the party of that evening.”
“It was just a. .” Marquand began, then stopped. “Yes, I imagine you have never attended such a. . an evening?”
“No,” Pitt agreed soberly. The sarcastic observation was on his tongue, and he refrained from making it only because he had to. “Presumably the ladies retired to bed early, and then the. . women were conducted in?”
Marquand’s lips tightened and a very slight color stained his cheeks. “You make it sound vulgar,” he said critically.
Pitt leaned back. He could not get Olga Marquand’s dark, sad face out of his mind. And yet that was foolish. She was probably quite used to these arrangements and would surely know that accommodating the Prince of Wales was largely what her husband was here to achieve.
“Then explain it to me,” he invited.
Marquand’s eyes opened wide. “For God’s sake, man, are you envious?” he said in amazement. “I can assure you, you could have had as much fun at a singsong at your local public house! More at a good evening in the music halls, pleasures which are not open to His Royal Highness, for obvious reasons. The ladies retired, not that they wouldn’t have stayed, if society permitted such liberty. We drank, probably too much, sang a few songs, told some very bawdy jokes, and laughed too loudly.”
Pitt imagined it. “Are you telling me that you all went to bed separately?” he inquired, not bothering to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
“No, of course not,” Marquand snapped. “The Prince took the woman who was later found dead. Sarah, or Sally, or whatever her name was. .”
“Sadie,” Pitt supplied.
“All right, Sadie. I took Molly and Dunkeld took Bella. I never saw the others again. Are you sure that one of the other women could not have killed Sadie? In a jealous rage, or some other kind of quarrel, possibly over money? That seems quite likely.”
Pitt decided to play the game. “Is that what you think could have happened?” he asked.
Marquand stared at him. “Why not? It makes more sense than any of us having killed her! Do you think one of us took leave of our senses-for half an hour, hacked the poor creature to bits-then returned to bed, and woke up in the morning back in perfect control, ate breakfast, and resumed discussions on the Cape-to-Cairo railway?” He did not bother to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“I would certainly prefer it to be one of the other women,” Pitt conceded. “Let us say, for the sake of the story, that it was Bella. She left Mr. Dunkeld’s bed, crept along the passage awakening no one, happened to run into Sadie, who had chanced to have left the Prince’s bed, stark naked. They found the linen cupboard and decided to go into it, perhaps for privacy. Then they had a furious quarrel, which fortunately no one else heard, and Bella, who happened to have had the forethought to take with her one of the knives from the butler’s pantry, cut Sadie’s throat and disemboweled her. Fortunately she kept from getting any blood on her dress or her hands or arms.
Then she quietly left again, with Molly, whom she had found, and was conducted out of the Palace and went home. Something like that?”
Marquand’s face was scarlet, his eyes blazing. Twice he started to speak, then realized that what he was going to say was absurd, and stopped again.
“Perhaps you would tell me a little more of the temper, the mood of the evening, Mr. Marquand?” Pitt asked, aware that his tone was now supremely condescending. “Was there any ill-feeling between any of the men, or they and one of the women?”
Marquand was about to deny it, then changed his mind. “You place me in an invidious position,” he complained. “It would be preposterous to imagine that the Prince of Wales could do such a thing.
I know that I did not, but I cannot prove it. Dunkeld was presumably with the other woman, Bella, except when he went to unpack his damned box of books, and it seems he can prove it.” The inflection in his voice changed slightly, a razor edge of strain. “My brother, Julius, retired early and alone. He did not wish to stay with us, and did not give his reasons. The Prince of Wales was not pleased, but it fell something short of actual unpleasantness.”
“Mrs. Sorokine is very handsome,” Pitt remarked as casually as he could. “Probably he preferred her company to that of a street woman.”
The tide of color washed up Marquand’s face again. “You are extremely offensive, sir! I can only assume in your excuse that you know no better!”
“How would you prefer me to phrase it, sir?” Pitt asked.
“Julius went to bed in a self-righteous temper,” Marquand said harshly, hatred flaring momentarily in his eyes. “His wife did not see him until luncheon the following day.”
Pitt was disconcerted by the strength of emotion, and embarrassed to have witnessed it.
“Did he tell you this, or did she?” he asked.
“What?” The color in Marquand’s face did not subside. “She did.
And before you ask me, I have nothing further to say on the subject.
Julius is my brother. I tell you only so much truth as honor obliges me to. I will not lie, even for him.”
“I understand. And of course Mrs. Sorokine is your sister-in-law,”
Pitt conceded. Actually he did not understand. Was Marquand’s anger against his brother because he had placed him in a situation where he was forced to lie or betray him? Or was it against circumstances, the Prince and his expectations, even Dunkeld for engineering this whole situation? Or his own wife for making him feel guilty because he attended the party, and perhaps enjoyed it?
Pitt elicited a few more details of fact, and then excused him. He then asked to see Julius Sorokine, even though he had left early and would apparently know far less than the other men.
Julius came in casually, but there was an unmistakable anxiety in him. He was taller than his brother, and moved with the kind of grace that could not be learned. His ease was a gift of nature. He sat down opposite Pitt and waited to be questioned.
“Why did you leave the party earlier than everyone else, Mr.
Sorokine?” Pitt asked bluntly.
The question seemed to embarrass Sorokine, and it flashed suddenly into Pitt’s mind that perhaps rather than spend at least some of the time with one of the prostitutes his father-in-law had provided, he had been with another woman altogether, of his own choosing.
Perhaps that was why the handsome Minnie Sorokine had been confiding in her brother-in-law.
“Did you have an assignation with someone else?” Pitt asked abruptly. “If so, they can account for your time, and it need not be repeated to your wife.”
Julius laughed outright, in spite of his discomfort. It was a warm, uncompromising sound. “I wish it were so,
