“I will, when I can prove it. Although I don’t know what that local clod of a policeman will do about it, unless the Prince tells him.
Incompetent ass!”
“The Prince or the policeman?” she asked with an edge of sarcasm. She was tired of being complacent, whatever the cost. She despised herself for it, although she would have to pay later.
His eyes widened. “You think perhaps the Prince of Wales is an incompetent ass?” he said quietly.
“How on earth would I know?” she retorted. “He drinks too much and he seems to do whatever you advise him to. Do you admire that?”
It was a challenge.
“He’s probably bored sick with his tedious wife,” he snapped back.
“Only the poor devil can’t escape-ever. Unless she dies.”
She felt cold, as if suddenly she had walked into icy rain and been wet to the skin by it. He was staring at her, amused, enjoying it.
“So he has parties, and hires women from the street to come and entertain him,” she said without the force she had wanted because she was shivering. “Poor man. No wonder you are sorry for him. I am sorry for her. She must be so ashamed for him.”
He knew exactly what she meant, and the rage flared in his eyes.
He swung his arm back, and then changed his mind. “I suppose you’d just run to Julius, and tell him I beat you! I wasn’t in Africa when that other woman was killed, Elsa. He was! Have you considered what he might do to women when he can get away with it? Not quite the dream you had, is it?”
“You have no idea what my dreams are, Cahoon. That’s one place you can’t reach. You never will.”
“Do you really imagine I want to?” His black eyebrows rose incredulously. “Insipid is a word that hardly does them justice. Like a blancmange, pale and tasteless. You bore me to death, Elsa.” He turned away, then, when he reached the door, swung around to face her again. “Julius may never win anything but toleration from Minnie, because the law doesn’t allow a woman to leave a man for adultery, if he ever raises the courage or the manhood to commit it-a fact you would do well to remember. You owe me everything you have: the food in your mouth, the clothes you stand up in, and your loyalty-at least in public. If you forget that, I will destroy you. Julius can’t save you, and he won’t try. If he wanted you, he’d have done something about it before now, which if you had either courage or honesty you would have realized. He has plenty of excuse to put Minnie away, if that were his choice. It isn’t. Face it. All he wants you for is to irritate me.”
“He seems to have succeeded,” she said, her voice like ice. “You have lost control of your temper- again.”
“No I haven’t,” he contradicted her. “If I had, you would be senseless on the floor.” He went out and closed the door hard.
She went to it and turned the key in the lock, then sank onto the bed and wept.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gracie had taken the bloodstained knife to Pitt, who had immediately seen the significance of it. Someone had placed it there after they had searched the cupboard on finding the body. That meant it could only be someone living right here in this guest wing of the Palace. Had they done it to get rid of it, in case Pitt caught them with it, or so he could find it and blame someone else? That was probably what Pitt was thinking of right now. Gracie scrubbed the laundry floor. Ada liked to give her the heaviest, wettest work to keep her aware of her position at the bottom of the hierarchy, just in case she forgot.
Gracie thought of the Queen’s bloodstained sheets as well. It didn’t seem to make any sense. Would Pitt manage to find out who did it, and, even more than that, prove it?
Her brush moved a little slower. What if he didn’t find out? That thought frightened her. She didn’t know what they would do to him, but she understood power, and anger, and fear. Surely even the people here would not be able to cover up a scandal like this. Or maybe they would think they had to. She could remember five years ago when the Whitechapel murderer had struck. There had been anger in the streets then. A lot of it in the East End had become very ugly. Anarchists and republicans had turned against the Queen. There had been talk of getting rid of her and setting up a new kind of government, without a monarchy any more. There had even been crazy talk that someone in the royal family had had a hand in it. That was really daft.
One of the first things you did in detecting was to find out where people were. She had known that for years.
But she also knew how stupid people could be repeating things that a moment’s thought would have told them couldn’t be true.
Anger doesn’t need much food to grow. Poor and hungry people have more feeling than sense. She had grown up in the East End and she knew her own beginnings, even if she had left them behind for Keppel Street and was now busy on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the Queen’s laundry.
She wiped the last yard and fetched fresh water to begin in the morning room, excusing herself to Biddie, who was busy ironing petticoats.
She started to scrub again.
Those three women the Prince had here were the same sort as the ones the Whitechapel murderer had attacked. So was this murder a similar attempt to try to destroy the Crown? Did Pitt know that? Or was he being used without realizing it, to break open another scandal?
The thought made her so angry she bruised her fingers on the sides of the scrubbing brush and caught a bristle under her nail.
She was sitting on the floor in the corner out of sight, trying to pick the splinter out when she heard footsteps in the passage and then a rustle of fabric as skirts brushed the sides of the door. It sounded like silk. A maid’s plain cotton dress made no sound. She ignored the piece of bristle and moved a little forward to see across the passageway.
It was a deep, plum-pink silk, and very wide. That would be Mrs.
Sorokine-she liked such hot colors.
The silk moved farther inside and a moment later the sound of Minnie’s voice proved her correct.
“I wonder if you could iron this for me?” Minnie asked. “I’ve gotten it rather crumpled, and I don’t want my maid to know how care-less I was.”
Biddie was startled. She let the iron slip out of her hand and it struck the ironing table with a thud.
“I’m sorry,” Minnie apologized. “I didn’t mean to make you jump.
I think we are all very frightened at the moment.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Biddie said automatically. “ ’Course I’ll do it. You just leave it ’ere an’ I’ll bring it up ter you.”
“I don’t mind waiting a few moments,” Minnie replied. “I don’t want you to have to come all the way upstairs again.”
Biddie started to say it was no trouble, then bit the words back.
Gracie was curious. Such consideration did not seem in character for Mrs. Sorokine. She remained where she was, listening. The floor could wait.
“I don’t blame you for being frightened,” Minnie went on conversationally. “I am too. I know the culprit has to be someone that probably we both saw, and on the night it happened. Maybe we even spoke to them.”
“Oh, ma’am! It doesn’t bear thinking of!” Biddie said softly.
“But you can see why I’m concerned, I’m sure,” Minnie said warmly. “My own husband is one of the people they suspect.”
“I’m really sorry, ma’am,” Biddie said in a hushed tone, as if she had just realized the enormity of the crime. “I’m sure you’ll find it in’t ’im.”
“Are you?” From Minnie’s tone it was a question, not in any way a challenge. “How can you be? Do you know where he was? I suppose you must have seen a lot, maybe more than the police thought to ask you.” Her skirts rustled a bit as she leaned forward. “You were up and down the stairs most of the evening, weren’t you?”
