rather grubby, like the flies that buzzed around the bottles once full of blood.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pitt had a restless night. He disliked being away from home. He missed Charlotte acutely. Since joining Special Branch, he could no longer tell her the details of his cases, which meant she was unable to help in the practical ways she used to when he dealt with simple murders. All the same, her presence, her belief in him, made him calmer and stronger.
The pieces of information Gracie had brought him were extraordinary. They must mean something, and yet he could make no sense of them. He had asked the cook about the port bottles, and she had confirmed that Mr. Dunkeld had brought them as a gift for the Prince.
They had contained port of a quality far superior to any that would ever be used in cooking. They had been served at table for the gentlemen. He did not mention the blood. Whatever warnings he gave, she would be bound to tell someone-probably everyone.
He had made inquiries about the broken china, but received no reply. They all disclaimed any knowledge. Similarly, everyone said the Queen’s sheets must have been put in the linen cupboard by mistake, and no one seemed to understand that they had been slept on.
They simply denied the possibility.
When he finally drifted off to sleep, it was into a tangle of dreams.
The glory of Buckingham Palace was mixed with the stink and terror of the back alleys of Whitechapel, where those other fearful corpses of women had been found.
He woke with a start, his heart pounding, and sat upright in bed, for a moment at a loss as to where he was. There was a wild banging on his door. Before he could answer, it swung open and Cahoon Dunkeld staggered in, his face ashen gray in the light from the corridor.
Pitt scrambled out of bed and instinctively went to him. The man looked as if he were about to collapse. Pitt grasped him by the shoulders and eased him into the single chair.
Cahoon drooped his shoulders forward and buried his head in his hands. Whatever had happened, he seemed shattered by it.
Pitt lit the gaslamp and turned it up, and then waited until Cahoon regained control of himself.
When at last he sat up, his face was blotched where his fingers had pressed against it and his eyes had a fevered look. He was so fraught with emotion his body was rigid and he could not keep his arms still, as though he were desperate to do something physical but had no idea what or how.
He rubbed his hand over his brow and up over his head. His knuckles were bruised; one was torn open.
“It’s Minnie,” he said hoarsely. “She was behaving erratically all day, but I thought she was just seeking attention, as she does. She. .
she needs to be admired, to draw people’s eyes, occupy their thoughts.
Her husband is. .” His jaw clenched and for several moments he was unable to continue.
Pitt thought of completing the sentence for him, to prompt him to go on, but decided the issue was too grave to misdirect. He waited, motionless.
Cahoon took a shuddering breath. “At dinner she kept raising the subject of the dead woman in the cupboard. I told her fairly sharply to be quiet about it. I thought she was afraid, and losing control of herself. Oh God!” His chest heaved and he seemed to clench all the muscles of his upper body.
Pitt began to be afraid. “What has happened, Mr. Dunkeld?” he demanded.
Slowly Cahoon raised his head again and stared at him. “During the night I thought about what she’d said. I was awake. I’ve no idea what time it was. I went over and over it, and I began to wonder if she knew something. She told me quite openly that she had been asking a lot of questions of the servants, and discovered what she wanted to know. I. . I didn’t believe her.” He seemed desperate that Pitt should understand him. “I thought she was showing off.”
“What has happened, Mr. Dunkeld?” Pitt said more urgently, leaning forward a little. The man in front of him was obviously labor-ing on the borders of hysteria. He was an adventurer, an explorer used to commanding other men. When the body in the linen cupboard had been found it was he who had taken charge, deciding what to do, supporting and comforting the Prince of Wales. Whatever it was that had driven him to this point must have shaken him to the core. Had he discovered that the murderer was close to him, in his own family?
Then it must be Julius Sorokine. Minnie, as his wife, knowing his nature, even his intimate tastes and habits, had suspected him. Pitt had always found it hard to believe that a woman of any intelligence at all-and honesty- could be married to such a man, and have not even a shadow of doubt, of fear.
The tears were running silently down Cahoon’s cheeks.
Pitt touched his shoulder gently. He did not like the man-he could not afford to forget the threats he had made, or his pleasure in the power to do so-but at this moment he was aware only of pity for him.
“I became afraid for her,” Cahoon said, his voice half choked. He rubbed his hand over his face again, spreading a fine smear of blood across it from the cut on his knuckle. His cheeks were swollen. “I. .
I went to warn her. I wanted her to be careful. I don’t know what I thought she would do!” He stopped abruptly.
“Did you warn her?” Pitt demanded. “Did she tell you what she knew? You can’t protect him, whoever he is! Don’t you. .?” Pitt’s words died on his lips. Cahoon’s eyes held such horror it froze him.
“What happened?” he shouted.
“I found her,” Cahoon whispered. “She was lying on her bedroom floor, her throat cut, her. .” He shuddered violently. “Her gown was ripped and her. . her stomach torn open and bleeding. Just like. .
oh God! Just like the whore in the cupboard. I was too late!”
There was nothing to say. Pity was so inadequate a response that even to attempt it was an insult. Pitt was drenched with guilt. If he had done his job sooner, more intelligently, more accurately, this would not have happened! Minnie Sorokine would still be alive. He expected Cahoon to tell him that, even to lash out at him physically from his own pain. The blows to his body could scarcely hurt more than the self-condemnation in his mind. Minnie had been so burningly alive, and Gracie had followed her around, asking the servants about the broken china, and the buckets of water. From the answers she had deduced what had happened-and Pitt was still fumbling without an idea in his head! He was stupid, criminally incompetent.
He could see no end to the darkness of his guilt.
Cahoon was talking again. “I went to tell Julius. . her husband.
It seemed the natural thing to do.”
“Yes?” Pitt could only imagine the man’s grief.
Cahoon was staring at him. “I found him in his bedroom. He was up, half dressed, even so early. He just stared at me.” Cahoon began to tremble. “His eyes were wild, like a lunatic’s, and there was blood on his hands and face, scratches, tears in his skin. I. . I knew in that moment that it was he who had done that to her. I couldn’t bear it. I. .
I lost all control and I beat him. . God knows why I didn’t kill him. I only came to my senses when he was lying on the floor and I realized I was beating an unconscious man. Somehow the fact that he no longer even knew what I was doing to him robbed me of the rage long enough for me to regain mastery of myself.”
Pitt imagined it. They were both big men, physically powerful.
Julius was younger, but taken by surprise he could have lost the advantage. Nevertheless, Pitt understood now what the torn knuckles and the bruises still swelling and darkening on Cahoon’s face meant.
It had been a hard fight, even assuming it was brief.
“Where’s Sorokine now?” he asked softly. He felt no blame for Cahoon. If it had been Pitt’s own daughter, Jemima, he would have torn the man apart.
“Still senseless on the floor, I imagine. But I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” Cahoon smiled bitterly, and winced at the pain in his jaw. He put his hand up tentatively. “I think he loosened a tooth.”
“Go back to your own room, Mr. Dunkeld,” Pitt told him. “I’ll go with you. You had better awaken your wife and I’m afraid you will have to tell her what has happened. Shall I send for her maid? Get tea, or brandy? Would you
