She looked even more unhappy. “I asked Mr. Tyndale, an’ ’e went all peculiar, like ’e were scared ’alf out of ’is wits. I in’t never seen ’im like that, an all sort o’ stiff an’ proper bloke like ’im. Wot is it, Mr.
Pitt? Is it ’cos ’ooever done it is mad? Is that’s wot’s got ’im so scared?
Like the back streets ’as come inter their palace wot they thought was all safe from real life?”
“It could be, Gracie,” he said. The thought had flicked through his mind, but he was surprised that she had seen it so sharply. Did it hurt her as it hurt him? Perhaps disillusion was the same, whoever you were. “But it’s something more than that as well. Did Mrs. Sorokine know about the port bottles?”
She shook her head.
“I dunno. I don’t see ’ow she could. ’Less someone else saw ’em an’
told ’er? But I reckon if anyone saw ’em, they’d just ’ave thrown ’em out ’cos o’ the flies. You wouldn’t ’ardly go an’ tell guests, would yer?
An’ she wouldn’t ’ave asked, ’cos why would yer? ‘Excuse me, but ’ave yer seen any old wine bottles wi’ blood in ’em?’ ”
“All the same,” Pitt said thoughtfully, “I wonder if she knew, or guessed? Or if they have nothing to do with the murder.” But even as he spoke, he did not believe it. “That means premeditation,” he said aloud.
“Wot?” she frowned. “ ’Ave yer tea, Mr. Pitt. Lettin’ it go cold don’t ’elp.”
“No. Thank you.” Absentmindedly he poured it, only marginally aware of the fragrant steam in the air. “It means it wasn’t a sudden crime of madness, on the spur of the moment, like losing your temper.
If somebody brought blood in bottles, then they planned it before-hand. You can’t get blood into a wine bottle easily. You would have to use a funnel and pour with great care.”
Gracie frowned. “ ’Course,” she agreed. “But ’oose blood, an’ wot for?”
“A diversion,” he answered. “That’s all it could be. And it could be any sort of blood, an ox or a sheep, or a rabbit.” He spread marmalade on the first slice of toast and bit into it.
“In’t that much blood in a rabbit,” Gracie pointed out practically.
“Yer could get it at a butcher’s. D’yer s’pose it were blood ter put on the Queen’s sheets, ter scare us off lookin’ too close elsewhere, like?”
He smiled. He had wondered the same thing.
“In’t gonna work, though, is it?” she asked anxiously, trying to read his eyes.
“No,” he answered her. “We won’t stop looking for the truth, whatever it is.” He saw her relax and realized the conflict of emotions crowding within her, led by the fear of disillusion. It was the pain that had tugged at the edge of his own feelings ever since arriving here. He did not wish to see the fragility of those he had grown up admir-ing, believing to be not only privileged but uniquely deserving of honor. In spite of all their frailties of taste and even loyalty to one another, he had still imagined in them a love of the same values as the best of their subjects. He had taken for granted the acceptance of responsibility for one’s acts, good or bad, of kindness and truth, the value of friendship, and gratitude for good fortune.
She was looking at him steadily, reassured. “Wot d’yer want me ter do, sir? You got the bottles, but I can see if Mrs. Sorokine asked anyone about them?”
His first thought was of Gracie’s safety. “No. You can’t do that without betraying that you found them.”
She stared at him, her eyes widening.
He had hurt her feelings by refusing to let her help. “You have no way of explaining except by saying that you found them,” he said, wishing that he had put it that way in the beginning. “I can’t afford to have them know who you are yet. And someone might work it out.”
“You in’t sure as ’e did it, are yer?” she said in awe.
He had not realized she knew about Julius Sorokine, but he should have. Orders had been given to Tyndale for all the staff that they must leave Julius’s door locked, and food was to be delivered only by Tyndale himself, taking a manservant with him. That would go around the staff like wildfire. Suddenly they would all feel safe. The mystery was solved and the madman locked up. Gracie would have assumed the same thing. Now she was staring at him with a clarity sharper than his own.
“If we are to lock him up for the rest of his life, we have to be certain, beyond any question,” he answered, trying to convince himself.
“At least I do.”
She nodded slowly. “Well, if it in’t ’im, then it’s someone else,”
she said quietly. “I’ll see if Mrs. Sorokine found out about them bottles or not. But more’n anything else for meself, I’d like ter know wot that blood were for, an’ ’ow it got ’ere.”
“Gracie, be careful!”
“You be careful, Mr. Pitt,” she answered him fiercely. “If it weren’t Mr. Sorokine, it’s still one o’ ’em guests. It in’t one o’ the servants, so they won’t be after me. ’E may be mad as an ’atter, but ’e in’t daft. An’
it in’t the only thing goin’ on ’ere neither, sir. I don’t like to say it, but there’s summink ’orrid as Mr. Tyndale knows about an’ ’e don’t want nobody else knowin’ it.”
“Then don’t look for it!” he said sharply. “That’s an order. Do you hear me?”
She sat very stiffly. “Yes, sir, course I ’ear yer. Can I go now, then?
If they in’t gonner work out ’oo I am, then I in’t better be ’ere longer’n I can explain, ’ad I?”
He watched her go with a sense of misgiving, as if the solution he had first grasped were already slipping out of his hands, and out of control.
He took another piece of toast and ate it without being aware of the taste.
Could Minnie have confided in anyone else, perhaps asked them questions that might have indicated her train of thought? Perhaps it did not matter to the case, but it mattered to him that he understood what had happened and saw all the pieces fit together. It was more than simple hurt pride that Minnie Sorokine had organized all the elements into a clear picture and made sense of them, and he had not.
As long as he did not see the connections, he would fear that somewhere there was a mistake, and the conclusion might be wrong. It nagged at his mind that they were proving a crime of uncontrollable insanity, committed with careful and intricate forethought. Were there two minds at work here?
Who would Minnie confide in, apart from her father? The men had been busy with the project, unavailable to her most of the day.
She would not have spoken to Elsa; relations between them were strained.
Olga Marquand was consumed in her own unhappiness, and must have hated Minnie enough to have destroyed her herself, if she could have. That meant it had to be Liliane. Was Liliane any less afraid now?
Pitt found her outside in the gardens alone, walking close to the flower beds. Their vividness and perfect order seemed a mockery of the agitated way she moved and the distracted look in her face under her broad- brimmed hat, which shaded her complexion from the glare of the sun.
He caught up with her, speaking when he was still two or three yards away, because he could see from her attitude that she was unaware of his approach.
“Good morning, Mrs. Quase.”
She froze, and then turned slowly. In the warmth and perfume of the silent garden she was even more beautiful than in the formal setting. Her eyes were golden brown, and what was visible of her hair shone like polished copper, but lighter and softer.
“Good morning, Inspector,” she replied. “Are you lost?”
“Not literally,” he replied. “I was hoping to speak to you for a few moments.” He was not asking permission, merely phrasing his intention courteously.
“Metaphorically?” she asked, then instantly wondered if she had used a word he did not know. She saw from his smile that that was not so. She blushed, but it would have been clumsy to apologize. She hurried on instead. “I thought you were sure it was Julius. Cahoon seemed to think so. But the poor man is really devastated with grief. I am amazed he did no more than beat Julius senseless.”
She looked away from him, across the ordered clumps of flowers and the perfectly cut lawn, which was smooth as a table of green velvet. There was a gentle buzzing of bees, and now and again a waft of perfume in the sun. “We are not very civilized, are we?” she observed.
“The veneer is no thicker than a coat of paint. You would be amazed what hideousness lies underneath such a commonplace thing.”
“It seems Mrs. Sorokine saw through the paint very clearly,” he replied. She had given him the perfect
