Dunkeld blinked.
“Don’t you know?” Pitt invested his voice with surprise. “What was the woman like, the one he killed in Africa?”
Dunkeld thought for a moment. “Another whore, I believe,” he said casually. “Not young, into her late twenties, not particularly handsome, but with a fine figure. A certain degree of intelligence, I heard, and a quick tongue. A woman who could entertain as well as merely. .” He did not bother to finish.
“Like Sadie,” Pitt concluded.
Dunkeld’s contempt was too great for him to conceal. “You seem to have arrived at an understanding at last,” he observed sarcastically.
Pitt gave a very slight shrug. “Did you realize this before, or after, you hired Sadie to come here and entertain the gentlemen of the party?”
Dunkeld’s temper flared, his eyes bright and hot. “Are you suggesting I knew, and allowed it to happen?”
“Why on earth would you do that?” Pitt inquired, meeting Dunkeld’s glare. “Unless it was deliberately to get rid of a son-in-law you dislike, and allow your daughter her freedom.”
Dunkeld drew in a deep breath, shifting his weight again. “And you think I would allow a woman to be killed for that?”
Pitt remained motionless. “Do you believe he would have gone on killing, every time the same set of circumstances arose?” he inquired with no edge to his voice.
Dunkeld considered his answer before he gave it. “Do such men usually stop, if no one prevents them?” he countered.
“Not in my experience,” Pitt replied.
“Then to ensure he was caught, it is desperate perhaps, but better than allowing him to continue,” Dunkeld reasoned. “You did not catch him.”
“I was not in Africa.”
“Your arrogance is amazing!” Dunkeld almost laughed. “And do you suppose if you had been, that you would have done any better?
For God’s sake, man, enclosed in the Palace, with only three of us to choose from, you still couldn’t do it!”
“Is the Limoges china part of his. . obsession?” Pitt asked.
“I’ve already told you, that was a favor to His Royal Highness, and has nothing to do with Sorokine,” Dunkeld said huskily. “Now you will have to deduce the rest for yourself, or remain in ignorance. I have a vast amount of arrangements to make. In spite of my daughter’s death, the railway will still proceed, and now I must make up for Sorokine’s loss, and find someone to take his place. I imagine I shall not see you again. Good day.” And without waiting for Pitt to reply, he turned and strode away.
Narraway arrived a little before ten, looking tired and unhappy. His face was deeply lined, accentuating the immaculacy of his clothing. He told Pitt immediately what he had learned, sum-marizing the murder in Cape Town by likening it to the death of Sadie. There was no more information of significance about Julius Sorokine.
They were alone in Pitt’s room. The sun was bright beyond the window, the air enclosed and stale. Narraway sat opposite Pitt, his legs crossed.
Pitt heard nothing that surprised him, but he realized he had been hoping there would be. It was unprofessional to dislike a man deeply enough to wish him guilty of such a crime. Likewise, he felt guilty that he liked Julius-or perhaps it was Elsa he liked, because she was vulnerable, and trying so hard to find her courage. There was something about her that reminded him of Charlotte. It was possibly no more than a way of turning her head, a certain squareness of her shoulders, but it was enough to waken a response in him and make him want to protect her. Disillusionment was one of the deepest of human wounds.
“The similarity is too close to be coincidence,” Narraway said finally. “Whoever killed the woman in Cape Town also killed Sadie, and Minnie Sorokine as well. Presumably in her case it was because she knew who he was, and threatened him. He will have mimicked his usual style either from compulsion, or to make it obvious it was the same hand who did it.”
“Compulsion,” Pitt replied. “It doesn’t matter whether it was the same hand or not; in neither case would it protect him. And although she was a lady, there was apparently a good deal of the whore in her, at least outwardly.”
Narraway looked at him sharply. “Are you saying she worked out that the Limoges dish was broken, and that it mattered?”
“And that it was replaced.” Pitt told him about Elsa’s visit to him, and her story of having seen an exact duplicate in Dunkeld’s cases.
“And do you believe her?” Narraway asked with slight skepticism.
He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Don’t you think, setting personalities and dislikes apart, that the shards were probably something else, and that the dish in the Queen’s room was never broken in the first place? Elsa Dunkeld probably has far more grounds for hating her husband than you do.”
“If it was irrelevant, then why did the Prince of Wales lie about it?” Pitt retorted. “Tyndale refused to discuss it, and now Dunkeld says he brought one, but as a personal favor to the Prince, and his honor prevents him explaining to us why.”
Narraway pulled a very slight face of distaste. “Because it is something foolish and rather grubby, and they find it embarrassing,” he said regretfully.
Pitt was unsatisfied. “I want to go through it one more time, step by step.”
“If you wish,” Narraway conceded. “But only once. Then we must act.”
After Gracie had left Pitt with his tea, she returned temporarily to her regular duties. As soon as breakfast was finished, she and Ada began the tidying up and changing the linen. She wanted to investigate the one thing that continued to arouse her curiosity. She had cleaned Cahoon Dunkeld’s bedroom and dressing room every morning since she had been here.
Where were the books that were supposed to have come in the box in the middle of the night? There were no more than half a dozen in Mr. Dunkeld’s quarters, nor were there many more in the other rooms.
“Where’d they all go, then?” she said to Ada as they were dusting in the sitting room.
“ ’Ow do I know?” Ada said indignantly. “Mebbe these is them, for all it matters. Get on wi’ yer job.”
Gracie looked at the titles. “But these are all poetry an’ novels,”
she said. “An’ stories o’ the lives o’ real people. ’Ere’s the Duke o’ Wellington, an’ there’s Prime Minister ’Orace Walpole.”
“An’ ’ow der yer know that, Miss Clever?”
“ ’Cos it says so on the cover, o’ course,” Gracie replied. “Wot d’yer think, I looked at the pictures?”
“Since when did you learn ter read, then?”
“Since a long time ago. Why? Can’t you?” She stared at Ada as if she were looking at a curiosity.
“Yer don’t ’alf ta give yerself airs,” Ada retorted. “Yer in’t gonna last long. Tuppence worth o’ nothin’, you are.”
“So, where’s the books, then?” Gracie went back to the original question. “Or is that yer way o’ sayin’ yer don’t know?”
“ ’Course I don’t know!” Ada spat back. “But I do know me place, an’ that’s more’n you do! Need someb’dy ter show it ter yer, an’ I’ll be ’appy ter take the job. I think termorrow yer’d better do all the slops, chamber pots an’ all. An’ not just your share, you can do Norah’s an’ Biddie’s as well.”
Gracie was beginning to wonder if there had been books in the chest at all, but it was obvious Ada was not going to help.
“Yer know so much, Miss Ever So Clever,” Ada said, flicking her duster around the ornaments on the mantel. “You should be careful about all them questions yer keep askin’. Yer so sorry for Mrs.
Sorokine, ’oo were actually a bit of a cow, if yer ask me. Lot o’ grand ways with ’er nose in the air, but under it no better’n a tart ’erself, jus’
less honest about it. Askin’ jus’ the same questions as she did, you are.
