it out in silence.
“We gotta find out,” Gracie urged. “We in’t got much longer before they ’ave ter take Mr. Sorokine away!”
Mrs. Newsome reacted at last. “Then I suppose we had better speak to Edwards, and see what he tells us about the box,” she replied.
“I will send for him, and return.”
The moment she was gone, Gracie pushed the door closed again and looked at Tyndale. He was still unhappy. Something had been lost that he had no idea how to replace.
“She’s ’urt because she got left out,” she observed. “Yer did right ter tell ’er. We in’t got no choice.”
“Indeed,” he replied, but she knew that was not what he was thinking. Mrs. Newsome had not trusted him, and nothing she could say or do now would heal that.
“She don’t trust yer,” Gracie said aloud.
He did not meet her eyes. “I am aware of that, Miss Phipps.” He was angry and hurt that she should make a point of the obvious.
“An’ she sees it like yer don’t trust ’er,” she added.
“That is quite different! I was bound to secrecy by duty. I did not imagine for a moment that Mrs. Newsome had done anything wrong,” he protested.
Gracie gave a tiny shrug. “No, Mr. Tyndale, I don’t s’pose yer ever done nothing wrong like she thinks neither, but yer works bleedin’
’ard ter protect them as does, an’ turn a blind eye ter things wot curls yer stomach. ’Ow’s she ter know?”
He looked startled, then deeply embarrassed. He could think of nothing to say, but she could see it in his eyes that quite suddenly he understood, and a wealth of conflict and realization opened up in front of him. Perhaps she had said far too much, but it was too late to take it back.
Mrs. Newsome returned with a very nervous Edwards, who answered Mr. Tyndale’s questions without any of his usual insolence.
“Yes, sir, it was heavy.”
“Did they rattle around?” Tyndale asked. “Move at all when you changed the balance going upstairs?”
“No, sir, not much moving at all. If it wasn’t books, what was it, Mr. Tyndale?”
“I don’t know,” Tyndale replied. “How heavy was it when you took it down again?”
“Pretty much the same, sir.”
Gracie felt her heart pounding. Maybe she was right!
Tyndale looked at her, puzzled, then back at Edwards. “Are you certain of that?”
“Yes, sir. It was still heavy. I reckon as he sent some books back as well.”
“Did you look inside it?”
“No, sir! ’Course I didn’t.”
“Thank you. You can go,” Tyndale told him.
As soon as he was gone, Gracie excused herself also and raced up the stairs to find Pitt. It was the last piece of the puzzle.
“ ’Ave they took ’im yet?” she said breathlessly.
“If you mean Sorokine, no.” He looked up from the paper he was writing for Narraway, a brief and unsatisfying account of the case.
There would be no prosecution. Perhaps tonight Pitt would be in his own bed.
Gracie closed the door and came over to the table. “Mrs.
Sorokine were askin’ about the china pieces, the cleanin’ up, an’ the Queen’s bed linen, weren’t she? An’ mebbe she saw the dish in Mr.
Dunkeld’s case too.”
“Yes.” He seemed too weary, and perhaps disappointed to ask her why she cared.
“An’ she knew about the bottles wi’ blood in,” Gracie went on.
“An’ mebbe she knew that that case Mr. Dunkeld ’ad on the night o’
the murder, wi’ urgent books on Africa, didn’t ’ave no books on Africa in it.”
“How do you know that?” He put the pen down and discarded his writing. The tiredness slipped away from him. “Gracie?”
“ ’Cos they in’t nowhere,” she answered. “Yer know wot I reckon, sir? I reckon as they brought summink else in in that box, ter do wi’
the murder, an’ it went out wi’ summink in it too.”
“Something like what?” He frowned, leaning forward now.
“What, Gracie?”
It was as mad an idea as anything going on in the mind of whoever was killing people. She hardly dared tell him. He would laugh at her, and never trust her with anything important again.
“Gracie?” His voice was urgent now, a sharp edge of hope in it.
She dreaded being a fool, perhaps making him look stupid in front of Mr. Narraway-and worse than that, in his own eyes. Should she stop now, before she said it?
“Yes, sir,” she gulped. “We bin’ thinkin’ all along that someone went ravin’ barmy, off ’is ’ead, an’ found poor Sadie, wherever she were, an’ took ’er ter the Queen’s bedroom and lay with ’er, then killed ’er. .”
“I know it isn’t good.” He pursed his lips. “Even lunatics usually have a pattern that makes sense to them. I’m not happy about it, but the evidence shows that’s where she was killed, and quite early in the evening. She must only just have left the Prince of Wales.”
“It looks like she were killed there,” Gracie agreed, her throat so tight she could hardly breathe. “But it in’t all that easy ter get inter that ’e could go there in the middle o’ the night an’ take a tart there.
There’d be servants around. ’E’d take an awful risk. An’ why do it?”
“Someone did,” Pitt reasoned. “I saw the room, and the blood.
And someone broke the dish, even though it was replaced-” He stopped suddenly.
“Wot is it?” she asked.
“By Cahoon Dunkeld,” he finished very slowly. “And he hated Sorokine. He wouldn’t cover anything for him.” His eyes grew bright.
“He was covering for someone else, Gracie! Someone whose gratitude would be worth a fortune to him!”
“ ’Is ’Ighness?” she barely breathed the words. It was terrible! The worst nightmare she could imagine. What would Pitt do now? He wouldn’t cover it up-he couldn’t, not and live with himself. And if he said anything, no one would believe him, and they’d all cover it up so he would look like a liar-worse, a traitor to the throne. Perhaps that was what they all did anyway!
Pitt’s would be one voice alone, against all of them. He would be ruined. They would see to it. They would have to, to cover for themselves because of all the other things they’d hidden and lied about over the years.
It hurt, all the dreams broken, but there was no time to think of that now. She must look out for Pitt.
“Yes, why not?” Pitt was saying. “He would go along to the Queen’s bedroom, and no one would take any notice. In fact he could have arranged to have no servants about. He lies with Sadie, falls into a drunken sleep, and wakes up with her dead beside him, and blood all over the place. He’s terrified. He calls Dunkeld to help him.
Dunkeld moves the body and. .” He stopped.
“Wot?” she demanded. She was so frightened every muscle in her was clenched.
He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “No, it makes no sense,” he admitted wearily. “I was going to say he put the body in the linen cupboard and used the port bottles full of blood to make it look as if she had been killed there. And replaced the broken Limoges dish. But that would mean it was planned very carefully in advance.”
He looked at her, horror deepening in his face. “Gracie, he knew someone was going to be killed, and where! And come to that, how!
The only way he could do that would be if he killed her or had someone else do it. And however sure he was of Sorokine’s madness, he couldn’t guarantee he would do it in the Queen’s bed, beside the Prince of Wales! Or that it would be Sadie, and not one of the other women, or with any of the other men.” He bit his lip. “He brought the blood with him, and more important he brought the Limoges dish!”
