Brunswick Gardens (31 page)

“I wish to see him about Miss Bellwood’s past academic career, Mrs. Parmenter,” he said gently. “And what he may know of her personal life. As you say, whatever happened yesterday evening is not a public matter but a private one.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” She looked taken aback and a trifle embarrassed. “Of course. I’m sorry. I leaped to a conclusion. Please forgive me.”

“Perhaps I should have explained,” he said sincerely. “It is my fault.”

She shot him a dazzling smile, then winced as her cheek hurt. But even her bruising and the swelling across her cheekbone could not mar the radiance of her look.

“Please come upstairs. He is in his study. I expect he can tell you quite a lot about her. He did learn a great deal before he employed her.” She led him to the bottom of the stairs, then turned and said very softly, “Actually, I think he would have been far wiser not to have chosen her, Mr. Pitt. I am sure she was brilliant in her skills, very gifted, so I hear. But her personal life was …” She gave a little shrug. “I was going to say questionable, but I am afraid there were very few questions that were not unfortunately answered … and not in her favor. Still … Ramsay can tell you the details. I cannot. But he was more tolerant than I think he should have been. And look at the tragedy it has brought him.” She started up the stairs again, running her hand up the shining, black banister rail. In spite of the heaviness which lay over the house, she walked straight-backed, her head high, and with a very slight sway which was extraordinarily graceful. Not even this oppression could rob her of her courage or the qualities of her character.

Ramsay greeted Pitt with mild surprise, rising from his seat behind a desk scattered with papers. Vita left, closing the door behind her, and Pitt accepted the chair offered him.

“What can I do for you, Superintendent?” Ramsay asked, his brow puckered, his eyes anxious. He looked at Pitt as though he could not quite focus upon him.

Pitt had an extraordinary sense of unreality. It was as if Ramsay had forgotten his wife’s injury. It did not seem to occur to him that Pitt could have called with regard to that, or even that he had noticed it. Was Ramsay so familiar with the idea of striking a woman, albeit in his notion of proper discipline, that he felt no discomfort that a stranger should be aware of it?

Pitt found it difficult to force his attention to the reason he had given for coming, and indeed it was his secondary purpose.

“I need to know more about Miss Bellwood’s past, before she came to Brunswick Gardens,” he answered. “Mrs. Parmenter tells me you made the usual enquiries about her, both as to her professional abilities and to her character. I should like to know what you learned about the latter.”

“Oh … would you?” Ramsay looked surprised. He seemed preoccupied with something else. “Do you really think it will help? Well, I suppose it might. Yes, naturally I enquired for some references and asked various people I knew. After all, you do not take people lightly when the work is of importance and you expect to associate with them closely. What is it you would like to know?” He did not offer anything, as if he had little idea what Pitt was seeking.

“What was her position immediately prior to coming here?” Pitt began.

“Oh … she was assisting Dr. Marway with his library,” Ramsay replied straightaway. “He specializes in translations of ancient works, and he has many of them in the original Latin and Greek, of course. It was a matter of classifying and reorganizing.”

“And he found her satisfactory?” This was an extraordinary conversation. Ramsay was talking about a woman with whom it seemed he had had an affair, and then murdered, and he looked absentminded about it, as if it were only of peripheral importance to him, something else consumed his real attention, and yet he did not wish to be discourteous or unhelpful, so he was prepared to do his best to answer.

“Oh, commendably so. He said she was exceptionally gifted,” he said sincerely. Was it to justify his choice? He certainly had not liked her personally. Or was he seeking to deflect suspicion away from himself now?

“And before then?” Pitt persisted.

“If I remember correctly, she was coaching Reverend Dav-entry’s daughters in Latin,” Ramsay said with a frown. “He told Unity they improved quite beyond his highest expectations. Before you ask me, prior to that she translated some Hebrew scrolls for Professor Allbright. I did not enquire further than that. I felt no necessity.”

Pitt smiled but saw no answering light in Ramsey’s face. “And her personal life, her standards of conduct?”

Ramsay looked away. Obviously the questions disturbed him. His voice was quiet and troubled, as if he blamed himself. “There were some remarks about her manner, her political views were rather extreme and unattractive, but I discounted that. I did not wish to judge when it was not my place. In my opinion, the church should not be political … at least not in a discriminatory sense. I am afraid I have since come to regret my decision.” His hands on the top of the desk were clenched uncomfortably, fingers locked around each other.

“I think in my desire to be tolerant, I failed to defend what I believe in,” he continued, examining his hands without appearing to see them. “I … I had not met anyone like Miss Bellwood before, anyone so … so aggressive in their desire to change the established order, so full of anger against what she perceived to be unjust. Of course, she was quite unbalanced in her views. No doubt they sprang from personal experience of some unhappy sort. Perhaps she had sought some position for which she was unsuited, and rejection had embittered her. Possibly it was a love affair. She did not confide in me, and naturally I did not ask.” He looked up at Pitt again. His eyes were shadowed, and all the lines of his face tense, as if inside himself he were locked in an almost uncontrollable emotion.

“What were her relationships with the rest of the household?” Pitt asked. There was no purpose in trying to appear casual. They both knew why he asked and what implications would follow from any answer, no matter how carefully worded.

Ramsay stared at him. He was weighing all the possibilities of what he might say, what evasions he could escape with. It was clear in his face.

“She was a very complex person,” he said slowly, watching Pitt’s reaction. “There were times when she would be charming and made most of us laugh with the readiness of her wit, although on occasion it could be cruel. There was an … an anger in her.” His mouth tightened, and his hands fiddled with a penknife on the desk top in front of him. “Of course, she was opinionated.” He gave a tiny, rueful laugh, hardly any sound at all. “And she had no reluctance in expressing herself. She quarreled with my son about his religious opinions, as she did with me … and with Mr. Corde. I am afraid it was in her nature. I do not know what else I can add.” He looked at Pitt in a kind of desperation.

Pitt thought of Vespasia’s words. He wished he knew more about these quarrels, but Ramsay was not going to tell him.

“Were they ever personal, Reverend Parmenter, or always to do with religious faith or opinion?” He did not expect a useful answer, but he was interested in watching how Ramsay would choose to reply. They both knew that one of them in the house must have pushed her.

“Ah …” Ramsay’s hands tightened on the knife. He began tapping it rapidly on the blotting paper, a nervous, almost twitching motion. “Mallory was worst. He takes his calling very seriously, and I am afraid he does not have a developed sense of humor. Dominic, Mr. Corde, is older and a trifle more accustomed to dealing with … women. He did not fall so … readily.” He regarded Pitt with undisguised distress. “Superintendent, you are asking me to make statements which may incriminate
either my son or my curate, a man I have taught and cared for for many years, and now a guest in my home. I cannot do it. I simply don’t know! I … I am a scholar. I do not observe personal relationships a great deal, not closely. My wife …” He changed his mind; the retreat was clear in his expression. “My wife will tell you that. I am a theologian.”

“Is that not based on the understanding of people?” Pitt enquired.

“No. No, not at all. On the contrary, it is the understanding of God.”

“What use is that if you do not also understand people?”

Ramsay was perplexed. “I beg your pardon?”

Pitt looked at him and saw confusion in his face, not the superficial failure to understand what Pitt had said, but the far deeper darkness of corroding doubt that he understood himself. Ramsay Parmenter was tormented by a void of uncertainty, fear of wasted time and passion, of years spent pursuing the wrong path.

And all that came into focus in Unity Bellwood, in her sharp tongue and incisive mind, her questions, her mockery. In one terrible moment had rage at his own futility exploded in physical violence? To destroy self-belief was perhaps the greatest threat of all. Was his crime a defense of the inmost man?

But the more he knew of Ramsay Parmenter, the less did Pitt find it possible to imagine that he had once been Unity’s lover. Did he know who was? Mallory or Dominic? His son or his protégé?

“Unity Bellwood was almost three months with child,” he said aloud.

Ramsay froze. Nothing in the room made the slightest motion or sound. From outside a dog barked, and the wind moved very faintly in the branches of the tree close to the window.

“I’m sorry,” Ramsay said finally. “That is extremely sad.”

It was the last response Pitt had expected. Looking at
Ramsay’s face, amazement and sorrow were all he saw. There was certainly no embarrassment—and no guilt.

“Did you say three months?” Ramsay asked. Now there was fear as he realized the implications. The little color there was drained from his cheeks. “Then … are you saying …?”

“It is most likely,” Pitt replied.

Ramsay bent his head. “Oh dear,” he said very quietly. He seemed to be struggling for breath. He was obviously in acute distress, and Pitt wished there were something he could do to help him, at least physically if not emotionally. He was as helpless as if there were a thick wall of glass between them. The longer he knew Ramsay, the less he understood him and the less could he believe unequivocally in his guilt for Unity’s death. The only explanation lay in some kind of madness, a division in his mind which managed to divorce the act, and the persons which had driven it, from the man he was now.

He looked up at Pitt. “I suppose you think it must have been someone in this house, which means either my son or Dominic Corde?”

“It seems extremely likely.” Pitt did not mention Ramsay himself.

“I see.” He folded his hands carefully and stared at Pitt, his eyes full of distress. “Well, I cannot help you, Superintendent. Either possibility is unbelievable to me, and I think I should say nothing further to you that might prejudice your judgment. I do not wish to wrong either man. I am sorry. I realize that is no help to you, but I find myself too … too disturbed in my mind to think or act clearly. This is … overwhelming.”

“Can you at least tell me where Dominic Corde was living when you first met him?”

“The address? Yes. I suppose so. Although I do not know what assistance that will be. It is several years ago now.”

“I know. I should still like it.”

“Very well.” Ramsay opened one of the desk drawers and produced a piece of paper. He copied what was written on it
onto another piece and pushed it across the polished surface of the wood towards Pitt.

Pitt thanked him and took his leave.

He did not go back to the police station for Tellman, who was occupied on the final details of their previous case. There was so little to follow in Unity’s death that Pitt could find nothing for Tellman to do. It was all so insubstantial. It depended upon emotion and opinion. All the facts he had were that Unity Bellwood was three months with child and that the father was probably one of the three men in the Parmenter house, any one of whom would be ruined by the fact, were it known. She had been overheard to quarrel with Ramsay on several occasions, the last immediately prior to the fall down the stairs which had killed her. He denied having left his study. Mrs. Parmenter, her daughter Tryphena, the maid and the valet had all heard Unity cry out to him the moment before she fell.

Other minor facts, perhaps relevant, perhaps not, were that Mallory Parmenter had been alone in the conservatory and denied seeing Unity, but she had a stain on her shoe which could only have been obtained by crossing the conservatory floor within the short space of time when he was there. There had been no stain on the hem of her dress, but she had probably lifted that instinctively against the possibility of dust or soil on the path. Was Mallory’s denial guilt or simply fear?

It all added up to suspicion, but certainly not the sort of proof Pitt could present to a court. He must have that to proceed, and yet he did not even know what he was looking for, or even if it existed.

He hailed a hansom and gave the driver the address Ramsay had given to him.

“All the way, guv?” the driver said in surprise.

Pitt collected his wits. “No … no, you had better take me to the station. I’ll catch a train.”

“Right y’are then.” The man looked relieved. “In yer get.”