Buckingham Palace Gardens (35 page)

“Yes.”

“Was it a pedestal dish, mostly white with a gold trellis border around the edges, and in the center a man and woman sitting on a stone garden seat? They both have blue on, a vivid shade of cobalt. I think it is his coat, and a sort of cloak for her.”

In spite of his weariness his attention was suddenly total. “Yes. Have you seen it? Where?”

“In a box my husband brought with us.”

He looked stunned, as if what she had said were incomprehensible. “Brought with you?” he repeated. “Are you certain?”

“Absolutely. It cannot have been the one which my husband said was broken, in Her Majesty's own bedroom. It must be one exactly like it.”

“You are certain, Mrs. Dunkeld?” he insisted.

“Yes.” She felt the heat creep up her face. Did he imagine she was inventing it to protect Julius? He knew how she felt, she had seen it in his eyes before, a certain pity. Damn him for understanding! “He couldn't have given it to the Queen,” she said aloud. “It would have been in a box, and left for her to open.” She was talking too much. She stopped abruptly.

“I know. This one was apparently given to her by one of her daughters, some considerable time ago,” he said, and the gentleness was in his eyes again. “But did he bring a gift for the Prince of Wales, do you know?”

She was puzzled. He seemed to have missed the point. “Yes, but it was not particularly personal, just a dozen or so bottles of a very good port. I think they have already been drinking it. Why? How can that matter? It's a fairly usual thing to do.”

“Port?” he repeated.

“Yes. Why?”

“Do you know from what vineyard?”

“No, but Cahoon said it was extremely good. But then he would hardly give the Prince inferior wine.” She forced herself to ask, whatever he thought of her. “Does the dish not matter?”

“It matters very much, Mrs. Dunkeld. And so does the port—or at least the bottles do. Please don't mention them to him, or to anyone.” He was very serious, staring at her intently. “It may put you in danger. Three of them were found with traces of blood in them. Now you understand why you must mention it to no one?”

“Blood?” She was startled, and filled with a sudden hope so erratic and so sweet for a moment she found it difficult to breathe.

“Yes. Now please go back to your room, to sleep if you can. Thank you for coming to me. It must have taken great courage.” He stood up, a little stiffly, as if he were so tired that to straighten up was too much effort.

She realized he must be afraid too. He not only had to solve these murders quickly, and discreetly, but he had to find the answer that the Prince of Wales wanted and that his superior at Special Branch could accept. He was a man pressured from all sides. And his own compassion, and his sense of justice, would be compelling him also, probably in a different direction.

There was a sharp bang on the door, and then it flew open and Cahoon strode in. He too was fully dressed, although unshaven, and obviously in a towering rage.

“I assume you have some explanation for interrogating my wife at three in the morning?” he said savagely to Pitt. “Who the devil do you think you are? If my poor daughter hadn't solved the case for you, at the cost of her own life, I would have you removed, and someone competent sent in. However, there is nothing left to do, except have Sorokine taken away and then get out yourself.” He turned to Elsa.

“Go back to bed,” he ordered.

She stood still. “Mr. Pitt did not send for me, I came to see him.” She would not have Pitt blamed; it would be both shabby and dishonest. She was fighting for everything that mattered to her, win or lose.

“Do as you are told!” Cahoon said between his teeth.

She did not move.

Pitt also seemed perfectly composed. “Mr. Dunkeld, did you bring a gift of a case of port wine to the Prince of Wales?”

“What?”

“I think you heard me, sir. Did you?”

Cahoon was incredulous. “Three o'clock in the morning, and you want to know if I brought wine for the Prince of Wales?”

“Yes, I do. Did you?”

“Yes. Best port I could find. It's the sort of thing gentlemen do.” His tone was acutely condescending.

“And the Limoges dish, was that a gift also?” Pitt asked.

This time Cahoon was definitely taken by surprise. “What…Limoges dish?” His hesitation was palpable.

“The one in your case, sir. Is there more than one?” Pitt's voice was polite, but the cutting edge was unmistakable.

For an instant Cahoon obviously debated denial.

“A white and gold pedestal dish,” Elsa supplied for him. She was fighting to save Julius, grasping at straws, but all decisions were made and it was too late to go back. “With a garden scene in the middle, a man and woman sitting on a stone seat. Their clothes have a lot of blue in them.”

“You have been searching through my cases!” Cahoon accused her.

“I have no interest in your cases,” she replied, feigning slight surprise. “Your valet was unpacking and did not know what to do with it. You were with the Prince of Wales, so he asked me. I told him to leave it where it was. If you don't recall it, I'm sure he does.”

“Sarcasm is most unbecoming in a woman, Elsa,” he said icily. “It makes you seem cold, and mannish.” He turned to Pitt. “I am afraid it is a matter I cannot discuss with you, Inspector. It was a favor for His Royal Highness, to whom I gave my word. I am not sure if you can understand that, but if you cannot, and you wish to challenge him on the matter, then you had better do so, at your own risk. I have nothing to say. I have no idea whether you have duties to perform at this hour, but I am returning to bed, and my wife is doing the same. I assume you will be removing Sorokine before I see you again. I suggest that you do so as discreetly as possible.”

Elsa's heart tightened and she found it difficult to draw air into her lungs. All her fighting, all the hope, and it was ending like this.

Pitt stared at Cahoon. “If he is taken, it will simply be to a place of safety. There is much yet to learn before the case is over,” he answered.

“You don't seem to have grasped the obvious.” Cahoon's voice was exaggeratedly weary. “Sorokine is mad. He suffers some form of insanity that drives him to murder a certain type of woman. He killed one in Africa several years ago. We thought then that it was a single aberration and would never happen again. So far as I knew, it hadn't. Then this week he killed the whore. Minnie realized what had happened, and I presume was rash enough to face him and accuse him, so he killed her too. No one else is involved, except possibly my wife in her reluctance to accept the facts. She is not used to the violence and tragedy that can occur in life. She was not with us in Africa, and she tends to be something of an idealist, fonder of dreams than of reality.”

Pitt's eyes widened. “Are you saying that Mr. Marquand at least was aware that his brother killed this woman in Africa?”

Cahoon was caught slightly off-balance, but he recovered quickly. “No, but I think he feared it. Watson Forbes was aware. That is why he would not permit his daughter to marry him, even though she wished to. Hamilton Quase was a far better choice. Ask Forbes, if you doubt me. Now I am going to bed. Elsa!”

Elsa looked at Pitt, met his eyes for a moment, then turned and obediently followed Cahoon out into the corridor. She did not know whether she dared to hope, or not.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

P
ITT WENT BACK
to his bedroom and lay on the bed, but he did not sleep again. He believed Elsa about the Limoges dish, because Cahoon did not deny it. Certainly she was desperate to save Julius Sorokine because she was in love with him, but even so he did not think she was lying. Were she to do that, she would have done it sooner, and to more effect. She would probably have said that he had been with her at the time of the death of one of the women, or even both.

Would Sorokine have agreed to that, even if it were a lie, in order to save himself? Many men would, regardless of the cost to Elsa's reputation, and possibly her marriage. Pitt did not think Cahoon Dunkeld would be loath to divorce her for adultery, especially one so publicly acknowledged.

If Dunkeld had brought a Limoges dish identical to the one broken, that was surely too extraordinary to be a coincidence.

Was there something in this whole terrible affair that was premeditated? The murder of Sadie? But none of the women had been here before. And surely they couldn't predict which ones would come. Killing her in such a way was the impulse of a madman. Even were it in some way thought of in advance, how would anyone know she would be in the Queen's bedroom, or that that particular dish would be broken? It was not possible. That was why Dunkeld had not taken more care to keep his bringing the dish secret, perhaps unpacked it himself. It was coincidence, something that made sense only afterward. But how?

And the port bottles, at some time filled with blood—there was no proof whether they had come full or been emptied out then refilled, possibly from the kitchen. But if the latter, by whom, and when? How could anyone obtain the blood, and fill the bottles unseen? There was always kitchen staff around. Nevertheless, it must have been the case: a fine example of opportunism.

Bringing them full of blood spoke of detailed and very careful planning for a very precise need.

Was it even imaginable that in some way the murder was foreseen? By whom? Obviously Cahoon Dunkeld. A man does not plan to be insane at a specific time, in a specific way.

But a man might know that someone else is insane and that certain very particular events will fire a breakdown of his usual control. If a man is terrified of spiders, or thrown into a rage by being laughed at, then his behavior is foreseeable.

A man who commits grotesque, uncontrollable murders is triggered into such action by a certain series of events happening in order. The pressure becomes cumulative, and he cannot bear it. Did Cahoon Dunkeld understand such a weakness in someone, and deliberately design the events that would make it explode? Could any man be so evil? Of course. There was no evil imaginable that someone would not commit. But would Dunkeld be so reckless, here in the Palace? The dangers were enormous. But then so was the prize—if it were the African railway that was at stake.

The sunlight came through a crack in the curtains and fell in a bright bar across the floor. Pitt stared at it, bewildered. How could a murder help Cahoon in that project? It looked far more likely to ruin it.

Perhaps it was not the railway that was the prize at all, but something else. Maybe it had to do with Julius Sorokine's love for Elsa. Did Dunkeld care enough to punish Sorokine for…what? Pitt doubted they had ever acted on their feelings. And Dunkeld did not love her, of that he had no doubt at all.

Perhaps it was to free Minnie, and what happened to Julius or to Elsa was immaterial. That was easier to believe.

Then who had killed Minnie? Surely that was never part of Dunkeld's plan. Had Julius Sorokine been a far wilder and more dangerous weapon than he had foreseen? What a vile irony!

And why the Queen's bedroom? That must have been planned, because that was where the Limoges dish was. Had he always intended to move the body and place it in the linen cupboard, or was that improvisation? Why? Pitt's mind was racing. If Sadie had been killed in the Queen's bedroom, by the time she was moved to the cupboard, she would have stopped bleeding profusely. So the extra blood was to fling around so it looked as if she had been butchered there. Then it was meant from the beginning, all of it. But again, why?

And why was she naked? Minnie had been fully clothed. Was the answer that Sadie had been murdered in madness, but Minnie had been killed because in her driving curiosity she had come far too close to the truth?

Again, an obscene irony. Dunkeld had provoked a terrible murder born of madness, in order to destroy his son-in-law and free his daughter from the marriage. Then her intelligence had made her such a danger that in hideous sanity Sorokine had aped his own lunacy and killed her to protect himself. No wonder Dunkeld now looked like a man haunted by far more than grief.

How could Pitt prove that? How much did it matter? If Sorokine were guilty of the murders, then he had to be put into an imprisonment of some sort. That was just. Dunkeld was a man even more evil, in that he had deliberately hired a prostitute with the intention of provoking Sorokine into murdering her, but his plan had exploded in his face, destroying his only daughter for whose freedom the whole tragedy was devised. Surely to live the rest of his life knowing that it was he who had caused her death was a more exquisite punishment than the law could ever devise?

And what would happen to Elsa? She would eventually either sink into madness, clinging to the delusion that Sorokine had been innocent. Or she would eventually realize he was guilty: a divided man, half of him charming, cultured, someone she could love; the other devoid not only of sanity but of the basic elements of compassion and decency that make one human.

Pitt could not imagine that Dunkeld would afford her any kindness. Her punishment for falling in love with someone else, the man who had also failed to love Minnie, would be continuous cruelty. He would exercise it both privately and publicly.

Pitt needed to prove all of it. Justice required it, whether the Prince of Wales liked it or not and, in turn, punished Pitt.

He must have drifted to sleep because he awoke with a jolt to hear a knock on the door. He sat up slowly, struggling to remember where he was, fully clothed on the big bed. The feeling of claustrophobia was tight in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Before he could answer coherently the door opened and Gracie came in, carrying a tray of tea. He could see the steam rising gently from the spout of the small pot.

“Yer bin up all night?” she said with intense concern.

“No,” he assured her, swinging his legs down and standing. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The stubble was rough on his cheeks and his head ached with a dull, persistent throb. “No,” he added.

“Elsa Dunkeld woke me at about three, or four. She said Dunkeld brought a Limoges plate in his luggage, exactly like the one that was broken. I mean identical to it. I presume that was the one I saw in the Queen's room. And also a crate of port as a gift for the Prince of Wales.”

Gracie poured the tea and handed him the cup. “It's 'ot,” she warned him. “Why'd she tell yer that? 'Ow'd she know the port bottles mattered, if she don't know about the blood?”

“She didn't, I asked her,” he explained. “She knew about the Limoges dish because she saw it in Cahoon's cases, and everyone knows we've been looking for one by now. Thank you.” He took the tea. She was right, it was very hot. He wished it were a little cooler; he was thirsty for it. The fragrance of it was soothing even as steam. Drinking it would make him feel human again.

“Then Dunkeld done it,” she said with satisfaction.

“He didn't do the one in Africa,” he answered, wishing it were not so. “I think he provoked Sorokine into it. He knew he was mad, and what it was that made him lose control and kill. He deliberately created the circumstances, then altered the evidence so we…” He stopped. He could not think of a reason.

“Wot?” she asked. “Why din't 'e just let us catch Mr. Sorokine?”

“Because he didn't want a scandal in the Palace,” Pitt answered. “He still needs the Prince's backing for the railway. He's taking a hell of a chance.”

She squinted at him, thinking hard. “If 'e wanted ter get rid o' Mr. Sorokine, why din't 'e 'ave this murder 'appen somewhere else, anytime?”

“I suppose because somewhere else Sorokine might have got away with it.” He was thinking as he spoke. “The police would have assumed it was someone extremely violent or degraded. Here we know it could only have been one of three men. There was no possibility of anyone having broken in from the outside.”

She nodded. “Wot are we gonna do, then?”

He smiled at her automatic inclusion of herself. Her loyalty was absolute, it always had been.

“Find out what causes Sorokine to lose control,” he replied, taking the first sip of tea and swallowing it jerkily because it was still too hot. “And then prove that Dunkeld knew it, and deliberately created a situation in which Sorokine would snap.”

“Then you can 'ang 'im?” she said hopefully.

“Sorokine or Dunkeld?”

“Dunkeld, o' course! 'E's the wickeder!” She had no doubt whatever.

“Something like that,” he agreed, sipping the tea again, and smiling at her.

         

P
ITT WENT TO
see Cahoon Dunkeld after breakfast. He had spent the intervening time shaving and making himself look as fresh and confident as he could. Then he remarshaled his evidence and the conclusions it had taken him to. When eventually he spoke to Dunkeld alone, it was in one of the beautiful galleries lined with pictures.

“What is it now?” Dunkeld said impatiently, facing Pitt squarely, his weight even on both feet.

Pitt put his hands in his pockets and stood casually, as if he intended to remain some time. “I believe you are an excellent judge of character, Mr. Dunkeld. You know a man's strengths and weaknesses.”

Dunkeld smiled sourly. “If you have only just come to that conclusion, then you are slower than a man in your job should be. Is it a job, or profession, by the way?”

“It depends upon how well you do it,” Pitt replied. “At Mr. Narraway's level, it is a profession.”

“I am not so far impressed with Mr. Narraway's judgment of a man's strengths and weaknesses,” Dunkeld said pointedly, his eyes looking Pitt up and down with distaste.

Pitt smiled. “How long have you known that Sorokine was insane? Since he killed the woman in Africa, for example?”

“I didn't think he would do it again.” Dunkeld was clearly annoyed by the tone of the question.

“No, I assumed that, or you would hardly have allowed him to marry your daughter,” Pitt agreed.

“Obviously!” Dunkeld snapped, shifting the balance of his weight slightly. “Have you a purpose to this, Inspector?”

“Yes. I was wondering at exactly what juncture you thought he was mad.”

Suddenly Dunkeld was guarded. He sensed danger, although he could not place it. “Does it matter? Sorokine is guilty. The details will probably always be obscure. Your job is to tidy it up in the best, most just, and most discreet way that you can.”

“How did you know it was Sorokine?” Pitt pursued. “Given that you are a good judge of character, what did you see that I missed?”

Dunkeld smiled. “Are you trying to flatter me, Inspector? Clumsy, and you have based it upon a wrong assumption. I do not care what you think.”

“I am trying to learn,” Pitt said as innocently as he could. Dunkeld angered him more than anyone else he could remember. Even understanding his weaknesses, his driving need to belong to a class in which he was not born, his general need for admiration, even the bitter loss of his daughter, Pitt still could not like him. “People who kill compulsively,” Pitt went on, “insanely, are triggered into the act by some event, or accumulation of events, which breaks their normal control, so most of the time they appear as sane as anyone else. But I imagine you have realized that.”

“I have,” Dunkeld agreed. He could hardly deny it. “You seem to be stating the obvious—again.”

“What was it that triggered Sorokine?”

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!”