“No,” Pitt replied. “He didn’t fall onto the edge of the bath. It was either this jar or one very like it”
“Anything on it?” Tellman asked. “Any blood? Any hair? He’s got a good head of hair, poor devil. Not that I liked him!”
Pitt turned the jar over very slowly, pulling a wry face at Tellman’s remark.
“No,” he said at last. “But this is a bathroom, it wouldn’t be very difficult to wipe it clean. And no one would find soap or water odd on ajar of bath salts. Plenty of people must reach for them with wet hands.”
Tellman let the body go and it fell back, stiff and clumsy, sliding under the water again, feet sticking out.
“Someone came in an’ hit him from behind?” Tellman thought aloud.
“He’s facing the door,” Pitt pointed out. “So whoever it was, he was not afraid. He didn’t cry out, and he allowed the person to pick up the jar of salts and walk behind him.”
Tellman gave a sharp little bark of derision.
“Can’t imagine it! What kind of man lets someone walk in on him in the bath? Isn’t decent, apart from dangerous.”
“Gentlemen aren’t as prudish as you are,” Pitt said with bitter amusement. He saw the look of incredulity in Tellman’s face, and the beginning of total confusion. “Who do you think brings the hot water to add to the bath when it gets cold?” he went on.
“I don’t know! A valet? A footman? You’re saying one of the servants killed him?”
“I think as often as not it’s the maids who carry the water or the hot towels,” Pitt replied. Then, seeing Tellman’s expression, he went on, “Not for me. I am as big a prude as you are. I’d sooner sit in cold water. But Greville may have been used to being waited on by the maids.”
“Some maidservant came in with a bucket of hot water and hit him over the head with ajar of salts?” Tellman said in patent disbelief.
“People don’t look at the faces of servants, Tellman,” Pitt said seriously. “One servant looks pretty much like another, especially in livery, or in a plain black dress, white apron and white lace cap. In some houses the junior servants are even trained to turn their faces to the wall if one of the family passes by.”
Tellman was filled with too much anger to speak. His eyes were dark. His lips compressed.
“It could have been anyone, dressed in livery,” Pitt concluded.
“You mean an assassin from outside?” Tellman’s chin jerked up.
“I don’t know. We’ll need to ask a lot of questions. At the time Greville had his bath, this house should have been locked up. And the outside staff were watching the grounds.”
“I’ll speak to all of them,” Tellman promised. “You going to tell them who we are?”
“Yes.” He had no choice.
“And it’s murder?” Tellman went on.
“Yes.”
Tellman squared his shoulders.
“We’ll have to take the body out of here,” Pitt went on. “There’ll be an icehouse. Have one of the valets help you carry him there.”
When Pitt opened the door Jack was standing outside waiting. His handsome face, with its wide eyes and extraordinary lashes, looked unusually grave, and there were signs of strain around his mouth.
“I’ll have to call the Home Office,” he said grimly, nodding to Tellman as he passed them and went down the stairs. “And ask them what they want to do. I suppose it’s the end of the conference and any chance of success.” His voice dropped. “It’s damnable! What a wretched mischance. It seems as if the devil is really in the Irish Problem. Just when there was a real hope.” He looked at Pitt intently. “Greville was brilliant, you know. He had Doyle and O’Day, at least, talking to each other about issues that matter. There was hope!”
“I’m sorry, Jack, it’s worse than that.” Unconsciously, Pitt put his hand on Jack’s arm. “It was not an accident. He was murdered.”
“What?” Jack stared at him as if he refused to comprehend what he had said.
“It was murder,” Pitt repeated quietly. “Meant to look like an accident. I think most people would have taken it for such, and I presume whoever did it did not expect to have police on the scene so quickly, if at all.”
“What … what happened?”
“Someone came in and hit him on the back of the head, possibly with ajar of bath salts, then pushed him under the water. It looked very much as if he had slipped getting out and struck himself on the rim of the bath.”
“Are you sure he didn’t?” Jack pressed. “Absolutely sure? How can you know it wasn’t that?”
“Because in the wound the edge of the bone is straight, and the bath is curved.”
“Is that proof?” Jack persisted. “Does the wound have to fit the instrument exactly?”
“No, but it can’t be as wrong as this. A curved instrument is going to make a curved indentation when it strikes hard enough to break the bone.”
“Who? One of us in this house?” He faced the worst immediately.
“I don’t know. Tellman’s gone to get help to move the body to the icehouse, then he’s going to see if it was possible that anyone came in from outside, but it isn’t likely.”
“I can’t see Greville letting anyone he didn’t know into the bathroom without raising an alarm,” Jack said grimly. “In fact, what reason would anyone give for interrupting a man in his bath?”
“Well, if I wanted to get in without causing any alarm, I’d dress as a servant,” Pitt thought as he spoke. “Carry a pitcher of hot water or one or two towels.”
“Of course. So it could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get dressed, then call Cornwallis, then, I imagine, begin an investigation. Where is the telephone?”
“In the library. I’d better go and see Emily.” His face was pinched with anxiety, and there was bitter laughter in his eyes. “God in heaven, I thought yesterday that this house party was as bad as it could be.”
Pitt had no answer, but went back to his bedroom. Charlotte was not there. She must be comforting Kezia still, or perhaps helping Emily. He shaved hurriedly and put on his clothes, then went downstairs to the library and placed a call to London to Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis’s office.
“Pitt?” Cornwallis’s clear, very individual voice sounded worried already.
“Yes sir.” Pitt hesitated only a moment, dreading having to say it. It was such a mark of failure. “I am afraid the worst has happened ….”
There was silence at the far end of the line. Then he heard Cornwallis breathing.
“Greville?”
“Yes sir. In the bath, last night. Didn’t find out until this morning.”
“In the bath!”
“Yes.”
“Accident?” He said it as if he were willing it to be true. “His heart?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You mean someone caused it? Do you know who?”
“No. At this point it could be almost anyone.”
“I see.” He hesitated. “What have you done so far?”
“Ascertained the medical facts, as far as his son can tell me—”
“Whose son?”
“Greville’s son. He arrived unexpectedly the day before yesterday to tell his parents he is betrothed. She came yesterday.”
“How tragic,” Cornwallis said with feeling. “Poor young man. I assume he is a doctor?”
“Almost qualified. Down from Cambridge. There was really very little to say.”
“Time of death. Cause?”
“Time fixed by the fact he was in the bath. Cause, being struck by a rounded, blunt instrument, probably a jar of bath salts, then held under the water until he drowned.”
“You found him under the water?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Again there was silence.
“Sir?”
“Yes,” Cornwallis said with resolve. “Take charge of the investigation, Pitt. You have Tellman. If you can, do it without letting the news out for the time being. The Parnell-O’Shea divorce is coming to a climax. If they find against Parnell, it could ruin his career. The Irish Nationalists will be without a leader—until they find a new one. It could very well be one of the men now at Ashworth Hall. What have you told people?”