Rose was ashen, her eyes almost black. “No!”
“Then why? Something in your family?”
“I didn’t kill her! Dear God! I wanted her alive, I swear!”
“Why? What did she do for you that matters so much?” She did not believe it, but she wished to jolt Rose into telling the truth at last. “Did she share the secrets about other people with you? Was it power?”
Rose was appalled. There was anguish, fury and shame in her face. “Emily, how can you think such things of me? You are vile!”
“Am I?” It was a challenge, a demand for the truth.
“Nothing I did harmed anyone else . . .” She dropped her eyes. “Except Aubrey.”
“And have you the courage to face it?” Emily refused to give up. She could see that Rose was shivering and close to the breakdown of her self-control. She reached out and took Rose’s hands in hers, still shielding them both from the rest of the room, all busy talking, gossiping, flirting, making and breaking alliances. “What did you need to know?”
“If my father died insane,” Rose whispered. “I do wild things sometimes; you asked me just now if I were mad. Am I? Am I going to end up mad, as he was, to die alone somewhere in an asylum?” Her voice cracked. “Is Aubrey going to have to spend the rest of his life worrying about what I’m going to do? Am I going to be an embarrassment to him, someone he has to watch and continually apologize for, terrified of what awful thing I shall say or do next?” She gulped. “He wouldn’t have me put away, he’s not like that, not able to save himself by hurting someone else. He’d wait until I ruined him, and I couldn’t bear that!”
Emily was overwhelmed with a pity that rendered her speechless. She wanted to put her arms around Rose and hold her so tightly she could force warmth and comfort into her, which was impossible. And in this crowded room it would have caused even these busy, absorbed people to turn and stare. Anything she offered could only be words. They must be the right ones.
“It is fear that’s making you behave wildly, Rose, not inherited madness. What you have done is no more stupid than the things any of us do at one time or another. If you need to know what your father died from, there must be ways of finding out from the doctor who attended him.”
“Then everyone else would know!” Rose said with panic rising in her voice, her hands gripping Emily’s. “I can’t bear that!”
“No, they don’t have to—”
“But Aubrey . . .”
“I’ll come with you,” Emily promised. “We’ll say it is a day out together, and we’ll go and ask the doctor who attended him. He’ll not only tell you whether your father was mad or not, but if he was, whether it is something that happened to him alone, because of an accident or a disease, or if it is something you might inherit. There are lots of different kinds of madness, not just one.”
“And if the newspapers find out? Believe me, Emily, learning that I went to a séance will be nothing compared with that!”
“Then wait until after the election.”
“I need to know before! If Aubrey becomes a member, if he’s called into some office in the government, the Foreign Office . . . I am . . .” She tailed away, unable to say the words.
“Then it will be terrible,” Emily said for her. “And if you are not, but are driven mad by fear, then you will have sacrificed all your chances for good for nothing at all. And not knowing won’t change it anyway.”
“Will you?” Rose asked. “Come with me, I mean?” Then her face changed and the hope died out of it and it became bleak and full of pain again. “Then I suppose you will go and tell your policeman brother-in-law!” It was an accusation born out of despair, not a question.
“No,” Emily replied. “I will not come in with you, and I will have no idea what answer you receive from the doctor. And it is certainly no business of the police what manner of illness your father died from—unless it caused you to kill Maude Lamont, because she knew?”
“I didn’t! I . . . I never got to asking the spirit of my mother.” She sank her head into her hands again, lost in misery, fear and embarrassment.
The exquisite voice of the singer floated through from the other room again, and Emily realized they were alone, except for a dozen or so men all talking earnestly together in the farther corner near the doors to the hallway. “Come,” she said firmly. “A little cold water on your face, a hot cup of tea, which they are serving in the dining room, and we shall rejoin the others. Let them assume we are planning a garden party, or some such. But we had better tell the same story. A fête . . . to raise money for a charity. Come!”
Slowly, Rose climbed to her feet, straightened her shoulders, and obeyed.
CHAPTER
TEN
Pitt and Tellman returned to the house in Southampton Row. Pitt was increasingly certain that he was being observed each time he came and went in Keppel Street, although he had never actually seen anyone but the postman and the man who sold milk from the cart which usually stood at the corner of the mews leading through to Montague Place.
He had received two brief letters from Charlotte saying that all was well; they were missing him profoundly, but other than that having an excellent time. There was no return address on either of them. He had written to her, but made sure that he dropped the letters in boxes far from Keppel Street where the inquisitive postman would never see them.
The house in Southampton Row looked peaceful, even idyllic in the hot, still summer morning. There were errand boys in the street as usual, whistling as they carried messages, fish and poultry, or other small grocery items. One of them called out a cheeky compliment to a housemaid shooing a cat up the area steps and she giggled and told him off soundly.
“Get on wi’ yer, yer daft ’aporth! Flowers, indeed!”
“Violets!” he shouted after her, waving his arm.
Once inside the house it was a different matter. The curtains were half drawn as was appropriate for a death, but then many people did that anyway, simply to protect the rooms from the strong light, or to offer a greater privacy.
The parlor where Maude Lamont had died was undisturbed. Lena Forrest received them civilly enough, although she still looked tired and there was a greater air of strain about her. Perhaps the reality of Maude’s death had become apparent to her, and in a short while the necessity of finding another position. It cannot have been easy to live alone in the house where a woman whom you knew, saw every day in the most intimate circumstances, had been murdered only a week ago. It said a great deal for her fortitude that she had managed to remain in control of herself.
Except that no doubt she had seen death many times before, and the fact that she served Maude Lamont did not in itself mean that she had any personal affection for her. She might have been a hard mistress, demanding, critical or inconsiderate. Some women thought their maids should be on duty at any hour of the day or night that they might be sent for, whether it was really necessary or not.
“Good morning, Miss Forrest,” Pitt said courteously.
“Good morning, sir,” she replied. “Is there something further I can do for you?” She included Tellman in her glance. They were standing in the parlor now, uneasily, each of them aware of what had happened there, if not why. Pitt had been thinking profoundly about that, and had discussed it briefly on the way over.
“Please sit down,” he invited her, then he and Tellman did also.
“Miss Forrest,” Pitt began. Her attention was unwavering. “Since the front door was closed and locked, the French doors to the garden”—he glanced at them—“were closed but not locked, and the only way out from the garden is through the door into Cosmo Place, which was locked but unbarred, it is the inevitable conclusion that Miss Lamont was killed by one of the people in the house during the séance. The only alternative is that it was all three in some collusion, and that does not seem even remotely likely.”