Chapter Eight
The house which had been the scene of murder and mayhem with officers of the law and ambulances coming and going all night was now presenting a quiet and unruffled front. All signs of a police presence had been removed so that the normal life of the street might be resumed and the only reminders of the tragedy were the drawn curtains at all the windows and a recently sluiced area, still damp and smelling of carbolic, stretching from the doorstep out to the pavement.
The door was opened a careful inch only after Joe’s second knock. He caught sight of a fearful eye under a maid’s bonnet. ‘Police, miss,’ he said hurriedly before his intimidating features could cause further alarm. ‘Commander Sandilands and his assistant.’ He passed his card through the narrow gap. ‘We’re here to see her ladyship.’
Reassured, the girl stuck her head round the door. ‘Sorry, sir. Lady Dedham’s gone up to her room and isn’t seeing anyone.’
‘That’ll be all, Eva, thank you.’ The door was flung open by Cassandra Dedham herself. ‘Always in for you, Joe. I’m sorry about the unfriendly greeting. With the master dead, the butler laid low, and the footman helping the police with their inquiries at Vine Street, we females left behind are feeling a bit under siege. Come in, come in. There are two of you?’ She gave a welcoming nod and looked Lily up and down in surprise.
‘May I present Woman Police Patrol Officer Lilian Wentworth? Lily, this is Lady Dedham.’
He watched keenly as the two women greeted each other. Clearly, Cassandra Dedham was as surprising to the policewoman as the policewoman was to the lady. Wentworth couldn’t fail to be impressed by Lady Dedham, even in her grief-stricken state. Much younger than might have been expected, perhaps in her late thirties, Cassandra had a classical beauty that could not be extinguished by the shock and exhaustion she was suffering. Her oval face was drained of colour, its pallor accentuated by a smear of blood along her left cheekbone. Her earrings were intact, her dark auburn hair was scraped back into a chignon and very nearly immaculate. One strand had escaped to trail unnoticed on to her shoulder. Even as his eye caught it, Cassandra automatically retrieved it and tucked it out of sight under its velvet band.
‘Ah! Another of your Scottish cousins flighting south, Joe? The coverts up there must be full of them.’
Joe was just about to fall in with this convenient suggestion and make Lily an honorary relation when she decided to speak for herself. ‘I’m a colleague of the com-mander’s cousin Margery, Lady Dedham. A useful pair of hands. In attendance to save him some time. I know how to write shorthand.’
‘I say, Lil, do you really?’ Joe affected not to know. ‘She’s modest, you’ll find, Cassandra. She’s really here to put her sharp wits to our problem. Like you, she’s not comfortable with the story that’s been hacked together, though she has, as yet, only been able to form a judgement from the notes, of course. I thought you two could put your heads together and sift through the evidence again. Always assuming – and I assume a lot, I know – that you’re up to it …?’
A proviso that needed to be made, Joe thought. Under the veneer of calm and normality, he sensed that Cassandra Dedham was very near collapse. An admiral’s wife would be made of stern stuff, that was to be expected, but the woman had witnessed and played an active part in a tragedy and was still caught up in it. She was still dressed – though apparently oblivious of it – in the chiffon evening gown she had been wearing when her husband had died in her arms, only feet away from where they were standing. The dark green fabric was blotched with blood, the stains showing up as a black dappling from neck to hem. Her evening gloves were lying where she had dropped them on the hall table the previous night.
This wouldn’t do. Should he say something? How far could he presume on their acquaintance? Joe stepped forward, suddenly aware that Cassandra was becoming unsteady. Oh, what the hell! He seized her cold hands and passed an arm under her shoulders. ‘You haven’t slept. You haven’t even changed. Where’s the medico I left caring for you?’
‘No time. Statements, re-enactments for your people, Joe … Endless telephoning to be done. Peterson to arrange for… he’s doing well, they say … Hundreds of people to be informed … the press gathering. The king sent round an equerry and you can’t deal with one of those smooth young men in five minutes, you know. I sent the doctor away. He was all for giving me laudanum. If ever there was a time when I needed full possession of my faculties, this is it, I think you’d agree.’ The tension he felt in her slight form was alarming.