He stared at her, for a moment taken aback.
“But she said it was Greville. Who … what are you saying? That she blamed him when it was someone else? Why? Greville’s dead … murdered. To blame him makes her a suspect when no one would have thought of her otherwise. It makes no sense.”
She looked back at him with wide eyes, almost black, her body tense like an animal ready to fight. Was she so in love with Piers she must defend his father with this fierceness and determination? He admired her for it. The uniqueness of her face was no accident, the sudden strength where one had expected only beauty.
“Yes it does,” she argued. “If she had already said it was Greville, before, she couldn’t go back on it now. And better she tell someone first, before anyone else did, and she appear to have hidden it and lied. So she told Gracie, knowing it would come back to you.”
“She didn’t know it would. Gracie very nearly didn’t tell me.”
She smiled with a flash of humor. “Really, Mr. Pitt! Gracie’s loyalty to you would always win in the end, for a dozen reasons. I know that. Doll must know it too.”
“But Doll didn’t know that anyone else was aware of her tragedy,” he argued back.
“She said so?” Her eyebrows arched delicately.
“Perhaps that is not true,” he conceded. “At least one other servant knew, although I doubt she told him.”
“Him?” she said quickly. “No, more likely she confided in another woman, or they guessed. It is one of the first things that would come to a woman’s mind, Mr. Pitt. They would know something was wrong at the time she was raped … if it was rape. Or seduced, which is more likely. Women are very observant, you know. We notice the slightest change in other people, and we can read our own sex very clearly. I would be surprised if the cook and the housekeeper didn’t know, at least.”
“So she told them it was the master, rather than say who it really was?” He still found the idea difficult, but it was making more sense all the time. “Why? Wouldn’t that be a very dangerous thing to say? What if it were reported back to him?”
“Who would do that?” she asked. “And if it were one of the menservants, surely they would be willing to protect their own? After all, she didn’t say it outside the house. Mr. Greville himself never knew of it, and certainly neither Mrs. Greville nor Piers did.”
He thought about it a little more seriously. It was not impossible.
She saw his indecision in his face.
“Do you really think a politician and diplomat of Mr. Greville’s standing is going to seduce a maid in his own household?” she urged. “Mr. Pitt, this is a political murder, an assassination. Mr. Greville was brilliant at his task. For the first time in a generation it seems there may really be some improvement in the Irish Problem, and he was responsible for that. It was his skill at diplomacy, his genius at the conference table that was bringing it about. This is what was unique about him. Surely that was why he was killed … here … and now?”
Her face became suddenly more grave. There was a new and greater tension in her body. “Perhaps he did not tell you—he may have wished not to frighten anyone further—but there was a very unpleasant happening yesterday when an urn was crashed onto the terrace only a yard away from Mr. Radley. If it had struck him he would unquestionably have been killed. That can only be because he has been out to step into Mr. Greville’s place in the conference. It is political, Mr. Pitt. Please give his family the opportunity to recover from their grief, and mourn for him, without destroying the memories they have.”
He looked at her earnest face. She meant passionately what she said, and it was easy to understand. He would like to protect Eudora himself.
“You have a high opinion of Mr. Greville,” he said gravely.
“Of course. I know a lot about him, Mr. Pitt. I am going to marry his son. Look for the person who envied his brilliance, who was afraid of what he could achieve … and above all, in whose interest it is to keep the Irish Problem unsolved.”
“Miss Baring—”
He got no further. There was an explosive crash. The walls shook, the ground trembled. The looking glass above the mantel shattered outwards, and suddenly the air was full of dust.
The gas mantles fell in shards onto the floor, and out in the hall someone started screaming over and over again.
THE NOISE DIED AWAY. For seconds Pitt did not move, too dazed to realize what had happened. Then he knew. A bomb! Someone had exploded dynamite in the house. He spun around and lunged out the door.
The hall was full of smoke and dust. He could not even see who was screaming, but the door of Jack’s study was hanging on one hinge and the small table that had stood outside was lying in splinters on the floor. The dust was clearing already. The cold draft which came from the shattered windows was blowing it in billows through the doorway. Finn Hennessey was lying on the floor, crumpled and dazed.
The woman was still screaming.
Jack!
Sick at heart, Pitt staggered in without even bothering to steady the remains of the door. He could see shards of wood everywhere, and smell gas and burning wool. The curtains were flapping into the room, filled like sails and then snapped empty, their bottoms torn. Books lay in piles and heaps on the carpet. The burning was getting worse. The coals must have been thrown out of the fire by the blast.
There was someone on the carpet behind the ruins of the desk, spread-eagled, one leg bent under him. There was blood all over his chest and stomach, bright scarlet blood.
Pitt could barely force himself to pick his way through the debris, treading on papers and the wreckage of furniture and ornaments.
The jaw was broken, the throat torn, but the rest of the face was remarkably undisfigured. It was Lorcan McGinley. He looked faintly surprised, but there was no fear in him, no horror at all. He had not seen death coming.
Pitt climbed to his feet slowly and turned back to the door. The wind filled the curtains and sent them flying up. One caught a picture swinging on its broken hook and sent it crashing to the floor, glass exploding.
Emily was standing in the doorway, her body shaking, her face gray.
“It’s McGinley,” he said clearly, walking over towards her, slipping on books, loose papers, glass, splintered wood.
Emily shook more violently. She was gasping for breath as if she were choking, unaware that she was beginning to sob.
“It’s McGinley!” Pitt said again, taking hold of her shoulders. “It’s not Jack!”
She raised her fists, tightly clenched, and started to beat against him, lashing out blindly, terrified, wanting to hurt him, to share some of the intolerable pain inside her.
“Emily! It’s not Jack!” He did not wish to shout. His throat was sore with the dust and smoke. Somewhere behind him the study carpet was beginning to burn. He took her shoulders and shook her hard. “It’s Lorcan McGinley! Stop it! Emily, stop it! I’ve got to put the fire out before the whole damn house is alight!” He raised his voice to a shout, coughing violently. “Somebody get a bucket of water! Quickly! You!” He pointed to a dim figure through the settling dust. The maid had stopped screaming at last. Other people were coming, frightened, not knowing what to do. One of the footmen stood as if paralyzed, his livery filthy. “Get a bucket of water!” Pitt shouted at him. “The carpet’s on fire in there.”
The footman moved suddenly, swinging around as if to escape.