Someone gave a little cry. It was impossible to tell who. The room was as thick with fear and grief as it was with dust and the smell of burning.
“Yes, of course,” O’Day apologized, composing himself with difficulty. “I am sorry, Mrs. Pitt, Superintendent. I had hoped so much of this conference, it is hard to see one’s dreams dashed and not want to blame someone you can see and name. But it is nonetheless unworthy.” He looked around them, especially at Padraig. “Come. I think we should all leave Mr. Pitt to his gruesome duty, and ourselves return and see what we can do to foil this madman’s violence by preparing to continue the best we may.”
“Bravo.” Padraig applauded, raising his hands as if to clap, then turning to walk away.
“Certainly,” Jack agreed, after glancing at Pitt. “We shall all go to the morning room, when the fire is lit, and have Dilkes bring us a hot punch with a little brandy in it. I’m sure we could all do with it. Emily …”
She was still ghostly white, but she made an effort to respond.
“Yes … yes …” she said hesitantly, walking as if she were not sure of the ground under her feet. She went straight past Iona. It was Justine who took Iona by the arm and offered to go with her up to her room, fetch her maid and have a tisane sent up, with brandy if she wished, and to sit with her. Charlotte was Standing beside Finn Hennessey, talking to him quietly, gently, trying to help his shock and confusion. He was still staring around him as if he barely knew where he was and could not comprehend what had happened or what he was doing there. Gracie was there also, white-faced.
Pitt watched Charlotte with a sudden admiration which was oddly painful. She was so competent, so strong. She did not seem to need support from anyone else. If she was frightened, she hid it. Her back was straight, her head high; her concern was all for Hennessey and Gracie.
He turned back to the business in hand. Tellman was at his elbow. He had been unaware of him until now.
Everyone else followed Jack to the morning room—except Eudora and Tellman, standing close to the study door. Eudora was staring at Pitt, her face white, smudged across the cheek with dust.
“Mr. Pitt, I’m so sorry,” she said gently. “What Mr. O’Day said was unforgivable. No one can defend us from each other. This is terrible, but it does look as if we have great goodness among us, as well as evil. Lorcan gave his life trying to defuse the bomb. Perhaps we have still the will to succeed, if you can find who … who it was who laid it there.” She stared at him fixedly. “Can … can you? I mean, is there anything? Can anyone tell from what is left?”
“Not from the study,” he replied. “Anyone in the house could have done that, but we shall question the servants and everyone else, and see who came this way, where everybody was. We may learn something.”
“But … but we could all have come across the hall,” she protested. “That doesn’t prove … I mean—” She stopped, her throat tight, her voice thin and high. “I mean …” She shook her head quickly and walked after the others, her dark skirts pale with dust.
Tellman sighed and stared into the study, hesitated a moment, then started to pick his way through the debris towards the desk and the body of Lorcan McGinley. He squatted down and peered at it thoughtfully, then at what was left of the desk.
“I think the dynamite was in the top drawer on the left, or the second,” Pitt said, following after him.
“That’s what it looks like,” Tellman agreed, chewing his lip. “Judging from the way all the splinters and debris are lying. It would all fall outward from the blast, I suppose. What a mess. Whoever put it here wanted to be sure an’ kill Mr. Radley, no mistake. I wouldn’t be a politician trying to sort this lot out.” He moved his attention from the desk to Lorcan’s body. “He must’ve been right in front of it, poor devil.”
Pitt stood with his hands in his pockets, brow furrowed. “It would have been on a wire of some sort, rather than a clock,” he said thoughtfully. “No one could be sure when Jack would come in here. It might simply have blown up with no one, or if it were on top of the desk, under papers and books, it might have been moved by a servant tidying up.”
“D’you think that lot would care?” Tellman said bitterly. “What’s one English servant more or less?”
“Possibly nothing,” Pitt agreed. “But it would achieve no purpose. It would be a risk and an outrage that would serve no end. No, it would have been designed specifically for Jack, put in one of the drawers no one else would open.”
He reached over and searched among the debris for the remains of the drawers. He found one and examined it without success, then a second. He turned it over very carefully, feeling it with his fingertips. There was one side, and a shard of the bottom left more or less attached. He examined the underneath. Across the bottom was a straight line of flat-topped furniture tacks. There was a broken piece of wire under one of them.
“I think we have found where the mechanism was,” Pitt said quietly. “Pinned under the drawer to detonate when the drawer was opened. It must have taken a few minutes to do this. Empty the drawer out, tack this across the bottom, and then replace it all.”
Tellman’s eyes widened and he stood up, his knees cracking as he straightened them. “It’s a great pity McGinley’s dead,” he said slowly. “He could answer some important questions.”
“He was a very brave man.” Pitt shook his head. “I would dearly like to know what he deduced, and we didn’t.”
“Damn fool should’ve told us,” Tellman said angrily. “That’s our job!” Then he colored very faintly. “Not that we’ve exactly done it well this time. I don’t know anything about dynamite. Do you?”
“No,” Pitt confessed. “I’ve never dealt with a murder by dynamite before. But somebody put it here and set it up to explode when the drawer was opened. We ought to be able to find out who that was. McGinley did.”
“Same person as killed Greville,” Tellman replied. “An’ we know that wasn’t McGinley, O’Day, or the valet Hennessey, but it could be just about anyone else.”
“Then we had better find out when the bomb was placed here. Obviously it was after the last time Jack used the drawer. Speak to the servants, housemaids, butler, footmen, anyone who came in here or was around the hall. See where everyone was all morning, who can substantiate it, who they saw and when, especially Finn Hennessey. I’ll go and speak to Mr. Radley, and then to the other guests. But before you do that, you had better have someone help you put poor McGinley in the icehouse.” He turned around. “You can carry him on the door. It’s only hanging by one hinge. Then we’d better see if anyone can at least tack a curtain over the doorway, something to keep the sight from distressing anyone still further. And board up the window too, in case of rain.”
“Mess, isn’t it …” Tellman said, puckering his brow. He disapproved of wealth, but he hated to see beauty spoiled.
Gracie had heard the blast, as had almost everyone else in the house. At first she thought of some domestic accident, but only for a moment. Then her better sense told her something was very seriously wrong. She put the jug of water in her hand on the marble-topped table bench in the stillroom, where she was helping Gwen prepare a remedy for freckles, there being no mending to do.
“What’s that?” Gwen said nervously. “That wasn’t trays or pans dropped.”
“I dunno, but I’m goin’ ter see,” Gracie replied without hesitation. She almost ran out of the stillroom door past the coal room and the room where the footmen cleaned the knives and along the passageway towards the baize door.
Tellman came out of the boot room, his face pale, his eyes wide and bright. He ran after her and caught her just short of the baize door, taking her by the arm.