El Abd must have seen his eye caught by it.
“Anubis, sir,” he said. “One of the ancient gods of our country. Of course, the people who believed in him are long dead.”
“The beauty of their workmanship remains,” Pitt answered with feeling.
“Yes, sir. What is it you wish to ask me?” His face was still almost devoid of expression.
“Were the lights on in this room when Mr. Lovat was shot?”
“I beg your pardon, sir? I do not understand. Mr. Lovat was shot in the garden… outside. He never entered the house.”
“You were awake?” Pitt asked in surprise.
El Abd’s face showed an instant’s lack of composure, then it was gone again. “No, sir, not until I heard the shot. Miss Zakhari said he did not come inside. I believe her. There had been no one in here. The lights were not on.”
“Anywhere else in the house?”
“There were no lights lit anywhere downstairs, sir, except in the hall. They are never turned completely off.”
“I see. And upstairs?”
“I do not understand what it is you seek, sir. The lights were on in Miss Zakhari’s bedroom and her sitting room upstairs, and on the landing above the stairs, as always.”
“Are there some at the front of the house, or the back?”
“The front, sir.” It was natural. Master bedrooms usually faced the front.
“So there was no light from the house on the back garden where Mr. Lovat was shot?” Pitt concluded.
El Abd hesitated, as if he perceived a trap of some sort. “No, sir…”
“Is it possible Miss Zakhari was unaware of Mr. Lovat’s identity? Might she have thought he was someone else?”
For the first time el Abd’s composure cracked. He looked not merely startled but as if he was in a moment’s actual danger. Then it passed, and he stared back at Pitt, blinking a little. “I never thought of that, sir. I can’t say. If… if she thought it were a robber, surely she could have called me? She knows I would defend her… it is my duty.”
“Of course,” Pitt agreed. “I was not thinking of a robber, but of someone else she actually knew, someone who was a threat to her in some way?”
El Abd was sounding confident now, his balance found again. “I know of no such person, sir. Surely if that were so, she would have told the police that it was an accident? A mistake… in self-defense? Are you permitted to shoot in self-defense in England?”
“If there is no other way to protect yourself, yes you are,” Pitt answered. “I was thinking of someone she knew and who was an enemy, a danger to her not physically but in another way, to her reputation, or to some interest about which she cared passionately.”
“I do not know what you mean, sir.” El Abd’s face was back to its smooth, polite servant’s mask.
“Your loyalty is commendable,” Pitt said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “But pointless. If she is found guilty of murdering Mr. Lovat, she will be hanged for it. If she mistook him for someone else, who was perhaps a threat to her, then she might be able to plead some justification.”
It was marvelous how el Abd changed his expression hardly at all, and yet managed to alter from deference to contempt. “I think, sir, that it is Mr. Ryerson you are interested in seeing. And if he knew Miss Zakhari’s reason for killing the man, whoever she believed him to be, then he should tell you the truth, and justify himself, and her also. If he does not know, but found only Mr. Lovat, with no excuse, then he is guilty, whatever Miss Zakhari believed. Is it not so?”
“Yes,” Pitt said uneasily. “It is so. But perhaps Miss Zakhari would prefer not to accept that she shot Mr. Lovat, for no sensible reason at all, than tell us the truth of what she believed.”
El Abd inclined his head with the shadow of a smile. “Then loyalty to my mistress decrees that I should abide by her decision, sir. Will there be anything else?”
“Yes, there will! I would like you to write me a list of all the people you know who have called here since Miss Zakhari moved in.”
“We have a visitors’ book, sir. Will that be of assistance?”
“I doubt it. But it will be a start. I require the names of the others as well.”
“Very good, sir,” el Abd agreed, and withdrew, his feet making no noise at all on the carpets, or on the polished wood of the hall beyond.
He returned a quarter of an hour later with a sheet of paper and a white, leather-bound book, and offered them to Pitt.
Pitt thanked him and took his leave. The book was interesting. There were more names in it than he had expected, and it would take some time to learn who they all were. The additional sheet of paper, he suspected, would be of no use at all.
He spent the rest of the day identifying various men in the city, mostly to do with the cotton trade in one way or another, but there were also others who were artists, poets, musicians and thinkers. He would be interested to know why they had called upon Ayesha Zakhari-and what Saville Ryerson would think of it, and if he knew. No times of the day were noted, simply dates.
THE NEXT MORNING Pitt received a message while he was still at breakfast telling him to report within the hour to Narraway’s office. He put his knife and fork down. His kippers had lost their taste.
He still had several names both from the visitors’ book and from the additional sheet to identify, and he resented being called to report when there was nothing helpful to say.
Half an hour later he told Narraway of his visit to Eden Lodge and the names he had taken from the visitors’ book and from the manservant, el Abd.
Narraway sat deep in thought, his dark face pinched and smudged with weariness, but now there was something like a flicker of hope there as well, though he struggled to mask it.
“And you think she believed Lovat was one of these?” he said skeptically, leaning back in his chair and regarding Pitt through heavy, half-closed eyes, as if he had been up all night.
“It makes more sense than her knowing it was Lovat and shooting him,” Pitt replied.
“No, it doesn’t,” Narraway said bitterly. “If Lovat was blackmailing her and he called for payment, she took the chance to shoot him and put an end to it. That makes perfect sense, and will to any jury.”
“Blackmailing her over what?” Pitt asked.
“For God’s sake, Pitt! Use your imagination! She’s a young and beautiful woman of unknown origin. Ryerson is twenty years older than she is, highly respected, vulnerable…” He drew in his breath silently. “He may know perfectly well that she has had other lovers-in fact, he’d be a fool to imagine otherwise… It doesn’t mean he can bear being told about them, perhaps in detail.”
Pitt tried to put himself in Ryerson’s place. He could not. If you choose a woman for her physical beauty, her exotic culture, and her willingness to be a mistress rather than a wife, surely you also accept it as a fact that you are not the first, nor will you be the last. The arrangement will survive as long as it suits you both.
But looking at Narraway he saw nothing of that understanding in his eyes, only an intense, unreadable emotion which warned Pitt that if he were to challenge Narraway now, the quarrel which resulted might not easily be overcome. He had no idea why the subject should touch a raw nerve in Narraway, only that it did.
“And you think Lovat might have blackmailed her in order to keep him silent about something in Egypt?” he said aloud.
“It is what the prosecution will assume,” Narraway replied. “Wouldn’t you?”
“If nothing else is suggested,” Pitt agreed. “But they have to prove it-”
Narraway jerked forward, his shoulders tense, his body rigid. “No, they damned well don’t!” he said between his teeth. “Unless we come up with something better, it will go by default. Use your wits, Pitt! An old lover with no money or position is found dead in her garden at three in the morning. She has the corpse in a wheelbarrow and her gun beside it. What in God’s name else is anyone to think?”