Brunswick Gardens Read Online Free PDF Page A

remember?
    “Miss Bellwood left this room in considerable anger,” Pitt said aloud. “She was heard shouting at you, or at least speaking very loudly and offensively.”
    “Yes … yes, indeed,” Ramsay agreed. “I am afraid I spoke to her equally offensively.”
    “From where, Reverend Parmenter?”
    He opened his eyes wide. “From where?” he repeated. “From … from here. From this room. I … I went to the doorway, I followed her that far … then … then I realized the futility of it.” His hands clenched. “I was so angry I was afraid I would say things I might later regret. I—I returned to my desk and continued to work, or tried to.”
    “You did not go after Miss Bellwood onto the landing?” Pitt kept the disbelief out of his voice with difficulty.
    “No.” Ramsay sounded surprised. “No. I told you, I was afraid the quarrel would become irreparable if I continued it. I was very angry with her.” His face pinched with remembered irritation. “She was a remarkably arrogant and objectionable young woman at times.” He shifted his weight again and moved a little farther from the fire. “But she was an excellent scholar, in her way, even though areas of her understanding were limited and biased by her own very eccentric beliefs.” He looked at Pitt directly. “Rather more of emotion than of the intellect, I fear. But then she was a woman, and young. It would be unfair to expect more of her. Like all of us, she was limited by her nature.”
    Pitt regarded
him
carefully, studying his features to try to understand the emotions which prompted such a mixed and peculiar speech. That he had disliked Unity Bellwood was apparent, but it seemed he was trying to be both honest and as charitable as that dislike allowed him. And yet there was no discernible sense of tragedy in him, as if he had not grasped the reality of her death. Even the maid and the valet appeared to have more appreciation of the shadow of murder over them. Did Parmenter really feel that the reasons for her scholastic inabilities could possibly matter now? Or was this his way—at least temporarily—of escaping the horror of what it seemed he had done? Pitt had seen people retreat into trivialities to escape the overwhelming before. Women sometimes compulsively occupied themselves with food or housework in times of bereavement, as if the exactness of placement of a picture on a wall were of permanent importance. Silver must be polishedlike mirrors, ironing make fabric as smooth as glass. Perhaps the attending to irrelevancies in reasoning was Parmenter’s way of keeping his mind from the truth.
    “Where were you when you heard Mrs. Parmenter call out for help and that something dreadful had happened?” Pitt asked.
    “What?” Ramsay looked surprised. “Oh. I did not hear her. Braithwaite came and told me there had been an accident, and I went to see what it was, naturally, and if I could help. As you know, help was impossible.” He looked at Pitt without wavering.
    “You did not follow Miss Bellwood out and continue your quarrel on the landing?” Pitt asked, although he knew what the answer would be.
    Ramsay’s rather sparse eyebrows rose. “No. I already told you, Superintendent, I did not leave the room.”
    “What do you believe happened to Miss Bellwood, Reverend Parmenter?”
    “I don’t know,” Ramsay said a little more sharply. “The only thing I can suppose is that she somehow slipped … overbalanced … or something. I am not really sure why it needs a policeman from Bow Street to look into the affair. Our local people are perfectly adequate, or even the doctor, for that matter.”
    “There is nothing to trip over on the stairs. No carpets or stair rails to come loose,” Pitt pointed out, still watching Ramsay’s face. “And Stander and Miss Braithwaite both heard Miss Bellwood call out ‘No, no, Reverend’ just before she fell. And Mrs. Parmenter saw someone leaving the landing and heading in