Buckingham Palace Gardens Read Online Free PDF Page A

bring himself to say the word.
    â€œBlood,” Pitt said for him. “It has a sweet, ironlike smell, when there is so much of it. But I imagine if the door was closed that would be sufficient to conceal it. The door was closed, wasn’t it? Or was it ajar? Think back, and be very careful to answer exactly.”
    â€œIt was closed,” Edwards said without thinking at all. “If it’d been open I’d ’ave seen it. It opens that way, the way I was going.” He took a deep breath. “Was she…was she in there then?” He gave an involuntary shudder, betraying more vulnerability than he had meant to.
    â€œProbably not,” Pitt replied, although the moment after he had said it, he thought perhaps he was wrong. She had almost certainly been killed before that, and from the amount of blood, she had obviously been killed in the cupboard. But if Edwards were right and the door had been closed, then someone else had opened it between two o’clock when Edwards passed, and six or so when Dunkeld found the body.
    Edwards also could prove neither that he had gone to bed nor that he had stayed there.
    â€œHe must be lying about the door being closed,” Narraway said as soon as Edwards was gone.
    â€œOr the latch is faulty,” Pitt answered. “We’ll look at it, Mr. Tyndale.”
    â€œNo, sir, it’s perfectly good,” Tyndale replied. “I closed it myself…after…after they took the body away.”
    They spoke to the rest of the male staff as well and learned nothing of use. No one had found the dead woman’s clothes. Tyndale ordered tea for them, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Newsome, herself brought it up on a tray with oatmeal biscuits.
    They stopped long enough to drink the tea and eat all the biscuits. Then they interviewed the menservants of the four visitors, this time without Tyndale present, because they were not his responsibility. They gave the same unhelpful result.
    Mrs. Newsome brought more tea, and this time sandwiches as well.
    â€œOne of them must be guilty,” Narraway said unhappily, taking the last of the roast beef sandwiches and eating it absentmindedly.
    â€œShe didn’t do that to herself. And no woman would do that to another, even if she could.”
    â€œWe’d better speak to all the female staff,” Pitt said resignedly.
    â€œSomebody is lying. Even the smallest slip might help.” He would have liked another sandwich, but there was only ham left now, and he didn’t fancy it. “I’ll get Tyndale to fetch them.”
    It took a great deal of patience to draw from them very little indeed. No one knew anything, had heard anything, or seen anything. There were tears, protests of innocence, and a very real danger of fainting or hysterics.
    â€œNothing!” Narraway said in exasperation after they were all gone. “We haven’t learned a damn thing! It could still have been anyone.”
    â€œWe’ll start again,” Pitt replied wearily. “Somebody did it. There’ll be an inconsistency, a character flaw somebody knows about.” He was repeating it to comfort himself as much as Narraway. Impatience was a fault in investigation, sometimes a fatal one.
    He turned to Tyndale. “Where do the guests’ servants sleep?”
    â€œUpstairs in the servants’ quarters,” Tyndale replied. He looked exhausted, his skin blotched on his cheeks, the freckles standing out on the backs of his hands resting on the tabletop. “We’ve plenty of room for them. All guests bring their own personal servants.”
    â€œMaybe they’ll remember seeing or hearing something. Do they eat with the Palace servants?”
    â€œNot usually,” Tyndale responded. “They’re not really part of Palace discipline. We have no control over them.” He said it wearily, as if with long memory of unfortunate incidents.
    â€œPlease get them back here, one at