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‘All I know is that there was blood on the corner of the hearthstone, and a lot of the carpet was burned where her head and upper body must have been . . . where they said the head and body were.’ He would be as precisely accurate as she had requested, although he could not think of any way in which she could help.
She looked down at her notes, and then up at him. She met his eyes with complete candour. ‘Precisely what is it you wish me to do, Mr Pitt? Do you believe that there is any doubt about his guilt?’
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‘Very little,’ he answered. ‘When you look at all those facts, I think the jury came to the only conclusion they could.’
‘But . . .?’
‘There were other facts that they did not know. Graves knew them, so I don’t know why he didn’t raise them then. He mentioned them to me privately, and I found proof when I searched the study in his house. He is writing a book that is a complete destruction of the character and reputation of two very important people, both now dead, so they cannot defend themselves, nor could he be accused of libelling them. There is another in the biography who is alive, and in an important government position. Graves accuses him of corruption and covering up serious crimes. Leaders are always subject to such charges. I suppose they have to be . . .’
‘So, he guided his way well between maligning the dead, whom he cannot libel, and accusing only of duplicity the one man he could,’ she concluded. ‘Are you suggesting that someone, on their behalf, could have killed his wife? Is that what he suggested?’
‘I don’t remember exactly what he said, but yes, he suggested it.’
‘Do you think there is any truth in it?’ She frowned slightly. Whether she doubted it, or simply found it distasteful, he could not tell.
He smiled wryly. ‘Since I knew the two people who are dead very well, from my early childhood, and the one still living is my father . . .’
He saw her startled reaction, and sudden sympathy.
‘I am not in an impartial position,’ he went on. ‘Personally, I would see Graves in hell, with pleasure. But that is neither a legal defence, nor a moral one.’ He heard the emotion thick in his voice, but he could not control it.
‘So, the only solution is to find out who did kill Ebony Graves.’ Her voice was soft with regret. ‘And hope that it is indeed Russell Graves. I doubt, Mr Pitt, if it was someone in defence of the people he maligned. It is an oblique and rather inefficient way of dealing with it. Has his publisher any notes, or a rough draft of the manuscript? It would be interesting to know if anyone else has commented on them, to keep the book from publication.’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I . . . I found them only this morning. And I don’t want any more people to know about it than have to. We must find out who the publisher is.’ That was not a task he was looking forward to. It was very easy for the Duke of Wellington to say, ‘Publish and be damned’. He was a good deal safer in his position than any of the people Daniel cared for. And, if he remembered correctly, that was only about having a mistress. Not a sin, compared with those supposedly exposed in Graves’ book, such as profound corruption.
Miriam fford Croft was smiling, but it was with considerable sympathy.
‘It sounds as if Mr Graves is a man who made many enemies,’ she observed tartly. ‘He may be about to add one more to the list. You sound as if you have been to the house yourself?’
‘Yesterday and I came back this morning,’ Daniel agreed. ‘Do we have to return there? I did not tell you much about the family, or the staff. I don’t think they can help. I . . . think they would, if they were able.’
‘Then there is no evidence to look at here, Mr Pitt. We can only learn more from studying what is there. Her body has already been buried, I presume.’
‘Yes. Several weeks ago. But she died of a blow to the back of her head. I can get you the police reports, if you wish?’
‘It would be useful to read them,’ she conceded. ‘I will ask my father to obtain a copy. First, I think we will go to the house, and have another look at the scene. Are her belongings still there? Her clothes, for example?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. One may sometimes learn a great deal from clothes.’
Daniel doubted it, but he did not argue. He was beginning to think it was a complete waste of time. What did this woman think she could learn? He must not forget to see if Mercy Blackwell had discovered anything. It was a faint hope. His mind was filled with fear that the scandal Graves had invented was at the heart of the crime. It was too urgent, too big, and too ugly to be an incidental thread. It was the kind of thing that would very easily inspire murder.
But why Ebony? Then another thought occurred to him. Had she somehow been the one who had found the information and given it to Graves? Yet he could not see how her crusading for various rights and privileges had taken her into where she had learned about Special Branch.
Miriam fford Croft was waiting for him.
He followed her out into the front of the office. A few moments later they were in a taxi on their way to the station. They took the next train south and settled down for the twenty-six-minute journey.
Daniel had been afraid that she would ask him for further information about his father, and especially about Narraway, but instead she talked of the great prospects she believed science had in the solving of crime. In spite of himself, he found he was interested. He began asking her questions, especially about the problems she seemed to see already making themselves apparent.
‘The greatest difficulty?’ she said with a twisted smile. ‘Of all?’
He was surprised. ‘There are so many?’
‘Oh, yes. For example, to understand that things can be weighed and measured, and you can come up with a definite answer. But that in itself may prove a thing is possible or impossible. It seldom proves that that is the only answer. Some things are individual, for example, fingerprints. But it still is a skill to see the tiny differences. We are only just learning and categorising them. Another is bullets. Some have left-hand rifling, some have right-hand, some, like shotgun pellets, have no distinguishing marks at all. We can tell if bullets don’t match a particular gun, and that if they do it only means it could be that gun, not that it was.’
